Wikipedia

Creator deity

Acreator deityorcreator godis adeityresponsible for the creation of theEarth,world,anduniversein human religion and mythology. Inmonotheism,the singleGodis often also the creator. A number ofmonolatristictraditions separate a secondary creator from a primarytranscendentbeing, identified as a primary creator.[1]

Monotheism

Atenism

See also:Atenism

Initiated by PharaohAkhenatenandQueen Nefertitiaround 1330 BCE, during theNew Kingdom periodin ancient Egyptian history. They built an entirely new capital city (Akhetaten) for themselves and worshippers of their sole creator god in a wilderness. His father used to worshipAtenalongside other gods of their polytheistic religion. Aten, for a long time before his father's time, was revered as a god among the many gods and goddesses in Egypt. Atenism was countermanded by later pharaohTutankhamun,as chronicled in the artifact, the Restoration Stela.[2]Despite different views, Atenism is considered by some scholars to be one of the frontiers of monotheism in human history.

Abrahamic religions

Further information:Abrahamic religions

Judaism

TheGenesis creation narrativeis thecreation myth[a]of bothJudaismandChristianity.[3]Thenarrativeis made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of theBook of Genesis.In the first,Elohim(the Hebrew generic word forGod) creates the heavens and the Earth, the animals, andmankindin six days, then rests on, blesses and sanctifies the seventh (i.e. theBiblical Sabbath). In the second story, God, now referred to by the personal nameYahweh,createsAdam,the first man, from dust and places him in theGarden of Eden,where he is given dominion over the animals.Eve,the first woman, is created from Adam and as his companion.

It expounds themes parallel to those inMesopotamian mythology,emphasizing theIsraelitepeople'sbelief in one God.[4]The first major comprehensive draft of thePentateuch(the series of five books which begins with Genesis and ends withDeuteronomy) was composed in the late 7th or the 6th century BCE (theJahwistsource) and was later expanded by other authors (thePriestly source) into a work very similar to Genesis as known today.[5]The two sources can be identified in the creation narrative: Priestly and Jahwistic.[6]The combined narrative is a critique of theMesopotamian theologyof creation: Genesis affirmsmonotheismand deniespolytheism.[7]Robert Alterdescribed the combined narrative as "compelling in its archetypal character, its adaptation of myth to monotheistic ends".[8]

Christianity

Further information:God in Christianity
See also:Ex nihiloandLogos (Christianity)

The Abrahamic creation narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the two first chapters of theBook of Genesis.[9]The first account (1:1 through 2:3) employs a repetitious structure of divine fiat and fulfillment, then the statement "And there was evening and there was morning, the [xth] day, "for each of the six days of creation. In each of the first three days there is an act of division: day one divides the darkness from light, day two the" waters above "from the" waters below ", and day three the sea from the land. In each of the next three days these divisions are populated: day four populates the darkness and light with sun, moon, and stars; day five populates seas and skies with fish and fowl; and finally, land-based creatures and mankind populate the land.[10]

The first (thePriestly story) was concerned with the cosmic plan of creation, while the second (theYahwist story) focuses on man as cultivator of his environment and as a moral agent.[9]The second account, in contrast to the regimented seven-day scheme of Genesis 1, uses a simple flowing narrative style that proceeds from God's forming the first man through theGarden of Edento the creation of the first woman and the institution of marriage. In contrast to theomnipotentGod of Genesis 1 creating a god-like humanity, the God of Genesis 2 can fail as well as succeed. The humanity he creates is not god-like, but is punished for acts which would lead to their becoming god-like (Genesis 3:1-24) and the order and method of creation itself differs.[11]"Together, this combination of parallel character and contrasting profile point to the different origin of materials in Genesis 1:1 and Gen 2:4, however elegantly they have now been combined."[12]

An early conflation of Greek philosophy with thenarrativesin the Hebrew Bible came fromPhilo of Alexandria(d. AD 50), writing in the context ofHellenistic Judaism.Philo equated the Hebrew creator-deityYahwehwithAristotle'sunmoved mover(First Cause)[13][14]in an attempt to prove that the Jews had heldmonotheisticviews even before the Greeks.[citation needed]

