Artigos de revistas sobre o tema "Monasticism and religious orders (Buddhism)"

The author considers the problems of women's place in Buddhist culture in the context of feminist discourse. He notes that Buddhism is distinguished by a tolerant and respectful attitude to the female. Buddhism admits that women, along with men, are able to achieve enlightenment and find Nirvana. However, the relationship between male and female monastic orders in Buddhism was not fully equal. The order of nuns was considered to be the youngest in comparison with the order of monks, and the rules restricting the behavior of the nuns were more than for the monks, which was probably a forced step aimed at taking into account the realities of society. Despite this, the Foundation of the women's monastic organization, which opened the way for women to religious knowledge and spiritual rank, was in its essence a radical social revolution for that time. The emergence of the female monastic community was an example of a fundamentally new view of women and their position in society. With the release of Buddhism outside India female monasticism became widespread in many Asian countries. Later, however, in the countries of South, South-East Asia and Tibet, the Institute of full female monasticism disappeared. In the second half of the twentieth century the attempts to revive the Institute that have led to the emergence of the phenomenon of neonuns. As a result of the spread of Buddhism in the West, it was included in the field of gender studies and feminist discourse. The question of equality between women and men in Buddhism has been actively developed by Western female Buddhists in the feminist discourse, that has formed a statement about the original equality of the sexes in Buddhism. The theme of the status of women in society and their rights has become an important part of the social concept of Western Buddhism. The result was the emergence of the international women's Buddhist Association "Sakyadhita".

Monasticism was introduced to Denmark in the 11th century. Throughout the following five centuries, around 140 monastic houses (depending on how to count them) were established within the Kingdom of Denmark, the Duchy of Schleswig, the Principality of Rügen and the Duchy of Estonia. These houses represented twelve different monastic orders. While some houses were only short lived and others abandoned more or less voluntarily after some generations, the bulk of monastic institutions within Denmark and its related provinces was dissolved as part of the Lutheran Reformation from 1525 to 1537. This chapter provides an introduction to medieval monasticism in Denmark, Schleswig, Rügen and Estonia through presentations of each of the involved orders and their history within the Danish realm. In addition, two subchapters focus on the early introduction of monasticism to the region as well as on the dissolution at the time of the Reformation. Along with the historical presentations themselves, the main and most recent scholarly works on the individual orders and matters are listed.

This paper explores the contemporary encounter between Western cultures and the Buddhist tradition of monasticism. I have investigated attitudes towards this institution in the forms of contemporary Buddhist memoirs, blog websites, interviews, and dharma talks. This article argues that the institution in general is not ideal for some Western Buddhists— it is seen by some as too restricting or anti-modern. Others find value in monasticism; they are aware of those who critique the institution, and offer instead a model that removes anti-modern elements that they see as problematic. As an extension of these attitudes, this article also draws on the issue of female monasticism. Western Buddhists argue that all women should have the choice to be ordained because this shows that Buddhism is modern. I conclude that Western Buddhists are interested in creating a modern, universal tradition, and this can be seen by analyzing conceptions about monastic life.

According to tradition, the first Buddhist nun, Mah?praj?pat?, accepted eight fundamental rules as a condition for her ordination. One of these rules says that a full ordination ceremony, for a nun, must be carried out in both orders: first in the nuns’ order, and then in the monks’ order. Both orders need to be represented by a quorum of legal witnesses. It implies that in the absence of such a quorum, an ordination cannot be legally held, in vinaya terms. This was a major problem in fifth century China, when, as a result of a wave of vinaya translations, monastics became aware of many detailed legal issues, including the rule on a dual ordination for nuns. Since the first Buddhist nuns in China were ordained in the presence of monks only, doubt was raised on the validity of the Chinese nuns’ lineage. The discussion came to an end, however, when in ca. 433 a so-called ‘second ordination ceremony’ could be held, now in the presence of a sufficient number of Sinhalese nun witnesses. Today, a similar issue is raised again, since in two of the three active Buddhist ordination traditions, nuns arguably cannot be legally ordained due to the absence of a nuns’ order of that particular tradition to provide a legal quorum of witnesses. In the present-day debates on the possible (re-)introduction of a nuns’ lineage in both these traditions, the historic case of the fifth century Chinese nuns is often referred to. The present article examines firstly in which ways technical issues discussed fifteen centuries ago lingered on among the most prominent Chinese vinaya masters, and secondly how these same issues still fuel and influence present-day discussions.

AbstractThe anti-religious campaigns of the Soviet Union in the 1930s eradicated Kalmyk Buddhism from the public sphere. Following perestroika the Kalmyks retain a sense of being an essentially Buddhist people. Accordingly, the new Kalmyk government is reviving the religion with the building of temples and the attempted training of Kalmyk monks, yet monasticism is proving too alien for young post-soviets. According to traditional Kalmyk Gelug Buddhism authoritative Buddhist teachers must be monks, so monastic Tibetans from India have been invited to the republic to help revive Buddhism. The subsequent labelling by these monks of 'surviving' Kalmyk Buddhist practices as superstitious, mistaken or corrupt is an initial step in the purification of alternate views, leading to religious reform. This appraisal of historical practices is encouraged by younger Kalmyks who do not find sense in surviving Buddhism but are enthused with the philosophical approach taught by visiting Buddhist teachers at Dharma centres. By discussing this post-Soviet shift in local notions of religious efficacy, I show how the social movements of both reform and revival arise as collusion between contemporary Tibetan and Kalmyk views on the nature of true Buddhism.

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the monastic houses operated on the northernmost periphery of Roman Catholic Europe during the Middle Ages. The intention is to debunk the long-held theory of Iceland and Norse Greenland’s supposed isolation from the rest of the world, as it is clear that medieval monasticism reached both of these societies, just as it reached their counterparts elsewhere in the North Atlantic. During the Middle Ages, fourteen monastic houses were opened in Iceland and two in Norse Greenland, all following the Benedictine or Augustinian Orders.

This paper relies on the dataset “Historical Social Network of Chinese Buddhism” (Ver. 2021-06). The focus is on the period between c. 1570 and 1700 CE. We argue that the actor who was most influential for institutional Buddhism in the 17th century was not one of the “four great monks of the late Ming” but rather Miyun Yuanwu 密雲圓悟 (1566–1642). The network illustrates how Miyun’s Tiantong branch 天童派 of the Linji School became the dominant Chan lineage in China and beyond. The main results of this study are: (1) the data corroborate the assumption that (at least) monastic Buddhism declined between c. 1420 and 1570. (2) The network view de-emphasizes the importance of the ‘four famous late Ming eminent monks’ for the development of 17th-century Buddhist monasticism. (3) The data align well with a suggestion by Jiang Wu to distinguish two different stages in the development of late Ming Buddhism. The first is characterized by the “late Ming revival,” led by figures such as Yunqi Zhuhong, Zibo Zhenke, and Hanshan Deqing; the second phase is the organization of orthopraxy around the Chan lineage discourse dominated by Miyun Yuanwu and his students. (4) For the 17th century, the network data clearly shows the centrality of Miyun Yuanwu and his network.

