Material Culture of Religion: Glossary of (selected) Religious Terms, Concepts, People, Etc. A ad

success Christian: Realizing the fullest potential for good of one's true self so that one's life ia s harmonious expression of one's innate gifts."

sudra
Hindu: Fourth highest (or, lowest) of the Indian caste system. “Spring from Brahma’s feet.”

sufara
[incomplete]
Muslim: Representatives of the twelfth Imam.

Sufi
Muslim: One who practices Sufism.

Sufism
Muslim (Shi'ite): A mystical tradition emphasizing spiritual experience.

Sukkot (=Sukkoth, =Festival of Tabernacles; Hebrew)
Jewish: Autumn festival of thanksgiving during which Jews build temporary booths with thatched roofs to commemorate the sojourn of the people of Israel for 40 years in the wilderness of Sinai. A ceremony called Simchat Torah closes Sukkot and marks the end of the yearly reading of the first five books of the Jewish scriptures. (See also Sukkot.)

sultan
Muslim: A ruler.

Sun Myung Moon
See Moon, Rev. Sun Myung.

Sunna (=sunnah; Arabic: "custom", "code of behavior")
[incomplete]
Muslim: Traditions of Muhammad
Muslim: Reported practices of Muhammad
Muslim: The ethical and religious example set by Muhammad in his words and deeds, as recorded in the Hadith.
Muslim: The sayings, actions and approvals of Muhammad, which serve to confirm or explain the Qur'an. Their reportage in narration is called hadith.

sunnat
Muslim: Recommended or desirable for religious reasons.

sunnatullah
Muslim: Divine tradition.

Sunni
[incomplete]
Muslim: One of two major branches of Islam, including at least 85 percent of Muslims. Sunnis split with Shi'ites over who should succeed the prophet Mohammed after his death;. Muslim: The majority of Muslims (about 86%) who accept orthodox Muslim theology and the traditional line of Caliphs. Al-al-Sunnah wa al-Jama'ah means people of the tradition and the community.

supernatural
Christian (Roman Catholic): In theology since St. Thomas Aquinas, this term refers to the grace of God as it elevates human nature above itself in order to see God.

superstition (from Latin: "to stand over or next to")
Common usage: A belief with no basis in fact or orthodox religion.

Suprema (=La Suprema)
Christian (Roman Catholic: Spanish): The ministry of the inquisitor general (head of the Inquisition).

suppressive person (=SP, =antisocial person)
Scientologist: A person who possesses a distinct set of characteristics and mental attitudes that cause him to suppress other people in his vicinity.

sura (=surah) (Arabic)
Muslim: A chapter of the Qur'an; there are 114 total.

Surjya
Hindu: The sun God, often identified with Vishnu.

sutra (Sanskrit: "thread")

1. 
   Common Usage (Indian subcontinent): Refers to an authoritative text.
   
2. 
   Buddhist: Addresses of the Buddha, or texts attributed to the Buddha.
   

suttee
Hindu: The tradition of immolating widows on their husbands’ funeral pyres.

Swami At Dhara
See Goddard, Marion Vincent.

swayamsevak
Hindu: A self-inspired person working without any expectation of fame, reward or remuneration.

symbol
An object that stands for something more abstract or general. The cross, for example, is a symbol in Christianity representing Christ's suffering and death. Symbols usually presuppose a certain learning process in order to be understood. Through attachment to specific emotional experiences and models of thought, symbols acquire great importance in the creation of intense experiences and commonly have clear implications for action based on belief.

symposium (from Greek for “drinking party”)
Platonic: The title of a dialogue by Plato, in which a number of Athenian men at a drinking party give speeches on the nature of love.

synod
[incomplete]

• 
  Synod of Forcheim (1078)
  

synoptic
Christian: A term referring to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke in the New Testament, which share the same basic plot structure (unlike the Gospel of John, which differs from these three).

