Patterns in comparative religion
By: by Mircea Eliade ; translated by Rosemary Sheed
Series: Meridian book
Publisher: World
Published: 1963
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 484
Subjects: Religions
Work titles: Traité d'histoire des religions
Notes: Translation of Traité d'histoire des religions.

Includes bibliographies and indexes.
Table of contents: title: I. Approximations: the structure and morphology of the sacred; title: 1. "Sacred" and "profane"; title: 2. Difficulties of method; title: 3. The variety among hierophanies; title: 4. The multiplicity of hierophanies; title: 5. The dialectic of hierophanies; title: 6. The taboo and the ambivalence of the sacred; title: 7. Mana; title: 8. The structure of hierophanies; title: 9. The revaluation of hierophanies; title: 10. The complexity of "primitive" religion; title: II. The sky and sky gods; title: 11. Sacredness of the sky; title: 12. Australian sky gods; title: 13. Sky gods among the Andaman islanders, Africans, etc; title: 14. "Deus otiosus"; title: 15. New "divine forms" substituted for the sky gods; title: 16. Fusion and substitution; title: 17, The antiquity of supreme beings of the sky; title: 18. Sky gods among the people of the Arctic and central Asia; title: 19. Mesopotamia; title: 20. Dyaus, Varuna; title: 21. Varuna and sovereignty; title: 22. Iranian sky gods; title: 23. Ouranos; title: 24. Zeus; title: 25. Jupiter, Odin, Taranis, etc; title: 26. Storm gods; title: 27. Fecundators; title: 28. The spouse of the great mother; title: 29. Yahweh; title: 30. The supplanting of sky gods by fecundators; title: 31. Sky symbolism; title: 32. Ascension myths; title: 33. Ascension rites; title: 34. Ascension symbolism; title: 35. Conclusion; title: III. The sun and sun-worship; title: 36. Hierophanies of the sun and "rationalization"; title: 37. The "solarization" of supreme beings; title: 38. Africa, Indonesia; title: 39. Solarization among the Munda; title: 40. Solar cults; title: 41. Descent from the sun; title: 42. The sun as hierophant and psychopomp; title: 43. Egyptian sun cults; title: 44. Solar cults in the classical east and the Mediterranean; title: 45. India; the ambivalence of the sun; title: 46. Sun heroes, the dead and the elect; title: IV. The moon and its mystique; title: 47. The moon and time; title: 48. The coherence of all lunar epiphanies; title: 49. The moon and the waters; title: 50. The moon and vegetation; title: 51. The moon and fertility; title: 52. The moon, woman and snakes; title: 53. Lunar symbolism; title: 54. The moon and death; title: 55. The moon and initiation; title: 56. The symbolism of lunar "becoming"; title: 57. Cosmo-biology and mystical physiology; title: 58. The moon and fate; title: 59. Lunar metaphysics; title: V. The waters and water symbolism; title: 60. Water and the seeds of things; title: 61. Water cosmogonies; title: 62. Water as universal mother; title: 63. The "water of life"; title: 64. The symbolism of immersion; title: 65. Baptism; title: 66. The thirst of the dead; title: 67. Miraculous and oracular springs; title: 68. Water epiphanies and divinities; title: 69. Nymphs; title: 70. Poseidon, Aegir, etc; title: 71. Water animals and emblems; title: 72. Deluge symbolism; title: 73. Summing up; title: VI. Sacred stones: epiphanies, signs and forms; title: 74. Stones as manifesting power; title: 75. Burial megaliths; title: 76. Fertilizing stones; title: 77. "Sliding"; title: 78. Stones with holes: "thunder-stones"; title: 79. Meteorites and bethels; title: 80. Stone epiphanies and symbolisms; title: 81. Sacred stone, omphalos, "centre of the world"; title: 82. Signs and forms; title: VII. The earth, woman and fertility; title: 83. The earth mother; title: 84. The primeval pair: sky and earth; title: 85. The structure of Chthonian hierophanies; title: 86. Chthonian maternity; title: 87. Man's descent from the earth; title: 88. Regeneration; title: 89. Homo-humus; title: 90. Cosmological solidarity; title: 91. Soil and woman; title: 92. Woman and agriculture; title: 93. Woman and furrow; title: 94. Synthesis; title: VIII. Vegetation: rites and symbols of regeneration; title: 95. A preliminary classification; title: 96. The sacred tree; title: 97. The tree as microcosm; title: 98. The divinity dwelling in trees; title: 99. The cosmic tree; title: 100. The inverted tree; title: 101. Yggdrasil; title: 102. Plant epiphanies; title: 103. Vegetation and great goddesses; title: 104. Iconographic symbolism; title: 105. Great goddess: tree life; title: 106. The tree of knowledge; title: 107. The guardians of the tree life; title: 108. Monsters and gryphons; title: 109. The tree and the cross; title: 110. Rejuvenation and immortality; title: 111. The archetype of simples; title: 112. The tree as axis mundi; title: 113. The myth of man' descent from a plant species; title: 114. Transformation into plants; title: 115. Relations between men and plants; title: 116. The tree that regenerates; title: 117. The marriage of trees; title: 118. The May tree; title: 119. "King" and "queen"; title: 120. Sexuality an vegetation; title: 121. Figures representing vegetation; title: 122. Ritual contests; title: 123. Cosmic symbolism; title: 124. Summing-up; title: IX. Agriculture and fertility cults; title: 125. Agricultural rites; title: 126. Woman, sexuality and agriculture; title: 127. Agricultural offerings; title: 128. The "power" of the harvest; title: 129. Mythical personifications; title: 130. Human sacrifice; title: 131. Human sacrifice among the Aztecs and the Khonds; title: 132. Sacrifice and regeneration; title: 133. End-of-the-harvest rituals; title: 134. Seeds and the dead; title: 135. Agricultural and funeral divinities; title: 136. Sexual life and fertility of the fields; title: 137. The 'ritual' function of the orgy; title: 138. Orgy and reintegration; title: 139. Agricultural mysticism and redemption; title: X. Sacred places: temple, palace, "centre of the world"; title: 140. Hierophanies and repetition; title: 141. The consecration of space; title: 142. The "construction" of the sacred space; title: 143. The "centre of the world"; title: 144. Cosmic patterns and construction rites; title: 145. The symbolism of the "centre"; title: 146. "Nostalgia for paradise"; title: XI. Sacred time and the myth of eternal renewal; title: 147. The heterogeneousness of time; title: 148. The unity and contiguity of hierophanic time; title: 149. Periodic recurrence: the eternal present; title: 150. The restoration of mythical time; title: 151. Non-periodic recurrence; title: 152. The regeneration of time; title: 153. Yearly repetition of the creation; title: 154. Repetitions of the creation attached to particular occasions; title: 155. Total regeneration; title: XII. The morphology and function of myths; title: 156. Creation myths: exemplar myths; title: 157. The cosmogonic egg; title: 158. What myths reveal; title: 159. Coincidentia oppositorum: the mythical pattern; title: 160. The myth of divine androgyny; title: 161. The myth of human androgyny; title: 162. Myths of renewal, construction, initiation and so on; title: 163. The make-up of a myth; Varuna and Vrta; title: 164. Myth as "exemplar history"; title: 165. The corruption of myths; title: XIII. The structure of symbols; title: 166. Symbolic stones; title: 167. The degradation of symbols; title: 168. Infantilization; title: 169. Symbols and hierophanies; title: 170. The coherence of symbols; title: 171. The function of symbols; title: 172. The logic of symbols.