Mount Wutai, China’s earliest Buddhist center, dating to the Han Dynasty’s first century (206 BCE–220 CE), boasts over a hundred monasteries, numerous monuments, and ruins, drawing global pilgrims and travelers. Over its long history, as the geographical focus of imperial support shifted, the ideological underpinnings for structuring the monastic habitation on Mount Wutai also underwent a transformation, consequently altering the pilgrimage paths, monasteries, and mountain gates. However, there remains a paucity of understanding regarding these changes. This paper aims to map out the representative dynamic pilgrimage routines influenced by geo-capital shifts and to reveal the changeable Buddhist ideology of monasticism on Mount Wutai. Through archival studies on ancient transcripts and maps, the interpretation selects the three most significant periods in the development of Buddhism in Mount Wutai: the Northern Wei (386–534 CE), the Sui Tang (581–907 CE), and the Qing Dynasty (1630–1912 CE). The article indicates that Mount Wutai’s monastic strategies have transformed significantly, progressing from free monasticism to the Mañjuśrī maṇḍala mode and ultimately adopting a predominant Tibetan Buddhist character. These changes were driven by shifting Buddhist ideologies and heritage, with pilgrimages and monastic construction responding to these shifts.

A major challenge in the historical study of female monasticism in Thailand is the paucity of texts written by or about Thai Buddhist female practitioners prior to 1950. Biographical and autobiographical texts and other substantial Buddhist texts authored by Thai female practitioners emerged arguably only in the 20th century and are generally relatively rare, with only few notable exceptions. In this paper, I will utilize some of the earliest available Thai texts that allow more detailed insights into female monasticism and soteriological teaching and practice, the creation of female monastic spaces and the interrelationships between male and female monastics. Thus, I will examine sets of monastic training rules that, even though based on Pali canonical precepts and teachings, were created in the early 20th century. In addition to monastic code texts and the narratives of foundation stories, other important sources for my study include the biographies of monastic and female lay practitioners, important benefactors of female monastic communities and prominent male monastic supporters of female monastic and spiritual practice. I will also draw on sermon texts by female and male monastics. Here, I will focus only on the lives of those individuals and histories of female monastic communities that I regard as representative of larger issues, trends and challenges in the history of female monasticism in 20th century Thai Buddhism. Given the scarcity of sources, the present study cannot aspire to provide comprehensive accounts of the history of female monastic communities in Thailand and their interrelationships. Nor will I be able to reconstruct exhaustively the history of their monastic codes of rules. However, based on the sources that are available I will trace the history of attempts to create a blueprint for the organisation of Thai Buddhist female coenobitic monasticism.

New Monasticism has been interpreted by its protagonists as an answer to the challenges of the future of Christian monasticism. New Monastic Communities can be defined as groups of people (at least some of whom have taken religious vows) living together permanently and possessing two main characteristics: (1) born in the wake of Vatican Council II, they are renewing monastic life by emphasising the most innovative and disruptive aspects they can find in the Council’s theology; and (2) they do not belong to pre-existing orders or congregations—although they freely adapt their Rules of Life. New Monastic Communities developed and multiplied in the decades during which, in Western European countries and North America, there was a significant drop in the number of priests, brothers and sisters. Based on our empirical research in a new monastic community—the Fraternity of Jerusalem (a foundation in Poland)—we addressed the following: Why are New Monastic Communities thriving? Are they really counteracting the decline of monasticism? What characteristics distinguish them from traditional communities? We will show how they renew monastic life by emphasising and radicalising the most innovative and disruptive theological aspects identified in Vatican Council II.

The medieval British Isles were marked by a lively monastic presence throughout the entire period. Groups of monks, nuns, regular canons and canonesses, and friars established communities even in the furthermost reaches of the territory, and by doing so they came to play an important part in the life, culture, economy, and politics of the region. This paper will provide an overview of the arrival and spread of the different religious orders in England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, and by doing so, it will provide some comparative study of the different parts of the British Isles and examine how and when the spread and settlement of the various religious groups manifested itself across the islands, and what their impact was upon their localities and the society around them.

The article provides a thematized discussion of the development of the historiography of European monasticism in northern Europe (north Atlantic, North Sea to the Baltic). Whilst it does not offer a comprehensive overview of the field, it discusses the significance of major currents and models for the development of monastic history to the present day. From focusing on the heritage of history writing “from within”—produced by the members of religious communities in past and modern contexts—it examines key features of the historiography of the history of orders and monastic history paradigms in the context of national and confessional frameworks. The final section of the article provides an overview of the processes or musealization of monastic heritage and the significance of monastic material culture in historical interpretations, both academic and popular.

It is in the nineteenth century that the üg genre of Mongolian literature became a favorite literary form for Mongolian writers. Most works written in this genre are didactic teachings on compassion for domestic animals, the ills of the transient nature of saṃsāra, and a critique of misconduct among Buddhist monastic communities in Mongolia. Through the words of anthropomorphized animals or even of inanimate objects, the authors of the works belonging to the üg genre expressed their social concerns and criticism of their society. One of such authors was a Mongolian monk scholar of the nineteenth century by name Agvaanhaidav (Tib: Ngag dbang mkhas grub), who in his works of the üg genre strongly advocated the development and preservation of the spirit of Mahāyāna Buddhism in Mongolia, and of the Geluk monasticism and scholarship in particular.

Scholarly focus on the political relationship between monasteries and the state has obscured other dynamics in the post-Mao revival and development of dGe-lugs-pa monasticism in China and led to its marginalization in wider discussions about Buddhism in the contemporary world. The present article seeks to broaden our understanding by examining economic reforms at a monastery in A-mdo. Based on fieldwork conducted 2008-2009, it argues that while recent monastic economic developments converge with state policies, monks’ narratives place agency for reforms within the monastic community and present impetus for reform as a moral issue. Consideration of the moral dimension of reforms, drawing on Sayer’s conception of moral economy, allows for a thicker understanding of contemporary monastic development which takes into account dynamics that extend beyond monastic interactions with the political and hegemonic power of the Chinese state.

Abstract Third order women religious actively participated in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian society. Scholars have argued that the introduction of monastic enclosure for all women religious after the Council of Trent crushed non-enclosed forms of female monasticism in Italy and Europe. The study of third orders reveals, however, that non-enclosed monastic communities survived the Tridentine reforms and met specific social needs in the early modern society. Third order women religious provided education, care, and companionship to women of all ages and socioeconomic ranks. They thus filled a gap left by other monastic and custodial institutions. Ecclesiastical and secular authorities as well as neighbors considered women’s third orders an asset to local communities. Drawing on examples from Bergamo and Bologna, this article examines the social activities of tertiary women and shows activity to be a useful category of analysis for recovering the place of women religious in early modern society.

