Religious Studies
Buddhism
Buddhism is an Indian-origin religion and philosophy founded in the 5th century BCE by Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha. It teaches the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, emphasizes impermanence and non-self, and has diversified into Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana traditions across Asia and beyond. As of 2020, an estimated 324 million Buddhists—predominantly in the Asia-Pacific—practice a variety of doctrinal, ritual, and meditative forms.
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the corpus of narratives, images, and ritual aetiologies developed by ancient Greek communities to explain the origins of the cosmos, the gods, and heroic lineages. Preserved primarily in archaic and classical poetry, drama, and later mythographic compilations, these traditions shaped Greek religion, art, and social life and profoundly influenced later literature and visual culture in the Mediterranean world.
Mythology
Mythology is the study of traditional sacred narratives and the collective bodies of such myths within cultures, addressing origins, deities, heroes, rituals, and cosmological orders. Scholars analyze myths’ forms, functions, and meanings through approaches from anthropology, religious studies, classics, psychology, and literary theory.
Religion
Religion comprises systems of beliefs, practices, symbols, and institutions that relate humans to what is taken as ultimate, sacred, or superempirical. It spans diverse traditions—monotheistic, polytheistic, and non-theistic—and has been central to social organization, moral orders, and cultural transmission across history and societies worldwide.
Ritual
Ritual is a structured, symbolically charged sequence of actions performed according to prescribed rules, found in religious, civic, and everyday contexts across all known human societies. Scholars in anthropology, sociology, religious studies, psychology, and ethology analyze rituals’ forms, functions, and effects—ranging from social cohesion and identity formation to emotional regulation and communication.