Volume 1 Empires and Gods: The Role of Religions in Imperial History

Open Access Published by De Gruyter 2024

Volume 1 Empires and Gods

The Role of Religions in Imperial History

Edited by: Jörg Rüpke , Michal Biran and Yuri Pines

Part of the multi-volume work Imperial Histories: Eurasian Empires Compared

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111342009

Overview
Contents

About this book

Open Access

Interaction with religions was one of the most demanding tasks for imperial leaders. Religions could be the glue that held an empire together, bolstering the legitimacy of individual rulers and of the imperial enterprise as a whole. Yet, they could also challenge this legitimacy and jeopardize an empire’s cohesiveness. As empires by definition ruled heterogeneous populations, they had to interact with a variety of religious cults, creeds, and establishments. These interactions moved from accommodation and toleration, to cooptation, control, or suppression; from aligning with a single religion to celebrating religious diversity or even inventing a new transcendent civic religion; and from lavish patronage to indifference.

The volume’s contributors investigate these dynamics in major Eurasian empires—from those that functioned in a relatively tolerant religious landscape (Ashokan India, early China, Hellenistic, and Roman empires) to those that allied with a single proselytizing or non-proselytizing creed (Sassanian Iran, Christian and Islamic empires), to those that tried to accommodate different creeds through "pay for pray" policies (Tang China, the Mongols), exploring the advantages and disadvantages of each of these choices.

Author / Editor information

Jörg Rüpke, University of Erfurt, Germany, Michal Biran, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea, Yuri Pines, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Foreword Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
List of Maps Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
Empires and Religions: An Introduction Jörg Rüpke, Michal Biran and Yuri Pines Open Access Download PDF	1
1 Imperial Ideology and Religious Pluralism in the Aśokan Inscriptional Corpus Patrick Olivelle Open Access Download PDF	25
2 Secular Theocracy? State and Religion in Early China Revisited Yuri Pines Open Access Download PDF	45
3 On Imperial Intermediaries: Elites and the Promotion of the Hellenistic Ruler Cult in Ptolemaic Phoenicia and Cyprus Corinne Bonnet Open Access Download PDF	77
4 Religion in, for, and against the Roman Empire Jörg Rüpke Open Access Download PDF	101
5 Envisioning Dualism and Emplacing the Eschaton: Apocalyptic Eschatology and Empire in Sasanian Iran Matthew P. Canepa Open Access Download PDF	135
6 A Christian Roman Empire? Byzantium between Imperial Monotheism and Religious Multiplicity, Fourth to Ninth Century CE (and Beyond) Johannes Preiser-Kapeller Open Access Download PDF	175
7 “Action Buddhism” in the Medieval Chinese Empire James A. Benn Open Access Download PDF	207
8 Religions in the Mongol Empire Revisited: Exchanges, Conversion, Consequences Michal Biran Open Access Download PDF	231
9 Religion and the Medieval Western Empire (CE 919–1519) Len Scales Open Access Download PDF	263
10 A Populist Reformation: The Early Modern Transformation of Islam in the Ottoman Empire Baki Tezcan Open Access Download PDF	295
11 Religion and Politics in the Mughal Empire of India André Wink Open Access Download PDF	321
List of Contributors Open Access Download PDF	351
Index Open Access Download PDF	355

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Historians of different empires across Eurasia; historians of religion; comparative sociologist
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 368
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 7
- Coloured Illustrations: 8
Keywords: Empire; Eurasia; Religion; Aniquity; Middle Ages

eBook

Published: February 19, 2024
ISBN: 9783111342009

Hardcover

Published: February 19, 2024
ISBN: 9783111341620