These papers were presented at a panel, organized by us and chaired by Liz Wilson, on ‘Women’s Leadership and Monastic Organizations in Therav?da Buddhist Traditions’, at the 2008 American Academy of Religion meeting, Chicago. Here, we bring together articles that examine the roots of the teachings on nuns in P?li literature with others which investigate issues relating to contemporary Therav?da nuns, as well as an analysis of relevant debates in ancient China. The objective of these papers is to contribute to discussion of the multiple ways in which professionally celibate women are represented, organized and empowered in the textual and contemporary traditions of P?li and Therav?da Buddhism, to study how representations of female monasticism are related to organizational structures of leadership and agency, and explore how debates over the need for ‘dual ordination’ have occurred in traditions other than the Therav?da.

AbstractPure Land Buddhism achieved its primary influence in East Asia because it supplied a nonmonastic, autonomous source of religious authority and practice to middle elites in those cultural regions. In contrast Pure Land failed to achieve any success in India. The explanation for the marginalization of Indian Pure Land is probably sociopolitical: Pure Land teachings tended to bypass not only the authority of the Hindu brahmins, but even the authority of Buddhist renunciate orders. Indian social history did not produce any significant middle elites concerned with such non-gurucentric religious authority. As a result, Buddhist India did not produce any innovations in the upâya of religious institutionalization in Buddhism.

Religious foundations in China (500–1500 CE) were largely characterized by the interaction of Buddhist and Daoist institutions with the state (court) and the populace. The present contribution tries to offer some preliminary insights into the endowment culture of traditional China, which is still an understudied and not well-understood area of endowment studies. The peculiarities of Chinese culture and history require a special approach to the topic as well as a basic knowledge of the relevant Chinese terminology. The endowment culture of traditional China was fundamentally influenced and shaped by monasticism, its key impulses obviously coming from Buddhism. I thus propose that in principle all monasteries in traditional China, including Daoist institutions, were foundations. Furthermore, I will introduce basic terms of the Chinese endowment culture, with a special focus on the key notion of religious merit (gongde).

‘“Camelot-Camelot:” said I to myself “I don’t seem to remember hearing of it before. Name of the asylum, likely.”’ so said Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court. But the irony is that the joke is now on Twain. In examining The Discovery of the Asylum, David J. Rothman has persuasively argued that the American asylum which developed in the 1820s and 1830s served a dual purpose. It would create the correct desirable attitudes within its inmates and by virtue of its success, set an example of right action to the larger society. The well-ordered asylum would exemplify the proper principles of social organisation and thus insure the safety of the republic and promote its glory. My purpose is to suggest that the monastery in Europe served a similar purpose. Europeans faced similar social and political problems to Americans and the rediscovery of monasticism paralleled the growth of American institutions and served a similar purpose in the public arena. In the process a more tolerant and sympathetic attitude towards religious orders emerged.

In the past, Tibetan nuns had no access to formal monastic education and thus could not obtain the two main diplomas and titles that are common in Tibetan Buddhism: the khenpo (mkhan po) degree in the more practice-oriented Nyingmapa school and the geshe (dge bshes) degree in the scholastic curriculum of the Gelukpa school; this essay traces the introduction of the Gelukpa study program in different nunneries based in India and Nepal in recent times; it addresses the question of gender asymmetry by showing the different hurdles that had to be overcome and the solutions, which have been found to allow nuns to become geshemas—the female form of geshe. Finally, I propose the first glimpse into the impact that the opening of higher Buddhist education to nuns has had and what this means for the future of the position of women in the religious sphere, as well as for Tibetan monasticism more generally.

There are good reasons for being suspicious of the very concept of ‘a religion’, let alone a ‘world religion’. It may be useful for a hospital administrator to know a patient's ‘religion’ – as Protestant or Church of England or Catholic or Buddhist – but such labels clearly do little more than identify the most suitable chaplain, and connote groupings in the vast and confusing region of ‘religious thought and practice’ that are of very different ranks. By any rational, genealogical taxonomy ‘Protestant’, ‘Anglican’, ‘Catholic’ connote species, genera or families within Christianity, which is in turn a taxon within the multivariant tradition traced back to Abraham. ‘Buddhism’ includes as many variants as would ‘Abrahamism’. Most Abrahamists, traditionally, have been theists, but it is difficult not to suspect that Marxist socialism is an atypical (and probably non-viable) variant which has inherited a linear view of time, a contest between the chosen agents of justice and the doomed powers-that-be, and the prospect of a future in which ‘there shall be no more sea’.

The subject of the study is Buddhism in the context of the state system of medieval Chinese society. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as the place of Buddhism in the traditional Chinese concept of government, as well as in the context of studying the general parameters of the functioning and interaction of religious and secular institutions of government. Special attention is paid to the relationship between the state and Buddhism in medieval China on the example of the analysis of Hui Yuan's polemical treatise "Shamen Bujing wangzhe lun" 沙門 不敬 王者 論 ( A treatise on monks who do not honor the ruler) As a unique monument in the history of ideological thought in China, the main conclusions of the study are that Buddhism was actively used in the politics of the medieval states of China, but it never managed to subdue the state, but on the contrary, it itself turned into an auxiliary means of government. The analysis of Hui Yuan's treatise "Shamen bujing wangzhe lun" was made for the first time" 沙門 不敬 王者 論 ( A treatise on monks who do not honor the ruler). Hui Yuan tried to prove to the Chinese authorities the Sangha's right to autonomy. The treatise provides a theoretical justification for the autonomy of the Buddhist community, Hui Yuan even managed to convince opponents to preserve the monastic sangha's right to independent governance, but Buddhist monasticism in subsequent eras could not maintain its position in imperial China.

Abstract In Buddhist Burma, a variety of ritual has been found pertaining to quite differentiated aspects of religion. This rich ritual landscape remains under-examined due partly to the Buddhist-studies bias of most of the scholars looking at religion in Burma. In this paper, I develop comparative analysis of a class of ritual, namely that of initiation, in three components of Burmese religion: Buddhist monasticism, Buddhist esotericism, and spirit worship. At least from the present analytic perspective, the three components considered could be taken as encompassing the entire Buddhist religious sphere in Burma. Looking at initiation rituals in these three ‘paths’ is a means of understanding how they frame contrasting kinds of differently valued religious practice, and of showing that, although not often discussed, rituals do matter in Burma because they help to distinguish categories of action according to their relative religiosity. By doing so, I aim to give a sense of the real diversity of the Burmese ritual landscape, which until recently was rarely taken into account, and to contribute to the on-going debate in the field of Buddhist studies on what could be encapsulated as the question of Buddhism and spirit cults in Southeast Asian Theravada.

