Zoroastrianism - the religion of the ancient Iranians - developed away from the main centers of the Middle Eastern civilization and differed markedly from the religious systems of Mesopotamia and Egypt in character. Genetically - Zoroastrianism goes back to the most ancient beliefs of the Indo-European peoples - the very ones whose settlement from their hypothetical ancestral home (the regions of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea) to the west, south and east at the turn of the III-II and in the first half of the II millennium BC. e. gave impetus to the emergence of a number of ancient civilizations (ancient Greek, Iranian, Indian) and had a significant impact on the development of other centers of world culture, up to China.
For many centuries after settling in each of the new regions mastered by the Indo-Europeans, the development of religions proceeded, although on the basis of common ancient ideas, but in its own way. One of the variants of this development (comparatively late and therefore already highly developed) was Zoroastrianism, the foundations of which are fixed in the oldest holy book of the Zoroastrians Avesta.
Zoroastrianism of the Avesta- This is the teaching of the prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster). Zoroaster lived and preached comparatively late, in the 7th-6th centuries. BC., that is, he was practically a contemporary of Lao Tzu, Buddha and Confucius. There is no doubt that Zoroastrianism is one of the already quite developed religious systems. Ethics is at the center of the system. and the principles based on it are the main criteria.
The essence of the doctrine comes down to the fact that everything that exists is divided into two polar opposite camps - the world of good and the world of evil, the forces of light and the kingdom of darkness (originally exist). There is a continuous struggle between the light and dark beginnings. At the end of life, the struggle will end. The earth will go up in flames.
The dualistic idea of irreconcilability and the constant struggle of light and darkness, good and evil, which was in the center of attention in Zoroastrianism, had a huge social and ethical orientation. Zoroaster, as it were, appealed to a person with a call to become better, purer, to give all his efforts and thoughts to the fight against the forces of darkness and evil. People were urged to be benevolent, moderate in thoughts and passions, ready to live in peace and friendship with everyone, to help their neighbor. Honesty and fidelity were praised, theft, slander, crimes were condemned. At the same time, perhaps the main idea of the ethical doctrine of Zoroastrianism was the thesis that evil and suffering depend on people themselves, who can and should be active creators of their own happiness. And in order to fight evil, a person must first of all purify himself, and not so much even with his spirit and thoughts, but with his body.
Zoroastrianism attached ritual significance to physical purity. It was necessary to beware of all uncleanness, especially corpses. Sick women, women who had just given birth, and women during certain periods of their life cycle. All of them had to undergo a special rite of purification.
Fire played an important role in the cleansing process. to which Zoroastrianism attached paramount importance, distinguishing it from the rest of the elements. Rituals in honor of Agura Mazda were performed not in temples, but in open places, with singing, wine, and always with fire (fire worshipers). Not only fire and other elements were revered, but also some animals - a bull, a horse, a dog.
ritualism reminiscent of the Pharisees' desire to do everything according to the letter of the law. All representatives of the Persian Empire were Zoroastrians.
Buddhism originated in 6th century BC in North India. Its founder was Siddhartha Gautama (approximately 583-483 BC), the son of the ruler of the Shakya clan from Kapilavasta (region of Southern Nepal). Leaving home, he begins a strict ascetic life and finally reaches awakening (bodhi), i.e. comprehends the right life path who rejects extremes. According to tradition, he was subsequently called the Buddha (literally: Awakened), (in other sources he is called the Enlightened One).
The center of the teaching is the four truths. According to them, human existence is inextricably linked with suffering. Birth, illness, death, encountering unpleasant things and parting with pleasant things, the impossibility of achieving the desired - all this leads to suffering (1 truth). The cause of suffering is thirst (desire for being), leading through joys and passions to rebirth, birth again (truth 2). The elimination of the causes of suffering consists in the elimination of this thirst (3rd truth). The path leading to the elimination of suffering and the attainment of nirvana is eightfold path- consists in the following: righteous faith, righteous decision, righteous word, righteous deed, righteous life, righteous aspiration, righteous remembrance, righteous self-deepening (4th truth).
The goal of Buddhism is nirvana, which means in translation "fading", i.e. cessation of being, but suicide is strictly forbidden. It is almost impossible to define this concept for the simple reason that the Buddha himself did not formulate it clearly and, in all likelihood, did not himself know the definition of this state. highest good is getting rid of karma and reincarnations. This includes the destruction of individuality. Nirvana seems to involve the destruction of the soul. Particular emphasis is placed on practical meditation, so the Buddha did not have a prayer, but only an intensified training of his neuro-psychological, physiological ecstasy.
Buddha never says anything about God. His teaching is atheistic.
Confucianism is a Chinese belief (it cannot be called a religion, since there is nothing of God in it) named after its founder, Confucius (VI-V centuries BC). Confucius was born and lived in an era of great social and political upheaval, when China was in a state of internal crisis. Criticizing his own century and appreciating the centuries of the past, Confucius, on the basis of this opposition, created his ideal of a perfect man, jun-tzu.
Confucius set out to study all the religious sacred books that were at that time in China. Based on this, he developed his teaching. He did not write, but transmitted his teaching orally. There are two main directions in his teaching.
1. There are two beginnings in the world - heaven and earth. Heaven is the highest principle, earth is the lowest. The combination of these two principles resulted in everything that we see, including man. But not a word is said about God, and in general the doctrine of God is absent from him. To the question of what will happen after death: Confucius answered that he does not know what life is, then how do you know what will happen after death.
2. The veneration of ancestors, the souls of the departed, is of great importance in religious terms in Confucianism. But nothing is said about the soul, about its state after death. This means that nothing was said about this in the ancient Chinese books that were known in China at that time. The worship cult had a more socio-political meaning than a religious one. Confucius saw that thanks to this, it is possible to preserve the unity of the nation, to preserve the strength of the state.
The very essence of Confucianism, the very core, is the preservation of customs. This is the basic tenet of Confucianism. This dogma is expressed in three principles:
ZhEN - humanity, humanity those. principle of human relations. And briefly it is expressed as follows: "Do not do to another what you do not wish for yourself." On the contrary, do only pleasant things. However, for a truly perfect person (jun-tzu), humanity alone was not enough. It must have one more important quality - sense of duty(AND). The sense of duty is due, as a rule, to knowledge and higher principles, but not to calculation.
LI - etiquette. It's a whole ceremony. This is the most precious thing of Confucianism. Confucius was sure that thanks to this principle it is possible to cultivate respect for each other, to eradicate anger. But despite this, he directly teaches about mortal (blood) revenge.
NW - it is a consecrated veneration of the old and ancestors(dead and alive). Without this, there can be no family unity, no national unity, no transmission of traditions, and so on.
Following all these principles was the duty of the noble Junzi, which in collection of sayings of Confucius Lun Yu is defined as a person honest and sincere, straightforward and fearless, all-seeing and understanding, attentive in speeches, careful in deeds. In doubt he must manage, in anger he must consider actions, in a profitable enterprise he must take care of honesty; in youth he should avoid lusts, in maturity he should avoid quarrels, in old age he should avoid covetousness. A true Jun Tzu is indifferent to food, wealth, life's comforts and material gain. He devotes himself entirely to serving high ideals, serving people and searching for truth.
In moral terms, there was not even a word about love for enemies. Confucianism is the middle ground in everything, no extremes, in nothing, in everything the golden mean.
Confucianism is not a religion. Its aim is purely materialistic. It knows nothing but earthly things and does not want to know.
Completed:
Art. gr. RT-971
Chechelnitsky E.V.
Odessa 1998
Confucianism
Confucius (Kung Tzu, 551479 BC) was born and lived in an era of great social and political upheaval, when Zhou China was in a state of severe internal crisis. The power of the Zhou ruler, the van, had long since weakened, patriarchal and tribal norms were being destroyed, and the tribal aristocracy was perishing in internecine strife. The collapse of the ancient foundations of family-planned life, internecine strife, the venality and greed of officials, the disasters and sufferings of the common people - all this caused sharp criticism of the zealots of antiquity. Having criticized his age and highly estimating the centuries of the past, Confucius, on the basis of this opposition, created his ideal of the perfect man Yijun Tzu. A highly moral jun-tzu had to have two of the most important virtues in his view: humanity and a sense of duty. Humanity (zhen) included modesty, restraint, dignity, selflessness, love for people, etc. Zhen is an almost unattainable ideal, a set of perfections that only the ancients possessed. Of his contemporaries, he considered only himself and his beloved disciple Yan Hui to be humane. However, for a true Jun Tzu, humanity alone was not enough. He had to have another important quality - a sense of duty. Duty is a moral obligation that a humane person, by virtue of his virtues, imposes on himself.
A sense of duty, as a rule, is due to knowledge and higher principles, but not to calculation. “A noble person thinks about duty, a low person cares about profit,” taught Confucius. He also developed a number of other concepts, including fidelity and sincerity (zheng), decency, and observance of ceremonies and rituals (li).
