Religion...

As much as we like it to be and hope that it remains in the private household, religion has gradually penetrated and helped lay the very foundations of today’s society. The concept of the secularist state, separating the two spheres of state and religion is a fairly new concept. This is of course when put in comparison to religious history, which predates the modern state by not few but many centuries. I guess my point here is vaguely that, the modern and secular state attempts to separate religion from the public sphere and reduce it to a private matter with little success. Of course in secular democracies like the United States, religion and state have been completely separated in hope that religion will remain a private matter and limit in its influence on both the state and society. But what we do not realize is that religion has long been a major influence on culture, values and beliefs of humans. In fact, it has been a major force in laying the fabrics of societal relations and cultural practices that have evolved into the modern society. One cannot simply ignore religion’s part in the evolution of society through the ages. In fact, religion takes a much bigger part of our history and culture compare to influences of modern society and modern concept such as secularism. My point here is that, religion had intertwined itself into foundations of society long before the belief that it should be separated and reduced to a private matter. Modern secular democracies like Untied States attempt to limit religion’s influence on politics and matters of public life, but I believe they are unable to detract it from fabrics of society, been sewn long before and evolved as culture and tradition, anytime soon.

I have gone on and on over my point above, but still haven’t touched upon what I believe religion is? I think in the simplest terms, religion for me is the manifestation of human mind in an attempt to explain what seems to be alien to him. It probably began whit trying to explain a supernatural phenomenon such as something as simple of a thunderstorm. Religion and its function grow alongside human evolution. Religion transpired into a human need to believe into something greater than itself, to believe in a higher being responsible for all that was out of their hands, from famine to prosperity. As the human needs grew, so did religion! In my opinion, it worked as supply and demand. As long as there was, a need to believe there was a form of belief, a kind of religion supplied to satisfy that need. Therefore, as humans evolved and so did their needs, religion too evolved and became more complex. It encompassed many deities and gods o satisfy different needs. Until humans reached a stage in their evolution that, they departed with the complex polytheistic beliefs and felt a need in one, all encompassing and knowing, God; to satisfy their needs and for a general guideline for all to live by.

In a few terms, religion is the manifestation of the human mind in satisfying its needs and aspirations. The need to believe into something greater than himself. The need to look for what it feels it cannot gain by humane means and aspirations. The ignorance that he does not define his destiny, that source of all his greatness and what he is able to achieve does not come from him but a higher source. That instead of believing in his capacity to achieve greatness, he feels the need to pray and hope for help from a higher source.

Trade of Religions

I was intrigued by the fact that one of the major commodities being traded along the Silk Road was religion. It was interesting that the Silk Road acted not only as a trade route for exotic objects from distant lands, but also as a cultural bridge between societies. It is fascinating to see how a religion was carried so far from its origin, attracted so many followers in distant lands that even spoke a different language than the original religious texts, which had to be translated. And built temples to worship close by many other temples of different religions. I personally would have never guessed that a Zoroastrian temple could be found so far from its origin, in what would become Persia, in the East as far as Duanhaung in China.

The Sogdians were fascinating people. Having been conquered by Alexander the great, they recovered and dominated trading along the Silk Road for centuries. They traded all sort of exotics from West to East. They are even considered to be responsible for introducing paper-making to Europe. But what intrigues me the most is how successful they became in both trading along the Silk Road and in transmitting culture and technology from West eastwards and back. They were mainly responsible for spreading Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and Buddhism along the Silk Road. Whats interesting about this is that their spread had caused a lot of confusion in the East. Manichaeism was based on Iranian traditions with additions of Buddhism and Christianity. So, it caused a lot of confusion with locals practicing Buddhism in a Manichean temple. It is actually funny that group of pious old women were practicing Buddhism in Manichean temple. What is more intriguing than a group of women believing Mani to be Buddha, is the traditions practices by Manicheans. Its rather interesting to know that people practiced vegetarianism that far back. Plus the traditions and beliefs they had is amazing!!! Mani actually believed that reproduction would deteriorate man. That humans possessed light particles and that reproduction would divide them sparsely among their descendents!!! How they aimed at continuing their religion or even their people, no one would know.

Something worth to mention is that the Sogdians were so effective in both spreading their trade and religion that long after they lost domination of the trading routes, Manichaeism continued to exist in far regions of China!

Hou Hanshu

source:http://paper-republic.org/lucasklein/footnotes/

All in all, I think the Hou Hanshu could be considered as a historical writing. I personally believe historical writings to be close to what Fan Ye gathered in Hou Hanshu writings. Historical writings usually have historical events (wars, raids, peace treaties, rebellions, migrations, …) and their corresponding dates. It would probably include names of important individuals during those events, their responsibilities, personalities and outcome of their roles in each event too. Also, it probably includes excerpts and reports of officials about certain events or the everyday interactions of people in towns, villages, cities. Oh, and personal accounts of those involved in journals or papers of generals, soldiers, travelers and so on. And judging based on the great details Fan ye provides, the events and dates he outlines and excerpts he took from various reports and journals of those involved, its kind of obvious that you could consider Hou Hanshu as a historical piece of writing, or at least I would!!!!

I was really amazed by the extent of details in which Fan Ye described the different kingdoms. It kind of amazing how they used to have so much information about different kingdoms in distant lands. I think the number of households, individuals, those able to bear arms and … all constitute ethnographic descriptions. I understand ethnography to be a descriptive study of social life and culture of a specific group based on what they actually do on everyday basis and how they live their lives. Or at least I think that’s what ethnography is!!! What I got from it all is that I felt Fan Ye was really offering a genuine description of the accounts he had of the different kingdoms and I didn’t sense any bias in his descriptions. I guess except when he was describing the Roman Empire, which I felt, he was really romanticizing them too much. Especially after he described them as honest and tall and like the people of middle kingdom (China). And then he goes on and on about how great they are… their governance…. Their food supply… their prices…. The dresses they were… and… !!!