Designed to be comprehensive in its scope, this set covers major religious events from remote prehistory (ca. 60,000 BC) to the highly contemporaneous (AD 2014). Taken together, the editors have done an admirable job in choosing topics to cover and in compiling a highly readable, informative, and thought-provoking compilation. The first volume covers the period of prehistory to AD 600 and includes entries for topics as diverse as the first burials that indicate a belief in an afterlife found in Shanidar Cave, Iraq (ca. 60,000 BC), the discovery of the oldest human-made place of worship at Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey (tenth millennium BC), the ritual use of alcohol (ca. third millennium BC), the founding of Buddhism (sixth to fourth centuries BC), the Roman conquest of Judaea in 63 BC, the conversion of Saul (Saint Paul) in AD 34, the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, and the papacy of Gregory the Great (reigned AD 590–604). Volume 2 covers from AD 600 to 1450, thus encompassing the Middle Ages in the West, the rise of Islam in the Middle East, the growth of Christian monasticism, the crusades, the development of the first universities in Europe, and the lives of Joan of Arc and Jan Hus. The final volume covers from 1450 to the present, starting with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks and ending with the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh) in 2014.

This study studies the topics of the publications of the magazines «Yasna Put» (1935―1939s) and «Prominchyk Sontsia Liubovy» (1936―1937s). Those were issued by the monks of the Univ Holy Dormition Lavra of the Studite Rite. The religious press is one of the factors of social progress, specifically the development of spiritual and moral values. For the Ukrainian nation, it is also a significant means of social consolidation. A special place in the religious periodicals of the interwar period was occupied by the print media of monk orders and congregations. This study aims to determine the role of the Univ monks’ periodicals as a type of mission in preaching the Gospel and the spiritual renewal of the Ukrainian society. Analysis of the publications shows that «Yasna Put» helped the monks to understand their calling, to delve into it, to take the difficult path to the perfection of cognition of the God and approach to Him, as well as to spread the faith and preach the Gospel. The theological discourse of the Studite Rite and the problems of the history of the Ukrainian monasticism, the revival of the monasticism traditions based on the principles of the Early Church Fathers are present in the publications’ topics. At the same time, through «Prominchyk Sontsia Liubovy», the monks brought the word of God to the laity Christians, promoted among the youth «moral-religious education» and family values. Based on these findings, we conclude that the monks of the Univ Holy Dormition Lavra of the Studite Rite were open to dialogue, and their periodicals were the means of communication, dissemination of Christian values and the principles of the Early Church, as well as promoting the idea of ecumenism. The Studite Brethren are always the benchmark of living faith and an example of passing on the latter to neighbours in the Christian ethos. Keywords: religious press, Studite Brethren, Univ Holy Dormition Lavra of the Studite Rite, mission, Andrei Sheptytsky, Klymenty (Klymentii) Sheptytsky.

AbstractFrom the early twentieth century, Hindu socio-religious and political bodies debated the use thatmaths(monastic establishments) made of their wealth, amassed in large part throughdana(socio religious gifts). From the early nineteenth century, Anglo Hindu law on inheritance, and thereafter the Religious and Charitable Endowments Acts, had enabled the autonomy ofmathsby classifying them as private religious corporations, not charitable endowments. This article suggests that themathreform campaign between 1920 and 1940 in north India was impelled by the preoccupations of heterogeneous Hindu political and socio-religious organizations withdanaand its potential to fund cultural and political projects regenerating an imagined Hindu socio-religious community. Specifically, the Hindu Mahasabha yokeddanato its Hindusangathan(unity) campaign to strategically craft an integrated ‘Hindu public’ transcendingsampraday(religious traditions) to protect its interests from ‘external enemies’. My discussion probes how the Hindu Mahasabha and its ‘reformist’ allies urged the conversion ofmathsinto public charitable trusts, or endowments accountable to an ephemeral ‘Hindu public’ and the regulation of their expenditure. Monastic orders,guru-based associations like the Bharat Dharma Mahamandala, and the majority of orthodox Hindus successfully opposed this campaign, defending the interests ofmathsandsampradaybefore and after independence. In so doing, they challenged Hindusangathanby articulating alternative visions of the socio-religious publics and communities to be revitalized through philanthropy. Through this discussion, the article charts the uneasy relationship between monasticism and an emerging Hindu nationalist cultural and political consciousness that remained fractured and internally contested.

Christian Orders in Contemporary Protestantism. Outline of the Problem on the Example of the Female Community from Grandchamp The article concentrates on the renewal of monastic life in the European evangelical churches after 1945. The Reformation, initiated by the speech of Martin Luther (1483–1546), brought about great changes in this respect, questioning the current principles of the presence of the monk’s life in the Christian community. Criticism of religious life, formulated by the father of the Wittenberg Reformation, was undertaken by both Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) and John Calvin. Until the 19th century, monasticism had not seen rehabilitation of the churches that emerged in the wake of the Reformation. This did not mean, however, that it was completely forgotten. Due to renewal movements, including radical Pietism, which in the 17th and 18th centuries became popular in Protestant Europe, monastic issues returned. Eminent figures in the history of Christianity were discovered. Their world of faith and personal experience was mediated through community life, based on prayer rules and practices known since the time of the original church. At the same time in France, Germany and England a return to the abandoned ways of implementing Christian life began. The article analyses the inspiring community of Grandchamp to indicate the way tradition in the churches deriving from the Reformation has been discovered and re-read.

Christian Orders in Contemporary Protestantism. Outline of the Problem on the Example of the Female Community from Grandchamp The article concentrates on the renewal of monastic life in the European evangelical churches after 1945. The Reformation, initiated by the speech of Martin Luther (1483–1546), brought about great changes in this respect, questioning the current principles of the presence of the monk’s life in the Christian community. Criticism of religious life, formulated by the father of the Wittenberg Reformation, was undertaken by both Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) and John Calvin. Until the 19th century, monasticism had not seen rehabilitation of the churches that emerged in the wake of the Reformation. This did not mean, however, that it was completely forgotten. Due to renewal movements, including radical Pietism, which in the 17th and 18th centuries became popular in Protestant Europe, monastic issues returned. Eminent figures in the history of Christianity were discovered. Their world of faith and personal experience was mediated through community life, based on prayer rules and practices known since the time of the original church. At the same time in France, Germany and England a return to the abandoned ways of implementing Christian life began. The article analyses the inspiring community of Grandchamp to indicate the way tradition in the churches deriving from the Reformation has been discovered and re-read.