Following all these principles was the duty of the noble Junzi, and thus the "noble person"
Confucius is a speculative social ideal, an instructive set of virtues. This ideal became obligatory for imitation, it was a matter of honor and social prestige to approach it, especially for those representatives of the upper class of scholars-officials, professional bureaucrats-administrators who from the Han era (III century BC) began to manage the Chinese Confucial interia.
Confucius sought to create the ideal of a knight of virtue who fought for high morality against the injustice that reigned around. But with the transformation of his teaching into an official dogma, it was not the essence that came to the fore, but the external form, manifested in demonstrating devotion to antiquity, respect for the old, feigned modesty and virtue. In medieval China, certain norms and stereotypes of the behavior of each person gradually developed and were canonized, depending on their place in the social and bureaucratic hierarchy. At any moment of life, for any occasion, at birth and death, when entering school and when being appointed to the service - always and in everything there were strictly faxed and obligatory rules of conduct for all. In the Han era, a set of rules was compiled - the Lizi treatise, a compendium of Confucian norms. All the rules written in this ritual book should be known and put into practice, and the more diligently, the higher the position in society a person occupied.
“Let a father be a father, a son a son, a sovereign a sovereign, an official an official,” i.e. everything will fall into place, everyone will know their rights and obligations and do what they are supposed to do. A society thus ordered should consist of two main categories, top and bottom - those who think and govern, and those who work and obey. The criterion for dividing society into tops and bottoms should have been not the nobility of origin and not wealth, but the degree of closeness of a person to the Jun Tzu ideal. Formally, this criterion opened the way to the top for anyone much more difficult: the estate of officials was separated from the common people by a “wall of hieroglyphs” - literacy. Already in Lizi, it was specifically stipulated that ceremonials and rites had nothing to do with the common people and that gross corporal punishment was not applied to the literate.
The ultimate and highest goal of government, Confucius proclaimed the interests of the people. At the same time, they were convinced that their interests were incomprehensible and inaccessible to the people themselves, and without the guardianship of educated Confucian rulers, they could not manage in any way: “The people should be forced to go the right way, but there is no need to explain why.”
One of the important foundations of social order, according to Confucius, was strict obedience to elders. Blind obedience to his will, word, desire is an elementary norm for a junior, subordinate, subject both within the state as a whole and in the ranks of the clan, family. Confucius reminded that the state is a big family, and the family is a small state.
Confucianism gave the cult of ancestors a deep meaning of the special symbol. Order and turned it into the first duty of every Chinese. Confucius developed the doctrine of xiao, sons of honor. The meaning of xiao is to serve your parents according to the rules of Li, to bury them according to the rules of Li, and to sacrifice them to them according to the rules of Li.
The Confucian ancestral cult and the Xiao norm contributed to the flourishing of the cult of the family and clan. The family was considered the core of society, the interests of the family far exceeded the interests of the individual. Hence the constant trend towards family growth. With favorable economic opportunities, the desire for close relatives to live together sharply prevailed over separatist inclinations. A powerful branched clan and relatives arose, holding on to each other and sometimes inhabiting an entire village.
And in the family and in society as a whole, anyone, including an influential head of the family, an important official of the emperor, was primarily a social unit, inscribed in the strict framework of Confucian traditions, beyond which it was impossible: this would mean “losing face”, and the loss of face for the Chinese is tantamount to civil death. Deviations from the norm were not allowed, and Chinese Confucianism did not encourage any extravagance, originality of mind or higher appearance: strict norms of the cult of ancestors and appropriate upbringing suppressed selfish inclinations from childhood.
From childhood, a person got used to the fact that the personal, emotional, his own on the scale of values is incommensurable with the general, accepted, rationally conditioned and obligatory for everyone.
Confucianism was able to take a leading position in Chinese society, acquire structural strength and justify its extreme conservatism, which found its highest expression in the cult of unchanging form. To keep the form, at all costs to reduce the appearance, not to lose face - all this now began to play a particularly important role, because it was considered as a guarantee of stability. Finally, Confucianism also acted as a regulator in the relationship of the country with the sky and - on behalf of the sky - with various tribes and peoples that inhabited the world. Confucianism supported and exalted the cult of the ruler, created in the Yin-Chou period, the emperor, the “son of heaven”, who controls the heavenly kingdom from the steppe of the great sky. From here there was only a step to the division of the whole world into civilized China and uncultured barbarians, who vegetated in warmth and ignorance and drew knowledge and culture from one source - from the center of the World, China.
Not being a religion in the full sense of the word, Confucianism became more than just a religion. Confucianism is also politics, and the administrative system, and the supreme regulator of economic and social processes - in a word, it is the basis of the entire Chinese way of life, the quintessence of Chinese civilization. For more than two thousand years, Confucianism has shaped the minds and feelings of the Chinese, influenced their beliefs, psychology, behavior, thinking, perception, their way of life and way of life.
References:
Vasiliev L.S. "History of the Religion of the East"
Bakanursky G.L. "The History and Theory of Atheism"
Taoism arose in Zhou China almost almost simultaneously with the teachings of Confucius in the form of an independent philosophical doctrine. The founder of the Taoist philosophy is the philosopher Lao Tzu, who is considered a legendary figure by modern researchers, because there is no reliable historical and biographical information about him. According to the legend, he left China, but agreed to leave his work Tao-te-ching (4th-3rd century BC) to the guard of the border outpost. This treatise outlines the foundations of Taoism, the philosophy of Lao Tzu. At the center of the doctrine is the doctrine of the great Tao, the universal law and the absolute. Tao dominates everywhere and in everything, always and without limits. Nobody created it, but everything comes from it. Invisible and inaudible, inaccessible to the senses, constant and inexhaustible, nameless and formless, it gives rise, name and form to everything in the world. Even the great Heaven follows the Tao. To know the Tao, to follow it, to merge with it - this is the meaning, purpose and happiness of life. Tao manifests itself through its emanation, through Te, and if Tao gives birth to everything, then Te nourishes everything.
From this it can be seen that Taoism sets itself the goal of revealing to man the secrets of the universe, the eternal problems of life and death, and it becomes clear why it arose. Indeed, outside of Confucianism, the mystical and irrational, not to mention ancient mythology and primitive prejudices. And without this, a person feels some spiritual discomfort, a certain void that needs to be filled, and therefore all beliefs and rituals were united within the framework of the Taoist religion, which was formed in parallel with Confucianism.
One of the most attractive points in the teachings of the Tao for both the common people and the nobility was the preaching of longevity and immortality for people who knew the Tao. This idea was so captivating that the emperors even equipped expeditions for elixirs of immortality and financed the work of Taoist magicians to make them. Thus, Taoism was able to survive and gain a foothold under the dominance of Confucianism. At the same time, Taoism changed quite a lot, the idea of Tao and Te was relegated to the background, and numerous magicians, healers, shamans came to the fore, who joined Taoism, who skillfully synthesized some ideas of Taoism with peasant superstitions, and thus got over them ( peasants) very great power. This was confirmed by the Daoist peasant uprising that occurred during the crisis of power after the end of the Han Dynasty, led by the Taoist magician Zhang June. He set himself the task of overthrowing the existing system and replacing it with the kingdom of Great Equality (Taiping). He announced the year of the uprising as the beginning of the era of the new "Yellow Sky", so his adherents wore yellow armbands. The uprising was brutally suppressed; Zhang June himself was killed, and the remnants of his adherents fled to the west, in the mountainous border regions, where another Taoist sect, Zhang Lu, operated. This now united sect, after the fall of the Han Dynasty, became an independent theocratic entity, which is also called the state of the Taoist patriarchal popes. Subsequently, even official authorities reckoned with them. Power in this "state within a state" was inherited, it itself consisted of 24 communities headed by bishops. Life in these communities was organized in such a way that everyone could purify themselves, repent and, having gone through a series of fasts and rites, prepare themselves for immortality. According to Tao, the human body is a microcosm - it is an accumulation of spirits and divine forces, the result of the interaction of male and female principles. The one striving to achieve immortality must first of all try to create such conditions for all these spirit-monads (there are about 36,000 of them) that they would not strive to leave the body. Taoists intended to achieve this through food restrictions, special physical and breathing exercises. Also, in order to achieve immortality, the candidate had to perform at least 1200 good deeds, and at the same time, one bad deed nullified everything.
