In the study of comparative religion, the East Asian religions (also known as Far Eastern religions or Taoic religions) form a subset of the Eastern religions. This group includes Confucianism, Shinto, Taoism, and elements of Mahayana Buddhism; as well as new religious movements such as Cao Dai, Chen Tao, Hoa Hao, Chondogyo, Jeung San Do, and I-Kuan Tao.
These traditions or religious philosophies focus on the East Asian concept of Tao 道 ("The Way"; pinyin dào, Korean do, Japanese tō or dō, Vietnamese đạo).
The place of East Asian religions among major religious groups is comparable to the Abrahamic religions and Indian religions.
Early Chinese philosophies defined Tao and advocated cultivating Te in that Tao. Some ancient schools have merged into traditions with different names or are no longer active, such as Mohism (and many others of the Hundred Schools of Thought), while some such as Taoism persist to the modern day. East Asian religion is usually polytheistic or nontheistic, but henotheistic, monotheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic and agnostic varieties exist, inside and outside of Asia. East Asian religions have many Western adherents, though their interpretations may differ significantly from traditional East Asian thought and culture.
Read more about East Asian Religions: Terminology, Tao, Traditions, Taoism and Confucianism, Interaction With Dharmic Traditions
Famous quotes containing the words east, asian and/or religions:
“A puff of wind, a puff faint and tepid and laden with strange odours of blossoms, of aromatic wood, comes out the still night—the first sigh of the East on my face. That I can never forget. It was impalpable and enslaving, like a charm, like a whispered promise of mysterious delight.... The mysterious East faced me, perfumed like a flower, silent like death, dark like a grave.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)