T

ta'allaa (Arabic: "be exalted")
Muslim (exclamation): Follows Allah.

tadbir (Arabic: "planning")

tafsir (=tafseer; Arabic: "exegesis")
[incomplete]
Muslim: Technical interpetation of the Qur'an, as contrasted with ta'wil.
Muslim: Explanation of or commentary on the Qur'an.

tahara (Arabic)
Muslim: Ritual purity, a state required before participation in the salat, touching the Qur'an or other ritual acts. There are two divisions: A major purification (ghusl) after e.g. coitus or menstruation, is distinguished from a minor one (wudu), such as performed before salat. Sand may be used if water is lacking.

Tahquitz
Native American (Cahuilla)/New Age: An evil spirit residing in the San Jacinto Mountains near Palm Springs, Calif.

Taiping Jing
Taoist: A Chinese sect of Taoism.

tai chi (=tai xi, =t'ai chi, = t'ai xi; Chinese: "embryonic respiration")

1. 
   Common Usage: A series of meditation exercising stressing correct breathing.
   
2. 
   Common Usage: Another name for the yin-yang symbol.
   
3. 
   Confucian: Refers to "The Great Ultimate" of Confucianism.
   
4. 
   Taoist: A specific meditation practice.
   

tajalli (Arabic)

1. 
   Muslim: Theophany of God's names and qualities.
   
2. 
   Muslim (Shi'ite): God's truth is reflected in the world as through a mirror; it does not enter into nor is it affected by the world.
   

tajdid (Arabic: "revival", "renewal")

tajweed (=tajwid; Arabic)

1. 
   Common usage (Muslim): The science of the recitation of the Qur'an.
   
2. 
   Muslim: Recitation of the Qur'an by someone who has had professional training.
   

talaq
Muslim: Divorce by repudiation (done by husband).

Taleju Bhawani
Hindu (Nepalese): A goddess, originally a South Indian deity; an aspect of Devi.

talib (pl. talibun; Arabic: "student")
[incomplete]
Common usage: Denotes the religious zealots in Afghanistan who defeated the Soviets.

Talmud (Hebrew)
Jewish: The key document of Rabbinic Judaism, consisting of the Mishnah together with its commentary, the Gemara.

Talmudist (from the Hebrew)
Jewish: A specialist in study of the Talmud.

Tammuz
Jewish (minor holiday): Marks the first breach in the walls of Jerusalem when it was besieged by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. (see also Tammuz)

tanasukh (Arabic)
Muslim: Transmigration of human souls.

tantra
Buddhist/Hindu: Primarily found in Tibetan Buddhism, but also present in other Buddhist sects and in Hinduism, the tantra refers to a manual that teaches magical words and spells to harness imaginative and libidinal energies in the pursuit of salvation.

Tao (=Dao) (Chinese)
(see also Hindu: dharma)

1. 
   The way, as in "the way of nature".
   
2. 
   The cosmic, mysterious and ultimate principle underlying form, substance, being and change. The unproduced Producer of all that is; the source of all things.
   

Tao Jia (Chinese: "Taoist Philosophy")
Taoist: The second strand of Taoism, begun about 500 BCE: the first is Xian Tao and the third Tao Jiao.

Tao Jiao (Chinese: "Taoist Religion")
Taoist: The third strand of Taoism, begun about 150 CE; the first is Xian Tao and the second Tao Jia.

Taoism
Taoist: The English-language name of a religious faith founded by Lao-Tzu about 2500 years ago in China. Taoism teaches people to enhance their health and longevity by minimizing their desires and centering themselves on stillness. Key concepts include:

• 
  Life is to be lived in harmony with the Tao.
  
• 
  Life is to be lived simply.
  
• 
  Human achievement is foolish (because one person's achievements only make other people envious and unhappy).
  