The article analyzes Buddhist studies conducted by scientists of the Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The issues of the emergence and formation of the institution itself, its main divisions of the institute and the activities of the leading scientists of the institute related to collecting, cataloging and studying written monuments that are kept in the funds of the unique Center of oriental manuscripts and xylographs are considered. The contribution and results of the researches of philosophers, historians, ethnographers, literary critics and linguists engaged in the study of traditional religious culture, rites and rituals, Buddhist philosophy, as well as the features of the socio-political processes of the development of Buddhism in Russia and the countries of Central and East Asia are examined. The legal status of the Buddhist church, monasteries and clergy is considered on the basis of the analysis and translation of a number of archival documents and sources in the Mongolian language, and a brief assessment of the current state, role and influence of the Buddhist church, culture and traditions on society is given. The history of translation activities, in particular, the translation of the Buddhist canon into Mongolian from Tibetan, is highlighted. Attention is drawn to the methods and means of electronic cataloging of written monuments in the Tibetan and ancient Mongolian languages, archival documents developed at the institute, as well as methods for digitizing multimedia sources of technotronic information. It is noted that modern Buddhist monasticism, as well as lay Buddhists in Russia, maintain loyalty and trust in relation to the institutions of state power and law at a fairly high level. The place and role of ethnicity in the historical past and modern social processes are studied, a new view of the key moments of the ethno-political history of the Buryat people in their inextricable connection with the general development of Russian statehood and society is substantiated. It is concluded that the Buddhist studies conducted by scientists of the IMBT SB RAS are aimed at solving urgent problems in the field of religious relations, cultural and social development, and international relations.

In the article, the phenomenon of yurodstvo has been recalled, which is a characteristic and perhaps the brightest realization of the Eastern Christian ideal of sanctity as a clear projection of its irrational or even specifically perverse potential. The examples which are quoted in the considerations and selected from a rich literary corpus (Old Russian, Old Bulgarian and Old Serbian), are colourful manifestations of sanctity in Eastern Christian terms, which can be defined only in a specific religious or socio-cultural context. For that reason, it was considered that this specially designed sanctity should be interpreted in the key of negative theology which is typical of the Eastern (Orthodox) Christianity. Also known as apophatic, this theology assumes the impossibility of a positive knowledge of God, which entails a specific helplessness of reason towards the phenomenon that exceeds all applicable established standards. In the discussed case, the reflection intentionally goes beyond the limits of exemplification of the sainted yurodstvo, since it also covers other types of sanctity, recognized and perpetuated in the Eastern Christian (including Church Slavonic) tradition, and shows the proximity of all projections of the so-called parenetic sanctity along with the relationship between the yurodstvo itself and eremitism and Monasticism. In this wide exemplification range, it seems justified that the incarnated sanctity of the yurodivy, a hermit or a monk, revealing itself in the socio-cultural reality in an unusual, incomprehensible or even perverse way, is an emanation of the numinous mystery which escapes the rational orders. This emanation should be, therefore, regarded as a phenomenon going beyond the boundaries of intellectual cognition, socio-cultural sphere, or a fixed standard.

The Nio (or Kongo Rikishi 金剛力士) door guardian or dvarapala symbolic figures that guard the famed Todaiji Temple of Nara, trace an ancient history from primitive roots in the narrative figure of the Vajrapani, attendant of the Buddha Shakyamuni across Asia, and even further back. The origins of this figure remain relatively vaguely defined in comparison to the intrigue caused by contemporary and medieval applications of the figure, and this research clarifies some apparent historic connections evidenced through visual symbolism to connect the vajrapani to royalty through the vajra, through dvarapala positioning, associations with the vajra and other aesthetic traits. The study suggests a possible transformation from the channavira, a decorative chain associated with fertility, depicted in early versions of the vajrapani, with the evolved, inhuman musculature of the more modern Nio guardian figures. This study then branches from Grunwedel’s association of the vajrapani with Mara by positing a possible aesthetic connection between early depictions of Mara’s army (tempters through which the Buddha has to pass in order to achieve enlightenment) and the Nio through channavira symbolism, mudras, positioning and body postures of predominantly the Sanchi Stupa. The Nio figures, while seemingly outlying icons of Mahayana Buddhism, have found resounding significance in modern and historic martial societies and religious orders. Clarifying their branching ancestry from the earliest vajra bearers, along with their cultural and historic significance will inform a modern understanding of their symbolic value, and the cultural understandings of existential circumstances that they confer.

Stefan Schiwietz (Stefan Siwiec), 1863-1941 – a Roman Catholic priest, Doctor of Theology, historian of the Eastern Orthodox Church, pedagogue – was born in Miasteczko Śląskie (Georgenberg) on 23th August 1863. He studied theo­logy at the University of Wrocław for 3 years (1881-1884) under H. Laemmer, F. Probst, A. König and M. Sdralek, among others, and then continued his theo­logical studies in Innsbruck (1884-1886), where he was a pupil of J. Jungmann and G. Bickell. The seminarist spent two years (1885-1886) in Freising in Bavaria, where in 1886 he took his holy orders. Siwiec published his doctoral thesis in Wrocław in 1896, so at the time when Sdralek took the chair of Church History. The subject of the Silesian scholar’s dissertation concerned the monastic reform of Theodore the Studite De S. Theodoro Studita reformatore monachorum Basilianorum. Siwiec combined his didactic work as a religious and mathematics teacher in the public middle school in Racibórz with his academic studies on the history of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, especially on monasticism. The results of his research were published both in German and in Polish. His most significant work is a three-volume monograph Das morgenländische Mönchtum (Bd. 1: Das Ascetentum der drei ersten christl. Jahrhunderte und das egyptische Mönchtum im vierten Jahrhundert, Mainz 1904; Bd. 2: Das Mönchtum auf Sinai und in Palästina im 4 Jahrhundert, Mainz 1913; Bd. 3: Das Mönchtum in Syrien und Mesopotamien und das Aszetentum in Persien vierten Jarhundert, Mödling bei Wien 1938) on the history of the beginnings and development of Oriental monas­ticism in Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Persia, until the 4th century, which up to the present day has been cited in the world Patristic literature. Yet, Siwiec’s academic work still remains little known, especially in the circle of historians of antiquity and Polish patrologists. The equally little known figure of Max Sdralek, another Silesian (coming from Woszczyce) priest and academic, Rector of University of Wrocław, provides a significant context with the research methodology which this eminent scholar initiated, developed and tried to pass down to his pupils, among whom was also Stefan Siwiec. Sdralek strictly demanded that the principle of the priority of Church history over history of religion and psychology should be kept. In his works a description of socio-cultural factors and natural conditions determining the process of development of Christianity enables to see in a much clearer way how God’s plan has unfolded in history. The mutual dependence of Sdralek and Siwiec, the similarities and differences in their ways of studying and understanding Church history still remains an issue worth further exploration.

Abstract Much has been written about Thomas More's alleged monastic vocation and spirituality, but rather less about his views on the religious orders of his day. This article argues that a consistent position towards contemporary English monasticism can be discerned across More's (highly varied) oeuvre and in his personal connections with religious houses. He was an enthusiastic supporter of strictly observant monasticism throughout his career, but seems to have looked much more critically upon other branches of the religious orders in early Tudor England (which comprised the large majority). This orientation was shared with some other English humanists, but clashed with the position of Erasmus who held no special regard for strictly observant monasteries. More's misgivings about general monastic standards in the realm held a wider significance, in view of his status as the most prolific and influential polemicist writing in support of the early Tudor church. The defence of the religious orders in the controversialist works that More wrote and oversaw in the later 1520s and early 1530s was distinctly lukewarm, and even at times evasive. Partly as a result, the mounting evangelical and anticlerical attacks on English monasteries in these years went largely unanswered.

