John R. Hinnells (editor) - The Penguin Handbook of the Worlds Living Religions

PENGUIN BOOKS

This book is dedicated to my late wife
Marianne Grace Hinnells 19431996
as a token of deep and abiding love

PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published by Blackwell Publishers by arrangement with Penguin Books 1997

Published as The New Penguin Handbook of Living Religions by Penguin Books 1998

This revised edition published as The Penguin Handbook of the Worlds Living Religions 2010

Copyright John R. Hinnells, 2010

All rights reserved

The moral right of the authors has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-195504-9

THE PENGUIN HANDBOOK
OF THE WORLDS LIVING RELIGIONS

John Hinnells was born in Derby, England. He married Marianne in 1965 and they had two sons, Mark Julian and Duncan KeithWilliam. Tragically Marianne died of cancer in 1996. After studying, practising and teaching art, he began his theologicalstudies in 1961 at Kings College, London, following this with postgraduate studies at Kings and the School of Oriental andAfrican Studies, London University. In 1967 he was appointed Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Newcastleupon Tyne, and then in 1970 he moved to Manchester, where he was made Professor of Comparative Religion in 1984. He was secondedto the Open University as Visiting Senior Lecturer in the History of Religions from 1975 to 1977. He was Dean of the Facultyof Theology at Manchester from 1987 to 1988. In 1993 he was appointed Professor of Comparative Religion in London Universityand the founding head of the Department for the Study of Religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies. In retirementhe took a part-time research post at Liverpool Hope University where he is now Professor Emeritus. Although he has editeda number of books on the history of religions generally and has initiated four important series of books, his own researchand writings are in the field of Zoroastrianism, particularly Mithraism and the Parsis. In addition to convening the first,the second and the fourth International Congresses of Mithraic Studies (Manchester 1971; Tehran, 1975; Rome, 1990), he hasundertaken research of Mithraic sites in most European countries and made a number of visits to the Indian subcontinent forhis publications on the Parsis in British India. He has also lectured in Hong Kong, Australia, Sweden, America, Canada, Iranand Pakistan. In 1975 he delivered the Government Research Fellowship Lectures in Bombay and in 1985 the Ratanbai Katrak Lecturesin the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Asiatic Society, and a member ofseveral learned societies. In 1997 he was appointed Visiting Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Derby. Hehas been elected to the Council of the Society for South Asian Studies, and Chairman of the Association of University Departmentsof Theology and Religious Studies.

John Hinnells has edited Whos Who of Religions (1996), The Penguin Dictionary of Religions (second edition, 1997) and A New Handbook of Living Religions (1997), all for Penguin. His books on Zoroastrianism include Persian Mythology (Newnes, 1983), Zoroastrians in Britain (Oxford, 1996), The Zoroastrian Diaspora (Oxford, 2005) and he is the author of one hundred research articles. He also acts as an advisor for Penguins publishingin religion and non-Western classics.

Dr Purushottama Bilimoria , School of Social Inquiry, Deakin University, Australia

Professor Gary D. Bouma is the UNESCO Chair in Interreligious and Intercultural Relations Asia Pacific, Monash University

The late Professor Mary Boyce , Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies, University of London

Dr W. Owen Cole , Religious Studies Department, Chichester Institute of Higher Education

Professor Brian E. Colless , Religious Studies Department, Massey University, New Zealand

Professor John E. Cort , Department of Religion, Denison University, Ohio

L. S. Cousins , formerly Department of Comparative Religion, University of Manchester

Professor Harold Coward , Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, University of Victoria, British Columbia

Professor Peter Donovan , Religious Studies Department, Massey University, New Zealand

The late Professor Kendall W. Folkert , Department of Religion, Central Michigan University

Professor Armin W. Geertz , Department of the Study of Religions, University of Aarhus, Denmark

Professor John R. Hinnells , formerly Department for the Study of Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Professor Emeritus, Liverpool Hope University

Professor Ursula King , Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol

Professor Kim Knott , Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds

Dr Denis MacEoin , formerly of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne

Professor J. Gordon Melton , Institute for the Study of American Religion, Santa Barbara, California

Professor David Reid , Seigakuin University, Japan

Professor Michael Saso , Institute of Asian Studies, Beijing

Dr Aylward Shorter , Tangaza College, The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya

Dr Ossie Stuart , freelance writer and researcher on ethnicity, race and identity

Professor Harold W. Turner , formerly of Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham

Dr Alan Unterman , formerly of the Department of Religions and Theology, University of Manchester

Professor Andrew Walls , Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World, University of Edinburgh

Simon Weightman , formerly of the Department for the Study of Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Professor Alford T. Welch , Department of Religious Studies, Michigan State University

Professor Paul Weller , Professor of Inter-Religious Relations, University of Derby and Visiting Fellow, Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture, Regents Park College, University of Oxford