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Luther H. Martin
Deep History, Secular Theory
Religion and Reason

Founded by
Jacques Waardenburg

Edited by
Gustavo Benavides and Michael Stausberg

Volume 54
Luther H. Martin

Deep History,
Secular Theory

Historical and Scientific Studies of Religion

DE GRUYTER
ISBN 978-1-61451-619-4
e-ISBN 978-1-61451-500-5
ISSN 0080-0848

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

© 2014 Walter de Gruyter Inc., Boston/Berlin

Printing: CPI buch bücher.de GmbH, Birkach
♾ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany

www.degruyter.com
Foreword
I am delighted to see these incisive, seminal articles now brought together in one
place—and so revealingly contextualized by Martin’s own account of the intellec-
tual journey that forged them. The volume shows one possible trajectory and out-
come among those of us who have experienced close-hand the last half-century
of the study of religion. Few individual scholars have worked their way through
so many of its paths, stages, and critical issues as the author of these selected
essays.
For Martin, as he tells us, all this was set in motion in the 1960s by the idea
of a secular approach to the study of religion in a public university. As his depart-
mental colleague at the University of Vermont from that time forward, I have wit-
nessed most all of the steps along the way by which Luther has steadily chal-
lenged the field’s unexamined biases and undeveloped sense of explanatory
theory. His essays created stimulating discussions and arguments, as we both
grappled with emerging ideas that had not yet been clearly formulated much
less tested in the wider field. In any case, we shared a certain dedication to bring-
ing comparative religion along to its next possibilities.
To be sure, the search for theory is not new. Since the late nineteenth cen-
tury, many in the field of religion have tried to view its material through the in-
terpretive frames of the human sciences, redescribing the data in terms of appli-
cable philosophies, sociologies, and psychologies, and thus showing ways in
which religious life reflects patterned ways that the mind, language, and social-
ity work. Think: James and Husserl, Durkheim and Weber, Freud and Foucault,
structuralism and post-colonialism. For Martin, the resource became cognitive
science.
And this has been immensely productive, the more so because Martin is an
historian of religion at heart and can not only make the connections of cognitive
frames and the historical data of Hellenistic traditions (illustrated in several of
the included articles) but also shed new light on many of the otherwise cumber-
some but common categories of our field, such as comparison and comparative
patterns, kingship and kinship, syncretism, ritual, and historiography. Clearly,
his drive is to recapture the notion of a Religionswissenschaft—but this time in
a post-theological era, the worldview of which is being shaped by the evolution-
ary sciences. This would bring the “scientific” even beyond its looser nineteenth-
century meanings of critical histories and archaeologies, and linguistics to what
amounts to a new, species-level, deep history of the human brain and its reper-
toire of adaptive, dispositional settings. The maxim here would be, “as the mind
works, so religion works.”
VI Foreword

In this endeavor Martin has been able to bring to bear many of the most use-
ful and current concepts in the burgeoning cognitivist tradition. As in the olden
days, when anthropologists brought back cultural materials—say, from Africa,
Australia, or India—that became influential for reconceiving religion and the
general study of religion, I like to think of my colleague as having “gone
forth” into another country, in this case, the cognitive sciences, and having
brought back resources that should make us all stop and think. In fact, as co-
founder in 2006 of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Re-
ligion, subsequent leadership in that group, several visiting professorships, and
new editorial projects, he has helped bring global networking and initiatives to
the field.
The prospect of using evolutionary considerations to explain religious be-
haviors has already generated productive debate both within and outside the
field. I think we can expect that “deep history” will become increasingly accept-
ed as the new landscape or worldview within which the study of religion must
necessarily find new connections.

William E. Paden
Acknowledgements
This volume reprints selected essays from two decades of my work. It is impos-
sible to thank by name all of my colleagues who have commented on, contribut-
ed to, and criticized in progressum the essays here collected but I have benefited
from all and many. I should, however, like especially to thank two long-time col-
leagues whose input has been especially important (whether or not they have
agreed with the final results). First, is my long-time friend and colleague at
the University of Vermont, Professor William E. Paden, who preceded me at
the University by two years and whose career developed parallel my own. I
have benefited immeasurably from our discussions over the years, beginning al-
ready in graduate school. Second, is my long-distance friend and colleague at
the University of Toronto, Donald Wiebe. Following upon our earlier discussions,
Don has, over the past decade, read virtually everything I have written; his crit-
ical comments have always improved my arguments and have saved me from a
number of embarrassments. I would like especially to thank Professors Michael
Stausberg and Gustavo Benavides for inviting me to contribute to the series they
edit for Walter de Gruyter on Religion and Reason. I am particularly happy to con-
tribute to this series, which was founded a number of years ago by Professor Jac-
ques Waardenburg whose friendship and mutual collaborations I fondly remem-
ber. Finally, I would like to thank my former (undergraduate) student Dr. Steven
Hrotic who was my editorial assistant in the preparation of this volume. His gen-
eral understanding of the work I have done over the years as well as his careful
eye for detail has greatly facilitated the preparation of this volume for publica-
tion. The editorial preparation of this volume was generously supported by a
University of Vermont Retired Faculty Scholar’s Award, 2013. And, of course, I
must express my appreciation to Dr. Alissa Jones Nelson, my acquisitions editor
at De Gruyter and Sabina Dabrowski, my production editor at De Gruyter who
have so capably shepherded this volume into print.
With the exception of Chapter 18 (previously unpublished), the essays in this
volume have been reprinted in the form in which they first appeared (with apol-
ogies for the repetition of some materials from article to article) with only typos
corrected (although it is imprudent to claim that all have been finally identified)
and references updated and reformatted. I should like to acknowledge the orig-
inal place of publication and to thank the respective publishers for their permis-
sion to reprint the articles in this volume.

Chapter 1. “The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or Theoretical Under-

taking?” In Cultures in Contact: Essays in Honor of Professor Gregorios D. Ziakas,
VIII Acknowledgements

edited by P. Pachis, P. Vasiliadis, and D. Kaimakis, 333-345. Thessaloniki: Kornelia

Sfakianaki Press, 2008.

Chapter 2. “The Academic Study of Religion during the Cold War: The Western
Perspective.” In The Study of Religion during the Cold War, East and West, edited
with I. Dolezalová, L.H. Martin and D. Papoušek, 209-223. New York: Peter Lang
Press, 2001.

Chapter 3. “Secular Theory and the Academic Study of Religion.” In Secular The-
ories on Religion. A Selection of Recent Academic Perspectives, edited by T. Jensen
and M. Rothstein, 137-148. Copenhagen: The Museum Tusculanum Press.

Chapter 4. “Of Religious Syncretism, Comparative Religion and Spiritual Quests.”

In Perspectives on Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, edited by A. Geertz
and R. McCutcheon, 277-286. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000.

Chapter 5. “To Use ‘Syncretism’, or Not to Use ‘Syncretism’: That is the Question.”
Special issue of Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historique on “Retrofitting Syn-
cretism,” edited by William Cassidy, 27 (2001), 389-400.

Chapter 6. “Comparison.” Guide to the Study of Religion, edited by W. Braun and

R. McCutcheon, 45-56. London: Cassell Academic, 2000.

Chapter 7. “Comparativism and Sociobiological Theory.” Numen 48 (2001), 290-

308.

Chapter 8. “Akin to the Gods or Simply One to Another: Comparison with respect
to Religions in Antiquity.” In Vergleichen und Verstehen in der Religionswissen-
schaft, edited by H.-J Klimkeit, 147-159. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997.

Chapter 9. “Secrecy in Hellenistic Religious Communities.” In Secrecy and Con-

cealment in Late Antique and Islamic History of Religions, edited by H. Kippen-
berg and G. Stroumsa, 101-121. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995,

Chapter 10. “The Anti-Individualistic Ideology of Hellenistic Culture.” Numen 41

(1994), 117-140.

Chapter 11. “Rationality and Relativism in History of Religions Research.” In Ra-

tionality and the Study of Religion, edited by Jeppe S. Jensen and L. Martin, 145-
156. London: Routledge, 2003.
 Acknowledgements IX

Chapter 12. “Evolution, Cognition and History.” In Past Minds, Studies in Cogni-
tive Historiography, edited by L. Martin and J. Sørensen, 1-10. London: Equinox,
2011.

Chapter 13. “Can Religion Really Evolve? (And What Is It Anyway?)” In The Evo-
lution of Religions: Studies, Theories, and Critiques, edited by J. Bulbulia, R. Sosis,
E. Harris, R. Genet, C. Genet and K. Wyman, 349-355. Santa Margarita, CA: The
Collins Foundation Press, 2008.

Chapter 14. “Religion and Cognition.” In The Routledge Companion to the Study of
Religion, second edition by J. Hinnells, 526-542. London: Routledge 2010.

Chapter 15. “The Promise of Cognitive Science for the Study of Early Christianity.”
In Explaining Early Judaism and Christianity: Contributions from Cognitive and So-
cial Sciences, edited by P. Luomanen, I. Pyysiäinen, and R. Uro, 37-56. Leiden: E.
J. Brill, 2007.

Chapter 16. “Globalization, Syncretism, and Religion in Western Antiquity: Some

Neurocognitive Considerations.” Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Reli-
gionswissenschaft 94.1-2 (2010), 5-17.

Chapter 17. “What Do Religious Rituals Do? (And How Do They Do It?): Cognition
and the Study of Religion.” In Introducing Religion: Essays in Honor of Jonathan
Z. Smith, edited by R. McCutcheon and W. Braun, 325-339. London: Equinox,
2008.

Chapter 19. “Performativity, Discourse and Cognition: ‘Demythologizing’ the

Roman Cult of Mithras.” In Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianity, edited by
W. Braun, 187-217. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005.

Chapter 20. “Cognitive Science, Ritual, and the Hellenistic Mystery Religions.”
Religion & Theology 13 (2006), 383-395.

Chapter 21. “Why Christianity was Accepted by Romans but Not by Rome.” In Re-
ligionskritik in der Antike, edited by U. Berner and I. Tanaseanu, 93-107. Münster:
LIT-Verlag, 2009.

Chapter 22. “Aspects of ‘Religious Experience’ among the Hellenistic Mystery Re-
ligions.” Religion & Theology 12 (2005), 349-369.
X Acknowledgements

Chapter 23. “The Uses (and Abuse) of the Cognitive Sciences for the Study of Re-
ligion.” CSSR Bulletin 37 (2008), 95-98.

Chapter 24. “The Future of the Past: The History of Religions and Cognitive His-
toriography.” Religio: Revue pro Religionistiku 20.2 (2012), 255-170.

Abbreviations of classical sources are those of A Greek English Lexicon, edited by

H. G. Liddell and R. Scott (Oxford University Press) and/or The Oxford Classical
Dictionary, 4th edition by S. Hornblower, A. Spawnforth and E. Eidinow (Oxford
University Press).

