It was Max Müller who coined the famous motto of the comparative study of religion "He who knows one, knows none." Since its first beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, the history of religions has always somehow invoked comparative insights as its very raison d'être. The nature of these insights has been under constant debate and at times, scepticism and devastating critique of the more pretentious comparative projects made regionally specialized studies seem the only legitimate enterprise within the discipline. The fact remains, however, that the major general issues addressed by historians of religions are rooted in considerations of a comparative nature. The dossier of papers from an international conference held at the University of Copenhagen discusses tradition as well as new approaches to the fundamental issues of the aim, scope and validity of comparative studies in history of religions. No longer bound to monolithic visions of history and human nature, these papers critically explore the limits and the roles of comparison in the study of religion.

Comparison is at the heart of religious studies as a discipline and foundational to the field's methodology. In this book, Arvind Sharma introduces the term "reciprocal illumination" to describe the mutual enlightenment that can occur when a comparison is made between one tradition and another, one method and another, or between a tradition and a method. Developing the concept of reciprocal illumination through historical, phenomenological, and psychological methods, Sharma demonstrates how to use comparison, while avoiding the pitfall of treating it as merely raw material for higher order generalizations.

History is one of the most important cultural tools to make sense of one’s situation, to establish identity, define otherness, and explain change. This is the first systematic scholarly study that analyses the complex relationship between history and religion, taking into account religious groups both as producers of historical narratives as well as distinct topics of historiography. Coming from different disciplines, the authors of this volume ask under which conditions and with what consequences religions are historicised. How do religious groups employ historical narratives in the construction of their identities? What are the biases and elisions of current analytical and descriptive frames in the History of Religion? The volume aims at initiating a comparative historiography of religion and combines disciplinary competences of Religious Studies and the History of Religion, Confessional Theologies, History, History of Science, and Literary Studies. By applying literary comparison and historical contextualization to those texts that have been used as central documents for histories of individual religions, their historiographic themes, tools and strategies are analysed. The comparative approach addresses circum-Mediterranean and European as well as Asian religious traditions from the first millennium BCE to the present and deals with topics such as the origins of religious historiography, the practices of writing and the transformation of narratives.

Nel 1990 si tenne a Roma il XVI Congresso del I.A.H.R. che ebbe come tema la nozione di "religione". Venne particolarmente analizzato l'uso di tale termine da parte degli studiosi di lingua europea nei rapporti con le culture non europee e viceversa.

Excerpt from Religion: A Comparative Study The author has a definite purpose in offering this book to the public. He is aware that there are many valuable works on the subject of Comparative Religion. He regards some of them as too voluminous and technical for the average reader who is seeking an intelligent understanding of the Great Religions of the world. Others show unmistakable signs of having been "made in Germany" and as being a part of the destructive higher criticism that has done harm to the cause of Christianity. Some of these volumes are admirable in every way, but are so condensed they do not give a general survey of the field. The present work will doubtless prove equally unsatisfactory to many readers, but if others get as much pleasure and profit from its perusal, as the author has in its preparation, he will be well paid. We have treated the subject under three general heads: I. The Science of Comparative Religion. II. The History of Religions. III. The Comparison of Religions. The religious idea is one and innate, but as this idea is expressed by different peoples it is colored by the medium through which it passes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.