Comparison of Animism and Hinduism free essay sample

Tylor was born in 1832 and passed away in the year 1917. He was the founder of modern academic discipline of anthropology. Tylor belonged to a generation of academics and was raised in a religious family. He was a well-educated individual who began his own career in fieldwork in Mexico and ended up receiving and honorary doctorate from Oxford University where he was the keeper of the Museum. He eventually became the first Professor of Anthropology in Britain and later retired in 1909. Tylor had made different opinions on religion. He defined culture as a complex whole that consists of many attributes. Tylor also came up with an evolutionary view. This view was concerning culture and development and the fact that animism was the earliest stage to what we know today as religious behavior. He also argued that despite differences in the stages of their evolutionary development all humans shared common cognitive skills. Tylor’s main goal was to develop a cross-culturally useful framework in which the evolution of culture could be explained and the nature of is origin could be understood. This essay will go on to particularly talk about some of the concepts of animism that Tylor believes and discusses and will also provide you with comparisons that I have made with the ancient religion, Hinduism. Animism is the belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe. It is derived from the Latin word anima meaning breath or soul. Edward Burnett Tylor believed Animism as a belief in spiritual beings and a definition of religion. Tylor states that in order to understand religion you have to first come up with a definition of religion. He says that most people provide a narrow definition such as a belief in a supreme deity or judgment after death, the adoration of idols, or the practice of sacrifice, or other partially diffused doctrines or rites. He suggests that the definition should be given as the belief in ‘Spiritual Beings’. Like Tylor states I agree that animism has a special relation to the doctrine of the soul. Tylor goes on by saying that Animism divides into two great dogmas, one concerning souls of individual creatures, capable of continued existence after the death or the destruction of the body and the other concerning other spirits, upward to the rank of powerful deities. These two concepts are very similar to the beliefs of Hinduism. In Hinduism, they believe to continue life after death. To understand this concept you have to first grasp the idea of the soul. In Hinduism people believe in the existence of the soul. They believe the soul to be external, invisible and unchanging. Atman in Hinduism means soul in English. The believed the concept of soul (atman) to be very important in human life. Just like Animism the atman or soul is a crucial part of the human body and controls the power within. Animism is closely related to the concepts of Hinduism. In Hinduism most individuals believe that there is life after death, and that the soul(atman) doesn’t rest in peace if the spirit is displeased. As for Animism it has a similar concept. The second dogma about Animism which is the upward to the rank of powerful deities is also a similar theory comparing to Hinduism. Both theories believe in deities, which are is a supernatural, immortal being. According to Tylor he also believed that their sprits and souls not only existed in people but also existed in animals, plants and inanimate objects. He pictured these souls as vapors or shadows going from one body to another. This concept is also similar to Hinduism. In Hinduism people believe that God is in everything, likewise in Animism like Tylor said spirits and souls exist everywhere. â€Å" Spiritual beings are held to affect or control the events of the material world, and man’s life here and hereafter; and it being considered that they hold intercourse with men, and receive pleasure or displeasure from human actions, the belief in their existence leads naturally, and it might be almost be said inevitably, sooner or later to active reverence and propitiation. (Tylor, page7) Thus Tylor states that Animism includes the belief in souls and in future state controlling deities and spirits. Tylor proves the existence of Animism by explaining the causes of sleep, dreams and death. There naturally aroused need to distinguish between and individual who was awake and one who was asleep, or an individual who lived and one who did not. There was a need to give a reason to the pictures they saw in their dreams and so the spirits were the expla nation. Like Tylor regarded animism as the most primate stage in the evolution of religion. It is the contemplation of dreams and trances and the observation of death led primate peoples to conceive of the soul and of human spirits. I agree with his theory because it proves that the belief in animism led to the definition of more generalized deities and eventually to the worship of one single god. Again comparing this to the religion of Hinduism, Hindu’s didn’t believe in one single god, however they believed in several different forms of god as one. Tylor states that to understand the popular conceptions of the human soul or spirit it is instructive to notice the words, which have been suitable to express it. â€Å" The ghost or phantasm seen by the dreamer or the visionary is an unsubstantial form, like a shadow, and this the familiar term of the shade comes in to express the soul. Thus the Tasmanian word for the shadow is also that for the spirit; the Algonquin Indians describe a man’s soul as otahchuk, his shadow† (Tylor, page11) The Zulus not only used this word for spirit soul and echo but they considered that at the death the shawdow of a man wil in some way depart from the corpse, to became an ancestral spirit. In my point of view, his idea towards ghosts and spirits are pretty truthful. He gives an example In conclusion, Animism and Hinduism have many similar concepts and ideas. The main idea of animism in believing spiritual beings have a very close connection to the ancient theories of Hinduism.