LM
Burlington, VT, February 2014
Table of Contents
Foreword V

Acknowledgements VII

Introduction 1

. The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or Theoretical

Undertaking? 12

. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western

Perspective 22

. Secular Theory and the Academic Study of Religion 35

. Of Religious Syncretism, Comparative Religion and Spiritual

Quests 45

. To Use “Syncretism,” or Not to Use “Syncretism”: That is the

Question 54

. Comparison 66

. Comparativism and Sociobiological Theory 80

. Akin to the Gods or Simply One to Another? Comparison with Respect

to Religions in Antiquity 94

. Secrecy in Hellenistic Religious Communities 107

. The Anti-Individualistic Ideology of Hellenistic Culture 127

. Rationalism and Relativity in History of Religions Research 149

. Evolution, Cognition, and History 163

. Does Religion Really Evolve? (And What Is It Anyway?) 175

. Religion and Cognition 182

XII Table of Contents

. The Promise of Cognitive Science for the Study of Early

Christianity 202

. Globalization, Syncretism, and Religion in Western Antiquity: Some

Neurocognitive Considerations 221

. What Do Rituals Do (and How Do They Do It)? Cognition and the Study
of Ritual 240

. The Deep History of Religious Ritual 254

. Performativity, Narrative, and Cognition: “Demythologizing” the Roman

Cult of Mithras 272

. Cognitive Science, Ritual, and the Hellenistic Mystery

Religions 298

. Why Christianity Was Accepted by Romans but Not by Rome 308

. Aspects of Religious Experience among the Hellenistic Mystery

Religions 323

. The Uses (and Abuse) of the Cognitive Sciences for the Study of
Religion 336

. The Future of the Past: The History of Religions and Cognitive
Historiography 343

Author Index 358

Subject Index 362

Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections
I was extremely fortunate to have begun my teaching career at the University of
Vermont, where I remained from 1967 until my retirement in 2010. Given that the
support of this university has long facilitated my work, and that my research has
been informed by my teaching experiences in an undergraduate department of
religion, it is appropriate to begin this collection of my essays by acknowledging
this debt.
The University of Vermont, founded in 1791 by Vermont “freethinker” Ira
Allen, has played an important role in formally establishing Religion as a secular
field of study. From the beginning, “religion” had, of course, always been influ-
ential at the university and, in 1912, a course with the title “Religion” was formal-
ly introduced in the curriculum.¹ Although a state university, the University of
Vermont did not receive public tax support until 1955. At that time, the faculty
senate decided that it would no longer be appropriate for the college chaplain
or for practicing clergy to offer religion courses in the College of Arts and Scien-
ces, as had been the case, and, consequently, a new “secular” position in the
study of religion was approved. The new position was located in the Department
of Philosophy and Religion, established in 1946, and reflected the influence of
alumnus John Dewey and former president James Marsh, who had introduced
English transcendentalism and German higher criticism of the Bible to the Unit-
ed States. In 1963, a separate major in the history of religions was established in
that department and, by 1967, when I joined the university, there was a three per-
son contingent of junior religion faculty—including my long-time colleague Wil-
liam Paden—in the Department of Philosophy and Religion. In 1973, the religion
faculty separated from the joint department to establish a Department of Reli-
gion, one of the first such departments to be created in a United States public
university. Against the background of the “liberal” philosophical history of the
university and that of contemporary 1970s cultural and political questioning,
we began seriously to focus on what it is exactly that constitutes a “secular”
study of religion.

 It is interesting to note that by 1916, this course was entitled the “History and Interpretation of
Religion” and included a study of “the psychological nature and conditions of religious expe-
rience.” Subsequently, E. W. Hopkin’s text, the Origin and Evolution of Religion (Yale University
Press, 1923) was used in this course. I am indebted to William Paden for this information.
2 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections

The academic study of religion

The only principle that clearly dominated our initial discussions concerning our
de novo formation of a secular curriculum for the study of religion was that it
should not follow the “seminary model,” i. e., courses in Old Testament, New
Testament, Church History, etc., with one course in “Asian Religions” thrown
in for balance (Chapter 1: “The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or
Theoretical Undertaking”), which then was the prevailing curricular model for
the study of religion at American private colleges and universities. I subsequent-
ly came to appreciate that the study of religion had been—and continues to be—-
shaped not only by such religious concerns but also by ideological agendas
other than the theological, including especially, the political (Chapter 2: “The
Academic Study of Religion during the Cold War: The Western Perspective”).
What seemed to be required was a “scientific” approach, i. e., a theoretical ap-
proach that guards against the human biases and agendas that are inevitable
in the study of anything by attempting to arrive at conclusions that are intersub-
jectively assessable, and which, given the complexities of humanistic inquiry, are
at least more or less replicable by other scholars (Chapter 3: “Secular Theory and
the Academic Study of Religion”). Our attempts to develop a theoretical frame-
work for the study of religion were supported by our undergraduate teaching, es-
pecially the introductory courses that dominated our curricular demands. Where-
as graduate education allows for specialized research and teaching,
undergraduate education demanded generalizations about religion; theory is
but a kind of generalization.
The initial realization of the theoretical approach that we adopted was to
emphasize a comparative study of religion, which was, after all, the motivation
for first establishing an academic study of religion in the late nineteenth-century
university. A truly comparative study of religion required that a Christianity-ori-
ented curriculum no longer be the de facto norm for understanding the “world
religions” but, rather, that this tradition be considered as only one subject
among many in a more comprehensive field of study. However, we concluded
that a comparative method for the study of religion was not best approached
with the so-called “zoo model” by which each of the “world religions” has its
own curricular representation (and faculty representative). Even provided no
economic restraints, we realized that the diversity of religious traditions prohib-
ited this approach and that our choices as to which traditions to include in this
approach would continue to reflect cultural biases. (Which, for example, are the
“world religions”? What about historical religions? What about—what was then
termed—“primitive religions”?) Consequently, we sought to organize our curricu-
lum around theoretical questions about human religiosity generally, instantiat-
 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections 3

ed, of course, with ethnographic and historical data from various traditions, in-
cluding the Christian.

Comparison

During the late 1960s and the 1970s, the primary “theoretical” model for a com-
parative study of religions was that of the Chicago “history of religions” school as
advanced by Mircea Eliade’s ahistorical “phenomenology.” Eliade’s influence
had already shaped the nascent curriculum of religious studies at the University
of Vermont, as it had in most departments of religion in North America—as he
had influenced my own education. In furtherance of my graduate education in
New Testament studies, I had spent a year as a Gasthörer at the University of Göt-
tingen, studying primarily with Hans Conzelmann. During this year, however, I
sat in on several religionsgeschichtliche seminars offered by Docent Carsten
Colpe, one of which considered the work of Mircea Eliade. As a result of these
seminars, I concluded that Religionsgeschichte was a much more interesting
and significant field than New Testament studies, which was, after all, already
beneficiary of over two millennia of scholars pondering quite a small body of
texts. Consequently, I expanded my areas of research to that of Hellenistic reli-
gions generally, significantly influenced by Hans Dieter Betz at Claremont Grad-
uate School, where I wrote my PhD thesis under James Robinson on one of the
newly discovered Nag Hammadi gnostic texts. Accordingly, by the time I began
teaching at the University of Vermont, I presented myself first as scholar of the
general history of religions and specifically as a specialist in Hellenistic religions
(including Christian origins). I was pleased to find that I was able to fit into the
developing curriculum at the university by teaching (at least introductory) cours-
es in both Western and Asian traditions, and, subsequently, a new introductory
course on “comparative religion.”
Increasingly, I found that Eliade’s ahistorical “phenomenology,” like that of
the other “phenomenologists of religion,” to be theoretically wanting for the
comparative enterprise. It bore little resemblance, if any, to the philosophical
phenomenology with which I was familiar, i. e., to the “scientific” concerns of
Edmund Husserl, and, especially, to the existential-phenomenology of Martin
Heidegger, which was, at the time, influential in biblical studies (e. g., Rudolf
Bultmann). Not only did Eliade neglect any social or historical context for the
data he collected, he offered no explanation for that data apart from his cryp-
to-theological claim that they represented manifestations of “the sacred.”
Much comparison, I also realized, still involved the comparison of other re-
ligions to (some form or aspect of) Christianity, whether explicitly or, as was
4 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections

more likely the case, implicitly (Chapter 4: “Of Religious Syncretism, Compara-
tive Religion and Spiritual Quests”). And, of course, comparative studies empha-
sized notions such as “syncretism” as an “explanation” for the effects of reli-
gious contact and interaction. Since, however, syncretism is historically
descriptive of any human society and its religion, its use is simply a redundancy
masquerading as explanation (Chapter 5: “To Use ‘Syncretism’ or Not to Use
‘Syncretism’: That is the Question”).
I took away from the Chicago model, however, an appreciation for the ex-
panse of human religiosity and the diversity of religious expression, and recog-
nition of a need for a mandate to make sense of the extent of that data. This also
meant dealing more directly—more theoretically—with the issue of comparison
than simply cataloging religious phenomena. Given human cultural diversity,
what was the basis for comparison? What should be identified as the compara-
bles? And who should make that identification (Chapter 6: “Comparison”)?

Social scientific theory and Hellenistic religions

My interest in explanation increasingly led me from Eliade’s “phenomenograph-

ical” cataloguing of “archetypes,” observations of recurrent patterns clearly
present in religious expressions, to the explanations for their existence in
myth and literature offered by C. G. Jung, whose work was somewhat fashionable
among religious studies scholars at that time. Whereas Jung did offer an explan-
ation for archetypes, it turned out to be a spurious one. However, before he took
his “romanticist-religious turn” into archetypes as manifestations of “numinos-
ity,” Jung, like the early Freud, had been caught up in the scientific excitement
of late nineteenth/early twentieth-century Europe. It was in this context that
Jung initially offered an explanation for archetypes as “psychic instincts,” i. e.,
as modes of psychic functioning or of patterns of behavior shaped by the evolu-
tionary history of Homo sapiens.
Although the legacy of Jung’s work, like that of Freud, is more of a contribu-
tion to literature than to science, his early, more scientific explanation for arche-
types anticipated my current interest in the cognitive sciences, which are now
discovering and mapping precisely those evolved, pan-human behavioral pro-
clivities of ordinary human behavior and cognitive biases that have been exploit-
ed by social institutions such as religion, and which actually do offer scientific
explanations for the recurring patterns of religious data that had been recog-
nized by earlier phenomenologists of religion. But a cognitive science of religion
had not yet been proposed. Consequently, my research during the 1970s and
1980s consisted largely of historical and social-scientific studies of Hellenistic re-
 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections 5

ligious texts and practice—interspersed, I must confess, with a few circumspect

attempts to explain such practices from a Jungian perspective (e. g., Martin and
Goss 1985) and, then, from that of socio-political construction (Martin, Religious
Transformations and Socio‐Political Change, 1993; Chapter 9: “Secrecy in Hellen-
istic Religious Communities”).
My interest in social construction was motivated by a three-week faculty
seminar I helped organize in 1982 with Michel Foucault at the University of Ver-
mont on “technologies of the self” (Martin et al. 1988). As with Jung, Foucault
anticipated one of the central concerns of the cognitive sciences, in this case,
the construction of one’s self, but on the basis of environmental power rather
than from developmentally early cognitive biases, in interaction, of course,
with social input (Chapter 10: “The Anti-Individualistic Ideology of Hellenistic
Culture”). It must be noted that Foucault was a much more meticulous historical
scholar than is portrayed by the cooptation of his thought by subsequent post-
modernists.

Historiography and scientific theorizing

Beginning in the early 1980s, I began seriously to explore some of the natural
sciences as a possible theoretical paradigm for a comparative study of religion
and for a history of (Hellenistic) religions. The essays in this volume reflect my
increasing attention to and subsequent inclusion of these explorations in my his-
toriographical toolbox. Nascent postmodern scholars were, of course, beginning
to emphasize the importance of cultural différence and to dismiss the possibili-
ties of any meaningful comparative enterprise, as the attempt could only be an
exercise in cultural imperialism. At the scientific level, however, research and
practice involving pan-human commonality was flourishing in the biological
and medical sciences. The year I began teaching, for example, the first heart
transplant was performed, and, increasingly, human organs began to be trans-
planted from persons of one culture to those of quite another, from males to fe-
males, between races. I thought that, perhaps, if historians of religion built a the-
oretical consideration from the bottom up, i. e., from the evolutionary history of
human biology, they might then construct an infrastructure of pan-cultural,
human behavioral patterns, including those behaviors that are conventionally at-
tributed to religions (Chapter 7: “Comparison and Sociobiological Theory,” – the
theoretical antecedence of evolutionary psychology). This approach was given
significant support with the publication of Donald Brown’s Human Universals
in 1991, though most scholars of religions at the time remained ignorant of
Brown’s anthropological arguments. But what might the universals of biology,
6 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections

