1.
Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia
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Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia was a mix of polytheism, Christianity, Judaism, and Iranian religions. Arab polytheism, the dominant form of religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, was based on veneration of deities, gods and goddesses, including Hubal and the goddesses al-Lāt, Al-‘Uzzá and Manāt, were worshipped at local shrines, such as the Kaaba in Mecca. Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in Meccan religion, many of the physical descriptions of the pre-Islamic gods are traced to idols, especially near the Kaaba, which is said to have contained up to 360 of them. Other religions were represented to varying, lesser degrees, the influence of the adjacent Roman, Aksumite and Sasanian Empires resulted in Christian communities in the northwest, northeast and south of Arabia. Christianity made an impact, but secured some conversions, in the remainder of the peninsula. With the exception of Nestorianism in the northeast and the Persian Gulf, the peninsula had been subject to Jewish migration since Roman times, which had resulted in a diaspora community supplemented by local converts. Additionally, the influence of the Sasanian Empire resulted in Iranian religions being present in the peninsula, Zoroastrianism existed in the east and south, while there is evidence of Manichaeism or possibly Mazdakism being practised in Mecca. Until about the fourth century, almost all Arabs practised polytheistic religions, although significant Jewish and Christian minorities developed, polytheism remained the dominant belief system in pre-Islamic Arabia. The religious beliefs and practices of the nomadic Bedouin were distinct from those of the tribes of towns such as Mecca. Settled urban Arabs, on the hand, are thought to have believed in a more complex pantheon of deities. While the Meccans and the settled inhabitants of the Hejaz worshiped their gods at permanent shrines in towns and oases. According to F. E. Peters, one of the characteristics of Arab paganism as it has come down to us is the absence of a mythology, alternative sources are so fragmentary and specialized that writing a convincing history of this period based on them alone is impossible. Several scholars hold that the literature is not independent of Quran but has been fabricated to explain the verses of Quran. Compounding the problem is that the earliest extant Muslim historical works, some of these works were based on subsequently lost earlier texts, which in their turn recorded a fluid oral tradition. Some scholars postulate that in pre-Islamic Arabia, including in Mecca, Allah was considered to be a deity, the word Allah may have been used as a title rather than a name. The concept of Allah may have been vague in the Meccan religion, per Islamic texts, Meccans and their neighbors believed that the goddesses Al-lāt, Al-‘Uzzá, and Manāt were the daughters of Allah. Regional variants of the word Allah occur in both pagan and Christian pre-Islamic inscriptions, muhammads fathers name was ʿAbd-Allāh, meaning the servant of Allah. Al-lāt, Al-‘Uzzá and Manat were common names used for multiple goddesses across Arabia, there are two possible etymologies of the name al-lāt
2.
Armenian mythology
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Armenian mythology began with ancient Indo-European and Urartian origins, gradually incorporating Mesopotamian, Iranian, and Greek ideas and deities. Historians distinguish a significant body of Indo-European language used by Armenian pagans as sacred, since ancient times, the cult of sun worship occupied a special place in Armenian mythology. Also among the most ancient types of worship of Indo-European roots are the cults of eagles and lions, over time, the Armenian pantheon was updated, and new deities of Armenian and not Aryan origins appeared. Furthermore, the god of the Armenian pantheon, Vanatur, was later replaced by Aramazd. Aramazd was the Parthian form of Ahura Mazda, the latter, though, has appeared under the influence of Zoroastrianism, but with partially preserved traditional Armenian features. Similarly, the traditional Armenian goddess of fertility, Nar, was replaced by Anahit, Zoroastrianism had a major influence on the Armenians and their mythology. Until the late Parthian period, the Armenian lands doubtless adhered predominantly to Zoroastrianism, after the formal adoption of Christianity in Armenia, new mythological images and stories were born as ancient myths and beliefs transformed. Biblical characters took over the functions of the gods and spirits. For example, John the Baptist inherited certain features of Vahagn and Tyre, the pantheon of pre-Christian Armenia changed over the centuries. Originally Urartian in nature, the pantheon was modified through Semitic, Iranian, Ḫaldi or Khaldi - Chief of the pantheon in its earliest stages. Due to his becoming a title akin to Baal, the chief deity was eventually syncretized or replaced with Ahura Mazda. Formed a triad with his sons Ardinis and Teisheba, teispas or Teisheba - Storm god, a son of Ḫaldi, with whom he formed the lead triad of the gods. Shivini or Artinis - Sun god, a son of Ḫaldi, selardi - Consort of the Moon god. Saris - Probably a corruption of Ishtar, Aramazd - Cognate of the Iranian Ahura Mazda. Head of the pantheon, identified with Zeus in the interpretatio graeca, sometimes worshiped under the title Vanatur, particularly during new years celebrations. Along with Anahit and Vahagn formed a lead triad, in time, the positive functions of Baal Shamin were absorbed by Aramazd. Anadatus - The Armenian form of the Zoroastrian Amesha Spenta Ameretat, Anahit - Cognate of the Iranian Anahita. The goddess of fertility and birth, and daughter or wife of Aramazd, Anahit is identified with Artemis, temples dedicated to Anahit were established in Armavir, Artashat, Ashtishat
3.
Aztec mythology
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Aztec mythology is the body or collection of myths of Aztec civilization of Central Mexico. The Aztecs were Nahuatl-speaking groups living in central Mexico and much of their mythology is similar to that of other Mesoamerican cultures, according to legend, the various groups who were to become the Aztecs arrived from the north into the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco. The location of this valley and lake of destination is clear – it is the heart of modern Mexico City –, there are different accounts of their origin. In the myth the ancestors of the Mexica/Aztec came from a place in the north called Aztlan, other accounts cite their origin in Chicomoztoc, the place of the seven caves, or at Tamoanchan. The Mexica/Aztec were said to be guided by their god Huitzilopochtli, at an island in Lake Texcoco, they saw an eagle holding a rattlesnake in its talons, perched on a nopal cactus. This vision fulfilled a prophecy telling them that they should found their new home on that spot, the Aztecs built their city of Tenochtitlan on that site, building a great artificial island, which today is in the center of Mexico City. This legendary vision is pictured on the Coat of Arms of Mexico, to the Aztec, the Toltec were the originators of all culture, Toltecayotl was a synonym for culture. Aztec legends identify the Toltecs and the cult of Quetzalcoatl with the city of Tollan. Because the Aztec adopted and combined several traditions with their own earlier traditions, coatlicue was the mother of Centzon Huitznahua, her sons, and Coyolxauhqui, her daughter. She found a ball filled with feathers and placed it in her waistband and her other children became suspicious as to the identity of the father and vowed to kill their mother. She gave birth on Mount Coatepec, pursued by her children, but the newborn Huitzilopochtli defeated most of his brothers and he also killed his half-sister Coyolxauhqui by tearing out her heart using a Xiuhcoatl and throwing her body down the mountain. Our age, the age, or fifth creation, began in the ancient city of Teotihuacan. According to the myth, all the gods had gathered to sacrifice themselves, although the world and the sun had already been created, it would only be through their sacrifice that the sun would be set into motion and time as well as history could begin. The handsomest and strongest of the gods, Tecuciztecatl, was supposed to sacrifice himself but when it time to self-immolate. Instead, Nanahuatl the smallest and humblest of the gods, who was covered in boils, sacrificed himself first. The sun was set into motion with his sacrifice and time began, humiliated by Nanahuatls sacrifice, Tecuciztecatl too leaped into the fire and became the moon. Water deities Tlaloc, rain god Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of water, lakes, rivers, seas, streams, horizontal waters, storms, Xipe-Totec, god of force, lord of the seasons and rebirth, ruler of the East. Quetzalcoatl, god of the life, the light and wisdom, lord of the winds, Huitzilopochtli, god of the war, lord of the sun and fire, ruler of the South
4.
Celtic mythology
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Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and it is mostly through contemporary Roman and Christian sources that their mythology has been preserved. The Celtic peoples who maintained either their political or linguistic identities left vestigial remnants of their ancestral mythologies, however, from what has survived of Celtic mythology, it is possible to discern commonalities which hint at a more unified pantheon than is often given credit. Indeed, many Gaelic myths were first recorded by Christian monks, the oldest body of myths stemming from the Heroic Age is found only from the early medieval period of Ireland. As Christianity began to take over, the gods and goddesses were slowly eliminated as such from the culture, the Tuatha Dé represent the functions of human society such as kingship, crafts and war, while the Fomorians represent chaos and wild nature. The leader of the gods for the Irish pantheon appears to have been the Dagda, the Dagda was the figure on which male humans and other gods were based because he embodied ideal Irish traits. Celtic gods were considered to be a clan due to their lack of specialization. Irish tales depict the Dagda as a figure of power, armed with a club, in Dorset there is a famous outline of an ithyphallic giant known as the Cerne Abbas Giant with a club cut into the chalky soil. While this was produced in relatively modern times, it was long thought to be a representation of the Dagda. In Gaul, it is speculated that the Dagda is associated with Sucellus, the Morrígan was a tripartite battle goddess of the Celts of Ancient Ireland. She was known as the Morrígan, but the different sections she was divided into were also referred to as Nemain, Macha and she is most commonly known for her involvement in the Táin Bó Cúailnge. The god appearing most frequently in the tales is Lugh, the most famous of these are the cities of Lugdunum, Lugdunum Batavorum and Lucus Augusti. Lug is described in the Celtic myths as the last to be added to the list of deities, in Ireland a festival called the Lughnasadh was held in his honour. Other important goddesses include Brigid, the Dagdas daughter, Aibell, Áine, Macha, notable is Epona, the horse goddess, celebrated with horse races at the summer festival. Significant Irish gods include Nuada Airgetlám, the first king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Goibniu, the smith and brewer, Dian Cecht, the patron of healing, less is known about the pre-Christian mythologies of Britain than those of Ireland. Important reflexes of British mythology appear in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, especially in the names of characters, such as Rhiannon, Teyrnon. The children of Llŷr in the Second and Third Branches, and the children of Dôn in the Fourth Branch are major figures, indeed, though there is much in common with Irish myth, there may have been no unified British mythological tradition per se. Whatever its ultimate origins, the material has been put to good use in the service of literary masterpieces that address the cultural concerns of Wales in the early
5.
