RELIGIOUS RESEARCH (PAJOUHESHHA YE ADYANI)
Year:2019 | Volume:6 | Issue:12 |Papers Count:6

Although, there initially seems to be no sacredness to Hinayana Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism is rife with beliefs in the sacred and worship of transcendental entities (types of Buddha). Notwithstanding diverse views by scholars of religions, the sacred seems to be conceived of in Mahayana Buddhism as a graded, differently manifested entity, and as a spiritual dimension of all entities. The milestones of the life of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha as well as his teachings were important grounds for the belief of Buddhist followers in the sacredness of certain symbols, notions, and places. The most prominent sacred dimensions of Mahayana include the doctrine of Trikaya, bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteś vara and Maytreya, notions such as “ Sunyata” and “ suchness” (Tathata), places such as stupas and temples, a variety of sacred iconographies, religious symbols such as mandala, and Buddhist myths and Jatakas. The goal of this descriptive-analytic research is mainly to arrive at more profound understanding of sacredness and its expressions in Mahayana Buddhism.

It is widely believed that supplications are means by which a person makes requests from God and one‟ s needs are fulfilled. However, in all religions, particularly in Abrahamic religions, supplications go beyond requests and are indicative of the beliefs held by humans and religions about God. A consideration of the supplication literature in Islam and Christianity shows that supplications have aspects over and above requests. In both Islam and Christianity, supplications are characterized as pure mystical and sacred experiences. They are inseparably tied to theology, and some Islamic and Christian theological views are represented and reconstructed in supplications. Moreover, the nature of supplications is a communication and conversation with God, and it is properly performed if the communication is not a mere utterance of spiritless words, and is, instead, a dynamic mutual connection. Such an intimate and mutual conversation goes beyond a me-him communication to a me-you relation. Thus, the human sees God as being always with him and his addressee, and such an intimate conversation is presented in the form of a supplication.

A world view is one of the most important components of any religion and intellectual system. How a school of thought views and explains the world is indicative of many of its explicit and implicit dimensions. Manichaeism involves a mystical and complex world view, which immensely exhibits its mystical view of the world. This is a mixture of Gnostic world view with a Persian structure. The Manichaeistic world view is partly characterized by an eternal dualism of the good and the evil, and three rounds of creation. Prominent mystical views of this world view, as presented in an Ancient Persian intellectual system, include aversion of the material world, the belief in the imprisonment of the spirit in matter despite its divine origin, the devilish (ahrī man) nature of the world, efforts for emancipation from repeated rounds of birth, and finally, the return of divine lights to their origin.

Some elements of the story of a character called “ Jam” or “ Yam” in Avesta are formally similar to stories in the Torah and the Quran concerning Solomon. As can be imagined, the story of Jam/Yam in Shahnama can be a symbol of Solomon for remarkable similarities between the two. The two issues of “ mysterious birth” and “ choice” I deal with in this research as relevant to extant readings of the two characters were either overlooked in previous studies or discussed without a comparison of contents in the Quran, the Torah, and Avesta and without consideration of certain other fundamental aspects. In the present paper, I aim to radically consider and analyze the similarities between the stories in the two above dimensions. The method is to analyze the content of narrations in the Quran, the Torah, and Avesta. In the meanwhile, I deploy reliable exegeses of Quranic verses. The findings via fictional narratology introduces the reader to new aspects of the interesting and rather similar lifes of Jam in Avesta and Solomon in divine scriptures through a comparative study.

Throughout history, when prominent religious and political leaders died, people emerged who claimed to be the true leaders. Such an event was likely in the Arabian Peninsula, because of the predominance of the tribal system and sediments of their Jā hilī (Ignorant) culture. False prophets in the early Islamic period exploited laypeople‟ s belief in magic and spell, and tried to deceive people with certain dramatic moves and rhymed words. What matters is the deep connection between soothsaying (kihā na), and magic in general, on the one hand, and religious headship, on the other. Such a position was occupied by kā hins (soothsayers) who drew upon their knowledge and powers to establish the position of prophethood. In this paper, we identify the features of magic and soothsaying, and then apply them to words and deeds of false prophets. The findings show that their words and deeds fully match two central features of soothsaying: dependence and deception.

An important theme in mythology and comparative religious studies, which can be observed in all nations and peoples, is that of center. The center is in fact a numinous and sacred pivot in virtue of which one arrives at rebirth and visitation— a transcendent entity. The center can be a person, body, thought, a religious place, or even a legendary mountain. In Mythical Persian and Jewish cosmology, the main symbol of the center is mountain— Mount Alborz in Persian myths, and Mounts Gerizim, Zion, Sinai, Hor, and so on in Jewish myths. Mountains are considered as being rife with sacred and numinous powers in virtue of their power to connect the earth to the sky, which is the place of gods. It is in virtue of mountains that many kings, heroes, and legendary religious leaders arrived at rebirth and visitation. Since Persian and Jewish legendary mountains are sacred centers, they are considered as places of some gods and ī zads, and are indeed reminders of the original heaven. In this paper, we compare Persian and Jewish myths to show the importance of these mythical mountains as cosmological centers through which the ritual of visitation takes place.