A similar theoretical proposition was demonstrated byThomas Aquinas,who linked Aristotelian philosophy with the Christian faith, followed by the statement that God is the First Being, the First Mover, and is Pure Act.[15]

Thedeuterocanonical2 Maccabeeshas two relevant passages. At chapter 7, it narrows about the mother of aJewish proto-martyrtelling to her son: "I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also";[16][17]at chapter 1, it refers a solemn prayer hymned byJonathan,Nehemiahand thePriest of Israel,while making sacrifices in honour of God: "O Lord, Lord God, Creator of all things, who art fearefull, and strong, and righteous, and mercifull, and the onely, and gracious king".[18]

ThePrologue to the Gospel of Johnbegins with: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2The same was in the beginning with God.3All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. "[19]

Christianity affirms the creation by God since its early time in theApostles' Creed( "I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.", 1st century AD), that is symmetrical to theNicene Creed(4th century AD).

Nowadays, theologians debate whether the Bible itself teaches if this creation by God is a creationex nihilo.Traditional interpreters[20]argue on grammatical and syntactical grounds that this is the meaning ofGenesis1:1, which is commonly rendered: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." However, other interpreters[21]understand creationex nihiloas a 2nd-century theological development. According to this view, church fathers opposed notions appearing inpre-Christiancreation mythsand inGnosticism—notions of creation by ademiurgeout of a primordial state of matter (known in religious studies aschaosafter the Greek term used byHesiodin hisTheogony).[22] Jewish thinkers took up the idea,[23]which became important to Judaism.

Islam

Main article:God in Islam
Further information:Allah

According toIslam,the creator deity, God, known in Arabic asAllah,is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator, Sustainer, Ordainer, and Judge of the universe. Creation is seen as an act of divine choice and mercy, one with a grand purpose: "And We[note 1]did not create the heaven and earth and that between them in play. "[24]Rather, the purpose of humanity is to be tested: "Who has created death and life, that He may test you which of you is best in deed. And He is the All-Mighty, the Oft-Forgiving;"[25]Those who pass the test are rewarded with Paradise: "Verily for the Righteous there will be a fulfilment of (the heart's) desires;"[26]

According to the Islamic teachings, God exists above the heavens and the creation itself. TheQuranmentions, "He it is Who created for you all that is on earth. Then He Istawa (rose over) towards the heaven and made them seven heavens and He is the All-Knower of everything."[27]At the same time, God is unlike anything in creation: "There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing."[28]and nobody can perceive God in totality: "Vision perceives Him not, but He perceives [all] vision; and He is the Subtle, the Acquainted."[29]God in Islam is not only majestic and sovereign, but also a personal God: "And indeed We have created man, and We know what his ownself whispers to him. And We are nearer to him than his jugular vein (by Our Knowledge)."[30]Allah commands the believers to constantly remember Him ( "O you who have believed, remember Allah with much remembrance"[31]) and to invoke Him alone ( "And whoever invokes besides Allah another deity for which he has no proof—then his account is only with his Lord. Indeed, the disbelievers will not succeed."[32]).

Islam teaches that God as referenced in the Qur'an is the only god and the same God worshipped by members of otherAbrahamic religionssuch as Christianity and Judaism.

Sikhism

Main article:Sikh beliefs

One of the biggest responsibilities in the faith ofSikhismis to worship God as "The Creator", termedWaheguru,who is shapeless, timeless, and sightless, i.e.,Nirankar,Akal, andAlakh Niranjan.The religion only takes after the belief in "One God for All" orIk Onkar.

