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Relics Rituals
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Book Synopsis Relics & Rituals by : Sword & Sorcery Studio
Download or read book Relics & Rituals written by Sword & Sorcery Studio and published by White Wolf Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the same D20 game system as the 3rd Edition fantasy roleplaying rules, sword & sorcery books provide fantasy gamers with a host of new core rulebooks, campaign sourcebooks, challenging adventures and game accessories. Sword & sorcery is the largest independent publisher of D20 material, with authors such as the father of fantasy himself Gary Gygax, and Monte cook, the co-creator of 3rd Edition and author of the 3rd Edition DMG. Sword & Sorcery Studio's most popular and critically acclaimed core rulebook to date. Relics & Rituals explores a host of campaign source material valuable to players and DM's alike. With seven new prestige classes; hundreds of new spells for bards, clerics, druids, paladins, rangers, sorcerers and wizards; over a hundred new magic items from minor trinkets to major artifacts; new rules and spells for powerful ritual magic; and new rules for magical tattoos, this volume offers you a wealth of excellent campaign material. Gary Gygax himself says '"this work is one you can't pass up."
Book Synopsis Relics, Ritual, and Representation in Buddhism by : Kevin Trainor
Download or read book Relics, Ritual, and Representation in Buddhism written by Kevin Trainor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-06-13 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a serious study of relic veneration among South Asian Buddhists. Drawing on textual sources and archaeological evidence from India and Sri Lanka, including material rarely examined in the West, it looks specifically at the practice of relic veneration in the Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist tradition. The author portrays relic veneration as a technology of remembrance and representation which makes present the Buddha of the past for living Buddhists. By analysing the abstract ideas, emotional orientation and ritual behaviour centred on the Buddha's material remains, he contributes to the 'rematerializing' of Buddhism which is currently under way among Western scholars. This book is an excellent introduction to Buddhist relics. It is well written and accessible and will be read by scholars and serious students of Buddhism and religious studies for years to come.
Download or read book Mecca and Eden written by Brannon Wheeler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2006-07 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteenth-century philologist and Biblical critic William Robertson Smith famously concluded that the sacred status of holy places derives not from their intrinsic nature but from their social character. Building upon this insight, Mecca and Eden uses Islamic exegetical and legal texts to analyze the rituals and objects associated with the sanctuary at Mecca. Integrating Islamic examples into the comparative study of religion, Brannon Wheeler shows how the treatment of rituals, relics, and territory is related to the more general mythological depiction of the origins of Islamic civilization. Along the way, Wheeler considers the contrast between Mecca and Eden in Muslim rituals, the dispersal and collection of relics of the prophet Muhammad, their relationship to the sanctuary at Mecca, and long tombs associated with the gigantic size of certain prophets mentioned in the Quran. Mecca and Eden succeeds, as few books have done, in making Islamic sources available to the broader study of religion.
Book Synopsis Relics of the Buddha by : John S. Strong
Download or read book Relics of the Buddha written by John S. Strong and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhism is popularly seen as a religion stressing the truth of impermanence. How, then, to account for the long-standing veneration, in Asian Buddhist communities, of bone fragments, hair, teeth, and other bodily bits said to come from the historic Buddha? Early European and American scholars of religion, influenced by a characteristic Protestant bias against relic worship, declared such practices to be superstitious and fraudulent, and far from the true essence of Buddhism. John Strong's book, by contrast, argues that relic veneration has played a serious and integral role in Buddhist traditions in South and Southeast Asia-and that it is in no way foreign to Buddhism. The book is structured around the life story of the Buddha, starting with traditions about relics of previous buddhas and relics from the past lives of the Buddha Sakyamuni. It then considers the death of the Buddha, the collection of his bodily relics after his cremation, and stories of their spread to different parts of Asia. The book ends with a consideration of the legend of the future parinirvana (extinction) of the relics prior to the advent of the next Buddha, Maitreya. Throughout, the author does not hesitate to explore the many versions of these legends and to relate them to their ritual, doctrinal, artistic, and social contexts.
Book Synopsis Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth by : Rita Langer
Download or read book Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth written by Rita Langer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Buddhist thought and practice, death has always been a central concept. This book provides a careful and thorough analysis of the rituals and social customs surrounding death in the Theravada tradition of Sri Lanka. Rita Langer describes the rituals of death and rebirth and investigates their ancient origins, analyzing social issues of the relationship between monks and lay people in this context. This aspect is of particular interest as death rituals are the only life cycle ritual in which Theravada Buddhist monks are actively involved. Drawing on early Vedic sutras and Pali texts as well as archaeological and epigraphical material, Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth establishes that Sri Lankan rituals are deeply rooted in their pre-Buddhist, Vedic precursors. Whilst beliefs and doctrines have undergone considerable changes over the centuries, it becomes evident that the underlying practices have largely remained stable. The first comprehensive study of death rituals in Theravada Buddhist practice, this is an important contribution to the fields of Buddhist studies, indology, anthropology and religious studies.