or even those human universals identified by anthropologists, have to do with

the history of religions? Consequently, I began to explore one human universal,
specifically, kinship claims and how pan-human claims to kinship, one of the
deep historical frames that seemed central to the organization of religious com-
munities and one of the anthropological universals identified by Brown, might
support patterns of social organization and ideology among the Hellenistic reli-
gious traditions (Chapter 8: “Akin to the Gods or Simply One to Another: Com-
parison with respect to Religions in Antiquity”).
However, I also became increasingly concerned with the issue of historio-
graphical theory and in its “deep historical” evolutionary frame. I had something
of a historical sense from my background in historical-critical method in biblical
studies and, from that background, had written my Hellenistic Religions: An In-
troduction (1987) in which I had sought to reconcile the historical-critical method
with that of the history of religions. Although the historical-critical approach,
which is limited primarily to texts, identifies their literary form, the history of
their redactions and transmissions, and their context(s), it does not explain
why just certain texts are preserved, transmitted and revered (apart, of course,
from assumptions about their revelatory significance).
In retrospect, I realize that my broad undergraduate teaching responsibilities
at the University of Vermont, together with continuing discussions with my col-
leagues about a theoretical basis for that teaching and for the formation of a co-
herent curricular program, were to define the interrelated themes of my research
throughout my academic career, namely, what constitutes a plausible, explana-
tory theory for the study of particular religious data—in my case, the data for
specific Hellenistic religions? How exactly is religious behaviour distinct from
that of other human behaviors? And what is the relationship between scientific
theorizing about religion to that in the traditional humanities, especially, to a his-
tory of religions? In response to these questions, I had decided fairly early in my
career that, though mere collections of data without a theoretical framework ex-
plained nothing, concerns about theory and method apart from considerations
of historical (empirical) data led only to speculations about the identity and na-
ture of religious data. Consequently, I committed to engaging in history of reli-
gions research, but a history of religions approach that emphasized empirical
historical data and a historiographical approach from a clearly articulated theo-
retical position. The overlapping inquiries into theory and method and their re-
lationship to analyses of empirical (historical) data, characterize most of the es-
says collected in this volume and represent that commitment.
Historians generally, even quite good ones, it seemed to me, collected and
described data without much theorizing, or, at least, without an explicitly articu-
lated conceptual frame. Rather, they seemed to reflect an approach that contin-
 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections 7

ued that of nineteenth-century historicism, namely, a premise that when all of

the data is in—or at least a sufficient amount of data—or when properly situated
in its context, their significance will be apparent (Chapter 11: “Rationalism and
Relativism in History of Religions Research”). But isn’t it the historians’ task to
explain why just some historical remains are selected as “data” in some contexts
in which others might exist as well and/or have been historically possible? And
why certain patterns of data exist in some contexts rather than others?
Some “secular” historians had already begun to explore applications of evo-
lutionary theory to explain and correct such historiographical judgments (Chap-
ter 12: “Evolution, Cognition and History”). However, a number of these histori-
ans, especially those interested in religion, have moved from the promising
position of taking evolutionary theory as a frame for historiographical research
into human behaviors, past and present, to an attempt at understanding religion
itself as an evolutionary adaptation. This attempt to apply a theory from one do-
main, biology, to another, history, can only be accomplished by analogy, which,
in this case, seems to me to be a very weak one (Chapter 13: “Can Religion Really
Evolve? (And What Is It Anyway?)”).

Cognition and the study of religion

Three events in 1990 were particularly important for the subsequent direction of
my research. The first was my growing involvement in the International Associ-
ation for the History of Religions (IAHR). Although I had attended quinquennial
congresses of the IAHR since 1975 and several of its regional conferences, by
1990, I had acquired a greater confidence in my participation in the international
community of scholars. Secondly, I presented that year, at the XVIth Congress of
the IAHR, a paper that challenged some long-held historical assumptions about
the Roman cult of Mithraism (Martin 1994), a religion in which I had long har-
bored a personal interest but which now increasingly provided exemplary data
for my theoretical ruminations about the history of religions, especially about
the history of religions. My challenge to previous assumptions about Mithraism
was based on a questioning of historiographical theories that had dominated the
study of that cult since antiquity. The third event that transpired in 1990 was the
publication of Thomas Lawson’s and Robert McCauley’s Rethinking Religion:
Connecting Cognition and Culture. This programmatic cognitive theory for ex-
plaining religious rituals offered a firm scientific basis for my earlier interests
in explanatory theorizing, a scientific program that necessarily included refer-
ence to cultural data.
8 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections

The new field of cognitive science of religion was, most simply, an employ-
ment of insights from the burgeoning researches of the evolutionary and cogni-
tive sciences during the latter part of the twentieth century concerning the behav-
ioral and cognitive capacities for and constraints upon those practices and
proclivities and by the appropriation and exploitation of these biases by “reli-
gious” social institutions, that is, those social institutions which legitimate them-
selves by claims to the authority of some superhuman agency or other (Chap-
ter 14: “Religion and Cognition”). This new scientific paradigm offered a
promising explanatory approach to the study of religion, and for my interest
in Hellenistic religions specifically (Chapter 15: “The Promise of Cognitive Sci-
ence for the Study of Early Christianity;” Chapter 16: “Globalization, Syncretism,
and Religion in Western Antiquity: Some Neurocognitive Considerations”). Ini-
tial theorizing about religion from this perspective was soon assessed and gen-
erally supported by experimental work at new research institutions dedicated
specifically to the investigation of religious behaviors and ideas, as well by con-
tinuing research in the cognitive sciences generally. It generally offered, and con-
tinues to offer, correctives to, as well as confirmations of, previous history of re-
ligions research.
But what might experimental work in human cognition contribute to the
work of historians? The pan-human and deep-historical behavioral and cognitive
proclivities of human beings being mapped by cognitive scientists should pro-
vide historians with possibilities for explaining not only the historical emergence
and dominance of one context over others that were possible given historical
constraints but also provide explanations for individual human roles acting in
support of and within that particular environmental dominance. Further, cogni-
tive researches into memory and into the spread of mental representations can
provide explanations for both historical continuities and discontinuities. Howev-
er, a consideration of insights from the cognitive sciences for a history of reli-
gions, which I have increasingly been doing since the early 1990s, was much eas-
ier to recommend than actually to accomplish.

Cognition and ritual

The most obvious entré into a cognitive history of religions seemed to be the
study of ritual. First of all, two comprehensive and influential cognitive theories
of ritual had been published in the 1990s: Lawson’s and McCauley’s “ritual com-
petence theory,” published in 1990 (followed by their “ritual form theory” in
2002); and Harvey Whitehouse’s theory of “two [ritually transmitted] modes of
religiosity,” published in 1995 (and more fully elaborated in 2004) (Chapter 14:
 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections 9

“Religion and Cognition” and Chapter 15: “The Promise of Cognitive Science for
the Study of Early Christianity”). Secondly, these theories dealt with an aspect of
religion for which empirical data was available—historically as well as in the pre-
sent—namely, ritual behavior, and ritual behavior was increasingly recognized to
be an ordinary kind of human behavior, which is subject to historical as well as
experimental research. During the latter part of the twentieth century, evolution-
ary and cognitive researchers were amassing a great deal of innovative and novel
insights into that behavior. Consequently, I became interested in such questions
as how do religious rituals differ from ordinary human behavior? What do reli-
gious rituals actually accomplish? How might they do so? (Chapter 17: “What Do
Religious Rituals Do? (And How Do they Do It?);” Chapter 18: “The Deep History
of Religious Rituals”). Also, I sought to address these questions specifically with
respect to rituals associated with my historical field of interest, Hellenistic reli-
gions, focusing increasingly on the rituals performed within the Hellenistic mys-
tery cults and the early Christianities, especially on their rites of initiation (Chap-
ter 19: “Performativity, Narrative, and Cognition: ‘Demythologizing’ the Roman
Cult of Mithras;” Chapter 20: “Cognitive Science, Ritual, and the Hellenistic Mys-
tery Religions;” Chapter 21: “Why Christianity Was Accepted by Romans But Not
by Rome”). This emphasis on ritual also suggested how religious traditions might
employ their rites as strategies for the creation and propagation of religious ex-
periences (Chapter 22: “Aspects of ‘Religious Experience’ among the Hellenistic
Mystery Religions”).

Conclusions

I was trained as a humanist, not as a scientist. Nevertheless, I welcomed the cog-

nitive sciences as a paradigm for a scientific approach to the history of religions.
Consequently, my studies in the history of Hellenistic religions that attempt to
employ insights from the cognitive sciences should be taken as themselves ex-
perimental, as explorations into the possibilities that a scientific paradigm
might offer for the study of religion. If conclusions suggested by these “experi-
ments” are considered to be questionable by historians of religions, then the as-
sumptions of their experimental design should be reconsidered. If, however,
other researchers consider some of my conclusions to be even suggestive of fur-
ther research and correction, then I believe my goals as a “scientist” have been
achieved.
While I have emphasized that the cognitive sciences seem, at the present, to
be the most promising paradigm available for a credible scientific study of reli-
gion, I have never excluded the possibility that alternative scientific paradigms
10 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections

might contribute to that study; indeed, I have welcomed research into human de-
cision making by behavioral economists as well as by the network theorizing
that is part of chaos theory (Martin 2013 and 2014). I have, however, argued
that the proper relationship of science to religion is that the former comprises
the domain of theory and methodological approach while the latter is only
that of the data to be explained. I have, consequently, cautioned about attempts
to use cognitive science of religion by theologians for their apologetic purposes,
even as theologians have attempted to employ advances in secular knowledge
throughout their history (Chapter 23: “The Uses (and Abuse) of the Cognitive Sci-
ences for the Study of Religion”).
I never suggested that evolutionary theorizing and a cognitive science of re-
ligion can exhaust our understanding of religious behaviors, especially our un-
derstanding of the history of religions. Rather, I have argued that the insights
from the cognitive sciences might provide a valuable addition to the toolbox
of traditional historiographical methods and that these tools are—even must
be—complementary. The experimental aspirations of cognitive scientists to iden-
tify pan-human behaviors and mental proclivities can identify variables that mo-
tivate human behavior which historians might otherwise have overlooked. They
can model historiographical conclusions and assess those theoretical models ex-
perimentally and through computer modeling. They can also identify behavioral
and cognitive constraints upon human behaviors and representations. They can,
thereby, confirm or challenge historiographical conclusions. On the other hand,
if evolutionary theorists or cognitive scientists identify a particular pan-human
behavior or specific mental proclivity which cannot be confirmed and tracked
by historians throughout the “real-life” data for human behaviors that they con-
trol, then it is, perhaps, the assumptions that inform their scientific research
which must be reexamined. Chapter 24: “The Future of the Past: The History
of Religions and Cognitive Historiography,” is composed almost entirely of pas-
sages taken from previous chapters and offers, thereby, a synthetic conclusion to
the deep historical and secular theoretical positions I have argued throughout
this volume.

References

Brown, Donald E. 1991. Human Universals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Lawson, E. Thomas and Robert N. McCauley. 1990. Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition
and Culture. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
McCauley, Robert N. and E. Thomas Lawson. 2002. Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological
Foundations of Cultural Forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Introduction: Auto-methodological Reflections 11

Martin, Luther H. 1987. Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University
Press.
—, editor. 1993. Religious Transformations and Socio‐Political Change. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter.
—. 1994. “Reflections on the Mithraic Tauroctony as Cult Scene.” In Studies in Mithraism,
edited by J. R. Hinnells, Storia delle Religioni 9, 217 – 224. Rome: “L’erma” di
Bretschneider.
—. 2013. “Mithras, Milites and Bovine Legs.” (A Response to Aleš Chalupa and Tomáš Glomb,
“The Third Symbol of the Miles Grade on the Floor Mosaic of the Felicissimus Mithraeum
in Ostia: A New Interpretation), Religio: Revue pro Religionistiku, 21.1: 49 – 55.
—. 2014. “The Landscape and Mindscape of the Roman Cult of Mithras. In L. H. Martin, The
Mind of Mithraists: Historical and Cognitive Studies in the Roman Cult of Mithraism.
London: Bloomsbury (forthcoming).
— and J. Goss, editors. 1985. Essays on Jung and the Study of Religion, Lanham, MD:
University Press of America.
—, H. Gutman and P. H. Hutton, editors. 1988. Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with
Michel Foucault. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988.
Whitehouse, Harvey. 1995. Inside the Cult: Religious Innovation and Transmission in Papua
New Guinea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
—. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Walnut Creek,
CA: AltaMira Press.
1. The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological
or Theoretical Undertaking?
One must follow (the universal Law [λόγος], namely) that which is common (to all). But
although the Law is universal, the majority live as if they had understanding peculiar to
themselves.
−Heraclitus²

In this article, I should like briefly to argue in favor of an academic study of re-
ligion that is separate from the work of theology—despite the continuing pres-
ence of the latter within the halls of academia. The difference for which I
argue should in no way be taken as questioning the probity of theologians in pur-
suit of their religious ends; theologizing traditionally has been, and remains a cen-
tral activity of Western religious practice. Rather my question has to do with the ap-
propriateness of such religious practices in the context of the modern research
university.