Christian mythology
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Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. In ancient Greek, muthos, from which the English word myth derives, meant story, early Christians contrasted their sacred stories with myths, by which they meant false and pagan stories. A number of modern Christian writers such as C. S. Lewis have described elements of Christianity, particularly the story of Christ, as examples of Biblical myths, Every cites the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 and the story of Eves temptation. Many Christians believe parts of the Bible to be symbolic or metaphorical, mythic patterns such as the primordial struggle between good and evil appear in passages throughout the Hebrew Bible, including passages that describe historical events. Mircea Eliade argues that the used in some parts of the Hebrew Bible reflects a transfiguration of history into myth. According to scholars including Neil Forsyth and John L. McKenzie, the New American Bible also says that Psalm 93 alludes to an ancient myth in which God battles a personified Sea. Some scholars have identified the biblical creature Leviathan as a monster from Canaanite mythology, some scholars have argued that the calm, orderly, monotheistic creation story in Genesis 1 can be interpreted as a reaction against the creation myths of other Near Eastern cultures. Even in the New Testament Saint Paul is said to have visited the third heaven, the official text repeated by the attendees during Roman Catholic mass contains the words He ascended into Heaven, and is Seated at the Right Hand of God, The Father. From thence He will come again to judge the living and the dead, medieval cosmology adapted its view of the Cosmos to conform with these scriptures, in the concept of celestial spheres. Some famous opponents of religion, including John Lennon and Stephen Hawking, according to a number of scholars, the Christ story contains mythical themes such as descent to the underworld, the heroic monomyth, and the dying god. Some scholars have argued that the Book of Revelation incorporates imagery from ancient mythology, Bernard McGinn suggests that the image of the two Beasts in Revelation stems from a mythological background involving the figures of Leviathan and Behemoth. The Pastoral Epistles contain denunciations of myths and this may indicate that Rabbinic or gnostic mythology was popular among the early Christians to whom the epistles were written and that the epistles author was attempting to resist that mythology. The Sibylline oracles contain predictions that the dead Roman Emperor Nero, infamous for his persecutions, according to Bernard McGinn, these parts of the oracles were probably written by a Christian and incorporated mythological language in describing Neros return. According to Mircea Eliade, the Middle Ages witnessed an upwelling of mythical thought in each social group had its own mythological traditions. Often a profession had its own origin myth which established models for members of the profession to imitate, for example, the medieval trouveres developed a mythology of woman and Love which incorporated Christian elements but, in some cases, ran contrary to official church teaching. George Every includes a discussion of medieval legends in his book Christian Mythology, some medieval legends elaborated upon the lives of Christian figures such as Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. For example, a number of legends describe miraculous events surrounding Marys birth, in many cases, medieval mythology appears to have inherited elements from myths of pagan gods and heroes. Eliade notes that some traditions of medieval knights, namely the Arthurian cycle
6.
Chinese mythology
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Chinese mythology includes creation myths and legends, such as myths concerning the founding of Chinese culture and the Chinese state. As in many mythologies, Chinese mythology has in the past been believed to be, at least in part. Some myths are widely shared across multiple ethnic groups, but may exist as versions with some differences, historians have written evidence of Chinese mythological symbolism from the 12th century BC in the Oracle bone script. Legends were passed down for over a thousand years before being written in such as Classic of Mountains. Other myths continued to be passed down through oral traditions like theater, imperial historical documents and philosophical canons such as Book of Rites, Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Documents, and Lüshi Chunqiu all contain Chinese myths. Some myths survive in theatrical or literary formats as plays or novels, books in the shenmo genre of vernacular fiction revolve around gods and monsters. Examples include, Shangdi, also sometimes Huángtiān Dàdì, appeared as early as the Shang dynasty, in later eras, he was more commonly referred to as Huángtiān Shàngdì. The use of Huángtiān Dàdì refers to the Jade Emperor and Tian, Yu Di appeared in literature after the establishment of Taoism in China, his appearance as Yu Huang dates back to beyond the times of Yellow Emperor, Nüwa, or Fuxi. Tian appeared in literature c.700 BC, possibly earlier as dating depends on the date of the Shujing, there are no creation-oriented narratives for Tian. The qualities of Tian and Shangdi appear to have merged in later literature and are now worshiped as one entity in, for example, the extent of the distinction between Tian and Shangdi is debated. Nüwa appeared in no earlier than c.350 BC. Her companion, Fuxi, was her brother and husband and they are sometimes worshiped as the ultimate ancestor of all humankind, and are often represented as half-snake, half-humans. It is sometimes believed that Nüwa molded humans from clay for companionship and she repaired the sky after Gong Gong damaged the pillar supporting the heavens. Pangu, written about by Taoist author Xu Zheng c.200 AD, was claimed to be the first sentient being and creator, “making the heavens and these legendary rulers ruled between c.2850 BC to 2205 BC, before the Xia dynasty. The list of names comprising the Three August Ones and Five Emperors vary widely among sources, Emperor Ku, great-grandson of the Huang Emperor and nephew of Zhuanxu. Yao, son of Ku, Yaos elder brother succeeded Ku, Shun, successor of Yao, who passed over his own son and made Shun his successor because of Shuns ability and morality. These rulers are generally regarded as morally upright and benevolent, examples to be emulated by latter day kings, historically, when Qin Shi Huang united China in 221 BC, he felt that his achievements had surpassed those of all the rulers who had gone before him. He combined the ancient titles of Huáng and Dì to create a new title, Huángdì, Shun passed on his place as emperor to Yu the Great
7.
Egyptian mythology
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Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part of ancient Egyptian religion, Myths appear frequently in Egyptian writings and art, particularly in short stories and in religious material such as hymns, ritual texts, funerary texts, and temple decoration. These sources rarely contain an account of a myth and often describe only brief fragments. Inspired by the cycles of nature, the Egyptians saw time in the present as a series of recurring patterns, Myths are set in these earliest times, and myth sets the pattern for the cycles of the present. Present events repeat the events of myth, and in doing so renew maat, events from the present that might be regarded as myths include Ras daily journey through the world and its otherworldly counterpart, the Duat. The details of these sacred events differ greatly from one text to another, Egyptian myths are primarily metaphorical, translating the essence and behavior of deities into terms that humans can understand. Each variant of a myth represents a different symbolic perspective, enriching the Egyptians understanding of the gods and it inspired or influenced many religious rituals and provided the ideological basis for kingship. Scenes and symbols from myth appeared in art in tombs, temples, in literature, myths or elements of them were used in stories that range from humor to allegory, demonstrating that the Egyptians adapted mythology to serve a wide variety of purposes. The development of Egyptian myth is difficult to trace, Egyptologists must make educated guesses about its earliest phases, based on written sources that appeared much later. One obvious influence on myth is the Egyptians natural surroundings, thus the Egyptians saw water and the sun as symbols of life and thought of time as a series of natural cycles. This orderly pattern was at constant risk of disruption, unusually low floods resulted in famine, the hospitable Nile valley was surrounded by harsh desert, populated by peoples the Egyptians regarded as uncivilized enemies of order. For these reasons, the Egyptians saw their land as an place of stability, or maat. These themes—order, chaos, and renewal—appear repeatedly in Egyptian religious thought, another possible source for mythology is ritual. Many rituals make reference to myths and are based directly on them. But it is difficult to determine whether a cultures myths developed before rituals or vice versa, questions about this relationship between myth and ritual have spawned much discussion among Egyptologists and scholars of comparative religion in general. In ancient Egypt, the earliest evidence of religious practices predates written myths, rituals early in Egyptian history included only a few motifs from myth. For these reasons, some scholars have argued that, in Egypt, but because the early evidence is so sparse, the question may never be resolved for certain. In private rituals, which are often called magical, the myth, many of the myth-like stories that appear in the rituals texts are not found in other sources
8.
Greek mythology
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It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
9.
Guarani mythology
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The Guaraní people live in south-central part of South America, especially in Paraguay and parts of the surrounding areas of Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia. There exist no written records of the ancient myths and legends associated with the Guaraní people, the Guaraní language was not a written language until modern times, and, as such, the entirety of their religious beliefs is passed down through word of mouth only. As a result, the myths and legends continue to evolve to this day, the primary figure in most Guaraní creation legends is Tupã, the supreme god of all creation. It is also said that the stars were placed in the sky at this point, Tupã then created humanity in an elaborate ceremony, forming clay statues of man and woman with a mixture of various elements from nature. After breathing life into the forms, he left them with the spirits of good and evil. The original humans created by Tupã were Rupave and Sypave, whose names mean Father of the people and Mother of the people, the pair had three sons and a large but unspecified number of daughters. The first of their sons was Tumé Arandú, considered to be the wisest of men, second of their sons was Marangatú, a benevolent and generous leader of his people, and father of Kerana, the mother of the seven legendary monsters of Guaraní myth. Their third son was Japeusá, who was from birth considered a liar, a thief and he eventually committed suicide, drowning himself in the water, but he was resurrected as a crab, and since then all crabs are cursed to walk backwards much as Japeusá did. Among the daughters of the Rupave and Supave was Porâsý, notable for sacrificing her own life in order to rid the world of one of the seven legendary monsters, several of the first humans were considered to have ascended upon their deaths and become minor deities. Kerana, the daughter of Marangatu, was captured by the personification or spirit of evil called Tau. Together the two had seven sons who were cursed of the high goddess Arasy, and all but one were born as hideous monsters, some of them are even believed in down to modern times in some rural areas. The seven sons of Tau and Kerana are, in order of their births, Teju Jagua, god or spirit of caverns and fruits Mbói Tuĩ, god of waterways and aquatic creatures Moñái, god of the open fields. On the seventh night after the event, with lightning, throwing sparks, since that day the lost soul of the woman goes through canyons and hills on stormy nights, crying plaintive and eerie. Mala Vision is presented as the spirit of a woman dressed in white, tall. COLMAN, Narciso R. Ñande Ypy Kuéra,1929
10.