Monastic life is based on tradition and rules. It produces a homogeneous and disciplined community. But with the ageing that has been affecting them for several decades, monastic communities are relaxing their rules and rhythms, to allow their elderly to continue to participate in common life (prayer, work, meals, etc.). At the same time, they must maintain a certain rigour, as much to remain attractive to young postulants as to present their guests the asceticism that characterises their tradition. The authors went to different monastic communities in Switzerland and France to carry out an ethnographic research. Using extracts from their field journal, they highlight how monks and nuns manage their lives and invent pragmatic solutions in order to redefine every day what it means and implies ‘to be a monk or nun’.

The entry of women into Buddhist monasticism was permitted with great reluctance and a special set of rules. Within the disciplinary framework of institutional subordination, Buddhist nuns created spaces that provided women with spiritual opportunities away from social and domestic ties. Although monks dominated both the Buddhist saṅgha and religious texts, the earliest nuns worked assiduously and creatively to strengthen their practice. This article explores early Buddhist texts to unravel gendered monastic experiences. The nuns could not have registered a vital presence in the history of Buddhism if they had remained passive members. Social relations before they joined the order, as well as the newly forged bonds within, played a significant role in their progress in comprehending and observing spiritual practices. When seen on their own terms, the position and contribution of nuns appear stronger and more agentive than has been usually assumed.

AbstractThis article offers a “comparative-informational” approach to the study of religion. It demonstrates how historical transformations in religious traditions are frequently intertwined with shifts towards new strategies of managing information, or “informational orders.” The article shows how two unrelated schools of thought—Neo-Confucianism and Kabbalah—were responsible for the construction and institutionalization of new information strategies in their respective traditions. The innovative discourses Neo-Confucians and Kabbalists established were characterized by “analytic” qualities that were co-opted from competing foreign traditions. As part of the Confucian and Jewish reactions to Buddhism and Greek philosophy, respectively, Neo-Confucian and medieval Jewish mystical discourses underwent considerable rationalization. Moreover, from an informational perspective, a major factor in the dramatic cultural transitions that Neo-Confucians and Kabbalists facilitated was the ability of these schools to restructure the canonical literature of their respective traditions. Such rare modificiations in a tradition’s “informational core” are here interpreted as adaptive strategies that drive cultural systems towards greater complexity and long-term resilience.

The History of Religions is defined as “a religious science that analyses all religions, religious movements, sects and orders with their history, doctrines, sacred book/texts, rituals, sanctuaries, clergies, hierarchies, sufferers, communities through objective methods within the process beginning with Adam as the first prophet/human being up to now”. When the semantic field of the terms and themes, history, clergy, belief models, the distortion of the sacred books of the polytheist Arab and the pagan Egyptian/Pharoah religions as well as Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Mandean belief, Hanīfs, the People of the Book, the prophets Moses, Jesus, Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Them), sacrifice, and myths are men-tioned in Qur’an as the last revealed Book being the principal source for the field themes, they constitute also the field research for the History of Religions along with their comparative aspects. Although Christianity, which is explained in details in Holy Qur’an, is the most populous religion in the world unto which the most extensive analysis was made in addition to being the most effective one in view of its political and military history with a view to theology and Crusades in the field of the History of Religions, Judaism is another religion along similar lines despite its few adherents. Another aspect that Christianity gives rise to intensive researches in this field is its phenomenological characteristic belonging to this religion as a leading subject in the colonial and missionary activities of the developed European countries as well as the efforts therewith pertaining to investigate its religious movements, which indicate the importance of the History of Religions as a whole.