Book Synopsis Changing Times, 1066-1500 by : Martin Collier
Download or read book Changing Times, 1066-1500 written by Martin Collier and published by Heinemann. This book was released on 2003 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This scheme takes an investigative approach to history, developing pupils' thinking skills as they explore the subject. There are tasks designed to ensure progression, plus integrated extended writing to develop literacy skills.
Book Synopsis Strange Beauty by : Cynthia Jean Hahn
Download or read book Strange Beauty written by Cynthia Jean Hahn and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A study of reliquaries as a form of representation in medieval art. Explores how reliquaries stage the importance and meaning of relics using a wide range of artistic means from material and ornament to metaphor and symbolism"--Provided by publisher.
Book Synopsis Relics of the Christ by : Joe Nickell
Download or read book Relics of the Christ written by Joe Nickell and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2007-03-16 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious relics, defined as “either portions of or objects connected with the body of a saint or other holy person,” are among the most revered items in the world. Christian relics such as the Holy Grail, the True Cross, and the Lance of Longinus are also the source of limitless controversy. Such items have incited people to bloodshed and, some say, have been a source of miracles. Relics inspire fear and hope among the faithful and yet are a perennial target for skeptics, both secular and Christian. To research the authenticity of numerous Christian relics, Joe Nickell takes a scientific approach to a field of study all too often tainted by premature conclusions. In this volume, Nickell investigates such renowned relics as the Shroud of Turin, the multiple heads of John the Baptist, and the supposedly incorruptible corpses of saints, first examining the available evidence and documented history of each item. From accounts of true believers to the testimony of the relics’ alleged fabricators, Nickell then presents all sides of each story, allowing the evidence to speak for itself. For each relic, Nickell evaluates both the corroborating and contradictory bodies of evidence and explores whether the relic and attributed miracles can be reconstructed. In addition to his own experiments, Nickell presents findings from the world’s top scientists and historians regarding these controversial objects of reverence and ire, explaining the circumstances under which each case was examined. Radiocarbon dating and tests to determine the validity of substances such as blood or patina indicate a variety of possible origins. Nickell even reveals some of the techniques used to create archaeological forgeries and explains how investigators have exposed them. Each relic is a mystery to be solved; guided by the maxim, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” Nickell seeks only the truth.
Download or read book Uncertain Powers written by Sachiko Kawai and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-03-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncertain Powers is an original and much-needed analysis of female leadership in medieval Japan. In challenging current scholarship by exploring the important political and economic roles of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Japanese royal women, Sachiko Kawai questions the traditional view of the era as one dominated by male retired monarchs and a warrior government. Instead the author populates it with royal wives and daughters who held the title of premier royal lady (nyoin) and owned extensive estates across the Japanese archipelago. Nyoin, whose power varied according to marital status, networks, and age, used their wealth and human networks to build temples and organize their entourages as salons to assert religious, cultural, and political influence. Confronted with social factors and gender disparities, they were motivated to develop coping strategies, the workings of which Kawai masterfully teases out from the abundant primary sources. Uncertain Powers presents a nuanced and groundbreaking study of the relationship between a nyoin’s authority (her acknowledged rights) and her actual power (the ability to enforce those rights), demonstrating how, as members of political factions, as landlords, and as religious and cultural patrons, nyoin struggled to transform authority into power by means of cooperation, persuasion, compromise, and coercion.
Book Synopsis The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual Artifacts in Medieval and Early Modern Studies by : Katharine D. Scherff
Download or read book The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual Artifacts in Medieval and Early Modern Studies written by Katharine D. Scherff and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-03-03 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the history of altar decorations, this study of the visual liturgy grapples with many of the previous theoretical frameworks to reveal the evolution and function of these ritual objects. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book uses traditional art-historical methodologies and media technology theory to reexamine ritual objects. Previous analysis has not considered the in-between nature of these objects as deliberate and virtual conduits to the divine. The liturgy, the altarpiece, the altar environment, relics, and their reliquaries are media. In a series of case studies, several objects tell a different story about culture and society in medieval Europe. In essence, they reveal that media and media technologies generate and modulate the individual and collective structure of feelings of sacredness among assemblages of humans and nonhumans. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, medieval studies, early modern studies, and architectural history.
Book Synopsis Embodying the Dharma by : David Germano
Download or read book Embodying the Dharma written by David Germano and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embodying the Dharma explores the centrality of relic veneration in Asian Buddhist cultures. Long disregarded by Western scholars as a superstitious practice reflecting the popularization of "original" Buddhism, relic veneration has emerged as a topic of vital interest in the last two decades with the increased attention to Buddhist ritual practice and material culture. This volume includes studies of relic traditions in India, Japan, Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, as well as broader comparative analyses, including comparisons of Buddhist and Christian relic veneration.