Hindu mythology
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As such, it is a subset of mainstream Indian and Nepali culture. The roots of mythology that evolved from classical Hinduism come from the times of the Vedic civilization, the four Vedas, notably the hymns of the Rigveda, contain allusions to many themes. The characters, philosophy and stories make up ancient Vedic myths are indelibly linked with Hindu beliefs. The Vedas are four in number, namely RigVeda, YajurVeda, SamaVeda, in the period of Classical Sanskrit, much material is preserved in the Sanskrit epics. Besides mythology proper, the voluminous epics also provide a range of information about ancient Nepali and Indian society, philosophy, culture, religion. The two great Hindu Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata tell the story of two incarnations of Vishnu. These two works are known as Itihasa, the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana serve as both religious scriptures and a rich source of philosophy and morality. The most famous of these chapters is the Bhagavad Gita in the Mahabharata, in which Lord Krishna explains the concepts of duty and these stories are deeply embedded in Hindu philosophy and serve as parables and sources of devotion for Hindus. The Mahabharata is the worlds longest epic in verse, running to more than 2,000,000 lines, the epics themselves are set in different Yugas, or periods of time. The Ramayana, written by the Maharshi Valmiki, describes the life and times of Lord Rama, the Mahabharata, describing the life and times of the Pandavas, occurs in the Dvapara Yuga, a period associated with Lord Krishna. In total, there are 4 Yugas and these are the Satya or Krita Yuga, the Treta Yuga, the Dvapara Yuga, and the Kali Yuga. The avatara concept, however, belongs to the Puranic times, the Puranas deal with stories that are old and do not appear in the epics. They contain legends and stories about the origins of the world, and the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. They contain traditions related to ancient kings, seers, incarnations of God and legends about holy places, the Bhagavata Purana is probably the most read and popular of the Puranas. It chronicles the legends of the god Vishnu and his avatars on earth, the act of creation was thought of in more than one manner. One of the oldest cosmogonic myth in the Rigveda had come into existence as a cosmic egg, the Purusha Sukta narrates that all things were made out of the mangled limbs of Purusha, a magnified non-natural man, who was sacrificed by the gods. In the Puranas, Vishnu, in the shape of a boar, plunged into the cosmic waters, the Shatapatha Brahmana says that in the beginning, Prajapati, the first creator or father of all, was alone in the world. He differentiated himself into two beings, husband and wife, the wife, regarding union with her producer as incest, fled from his embraces assuming various animal disguises
11.
Japanese mythology
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Japanese mythology embraces Shinto and Buddhist traditions as well as agriculturally-based folk religion. The Shinto pantheon comprises innumerable kami and this article will discuss only the typical elements present in Asian mythology, such as cosmogony, important deities, and the best-known Japanese stories. Japanese myths, as recognized in the mainstream today, are based on the Kojiki, the Nihon Shoki. The Kojiki, or Record of Ancient Matters, is the oldest surviving account of Japans myths, legends, the Shintōshū describes the origins of Japanese deities from a Buddhist perspective, while the Hotsuma Tsutae records a substantially different version of the mythology. One notable feature of Japanese mythology is its explanation of the origin of the Imperial Family, the title of the Emperor of Japan, tennō, means heavenly sovereign. Later, the seven generations of kami, known as Kamiyonanayo, emerged, following the formation of heaven and earth. The first two generations are individual deities called hitorigami, while the five that followed came into being as male/female pairs of kami, in this chronicle, the Kamiyonanayo comprise 12 deities in total. Japans creation narrative can be divided into the birth of the deities, to help them to achieve this, Izanagi and Izanami were given a naginata decorated with jewels, named Ame-no-nuboko. The two deities then went to the bridge between heaven and earth, Amenoukihashi and churned the sea below with the halberd, drops of salty water formed the island, Onogoro. The deities descended from the bridge of heaven and made their home on the island, eventually, they fell in love and wished to mate. So they built a pillar called Amenomihashira around which they built a palace called Yashirodono, Izanagi and Izanami circled the pillar in opposite directions, and when they met on the other side, Izanami, the female deity, spoke first in greeting. Izanagi didnt think that this was proper, but they mated anyway and they had two children, Hiruko and Awashima, but the children were badly formed and are not considered gods in their original form. The parents, who were dismayed at their misfortune, put the children into a boat and sent them to sea, so Izanagi and Izanami went around the pillar again, and this time, when they met, Izanagi spoke first. Izanami died giving birth to Kagutsuchi, also called Homusubi due to severe burns and she was then buried on Mount Hiba, at the border of the old provinces of Izumo and Hoki, near modern-day Yasugi of Shimane Prefecture. His death also created dozens of deities, the gods who were born from Izanagi and Izanami are symbolic aspects of nature and culture. Izanagi lamented the death of Izanami and undertook a journey to Yomi, Izanagi found little difference between Yomi and the land above, except for the eternal darkness. However, this suffocating darkness was enough to make him ache for light, quickly, he searched for Izanami and found her. At first, Izanagi could not see her for she was hidden in the shadows
12.
Jewish mythology
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Jewish mythology is a major literary element of the body of folklore found in the sacred texts and in traditional narratives that help explain and symbolize Jewish culture and Judaism. Elements of Jewish mythology have had a influence on Christian mythology and on Islamic mythology. Christian mythology directly inherited many of the narratives from the Jewish people, Islamic mythology also shares many of the same stories, for instance, a creation-account spaced out over six periods, the legend of Abraham, the stories of Moses and the Israelites, and many more. Jewish mythology contains similarities to the myths of other Middle Eastern cultures, the ancient Hebrews often participated in the religious practices of their neighbors, worshiping other gods alongside Yahweh. These pagan religions were forms of worship, their deities were personifications of natural phenomena like storms. Because of its worship, Mircea Eliade argues, Near Eastern paganism expressed itself in rich and dramatic mythologies featuring strong and dynamic gods. The Biblical prophets, including Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, had a concept of the divine that differed significantly from that of the nature religions. According to Jewish mythology, their lives were full of miracles, signs, and visions from God that kept Jewish mythology alive, growing, instead of seeing the God of Israel as just one national god, these prophets saw him as the one God of the entire universe. The prophets condemned Hebrew participation in worship, and they refused to completely identify the divine with natural forces. In so doing, they set the stage for a new kind of mythology — a mythology featuring a single God who exists beyond the natural world, through the prophets influence, Jewish mythology increasingly portrayed God as aloof from nature and acting independently of natural forces. On one hand, this produced a mythology that was, in a sense and it was therefore something irreversible and unrepeatable. The fall of Jerusalem does not repeat the fall of Samaria, Jahveh stands out from the world of abstractions, of symbols and generalities, he acts in history and enters into relations with actual historical beings. On the other hand, this transcendent God was absolutely unique, thus, the myths surrounding him were, in a sense, less complex, they did not involve the acts of multiple, anthropomorphic gods. In this sense, Jahveh is surrounded by no multiple and varied myths, the Hebrew prophets had to struggle against the nature gods popularity, and Jewish mythology reflects this struggle. In fact, some Jewish myths may have been designed to reflect the conflict between paganism and a new uncompromising monotheism. In Psalm 82, God stands up in the Divine Council and condemns the pagan deities, although they are gods, he says, karen Armstrong interprets the creation myth of Genesis 1 as a poised, calm polemic against the old belligerent cosmogonies, particularly the Babylonian cosmogonic myth. The Babylonian Enûma Eliš describes the god Marduk earning kingship over the gods, battling the monster Tiamat. In contrast, Armstrong argues, in the Genesis account, the sun, moon, stars, sky and earth are not gods in their own right and they are subservient to him, and created for a purely practical end
13.
Korean mythology
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Korean mythology consists of national legends and folk-tales which come from all over the Korean Peninsula. The origin may be a blend of Korean shamanism, Buddhist, Chinese myths, Confucian and Taoist legends, the legends may also vary greatly by region, even within the country. For example, the people of Jejudo have a different lifestyle from that of the mainland. In Korean shamanism, animism was dominant as the source for religious life for the Korean people. With the arrival of Buddhism in the 3-4th century, the myths, Korean shamanism has a large influence on the Korean. It, too, has an influence on the myths. Early in Korean myth, often men were equated to birds and this often held true for later myths not based in Muism. Examples can be seen through the Samgungnyusa, where men often transformed into birds, for example, the early goddess, Yuhwa, was said to be the Yellow River nymph but Hae Mosu was said to be a sky god. In the tale about Suro, Suro was said to transform into a bird—as did his opponent and this is very consistent throughout the Three Kingdoms period as seen in the Samgungnyusa. Mountains were often also talked about being sacred, and often show up in myths, legends. Kings were often delivered to the top of mountains, gods came down to mountains, the cosmology of Korea has changed over time as new religions have been imported into the country and been slowly syncretized. Also, there are regional differences with the older mythology rather than the newer mythology when the country became united. It was not in a time, but out of the realm of time itself. Sanshin, Bonhyangshin, and generals were often worshipped as gods and took part in many myths, as well as many animals, particularly talking animals as in the legend of Ungnyeo Bear Woman, who was a bear who turned into a human. Despite this basic commonality, the religion and myths varied a lot by location, Hae Mosu, Jumong and Yuhwa were gods from Goguryeo, but Koenegitto, Grandmother Seolmundae, Koeulla, Puella and Yangeul were from Jeju island. Each kingdom and specific region may have had their own form of worship and this changed with the introduction of Buddhism, where Buddhism both adopted traditional practices and vice versa. This included the change of the afterlife, which gained a heaven, hell and these realms now ere called Iseung, Yongwangguk, and Jeoseung. Two other realms are mentioned, Okhwang, located in the sky
14.
