Course description

All the major religious traditions have texts, places or occasions that have been invested with 'sacrality'. Why should this be so? How did the Bible, the Buddhist canonical material, the Koran or the Veda become the sacred canons of their traditions? Why are Easter, the Kumbh Mela, Thaipusam or Hanukkah so significant for their participants? What compels pilgrims to travel great distances to have religious experiences? What does it mean when we call something 'sacred'? How does something - a text, a place, an event, or even a person - become sacred? This unit will explore these and related questions from the perspective of a variety of religious traditions.

Archived offerings