Baháʼí Faith

Main article:Baha'i Faith

In theBaháʼí FaithGod is the imperishable, uncreated being who is the source of all existence.[33]He is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal,omniscient,omnipresentandalmighty".[34][35]Althoughtranscendentand inaccessible directly, his image is reflected in his creation. The purpose of creation is for the created to have the capacity to know and love its creator.[36]

Mandaeism

Main article:Hayyi Rabbi
Further information:Mandaeism

InMandaeism,Hayyi Rabbi(lit=The Great Life), or 'The Great Living God',[37]is the supreme God from which all thingsemanate.He is also known as 'The First Life', since during the creation of the material world,Yushaminemanated from Hayyi Rabbi as the "Second Life."[38]"The principles of the Mandaean doctrine: the belief of the only one great God, Hayyi Rabbi, to whom all absolute properties belong; He created all the worlds, formed the soul through his power, and placed it by means of angels into the human body. So He createdAdam and Eve,the first man and woman. "[39]Mandaeans recognize God to be the eternal, creator of all, the one and only in domination who has no partner.[40]

Monolatrism

See also:Brahma

Monolatristictraditions would separate a secondary creator from the primarytranscendentbeing, identified as a primary creator.[1]According toGaudiya Vaishnavas,Brahmais the secondary creator and not the supreme.[41]Vishnuis the primary creator. According toVaishnavabelief Vishnu creates the basic universal shell and provides all the raw materials and also places the living entities within the material world, fulfilling their own independent will. Brahma works with the materials provided by Vishnu to actually create what are believed to be planets in Puranic terminology, and he supervises the population of them.[42]

Monism

Main article:Monism

Monism is the philosophy that asserts oneness as its fundamental premise, and it contradicts the dualism-based theistic premise that there is a creator God that is eternal and separate from the rest of existence. There are two types of monism, namely spiritual monism which holds that all spiritual reality is one, and material monism which holds that everything including all material reality is one and the same thing.[43]

Non-creationism

Buddhism

See also:Creator in Buddhism

Buddhism denies a creator deity and posits that mundane deities such asMahabrahmaare misperceived to be a creator.[44]

Jainism

Main article:Jainism and non-creationism

Jainismdoes not support belief in a creator deity. According to Jain doctrine, theuniverseand its constituents—soul, matter, space, time, and principles of motion have always existed (astatic universesimilar to that ofEpicureanismandsteady state cosmological model). All the constituents and actions are governed byuniversalnatural laws.It is not possible to create matter out of nothing and hence the sum total of matter in the universe remains the same (similar to law ofconservation of mass). Similarly, thesoulof each living being is unique and uncreated and has existed since beginningless time.[a][45]

The Jain theory ofcausationholds that a cause and its effect are always identical in nature and therefore a conscious and immaterial entity like God cannot create a material entity like the universe. Furthermore, according to the Jain concept of divinity, any soul who destroys its karmas and desires achieves liberation. A soul who destroys all its passions and desires has no desire to interfere in the working of the universe. Moral rewards and sufferings are not the work of a divine being, but a result of an innate moral order in thecosmos;a self-regulating mechanism whereby the individual reaps the fruits of his own actions through the workings of the karmas.

Through the ages,Jain philosophershave adamantly rejected and opposed the concept of creator and omnipotent God and this has resulted in Jainism being labeled asnāstika darsanaoratheist philosophyby the rivalreligious philosophies.The theme of non-creationism and absence of omnipotent God and divine grace runs strongly in all the philosophical dimensions of Jainism, including itscosmology,karma,moksaand its moral code of conduct. Jainism asserts a religious and virtuous life is possible without the idea of a creator god.[46]

Polytheism

In polytheistic creation, the world often comes into being organically, e.g. sprouting from a primal seed, sexually, bymiraculous birth(sometimes byparthenogenesis), byhieros gamos,violently, by the slaying of aprimeval monster,or artificially, by a divinedemiurgeor "craftsman". Sometimes, a god is involved, wittingly or unwittingly, in bringing about creation. Examples include:

Platonic demiurge

Main article:Demiurge
Further information:Neoplatonism and GnosticismandGreat Architect of the Universe

Plato,in his dialogueTimaeus,describes a creation myth involving a being called thedemiurge(δημιουργός"craftsman" ).NeoplatonismandGnosticismcontinued and developed this concept. In Neoplatonism, the demiurge represents the second cause ordyad,after themonad.In Gnosticdualism,the demiurge is an imperfect spirit and possibly an evil being, transcended by divine Fullness (Pleroma). Unlike the Abrahamic God, Plato's demiurge is unable to createex-nihilo.