Maya mythology
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Maya mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Maya tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles. Other parts of Maya oral tradition do not properly belong to the domain of mythology, the oldest written myths date from the 16th century and are found in historical sources from the Guatemalan Highlands. In the 19th and 20th centuries, anthropologists and local folklorists have committed many stories to paper, even though most Maya tales are the results of an historical process in which Spanish narrative traditions interacted with native ones, some of the tales reach back well into pre-Spanish times. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, the transmission of traditional tales has entered its final stage, fortunately, however, this is also a time in which the Mayas themselves have begun to salvage and publish the precious tales of their parents and grandparents. In Maya narrative, the origin of natural and cultural phenomena is set out. The following more encompassing themes can be discerned, the Popol Vuh describes the creation of the earth by the wind of the sea and sky, as well as its sequel. The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel relates the collapse of the sky and the deluge, followed by the raising of the sky, the Lacandons also knew the tale of the creation of the Underworld. The Popol Vuh gives a sequence of four efforts at creation, First were animals, then wet clay, wood, then last, to this, the Lacandons add the creation of the main kind groupings and their totemic animals. The creation of humankind is concluded by the Mesoamerican tale of the opening of the Maize Mountain by the Lightning deities, the best-known hero myth is about the defeat of a bird demon and of the deities of disease and death by the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Of equal importance is the narrative of a maize hero defeating the deities of Thunder. Although its present spread is confined to the Gulf Coast areas, important mythological fragments about the heroic reduction of the jaguars have been preserved by the Tzotziles. This mythological type defines the relation between mankind and the game and crops, if the hero gets the upper hand, he becomes the Sun, his wife the Moon. A moralistic Tzotzil version has a man rewarded with a daughter of the Rain Deity, only to get divorced, the origin of Sun and Moon is not always the outcome of a Marriage with the Earth. In a comparable way, the Elder Brethren of the Popol Vuh Twin myth are transformed into monkeys, with their younger brothers becoming Sun and Moon. Although a sort of books may once have existed, it is very much to be doubted that mythical narratives were ever completely rendered hieroglyphically. The three surviving Mayan books are mainly of a ritual and also historical nature, and contain few mythical scenes, as a consequence, depictions on temple walls, stelae, and movable objects are used to aid reconstruction of pre-Spanish Mayan mythology. It is, in any case, clear that the Twin myth – albeit in a version which considerably diverged from the Popol Vuh – already circulated in the Classic Period. In some cases, ancient Mayan myths may only have been preserved by neighbouring peoples, the narrative of the principal Maya maize god, and, to a lesser extent, list of Maya gods and supernatural beings Bierhorst, John, The Mythology of Mexico and Central America
15.
Ancient Mesopotamian religion
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The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general was not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition which adapted to the needs of its adherents over millenia of development. The earliest undercurrents of Mesopotamian religious thought date to the 4th millennium BCE, in the 3rd millennium BCE objects of worship were personified and became an expansive cast of divinities with particular functions. Mesopotamian religion finally declined with the spread of Iranian religions during the Achaemenid Empire, as with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been an influence on subsequent religions throughout the world, including Canaanite, Aramean, Mesopotamian religion has the oldest body of recorded literature of any religious tradition. Other artifacts can also be useful when reconstructing Mesopotamian religion, as is common with most ancient civilizations, the objects made of the most durable and precious materials, and thus more likely to survive, were associated with religious beliefs and practices. It has also inspired various contemporary Neo-pagan groups, in the fourth millennium BCE, the first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing circa 3500 BCE. The people of Mesopotamia originally consisted of two groups, Akkadian speakers and the people of Sumer, who spoke a language isolate and these peoples were members of various city-states and small kingdoms. The Sumerians left the first records, although it is not known if they migrated into the area in prehistory or whether they were its original inhabitants and they resided in southern Mesopotamia, which was known as Sumer, and had considerable influence on the Akkadian speakers and their culture. Akkadian names first appear in the lists of these states circa 2800 BCE. They created the first city-states such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Kish, Umma, Eridu, Adab, Akshak, Sippar, Nippur and Larsa, each of them ruled by an ensí. The Akkadian Empire endured for two centuries before collapsing due to decline, internal strife and attacks from the north east by the Gutian people. Following a brief Sumerian revival with the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assyria asserted itself in the north circa 2100 BCE in the Old Assyrian Empire and southern Mesopotamia fragmented into a number of kingdoms, the largest being Isin, Larsa and Eshnunna. In 1894 BCE the initially minor city-state of Babylon was founded in the south by invading West Semitic-speaking Amorites and it was rarely ruled by native dynasties throughout its history. Some time after this period, the Sumerians disappeared, becoming absorbed into the Akkadian-speaking population. Assyrian kings are attested from the late 25th century BCE and dominated northern Mesopotamia and parts of Anatolia, the Amorite dynasty was deposed in 1595 BCE after attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from the Zagros Mountains, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years. Assyria defeated the Hittites and Mitanni, and its growing power forced the New Kingdom of Egypt to withdraw from the Near East, the Middle Assyrian Empire at its height stretched from the Caucasus to modern Bahrain and from Cyprus to western Iran. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamian Aramaic became the lingua franca of the empire, the last written records in Akkadian were astrological texts dating from 78 CE discovered in Assyria
16.
Norse mythology
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The cosmos in Norse mythology consists of Nine Worlds that flank a central cosmological tree, Yggdrasil. Units of time and elements of the cosmology are personified as deities or beings, various forms of a creation myth are recounted, where the world is created from the flesh of the primordial being Ymir, and the first two humans are Ask and Embla. These worlds are foretold to be reborn after the events of Ragnarök, there the surviving gods will meet, and the land will be fertile and green, and two humans will repopulate the world. Norse mythology has been the subject of scholarly discourse since the 17th century, by way of comparative mythology and historical linguistics, scholars have identified elements of Germanic mythology reaching as far back as Proto-Indo-European mythology. In the modern period, the Romanticist Viking revival re-awoke an interest in the subject matter, the myths have further been revived in a religious context among adherents of Germanic Neopaganism. The majority of these Old Norse texts were created in Iceland and this occurred primarily in the 13th century. The Prose Edda was composed as a manual for producing skaldic poetry—traditional Old Norse poetry composed by skalds. Originally composed and transmitted orally, skaldic poetry utilizes alliterative verse, kennings, the Prose Edda presents numerous examples of works by various skalds from before and after the Christianization process and also frequently refers back to the poems found in the Poetic Edda. The Poetic Edda consists almost entirely of poems, with some prose narrative added, in comparison to skaldic poetry, Eddic poetry is relatively unadorned. Numerous further texts, such as the sagas, provide further information, the saga corpus consists of thousands of tales recorded in Old Norse ranging from Icelandic family histories to Migration period tales mentioning historic figures such as Attila the Hun. By way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, comparisons to other attested branches of Germanic mythology may also lend insight, wider comparisons to the mythology of other Indo-European peoples by scholars has resulted in the potential reconstruction of far earlier myths. Of the mythical tales and poems that are presumed to have existed during the Middle Ages, Viking Age, Migration Period, numerous gods are mentioned in the source texts. In the mythology, Thor lays waste to numerous jötnar who are foes to the gods or humanity, the god Odin is also frequently mentioned in surviving texts. One-eyed, wolf and raven-flanked, and spear in hand, Odin pursues knowledge throughout the worlds, Odin has a strong association with death, Odin is portrayed as the ruler of Valhalla, where valkyries carry half of those slain in battle. Odins wife is the powerful goddess Frigg who can see the future but tells no one, and together they have a beloved son, Baldr. After a series of dreams had by Baldr of his death, his death is engineered by Loki, and Baldr thereafter resides in Hel. Odin must share half of his share of the dead with a powerful goddess and she is beautiful, sensual, wears a feathered cloak, and practices seiðr. She rides to battle to choose among the slain, and brings her chosen to her afterlife field Fólkvangr, Freyja weeps for her missing husband Óðr, and seeks after him in far away lands
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Persian mythology
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Persian mythology are traditional tales and stories of ancient origin, all involving extraordinary or supernatural beings. Myths play a part in Iranian culture and our understanding of them is increased when we consider them within the context of Iranian history. The geography of this region, with its mountain ranges. This pottery, light grey to black in colour, appeared around 1400 BC and it is called Early Grey Ware or Iron I, the latter name indicating the beginning of the Iron Age in this area. The central collection of Persian mythology is the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the characters of Persian mythology almost always fall into one of two camps. They are either good, or they are evil, the most famous legendary character in the Persian epics and mythology is Rostam. On the other side of the fence is Zahhak, a symbol of despotism who was, finally, Zahhak was guarded by two vipers which grew out from both of his shoulders. No matter how many times they were beheaded, new heads grew on them to guard him. The snake, like in other mythologies, was a symbol of evil, but many other animals and birds appear in Iranian mythology, and, especially. Most famous of these is Simorgh, a beautiful and powerful bird, and Homa. Published by Echo of Iran, Tehran 1965, Iranian Mythology by Albert J. Carnoy Indo-Iranian Mythology Iran Almanac 2006
18.