Book Synopsis The Fluid Pantheon by : Bernard Faure
Download or read book The Fluid Pantheon written by Bernard Faure and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-12-31 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by one of the leading scholars of Japanese religion, The Fluid Pantheon is the first installment of a multivolume project that promises to be a milestone in our understanding of the mythico-ritual system of esoteric Buddhism—specifically the nature and roles of deities in the religious world of medieval Japan and beyond. Bernard Faure introduces readers to medieval Japanese religiosity and shows the centrality of the gods in religious discourse and ritual; in doing so he moves away from the usual textual, historical, and sociological approaches that constitute the “method” of current religious studies. The approach considers the gods (including buddhas and demons) as meaningful and powerful interlocutors and not merely as cyphers for social groups or projections of the human mind. Throughout he engages insights drawn from structuralism, post-structuralism, and Actor-network theory to retrieve the “implicit pantheon” (as opposed to the “explicit orthodox pantheon”) of esoteric Japanese Buddhism (Mikkyō). Through a number of case studies, Faure describes and analyzes the impressive mythological and ritual efflorescence that marked the medieval period, not only in the religious domain, but also in the political, artistic, and literary spheres. He displays vast knowledge of his subject and presents his research—much of it in largely unstudied material—with theoretical sophistication. His arguments and analyses assume the centrality of the iconographic record, and so he has brought together in this volume a rich and rare collection of more than 180 color and black-and-white images. This emphasis on iconography and the ways in which it complements, supplements, or deconstructs textual orthodoxy is critical to a fuller comprehension of a set of medieval Japanese beliefs and practices. It also offers a corrective to the traditional division of the field into religious studies, which typically ignores the images, and art history, which oftentimes overlooks their ritual and religious meaning. The Fluid Pantheon and its companion volumes should persuade readers that the gods constituted a central part of medieval Japanese religion and that the latter cannot be reduced to a simplistic confrontation, parallelism, or complementarity between some monolithic teachings known as “Buddhism” and “Shinto.” Once these reductionist labels and categories are discarded, a new and fascinating religious landscape begins to unfold.
Book Synopsis The Revival of Buddhist Monasticism in Medieval China by : Huaiyu Chen
Download or read book The Revival of Buddhist Monasticism in Medieval China written by Huaiyu Chen and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2007 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Original Scholarly Monograph
Book Synopsis Temple Consecration Rituals in Ancient India by : Anna Aleksandra Ślączka
Download or read book Temple Consecration Rituals in Ancient India written by Anna Aleksandra Ślączka and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a thorough study, based on both the textual and archaeological data, of the three important temple consecration rituals of the Hindu tradition.
Book Synopsis Appliable Linguistics and Social Semiotics by : David Caldwell
Download or read book Appliable Linguistics and Social Semiotics written by David Caldwell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-10-06 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the relationship between theory and practice in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this volume offers a state-of-the-art overview of Appliable Linguistics. Featuring both internationally-renowned scholars and rising stars from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore and the USA, Appliable Linguistics and Social Semiotics examines the theoretical insights, questions, and developments that have emerged from the application of Systemic Functional theory to a range of fields. Beyond simply reporting on the application of SFL to particular sites of communication, both linguistic and semiotic, this volume demonstrates how SFL has critiqued, developed and transformed theory and practice and foregrounds the implications of application for Systemic Functional theory itself. Covering established fields for application, such as education, medicine and media, to relatively uncharted areas, such as software design and extremist propaganda, this volume provides an overview of recent linguistic and semiotic innovations informed by SFL and examines the advances that have been made from many years of productive dialogue between theory and practice.
Download or read book A'aisa's Gifts written by Michele Stephen and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-09-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with insight, provocative in its conclusions, A'aisa's Gifts is a groundbreaking ethnography of the Mekeo of Papua New Guinea and a valuable contribution to anthropological theory. Based on twenty years' fieldwork, this richly detailed study of Mekeo esoteric knowledge, cosmology, and self-conceptualizations recasts accepted notions about magic and selfhood. Drawing on accounts by Mekeo ritual experts and laypersons, this is the first book to demonstrate magic's profound role in creating the self. It also argues convincingly that dream reporting provides a natural context for self-reflection. In presenting its data, the book develops the concept of "autonomous imagination" into a new theoretical framework for exploring subjective imagery processes across cultures.
Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice by : Kevin Trainor
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice written by Kevin Trainor and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This Handbook provides a state-of-the-art exploration of several key dynamics in current studies of the Buddhist tradition with a focus on practice. Embodiment, materiality, emotion, and gender shape the way most Buddhists engage with their traditions, in contrast to popular representations of Buddhism as spiritual, disembodied, and largely devoid of ritual. This volume highlights how practice often represents a fluid, dynamic, and strategic means of defining identity and negotiating the challenges of everyday life. Essays explore the transformational aims of practices that require practitioners to move, gesture, and emote in prescribed ways, including the ways that scholars' own embodied practices are integral to their research methodology. The chapters are written by acknowledged experts in their respective subject areas and taken together offer an overview of current thinking in the field. The volume is of particular value to scholars who seek an orientation to current perspectives on important conceptual, theoretical, and methodological concerns that are shaping the field in areas outside their primary expertise. The inclusion of substantial, up-to-date bibliographies also makes the volume an important guide to current scholarship"--