Hinduism

Main article:Hindu views on evolution
Brahma is often associated with Creation in Hinduism, however has been demoted to a secondary creator in post-Vedic period.

Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanningmonotheism,polytheism,panentheism,pantheism,pandeism,monism,andatheismamong others;[49][50][note 2]and its concept of creator deity is complex and depends upon each individual and the tradition and philosophy followed. Hinduism is sometimes referred to ashenotheistic(i.e., involving devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of others), but any such term is an overgeneralization.[51]

TheNasadiya Sukta(Creation Hymn) of theRigvedais one of the earliest texts[52]which "demonstrates a sense of metaphysical speculation" about what created the universe, the concept of god(s) and The One, and whether even The One knows how the universe came into being.[53][54]TheRig Vedapraises various deities, none superior nor inferior, in a henotheistic manner.[55]The hymns repeatedly refer to One Truth and Reality. The "One Truth" of Vedic literature, in modern era scholarship, has been interpreted as monotheism, monism, as well as a deified Hidden Principles behind the great happenings and processes of nature.[56]

The post-Vedic texts of Hinduism offer multiple theories ofcosmogony,many involvingBrahma.These includeSarga(primary creation of universe) andVisarga(secondary creation), ideas related to the Indian thought that there are two levels of reality, one primary that is unchanging (metaphysical) and other secondary that is always changing (empirical), and that all observed reality of the latter is in an endless repeating cycle of existence, that cosmos and life we experience is continually created, evolved, dissolved and then re-created.[57]The primary creator is extensively discussed in Vedic cosmogonies withBrahmanorPurushaorDeviamong the terms used for the primary creator,[57][58]while the Vedic and post-Vedic texts name different gods and goddesses as secondary creators (often Brahma in post-Vedic texts), and in some cases a different god or goddess is the secondary creator at the start of each cosmic cycle (kalpa,aeon).[59][57]

Brahma is a "secondary creator" as described in theMahabharataandPuranas,and among the most studied and described.[60][61][62]Born from a lotus emerging from the navel ofVishnu,Brahma creates all the forms in the universe, but not the primordial universe itself.[63]In contrast, theShiva-focused Puranas describe Brahma and Vishnu to have been created byArdhanarishvara,that is half Shiva and half Parvati; or alternatively, Brahma was born fromRudra,or Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma creating each other cyclically in different aeons (kalpa).[59]Thus in most Puranic texts, Brahma's creative activity depends on the presence and power of a higher god.[64]

In other versions of creation, the creator deity is the one who is equivalent to theBrahman,the metaphysical reality in Hinduism. InVaishnavism,Vishnu creates Brahma and orders him to order the rest of universe. InShaivism,Shiva may be treated as the creator. InShaktism,theGreat Goddesscreates the Trimurti.[59][57][65]

Other

Kongo religion

TheBakongo peopletraditionally believe inNzambi Mpungu,the Creator God, whom the Portuguese compared tothe Christian Godduring colonization. They also believe his female counterpart calledNzambici,the ancestors (bakulu) as well as guardian spirits, such as Lemba, thebasimbi,bakisiand bakita.[66]Oral tradition accounts that in the beginning, there was only a circular void (mbûngi) with no life.[67]Nzambi Mpungu summoned a spark of fire (Kalûnga) that grew until it filled the mbûngi. When it grew too large, Kalûnga became a great force of energy and unleashed heated elements across space, forming the universe with the sun, stars, planets, etc.[67]Because of this, Kalûnga is seen as the origin of life and a force of motion. The Bakongo believe that life requires constant change and perpetual motion. Nzambi Mpunga is also referred to as Kalûnga, the God of change.[67]Similarities between the Bakongo belief of Kalûnga and theBig Bang Theoryhave been studied.[68]