Polynesian narrative
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Polynesians speak languages that descend from a language reconstructed as Proto-Polynesian that was probably spoken in the Tonga - Samoa area around 1000 BC. Prior to the 15th century AD, Polynesian peoples fanned out to the east, to the Cook Islands, and from there to other such as Tahiti. Their descendants later discovered the islands from Tahiti to Rapa Nui, latest research puts the settlement of New Zealand at about 1300 AD. The various Polynesian languages are all part of the Austronesian language family, many are close enough in terms of vocabulary and grammar to permit communication between some other language speakers. In some island groups, Tangaroa is of importance as the god of the sea. There is often a story of the marriage between Sky and Earth, the New Zealand version, Rangi and Papa, is a union that gives birth to the world and all things in it. There are stories of islands pulled up from the bottom of the sea by a magic fishhook, there are stories of voyages, migrations, seductions and battles, as one might expect. Stories about a trickster, Māui, are known, as are those about a beautiful goddess/ancestress Hina or Sina. In addition to these themes in the oral tradition, each island group has its own stories of demi-gods and culture heroes. Often such stories were linked to various geographic or ecological features, the accounts are characterised by extensive use of allegory, metaphor, parable, hyperbole, and personification. Orality has a flexibility that writing does not allow. In an oral tradition, there is no fixed version of a given tale, the story may change within certain limits according to the setting, and the needs of the narrator and the audience. An example is provided by genealogies, which exist in multiple, if another line should rise to ascendency, it was necessary to bestow upon the new line the most prestigious genealogy, even if this meant borrowing a few ancestors from the preceding dynasty. Each island, each tribe or each clan will have their own version or interpretation of a narrative cycle. This process is disrupted when writing becomes the means to record. When missionaries, officials, anthropologists or ethnologists collected and published these accounts, by fixing forever on paper what had previously been subject to almost infinite variation, they fixed as the authoritative version an account told by one narrator at a given moment. Some Polynesians seem to have been aware of the danger and the potential of new means of expression. As of the century, a number of them wrote down their genealogy, the history
19.
Roman mythology
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Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Romes legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. Roman mythology may also refer to the study of these representations. The Romans usually treated their traditional narratives as historical, even when these have miraculous or supernatural elements, the stories are often concerned with politics and morality, and how an individuals personal integrity relates to his or her responsibility to the community or Roman state. When the stories illuminate Roman religious practices, they are concerned with ritual, augury. Romes early myths and legends also have a relationship with Etruscan religion. In particular, the versions of Greek myths in Ovids Metamorphoses, written during the reign of Augustus, because ritual played the central role in Roman religion that myth did for the Greeks, it is sometimes doubted that the Romans had much of a native mythology. This perception is a product of Romanticism and the scholarship of the 19th century. From the Renaissance to the 18th century, however, Roman myths were an inspiration particularly for European painting, the Roman tradition is rich in historical myths, or legends, concerning the foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities, in Romes earliest period, history and myth have a mutual and complementary relationship. As T. P. Wiseman notes, The Roman stories still matter, as they mattered to Dante in 1300 and Shakespeare in 1600, what does it take to be a free citizen. Can a superpower still be a republic, how does well-meaning authority turn into murderous tyranny. Major sources for Roman myth include the Aeneid of Vergil and the first few books of Livys history as well as Dionysius s Roman Antiquities. Other important sources are the Fasti of Ovid, a six-book poem structured by the Roman religious calendar, scenes from Roman myth also appear in Roman wall painting, coins, and sculpture, particularly reliefs. The Aeneid and Livys early history are the best extant sources for Romes founding myths, material from Greek heroic legend was grafted onto this native stock at an early date. By extension, the Trojans were adopted as the ancestors of the Roman people. Rape of the Sabine women, explaining the importance of the Sabines in the formation of Roman culture, numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king of Rome who consorted with the nymph Egeria and established many of Romes legal and religious institutions. Servius Tullius, the king of Rome, whose mysterious origins were freely mythologized. The Tarpeian Rock, and why it was used for the execution of traitors, lucretia, whose self-sacrifice prompted the overthrow of the early Roman monarchy and led to the establishment of the Republic
20.
Folklore of Romania
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A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital. Folk creations were the literary genre until the 18th century. They were both a source of inspiration for cultivated creators and a structural model, second, for a long time learned culture was governed by official and social commands and developed around courts of princes and boyars, as well as in monasteries. Stories suggest God made the earth with the help of animals, in the majority of versions, before the earth existed, a boundless ocean called Apa Sâmbetei was the abode of God and the Devil, seen as master and servant rather than equals. In these stories the Devil goes by the name Nefartatul and is the somewhat foolish brother of God in folk versions of stories and these stories appear not only in Romanian folklore, but also in those of Aromanian, Slavic Macedonian and Bulgarian folklore. Upon deciding to create the earth, God sent the Devil to bring a handful of clay from the ground of the World Ocean in his holy name. The Devil set forth and tried to bring it to the surface in his name instead, as this piece of clay grew into the earth, God laid himself down to sleep. The Devil tried to push him over the side, but the earth would hinder that. After trying to throw God off the earth in one of the four cardinal directions. Other accounts, closer to the one, suggest that the Devil. The Devil, however, tried to rebel, and, in response, fearing that Heaven might be voided, the archangel Michael re-sealed it, thus freezing the demons that had not yet fallen to hell in place. This is related to the concept of soul customs, where every soul is intercepted on its way to heaven by these demons and it has also given rise to the Romanian saying până ajungi la Dumnezeu, te mănâncă sfinţii. Another question commonly addressed is that of the origin of God, thus explaining the many names the Bible used for God, the Oltenians believed the first God was called Sabaoth, followed by Amon, Apollo, the Creator God of the Bible and, finally, Jesus Christ. This is identified as the source of the expression a se îngălbeni de frică, even after Christian imagery and symbolism became part of Romanian culture, Mother Earth is identified as the consort of God, the heavenly Father. The origin of mountains is explained in a number of ways by the cultures of the different regions of Romania, one account is that mountains formed as a response to God demanding the Earth to nurture all life, to which the earth shuddered and brought forth mountains. Another version suggests the Earth was too large to fit under the firmament, often, these accounts are accompanied by the imagery of one or several World Pillars, which sustain the earth from below and are usually placed beneath mountains. Earthquakes are frequently attributed to the earth slipping due to the Devils constant gnawing at these pillars, the etymology of the word blajin is the slavonian blažĕnŭ meaning kind, well-minding person
21.
Historical Slavic religion
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Slavic mythology is the mythological aspect of the polytheistic religion that was practised by the Slavs before Christianisation. Unlike ancient Greek, Hindu, Chinese or Egyptian mythology, there are no records for the study of Slavic mythology. It has not been proven that the Slavs had any sort of writing system before the arrival of Saints Cyril, fragments of old mythological beliefs and pagan festivals survive up to this day in folk customs, songs, stories and folk-tales of all the Slavic nations. Although Herodotus is himself not convinced by this rumour, he stresses that he has heard some swear it, the identification of Neuri with Proto-Slavs remains controversial, however. According to Procopius, these Slavs worshipped a single deity, who crafted lightning, though not named explicitly, it can be deduced this is a reference to the deity known as Perun in later historic sources, as in many Slavic languages today. Perun simply means thunder or lightning bolt and he also mentions the belief in various demons and nymphs, but does not mention any other names. The Slavic Primary Chronicle is a work with many valuable references to the pagan beliefs of Eastern Slavs. The chronicle treats the history of the early Eastern Slavic state, even though the manuscript was compiled at the beginning of the 12th century, it contains references to and copies of older documents, and describes events predating the Baptism of Kiev. Two deities, Perun and Veles/Volos, are mentioned in the text of the early 10th century peace treaties between pagan rulers of East Slavs and Byzantine Emperors, later, Nestor the Chronicler describes a state pantheon introduced by Prince Vladimir in Kiev in 980 CE. Vladimirs pantheon included Perun, Hors, Dažbog, Stribog, Simargl, the Hypatian Codex of the Primary Chronicle also mentions Svarog, compared to Greek Hephaestus. Also very interesting are the passages in the East Slavic epic The Tale of Igors Campaign referring to Veles, Dažbog, the original epic has been dated to the end of the 12th century, although there are marginal disputes over the authenticity of this work. The most numerous and richest written records are of West Slavic paganism, particularly of Wendish and Polabian tribes, the German missionaries and priests who criticized pagan religion left extensive records of old mythological systems they sought to overcome. However, they restrained themselves from pious lies, claiming pagan Slavs were idolatrous. As none of those missionaries learned any Slavic language, their records are confused and exaggerated, major works include a chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg from the beginning of the 11th century, who described a temple in the city of Riedegost where the great deity Zuarasic was worshipped. According to Thietmar, this was the most sacred place in the land of pagan Slavs, another very valuable document is the Chronica Slavorum written in the late 12th century by Helmold, a German priest. Saxo meticulously described the worship of Svantevit, the associated with it. He also mentioned multi-headed deities of other Slavic tribes, Rugievit, Porewit, according to the manuscript, the most important Slavic deity was Triglav, whose temples in the city of Szczecin were respected oracles. In the cities of Wolgast and Havelberg, the war god Gerovit was worshiped, a corruption of Jarovit
22.
