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Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental philosophical concerns of religion such as ethics, metaphysics and the nature and forms of salvation. It also considers and compares the origins and similarities shared between the various religions of the world. Studying such material facilitates a broadened and more sophisticated understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual and divine.
The Daqin Pagoda is a Buddhist pagoda in Zhouzhi County of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China, located about two kilometres to the west of Louguantai temple. The pagoda has been claimed as a Church of the East from the Tang dynasty.
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The Xi'an Stele or the Jingjiao Stele, sometimes translated as the "Nestorian Stele," is a Tang Chinese stele erected in 781 that documents 150 years of early Christianity in China. It is a limestone block 279 centimetres high with text in both Chinese and Syriac describing the existence of Christian communities in several cities in northern China. It reveals that the initial Church of the East had met recognition by the Tang Emperor Taizong, due to efforts of the Christian missionary Alopen in 635. According to the stele, Alopen and his fellow Syriac missionaries came to China from Daqin in the ninth year of Emperor Taizong (635), bringing sacred books and images. The Church of the East monk Adam composed the text on the stele. Buried in 845, probably during religious suppression, the stele was not rediscovered until 1625. It is now in the Stele Forest in Xi'an.
Religion in China is diverse and most Chinese people are either non-religious or practice a combination of Buddhism and Taoism with a Confucian worldview, which is collectively termed as Chinese folk religion.
Alopen is the first recorded Assyrian Christian missionary to have reached China, during the Tang dynasty. He was a missionary from the Church of the East, and probably a Syriac speaker from the Sasanian Empire or from Byzantine Syria. He is known exclusively from the Xi'an Stele, which describes his arrival in the Tang capital of Chang'an in 635 and his acceptance by Emperor Taizong of Tang. His is the earliest known name that can be attached to the history of the Church of the East in China.
The Church of the East historically had a presence in China during two periods: first from the 7th through the 10th century in the Tang dynasty, when it was known as Jingjiao, and later during the Yuan dynasty in the 13th and 14th centuries, when it was described alongside other foreign religions like Catholicism and possibly Manichaeism as Yelikewen jiao.
The Jingjiao Documents are a collection of Chinese language texts connected with the 7th-century mission of Alopen, a Church of the East bishop from Sassanian Mesopotamia, and the 8th-century monk Adam. The manuscripts date from between 635, the year of Alopen's arrival in China, and around 1000, when the cave at Mogao near Dunhuang in which the documents were discovered was sealed.
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The Huichang Persecution of Buddhism was initiated by Emperor Wuzong of the Tang dynasty during the Huichang era (841–845). Among its purposes was to appropriate war funds and to cleanse Tang China of foreign influences. As such, the persecution was directed not only towards Buddhism but also towards other religions, such as Zoroastrianism, Nestorian Christianity, and Manicheism.
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Adam, also known by his Chinese name Jingjing, was an 8th-century Syriac Christian monk and scholar in China. He composed the text on the Nestorian Stele, which described the history of the Church of the East in China from 635 to 781. Many scholars believe he is also the author of the later Jingjiao Documents.
The Louguantai Temple, in Tayu village (塔峪村), Zhouzhi county, Shaanxi province, about 70 km west of Xi'an, is the place where tradition says that Laozi composed the Tao Te Ching.
The Church of the East or the East Syriac Church, also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church or the Nestorian Church, was an Eastern Christian church of the East Syriac Rite, based in Mesopotamia. It was one of three major branches of Eastern Christianity that arose from the Christological controversies of the 5th and 6th centuries, alongside the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Chalcedonian Church. During the early modern period, a series of schisms gave rise to rival patriarchates, sometimes two, sometimes three. Since the latter half of the 20th century, three churches in Iraq claim the heritage of the Church of the East. Meanwhile, the East Syriac churches in India claim the heritage of the Church of the East in India.
Since the arrival of Christian missionaries in India in the 1st century, followed by the arrival of Buddhism in Western Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries, similarities have been perceived between the practices of Buddhism and Christianity. During the 20th century, the differences between these two belief systems were also highlighted.
The Mogao Christian painting, also known as Painting of a Christian figure or Fragment of a Christian figure, is a fragmentary silk painting of a haloed man with crosses on his head and chest who has been interpreted as a Christian figure associated with the Church of the East. The painting dates to the end of the 9th century, during the Guiyi rule of Dunhuang under the Zhang family. It was discovered by the Hungarian-born British archaeologist Aurel Stein at the Library Cave of the Mogao Caves in 1908, and is now kept in the British Museum, London.
The Nestorian pillar of Luoyang is a Tang Chinese pillar erected in 814–815 CE, which contains inscriptions related to early Christianity in China, particularly the Church of the East. It is a Nestorian pillar, discovered in 2006 in Luoyang, which is related to the Xi'an Stele.
References
- ↑ "Martin Palmer". Myriad. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
- ↑ "Interview with Martin Palmer in China Daily". Arcworld, Alliance of Religions and Conservation. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
- ↑ Wilmshurst, David (2011). The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing. p. 458. ISBN 978-1-907318-04-7.
- ↑ Wilmshurst (2011), p. 457-458
- ↑ Morris, James H. (2017). "Rereading the evidence of the earliest Christian communities in East Asia during and prior to the Táng Period". Missiology: An International Review. 45 (3): 252–264. doi:10.1177/0091829616685352. ISSN 0091-8296.