“Knowledge” of our world and of ourselves is not an accumulated corpus of self-

evidently “given” facts and information (Poovey 1998) but is a construction of what
is held, in any historical domain, to be the “truth of the world.” This historically
contingent view of knowledge does not mean there is no “real” world “out
there” to know but is a recognition of fundamental physiological and psychological
constraints on human representations of their environments, both material and his-
torical, and an acknowledgement of the diversity of those inhabited domains to be
known. What is taken to be knowledge by various societies, what they include
in—and exclude from—their “circle of knowledge” cannot, therefore, finally be de-
termined in terms of subjective references to objective forms but is constituted, rath-
er, out of the cognitive capacities for and constraints upon possible representations
of respective times and places (Lévi-Strauss 1966, 1– 13; Foucault 1973, xxii). These
historically specific possibilities of thought organize what is considered to be know-
able in a given age and make up its “encyclopedia” (Pliny HN praef. 14).
By the fifth-century, Western culture was for all practical purposes Christian, its
encyclopedia organized theologically. Theology ruled the new universities as

 Fr. 2 (trans. Freeman 1948, 24– 25)

 1. The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or Theoretical Undertaking? 13

“queen of the sciences.”³ The priority initially accorded the theological curriculum
at the University of Paris (Taylor 1951, ii: 146; Gilson 1955, 246; Cobban 1975, 12) was
endorsed by Gregory IX at the beginning of the thirteenth century (1228) (Haskins
1988 [1927], 364) and a comprehensive system of knowledge in which all branches
of learning were relegated to the status of “handmaidens” in service to sacred doc-
trine became established by Thomas Aquinas at the end of that century (ST 1.Q.1.5.).
The entire corpus of human knowledge was, in other words, organized by and
around the category of “God” (Taylor 1951, ii: Ch. 36). In the words of Hugh of
St. Victor (c. 1140 – 1200), “all the natural arts serve Divine Science, and the
lower knowledge rightly ordered leads to the higher” (De sacramentis: Prologus;
cited by Taylor 1951, ii. 2: 93, emphasis added; see also ii. 318 – 319). Theology, in
other words, speculatively argued on the basis of biblical authority and exposition
(Gilson 1955, 308), was understood to be not only the culmination of all the sciences
but also to be that science in terms of which all knowledge was organized.
Beginning in the fourteenth century, an alternative organization of knowledge
began to emerge in Western culture. In contrast to the traditional theologies, this
new Renaissance encyclopedia was organized around the principle of “man.” Al-
ready in the first half of the fifteenth century, Leonardo Bruni, an early follower
of Petrarch, wrote that it is “the humanities (studia humanitatis) [that] perfect
and adorn a human being (homo) (Bruni 1947, 7– 8, trans. cited from Proctor
1988, 3). And by the sixteenth century, John Calvin could acknowledge “two
branches of knowledge,” “the knowledge of God” and “the knowledge of our-
selves.” And while he acknowledged that “these two branches of knowledge are…-
intimately connected, which of them precedes and produces the other,” he con-
fessed, “is not easy to discover” (Instit. I.1). With the “European legal revolution”
in the twelfth century, universities began to be chartered as “corporations,” legal
entities in which the pursuit of knowledge was emancipated from the previous con-
trol of political and ecclesiastical domination (Huff 1993, 119– 148). As the English

 The phrase itself seems to derive from the desideratum of Martin Luther that: “Die Theologia soll
Kaiserin sein, die Philosophia und andere gute Künste sollen derselben Dienerin sein …” (Luther 1919,
V, 616 [#6351]). Despite Luther’s repudiation of scholasticism (Contra scholasticam theologian, 1517;
Grane, 1967), however, this phrase has generally come to be used in reference to the scholastic
synthesis of faith and reason by Thomas Aquinas. In his encyclical “Aeterni Patris” (1879) Leo XIII
proclaimed “the benefits to be derived from “a practical reform of philosophy by restoring the
renowned teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas.” This restoration was “for the defence and beauty of the
Catholic Faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all the sciences” (Kennedy 1913). In
1909, Alfred Mortimer, referred to Thomas’ Summa as the “simplest and most perfect sketch of
universal theology,” which, Mortimer averred, was “the Queen of the Sciences” (Mortimer 1898, II,
454, 465).
14 1. The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or Theoretical Undertaking?

clergyman and novelist Charles Kingsley averred, “Truth, for its own sake, had
never been a virtue with the Roman clergy” (Kingsley 1864, 217).
Increasingly, the “humanities” began to be used in intellectual and academic
circles as a designation, in contrast to the medieval domination of the theologies,
for this new secular learning (OED: vide “humanity”).⁴ Characterized by scientific
methods of observation and experiment, humanistic organizations of knowledge
gradually replaced the theological in Western universities (Taylor 1951, 2: 418). If,
prior to the Renaissance, an ecclesiastically sanctioned theology provided the all-
encompassing system of knowledge within which secular learning found its proper
place, the human sphere now became an autonomous system of knowledge within
which the religious had to adapt (Casanova 1994, 15). Nevertheless, a “residue” of
the medieval world survived into this Renaissance reorganization of knowledge.
Parallel to the emergence of a secular or humanistically organized knowledge
in the fifteenth century, witchcraft trials began to be held throughout Europe. Ac-
cording to the remarkably uniform testimonies and confessions presented to
these trials:

male and female witches met at night, generally in solitary places, in fields or on moun-
tains. Sometimes, having anointed their bodies, they flew, arriving astride poles or
broom sticks; sometimes they arrived on the backs of animals, or transformed into animals
themselves. Those who came for the first time had to renounce the Christian faith, desecrate
the sacrament and offer homage to the devil, who was present in human or (most often)
animal or semi-animal form. There would follow banquets, dancing, sexual orgies. Before
returning home the female and male witches received evil ointments made from children’s
fat and other ingredients (Ginzburg 1991, 1).

For those still operating with the earlier theological encyclopedia, adherents to hu-
manistic or secular principles of knowledge could only be understood as witches,
as satanic renouncers of the Christian faith. Their conservative theological goal may
be characterized as a commitment to preserving the autonomy of “the invisible,” of
the “systematic exteriority” of “spiritual animating forces,” exemplified as much by
the witches in their solitary night places as by the Christian deity over against
which these spiritual forces were defined. In the epistemic organization of the mod-
ern world, however, the scientific goal of knowledge is to bring that once held to be
invisible into the light of explanatory possibility for the world of human subjects
(Gauchet 1997, 102– 103, 145).

 . This usage was derived from its classical sense as “mental cultivation befitting a man” or “liberal
education” (e.g., Aulus Gellius, Gell. 13.16; Cicero, de Or. 1.60.256; 2.17.72; 2.37.154; Rep. 1.17; Verr. 2.4.44
§98).
 1. The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or Theoretical Undertaking? 15

Whereas witches and their kin may have disappeared from the explanantia of
modern academic discourse, the gods have lingered on. Among contributions orig-
inally presented to a “Resurrection Summit” in 1996, for example, William P. Alston,
Stephen T. Davis and Richard Swinburne, three philosophers teaching at “secular”
universities, presented arguments in support of the bodily resurrection of Jesus
(Davis et al. 1997). Alston and Davis, seemingly unimpressed with views generally
expressed by biblical scholars to the contrary, based their arguments on their dubi-
ous assumptions about the historical reliability of the New Testament Gospel ac-
counts of the event (Alston 1997; David 1997). Taking a more metaphysical ap-
proach, Swinburne postulated that if one includes God in the evidence, “the
historical evidence is quite strong enough” to conclude that Jesus actually rose
from the grave since, if God exists, the laws of nature depend on him and, conse-
quently, can be suspended by him (Swinburne 1997, 202, 204– 5, 207). The cogency
of all three of these arguments are contingent upon Swinburne’s conditional con-
junction: if God exists, then, of course, God may be included in the evidence and
if one includes God in the evidence, then the Gospel accounts might be accepted
as an inspired record of historical probability. But the presumption concerning
the existence of God is precisely the point of epistemological contention. No matter
how logically argued, no matter how numerous the citations and references ad-
duced, such scholarly accoutrements nevertheless remain in service to an a priori
and non-falsifiable confession of faith about the existence of (a Christian) God,
an epistemological positioning of the secular “sciences” as the handmaidens of the-
ology that was characteristic of thirteenth-century thought.
Expedited by the world exploration that was associated with European Ren-
aissance, the rapidly expanding circle of humanistic knowledge increasingly en-
countered new cultures, each with their own histories, their own “circles of
knowledge” and their own sets of religious practices and teachings. In this
newly comparative context, the “theologies” of the various cultures, both Chris-
tian and non-Christian became properly understood as the discursive practices
of specific religious traditions. To “speak” or “think” about god or the gods
(θεός[οί] λέγειν) requires some sort of particularistic assumption or confession
about the existence of the god or gods that one speaks or thinks about. It is
this a priori confessional and its in principle non-falsifiable assumption about
“the invisible” that characterizes theologizing as a discursive practice of the spe-
cific religions. Since none of such claims are, however, falsifiable, they all have
an equal ontological claim to truth. It was no longer possible to argue convinc-
ingly that any one of these theologies, whatever their respective claims to univer-
sality, might provide a general basis for human knowledge, as had been argued
by thirteenth-century Christian theologians (e. g. Thomas, ST 1.Q.1.2)—and is still
argued by, for example, some “fundamentalists” of various faiths. Rather, it is
16 1. The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or Theoretical Undertaking?

the modern sciences, both natural and human, that are producing a truly cross-
cultural language (Wilson 1998, 49), whereas the theologies have been resettled
into the appropriate domains of their respective religious traditions. If, however,
a study of religion be situated in the humanistic (scientific) organization of
knowledge rather than in the more specialized theological pursuit of knowledge,
then the possibility of an “academic study of religion” (θρησκειολογία, Religions-
wissenschaft) becomes as valid as does a study of anything. Such an academic
study of religion might well concern itself with how various peoples in differing
times and places have conceived and spoken about their god or gods and why
they do so in the ways they do. The corpus of the various theological claims
and practices constitutes, in other words, data to be explained by academic
study and this means that it must proceed, as does the study of anything,
from a position of theoretical competence (Penner and Yonan 1972, 133).

ii

To argue that an academic study of religion must proceed on the basis of theoret-
ical competence rather than theological confession is not to argue for any singular
theory of religion. It is to argue, however, that thinking about religion, as with any
academic study, should inhabit a theoretical domain. The epistemological domain
of theory is that of generalization. In academic study, the term “religion”—a Latin
based word which has no precise equivalent in many other languages—has no ob-
jective, ontological or metaphysical referent but is a scholarly generalization about
certain human claims and behaviors that seeks to inscribe and explain the greatest
amount of data in terms of the fewest number of principles. The problem is how to
differentiate between valid and invalid generalizations.
Generalizations about “religion,” like those about any set of human data, may
be produced from one of three orientations: common sense, ideology and theory.
“Common sense” may be defined, with Giambattista Vico, as “judgement without
reflection, shared” by a particular social group (Vico 1970 [1744] ¶142). Such com-
monsense generalizations, whether valid or invalid, are uncritically transmitted by
the group for which they remain common until they become somehow discredited.
Ideological generalizations, by contrast, are based on the resolute commitments of
groups to their own propagation and reflect, therefore, their own special interests
(Merton 1968, 160, 563). If successful, consequently, propagandistic generalizations,
such as those by a “new” religion, may themselves achieve the status of cultural
common sense—as is instantiated by the history of Christianity. Theories, on the
other hand, are generalizations that are explicitly formulated as hypotheses
which might be subject to critical assessment in light of some sort of intersubjecti-
 1. The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or Theoretical Undertaking? 17

velly educed evidence. On the basis of such evidence, valid generalizations might
be differentiated from those judged to be invalid. To be epistemologically useful,
however, generalizations not only must inscribe and explain a “congenial” set of
data but must also differentiate these data from those judged to be discordant.
If, in other words, generalizations about religion include, in principle, everything,
then nothing has been gained in making that generalization.
Hypotheses about religions have been theoretically formulated on the basis of
and tested against data produced by historical and anthropological (comparative)
research. And explanations for these religious data have been offered by various
sociological, including political and economic, theorists, especially those working
in the traditions of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Apart from perpetuating a “cult
of these theoretical ancestors” (Stark 1997, 21), however, little theoretical advance
in the study of religion has been made since the nineteenth century. The two excep-
tions to this dearth of theoretical work in the academic study of religion are rational
choice theory (e. g., Stark and Bainbridge 1987; Young 1997) and cognitive theories
(e. g., Boyer 2001, McCauley and Lawson 2002; Whitehouse 2004).
While there are intriguing relationships between rational choice and cognitive
theorizing (e. g., Stark 1997, 7; Martin 2004, 119), this article is not the place to eval-
uate these theories of religion. I would, however, like to suggest one generalization
about religion which I believe might provide a framework within which both theo-
ries might productively operate and speak to it briefly, namely that: religion is a so-
cial system identical to all other social systems within a particular domain, with the
sole exception that its members seeks legitimation for their group by making claim to
the authority of superhuman power.
The hypothesis about religion as a social system is based on the conclusions of
a diverse group of scholars—anthropologists, biologists, cognitive psychologists,
philosophers, sociologists, etc.—that human beings are a social species. Conse-
quently, all human phenomena, including religions, are fundamentally social. Aso-
cial human phenomena are considered pathological, e.g., hermits who live apart
from some sort of socially legitimated practice such as religiously sanctioned ascet-
ic practices or those of meditation.
Since the relationships that constitute any social unit may be understood as re-
lationships of power (Foucault 1980, 119), we may broadly differentiate between two
“ideal types” of social organization on the basis of differing distributions of power:
small-scale, face-to-face social organizations in which power is distributed, in prin-
ciple at least, more or less equitably throughout the social unit and large-scale so-
cial organizations in which power has become consolidated in one person or in a
single class of the social unit. Typically, the distribution of power among the vari-
ous systems operating within a particular type of society, e.g., relations of produc-
tion and exchange (economics), of the instruments and/or instruments of govern-
18 1. The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or Theoretical Undertaking?