Turkic mythology
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Turkic mythology embraces Tengriist and Shamanist traditions as well as all cultural and social subjects being a nomad folk. Later, especially after Turkic migration some of the myths were decorated with Islamic symbols and it has many common points with Mongol mythology. Turkic mythology was influenced by other local mythologies, for example, in Tatar mythology elements of Finnic and Indo-European myth co-exist. Subjects from Tatar mythology include Äbädä, Alara, Şüräle, Şekä, Pitsen, Tulpar, and Zilant. Besides Buddhism, Turkic mythology was influenced by Manichaeism, irk Bitig, a 10th-century manuscript found in Dunhuang is one of the most important sources for Turkic mythology and religion. This book is written in Old Turkic alphabet like the Orkhon inscriptions, Kök Tengri is the first of primordial deities in the religion of the early Turkic people. He was known as yüce or yaratıcı tengri after the Turks started to migrate and leave middle Asia, the words Tengri and Sky were synonyms. It is unknown how Tengri looks and he rules the fates of entire people and acts freely. But he is fair as he awards and punishes, the well-being of people depends on his will. Tengri worship is first attested in the Old Turkic Orkhon inscriptions of the early 8th century, Umay is the goddess of fertility and virginity. Umay resembles earth-mother goddesses found in other world religions and is the daughter of Tengri. Öd Tengri Is the god of time being not well-known, as it states in the stones, Öd tengri is the ruler of time. Boz Tengri Like Öd Tengri, he is not known much and he is seen as the god of the grounds and steppes and is a son of Kök Tengri. Kayra is the Spirit of God, primordial god of highest sky, upper air, space, atmosphere, light, life and son of Kök Tengri. Ülgen is the son of Kayra and Umay is the god of goodness, the Aruğ denotes to good spirits in Turkic and Altaic mythology. They are under the order of Ülgen and doing things on earth. Erlik is the god of death and the underworld, also a god of the manly seem, since his name Erklik is also used for male. Later Erlik was used depriving him of this rather anti-hero status, the titel khan in his name is because of his ruler position
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Comparative religion
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Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions concerned with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices of the worlds religions. In general the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental concerns of religion such as ethics, metaphysics. Studying such material is meant to give one a richer and more sophisticated understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual, other religions that fit this description are sometimes included but are often omitted. The original belief in the One God of Abraham eventually became strictly monotheistic present-day Rabbinic Judaism, christians believe that Christianity is the fulfillment and continuation of the Jewish Old Testament. Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament prophecy and this signaled a break with Islam and started a new religious system, that also represents the predecessor of the Baháí Faith. Christianity and Judaism are two other Abrahamic religions that diverge in theology and practice, the historical interaction of Islam and Judaism started in the 7th century CE with the origin and spread of Islam. There are many common aspects between Islam and Judaism, and as Islam developed, it became the major religion closest to Judaism. There are many traditions within Islam originating from traditions within the Hebrew Bible or from post-biblical Jewish traditions and these practices are known collectively as the Israiliyat. The historical interaction between Christianity and Islam connects fundamental ideas in Christianity with similar ones in Islam, Islam accepts many aspects of Christianity as part of its faith - with some differences in interpretation - and rejects other aspects. Islam believes the Quran is the revelation from God and a completion of all previous revelations. Several important religions and religious movements originated in Greater Iran, that is and they include Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Ætsæg Din, Yazdanism, Ahl-e Haqq, Zurvanism, Mandaeism, Manichaeism, and Mazdakism. Indian religions refers to a number of religions that have originated on the Indian subcontinent and they encompass Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Buddhism and modern Hinduism are both post-Vedic religions, gautama Buddha is mentioned as an Avatar of Vishnu in the Puranic texts of Hinduism. Prominent Hindu reformers such as Gandhi and Vivekananda acknowledge Buddhist influence, Gandhi, like Hindus, did not believe Buddha established a non-Hindu tradition. He writes, I do not regard Jainism or Buddhism as separate from Hinduism, a Taoic religion is a religion, or religious philosophy, that focuses on the East Asian concept of Tao. This forms a group of religions including Taoism, Confucianism, Jeung San Do, Shinto, I-Kuan Tao, Chondogyo. In large parts of East Asia, Buddhism has taken on some taoic features, Tao can be roughly stated to be the flow of the universe, or the force behind the natural order. It is believed to be the influence that keeps the universe balanced and ordered and is associated with nature, the flow of Chi, as the essential energy of action and existence, is compared to the universal order of Tao
24.
Symbol
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A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences, all communication is achieved through the use of symbols. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas or visual images and are used to other ideas. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for STOP, on a map, a blue line might represent a river. Alphabetic letters may be symbols for sounds, personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose may symbolize love and compassion, the variable x, in a mathematical equation, may symbolize the position of a particle in space. In cartography, a collection of symbols forms a legend for a map The word derives from the Greek symbolon meaning token or watchword. It is an amalgam of syn- together + bole a throwing, a casting, the sense evolution in Greek is from throwing things together to contrasting to comparing to token used in comparisons to determine if something is genuine. The meaning something which stands for something else was first recorded in 1590, later, expanding on what he means by this definition Campbell says, a symbol, like everything else, shows a double aspect. We must distinguish, therefore between the sense and the meaning of the symbol. The term meaning can only to the first two but these, today, are in the charge of science – which is the province as we have said, not of symbols. The ineffable, the unknowable, can be only sensed. Heinrich Zimmer gives an overview of the nature, and perennial relevance. Concepts and words are symbols, just as visions, rituals, through all of these a transcendent reality is mirrored. They are so many metaphors reflecting and implying something which, though thus variously expressed, is ineffable, though thus rendered multiform, Symbols hold the mind to truth but are not themselves the truth, hence it is delusory to borrow them. Each civilisation, every age, must bring forth its own, in the book Signs and Symbols, it is stated that A symbol. Is a visual image or sign representing an idea -- a deeper indicator of a universal truth, Symbols are a means of complex communication that often can have multiple levels of meaning. This separates symbols from signs, as signs have only one meaning, human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent aspects of their specific culture
25.
Theology
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Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as a discipline, typically in universities, seminaries. Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity, the term can, however, be used for a variety of different disciplines or fields of study. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument to help understand, explain, test, critique, the English equivalent theology had evolved by 1362. Greek theologia was used with the discourse on god in the fourth century BC by Plato in The Republic, Book ii. Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of discourse, mythical, rational and civil. Theologos, closely related to theologia, appears once in some manuscripts, in the heading to the book of Revelation, apokalypsis ioannoy toy theologoy. The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of study, dealing with the motionless. Boethius definition influenced medieval Latin usage, Theology can also now be used in a derived sense to mean a system of theoretical principles, an ideology. They suggest the term is appropriate in religious contexts that are organized differently. Kalam. does not hold the place in Muslim thought that theology does in Christianity. To find an equivalent for theology in the Christian sense it is necessary to have recourse to several disciplines, and to the usul al-fiqh as much as to kalam. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, who argues that the use of theology is appropriate, can only do so, he says, I take theology not to be restricted to its etymological meaning. In that latter sense, Buddhism is of course atheological, rejecting as it does the notion of God, within Hindu philosophy, there is a solid and ancient tradition of philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, of God and of the Atman. The Sanskrit word for the schools of Hindu philosophy is Darshana. Nevertheless, Jewish theology historically has been active and highly significant for Christian. It is sometimes claimed, however, that the Jewish analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be Rabbinical discussion of Jewish law, the history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves. Modern Western universities evolved from the institutions and cathedral schools of Western Europe during the High Middle Ages
26.
