The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2011 page)

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Ritsu
and
ry
.

The written criminal and civil codes that were the foundation for the imperial bureaucracy of Japan from the early 7th to the 12th cents.
The ritsu were essentially disciplinary sanctions of a penal character. The ry
were prescriptive regulations for the organization of governmental administration. A distinctive feature of the Japanese bureaucracy, however, was the establishment of a second branch with prestige superior to that of the Department of State. This was the
Jingikan
or ‘Department of Shinto’ with jurisdiction over the cult of the national gods (kami). The ritsu-ry
government dissolved in the 12th cent., being replaced by shogun military rule.
In Japanese
music
, ritsu and ry
are scales drawn from Buddhist chant.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(Lat.,
ritus
, ‘structure’, ‘ceremony’). Actions repeated in regular and predictable ways, both in religious and secular contexts, serving so many purposes that summary is impossible. Ritual is clearly an integral part of religious life, but it is common and persistent outside the domain of religion: consider the ordered expectations in different kinds of parties, for New Year's Eve, retirements, pre-wedding nights, etc. Religious ritual is usually thought to comprise repetition, commitment, intention, pattern (especially of movements), tradition (often by linkage with
myth
which is regarded by some as supplying the meaning of the ritual), purpose, and performance. At the very least, public ritual is social drama, which makes unsurprising the origin of
theatre
in religious ritual, for example in Greece, India (where ritual and drama are still closely linked), and Japan (see
N
DRAMA
). Beyond that elementary point, definitions and explanations of ritual proliferate. A. F. C. Wallace (
Religion: An Anthropological View
, 1966) suggested five main categories of ritual:

(i) technological, including rites of divination, of intensification (to obtain such things as food or alcohol), and of protection;
(ii) therapeutic (and anti-therapeutic);
(iii) ideological (for the sake of the community as a whole), including rites of passage, of intensification (to ensure adherence to values), of taboos, ceremonies, and courtesies, and of rebellion (leading to catharsis);
(iv) soteriological, aimed at repair of communal and individual damage, including rites of possession and exorcism, of new identity, and of ecstasy; and
(v) revitalizing. From this it can be seen that ritual is at least the recognition in the midst of time of the ways in which the sequential passage of time affords the possibility of reassertive and significant action.

See also
RITES OF PASSAGE
;
RETROGRESSIVE RITUALS
; Index, Rituals.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

see
BRONZE VESSELS
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search