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 在西遊叙述中，神魔鬥法前時常出現的，就是孫行者頻繁召唤土地，方能問明妖精、妖魔的出處，其頻率極高而關注者卻少，原因就是土地神僅被視爲陪襯性小神。世德堂本（以下簡稱世本）叙述其出場的方式及用意，作者其實交互使用兩種聲音：顯聲音即表現滑稽性的遊戲筆調，目的即在掩飾其真正的潛聲音，主要即借此諷喻、影射當世。這種文學旨趣在兩種聲音間交織，若隱若現，亟待解讀。世本寫定者雖曾吸收先行材料，但本身自有其創意所在，即化用當時道、佛二教的文化資源。這一點學界雖有關注者，此處即針對“召唤土地”情節，詳細解讀其使用的手法，認爲其背後皆有宗教、尤其道教知識的支持。運用從淺到深的叙述層次，其顯聲音即召唤土地的方式，軟硬兼用，從唤出到拘得，形成表面的叙述趣味；而關鍵的召唤叙述，也是簡繁俱有的捻訣、唸真言，從唵字到唵㘕淨法界，按照當時的宗教文化的理解，即採用明代流行於文人間的準提信仰，致使作者挪用密教準提咒，並未襲用道教的召土地神咒。最值得注意的是召唤過程，叙寫行者對待土地、山神的使唤態度，而相對地，土地、山神則表現惶恐的滑稽表情。這種顯話語背後隱藏作者的潛話語，即運用“縱放之嫌”的叙述筆法，首即化用道教的鬼律、黑律知識，規範城隍———土地：境内凡有精邪而未能通告者，即有縱放之嫌而會被杖或流放；故作者叙寫土地既知妖精、妖魔存在卻任令其活動，即襲用“縱放之嫌”，而叙寫行者欲用金箍棒威脅“欲打”而未打，此爲化用了道教的鬼律叙述；其次則是諷喻性的影射層次，明代中葉以前實行里甲制，小説家曾活用其兩件事：官方推動禮制性的里社壇制，但里甲居民仍然崇拜土地神，以致里社壇荒廢不用；其次里長、甲首負責里甲内的催税、徭役，但税役過重後導致居民脱逃，小説乃有逃門户、大户負擔元宵燈油等，此種叙述爲顯話語；而描述妖精、妖魔據洞稱王、差使土地，尤其後者俱從天界私下凡間，此種潛話語即諷喻明代王府與地方豪族。西遊叙述交錯活用顯、潛兩種聲音，即可知表面愈荒唐、嬉戲的語言，愈是掩飾當時習知的社會怪現狀，故時人自然領會其諷喻旨趣，今人則需從“縱放之嫌”切入，方能進行深刻的文學詮釋，確定世本能巧用多層次的語言藝術，從而爲其“奇書”作文學史的定位。 In the narratives of Journey to the West, there is a customary scene of Monkey summoning the gnome before each battle between deities and goblins, whereby he may find out the identity of the goblins. This scene occurs very frequently but has drawn little attention, simply because the gnomes are regarded as low-ranking deities who serve only as a foil of the main characters. In the common editions, in narrating the method and intent of the gnome’s debut, the author alternately uses two voices. The first one is the manifested voice, a playful writing style that represents the comedy content. The real intent of using this voice is to hide the second voice, namely the suppressed voice. The main purpose is to satirize and insinuate the current situation of the time. The aesthetic appeal lies in the indirect expression in these two interwoven voices, which the reader finds tantalizing to decipher. Although the editor of the common edition must have relied on an earlier version, he must also have been creative when producing his own version, in which he made use of the prevalent resources of Daoism and Buddhism. This has indeed drawn attention in relevant scholarship. In the present study, however, I would like to focus on the plot of “summoning the gnome” and analyze its literary devices. I argue that there must be some religious background, especially Daoist knowledge, behind it as support. The narrative level follows a low-to-high development discourse, in which the manifested voice summons the gnome in both forceful and soft manners, and forms a kind of joyful process in the summoning and capture. The summoning per se is a process that contains complete and simple religious content, such as making religious gestures, and chanting spells and words of the Perfected One, from the word om to om ram of the Pure Realm of Reality. According to the then-prevalent religious practice, it is observed that the summoning ritual is based on the belief in Cundhi Buddha that was popular in the Ming dynasty. As a result, the author borrowed the Cundhi spells from esoteric Buddhism, instead of following the Daoist spells for summoning the gnome. The most noteworthy point is the summoning process. The narrative of the Practitioner (Sun Wukong) shows his attitude towards summoning the gnomes and mountain spirits, as well as its counterparts, the funny facial experience of the gnomes and mountain spirits’ fear of the Practitioner. Behind this manifested discourse is hidden a suppressed discourse of the author. This is the use of a narrative of “suspicious indulgence.” In the beginning, he uses the knowledge of “ghosts’ laws” and “dark laws” in the Daoist tradition to regulate the guards of walls and moats — the gnomes. In accordance with these laws, if there are spirts and devils in the area but the gnome fails to report, he is thus suspected of indulging and will be hit with a rod and/or exiled. Likewise, when writing about the gnome who was aware of the existence of goblins and devils but still let them act at will, the author inherited the notion of “suspicious indulgence.” When describing the Practitioner who was about to hit with his Gold Circle Rod but had not done so, the author borrowed a narrative mode derived from the Daoist laws of the ghosts. The second level is an insinuative one. Before the middle of the Ming, Lijia (lit. ,“lane and alley”; li = 110 households; jia = 10 households) was an administrative system, which became inspiration for novelists for their creative writing in two respects, namely: 1) a ritual system called “Lane Altar” promoted by the government, but the lijia residents still worshiped gnomes and therefore the “Lane Altar” was abandoned; 2) the li mayors and jia magistrates were in charge of taxation and levies, but as this became a burden the residents fled; this gave rise to the themes of “evading households” and “wealthy households paying lamp oil for the fifteenth of the first month,” which became the main fiction discourses. As for the narratives about demons who declared kingship in a grotto and gave orders to gnomes, they (especially the latter) were all previously in Heaven but later fled to the mortal world. These suppressed discourses are all satires for Ming princedoms and regional powerful clans. The narrative in Journey to the West alternately speaks in these two voices, from which we are informed: the more absurd and playful on the surface the more it covers up the strange phenomena of society that were widely known. Therefore, the intended gist was easily understood by people of that time, but in our time we must rely on “suspicious indulgence” to conduct an in-depth literary interpretation. We must recognize the various artful means in the common versions of the novel and thereby render the novel a status of “book of wonder.”