Nzambi is also said to have created two worlds. As Kalûnga filled mbûngi, it created an invisible line that divided the circle in half.[67]The top half represents the physical world (Ku Nsekeornsi a bamôyo), while the bottom half represents the spiritual world of the ancestors (Ku Mpèmba).[66]The Kalûnga line separates these two worlds, and all living things exists on one side or another.[67]After creation, the line and the mbûngi circle became a river, carrying people between the worlds at birth and death. Then the process repeats and a person is reborn.[67]A simbi (pl. bisimbi) is a water spirit that is believed to inhabit bodies of water and rocks, having the ability to guidebakulu,or the ancestors, along the Kalûnga line to the spiritual world after death. They are also present during thebaptismsofAfrican American Christians,according toHoodoo tradition.[69][70]

Chinese traditional cosmology

Pangucan be interpreted as another creator deity. In the beginning there was nothing in theuniverseexcept a formlesschaos.However this chaos began to coalesce into acosmic eggfor eighteen thousand years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles ofyin and yangbecame balanced and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairygiantwith horns on his head and clad in furs. Pangu set about the task of creating the world: he separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating theEarth(murkyYin) and theSky(clearYang). To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the Sky. This task took eighteen thousand years, with each day the sky grew ten feet higher, the Earth ten feet wider, and Pangu ten feet taller. In some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the four most prominent beasts, namely theTurtle,theQilin,thePhoenix,and theDragon.

After eighteen thousand years[71]had elapsed, Pangu was laid to rest. His breath became thewind;his voice thethunder;left eye thesunand right eye themoon;his body became themountainsand extremes of the world; his blood formed rivers; his muscles the fertile lands; his facial hair the stars and milky way; his fur the bushes and forests; his bones the valuable minerals; his bone marrows sacred diamonds; his sweat fell as rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind becamehuman beingsall over the world.

The first writer to record the myth of Pangu wasXu Zhengduring theThree Kingdomsperiod.

Shangdiis another creator deity, possibly prior to Pangu; sharing concepts similar to Abrahamic faiths.

Kazakh

According toKazakhfolk tales, Jasagnan is the creator of the world.[72]

See also

Notes

  1. ^The termmythis used here in its academic sense, meaning "a traditional story consisting of events that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural, explaining the origins of a cultural practice or natural phenomenon." It isnotbeing used to mean "something that is false".
  1. ^majestic plural
  2. ^Ninian Smart (2007)."Polytheism".Encyclopædia Britannica.Encyclopædia Britannica Online.Retrieved5 July2007.