There was something containing all,
Before heaven and earth it exists:
Tranquil, oh! Incorporeal, oh!
Alone it stands and does not change.
It goes everywhere and is not hindered.
It can thereby become the universe's mother.
I know not its name;
I characterize it by calling it the Way.
Forced to make a name for it I call it the Great.
Great I call the elusive.
The elusive I call the far.
The far I call the returning.
--(from Tao Te Ching)


taqwa (Arabic: "God consciousness")
Muslim: Fear of Allah.

taqiya (=taqiyya; Arabic: "dissimulation")
Muslim (Shi'ite): Resort to concealing of facts or intentions in defense of Islam.


taqlid (Arabic)

1. 
   Muslim: Reliance on tradition.
   
2. 
   Muslim: Adoption and imitation of traditional legal decisions. Criticized as the opposite of ijtihad.
   

Tara

1. 
   Hindu (Nepal): A Nepalese princess.
   
2. 
   Hindu/Buddhist: A deity (see also White Tara).
   
3. 
   Common Usage: A fictional plantation in antebellum Georgia (from Gone With The Wind); symbolizes a belief in white Southern superiority.
   

tariqa (pl. turuq)

1. 
   Muslim: Spiritual path leading to God.
   
2. 
   Muslim (Shi'ite): The way of Sufism as a whole as the mystical path of Islam.
   
3. 
   Muslim: A specific Sufi organization or brotherhood with a specific method of meditation.
   

tasawwuf
Muslim (Shi'ite): The esoteric dimension of Islam manifested as Sufism.

Tashlikh (Hebrew)
Jewish: On the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah (or the second day, if the first was the sabbath), members of a Jewish community gather by a river, lake or other body of water. Each individual throws crumbs of bread into the water and recites prayers that include this verse from the Hebrew Bible: "And You will cast their sins into the depths of the sea." (Micah 7:19)

tasawwuf
Muslim: Sufism.

tathata (Sanskrit)
Buddhist (Zen): Theological construct of thusness, the as-it-is-ness of the world.

tawhid (=tauheed; Arabic: "unity")
[incomplete]
Muslim (common usage): Shouted by the audience as a interjected commentary during presentations on Islamic topics.
Muslim: The belief in the oneness of the Creator.
Muslim: The doctrine of the unity of Allah, which is stressed in the Qur'an and thus became a cardinal principle in Islamic theology. Often used as a shouted affirmation by a Muslim audience in response to a speech or presentation with Muslim content.

ta'wil (Arabic)
Muslim: Spiritual interpretation of the Qur'an, as contrasted with tafsir.

tawwabun (Arabic: "penitents")

ta'ziya (Arabic: "consolation")
Muslim (Shi'ite): A play commemorating the tragic death of the third Imam, Husayn, at Karbala in 680 CE.

Te (Chinese: "power", "virtue", "integrity", "character")
Taoist: The power of one who follows the Tao.

techne (Greek)

1. 
   Common usage: The process by which things are created.
   
2. 
   Aristotelian: Art is an intellectual virtue.
   

telia philia (Greek)
Aristotelian: Perfected or completed friendship; friendship grounded in virtue.

teleological proof
Proofs for the existence of God are called teleological if they are based on the apparent design or purposive order of the world.

teleology
Concern with ends, goals, final outcomes (see, eschatology).

Ten Commandments
Jewish/Christian: The laws revealed to Moses by God at the summit of Mount Sinai. There are two versions in the Hebrew Bible: Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-18.

Ten Days of Repentance
Jewish: The first 10 days of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, which begins with Rosh Hashanah and ends with Yom Kippur. (See also Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.)

Ten Fetters (=Sanskrit: Samyojanas)
Buddhist (Zen): Illusion of an ego, skepticism, belief in magic as solving the problem of life, sensory delusion, ill-will, desire for formed existence, desire for formless existence, arrogance, restlessness, and ignorance of the true nature of reality.

Ten Good Deeds
Buddhist: The "Ten Good Deeds" are: giving, keeping the precepts, meditating, transferring merit, rejoicing in another's merit, giving service, showing respect, teaching, listening to teaching and right beliefs.