mentality (politics), of the accepted systems of ideas (philosophy), of the rules of

social relationships (ethics, law), etc., will be redundant and reinforcing.
We may term those social systems “religious” that legitimates themselves, their
constitutive boundaries and the rules of their constitutive relationships by claims to
the authority of superhuman power. Such “religious” systems may be autonomous
or they may be undifferentiated from or embedded within other systems constitu-
tive of a common social unit, e.g., the political, with the reciprocal consequence
that the latter will benefit from the legitimizing claims to superhuman authority
of the former and the former will benefit from the materially based power of the
latter. This does not preclude, however, conflict arising between differentially legiti-
mated systems, between the political and the religious systems, for example, in
which the political system might be legitimated by force and the religious by its ad-
vocacy of a contrary set of ideals, or even between two religious systems which
claim legitimation from antithetical interpretations of superhuman power even
though both occupy a common cultural domain.
Claims to superhuman power may be imagined as extending to supernatural
power but not necessarily so. The Olympian deities of ancient Greece were, for ex-
ample, not imagined as supernatural but simply as superhuman; whereas they rep-
resented power beyond that allotted mortals, they were nevertheless situated within
the cosmic bounds and were subject to Fate, the Greek functional equivalent to the
modern notion of natural law. In other words, all representations of supernatural
power are superhuman but not all representations of superhuman power are super-
natural. Superhuman/supernatural powers are most often imagined anthropo-
morphically, as intentional agents who can effect some desired transformation in
the given order of things and with whom social relations can be established.
Since any social system refers to bounded or closed sets of interdependent el-
ements in which the value or significance of each element results solely from the
simultaneous presence of the others (after Saussure 1959, 114), those practices,
both discursive and non-discursive, for which legitimation is claimed on the
basis of superhuman power can be neither studied nor compared in isolation
from apparently similar practices from other systemic contexts but must be studied
in their relationship to all other elements that constitute a particular bounded so-
cial unit as well as in relationship to all other systems constitutive of that social
unit. It is the redundant implications of these data that constitutes the study of re-
ligion as interdisciplinary and not the claims made by some for a polymethodolog-
ical approach, which obscures any stipulated focus upon the generalization “reli-
gion” as a theoretical object of academic inquiry.
 1. The Academic Study of Religion: A Theological or Theoretical Undertaking? 19

iii

The ancient Greeks had conceived of an inherent orderliness that governed the cos-
mos and its inhabitants (λόγος, e. g., Heraclit. fr. 30); the Semitic world, by contrast,
imagined a world in which cosmic order needed to be created (Gen. 1– 3). The Chris-
tian West attempted a synthesis of these two views from their constituent histories
by attempting to articulate the order of a created world in terms of the categories of
cosmic order proposed by the Greeks, by Plato (Augustine) and then by Aristotle
(Thomas Aquinas). Such a project of natural theology could only culminate in
claims to a (revealed) knowledge of the creating deity. When the Renaissance dila-
tion of Western thought revealed that the Western “science” of theology was cultur-
ally contingent and not, therefore, an adequate basis for a shared human knowl-
edge, the Greek vision of an intrinsic order of things reemerged in Enlightenment
assumptions about a world of nature universally governed by discernible laws.
This universalistic revival was challenged, in turn, by Romanticism’s emphasis
on the individual interiority of “truth” and, subsequently, by the twentieth-centu-
ry’s epistemological specializations. The consequent fragmentation of knowledge
became the occasion for theologians once again to claim to provide some integrat-
ed basis for the organization of knowledge. This basis has been sought either in at-
tempts at inter-religious dialogue among the dominant religious traditions or in a
generic “spiritualization” of diverse religious claims themselves.
As we enter the twenty-first century, human knowledge is once again converg-
ing upon consilience, a congruency of causal explanation among the various
branches of knowledge, organized not around any religious principle or around
questionable notions of human rationality but by the conclusions of natural scien-
ces (Wilson 1998, 8– 13). If “religion” is the social expressions of significant human
universals that it seems to be, then the time is long overdue for an academic study
of its claims and practices finally to be disentangled from those theological “under-
standings[s] peculiar to themselves” (Heraclit. fr. 2) and be joined finally with the
other persuits of the human sciences in a serious explanation of yet unexplored do-
mains of human behavior and of the significance of that behavior for the world we
inhabit (Martin 1997).

References

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2. The Academic Study of Religions during the
Cold War: A Western Perspective
I resist, in the following, the pretension implied in representing the “western”
perspective on the academic study of religion during the Cold War. At best, I
can attempt to report on the situation in the United States, and then, but parti-
ally; but perhaps the American case will represent, if in extremis, something of
the “western” perspective. My report will be based in part on anecdotal evidence
and impressionistic views as well as on some of the growing body of research
that is emerging to document the relationship between the Cold War and the uni-
versity (cited herein and in Schrecker 1986, 4, n. 3). I hope, nevertheless, that
these reflections might suffice to initiate discussion and analysis of issues raised
by the complexities of this recent period of our shared history for our common
pursuits of an academic study of religion.

Introduction

From 1945, with the conclusion of World War II, until 1989, with the fall of the
Berlin Wall, much of the world was in the grips of what has been termed “the
Cold War,” a forty-year period of ideological, political and economic conflict be-
tween the “West” and the “East” which, on occasion, threatened to become a
“Hot War.” The communist coup in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin blockade in
1948 and the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb and the establishment of a
communist government in China the following year consolidated an anti-com-
munist sentiment that had been growing in the United States since the 1920s
and 1930s into a reaction that, at times, reached the level of mass hysteria.
The wildly improbable assertions associated with this anti-communist frenzy
is illustrated, for example, by a booklet prepared by the U.S. House Un-American
Activities Committee in 1948 entitled 100 Things You Should Know about Commu-
nism in the U.S.A, in which figures supplied by director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoo-
ver, allege that in 1947 “one in every 1,814 Americans was a communist, a higher
ratio than the one in every 2,277 Russians who were Bolsheviks in 1917” (Lewis
1988, 10). Such fosterings of Cold War hysteria and the reactionary McCarthyism
it produced in the 1950s had, however, as much to do with domestic politics as it
had to do with any real or imagined threat to the West from the so-called Red
Menace, at least for its political “managers” (Schrecker 1986, 4– 9).
 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective 23

The Cold War and the University

American universities were not detached from the Cold War culture or immune
from its rhetoric but came to play a central role in its repressive practice (Lewis
1988, 2, 268; Neusner and Neusner 1995, 26). “By now,” the historian Christopher
Simpson has observed:

it is clear that military, intelligence, and propaganda agencies provided by far the largest
part of the funds for large research projects in the social sciences in the United States
from World War II until well into the 1960s, and that such funding was designed to support
the full range of national security projects of the day…The favored scholars most active in
these affairs frequently formed tight, self-reinforcing networks…that came to have great in-
fluence over scholarly societies, foundation grants committees, tenure decisions, the con-
tents of academic journals, and other levers of power in the academy (Simpson 1998, xii).

“[T]he tight, dynamic linkages among the academy’s prevailing ideological

framework, its choice of research method, and its research results have,” Simp-
son argued, “had much more in common in East and West than either side gen-
erally has been willing to admit” (Simpson 1998, xxviii). Simpson even conclud-
ed that “[t]he interweaving of social scientists with the national security
apparatus was…as pervasive and suffocating in the [United States as in the
USSR]” (Simpson 1998, xii). This influence of Cold War ideology on American
universities challenged the very foundation of academic freedom and of the
academy itself.
The effects of the Cold War and the rabid anti-communism it generated in
the United States reached even into the bucolic remove of my own university.
In 1953, a nationally recognized research scholar at the University of Vermont
was subpoenaed to testify before the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee
concerning his alleged communist activities. Although he denied that he was a
communist, when he was questioned about his activities and associations prior
to coming to Vermont, he invoked, as a matter of principle, the Fifth Amendment
of the Constitution of the United States which guarantees any citizen protection
against self-incrimination. As a consequence, he was dismissed from his tenured
professorship by the Board of Trustees of the university (Holmes 1991). Again in
1971, the Board of Trustees of the University of Vermont, overturning the endorse-
ment of his department, of his dean and of the president of the university, denied
the reappointment of a professor of Political Science because of his outspoken
and public opposition to United States involvement in Vietnam. Although
exact figures are unavailable, the estimate of university faculty in the United
States who were dismissed during the Cold War period for political reasons or
24 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective

whose positions were not renewed numbers in the hundreds (Schrecker 1986, 10,
241; Lewis 1988, 38, 274).
The Morrill Land Grant College Act, passed in 1862 in the midst of the Amer-
ican Civil War, had established the University of Vermont, like most public uni-
versities in the United States as, in principle, an instrumentality of the state
(Lewontin 1997, 12– 17). “The extraordinary facility with which the academic es-
tablishment accommodated itself to the demands of the state” during the Cold
War fully instantiated this principle (Schrecker 1986, 340).
Prior to World War II, “[a]utonomy from the federal government was, in fact,
central to the definition of the university as well as of the science and scholar-
ship conducted within it…[as was] autonomy from private industry and, more
broadly, the world of commerce” (Lowen 1997, 2). Following World War II, how-
ever, the United States, heretofore characterized more by isolationism than by
internationalism, found itself rather suddenly in a position of world power
which brought it into contact with cultures vastly different from its own. In re-
sponse, the nation turned to the universities for guidance (Neusner and Neusner
1995, 79), and the universities responded by creating area studies.
Towards the end of World War II, the Committee on World Regions of the So-
cial Science Research Council (SSRC) first recommended the establishment of
area studies. This SSRC report seriously questioned “whether we can spare the
energies of accomplished and potential scholars for regional study,” especially
since “some of the most fruitful results have been obtained through the compa-
rative method” (cited by Wallerstein 1997, 196). Yet “area studies” rapidly became
an established component of the university curriculum to the detriment of earlier
concerns with comparison and provided the foundation for the incommensurate
“culture studies” that came to dominate academia during the post-Cold War pe-
riod. The areas defined for study included, first of all, the Far East, focusing ini-
tially on Japan as “a success story of development” during the U.S. occupation of
that country following World War II but quickly shifting to include China as “a
pathological example of abortive development” following its “loss” to commu-
nism in 1949 (Cumings 1998, 160), and soon including communist Russia and
eastern Europe as well. Second, area studies focused on “tribal” or “primitive”
peoples, first in Latin America with later shifts to the Middle East and to Africa
where the Soviet Union had political advantage (Wallerstein 1997, 198). These
studies of non-western systems were driven by the desire “to understand the
functioning of those that already had communist regimes and to help prevent
other areas from ‘falling into the hands of the communists’” (Wallerstein 1997,
200 – 201).
“During the cold war,” consequentiy, “the nation’s leading universities
moved from the periphery to the center of the nation’s political economy”
 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective 25

(Lowen 1997, 2; Schrecker 1986, 359). This transformation in the role of the acad-
emy contributed to an “unprecedented and explosive expansion” during the
1960s that was fueled by the post-war “baby-boom” demand, on the one
hand, and the infusion of public funding that followed upon the successful
1957 launch of Sputnik, on the other. In addition to area studies, universities
now reemphasized mathematics and the natural sciences as well as making
room for such new fields of study as nuclear engineering, all of which bore ob-
vious relevance to the nation’s geopolitical concerns. “Traditional social science
disciplines also shifted their emphasis, stressing quantitative approaches over
normative ones and individual behavior and cultural studies over sociological
ones” (Lowen 1997, 3). The humanities benefited as well, as “[a]dministrations
tried to keep some balance among the components of the curriculum, strength-
ening the humanities along with the more favored social sciences and the most
favored natural sciences, mathematics and engineering” (Neusner and Neusner
1995, 86): “lower teaching loads in science…meant lower teaching loads in the
humanities…Higher salaries for biologists…meant higher salaries for biogra-
phers” (Lewontin 1997, 30).
As universities opened their doors to new subjects, there was also a renewed
interest in the academic study of religion (Neusner and Neusner 1995, 79). Fol-
lowing the Schempp-Murray decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963, which
rejected religious practice in the public schools but encouraged the “study of
comparative religion or the history of religion” that the court judged to be “insep-
arable” from “the history of man,” an academic study of religion was readily ac-
cepted in virtually all American public universities. By 1973, religion was recog-
nized along with anthropology, economics, political science and sociology in a
report of the SSRC on the spectacular growth of area studies, especially those
in a non-western context (Wallerstein 1997, 209 – 210). And, as with area studies
generally, “the two principal documentary sources for…[this new] history of re-
ligions have been, and still are,” in the conclusion of Mircea Eliade, “the cultures
of Asia and the peoples whom one calls…‘primitive’” (Eliade 1969, 57).

