The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1329 page)

(Cheremis, ‘big candle’). Popular name for a
syncretist
movement among the Cheremis people of the Mari Republic in the USSR from about the 1870s. Although nominally Christianized before this, the threat of Russian acculturation led to an attempt at cultural survival as ‘true Cheremis’ (their own term for the movement) through a synthesis of traditional and Christian elements.

 
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see
N
MDH
R
.

 
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(774–835).
Known posthumously as K
b
Daishi, the founder of the
Shingon
school of Buddhism in Japan. In 804 K
kai travelled to the Chinese capital of Ch'ang-an and sought out its foremost esoteric master, Hui-kuo (746–805). Under him K
kai received instruction in the two fundamental esoteric scriptures and underwent initiation
(Jap.,
kanj
; Skt.,
abhi
eka
) into the two related
ma
alas
—the Womb Ma
ala
(Jap.,
taiz
kai
) and the Diamond Ma
ala
(Jap.,
kong
kai