Ten Gurus
Sikh: The ten spiritual leaders who took the title guru. They are regarded as vehicles for the divine word, but not as avatars, incarnations or intercessors. Guru Nanak was the first (1469-1539) followed by Angad, Amar Das, Ram Das, Arjan, Hargobind, Har Rai, Har Krishan, Tegh Badadur and Gobind Singh, who died in 1708 after giving joint spiritual authority to the book Guru Granth Sahib and the corporate community (called panth in Punjabi).

Tenri-kyo (Japanese: "teaching of heavenly reason")
Shinto: A sect which gives emphasis to faith healing.

Tenth of Tevet
Jewish (holiday): A minor fast that marks the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, in the year 587-6 BCE. (See also Tenth of Tevet.)

Terce
Christian: Third part of the daily prayer time schedule; mid-morning.

Tertian
Christian (Roman Catholic): A Jesuit serving a Tertianship.

Tertianship
Christian (Roman Catholic): A period of time when a Jesuit, three or more after ordination, pursues a temporary ministry different than that previously served.

Tertullian
[incomplete]
Christian: Early church father.

thakuri
Hindu: A high caste.

Thanksgiving
Common usage (North America): Secular celebration of the created earth which has religious overtones.

Thelmic Golden Dawn
See Order of the Thelmic Golden Dawn.

Theodicy (Greek: "justification of God")
A philosophical reply to the problem of evil, trying to show it is possible that God is good, despite all the evil there is in the world.

Theological Studies
Christian (Roman Catholic): A time when a Jesuit pursues a master's degree in theology; this generally occurs just prior to ordination.

theophany
Manifestation of a deity visible to humans.

Theosophy
A religious movement founded in New York City by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge, and others, as the Theosophical Society. The faith regards itself as a contemporary expression of a tradition going back to the Neo-Platonists of classical antiquity. Primary concepts are:

• 
  the fundamental unity of all existence, so that dichotomies (matter & spirit, human & divine, I & Thou) are seen as transitory and relative distinctions of an underlying absolute Oneness
  
• 
  the regularity of universal law, cyclically producing universes out of the absolute ground of being
  
• 
  the progress of consciousness developing through the cycles of life to an ever-increasing realization of Unity.
  

These beliefs often lead to such practices as meditation, vegetarianism and care for animal welfare, active support of women's and minority rights, and a concern for ecology. Some individual Theosophists also profess various of the world's religions; others have no religious affiliation. (See also Theosophy.)

Theotokos
Christian: The Virgin Mary as the Mother of God.

thera (Pali: "elder", "senior monk")
Buddhist: A monk with more than ten years of manhood from the day of his higher ordination.

Theravada ("the tradition of the elders") (= Hinayana)
Buddhist: The smaller and more conservative version of Buddhism.

theta (= Greek letter "theta" ?, representing "thought")

1. 
   Scientologist: Energy peculiar to life which acts upon material in the physical universe and animates it, mobilizes it and changes it.
   
2. 
   Scientologist: Natural creative energy of a being which s/he is free to direct toward survival goals.
   

thetan

1. 
   Scientologist: An immortal spiritual being. "The thetan is the person himself, not his body or his name or the physical universe, his mind or anything else. It is that which is aware of being aware; the identity which IS the individual." (reference)
   
2. 
   Scientologist: The human soul. "One does not have a thetan, something one keeps somewhere apart from oneself; one is a thetan." (reference)
   

Third Order
Christian (Roman Catholic): Religious community adhering to the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Assisi.

13 (=thirteen)

1. 
   Common usage (Christian): Unlucky number (because there were 13 at the Last Supper).
   
2. 
   Common usage (Christian): Lucky number (because Jesus and his Disciples numbered 13).
   
3. 
   Common usage (Asia): Lucky number (homonym in Chinese for "must succeed").
   
4. 
   Common usage (esp. United States): Friday the 13th (when Friday is congruent with the 13th day of any month) is an unlucky day (combination of 13 as unlucky number and Friday as traditional day for executions, including the crucifixion of Jesus).
   
