Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Volume 3: Burial—Confessions

The opening article, Buriats, examines the religious beliefs, shamanism, social customs, mythology, ritual life, marriage, burial practices, animal symbolism, and Buddhist influences among the Buryat peoples of Siberia and Mongolia. This is followed by Burma, an extensive survey of Burmese religion and culture, including Theravāda Buddhism, monastic institutions, popular religion, spirit worship, festivals, social customs, divination, marriage, funerary rites, and Hindu and indigenous influences. A separate study treats Buddhism in Burma and Assam, with attention to monastic organization, canonical traditions, education, pagodas, and regional Buddhist practice.

Further entries include Bushmen, Business, Butler, Cæsarism, Cagot, and Cakes and Loaves, illustrating the encyclopaedia’s breadth from ethnography and theology to political religion and ritual food. A major portion of the supplied file is devoted to Calendar, first theoretically and then comparatively across African, American, Armenian, Babylonian, Buddhist, Celtic, Chinese, Christian, Egyptian, Greek, Hebrew, Indo-Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, Mexican-Mayan, Muslim, Persian, and Polynesian traditions. These articles analyse systems of time-reckoning, lunar and solar cycles, festivals, sacred seasons, intercalation, astronomical computation, and the religious organization of communal time.