The very act of reincarnation was considered so sacred and mysterious that no one could record it. There was just a man, and he is not. He did not die, but disappeared, left his body shell, dematerialized, ascended to heaven, became immortal. Over the centuries, Taoism has experienced ups and downs, support and persecution, sometimes becoming the official ideology of a dynasty. But nevertheless, he was needed both by the educated upper classes and the uneducated lower classes of Chinese society. Educated elites turned most often to the philosophical theories of Taoism, to its ancient cult of simplicity and naturalness, merging with nature and freedom of expression. It has often been noted that a Chinese intellectual (anyone), while socially a Confucian, has always been a bit of a Taoist at heart. The uneducated lower classes were looking for something else in Taoism. They were attracted by social utopias with an egalitarian distribution of property with the most severe regulation of the life order. These theories played their part as a banner during medieval peasant uprisings. In addition, Taoism was associated with the masses of people through rituals, the practice of divination and healing, etc. It is on this lower level of Taoism that the gigantic pantheon that has always distinguished the Taoist religion is formed. This pantheon, along with the heads of religious doctrines, could include any outstanding historical figure, even a simple official who left behind a good memory. Taoism in China, like Buddhism, occupied a modest place in the system of official religious and ideological values, but during periods of crisis, when centralized power fell into decay, Taoism came to the fore, manifesting itself in popular uprisings that moved the utopian ideas of Taoism.
References:
2. Bakanursky G.L. "The History and Theory of Atheism"
Shintoism
Shintoism. Translated from Japanese, Shinto means the way. gods - religion, which arose in early feudal Japan not as a result of the transformation philosophical system, and from many tribal cults, based on animistic, totemic ideas of magic, shamanism, the cult of ancestors.
The Shinto pantheon consists of a large number of gods and spirits. The central place is occupied by the concept of the divine origin of emperors. Kami, supposedly inhabiting and spiritualizing all nature, are able to incarnate in any object that later became an object of worship, which was called shintai, which in Japanese means the body of a god.
According to Shinto, a person is descended from one of the innumerable spirits. The soul of the deceased, under certain circumstances, is able to become kami.
In the course of the formation of a class society and state, the idea of a supreme deity and a creative act is formed, as a result of which, according to the ideas of the Shintoists, the sun goddess Amaterasu appeared - the main deity and progenitor of all Japanese emperors.
Shinto has no ecclesiastical canonical books. Each temple has its own myths and ritual prescriptions that may not be known in other temples. The myths common to Shinto are collected in the book Kojiki (Notes on Ancient Matters), which arose from oral tradition in the early 8th century. It contains the main ideas of nationalism, which were elevated to the rank of state religion: the superiority of the Japanese nation, the divine origin of the imperial dynasty, from the founding of the Japanese state. And the second sacred book "Nihon seki" (which is translated as "Annals of Japan").
Shinto is deeply nationalistic. The gods gave birth only to the Japanese. People of other nationalities cannot practice this religion. The cult of Shinto is also peculiar. The goal of life in Shintoism proclaims the realization of the ideals of the ancestors: "salvation" is achieved in this, and not other world, by spiritual merging with the deity with the help of prayers and rituals performed in the temple or at the hearth. Shinto is characterized by lavish festivals with sacred dances and processions. Shinto service consists of four elements: purification (harai), sacrifice (shinsei), short prayer(norito) and libations (naorai).
In addition to the usual services in temples, various ritual ceremonies, local Shinto holidays and Buddhist holidays. The most important rites began to be performed by the emperor, in the 7th century high priest Shinto. Only the most significant local holidays number about 170 (new year, commemoration of the dead, boys' day, girls' day, etc.). All these holidays are accompanied by religious rites in temples. The ruling circles encourage their behavior in every possible way, trying to make these holidays a means of promoting the exclusivity of the Japanese nation.
In the 17th - 18th centuries, the so-called "historical school", headed by its founders M. Kamo and N. Matoori, launched its activities, which aimed to strengthen Shintoism, revive the cult and the fullness of the emperor's power.
In 1868, Shinto was declared the state religion of Japan. To strengthen the influence of the official religion on the population, a bureaucratic body is created - the Department of Shinto Affairs (later transformed into a ministry). The content of religion is gradually changing. Instead of the cult of several guardian spirits, the cult of the emperor comes to the fore. The structure of the religious system is also changing. Shinto began to be subdivided into temple, home and common people. Priests began to preach not only in temples, but also through non-church channels, schools and the press.
On January 1, 1946, the Japanese emperor publicly renounced his divine origin, so the 1947 constitution made Shinto equivalent to all other cults in Japan and thus ceased to be state religion.In December 1966, by decision of the government, “the day of the founding of the empire-kigensetsu (February 11) was restored as a national holiday, the day when, according to Shinto myths, Jimisu in 660. BC. ascended the throne.
IN last years reactionary forces are fighting to restore Shinto as the state religion of Japan, but so far these attempts have not been successful.
References:
Svetlov G.E. "Religion and Politics"
Bogut I.I. "History of Philosophy (translated from Czech)"
Bakanursky G.L. "The History and Theory of Atheism"
Zoroastrianism markedly different in character from the religious systems of Mesopotamia and Egypt. It belongs to the later type. prophetic religions. Its founder is the Iranian prophet Zoroaster (Zarathushtra), who lived in the 8th-7th centuries. BC e., i.e. at the same time as the Buddha Shakyamuni and only 100 years earlier than Lao Tzu and Confucius. Zoroaster was a teacher-prophet, like the Hebrew Moses. The foundations of Zoroastrianism are recorded in the most ancient sacred book of the Zoroastrians - the Avesta.
In the texts of the times of the Achaemenid rulers Darius, Cyrus, Xerxes, one can find traces of his ideas, but there is no mention of him. There is very little information about him. The texts of the Avesta, which science has today, belong to a much later time. According to the teachings of Zoroaster, the world of goodness, light and justice, which is personified by Ahura Mazda (Greek Ormuzd), is opposed by the world of evil and darkness, it is personified by Angra Mainyu (Ariman). Between these two beginnings there is a struggle not for life, but for death. Ahura Mazda is helped in this struggle by the spirits of purity and goodness, Angra Mainyu - the forces of evil, destruction.
Zoroastrianism already belongs to the number of developed religions, it philosophically comprehends the world on the basis of the dualistic idea of irreconcilability and the constant struggle of light and darkness, good and evil. This is where the transition from magical to ethical religions takes place. A person should be on the side of good, become better, spare no effort to fight evil and the forces of darkness, all evil spirits. He should be benevolent, moderate in thoughts and passions, help his neighbor. Man is the creator of his happiness, his fate depends on him. To fight evil, a person must first of all purify himself, and not only in spirit and thought, but also in body. Zoroastrianism attached ritual significance to physical purity. The corpses of the dead are a symbol of impurity, they should not come into contact with pure elements (earth, water, fire). Hence the special rite of Burial: special servants carried the bodies of the dead into open towers, where they were pecked out by predatory vultures, and the bones were thrown to the bottom of a stone-lined well dug in the tower. The sick, women after childbirth and during periods of menstruation were considered unclean. They had to undergo a special rite of purification. The main role in the rites of purification was played by fire. Rituals in honor of Ahura Mazda were performed not in temples, but in open places, with singing, wine and, of course, fire. Hence another name for the supporters of Zoroastrianism - fire worshipers. Along with fire, other elements and some animals were revered - a bull, a horse, a dog and a vulture.
In mythology, Zoroastrianism introduced the idea of the existence of a special luminous sphere and paradise in addition to the Earth and Sky. The first man named Yima Ahura Mazda was forced to be expelled from paradise and deprived of immortality because he showed disobedience and began to eat the meat of sacred bulls. Thus began the struggle between good and evil after the paradise idyll. The concept of sin, the fall of man and punishment in Zoroastrianism is encountered almost for the first time. The posthumous fate of a person depends on the strength of his faith and activity in the fight against evil - either he deserves heavenly bliss, or he finds himself among the spirits of darkness and evil spirits. The fate of a person turns out to be dependent on his beliefs and behavior. And another innovation is the doctrine of the end of the world, “ doomsday”and the coming of the messiah, in which Zoroaster will incarnate in order to save humanity, to contribute to the final victory of Ahura Mazda over the forces of evil. There is no doubt that these ideas had an influence on Christianity.
By the name of the god of light, Ahura Mazda, this doctrine is also called Mazdaism, and after the place of origin - Parsism. In Persia itself, or present-day Iran, this ancient Iranian religion has completely disappeared, supplanted by Islam. Expelled from their country, the Parsis moved to India and preserved the ancient teachings there as a “living” religion.
In late Zoroastrianism, at the turn of our era, the cult of the god of light, Mithra, who was considered an assistant to Ahura Mazda, came to the fore. In the form of Mithraism, Zoroastrianism also spread to the Greco-Roman ancient world. It was brought by Roman legionnaires from the eastern campaigns of the 1st century BC. n. e. Mithra became identified with the savior mentioned in Zoroastrian prophecies. Every year on December 25, his birthday was celebrated (this day also became the day of the birth of Christ). Those who believed in Mithras used to take communion with bread and wine, symbolizing his body and blood. The very name Mitra means fidelity, that is, it is associated with moral ideas. In the II-III centuries, the cult of Mithra was a dangerous rival for Christianity. His influence was in different countries not only in antiquity, but also in the Middle Ages.
