Religions Of The World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia Of Beliefs And Practices

RofELIGION S the Worl[ A COMPREHENSIVE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BELIEFS AND PRACTICES VOLUME I: A–C RELIGIONS of the Worl[ A COMPREHENSIVE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BELIEFS AND PRACTICES VOLUME I: A–C J. GORDON MELTON MARTIN BAUMANN Editors DAVID B. BARRETT World Religious Statistics DONALD WIEBE Introduction A B C A C L I O Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England Copyright © 2002 by J. Gordon Melton and Martin Baumann All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Religions of the world : a comprehensive encyclopedia of beliefs and practices / edited by J. Gordon Melton and Martin Baumann; statistical tables prepared by David B. Barrett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57607-223-1 (alk. paper)—ISBN 1-57607-761-6 (eBook) 1. Religions—Encyclopedias. I. Melton, J. Gordon. II. Baumann, Martin. BL80.3.R45 2002 291—dc21 07 06 05 04 03 02 2002005617 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 (cloth) ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. This book is printed on acid-free paper I. Manufactured in the United States of America To Robert L. Moore CONTENTS Volume 1 Preface: An Overview of the World’s Religions J. Gordon Melton ix Acknowledgments xv Basic Bibliography xvii Introduction: The Study of Religion Donald Wiebe xix A Statistical Approach to the World’s Religious Adherents, 2000–2050 C.E. David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson xxvii About the Editors and Contributors xxxix A–Z List of Entries lxvii Religions of the World Entries A–C 1 Volume 2 Entries D–J 382 Volume 3 Entries K–R 739 Volume 4 Entries S–Z 1115 Index 1469 vii PREFACE: AN OVERVIEW OF THE WORLD’S RELIGIONS R eligions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices has been designed to survey the present religious situation around the world as the twenty-first century begins. To accomplish this task, the text is anchored in a disciplined country-bycountry discussion of the emergence of the contemporary religious community in each of the more than 240 nations from the smaller island republics to the larger and more populous countries. This survey is made in the more than 1,200 A-to-Z entries below. In the world of world religions encyclopedias, Religions of the World has assumed a unique approach. The great majority of previous world religions encyclopedias have grown out of the disciplines of anthropology and comparative religion. Those volumes have done a monumental job of highlighting the building blocks of the religious life as they have appeared in widely variant cultural contexts. While showing the very different religious structures that have been created by people around the world, they have also tried to discern the common elements that repeatedly appear in all or most religious traditions—prayer and meditational techniques, myth, ritual, devotion, sacred texts, moral perceptions, deities, spirit entities, and so forth. Rather than attempt to duplicate past endeavors, Religions of the World takes a very different approach. It is concerned more with the organizations of various religious communities, the history of their origin and growth, th