Heracles
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Heracles, born Alcaeus or Alcides, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson and half-brother of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of clans who claimed to be Heracleidae. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well. Extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females were among the characteristics commonly attributed to him, together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae. His iconographic attributes are the skin and the club. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a figure who used games to relax from his labors. By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have made the safe for mankind. Many popular stories were told of his life, the most famous being The Twelve Labours of Heracles and his figure, which initially drew on Near Eastern motifs such as the lion-fight, was widely known. Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, the core of the story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld. Heracles role as a hero, whose death could be a subject of mythic telling, was accepted into the Olympian Pantheon during Classical times. Around him cries of the dead rang out like cries of birds scattering left, in Christian circles a Euhemerist reading of the widespread Heracles cult was attributed to a historical figure who had been offered cult status after his death. The ancient Greeks celebrated the festival of the Heracleia, which commemorated the death of Heracles, what is believed to be an Egyptian Temple of Heracles in the Bahariya Oasis dates to 21 BCE. A reassessment of Ptolemys descriptions of the island of Malta attempted to link the site at Ras ir-Raħeb with a temple to Heracles, several ancient cities were named Heraclea in his honor. A major factor in the tragedies surrounding Heracles is the hatred that the goddess Hera. A full account of Heracles must render it clear why Heracles was so tormented by Hera, Heracles was the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene. Zeus made love to her after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon, thus, Heracles very existence proved at least one of Zeus many illicit affairs, and Hera often conspired against Zeus mortal offspring as revenge for her husbands infidelities. His twin mortal brother, son of Amphitryon, was Iphicles, Hera did this knowing that while Heracles was to be born a descendant of Perseus, so too was Eurystheus
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Cerberus
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In Greek mythology, Cerberus, often called the hound of Hades, is the monstrous multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. Cerberus was the offspring of the monsters Echidna and Typhon, Cerberus is primarily known for his capture by Heracles, one of Heracles twelve labours. Descriptions of Cerberus vary, including the number of his heads, Cerberus was usually three-headed, though not always. And, like these close relatives, Cerberus was, with only the rare iconographic exception, in the earliest description of Cerberus, Hesiods Theogony, Cerberus has fifty heads, while Pindar gave him one hundred heads. However, later writers almost universally give Cerberus three heads, an exception is the Latin poet Horaces Cerberus which has a single dog head, and one hundred snake heads. In art Cerberus is most commonly depicted with two dog heads, never more than three, but occasionally only one. On one of the two earliest depictions, a Corinthian cup from Argos, now lost, Cerberus is shown as a normal single-headed dog, the first appearance of a three-headed Cerberus occurs on a mid sixth century BC Laconian cup. Horaces many snake-headed Cerberus followed a tradition of Cerberus being part snake. This is perhaps already implied as early as in Hesiods Theogony, where Cerberus mother is the half-snake Echidna, in the literary record, the first certain indication of Cerberus serpentine nature comes from the rationalized account of Hecataeus of Miletus, who makes Cerberus a large poisonous snake. Cerberus was given various other traits, according to Euripides, Cerberus not only had three heads but three bodies, and according to Virgil he had multiple backs. Cerberus ate raw flesh, had eyes which flashed fire, a three-tongued mouth, as early as Homer we learn that Heracles was sent by Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns, to bring back Cerberus from Hades the king of the underworld. According to Apollodorus, this was the twelfth and final labour imposed on Heracles, Heracles was aided in his mission by his being an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Euripides has his initiation being lucky for Heracles in capturing Cerberus, and both Diodorus Siculus and Apollodorus say that Heracles was initiated into the Mysteries, in preparation for his descent into the underworld. According to Diodorus, Heracles went to Athens, where Musaeus, Heracles also had the help of Hermes, the usual guide of the underworld, as well as Athena. In the Odyssey, Homer has Hermes and Athena as his guides, and Hermes and Athena are often shown with Heracles on vase paintings depicting Cerberus capture. By most accounts, Heracles made his descent into the underworld through an entrance at Tainaron, Heraclea, founded c.560 BC, perhaps took its name from the association of its site with Heracles Cerberian exploit. While in the underworld, Heracles met the heroes Theseus and Pirithous, along with bringing back Cerberus, Heracles also managed to rescue Theseus, and in some versions Pirithous as well. The earliest literary mention of the rescue occurs in Euripides, where Heracles saves Theseus, in the lost play Pirithous, both heroes are rescued, while in the rationalized account of Philochorus, Heracles was able to rescue Theseus, but not Pirithous
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Myth
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A myth is any traditional story consisting of events that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural, explaining the origins of a cultural practice or natural phenomenon. The word myth is derived from the Greek word mythos, which means story. Mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths, myth can mean sacred story, traditional narrative or tale of the gods. A myth can also be a story to explain why something exists, human cultures usually include a cosmogonical or creation myth, concerning the origins of the world, or how the world came to exist. The active beings in myths are generally gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, or animals, most myths are set in a timeless past before recorded time or beginning of the critical history. A myth can be a story involving symbols that are capable of multiple meanings, a myth is a sacred narrative because it holds religious or spiritual significance for those who tell it. Myths also contribute to and express a cultures systems of thought and values, myths are often therefore stories that are currently understood as being exaggerated or fictitious. According to Albert A. Anderson, a professor of philosophy, in these works, the term had several meanings, conversation, narrative, speech, story, tale, and word. Like the related term logos, mythos expresses whatever can be delivered in the form of words, Anderson contrasts the two terms with ergon, a Greek term for action, deed, and work. The term mythos lacks an explicit distinction between true or false narratives, in the context of the Theatre of ancient Greece, the term mythos referred to the myth, the narrative, the plot, and the story of a theatrical play. According to David Wiles, the Greek term mythos in this era covered an entire spectrum of different meanings, from undeniable falsehoods to stories with religious, according to philosopher Aristotle, the spirit of a theatrical play was its mythos. The term mythos was also used for the material of Greek tragedy. The tragedians of the era could draw inspiration from Greek mythology, David Wiles observes that modern conceptions about Greek tragedy can be misleading. It is commonly thought that the ancient audience members were familiar with the mythos behind a play. However, the Greek dramatists were not expected to faithfully reproduce traditional myths when adapting them for the stage and they were instead recreating the myths and producing new versions. Storytellers like Euripides relied on suspense to excite their audiences, in one of his works, Merope attempts to kill her sons murderer with an axe, unaware that the man in question is actually her son. According to an ancient description of reactions to this work. They rose to their feet in terror and caused an uproar, David Wiles points that the traditional mythos of Ancient Greece, was primarily a part of its oral tradition
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Culture
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Culture can be defined in numerous ways. In the words of anthropologist E. B, Tylor, it is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. The Cambridge English Dictionary states that culture is the way of life, especially the customs and beliefs. As a defining aspect of what it means to be human, culture is a concept in anthropology. The word is used in a sense as the evolved ability to categorize and represent experiences with symbols. The level of cultural sophistication has also sometimes seen to distinguish civilizations from less complex societies. Mass culture refers to the mass-produced and mass mediated forms of culture that emerged in the 20th century. When used as a count noun, a culture is the set of customs, traditions, in this sense, multiculturalism is a concept that values the peaceful coexistence and mutual respect between different cultures inhabiting the same planet. Sometimes culture is used to describe specific practices within a subgroup of a society. Samuel Pufendorf took over this metaphor in a context, meaning something similar. His use, and that of many writers after him, refers to all the ways in which human beings overcome their original barbarism, and through artifice, become fully human. To be cultural, to have a culture, is to inhabit a place sufficiently intensive to cultivate it—to be responsible for it, to respond to it, thus a contrast between culture and civilization is usually implied in these authors, even when not expressed as such. Cultural invention has come to any innovation that is new and found to be useful to a group of people and expressed in their behavior. Humanity is in a global accelerating culture change period, driven by the expansion of commerce, the mass media, and above all. Culture repositioning means the reconstruction of the concept of a society. Cultures are internally affected by both forces encouraging change and forces resisting change, Social conflict and the development of technologies can produce changes within a society by altering social dynamics and promoting new cultural models, and spurring or enabling generative action. These social shifts may accompany ideological shifts and other types of cultural change, for example, the U. S. feminist movement involved new practices that produced a shift in gender relations, altering both gender and economic structures. Environmental conditions may also enter as factors, Cultures are externally affected via contact between societies, which may also produce—or inhibit—social shifts and changes in cultural practices
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History
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History is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory and it is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians and their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In Asia, a chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals was known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd-century BC texts survived. Ancient influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the nature of history which have evolved over the centuries, the modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and the study of certain topical or thematical elements of historical investigation. Often history is taught as part of primary and secondary education, the word history comes ultimately from Ancient Greek ἱστορία, meaning inquiry, knowledge from inquiry, or judge. It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his Περὶ Τὰ Ζῷα Ἱστορίαι, the ancestor word ἵστωρ is attested early on in Homeric Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenian ephebes oath, and in Boiotic inscriptions. History was borrowed from Latin into Old English as stær, and it was from Anglo-Norman that history was borrowed into Middle English, and this time the loan stuck. In Middle English, the meaning of history was story in general, the restriction to the meaning the branch of knowledge that deals with past events, the formal record or study of past events, esp. human affairs arose in the mid-fifteenth century. With the Renaissance, older senses of the word were revived, and it was in the Greek sense that Francis Bacon used the term in the sixteenth century. For him, historia was the knowledge of objects determined by space and time, in an expression of the linguistic synthetic vs. analytic/isolating dichotomy, English like Chinese now designates separate words for human history and storytelling in general. In modern German, French, and most Germanic and Romance languages, which are synthetic and highly inflected. The adjective historical is attested from 1661, and historic from 1669, Historian in the sense of a researcher of history is attested from 1531. Historians write in the context of their own time, and with due regard to the current dominant ideas of how to interpret the past, in the words of Benedetto Croce, All history is contemporary history. History is facilitated by the formation of a discourse of past through the production of narrative. The modern discipline of history is dedicated to the production of this discourse. All events that are remembered and preserved in some authentic form constitute the historical record, the task of historical discourse is to identify the sources which can most usefully contribute to the production of accurate accounts of past. Therefore, the constitution of the archive is a result of circumscribing a more general archive by invalidating the usage of certain texts and documents
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Pedagogy
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Pedagogy is the discipline that deals with the theory and practice of education, it thus concerns the study of how best to teach. Spanning a broad range of practice, its aims range from furthering liberal education to the specifics of vocational education. Instructive strategies are governed by the background knowledge and experience, situation. One example would be the Socratic schools of thought, the teaching of adults, as a specific group, is referred to as andragogy. Johann Friedrich Herbart is the father of the conceptualization of pedagogy, or. Herbarts educational philosophy and pedagogy highlighted the correlation between personal development and the benefits to society. In other words, Herbart proposed that humans become fulfilled once they establish themselves as productive citizens, herbartianism refers to the movement underpinned by Herbarts theoretical perspectives. Referring to the process, Herbart suggested 5 steps as crucial components. Specifically, these 5 steps include, preparation, presentation, association, generalization, Herbart suggests that pedagogy relates to having assumptions as an educator and a specific set of abilities with a deliberate end goal in mind. The word is a derivative of the Greek παιδαγωγία, from παιδαγωγός, itself a synthesis of ἄγω, I lead and it is pronounced variously, as /ˈpɛdəɡɒdʒi/, /ˈpɛdəɡoʊdʒi/, or /ˈpɛdəɡɒɡi/. Negative connotations of pedantry have sometimes been intended, or taken, doctor of Pedagogy, is awarded honorarily by some US universities to distinguished teachers. The term is used to denote an emphasis in education as a specialty in a field. The word pedagogue means leading children some say to the teacher and other leading them, in Denmark, a pedagogue is a practitioner of pedagogy. The term is used for individuals who occupy jobs in pre-school education in Scandinavia. But a pedagogue can occupy various kinds of jobs, e. g. in retirement homes, prisons, orphanages and these are often recognized as social pedagogues as they perform on behalf of society. The pedagogues job is usually distinguished from a teachers by primarily focusing on teaching children life-preparing knowledge such as social skills, there is also a very big focus on care and well-being of the child. Many pedagogical institutions also practice social inclusion, the pedagogues work also consists of supporting the child in their mental and social development. In Denmark all pedagogues are educated at a series of institutes for social educators located in all major cities