Zoroastrianism as a prophetic religion sees the meaning of the world not in its existence, but in the implementation of the goal set by God at the end of days. This is an eschatologically oriented religion, close in essence to other prophetic religions that have become world religions - Christianity and Islam. The world as it is is not yet the world in which its meaning is realized, the world is only on the way to its embodiment. Man is called to fulfill the law and thus the will of the gods, but he is also called by God himself to take part in this cosmic struggle and make his choice between the forces of light and darkness, good and evil spirits.
In Zoroastrianism, three sociologically significant points should be noted. First, it was a religion that carried a protest against the existing social condition and defended the social ideal. The wisdom of power is not in violence, robbery and subjugation, oppression of the lower strata (the main virtue of a righteous person, according to the Avesta, is to plow the land and grow plants), but in law, in a fair order of social life. Secondly, the communities that formed around the prophet were different and followed different motives. The elite was inspired by the doctrine itself, spiritual problems; these people created the early community. The masses, on the other hand, were guided by more utilitarian motives, they were attracted by the hope of retribution. The religious level of the first communities was thus different, they pursued different goals. And, finally, this prophetic religion, referring to the personal decision and choice of its followers, after Zoroaster again returned to the type of priestly religion, with frozen prescriptions and magic rituals. If for Zoroaster fire was an exalted symbol, then after him it again turned into ancient cult fire, and today this prevents the Parsis in India from burning the dead, like the Hindus, because they are afraid of losing their purity.
In general, Zoroastrianism is significantly different from other religions of ancient civilizations, it belongs to a higher type of religious development. Distinctive features of this religion is its ethical character and a pronounced dualism of light and dark principles, a phenomenon unusual for other religions, which many researchers associate with the age-old conflict and enmity between settled agricultural tribes and nomadic pastoralists.
Hinduism- the religion of tranquility in the one, the comprehension of the fact that the plurality of the world is illusory. The basis of this religion is the idea that the world is not a random, chaotic combination of things and phenomena, but an ordered whole. The universal and eternal order, preserving, holding the universe as a whole, is called dharma(from Sanskrit “keep”). Dharma is not a symbol of the God-legislator, for it is in the things and phenomena themselves. It embodies a certain impersonal regularity of the Universe as a whole and only then acts as a law that predetermines the fate of the individual. This establishes the place of each particle in its relation to the whole.
From the universal universal dharma, the dharma of each individual being and the class to which he belongs is derived. This is a set of religious and social duties of each estate. If a person's action is in accordance with the dharma, which embodies justice, it is good and leads to order; if not, if the action is contrary to order, it is bad and leads to suffering.
The world is a combination of joy and suffering. People can achieve happiness, even if it is transient, receive permitted sense pleasures (kama) and benefits (artha) if they act in accordance with dharma. But those who have reached spiritual maturity do not strive for pleasures and material goods, but seek eternal life, an absolute reality hidden from the eyes of ordinary mortals by a veil of illusions. Not military leaders, rulers and the rich, but saints, ascetics, hermits are revered by Hindus as truly great people. The meaning of existence is to understand that the multiplicity of the world is a deception, because there is one Life, one Essence, one Purpose. In comprehending this unity, Hindus see the greatest blessing, salvation, liberation and the highest purpose: to know the Universe in oneself and oneself in everything, to find love, which makes it possible to live an unlimited life in this world. The totality of means by which one can comprehend reality and achieve liberation is called yoga.
To be liberated means to know that everything comes from the primordial spirit that unites the creations in itself, and to merge with it. The realization of this unity is achieved in a state of trance, ecstasy, when a person rises from the level of the mortal and merges with the ocean of pure being, consciousness and joy (sat, chit, ananda).
The transformation of human consciousness into divine consciousness is not possible in one lifetime. An individual in the cycle of existence goes through a series of repeated births and deaths (the law of karma). Each group of people is prescribed a certain norm of behavior, which corresponds to a specific stage of the path and following which makes it possible to move to a higher stage.
Since every action is the result of intention and desire, the soul of the individual will be born, incarnate in the world until it is freed from all elements of desire. This is the doctrine of “eternal return”: birth and death mean only the creation and disappearance of the body, new births are the journey of the soul, the cycle of life (samsara).
Truth is available at different levels of human consciousness in different ways. The sage understands pure being (edvaiga); at a simpler level of consciousness, the absolute can act as a personal god, perfection is reduced to goodness, liberation is understood as life in paradise, and wisdom is replaced by love (bhakti) for an individual, “one’s own” god, whom the believer chooses from the pantheon of gods, following his inclinations and sympathy. If this level is also inaccessible to a person, then he simply must follow certain moral and ritual prescriptions, strictly observe them. In this case, the individual god is replaced by his image in the temple, contemplation and concentration - by ritual, prayer, pronunciation of sacred formulas, love - by correct behavior. The peculiarity of Hinduism is that it allows, as we see, different points of view and positions: for those who are already close to the goal, and for those who have not yet found the way - darshans(from Sanskrit “to see”). And these differences do not violate the unity of the doctrine.
Hinduism means more than just the name of a religion. In India, where it has become widespread, it is a whole set of religious forms, from the simplest ritual, polytheistic to philosophical and mystical, monotheistic, and moreover, it is a designation of the Indian way of life with a caste division, including the entire sum of life principles, norms, social and ethical values, beliefs and ideas, rituals and cults, myths and legends, everyday life and holidays, etc. This is a kind of summary summarizing the long and complex history of the religious life and quests of the peoples of Hindustan.
Its foundations are laid in the Vedic religion, which was brought by the Aryan tribes who invaded India in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Vedas - collections of texts, including four main ones: the oldest collection of hymns - Rigveda, collections of prayer spells and rituals - Samaveda and Yajurveda, and a book of chants and magic spells - Atharvaveda. The religion of the Aryans was polytheistic. Dozens and hundreds of gods are mentioned in the Vedas. One of them is Indra, god of thunder and lightning. Two groups of gods oppose each other - asuras and devas. Among the asuras are Varuna (in some texts he is the supreme god). Mitra (friend) - the solar god and protector of people, Vishnu - did not play a significant role in the Vedas. Most of the Vedic gods are gone, only a few have survived in the memory of the people, and Vishnu has become the most important religious figure in the later Indian religion. Another object of worship is Soma, a sacred intoxicating drink that was used in cult activities and served as a sacrifice to the gods. Subsequently, the devas became among the Indians good spirits, and the asuras are evil, along with the rakshasas. Indra and other good gods are fighting evil spirits.
In the Vedas there is no mention of sanctuaries and temples, images of gods, professional priesthood. It was one of the "primitive" tribal religions.
The second period in the history of Indian religion - brahminical. It replaces the Vedic in the 1st millennium BC. e., when despotic states arise in the Indus and Ganges valleys and the basis of the caste system is formed. The oldest castes are Brahmins (hereditary priesthood), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (farmers, cattle breeders, merchants) and Shudras (literally servants - a powerless caste of slaves). The first three castes were considered noble, they were called twice-born.
Monument of religion and legislation of this period - laws of Manu composed around the 5th century. BC e. and sanctifying castes as established by the gods. The highest caste is the Brahmins (Brahmins): “Brahman, being born to protect the treasury of dharma (sacred law), occupies the highest place on earth as the lord of all beings.” His main occupation is to study the Vedas and teach them to others. All belonging to the three noble castes undergo a rite of passage, which is regarded as a "second birth".
Becomes the supreme god in the Brahmin religion new god- Brahma, or Brahma, from different parts of the body of which different castes originated: from the mouth - the Brahmins, from the hands - the Kshatriyas, from the hips - the Vaishyas, from the legs - the Shudras. Initially, it was a religion in which the central place was occupied by the rite, the sacrifice - to living beings, people, ancestors, gods and brahman. “Every day, a rite of food is performed, a rite to living beings. Every day, alms should be given - a rite to people. Every day, funeral ceremonies should be held - a rite to the ancestors. Every day, sacrifices must be made to the gods, including the so-called burning of firewood, a rite to the gods. What is a sacrifice to a brahmana? Penetration (into the essence) of the sacred teaching. At the same time, there were no public temples and public sacrifices, private sacrifices were available only to the nobility. The cult becomes aristocratic, the gods take on the character of caste gods, the Shudras are generally removed from the official cult.
Further development led from ritual to knowledge. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. the doctrine of karma begins to take shape, which becomes the cornerstone of the Indian religion. The law of karma is the law of retribution and retribution, by their behavior everyone predetermines their fate in a subsequent incarnation. In the Brahmin period, religious and philosophical literature appeared - the Upanishads, theological and philosophical works. At first - the texts of the Brahmins with an explanation of the meaning and meaning of the Vedic sacrifices. Not only Brahmins played an important role in their development, but also ascetic hermits, military leaders, etc. The Upanishad system is the fruit of the thought of various epochs and schools. Its central problem is the problem of life and death, the question of what is the bearer of life: water, breath, wind or fire? The Upanishads substantiate the belief in reincarnation and the doctrine of retribution for what has been done.