The Silk Route Between Past and Present. A Paradigm Beyond Space and Time. On the threshold of the third millennium, in an atmosphere of anachronisms and contradictions, dominated and conditioned by scientific and technological discoveries, new ideas seem to take flight whilst regional barriers and territorial boundaries are collapsing to give way to a new form of comprehensiveness. Sharing ideas and intellectual stimuli, amalgamating cultural elements circulating along its intertwining branches, the Silk Route has more than once given life to new scientific forms, cultural and intellectual systems and, amongst these, artistic shapes and religious syncretism. The “Silk Route”, which, with its articulated network of twisting routes and sub-routes, even now well represents the challenging paradigm of a new age yet standing at its threshold. A paradigm beyond time and space. The following paper aims at focusing on the Silk Route’s Religious-Cultural dimension in the middle-inner Asia of the 13th-15th Centuries, when, whatever may have happened regarding local realms and rulers, it played the role of junction and meeting point of different worlds and their civilisations. Even now we are confronted with a political trend that is at once and the same time a cultural current; emanating from the past, it is re-linking Europe and Asia and, re-uniting territories with their individual and traditional cultural forms, is shaping a renewed kaleidoscopic framework. We are confronted with new forces deeply rooted in the past, which, emanating from the far eastern fringes of Asia, by the second decade of the 21st century have reached the far western fringes of Europe, dynamics that are not only ‘economics’ and ‘scientific technologies’ but also thought, religion, and other intellectual values. These forces are heir of past times, nevertheless they endure in the present and are the active lively projection of a future time…though still largely to be understood and matured. A vision of life and universe where speculative and religious values coexist with astounding technological and scientific discoveries in a global dimension without space and time. At the verge of this millennium, the Information and Communication Revolution has given life with its advanced technologies to a new space conditioned and dominated by no-distances. And this space with its always-evolving scientific discoveries today involves the society in its entirety (what is commonly named as “global space” actually symbolised by the Silk Route), endeavours to amalgamate it creating new links between civil and political society and positioning them in a new military dimension. New forms and structures that are rapidly evolving in search of some balance between technological development and preservation of ancient traditions, which might make possible social and economic justice, yet an utopia more than a reality. However, both (social and economic justice) form the ideological basis of order and stability, anxiously pursued by the young generation in search of an economic and speculative order where stability, security (hard and soft security) and religious structures should in their turn become the platform of new political-institutional structures. Be that as it may, this is not a new phenomenon. Technological advancements are astoundingly new, but not the process and its aims. We are confronted with a phenomenon that has already occurred in more than one historic phase. Epochal phases. That is the human search for economic and social justice, and their framing into new conceptual schemes. And within this ratio, it would be unrealistic to ignore an additional key-factor. It would be unrealistic to deny that Religion has always been a major player. It has been at the basis of more than one revolution, it has represented the culturalpolitical response to foreign challenges, it has legitimised military action, it has given life to new spaces and political systems, it has filled with its pathos cultural and political voids. It has given to Mankind and Universe a new centrality, creating a new space within which Man and Mankind, History and Philosophy, Cosmos and Universe with their laws meet and merge in new systems and structural orders. The World and its Destiny, core of lively debates, conditioned by the eternal dialectic between economics and society, between society and religion, between science and technology on the one hand, and religion on the other, between formal ratio and ideologies or myths, which underline with their voice the eternal antithesis between cultures and civilisations. At the verge of the third millennium, the intellectual world is facing a new historiographical debate, into which the Religious Factor has also entered. Knowledge and the vision of the world and its new order/disorder are translated into a new philosophy of culture and history, of society and religion. Rationality, historicity of scientific knowledge, nature and experience, nature and human ‘ratio’, science and ethics, science and its language, science and its new aims and objectives are amongst some of the major themes of this debate. But not only this: which aims, which objectives? And within which new order that might ensure security and stability, social and economic justice? Thence, revolution and power are coming to the fore with another factor: Force and its use…a stage that, however, does not disregard dialogue and tolerance, or, as recently stated by Francesco Bergoglio, more than tolerance, “reciprocal respect”. These are only ‘some’ amongst the main issues discussed and heard of also in the traditional culture of ordinary people. Undoubtedly, the end of the Cold War and the well-known “global village” dealt with by Samuel Huntington, the global village with its technological revolutions, have induced to re-think our own speculative parameters, traditional paradigms and models of society and power, mankind and statehood. And once again we have been confronted with elements that might bring to new forms of sharp opposition and a global disorder. However, beyond and behind the Huntingtonian cliché of the “clash of civilizations”, a new cultural current seems to take flight spurring from the roots of a traditional past, which however has not yet disappeared. The Silk Route stems out emanating from the far-eastern lands of Asia as the conceptual image, the paradigm of a conceivable new order. By merging the material, scientific-technological and economic dimension of life with a new cultural (or neo-cultural) vocation it seeks (and seems to be able) to give life to a new social body and new systemic-structural answers, a comprehensive order capable of tackling the challenges opened by the collapse of the traditional cultural parameters and the dramatic backdrop of a mere clash of civilisations. Middle-Inner Asia of the 13th -15th Centuries: the Silk Route and its Reflection on Painting and Architectonic Forms. As just pointed out, nothing is new in the course of History. Professor Axel Berkowsky has authoritatively lingered on the Silk Route – or better “the New Silk Route” – with specific regard on practical aspects of these last decades. In the following text, I wish to linger on a past historic period, particularly fertile when confronted with the collapse of traditional values and the challenges posed by new fearful forces and their dynamics: the Mongols with their hordes (ulus) and, some later, Tamerlane with his terrible Army. Sons of the steppe and its culture, these people suddenly appeared on the stage, raced it from Mesopotamia to the north-eastern corner of Asia with their hordes and their allied tribal groups, shattered previous civilisations and imposed a new dominion, a new political-military order and new models of life. But, with their Military superiority, they also brought the codes and the ancient traditional knowledge of the nomadic world. It is misleading to watch to this epochal phase only as a phase of devastation and horrors. With their codes, Mongols and Timurids brought with them the Chinese algebraic, mathematical and scientific knowledge, and fused it with Mesopotamian mathematical and medical sciences reaching peaks of astronomical, arithmetical, numerical, geometric, algebraic theoretical and practical knowledge. They also brought with them from vital centres of religious scholarship and life a large number of theologians, pirs, traditionists and legal religious scholars with their individual religious features and systems. Shamanism, Buddhism, Muslim forms, Nestorianism and other cults vigorously practised in the mobile world of the steppe gave life to an important phase of religious culture and multifarious practices largely imbued with mystic feelings and traditional emotional states. Then, and once again, within the global space created by the military conquests of the new-comers, the Silk Route – or more precisely, the Silk and its Routes – reorganised and revitalised trades and business, gave life to close diplomatic connections and matrimonial allegiances reinforced by a vigorous traditional chancery and official correspondence, that tightly linked Asia with Europe. Within this new global order, the Silk and its routes played the crucial role, shaped new political, institutional, scientific and intellectual formulae, gave life to new conceptual forms that – at their core – had Man and Mankind as centre of the entire Universe. We are confronted with a cultural development begun at a time when the sons of the steppe were taking over lands of the classical Arabic civilisation (like Syria, Iraq and al-Jaszīra), at a time when the Iranian world was still centre of intellectual life and its social norms were still spreading over large spaces of Inner Asian territories. Visual Arts wonderfully mirror this phenomenon. We witness a process that renovated itself ‘from within’ in the course of three centuries and did not stop even when the arrival of the European Powers on the Asian markets seemed to sign, with the decay and end of the traditional market economy, also the closing of the cultural interactions created by the Silk Routes of the time. Once again, Visual Arts wonderfully mirror this phenomenon: a dramatic transitional, fluid period, marked by a distinctive timeless reality, which had no longer territories well delimited by frontiers to conquer or defend. Herewith I have dealt, as an example, with the reflection of the new conceptions of Life and Universe on visual Fine Arts in the 13th-15th centuries, specifically painting and architectonic forms. Ideological values that aimed to forge new relationships among different peoples and their individual human values, religious thinking, moral codes…and economic, scientific, technological achievements. ‘Fine Arts’. Visual fine arts, in my case painting and architecture, are the mirror of feelings shared by the Lords of the time, registered by painters and architects in plastic forms, the signal of these stances to an often confused Humanity. Here, I linger on two pictorial themes: Nature and Landscape on the one hand, and Religion with its very images on the other. With regard to architectonic forms, these reflect the same conceptual paradigm shaped through technical features. By those ages, Nature and Landscape were perceived by contemporary painters and architects with formal, stylistic and technical characteristics which strongly reflected the impact with a world which lived its life in close, intimate contact with nature, a world and a culture which observed Nature and the Cosmos, and perceived them in every detail over the slow rhythmical march of days and nights, of seasons and the lunar cycles. These artistic features depict a precise image, that of a world which lives its life often at odds with nature for its very survival, a world which conditions nature or is conditioned in its turn. At that time, it was a world and a cosmic order which were often perceived by the artist in their tension with uncertainty and the blind recklessness of modern-contemporary times. However, to a closer analysis, these same artistic forms shape a celestial order which was at one and the same time a culture and a religion. In the vast borderless space of the Euro-Asiatic steppes, cut by great rivers, broken by steep rocky mountainous chains and inhospitable desert fig.aux, the Silk succeeded in building and organising its own network of twisting routes and sub-routes, along which transited (albeit, yet still transit) caravans with their goods…but also cultural elements and their conceptual-philosophical forms. Of these latter and their syncretic imageries and dreams, the fine arts have left evocative pictures and architectonic images, which depicted a world that is the projection of a precise social and political reality and its underlying factors, such as the restlessness of a nomadic pattern of life and the culture of the Town and its urban life. Little is changed today despite the collapse of the Soviet empire and its order. Features and forms change, but in both cases they announce a different world with its order built on a robust syncretism, which is at the same time science, knowledge, harmony and religion (divine or human, or both). A world that is the projection of a precise political, social and economic reality. A reality that, at one and the same time, is the silent voice of a humanity often disregarded by contemporary writers, an ‘underground world’ that echoes traditional forms and their dynamics, and a no less authoritative de facto power that politically, economically and militarily conditions and dominates its times. A reality that finds an authoritative voice through the Silk Route.