The Cold War and the Academic Study of Religion

Whereas the impact of the Cold War on universities and on the reciprocal roles
they played is increasingly well documented, its influence on the academic study
of religion in western universities, the choice of theories and methods employed,
and on the shaping of the subject matter pursued in this study during this period
and after has received only passing notice, and that, to my knowledge, by but
two scholars, Jacob Neusner (Neusner and Neusner 1995) and Russell McCutch-
26 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective

eon (1997). Yet any academic study reflects larger issues surrounding the produc-
tion of knowledge generally. In allusion to this influence, McCutcheon has re-
cently suggested that the dominant direction of the academic study of religion
in the United States, as it was defined during the late 1960s and early 1970s,
had much in common with “the long-recognized associations between nine-
teenth-century colonial efforts to control distant lands and peoples (especially
the Cold War concern with the rise of ‘Asia’), on the one hand, and early intel-
lectualist efforts to understand the primitives as forerunners of Europeans (of
which Religionswissenschaft played a significant role), on the other” (McCutch-
eon 1997, 163). As Simpson has observed:

Few…today would argue with the proposition that the ideology…of, say, twelfth-century
Confucianism or nineteenth-century British imperialism profoundly shaped the methods
used by intellectuals of those epochs to view events, and determined much of what they
took to be literally and certainly true about the world around them (Simpson 1998, xi).

As Jacob Neusner has correctly observed, the academic study of religion in the
United States was “reinvented” in the midst of Cold War rhetoric and ideology
(Neusner and Neusner 1995, 23; also Smart 1990, 299 – 300). This reinvented
study, exemplified by the work of Eliade and the so-called “Chicago School,”
has proved to be as hegemonic for the academic study of religion in the West
as did “scientific atheism” in the East.
Although the practice of religion was discouraged in most areas of the for-
mer Soviet Union, and outlawed in some, an academic study of religion never-
theless persisted, oftimes in the context of “Institutes of Scientific Atheism.”
The very name of such Institutes indicated a Marxist ideological agenda and
the subject matter pursued in these as well as in other contexts was often in sup-
port of state goals, e. g., the study of Islam which might contribute to the admin-
istration of Islamic areas in the Soviet domain.
Unlike the situation in the Soviet Union, it was the practice of religion, in-
cluding its discursive practice as theology, that flourished in the United States
after World War II while its academic study was, if not discouraged, certainly ne-
glected. As Neusner notes, the study of religion in the United States “centered
(where it flourished at all) on the truth or falsity of religious beliefs, on the
one side, and the description by native believers of their personal beliefs, on
the other.” After its “reinvention” in the 1960s and 1970s, this study “began to
ask the questions of social description and cultural analysis that now preoccu-
pied the country” (Neusner and Neusner 1995, 32). “[S]ince religion,” Neusner
continues:
 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective 27

defined the social order for many countries and life’s purpose for much of humanity, the
time had come to support the study of religion, for analytical purposes and not as a medi-
um of indoctrination, within the curriculum (Neusner and Neusner 1995, 35).

But in his idealization of the Cold War university and of the development of an
academic study of religion during this period, Neusner neglects to consider the
way in which religion has historically defined the social order of the United
States, from the theocratic pretensions of the Puritan colonists to those of con-
temporary right-wing Christian movements, from the deistic aspirations for the
new republic by Thomas Jefferson to the social engineering advanced by Walter
Rauschenbusch and the social gospel tradition generally. The centrality of reli-
gion to American society—or at least the American obsession to be religious
about religion (Herberg 1960, 84)—was nowhere more evident than during the
Cold War period in which the academic study of religion in the United States
was “reinvented.”
When, for example, the historian and, subsequently, Librarian of Congress
Daniel Boorstin testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee
in 1953, he allowed that:

he had briefly been a Communist Party member in the late 1930s, but now said that no
communist should be allowed to teach in an American university…[A]sked by the commit-
tee to show how he had expressed his opposition to Communism, [Boorstin] said: “First, in
the form of an affirmative participation in religious activities, because I think religion is a
bulwark against Communism.”

Only secondarily did Boorstin consider his attempt to discover “the unique vir-
tues of American democracy” and to explain these to his students in teaching
and writing, an appropriate expression of opposition to communism (Zinn
1997, 42).
In contrast to Boorstin’s celebration of American political uniqueness, Rein-
hold Niebuhr, in his The Irony of American History published the year before
Boorstin’s testimony (Niebuhr 1952), emphasized, in the words of his biographer,
the “interrelatedness of American and European, liberal and Marxist dogmas”
(Fox 1985, 244). And yet, this more nuanced analysis of the Cold War conflict
was based in Niebuhr’s own religious renunciation of communism as a “demonic
politico-religious movement” (Niebuhr 1955, 12).
The implication of both Boorstin’s and Niebuhr’s position is not only that de-
mocracy itself may be understood as a religion but that this “democracy as reli-
gion” is the true “religion of religions” (Herberg 1960, 88). For the United States,
in other words, Cold War ideology was less an imposition by the state than it was
a matter of the state being defined by a historically constructed, religiously
28 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective

based, ideology. Charges of “atheism,” consequently, while not based on the

abeyance of religious belief per se (Lewis 1988, 37), nevertheless constituted
for many a sufficient basis to associate one with communism and with the
legal sanctions such association carried (Lewis 1988, 113), whereas testimony
concerning one’s religious conviction was considered a sound defense against
such charges (Lewis 1988, 236).
I know of no instance where the academic study of religion in American
public universities was overtly exploited or directly funded by governmental
agencies in opposition to the oxymoronically formulated threat of an “atheistic
communism” or in support of Cold War strategies, as have been documented,
for example, in the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, psychol-
ogy, sociology, various of the physical sciences, etc. Though it may have come
close. For example, the policy-making committee of World University Service
(WSU) of the United States, a church-related federation of campus and service
organizations issued a resolution on March 8, 1967 that expressed outrage at
the Central Intelligence Agency and at other “individuals, foundations and or-
ganizations” that had, according to the resolution, established a “network of
conspiracy within seemingly free institutions.” Further, that resolution called
for a special WSU panel to investigate published reports that the organization’s
executive director, John Simons, and its chairman, Huston Smith, were “possibil-
ity guilty of complicity in acts which the committee thoroughly deplores.” At the
same time, the resolution recognized that both Simon and Smith “categorically
denied any knowledge of CIA involvement in the organization” (New York
Times, March 9, 1967, 10, 1– 2). However, Smith’s views on the utility of “world
understanding” were clearly expressed a decade earlier in his book The Religions
of Man (1958), widely used since that time especially in university classes on
comparative religion. Early in this volume, he recounts the time when he was:

taxied by bomber to the Air Command and Staff College at the Maxwell Air Force Base out-
side Montgomery, Alabama, to lecture to a thousand selected officers on the religions of
other peoples. I have never had students more eager to learn. What was their motivation?
Individually I am sure it went beyond this in many cases, but as a unit they were dealing
with the peoples they were studying as allies, antagonists, or subjects of military occupa-
tion. Under such circumstances it would be crucial for them to predict their behavior, con-
quer them if worse came to worse, and control them during the aftermath of reconstruction
(Smith 1958, 8; on this passage see also McCutcheon 1997, 179 – 180).

On the other hand, as McCutcheon reminds us, “the connections between the
normalization and the domination of a populace and its depiction by scholarly
writers” are not always so direct (McCutcheon 1997, 187). The Russian historian
and philosopher of science Slava Gerovitch has pointed out that:
 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective 29

academic discourse [need not necessarily be] a container of a particular ideology or theory,
but rather [may be] a mechanism for advancing a certain agenda via disciplinary knowl-
edge. Many ideological beliefs and theoretical concepts can be viewed as the result of con-
scious attempts to explicate and rationalize discursive norms, in much the same way that
grammatical rules are evoked to describe and prescribe linguistic practices. Instead of de-
picting the Gold War solely as a clash of ideologies, it may be more productive to examine
the discursive strategies that were employed to shape the image of the opponent and to
build up “our” ideology against “theirs” (Gerovitch 1998, 218).

As Neusner noted, the reinvented field of the academic study of religion:

adopted as its generative problem how to learn to understand and appreciate the other at
the point at which the other was most particular and most bizarre to us, which is, in the
rites and myths of the supernatural—and in the social and political order flowing therefrom
(Neusner and Neusner 1995, 23).

Like the literary criticism with which Eliade compared the study of religion (Eli-
ade 1969, 4– 5), the religious study of the “other” during the Cold War period
“reached for timeless universals in [the] understanding of texts…apart from
the squalid mess of history” (Ohmann 1997, 79). As the Wesleyan University lit-
térateur Richard Ohmann concluded, the professional “was to be nonpartisan,
to abstain from historical agency. Its practitioners, like those in all fields, should
stay within their own areas of expertise” (Ohmann 1997, 83). Historians of reli-
gion, like their colleagues in literary criticism, viewed their subject matter as
“a delicate equipoise of contending attitudes, a disinterested reconciliation of
opposing impulses” which, according to critical theorist, Terry Eagleton, “proved
deeply attractive to skeptical intellectuals disoriented by the clashing dogmas of
the Cold War” (Eagleton 1989, 50). By insisting on ahistorical, descriptive stud-
ies, religion, like literary studies, “played…[its] part in the Cold War, not by sell-
ing…unwanted expertise, not by perfecting the ideology of free world and evil
empire, but by doing our best to take politics out of culture and by naturalizing
the routines of social sorting” (Ohmann 1997, 85).

Theoretical Consequences of the Cold War for the Study of

Religion

One of the consequences of the Cold War for the study of religion for much of the
West—certainly for the United States—is that the thought of Karl Marx was con-
sidered by most to be downright un-American. Apart from area studies, conse-
quently, Marxist thought was little read and less taught in the academy (Schreck-
30 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective

er 1986, 339). There is, for example, not a single citation of Marx “in the Selected
Papers from the American Anthropologist from 1946 through 1970” (Nader 1997,
120). Western scholars of religion, if they were interested in social-scientific theo-
ry at all, were more attracted to traditions of Weber or Durkheim, but especially
to Weber who had argued a fundamental relationship among individualism,
Protestantism, and capitalism in the modern world (Weber 1958; Krymkowski
and Martin 1998). Durkheim was considered too “socialistic” and certainly the
atheistic premise of Marxism was considered to be of no concern to those inter-
ested in religion. In addition, the Marxist “reductionist” view of religion epito-
mized all that was subversive to those who viewed religion as a sui generis phe-
nomenon. “Some day,” Eliade wrote in his journal:

I would like to analyze the attitude of historicists of all kinds, such as that of Marxists and
Freudians—in a word, all those who believe that one can understand culture only by reduc-
ing it to something lower (sexuality, economics, history, etc.)—and to show that theirs is a
neurotic attitude (Eliade 1977, 144).