Gradually, the ancient Brahmin religion of sacrifice and knowledge turned into Hinduism - the doctrine of love and reverence, which found its strongest support in the Bhagavad Gita, a book that, not without reason, is sometimes called the New Testament of Hinduism. Its development was influenced by those that arose in the VI-V centuries. BC e. Buddhism and Jainism are teachings that denied the caste system and put the deliverance of each person from suffering through his own efforts at the forefront. These teachings recognized rebirth and karma, and the ethical teaching about the righteous path of life was put forward in the first place. In order to withstand the fight against Buddhism and Jainism, the old Brahmin religion had to change in many ways, absorbing certain elements of these young religions, becoming closer and more understandable to people, giving them the opportunity to take part in the cult, in public public ceremonies, rituals. Since that time, Hindu temples began to appear. The first, most ancient temples of India were Buddhist ones, in imitation of them, Brahmin ones also appear. The revered gods are embodied in sculptural and pictorial form, acquiring anthropomorphic features (even with several heads-faces and many arms). This god, placed in a temple dedicated to him, was understandable to every believer.
Such gods can be loved or feared, they can be hoped for. In Hinduism, savior gods appear who have an earthly incarnation (avatar).
The most important of the numerous gods of Hinduism is the trinity (trimurti) - Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu, who divided (although not clearly) the main inherent supreme god functions - creative, destructive and protective. Hindus are divided for the most part into Shaivites and Vishnuites, depending on who they see as their chosen one. In the cult of Shiva, a creative moment came to the fore - the cult of vitality and masculinity. The attribute of Shiva is the bull Find. Stone statues-lingams in temples and home altars symbolize the life-giving potency of Shiva. On the forehead of Shiva is the third eye - the eye of the angry destroyer. The wives of Shiva are the goddess of fertility, the personification of the feminine. They are revered under different names sacrifices are made to them, including human ones. The feminine principle is called Shakti. His most famous personifications are the fertility goddesses Durga and Kali. The consolidated name of all hypostases of Zhen Shiva - Davy, many temples are dedicated to her.
The cult of Vishnu, the god, has a peculiar character. close to people, soft, performing a protective function. His relationship with his wife Lakshmi is the epitome of tender, selfless love. Vishnu has countless transformations (avatars), the most beloved in India are Rama and Krishna. Rama is the hero of the ancient Indian epic Ramayana. Krishna is by origin an ancient, still pre-Aryan deity (literally “black”). In the Mahabharata, he appears as a pan-Indian deity. As an adviser to the protagonist - the warrior Arjuna, he reveals to him the highest meaning of the heavenly and ethical law (this interpretation of the law was included in the Bhagavad Gita, in the form of a chapter, and from the Bhagavad Gita - in the Mahabharata). Later, he transformed from a sage-philosopher into a rather frivolous shepherd god, generously giving everyone his love.
Numerous Hindu temples are served by Brahmins - priests of Hinduism, carriers of the foundations of its religious culture, ritual rites, ethics, and forms of family and everyday life. The authority of a Brahmin in India is unquestioned. Among them came the most authoritative religious teachers - guru, teaching the younger generation the wisdom of Hinduism.
In Hinduism, magical techniques - tantras - have been preserved and a special type of religious practice has developed. tantrism. On the basis of magical techniques - tantras - formulas (mantras) arose in Hinduism, that is, sacred spells to which Magic power. Sacred words like “Om” and whole phrases, often incoherent, in Hinduism turned into spells - mantras, with which you can quickly achieve what you want, for example, get rid of an illness, acquire the supernatural energy “Shakti”, etc. Mantras, talismans, amulets - all this is an indispensable attribute of a sorcerer, who is worth a rank much lower than a brahmin. Often this is a semi-literate village medicine man.
An essential feature of the religious life of India is the numerous sects. Their religious leaders, the gurus, are intermediaries between man and the gods and are almost gods themselves. Guru is a priest turned teacher of wisdom. Between sects, as a rule, there is no struggle; there are very few dogmas that are obligatory for all Hindus: recognition of the sacred authority of the Vedas, the doctrine of karma and the transmigration of souls, faith in the divine establishment of castes. In the rest, there is a huge diversity and fragmentation of sects. The ascetic school - yoga - received special development. At the end of the XV century. on the basis of Hinduism there was a military-religious sect Sikhs.
Hinduism has features inherent in world religions, but it is associated with the caste system and therefore could not go beyond India: to be a Hindu, one must belong by birth to one of the castes. However, Hinduism has a great influence on the spiritual life of other nations with its religious philosophy and different types religious practice (yoga, etc.).
The social basis of Hinduism is the caste system of India. It is theoretically based on the doctrine of the divine One principle and two tendencies inherent in life: the movement from one to diversity takes place in the cycle of births. Birth in the human world always takes place in a place determined by the caste system, and this system itself belongs to the variety of forms generated by the One Principle. Belonging to a particular caste is not a matter of chance, it is a manifestation of an inevitable necessity. Human existence, according to Hinduism, is existence in caste. Caste - living space in which the individual exists, there is no other. The four original castes were divided into many sub-castes, of which there are today between two and three thousand in India. A person excluded from his caste is outlawed. Caste determines a person's place in Indian society, his rights, behavior, even his appearance, including clothing, forehead marks and jewelry that he wears. Caste bans in India are taboo in nature and are removed only in rare cases. For violation of Caste norms, severe punishments and painful rites of “purification” follow. Each caste has its own place in outer space, its own season, its own animal world. Human coexistence is considered in this context as a superhuman institution, a law of being. In the many castes to which a person belongs by birth and from which he cannot leave within the limits of his earthly life, the caste law dominates as a unifying principle. The great world law (dharma) manifests itself in the human world, organized in castes, as a differentiated caste law, which establishes its own prescriptions for each caste. The caste system is rooted in the eternal order of things. The meaning of maintaining caste distinctions is to maintain, preserve the eternal order. Life in a caste is not an end goal, but an episode. The ultimate goal is nirvana, when all worldly distinctions are removed. Caste is a step towards self-fulfillment.
Chinese religions are religions of order and a decent life. Many features of the religious life of China were laid down in ancient times. In the Huang He valley already in the middle of the II millennium BC. e. an urban-type civilization, known as Yin, developed. The Yin people revered many gods - spirits to whom they made sacrifices. The supreme deity was Shandi, at the same time - the legendary ancestor of the Yin people, their totem ancestor. Over time, the attitude towards Shandi as the first ancestor, who, first of all, should take care of the welfare of his people, came to the fore. This circumstance played a huge role. It led, on the one hand, to the fact that the cult of ancestors and reliance on tradition became the foundation of the religious systems of China, and on the other hand, to the strengthening of the rational principle: not to dissolve in the absolute, but to learn to live worthily in accordance with the accepted norm, to live, appreciating life itself, and not for the sake of the coming salvation, finding bliss in another world. Another feature is the socially insignificant role of the priesthood, the clergy. There has never been anything like the Brahmins in China. The functions of the priests were often performed by officials, who were a respected and privileged class, and worship in honor of Heaven, deities, spirits, and ancestors was not the main thing in their activities. The rite of divination, which was the main moment in the ritual communication with the divine ancestors headed by Shandi and was accompanied by sacrifices, was regarded as a matter of national importance; fortune tellers were supposed to be people involved in power. Over time, in the I millennium BC. e., when the Zhou dynasty was established, the cult of Heaven supplanted Shandi as the supreme deity, but the cult of Shandi and the ancestors itself survived. The Chinese ruler became the son of Heaven, and his country became known as the Celestial Empire. The cult of Heaven became the main one in China, and its administration in full form was the prerogative of the ruler himself, the son of Heaven, who fulfilled his filial doge and rewarded heavenly father, the guardian of the world order, the necessary honors.
The ruler, who acted as high priest, was assisted by officials who acted as priests. Ancient China, therefore, did not know the priests in the proper sense of the word, nor did it know the great personified gods and temples in their honor. The activity of the priest-officials was aimed primarily at the performance of administrative duties, designed to maintain the stability of the social structure sanctioned by Heaven. Not mystical insights, not ecstasy and merging in love with the divine, but rituals and ceremonies as a matter of state importance stood at the center of that religious system that determined the appearance of this civilization.
Philosophical thinking in ancient China began with the division of all things into masculine and feminine principles. The masculine principle, yang, was associated with the sun, with everything light, bright, strong; feminine, yin, - with the moon, with dark, gloomy and weak. But both beginnings harmoniously united, forming everything that exists. On this basis, an idea is formed about the great path of Tao - the universal law, a symbol of truth and virtue.