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Ancient history
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Ancient history is the aggregate of past events from the beginning of recorded human history and extending as far as the Early Middle Ages or the Postclassical Era. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with Sumerian Cuneiform script, the term classical antiquity is often used to refer to history in the Old World from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC. This roughly coincides with the date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome. In India, ancient history includes the period of the Middle Kingdoms, and, in China. Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world, archaeology and the study of source texts, primary sources are those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study. Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on. Archaeology is the excavation and study of artefacts in an effort to interpret, archaeologists excavate the ruins of ancient cities looking for clues as to how the people of the time period lived. The study of the ancient cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, the city of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city preserved by the eruption of a volcano in AD79. Its state of preservation is so great that it is a window into Roman culture and provided insight into the cultures of the Etruscans. The Terracotta Army, the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in ancient China, the discovery of Knossos by Minos Kalokairinos and Sir Arthur Evans. The discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann, most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of antiquitys own historians. Although it is important to take account the bias of each ancient author. Some of the more notable ancient writers include Herodotus, Thucydides, Arrian, Plutarch, Polybius, Sima Qian, Sallust, Livy, Josephus, Suetonius, furthermore, the reliability of the information obtained from these surviving records must be considered. Few people were capable of writing histories, as literacy was not widespread in almost any culture until long after the end of ancient history, the earliest known systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, beginning with Herodotus of Halicarnassus. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, the Roman Empire was one of the ancient worlds most literate cultures, but many works by its most widely read historians are lost. Indeed, only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived, prehistory is the period before written history. The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago, the controlled use of fire occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, 60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia
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Plato
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Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Platos entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead once noted, the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. In addition to being a figure for Western science, philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst other scholars, called Christianity, Platonism for the people, Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy, which originate with him. He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied, few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range, perhaps only Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank. Due to a lack of surviving accounts, little is known about Platos early life, the philosopher came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Ancient sources describe him as a bright though modest boy who excelled in his studies, the exact time and place of Platos birth are unknown, but it is certain that he belonged to an aristocratic and influential family. Based on ancient sources, most modern scholars believe that he was born in Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BCE. According to a tradition, reported by Diogenes Laertius, Ariston traced his descent from the king of Athens, Codrus. Platos mother was Perictione, whose family boasted of a relationship with the famous Athenian lawmaker, besides Plato himself, Ariston and Perictione had three other children, these were two sons, Adeimantus and Glaucon, and a daughter Potone, the mother of Speusippus. The brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon are mentioned in the Republic as sons of Ariston, and presumably brothers of Plato, but in a scenario in the Memorabilia, Xenophon confused the issue by presenting a Glaucon much younger than Plato. Then, at twenty-eight, Hermodorus says, went to Euclides in Megara, as Debra Nails argues, The text itself gives no reason to infer that Plato left immediately for Megara and implies the very opposite. Thus, Nails dates Platos birth to 424/423, another legend related that, when Plato was an infant, bees settled on his lips while he was sleeping, an augury of the sweetness of style in which he would discourse about philosophy. Ariston appears to have died in Platos childhood, although the dating of his death is difficult. Perictione then married Pyrilampes, her mothers brother, who had served many times as an ambassador to the Persian court and was a friend of Pericles, Pyrilampes had a son from a previous marriage, Demus, who was famous for his beauty. Perictione gave birth to Pyrilampes second son, Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato and these and other references suggest a considerable amount of family pride and enable us to reconstruct Platos family tree
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Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
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Comparative mythology
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Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes, the anthropologist C. Scott Littleton defined comparative mythology as the systematic comparison of myths and mythic themes drawn from a wide variety of cultures. By comparing different cultures mythologies, scholars try to identify underlying similarities and/or to reconstruct a protomythology from which those mythologies developed. To an extent, all theories about mythology follow an approach, as the scholar of religion Robert Segal notes, by definition. However, scholars of mythology can be divided into particularists. Comparative approaches to mythology held great popularity among eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholars, many of these scholars believed that all myths showed signs of having evolved from a single myth or mythical theme. For example, the nineteenth-century philologist Friedrich Max Müller led a school of thought which interpreted nearly all myths as poetic descriptions of the suns behavior, according to this theory, these poetic descriptions had become distorted over time into seemingly diverse stories about gods and heroes. However, modern-day scholars lean more toward particularism, feeling suspicious of broad statements about myths, one exception to this trend is Joseph Campbells theory of the monomyth, which is discussed below. Another recent exception is the approach followed in E. J. Michael Witzels reconstruction of many subsequent layers of older mythologies, a total science of mythology must give attention, as far as possible, to all three. Comparative mythologists come from various fields, including folklore, anthropology, history, linguistics, and religious studies and these are some important approaches to comparative mythology. Some scholars look at the relationships between the myths of different cultures. For example, the similarities between the names of gods in different cultures, one particularly successful example of this approach is the study of Indo-European mythology. Scholars have found striking similarities between the mythological and religious terms used in different cultures of Europe and India, for example, the Greek sky-god Zeus Pater, the Roman sky-god Jupiter, and the Indian sky-god Dyauṣ Pitṛ have linguistically identical names. Some scholars look for underlying structures shared by different myths, the folklorist Vladimir Propp proposed that many Russian fairy tales have a common plot structure, in which certain events happen in a predictable order. In contrast, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss examined the structure of a myth in terms of the relationships between its elements, rather than their order in the plot. In particular, Lévi-Strauss believed that the elements of a myth could be organized into binary oppositions and he thought that the myths purpose was to mediate these oppositions, thereby resolving basic tensions or contradictions found in human life or culture. Some scholars propose that myths from different cultures reveal the same, or similar, some Freudian thinkers have identified stories similar to the Greek story of Oedipus in many different cultures
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Science
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Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations, disciplines which use science, like engineering and medicine, may also be considered to be applied sciences. However, during the Islamic Golden Age foundations for the method were laid by Ibn al-Haytham in his Book of Optics. In the 17th and 18th centuries, scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of physical laws, over the course of the 19th century, the word science became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself as a disciplined way to study the natural world. It was during this time that scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, Science in a broad sense existed before the modern era and in many historical civilizations. Modern science is distinct in its approach and successful in its results, Science in its original sense was a word for a type of knowledge rather than a specialized word for the pursuit of such knowledge. In particular, it was the type of knowledge which people can communicate to each other, for example, knowledge about the working of natural things was gathered long before recorded history and led to the development of complex abstract thought. This is shown by the construction of calendars, techniques for making poisonous plants edible. For this reason, it is claimed these men were the first philosophers in the strict sense and they were mainly speculators or theorists, particularly interested in astronomy. In contrast, trying to use knowledge of nature to imitate nature was seen by scientists as a more appropriate interest for lower class artisans. A clear-cut distinction between formal and empirical science was made by the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, although his work Peri Physeos is a poem, it may be viewed as an epistemological essay on method in natural science. Parmenides ἐὸν may refer to a system or calculus which can describe nature more precisely than natural languages. Physis may be identical to ἐὸν and he criticized the older type of study of physics as too purely speculative and lacking in self-criticism. He was particularly concerned that some of the early physicists treated nature as if it could be assumed that it had no intelligent order, explaining things merely in terms of motion and matter. The study of things had been the realm of mythology and tradition, however. Aristotle later created a less controversial systematic programme of Socratic philosophy which was teleological and he rejected many of the conclusions of earlier scientists. For example, in his physics, the sun goes around the earth, each thing has a formal cause and final cause and a role in the rational cosmic order. Motion and change is described as the actualization of potentials already in things, while the Socratics insisted that philosophy should be used to consider the practical question of the best way to live for a human being, they did not argue for any other types of applied science
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Edward Burnett Tylor
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Sir Edward Burnett Tylor was an English anthropologist, the founder of cultural anthropology. Tylors ideas typify 19th-century cultural evolutionism, in his works Primitive Culture and Anthropology, he defined the context of the scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell. He believed that there was a basis for the development of society and religion. Tylor maintained that all societies passed through three stages of development, from savagery, through barbarism to civilization. Tylor is considered by many to be a figure of the science of social anthropology. He believed that research into the history and prehistory of man, could be used as a basis for the reform of British society. Tylor reintroduced the term animism into common use and he regarded animism as the first phase of development of religions. He was born in 1832, in Camberwell, London, and was the son of Joseph Tylor and Harriet Skipper and his elder brother, Alfred Tylor, became a geologist. He was educated at Grove House School, Tottenham, but due to the deaths of Tylors parents during his adulthood he never gained a university degree. After his parents deaths, he prepared to help manage the family business, following advice to spend time in warmer climes, Tylor left England in 1855, travelling to Mexico. The experience proved to be an important and formative one, sparking his lifelong interest in studying unfamiliar cultures, during his travels, Tylor met Henry Christy, a fellow Quaker, ethnologist and archaeologist. Tylors association with Christy greatly stimulated his awakening interest in anthropology, Tylors first publication was a result of his 1856 trip to Mexico with Christy. His notes on the beliefs and practices of the people he encountered were the basis of his work Anahuac, Or Mexico, Tylor continued to study the customs and beliefs of tribal communities, both existing and prehistoric. He published his work, Researches into the Early History of Mankind. Following this came his most influential work, Primitive Culture, G. Frazer, who were to become Tylors disciples and contribute greatly to the scientific study of anthropology in later years. Tylor was appointed Keeper of the University Museum at Oxford in 1883, in 1896 he was appointed the first Professor of Anthropology at Oxford University. He was involved in the history of the Pitt Rivers Museum. 1871 Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,1875 Honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of Oxford