Or is the problem that Marxism was understood as a “religious” or “pseudoreli-

gious” alternative to the “orthodox” view of religion and of its study, the view
suggested by Niebuhr and represented at Chicago by Joachim Wach (Wach
1958, 37)?
In the judgment of James Thrower, “[w]estern practitioners of Religionswis-
senschaft are, [in one way or another], as committed to ‘religion,’ as an irreduci-
ble reality, as Marxists are to reducing it to some other, more material form of
reality” (Thrower 1983, 378). But as Thrower concluded in his study of Marxist-
Leninist ‘Scientific Atheism’ (1983), the basic insights of “scientific atheism,” de-
spite various problems with the classic formulation of this approach, is for the
Religionswissenschaftlicher, “the most thorough and consistent naturalistic ac-
count yet offered of the phenomenon of religion” (Thrower 1983, 386). The Marx-
ist understanding of religion became, however, a fatality of ideological develop-
ments in the Soviet Union (Thrower 1983, 382). Consequently, at the time of his
evaluation of a Marxist view of religion in 1983, Thrower concluded that “[f]or
ongoing, creative Marxist thinking about religion, we must, alas, for the time
being, at least, look elsewhere than to the Soviet Union” (Thrower 1983, 382–
383). The theoretical directions for a naturalistic study of religion suggested by
Marx remain yet to be fully developed, in the East or in the West, although
the suggestions of various neo-Marxist theorists have provided a direction,
even if the assumptions and assertions of this direction are often an uncritically
appropriated trend (Lewis 1988, 274).
 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective 31

Given the perduring theological infrastructure (Grundlage) that has charac-

terized Religionswissenshaft since its origin, western developments in a truly aca-
demic study of religion have fared little better, though recent work in the area of
cognitive psychology is most promising. What would seem to be remedial is a
historical documentation of research produced during the period of the Cold
War by both eastern and western scholars in the field of religious studies
which, shorn of their ideological and theological frameworks, might disclose a
complementary theoretical relationship between the “scientific atheism” es-
poused by a Marxist approach and the “academic” or “humanistic” study of re-
ligion alleged by western universities (McCutcheon 1997, 61– 64).

Conclusions

The principle, established by the Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862, that
public universities are instrumentalities of the state was instantiated during
the years of the Cold War when it became “an indisputable tenet of the conven-
tional wisdom that the interests of the government and the interests of higher
learning are the same” (Lewis 1988, 275). Administrators of those institutions
in which charges relating to alleged subversive activities were brought against
faculty, more often than not supported the external accusing agencies rather
than their own faculty, even though no subversive activity was ever established
on U.S. campuses by these accusing agencies (Schrecker 1986, 8; Lewis 1988,
269). As Schrecker concludes, “[t]he academy [generally] did not fight” the influ-
ence of Cold War ideology. “It contributed to it” (Schrecker 1986, 340). University
administrators transformed themselves, in other words, from those who execute
academic policy to academic managers who supervise policy and people (Lewis
1988, 264). Their function as arbiters of what was “acceptable and unacceptable
political expression” during the Cold War period (Lewis 1988, 273) is exemplified
in the contemporary university by their embrace and eager implementation of
“political correctness” (Geiger 1993, 327– 331). In the conclusion of Lionel
Lewis, “[the] American academic community has slouched through the last…de-
cades ideologically animated but very nearly intellectually moribund” (Lewis
1988, 274).
American society and its institutions, including the university, have, as a
whole, been characterized since their founding as profoundly anti-intellectual
(Hofstadter 1963). Those few intellectual currents in American life, such as rep-
resented by some of the Puritan divines in the seventeenth century or by the in-
fluence of Enlightenment thought in the eighteenth century or by that of tran-
scendentalism in the nineteenth were overshadowed by the mass evangelical
32 2. The Academic Study of Religions during the Cold War: A Western Perspective

movements of the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries known, respectively,

as the First and Second “Great Awakening.” It is this evangelistic character of
American culture that shaped American political as well as religious cultures
and that combined the two into the various “crusades” in terms of which an
American history may be written (Herberg 1960, 79). This culture of crusades
was exemplified by that against communism during the Cold War years with
its synthesis of political opportunism and religious fervor. The “academic”
study of religion which was developed in the United States during this period
must be seen as being in some way legitimated by the religio-political obsessions
of that time, certainly in the selection of Asian and Third World “religions” for its
dominate subject matter and of a concomitant inattention to Judeo-Christian as-
sumptions. Given the rhetorical formulation of the American Cold War as a cru-
sade against an “atheistic communism,” need we wonder any longer at the sur-
feit of “fideism” still lingering in the “academic” study of religion (Smart 1990,
299; 1993, 59 – 60)? or at the theologizing, sui generis orientations of this field
as it continues to champion “distributions of power” reminiscent of “a past
era in response to the upheavals of modernity” (McCutcheon 1997, 79)?

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Eliade, Mircea 1969. The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion. Chicago: The University of
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—. 1977. No Souvenirs: Journal 1957 – 1969, translated by F H. Johnson, Jr. New York: Harper
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Gerovitch, Slava. 1998. “Writing History in the Present Tense: Cold War-era Discursive
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3. Secular Theory and the Academic Study of
Religion
And you thought you’d give me some more material? Alas, I’ve got too much already … I
don’t need any more data. What I need is a theory to explain it all.
– Morris Zapp (Lodge 1984, 28)

The academic study of religion, as the rubric itself suggests, should conform in
principle to the same protocol as does the academic study of anything. Earlier
views of “religion” as sui generis, together with consequent arguments for
some special method that is itself “religious” or that “brackets” what is consid-
ered to be “religious” from academic inquiry, deny this fundamental premise.
The academic study of religion should, in other words, be in no way privi-
leged—unless, of course, the counterintuitive claims and assumptions character-
istic of religious expression be accepted as somehow true (in the ordinary sense
of this judgment). Otherwise, something other is at stake in the ubiquity and per-
severance of religion than its manifest appeal. To discover this significance re-
quires that the study of religion be theoretically based.
Theory is but a kind of generalization; both attempt to explain the greatest
amount of data in terms of the fewest number of principles. The former is distin-
guished from the latter, however, in that theoretically based generalizations
should be reflexively established, they should somehow be testable and, if
deemed valid, they should provide explanations. In the study of religion, gener-
alizations are based on data concerning certain kinds of human practices,
whether discursive or non-discursive, which are generated by comparative (an-
thropological) and historical research, each of which have their own theoretical
problematic (Martin 1997c and Martin 2000).
Traditional examples of theories that offer explanations for religion include
intellectualist theories which hold as their primary assumption the view that
human beings have a fundamental interest in rationally understanding their en-
vironment. This view, consequently, approaches religions primarily in terms of
their discourse, i. e., their myths, understanding them as early examples of intel-
lectual acrivity. In reaction to this rationalist view, born of the Enlightenment,
some nineteenth-century Romantic theorists argued that religious practices
were expressive of some other feature of human life, e. g., the psychological or
the social, and they defined religion, consequently, as a symbolic phenomenon.
Arising also from Romanticism was an explanation of religion in terms of its
36 3. Secular Theory and the Academic Study of Religion

nonrational features. These emotivist theorists explained religion primarily in af-

fective terms and focused on extraordinary personal experiences of some tran-
scendent or universal “other.” (On these three classical theories of religion,
see Marett 1932, 1; J. Z. Smith 1995, 1068 – 1069.)
Clearly the human sciences cannot test theories of religion in ways appropri-
ate to the natural sciences. Unlike the invariable laws of nature sought by the
natural sciences, the human sciences, including the study of religion, can at-
tempt, however, to differentiate between valid and invalid generalizations—ster-
eotypes, for example, or ideologically produced fictions. Writing of historio-
graphical generalization, Louis Gottschalk has proposed that validation should:

at least conform to all the known facts so that if it does not present definitive truth it should
at any rate constitute the least inconvenient form of tentative error. That means that it must
be subject to certain general standards and tests—of human behavior, of logical antece-
dents and consequences, of statistical or mass trends (Gottschalk 1963, vi).

A brief consideration of emotive or affective theories of religion can provide an

example of such probative endeavors.
I have argued that the widely held theory about religion as personal experi-
ence in response to some transcendent “other” is invalid since it represents a
generalization about religion based upon the data of a particular religious tradi-
tion, namely, the Protestant Reformation principle that “salvation is by [individ-
ual] faith alone as confirmed by an experience of grace.”⁵ In its American cultur-
al context, this theological view of religion was given its first theoretical
formulation by Jonathan Edwards in his “Treatise Concerning Religious Affec-
tions” (Edwards 1959 [1746]), a work which has been judged to be “the most pro-
found exploration of the religious psychology in all American literature” (Miller
1949, 177). Written in defense of the “Great Awakening,” that first instance of
large-scale revivalism that began in the 1720s and spread throughout the Amer-
ican colonies, Edwards held that “true religion consists so much in the affec-
tions, that there can be no true religion without them” (Edwards 1959, 120).
The primary “objective ground” for these experiences is, he argued, “the tran-
scendentally excellent and amiable nature of divine things, as they are in them-
selves” (Edwards 1959, 240). For Edwards, in other words, religion was based on
an unmediated, personal experience in response to and confirmed by the sacred.
This emphasis on individual experience relegates other religious practices such

 The following example is taken from Martin 1993: 76 – 77, and used here by permission; see
also Martin 1994: n. 53.
 3. Secular Theory and the Academic Study of Religion 37

as discursive or ritual practices to outward and secondary expressions of that in-

ward grace so cherished by Protestants.
A “Second Great Awakening” swept the United States at the beginning of the
nineteenth Century, associated interestingly with Edward’s grandson, Timothy
Dwight. This revival was reinforced by the influence of a popularized form of
German Romanticism (Gabriel 1950), which had produced its own experiential
view of religion that may be traced from Friedrich Schleiermacher’s speeches
On Religion, first published in 1799, to its most influential theoretical articulation
in Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy (1917). Independently of Edwards, Schleier-
macher had written similarly that “the sum total of religion is to feel that, in its
highest unity, all that moves us in feeling is one” (Schleiermacher 1958, 49 – 50);
“the true nature of religion is…[this] immediate consciousness of the Deity”
(Schleiermacher 1958, 101). And like Edwards, Schleiermacher concluded that re-
ligious knowledge and organizations are but a secondary manifestation of this
experience of unity with the Infinite (Schleiermacher 1959, 60 – 61, 101, 155 – 156).
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the American philosopher, Wil-
liam James, proposed essentially the same view of religion that had first been
argued by Edwards—no longer in the discourse of Reformation or Romantic the-
ology, however, but now in that of the newly defined field of psychology that
James was so instrumental in popularizing. In his classic Gifford Lectures on
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), James wrote that religion consists
of “the feelings…and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as
they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider
the divine” (James 1929, 31– 32), a definition of religion employed also by the
philosopher, A. N. Whitehead (Whitehead 1926, 16, though without reference to
James). For James, as for the Protestants that preceded him, “personal religion
will prove itself more fundamental than either theology or ecclesiaticism.
Churches, when once established,” he asserted, “live at second-hand upon tra-
dition; but the founders of every church owed their power originally to the
fact of their direct personal communion with the divine” (James 1929, 31). Con-
sequently, in the conclusion of James, “personal religious experience has its
roots and centre in mystical states of consciousness” (James 1929, 370).
According to the Encyclopedia of Religion from 1987 little theoretical advance
on the subject has been made since James. The author of the article on “Mysti-
cism,” after expanding on the characteristics of mysticism offered by James
sixty years earlier, concludes that:

all religions, regardless of their origin, retain their vitality only as long as their members
continue to believe in a transcendent reality with which they can in some way communi-
cate by direct experience (Dupré 1987, 246).
38 3. Secular Theory and the Academic Study of Religion