Unlike other religions, in Chinese we find not a connection between a person and God, mediated by the figure of a priest, but a society based on virtue, in front of Heaven as a symbol of a higher order.
In the middle of the first millennium BC. e., between 800 and 200 BC. BC e., there is a sharp turn in history, which K. Jaspers proposed to call axial time. In China, at this time, the renewal of religious life begins, associated with the activities of Confucius and Lao Tzu. There are two Chinese religions that differ significantly - confucianism, ethically oriented, and taoism, drawn to mysticism.
Confucius (Kung Tzu, 551-479 BC) lived in an era of unrest and civil strife. Ideas that could be opposed to all this had to receive moral support, and Confucius, in search of this support, turned to ancient traditions, opposing them to the reigning chaos. Starting from the establishment at the turn of the 3rd -2nd centuries. BC e. Han Dynasty, Confucianism becomes the official ideology, Confucian norms and values became universally recognized, turned into a symbol of "Chinese". First of all, in the form of ceremonial norms, Confucianism penetrated as the equivalent of a religious ritual into the life of every Chinese, regulating his life, squeezing it into a form worked out for centuries. In imperial China, Confucianism played the role of the main religion, the principle of the organization of the state and society, which existed for over two thousand years in an almost unchanged guide. The highest deity in this religion was considered to be a strict and virtue-oriented Heaven, and the great prophet was not a clergyman who proclaims the truth of the divine revelation given to him, like Buddha or Jesus, but the sage Confucius, who offers moral improvement within the framework of strictly fixed, sanctified by the authority of antiquity, ethical norms.
The main object of the Confucian cult were the spirits of the ancestors. Confucius performed very conscientiously the religious rites and taught their steady performance, not for the sake of gaining mercy, but because their performance is “just and decent for a person.” Strict observance of rituals is the main rule of life, the support of the entire existing order. Filial piety and veneration of ancestors is the main duty of a person. “Let a father be a father, a son a son, a sovereign a sovereign, an official an official.” Confucius sought to put the world in order by subordinating the “way” (tao) of a person to the path of Heaven, offering as a model for people to follow his ideal of a “noble person”, drawn from idealized antiquity, when rulers were wise, officials were disinterested and devoted, and the people prospered. A noble person has two main virtues - humanity and a sense of duty. “A noble person thinks about duty, a low person cares about profit,” taught Confucius. Through right conduct, man achieves harmony with the eternal order of the cosmos, and thus his life is determined by the eternal principle. The power of custom is that by which Earth and Heaven work together, by which the four seasons come into harmony, by which the sun and moon shine, by which the stars make their way, by which the stream flows, by which all things are accomplished, good and evil are separated, by which they find the correct expression of joy and anger, the higher is clarified, thanks to which all things, despite their change, avoid confusion. If we recall the doctrine of yin and yang, of the feminine (dark) and masculine (light) principles that are united, then a person has the opportunity to influence events in the world and his life, contributing to cosmic harmony according to his inner duty.
In the VI century. BC e. the teachings of Lao Tzu, who today many researchers consider a legendary figure, are taking shape. The treatise in which this teaching is expounded, “Tao-de jing”, refers to the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. This is the mystical teaching on the basis of which Taoism is formed. Tao here means the “path” inaccessible to man, rooted in eternity, the very divine primordial being, the Absolute, from which all earthly phenomena and man also arise. No one created the Great Tao, everything comes from it, nameless and formless, it gives rise, name and form to everything in the world. Even the great Heaven follows the Tao. To know the Tao, to follow it, to merge with it - this is the meaning, purpose and happiness of life. The highest goal of the Chinese Taoists was to get away from the passions and vanity of life to the primitive simplicity and naturalness. Among the Taoists were the first ascetic hermits in China, who contributed to the emergence of the Taoist religion from philosophical Taoism with its Temples and priests, sacred books, magical rites. However, in this world, where people are guided by their aspirations and the ethical goals they set, the connection with the fundamental principle is broken. There is a situation characteristic of many religions of their existence in a world that is losing holiness: when the great Tao falls into decay, human love and justice appear.
Virtues, if they are imposed on a person from the outside, serve as a symptom of the fact that he isolates himself from the Absolute. There is no need to demand the fulfillment of ethical goals if unity with the eternal is achieved. In this case, they are necessarily carried out in reality. A conversion, a return to the Eternal, a “return to the roots” is necessary. On this basis, the teaching of Lao Tzu about non-action or non-action (wu-wei) grows. Ethics proclaims undemandingness, satisfaction with one's destiny, rejection of desires and aspirations as the basis of eternal order. This ethic of tolerating evil and renouncing one's desires is the basis of religious salvation.
Mysticism of Lao Tzu has little in common with vulgarized Taoism, which puts forward magical practice - spells, rites, predictions, a kind of cult of creating an elixir of life, with the help of which they expect to achieve immortality.
Religion of the Greeks pre-Homeric period perceives the environment as something animated, as inhabited by blind demonic forces that are embodied in sacred objects and phenomena. Demonic forces also receive personal incarnation in countless demonic creatures that live in caves, mountains, springs, trees, etc. Strong, for example, is a demon of sources and at the same time, like a satyr, he is a demon of fertility. Hermes, at a later time one of the great Olympian gods, was originally, as his name suggests (literally: a pile of stones), was a demon of stone. The pre-Homeric religion of the Greeks is tied to the Earth, from which everything flows, which gives rise to everything, including Heaven. Her core realities are earth, conception, blood, and death. These forces associated with the Earth continue to exist in Homer as the dark basis of all that exists, and the Earth itself in this consciousness appears as the ancestral goddess, as the source and womb of the whole world - gods and people.
The world in this primitive religious consciousness appears as a world full of disorder, disproportion, disharmony, reaching ugliness, plunging into horror.
When in the II millennium BC. the Greeks invaded Hellas, they found here a highly developed culture known as the Cretan-Mycenaean culture. From this culture, its religion, the Greeks adopted many motives that passed into their religion. This applies to many Greek deities, such as Athena and Artemis, whose Mycenaean origin can be considered indisputable.
From this motley world of demonic forces and divine images, the world of the Homeric gods was formed, which we learn about from the Iliad and the Odyssey. In this world, people are in proportion to the gods. The love of glory raises people to the level of the gods and makes them heroes who can overcome the will of the gods.
These gods embody the eternal ideas that permeate Greek piety and its idea of sins in the face of these gods. The most serious are those that in one way or another mean that a person has exceeded boundaries and measures. Too much happiness causes “the envy of the gods and the corresponding acts of opposition. The world created by Zeus and the great heroes is a world that is based not on disharmony and horror, but on a system of order, harmony, and beauty. The gods punish those who encroach on the harmony established by their power, on that reasonable order, which is expressed in the concept of "cosmos". In Greek myths, beauty, embodied in Olympic gods, is the principle of cosmic life.
This classical religion of Homer at a later time is going through a crisis, comes to the brink of self-negation. With the beginning of the Greek Enlightenment, in the face of philosophy, awakening ethical feelings and concepts, the myths about the great gods turn out to be inappropriate and cause opposition. Rationalist doubt leads to ridicule of the primitiveness of traditional ideas about gods.
But along with the extinction of the old religion, a strong awakening of religious feelings, new religious searches, is developing. First of all, it is the religiosity associated with mysteries. The old Olympian religion receives its classical completion at the end of the 6th - beginning of the 5th century. BC e. represented by such thinkers and poets as Herodotus, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
This religious consciousness was permeated with the idea of order, measure and harmony, and at the same time it was invaded by the opposite, alien to this aspiration of the Greek spirit, the beginning of an ecstatic impulse, orgiastic fury and unbridledness. It was embodied in the myth of Dionysus. Apollo and Dionysus are two opposing religious movements in ancient greece. The Apollonian beginning is calm and balanced. Apollo is the god of sunlight, averting troubles, the personification of cloudless beauty. Apollonian religiosity is directed towards law and rule, while Dionysian religiosity is towards ecstasy and orgiism, i.e., the destruction of every lasting order and form. Dionysus, the patron of viticulture and winemaking, was not among the main gods of Homer, but his orgiastic religion with raging Bacchantes in the 7th century. BC e. is widespread in Greece.
The religious thought of Greece, its understanding of God, was guided mainly by the ordered world, the cosmos, to which the gods themselves belonged. Orgiastic cults introduced a moment of ecstasy as a way of unity with the deity and thereby the elevation of man, the recognition of his independence.
The social form of existence of Greek religiosity is a city-state, a policy based on law and law. The scale of the specific laws of the state is the "unwritten law" - the law in which the policy acquires the divine law. State life, in the understanding of the Greeks, is rooted in the sacred divine nomos (law). The community that constitutes the polis is a divine institution. When the sophists - the spirit of the Greek Enlightenment - shook the significance of these norms, making a person the measure of all things and values, the metaphysical-religious basis of the policy was destroyed.