5. 
   Common usage (archaic): If 13 sit at a table, one will die within the year (a superstition dating to the 17th century; related to 13 at the Last Supper).
   
6. 
   New Age: The Tarot card for "death" is 13.
   
7. 
   Common usage (traditional): =baker's dozen. From the European baker's historic custom to add one or two to each dozen items purchased.
   

Thomas Aquinas
Christian (Medieval): 1225-1274; the most influential thinker of the Scholastic period, integrating classical and Christian thought.

Thor
Norse/New Age: Scandinavian sky-god, controlling winds and storms.

3 (=three)
Christian: The trinity.
Common usage: "Bad things happen in threes."

Three Dan Tians
Taoist: Refers to three bodily centers of spirituality located between the eyebrows (upper; associated with purple); the center of the chest (middle; associated with gold) and below the navel (lower; associated with white).

Three Teachings (see also San-ciao)
A standard phrase used to refer to the three major Chinese religions: Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.

Three Weeks (=bein ha-meitsarim)
Jewish: The interval between the Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av commemorating the period between the breach of the walls of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and day of the destruction of the Temple.

Tian Shi (Chinese: heavenly teachers" or "heavenly masters")
Taoist: A sect of Taoism founded by Zhang Dao-Ling.

T'ien (Chinese: "heaven")
Confucian: The source and guarantor of order.

Tikkun (Hebrew)

1. 
   The name of a magazine.
   
2. 
   Jewish: In Cabala, the restoration of the world and the divine realm of the Sefirot brought by the good deeds of humanity, and especially by Israel's obedience to Torah.
   

tilawa (Arabic)
Muslim: Ritual recitation of the Qur'an.

time track
Scientologist: The consecutive record of mental image pictures which accumulates through a person’s life.

Tiragan
Zoroastrian (holiday): The celebration in honor of Tishtat, the Dog Star; recognizes dogs as helpers of humanity.

Tishah Be-Av (=Tishah B'av; Hebrew)
Jewish (holiday): A solemn holy day marking several disasters in history: the date of the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, of the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, of the defeat of the Bar Kokhva Revolt, the expulsion of Jews from England and the expulsion of Jews from Spain. (See also Tishah Be-Av.)

Tishrei (Hebrew)
Jewish: Name of the month in the Hebrew calendar which contains the Ten Days of Repentance, beginning with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur.

Tohji-Taisai
Shinto: Grand Ceremony of the Winter Solstice.

Torah (Hebrew: "law")

1. 
   Jewish: The scroll containing the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.
   
2. 
   Jewish: The whole of God's revelation to Israel at Mount Sinai, both written and oral, the latter being identified with the rabbinic interpretation of Scripture that was eventually written down in the Talmud
   

Toyouke Okami
Shinto: The Goddess of farming and harvest.

TRs (=training routines)
Scientologist: Practical drills which can greatly increase a student’s ability in essential auditing skills.

Traditionalists
Muslim: Term used to describe followers of Ibn Hanbal (d. 855) who rejected the claims of rationalism especially in early theological discussions.

Transfiguration of Jesus
Christian: The commemoration of the experience on Mount Tabor when Jesus' physical appearance became brilliant as his connection with traditional Jewish holy figures became evident to the disciples.

transcendence (Latin: "to go beyond")
Christian: The characteristic of God being beyond this world or beyond time and space.

transmigration
The view that souls move or migrate from one body to another at death (including from animal bodies to human bodies, and vice-versa).

transubstantiation
Christian (Roman Catholic): The change which occurs at the blessing of the elements of the Mass, in which the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus.

Tribe of Dan
Christian: A subgroup of Christian Identity; see also Tribe of Dan.

Trinitarians of Mary
Christian (Roman Catholic): Order of nuns.

Trinity
Christian: The teaching that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who are not identical with one another yet are one God.

Trinity Sunday (=Trinity Day)

Christian: A day honoring the belief in the Trinity.

Triodion
Christian (Eastern Orthodox): Liturgical period leading up to Lent.