Since its arrival in Japan in the sixth century, Buddhism has played a central role in Japanese culture. But the historical figure of the Buddha, the prince of ancient Indian descent who abandoned his wealth and power to become an awakened being, has...

The Yaysmawurk' is an Armenian liturgical collection of brief saints' lives arranged according to the day on which they were celebrated in the annual church calendar. The first Yaysmawurk' was translated from an existing Greek liturgical collection,...

On September 25, 1890, the Mormon prophet Wilford Woodruff publicly instructed his followers to abandon polygamy. In doing so, he initiated a process that would fundamentally alter the Latter-day Saints and their faith. Trading the most integral elem...

A distinctive feature of Christian culture in early Islamic Syria and Palestine was a renewed interest in literature on martyrs, which represented a potential reaction among some Christian communities to the rise of Islam in the region. The adaption...

Tantra occupies a unique position in Western understandings of Hindu spirituality. Its carnal dimension has made its name instantly recognizable, but this popular fascination with sex has obscured its philosophical depth and ritual practices, to say...

We have come to admire Buddhism for being profound but accessible, as much a lifestyle as a religion. The credit for creating Buddhism goes to the Buddha, a figure widely respected across the Western world for his philosophical insight, his teachings...

We tend to think that the Buddha has always been seen as the compassionate sage admired around the world today, but until the nineteenth century, Europeans often regarded him as a nefarious figure, an idol worshipped by the pagans of the Orient. Dona...

A century after his presidency, Woodrow Wilson remains one of the most compelling and complicated figures ever to occupy the Oval Office. A political outsider, Wilson brought to the presidency a distinctive, strongly held worldview, built on powerful...

"What does it mean to see the American landscape in a secular way?" asks Nicolas Howe at the outset of this innovative, ambitious, and wide-ranging book. It's a surprising question because of what it implies: we usually aren't seeing American landsca...

Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often...