This process of secularization provoked opposition presented by Socrates and Plato. Plato refers to eternal ideas and considers participation in them as a blessing and the basis of the policy. So the old myths are replaced by the contemplation of the world of ideas, philosophy, logos, understanding - by the replacement of naive mythology and religion based on it.
Mythology is exhausting its possibilities as the oldest form of mastering the world, but Greek mythology retains to this day its aesthetic value, artistic value, being part of our cultural heritage.
Along with the dominant polis cult and old folk beliefs in Greece from the 6th century. BC e. appear religious movements, marked by mystical moods and often featured in secret societies. One of them is Orphism, whose adherents proceeded from the teachings of the mythical character - the singer Orpheus. The views of the Orphics were greatly influenced by Eastern religious and philosophical systems, in which the image of a dying and resurrecting god played an important role. Close to the Orphics was another sect - the Pythagoreans, who believed in the transmigration of souls and revered the sun and fire.
These religious trends influenced the development of the famous Eleusinian sacraments of Demeter, which were held as a national celebration. The Eleusinian mysteries are mentioned by many ancient authors. They carried a belief in bliss beyond the grave, unusual for the Greek religion, while the official polis religion was turned to earthly concerns and did not promise anything in the afterlife to its adherents. The Greek religion survived until the time when Christianity became widespread in the Roman Empire. It had an impact on the religion of the ancient Romans. However, with certain similarities, these religions differ profoundly in their spirit. The commonality of some gods is the result of direct borrowing. At the same time, the religion of the Etruscans also had a great influence on the Roman religion. From them, the Romans borrowed a system of divination by the entrails of a sacrificial animal - haruspices, which were carried out by special priests - haruspices, who guessed the will of the gods. In Roman religion there was a lot of archaic.
dominant form of religion in Rome in the classical period of its history, the cult of the polis gods, primarily Jupiter, became. According to legend, King Tarquinius built a temple to Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill and Capitoline Jupiter became the patron of the city.
The Romans had a practical mindset. And in religion they were guided by expediency, pursuing earthly affairs with the help of magical cult practice. Their gods are most often colorless, they serve as a designation of some abstract beginnings. The Romans revered such deities as Peace, Hope, Valor, Justice, who did not have living personality traits. Temples were built in honor of such gods, sacrifices were made. The mythology of the Romans was little developed.
The Roman religion, which continued to exist at the time when Christianity began to develop, was tolerant of foreign gods and cults, especially the peoples conquered by Rome, as it sought their support in strengthening its power. True, at least a formal recognition of the authority of the gods representing the state was required. The persecution of Christians in Rome was dictated not so much by hostility to a foreign religion, but by the intolerance of the state religion towards those who did not agree to sacrifice to the emperor, as was established by the state religion and dictated by the desire to maintain state unity.
Judaism is a religion of obedience to the law. Judaism played an important role in the history of religion and culture, on the basis of which Christianity was subsequently founded. At the head of the Semitic tribes (“twelve tribes of Israel”), in the XIII century. BC e. conquered Canaan (Palestine), there were elected military leaders, in the Bible they are called “judges”. Over time, the first Israeli state arose, and Saul (c. 1030-1010 BC) became the first king of Israel, followed by David (c. 1010-970 BC) and Solomon ( 970-931 BC). David was from the Jewish tribe. He made Jerusalem his capital (which is why it was called the City of David). After Solomon, the state split into two parts. The northern one was called Israel, and the southern one was called Judea. Since Palestine was geographically located at the junction between Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was a constant object of struggle between them and experienced a strong religious and cultural influence on their part.
In the XIII century. BC e., when the Israelite tribes came to Palestine, their religion was a lot of primitive cults, common to nomads. Only gradually did the religion of Israel arise - Judaism, as it is presented in the Old Testament. Trees, springs, stars, stones, and animals were deified in early cults. Traces of totemism are easy to see in the Bible when it comes to different animals, but above all - about snake and about bull. There were cults of the dead and ancestors. Yahweh was originally the deity of the southern tribes. This ancient Semitic deity was represented with wings, flying between the clouds and appearing in thunderstorms, lightning, whirlwinds, and fire. Yahweh became the patron of the tribal union created for the conquest of Palestine, revered by all twelve tribes and symbolizing the strength that binds them. The former gods were partially rejected, partially merged into the image of Yahweh (Jehovah is a later liturgical rendering of this name).
Yahweh was the own god of the Jews, who did not exclude the existence of other gods: each nation has its own god. This form of representation of God is called henotheism(from the Greek hen - kind and theos - god). It is only important to honor your god, not to betray him, not to flirt with “foreign gods”. When the royal power was established in Israel, the temple of Yahweh was built by Solomon in Jerusalem. From now on, Yahweh is also revered as a king, from the heavenly throne controlling the fate of the earthly kingdom - Israel: earthly kings are the spokesmen for the will of the heavenly king, the guardians of his laws. But at this time, other gods are also revered, in Jerusalem altars and temples are built in their honor. Especially widespread was the cult of Baal - the Phoenician god - the ruler of the Earth.
In 587 BC. e. Jerusalem was captured by the troops of Nebuchadnezzar, the temple was destroyed, and the inhabitants of Judah were taken captive by the Babylonians. Fifty years later, when the Babylonian kingdom fell and the Jews returned to their homeland, it was erected in Jerusalem by 520 BC. e. new, so-called second temple. Return from captivity - the starting point of a new stage in the development of the religion of the Jews, mainly actor which becomes the prophet Moses. After returning to their homeland, the Jews begin to collect written and oral traditions about Yahweh associated with his cult, as a result of which the Jewish Bible appears.
The prophets opposed the worship of foreign gods. They now proclaimed that Yahweh is not just one of the gods, even the most powerful, but the only god who commands everything that happens in nature and in history. The source of all the troubles of Israel is the worship of foreign gods, for which Yahweh punishes “his” people with defeat and suffering in captivity. The Old Testament includes as its first part five books of the Law (Heb. Torah): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The second group of Old Testament books is the Prophets and the third is the Scriptures. According to the biblical story, through the prophet Moses, God offered the people of Israel an alliance and gave them the Law, which must be strictly observed. The faithful will be rewarded, the violators will be punished.
New in religious history, characteristic of Judaism, its distinctive moment is the understanding of the relationship between God and his "chosen people" Israel as a relationship of "union". The union is a kind of agreement: the people of Israel enjoy the special patronage of the almighty God, they are “the chosen people”, provided that they remain faithful, that they follow the commandments of God and, most importantly, do not deviate from monotheism. The peculiarity of Judaism is that God acts in the history of his people.
A kind of constitution of this allied relationship between Israel and its god is the Law in which Yahweh expressed his will. Along with the revelation of God in nature and history, the Law stands above all else, in which the will of the Lord is clearly and precisely formulated in the form of “commandments”. This moral and cult Law, set forth in two versions - in Deuteronomy (5, 6-18) and Exodus (20, 2-17), determines the unchanging essence of the Israeli religion, that which is preserved at all subsequent stages in the changes it undergoes. The attitude towards God is obedience and following the Law; this is the most important duty of the believer. This is a condition and guarantee of salvation: the people will be saved by a messenger, an anointed one, a messiah who will come at the command of Yahweh. Faith in the messiah in the predictions of the prophets becomes the basis of Judaism: the messiah will establish a kingdom where there will be no enmity and suffering, where those who are faithful to God will find peace and happiness, and sins will be punished, a terrible judgment will be done.
Judaism, as a "religion of the law," was faced with a tendency for the Law to become self-sufficient, so that even Yahweh receded into the shadows. The law, as it were, became isolated from man, turned into something with its own logic of development, so that its requirements turned into an intricate set of contradictory prescriptions; serving God became tantamount to fulfilling the letter of the Law, not spiritualized by the participation of the “heart”.
Religion was thus reduced in Israel to a purely external worship, which was based on the belief in receiving a “fair” reward from God for performing rituals and following prescribed norms of behavior. This trend was opposed by the preaching of the great Israeli prophets, who denounced the sins of Israel, the betrayal of the people by their Yahweh: “And they did not cry out to Me with their hearts when they cried out on their beds,” Yahweh says through the mouth of his prophet Hosea: “they gather because of bread and guilt, but they turn away from Me” (Hosea 7:14). Appears here new interpretation union with God: not the outward fulfillment of the Law, but its inward acceptance. Yahweh can reject his people, punish him for treason, if he does not internally turn to God again.
However, prophetic preaching again led to the Law. About 622 BC. e. King Josiah carried out a reform of the cult, which, although based on the prophetic movement, nevertheless actually affirmed religion on the Pentateuch - the book of the Law. Thus the religion of Israel was finally formed as the religion of the Book and the Law. The possession of the Law is the main thing that distinguishes the people of Israel from other nations. Judaism, by its very essence, is a religion of obedience, observance of the Law established by the will of the god Yahweh.