References

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  3. ^Leeming & Leeming 2004,p. 113.
  4. ^Sarna 1997,p. 50.
  5. ^Davies 2007,p. 37.
  6. ^Bandstra 2008,p. 37.
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  8. ^Alter 2004,p. xii.
  9. ^abAlter 1981,p. 141.
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  12. ^Carr 1996,p. 64.
  13. ^Yonge, Charles Duke (1854)."Appendices A Treatise Concerning the World (1): But what can be worse than this, or more calculated to display the want of true nobility existing in the soul, than the notion of causes, in general, being secondary and created causes, combined with an ignorance of the one first cause, the uncreated God, the Creator of the universe, who for these and innumerable other reasons is most excellent, reasons which because of their magnitude human intellect is unable to apprehend?" The Works of Philo Judaeus: the contemporary of Josephus. London: H. G. Bohn ".Cornerstonepublications.org. Archived fromthe originalon 28 September 2015.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ^Plato Laws Book X, Public Domain-Project Gutenberg. "ATHENIAN: Then I suppose that I must repeat the singular argument of those who manufacture the soul according to their own impious notions; they affirm that which is the first cause of the generation and destruction of all things, to be not first, but last, and that which is last to be first, and hence they have fallen into error about the true nature of the Gods… Then we must say that self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second."
  15. ^"On the simplicity of God, in" Summa Theologiae ", Part I, Question 3".Priory of Dominican Order(in Latin and English). Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Benziger Bros. edition. 1947. Archived fromthe originalon 2 October 2011.Retrieved6 October2018.Ostensum est autem supra quod Deus est primum movens immobile. Unde manifestum est quod Deus non est corpus. Secundo, quia necesse est id quod est primum ens, esse in actu, et nullo modo in potentia. Licet enim in uno et eodem quod exit de potentia in actum, prius sit potentia quam actus tempore, simpliciter tamen actus prior est potentia, quia quod est in potentia, non reducitur in actum nisi per ens actu. Ostensum est autem supra quod Deus est primum ens. Impossibile est igitur quod in Deo sit aliquid in potential.... Now it has been already proved (Question [2], Article [3]), that God is the First Mover, and is Himself unmoved. Therefore it is clear that God is not a body. Secondly, because the first being must of necessity be in act, and in no way in potentiality. For although in any single thing that passes from potentiality to actuality, the potentiality is prior in time to the actuality; nevertheless, absolutely speaking, actuality is prior to potentiality; for whatever is in potentiality can be reduced into actuality only by some being in actuality. Now it has been already proved that God is the First Being. It is therefore impossible that in God there should be any potentiality.
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  19. ^"Greek New Testament and Wiki English Translation. Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 1 to 3"(in English and Greek).Archivedfrom the original on 21 August 2011.
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  21. ^ May, Gerhard (2004).Creatio ex nihilo[Creation from nothing]. Continuum International. p. xii.ISBN978-0-567-08356-2.Retrieved23 November2009.If we look into the early Christian sources, it becomes apparent that the thesis ofcreatio ex nihiloin its full and proper sense, as an ontological statement, only appeared when it was intended, in opposition to the idea of world-formation from unoriginate matter, to give expression to the omnipotence, freedom and uniqueness of God.
  22. ^ May, Gerhard (1978).Schöpfung aus dem Nichts. Die Entstehung der Lehre von der creatio ex nihilo[Creation from Nothingness: the origin of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo]. AKG 48 (in German). Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. p. 151f.ISBN3-11-007204-1.
  23. ^ Siegfried, Francis (1908)."Creation".The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.New York: Robert Appleton Company.Retrieved30 September2008.Probably the idea of creation never entered the human mind apart from Revelation. Though some of the pagan philosophers attained to a relatively high conception of God as the supreme ruler of the world, they seem never to have drawn the next logical inference of His being the absolute cause of all finite existence. [...] The descendants of Sem and Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob, preserved the idea of creation clear and pure; and from the opening verse of Genesis to the closing book of the Old Testament the doctrine of creation runs unmistakably outlined and absolutely undefiled by any extraneous element. