Obraz świata podziemnego w świetle wybranych mitów mezopotamskich by Piotr Goniszewski

“…The underworld was inhabited by a huge pantheon of deities and hybrid beings, headed by a dark couple, the goddess Ereshkigal and the god Nergal. …”
Get full text

Personhood of Water: Depositions of Bodies and Things in Water Contexts as a Way of Observing Agential Relationships by Christina Fredengren

“…Depositions of things and bodies in wet contexts are often understood as sacrifices made to deities located in the otherworld. However, there is plentiful evidence in archaeology and in medieval place-lore to suggest that waters were observed as being alive, as immanent beings, as more-than-human persons who could have received these depositions as gifts. …”
Get full text

Influences of Egyptian Lotus Symbolism and Ritualistic Practices on Sacral Tree Worship in the Fertile Crescent from 1500 BCE to 200 CE by J. Andrew McDonald

“…Several of these motifs were associated singularly or collectively with the Egyptian sema-taui and ankh signs to symbolize the eternal recurrence and everlasting lives of Nilotic lotus deities and deceased pharaohs. The widespread use of lotus imagery in iconographic records on both sides of the Red Sea indicates strong currents of cultural diffusion between Nilotic and Mesopotamian civilizations, as does the use of lotus flowers in religious rituals and the practice of kingship, evidence for which is supported by iconographic, cuneiform and biblical records. …”
Get full text

Food for the soul and food for the body. Studying dietary patterns and funerary meals in the Western Roman Empire: An anthropological and archaeozoological approach. by Domingo C Salazar-García, Lídia Colominas, Xabier Jordana

“…Ancient written sources show that Roman funerary rituals were relevant along the entire Roman Republic and Empire, as they ensured the protection of deities and the memory of the deceased. Part of these rituals consisted of funerary offerings and banquets that were held on the day of the burial, in festivities and other stipulated days. …”
Get full text

Banaras jyotirliṅgas: constitution and transformations of a transposed divine group and its pilgrimage by Vera Lazzaretti

“…The article, in fact, goes through the formation path of a transposed group of pan-Indian deities, namely the jyotirliṅgas, in a city which is presented by eulogistic literature as a universal tīrtha, where all sacred centres and gods dwell. …”
Get full text

The ‘Unity of Economic and Moral Practice’: Japanese Religious Sensibility and the Person-Centered Economic Tradition of Japan by Jason Morgan

“…In Japan, the ideal of economic practice has long been rooted in a native Shintō-inspired religious sensibility according to which the world is populated by a myriad of deities (yaoyorozu no kami; lit., “the eight million gods”). …”
Get full text

Exploring the Main Similarities Between the Concept of Divinity and Eastern Beliefs among Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism by Eman Mohammed

“…This research is very important because it provides information on the prevailing beliefs in India and China, which believe in the plurality of deities, the worship of ancestors from fathers and grandfathers, the sanctification of the forces of nature, and the practice of spiritual worship to reach the stage of union from God as they believe. …”
Get full text

Tezcatlipoca/Hades: Dos columnas míticas con un basamento común by Kattia Chinchilla Sánchez

“…This article shows the mythic nature of two different gods: Tezcatlipoca, in the Aztec pantheon, and Hades, the Greek goddess of the dark soul's place. Both deities have a common base: the selenic and the solar attributes. …”
Get full text

Revisiting the ‘kriegerischer Gott’ of the Akkadian Period by Renate Marian van Dijk-Coombes

“…Because the ‘kriegerischer Gott’ is depicted together with these great deities of the Akkadian pantheon, each with their own unique iconography, it suggests that he may likewise be a figure of some importance. …”
Get full text

新加坡庙宇灵签典故研究 = A study of the divination slips in Singapore Chinese temples by 杜馨慧 Toh, Xin Hui

“…In contemporary Singapore society, temple oracle slips are regarded as highly important to devotees; despite the fact that it has been a traditional custom and seen as deities’ advice to the devotees. Socially, temple oracle slips have the ability to calm the minds of the people. …”
Get full text