Israel was a true example theocracy. It was a state controlled and led by a caste of priests. Yahweh is king. From this it followed that treason is treason to God, that the wars waged by Israel are wars waged by Yahweh, that the earthly kingdom is actually a falling away from God, who alone is the real king, that laws are laws granted and established by Yahweh himself, and that the law that exists in the state is a sacred institution. All religious hopes and desires, all thoughts are directed to this world, the other world is not expected: earthly life important in itself, and not as a threshold for a future “real” life. Keep the Law, "that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you." The community "the people of Israel" at all times is a cult community, at the center of which is a separate individual, the extension of whose life on earth is the main task of all members of this community.
After returning from Babylonian captivity to political life In Jewish society, the high priest began to play an important role, possessing some of the powers of the head of state, and power was concentrated in the hands of the priests. In 331 BC. When Alexander the Great conquered Persia, Palestine came under Greek rule. The era of the Hellenization of the Jews began, retaining the right to practice their religion. Later, in the first half of the second century BC e., the Seleucids, who took possession of Israel, attempted to plant the religion of Hellenism. The Jerusalem Temple was plundered. In 167 BC. e. In Palestine, an uprising against the Seleucids began, led by Mattathia from the Asmonean clan. Around 150 BC e. one of the Asmoneans became the high priest and the ancestor of the dynasty of high priests - the princes of the Asmoneans. A new period began in the history of the Jewish religion, when numerous religious directions, sects (Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes).
They begin to play an important role in religious life with inagogue - assembly of believers, a tradition that arose even earlier, in the diaspora (dispersion - Greek), and rabbis - teachers who, unlike the priests, considered it more important to worship in the synagogue, where the Law was interpreted, and not sacrifices in the temple.
The most radical opposition was the Essenes sect, which rejected the traditional religion of the Jews and opposed the servants of the temple, primarily against the high priests. In 150-131 years. BC e. The center of the community was the village of Khirbet-Qumran in the Judean Desert on the shores of the Dead Sea. They took part in the Jewish War and became its victims, their village was destroyed, and the manuscripts they had hidden in the caves were found after the end of the Second World War. The Asmoneans ruled until 63 BC. when Jerusalem was taken by the Romans. During the Jewish War of 66-73. the temple was burned down.
The very concept of "national religions" is very conditional. The only national religions are modern religions certain ethnic groups, or most of the population of a state. An essential feature of modern national religions is that almost all of them are polytheistic and have retained at their core the hierarchy of gods. Hinduism is a set of religious and mythological beliefs. The term "Hinduism" arose from the word "Hindu", the Persian version. Hinduism has many faces, some scientists believe, it is a combination of religions close to each other, for example, Shaivism, Vishnuism, etc. The essence of Hinduism is: veneration of the Vedas; Faith in God; understanding of man as a spiritual (spirit, soul) entity; recognition of the differences between the spiritual and the material, the eternal and the transient; developed ritual culture. The most universal concept in Hinduism is "dharma".
Judaism - the first monotheistic religion, one of the few religions of the ancient world that has survived to this day with minor changes. Four stages can be distinguished in the history of the formation of Judaism. The ancient period - the formation of monotheism associated with the cult of Yahweh. It begins around the 15th-14th centuries. BC e. with the establishment of the kingdom of Israel. The next stage is the Palestinian period. It includes the era of the independent existence of the Jewish-Israeli state. At this time, the formation of the Jewish religious tradition takes place. Its bearers are the servants of the Jewish temple, numerous prophets, soothsayers, fortune-tellers. A significant event was the religious reform of King Josiah (621 BC), when the objects of worship of all other gods except Yahweh were removed from the Jerusalem temple, all places of worship of pagan gods were abolished, and the legal and ritual aspects of Jewish life were strictly regulated. The Palestine period ends with the Babylonian aggression against the kingdom of Judah, the conquest of Jerusalem and destruction in 586 BC. e. temple and the withdrawal of many Jews into the poen. For the first time in this period, synagogues appeared - prayer houses and at the same time the center of ethnic culture and self-government. The third period of the formation of the Jewish religion is usually called "post-captivity", or the era of the "second temple". It begins with the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity in 538 BC. e. and the restoration of the Jerusalem temple. In the new Jewish state, the Pentateuch (Torah) is canonized, thereby strengthening the foundations of the dogma.
The doctrine and cult of Judaism. At the heart of Judaism are the ideas of monotheism, God's chosen people of the Jewish people and messianism. The idea of monotheism is the main tenet of Judaism. She is incarnated through the cult of Yahweh (in Christian publications Old Testament- Jehovah). The very name of God is unpronounceable. According to the Old Testament tradition, it was revealed to Moses in theophany at Mount Horeb, and then on Mount Sinai. He “descended into the clouds,” and stood there near him, proclaimed the name of Jehovah” (Exodus 34:5). It was forbidden to pronounce the name of God in vain, it was mentioned by the high priest only once a year. From the 3rd c. BC e. the pronunciation of this name in Judaism is completely prohibited. Where it occurs in the texts, "Adonai" (Lord) is used instead. The original meaning of Yahweh is “I am who exists”, it can also be interpreted as “being”, “creator”, “creator”. Pesach (Easter) is an important holiday. The Jewish Passover is closely connected with history. First of all, this is the holiday of liberation, the memory of the exodus of the Jews from Egyptian slavery. Among other Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashanah is especially revered ( New Year), which occurs on the first day of the month of Tishri (September-October) and Hanukkah (update, celebrated in November-December). Of great importance for believing Jews is Yom Cyprus - the Day of Judgment, when Yahweh pronounces a sentence on each person "according to his merits." On the day of the holiday, special penitential prayers are read. Yom Kippur is the busiest time of the year. Prayers in synagogues do not stop from morning to evening. A strict fast is observed.
Taoism. The formation of Taoism in China dates back to the beginning of the Han era (2nd century BC), its development and strengthening took place in parallel with the spread of Confucianism. Taoism and Confucianism were two interconnected religious - philosophical directions in the spiritual life of Chinese society. Total number their followers today are about 200 million people. Outside of China, they are not numerous, but gradually these directions are becoming popular with some intellectuals and students in Western countries. To date, nine Taoist associations have been registered in Russia. Taoism and Confucianism unite, first of all, common spiritual and religious roots that go back to the primitive magic of the ancient Chinese, to ideas about the unity of the world and man and the harmony of the Universe, where opposites - yin and yang - are balanced. By the way, the Chinese religious tradition in every possible way cultivates the consistency of the teachings of Confucianism and Taoism. Considering that Confucius and the founder of Taoism Lao Tzu lived, and at one time, met and came to the conclusion that the fundamental principle of the universe is Tao.
Confucianism- a teaching created by many ancient sages. Among them, the dominant position is occupied by Kung-tzu (“Teacher Kun”), in European pronunciation - Confucius. The identity of this philosopher is historically reliable. He was born in 551 BC. e. in the kingdom of Lu (modern Shandong province) and died in 479 BC. e. there. Little information has been preserved about him. The teaching of Confucianism is multifaceted. It covers ideas about a person, society and the state in their relationship. An important place in it is occupied by the cult of ancestors.
Shintoism. Shinto (literally - the way of the gods) is the national religion of the Japanese people. Archaeological excavations on the territory of the islands of Kyushu and Skoku indicate that already in the 1-3 centuries. n. e. In Japan, there were objects of worship and rituals characteristic of Shinto. At the beginning of the 4th century, when the unified Japanese state of Yamato was broken off, Shinto became the state religion. Its origins go to the worship of local tribal and tribal deities, to the cult of nature, to the witchcraft rites of the primitive population of the islands. The beliefs of the ancient Chinese who migrated to Japan at the beginning of the 1st century BC had a certain influence on the formation of Shintoism. n. e. Information about Shinto is contained in the monuments of Japanese writing - "Kojiki" ("Notes of Antiquity", 712) and "Nihongi" ("Annals of Japan", 720). The Kojiki is considered the "holy book" of Shintoism, though certainly not in the same sense as the Bible in Christianity or the Quran in Islam. "Kojiki", - wrote the famous Japanologist, academician N.I. Kondar is his own, relatives, close to every Japanese book. Everything that constitutes the primordial content of the Japanese national spirit, freed from all impurities, goes back to it. "Kojiki" is the key to Japan itself, to the Japanese themselves. The creed of Shinto is aimed at strengthening the national unity of the people. Tradition says that the kami did not give birth to people in general, but only to the Japanese. In this regard, the idea that he belongs to Shinto is strengthened in the mind of the Japanese from childhood.
Homework.
- a) The concept of "national religions"
- b) Hinduism
- c) Judaism
- d) Taoism
- e) Confucius
- f) The traditional religion of Japan - Shinto