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." In this, the first, sentence of the Bible we see the fountain-head of the stream which is carried over to the new order by the declaration of the mother of the Machabees: "Son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing" (2 Maccabees 7:28). One has only to compare the Mosaic account of the creative work with that recently discovered on the clay tablets unearthed from the ruins of Babylon to discern the immense difference between the unadulterated revealed tradition and the puerile story of the cosmogony corrupted by polytheistic myths. Between the Hebrew and the Chaldean account there is just sufficient similarity to warrant the supposition that both are versions of some antecedent record or tradition; but no one can avoid the conviction that the Biblical account represents the pure, even if incomplete, truth, while the Babylonian story is both legendary and fragmentary (Smith, "Chaldean Account of Genesis", New York, 1875).
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  25. ^Qur'an 67:2,Muhsin Khan Translation
  26. ^Qur'an 78:31,Yusuf Ali translation
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  28. ^Qur'an 42:11,Sahih International Translation
  29. ^Qur'an 6:103,Sahih International translation
  30. ^Qur'an 50:16,Muhsin Khan Translation
  31. ^Qur'an 33:41, Sahih International Translation
  32. ^Qur'an 23:117,Sahih International Translation
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  35. ^Effendi 1944,p. 139
  36. ^Smith 2008,p. 111
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  42. ^"Secondary Creation".Krishna. Archived fromthe originalon 26 November 2009.Retrieved6 August2009.
  43. ^Owen Anderson (2015).The Declaration of Independence and God: Self-Evident Truths in American Law.Cambridge University Press. p. 234.ISBN978-1-316-40464-5.
  44. ^Harvey, Peter (2013). An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pg. 36-8
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  53. ^Flood 1996,p. 226;Kramer 1986,pp. 20–21
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  55. ^Max Muller(1878), Lectures on the Origins and Growth of Religions: As Illustrated by the Religions of India, Longmans Green & Co, pages 260-271;
    William Joseph Wilkins,Hindu Mythology: Vedic and Purānic,p. 8, atGoogle Books,London Missionary Society, Calcutta
  56. ^HN Raghavendrachar(1944),Monism in the VedasArchived6 February 2015 at theWayback Machine,The half-yearly journal of the Mysore University: Section A - Arts, Volume 4, Issue 2, pages 137-152;
    K Werner(1982), Men, gods and powers in the Vedic outlook, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Volume 114, Issue 01, pages 14-24;
    H Coward(1995), Book Review: "The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas", Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Volume 8, Issue 1, pages 45-47,Quote:"There is little doubt that the theo-monistic category is an appropriate one for viewing a wide variety of experiences in the Hindu tradition".
  57. ^abcdTracy Pintchman (1994), The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition, State University of New York Press,ISBN978-0791421123,pages 122-138
  58. ^Jan Gonda (1969),The Hindu Trinity,Anthropos, Bd 63/64, H 1/2, pages 213-214
  59. ^abcStella Kramrisch (1994), The Presence of Siva, Princeton University Press,ISBN978-0691019307,pages 205-206
  60. ^Bryant, Edwin F., ed. (2007).Krishna: a sourcebook.New York: Oxford University Press. p. 7.ISBN978-0-19-514891-6.
  61. ^Sutton, Nicholas (2000).Religious doctrines in the Mahābhārata(1st ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. p. 182.ISBN81-208-1700-1.
  62. ^Asian Mythologies by Yves Bonnefoy & Wendy Doniger. Page 46
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  64. ^Frazier, Jessica (2011).The Continuum companion to Hindu studies.London: Continuum. p. 72.ISBN978-0-8264-9966-0.
  65. ^Arvind Sharma (2000).Classical Hindu Thought: An Introduction.Oxford University Press. pp. 64–65.ISBN978-0-19-564441-8.
  66. ^abBrown, Ras Michael (2012).African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry(1st ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge. pp. 90–114.ISBN9781107668829.
  67. ^abcdefAsante, Molefi Kete; Mazama, Ama (2009).Encyclopedia of African Religion.SAGE Publications. pp. 120–124, 165–166, 361.ISBN978-1412936361.
  68. ^Luyaluka, Kiatezua Lubanzadio (2017)."The Spiral as the Basic Semiotic of the Kongo Religion, the Bukongo".Journal of Black Studies.48(1): 91–112.doi:10.1177/0021934716678984.ISSN0021-9347.JSTOR26174215.S2CID152037988.
  69. ^Anderson, Jeffrey E. (2008).Hoodoo, Voodoo, and Conjure: A Handbook.Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 114.ISBN9780313342226.
  70. ^Manigault-Bryant, LeRhonda S. (2014).Talking to the Dead: Religion, Music, and Lived Memory among Gullah/Geechee Women.Durham: Duke University Press.ISBN9780822376705.
  71. ^(Note: In ancient China, 18,000 does not exactly mean eighteen thousand, it is meant to be "many", or "a number that could not be counted" ).
  72. ^Nhân loại khởi nguyên thần thoại: Tây Bắc khu vực dân tộc ( 04 ): Dân tộc Kazak 2-1

Bibliography

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