The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (968 page)

Head, covering of
.

In Judaism, the custom of men covering their heads as a sign of humility before God, and of married women covering their heads as a sign of modesty before men, practised throughout the
Orthodox Jewish
community. Today, Orthodox men wear at least a skull cap
(Heb.,
kippah
; Yid.,
yarmulke
) at all times;
Conservative Jews
cover their heads for prayer; and it remains a matter of choice for
Reform Jews
. The increasingly common practice of gentiles wearing a head-covering in Jewish company (especially on e.g. official visits) somewhat confuses the matter, since head-covering seems to have begun as a deliberate contrast to gentile practices (see
YARMULKE
), but it is presumably a matter of courtesy.
In biblical times, women kept their hair hidden (see Numbers 5.18). Since the early 19th cent., some married women followed the custom by wearing a wig (Yid.,
shaytl
), although this was opposed in some circles. Today, only strictly Orthodox women keep their heads covered at all time.

 
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Healing
.

In the religious perspective, disease and dis-ease are never far removed from each other. Since an aim of religions is to offer the means through which health in body, mind, and spirit may be attained (unless countervailing causes supervene, such as
karma
, the will of God, invasion by
demons
, etc.). Thus
Augustine
observed succinctly that ‘all diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons’; and the contest with demons is familiar in the descriptions of the healing of particular disorders in the ministry of Jesus, which was to him (and others) a demonstration that the
dunamis
(power or dynamic) of God is active in the world.
The contest against disease was continued in Islam, through which Greek medical knowledge was preserved and extended.
al-
ibb
(‘medicine’) became a major part of the Muslim commitment to
‘ilm
(knowledge)—e.g.
al-R
z
(Rhazes).
Indian medical science is known as
Ayur veda
(‘the knowledge of longevity’), and is based on a theory of five elements (
bh
ta
) and three humours (
do
a
), wind, bile, and phlegm. Health consisted in maintaining all in balance and equilibrium, correcting imbalance by an array of herbal and other remedies. Thus health matters are not isolated from the general condition of life.
Carakasamhita
is a classic text on medicine (compiled in the 1st cent. BCE;
Su
ruta Samhita
is a slightly later text on surgery): it combines health and medical matters with general instructions for the achieving of a good and satisfactory life.
The same catholicity of attitude is evident in China, where the quest for immortality in religious Taoism (Tao-chiao/Daojiao) is not restricted to an endeavour to emancipate a self from society or a soul from a body. Taoists seek to relate the microcosm—which is present in the body in the three life-principles of breath (
ch'i
/qi), vitality especially in semen (
ching
/jing), and spirit (
shen
)—to the macrocosm, so that the whole of life, internal and external, becomes an unresistant (
wu-wei
) expression of that which alone truly is, namely, the Tao. It would thus be impossible to isolate some part of disease or disorder from its context.
Healing, therefore, in all religions takes place in a much larger context of life and its purposes, and remains closely related to modern insights into the psychosomatic unity of the human entity.
For the Buddhist ‘Master of Healing’, see
BHAI
AJYAGURU
.

 
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