Heroic Shāktism: The cult of Durgā in ancient Indian kingship by Sarkar, B

“…And indigenous territorial deities became associated with Durgā as smaller states unified into a broader conception of civilization.…”

From Alkestis to Archidike: Thessalian Attitudes to Death and the Afterlife by Kravaritou, S, Stamatopoulou, M

“…We will then turn to Thessaly itself and examine a variety of relevant evidence pertaining to cults of deities linked with passages and human destiny, the gold lamellae from Pherai and Pharsalos, funerary epigrams from the region echoing themes attested in the lamellae or revealing a concern with or a belief in the possibility of a blessed afterlife or for a ‘round trip to the Underworld’ and last but not least, the evidence from contemporary Thessalian necropoleis. …”

The Rite of Durgā in Medieval Bengal: An Introductory Study of Raghunandana's Durgāpūjātattva with Text and Translation of the Principal Rites by Sarkar, B

“…In Bengal especially, this worship is a reflection of a culture that has given goddesses a privileged position over male deities from at least the time of the Pālas. However, despite the availability of material from the eighteenth century to the present day, the worship of the goddess prior to the colonial presence still remains to a great extent terra incognita. …”

Religiosity among Indigenous Peoples: A Study of Cordilleran Youth in the Philippines by Fides A. Del Castillo, Inna Reddy Edara, Gregory S. Ching, Jeramie Molino, Rico Jacoba, Clarence Darro B. Del Castillo

“…The Cordilleran youth’s religiosity is particularly interesting to the researchers because their autochthonous religion is marked by a cosmology that includes hundreds of deities and elaborate rituals accompanying personal and social events. …”
Get full text

Usage de la polysémie: uḷḷuṟai et śleṣa dans la poésie tamoule classique by Eva Wilden

“…This paper does not only proceed from the great literary works, but also from a number of paratextual stanzas which are found in the wake of such works – invocations, prefatory verses, colophon stanzas – where it is possible to argue that understanding more than one meaning can serve a poetic end : praising not one but two deities, describing at the same time the content of the poem and dedicating it to a god, making a playful meta-poetic statement. …”
Get full text

Sutra of Atonement for All Sins: Introducing the Text from One Kalmyk Astrological Collection by Delyash N. Muzraeva

“…Also, the textual analysis of the source shows the importance of such issues as the selection of equivalents of Buddhist terms and of the names of the deities of the Buddhist pantheon in translating Buddhist texts, which is directly related to the approaches and principles of translation of Oirat and Kalmyk translators of Tibetan texts.…”
Get full text

Shakti in Village India: Priestesses, <i>Sadhikas</i>, <i>Bhar</i> Ladies, <i>Ayes</i>, Bhaktas, Witches, and Bonga Girls by June McDaniel

“…Some women have been called by deities to become trance mediums, colloquially known as ‘<i>bhar</i> ladies’, and this role is generally not accepted by family members. …”
Get full text

<i>Yoginī</i> e Streghe: luoghi isolati, animali selvatici, figure femminili di confine by Elisabetta Cangelosi

“…The analysis compares a group of tantric semi-deities, called Yogini, with witches: they are both confined in a border condition under the religious and social point of view since they are considered dangerous as well as respectful; they fly (sometimes after a metamorphosis in wild and dangerous birds like), they dance in circle, they turn into terrestrial animals (like snakes and toads) they prefer isolated places and trees. …”
Get full text

An Underground Rock-Cut Shrine near Amatsya, Judean Foothills, Israel by Boaz Zissu, Nurit Shtober-Zisu

“…According to paleographic analysis, the Aramaic lapidary inscriptions, which possibly mention two deities, El and Adon, are tentatively dated to the 5th-4th centuries BCE. …”
Get full text

Nawa Dewata Hinduistik dan Walisongo: Role-Model Dakwah Walisongo by Lufaefi Lufaefi, Zahro Nur Amalia

“…One of its practices Walisongo succeeded in taking inspiration from the Hinduism of the Hindu Nawa Dewata to become Sufistic trustees. The nine deities in Hinduism were replaced by nine saints who later became known as Walisongo. …”
Get full text