The condition requisite to the validation of generalizations about religion being

based upon personal experience is preeminently that of an individualistic an-
thropology, a condition which did not exist in the cultures of Western antiquity,
for example (Martin 1994), where the denigration of feeling in the face of reason
by classical Greek culture would, in any case, argue in favor of intellectualist the-
ories. Nor does this valuation of the individual over the collective characterize
most of the modern, non-Western world (which is quite different than valuing
the raison d’être of the social entity as the care of the individual, e. g., Pl.
Lg. 9.875). Rather this individualistic anthropology arose with the Renaissance
differentiation of the “humanities” from the “divinities” as a legitimate field of
intellectual inquiry (vide “humanity. 4” OED 1971, 1346), and a concurrent emer-
gence of an individualistic ideology, including individualistic psychology, the as-
sumptions of which are so compatible with Reformation principles (vide “psy-
chology: Note,” OED 1971, 2347). While questions concerning individual
religious experience may and certainly have been posed of such religions as Hin-
duism or Confucianism, they would seem to impose rather than reveal much of
salience concerning such ritually and socially structured systems. Emotivist the-
ories of religion are, in other words, culturally specific and, consequendy, do not
offer valid generalizations for the historical or comparative study of religion.
In contrast to individualistic psychologies, cognitive psychology offers a
promising theoretical alternative in that it is concerned with those mental proc-
esses that are common to all humans. Since environmental (perceptual, cultural)
input is attributed significance only as it is processed by human minds, the work-
ings of the mind becomes central for understanding the production of any cul-
tural formation, including the religious. This is not to suggest that attempts to
map the workings of the mind will finally establish some sort of innate
human “need” for religion; such mappings seek rather to identify a common
mental architecture which has constrained the construction of a virtually infinite
variety of human systems of meanings. In this regard also, cognitive psychology
offers a promising alternative in that it seeks empirical, i. e., intersubjective val-
idity for its conclusions. (For sustained attempts to connect cognition and cul-
ture specifically with reference to religion, see Lawson and McCauley 1990
and Boyer 1992, 1994.)
The alternative examples of psychological theories of religion, individualis-
tic and collective, draw our attention to a second feature of theoretical general-
ization. Since such generalizations must be tested against the same comparative
and historical data upon which the generalizations were based in the first place,
it is theory and not data that finally determines our view of religion. Since the-
oretical formulations, as the example of emotivist theory suggests, are them-
selves subject to the historical influences of religious, political, economic, etc.
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
Ami and Pālū were brothers from one father and one mother. Ami begot
Mangqaw. Mangqaw begot Layna and Linawan, and the sons of Luntung
and Makabūyū. Layna begot Rahaban, Kusin, Malin, and Usman. Linawan
begot Anggab, Amīru, Nudin, and Mūsa, and the daughters Limbwan,
Ambay, and Alīma. Luntung’s sons were Pālū and Mamangking; his
daughters were Īdaw, Ubaw, Baylawa, and Gnaw. Makabūyū begot Asan,
Ibrāhīm, Kambal, Dunggi, Malnang, Linaw, and Ami. Pālū begot Dingan,
Ansi, Alumay, and a son, Ganap.

Dingan begot Sultan Padinding. Sultan Padinding begot Paramāta, Sultāna

Wata, Sultan Alūd, Raja Mūda Dawd of Balangingi, Badang, Daga of
Lyangan, Badwi, Māwung, Mūna, and Ktim.

Talāma was the sister of Maka-Kuyung, the sultan of Tapurug.

Dmak of Tatarīkŭn, the son of Māgi and Dabulawan, begot Aluyūdan,

Palala, Amilulung, Dilabayan, Zumukar, Kandīgan, Makalīnug, and
Midaray.

Midaray married a lady from Tatarīkŭn and begot Matanug, Tapū,

Mapundilu, and Tumŭg. Aluyūdan begot Anzang, Dapamāgi, Laygu, and
Madayaw. Madayaw begot Īlunayn, Datu Kābu, and Andabū. Anzang begot
Antus. Antus begot Mpas. Dapamāgi begot Adadang, Aryung, and Aryung
begot Bāgang. Layngu begot Mangakut and Mangakut begot Dāba. Andabū
begot Maslang, Kaluyūnan, and Umbayū. Kaluyūnan begot Datu Kayū.
Umbayū begot Saygū. Saygū begot Rabsar, Baypat, and Binisa. Binisa
begot Angūdap and Antus.

Matanug begot also Angalin. Angalin begot Ujyaw and Utŭq. Utŭq begot
Abayug, Kubag, Angalin, and the daughter Awyanu. Abayug begot Gī. Gī
begot Saliling Zaynudin. Zaynudin begot Ayad and the daughters Ijag and
Alay. Alay9 bore Tarid, Bāyutuga, and the daughter Agayun. Agayun9 bore
Badri. Badri begot Datu Gibang. Datu Gibang begot Māma-Sati and Datu
Badar Adayaw. Datu Badar begot Mbāyug. Zaynudin Saliling begot also the
daughters Nūrun, the mother of Apki, and Agunukū, Padangan, and Layma,
the grandmother of Diping.
Part II

This book is the genealogy of the descendants of Hashim and Kureish, who
came from Mecca to Mindanao, Bwayan, and the land of Ilanun. It was
obtained from Pakīh Mawlāna Mohammed Amīru-Dīn, who acquired it
from his father, Sahīd Wapāt. Sahīd Wapāt and his brothers Umar Maya,
Wapāt Batwa, Jarnīk, and Sumannap received it from their father,
Barahamān, who was surnamed Minuli Karakmatu-l-Lāh, and Jamālu-l-
Ālam. Later it passed into the possession of Kali Akmad and Sapak,10 who
married Duyan.

The descendant of the Apostle of God, Sarīp Mohammed, came to Juhūr

and married a woman related to the sultan of Juhūr and begot Sarīp
Kabungsuwan, who came to Mindanao and introduced the religion of Islam.

The ruler of Mindanao then was Raja Tabunaway. Kabungsuwan married

Banun, the sister of Raja Tabunaway, who died before any children were
born to them. After that Kabungsuwan married Putri Tunīna, who became
human and was begotten by Mamālu out of the bamboo. Putri Tunīna bore
three daughters—Putri Mīlagandi, Putri Māmūr, and Putri Batūla. Putri
Māmūr married Pulwa, Raja Bwayan. Putri Mīlagandi married Mālang-sa-
Ingŭd. Putri Batūla married Ambang.

Later Sarīp Kabungsuwan married Angintābu of Malabang, whose mother

was Mazawang and whose father was Sambāhan. Angintābu bore Maka-
alang, surnamed Sarīpada, Angintābu had a brother whose name was Maka-
apŭn. Maka-alang married a Bilan woman who was begotten out of a
crow’s egg, and begot Bangkāya. Bangkāya married two women of
Mindanao and begot two sons, Dimasangkay and Gūgū Sarikūla, one from
each wife. Later he married Magīnut of Malabang, the daughter of Maka-
apŭn, and begot Kapitan Lāwut. Dimasangkay married a woman of Lusud,
called Mīra, and another of Simway who bore Umūn and Būtu-na-Samar.
Būtu-na-Samar was surnamed Jukulānu, but died young and had no
children. Dimasangkay married also Ampas, the sister of Sandab, and begot
Umbūrung. Umbūrung married Umūn and begot Nūni, who was surnamed
Amatanding. Ampas married again Pindūma. Nuūni married Gāyang, the
daughter of Kapitan Laāwut Bwīsan and the sister of Qudrat, who was
surnamed Mupāt, and begot Anta, Nāgu, Umbūn, and the daughters Patawu,
Pindaw, Bāyu, and Sā-ib.

Sarikūla married a lady of Sūlug called Raja Putri, who was the sister of
Raja Husayn, both of whom descended from the original rulers of Sūlug.
Raja Putri begot one daughter, Raja Mampay.

Kapitan Lāwut married a lady of Slangan called Imbang, who descended

from Raja Tabunaway, and begot a son called Qudrat, and a daughter called
Gāyang, who married Nūni.

Qudrat married Raja Mampay and begot Tiduray. Tiduray married Myayū
of Lwān and begot Paramāta Āsya, who was known as Baya-lābi.

He married again Angki, the daughter of Natīb Syām by his wife Sawākung
of Puntiyābaq, and begot two sons—Barahamān, known as Minuli sa-
Rakamatu-l-Lāh, and Jamālu-l-Ālam.

Barahamān married a woman of Tagmān named Panubāwun and begot four

sons—Bāgas, also known as Raja Mūda; Anwāl, who was entitled Paduka
Sari Sultan and surnamed Wapāt Batwa; Jarnīk, who was entitled Gūgū; and
Sumana, who was Datu Ma-as; also four daughters—Ngway, Lūgung, Āwu,
and Tundug. By Basing of Sangīr, the daughter of Makalindi and Timbang
Sarību, he begot Manāmir, who was entitled Paduka Sari Sultan and
surnamed Sahīd Wapāt; and Tubu-tubu, entitled Umar Maya; Magīnut;
Ātika; and Pātima. By a Samal woman he begot Datu Sakalūdan Jamālu-d-
Dīn and Manjanay. Raja Muda Bāgas begot Ampwan, Dāyang, and Bāyaw
by a concubine. Jamālu-l-Ā’lam married Sīnal of Bwayan and begot a son,
Banswīl, and a daughter, Karani. He also begot Īja, Īla, Āwū, Ampan, and
Sayka-Datu Abdu-r-Rakūn.
Manāmir married Karani and Banswīl married Manjanay, all of whom are
first cousins, the children of Barahamān and Jamālu-l-Ā’lam.

Part III

Amatunding married Gāyang, the sister of Qudrat, and begot Anta, Nāgu,
and Umbūn and the daughters Pindaw, Dawa-dawa, Bāyu, Sāyib, and
Umang. Umang was the grandmother of the sultan of Ramītan. Nāgu was
the grandfather of the sultan of Tubuk. Anta was the grandfather of the
Sultan Sarīp Ulu of Dissan. Umbūn was the grandfather of Makakuyung,
the sultan of Tapurug. Umbūn begot Burwa. Burwa begot Māma and
Nanak. Nanak begot Bnul, who married Baya Wata of Kabuntalan. Bnul left
Baya Wata and went to Unayan with an understanding that unless he
returned in forty days their marriage would be null. Bnul did not return, so
Baya Wata married Timbang Sūlug, and soon after gave birth to Damda,
whom she conceived by Bnul.

Mana, the brother of Nanak, married the daughter of the sister of the sultan
of Sūlug and begot Datu Milbahar, Bantīlan, and Datu Adana.

Manuscript No. VI

The History and Genealogy of Magindanao Proper

Introduction
This manuscript is a copy of the original which is in the possession of Datu
Mastūra, the best-informed datu of Magindanao, and the son of Sultan
Qudrat Jamālu-l-A’lam Untung, the greatest of the late sultans of
Magindanao. Datu Mastūra has the best collection of Magindanao books
and records and owns the most reliable of the royal documents that have
been preserved. This copy is one of the best specimens of Magindanao
literature extant. It is principally genealogy and speaks briefly of the early
history of Magindanao and the rise of its sultanate, its main purpose being
to preserve the record of descent and determine the right of succession to
the sultanate.

The first page describes the birth of Putri Tunīna and her relation to
Tabunaway, the ruler of Magindanao. The second page describes the
coming of Sharif Kabungsuwan to Magindanao, his conversion of
Mindanao to Islam, and his marriage to Putri Tunīna. The third page gives
an account of Kabungsuwan’s marriage to a princess from Malabang and
his descendants from her. The rest of the manuscript is a detailed account of
births and descendants down to the birth of the great grandfather of the
present sultan, which must have occurred shortly before the beginning of
the nineteenth century. It is the most complete and the most nearly correct
copy that exists. It is written at a later period than that of No. V, and covers
two later generations. The history and genealogy of the nineteenth century
were obtained by personal investigation and inquiry from the oldest and
most reliable datus and other persons living. Diagrams Nos. 3 and 4 show
the descent of the rulers of Magindanao from Kabungsuwan to the present
time.

The full names and titles of the sultans in the order of their succession are
as follows:

1. Sharif Kabungsuwan
2. Sharif Maka-alang
3. Datu Bangkāya
4. Datu Dimasangkay
5. Datu Gūgu Sarikūla
6. Datu Kapitan Lāwut Bwīsan
 7. Sultan Dipatwān Qudrat (Corralat)
8. Sultan Dundang Tidulay
9. Sultan Barahamān
10. Sultan Kahāru-d-Dīn Jamālu-l-Ālam Kuda
11. Sultan Mohammed Jāpar Sādik Manāmir, generally known as
Sahīd Mupāt or Wapāt
12. Sultan Dipatwān Anwār, also known as Wapāt Batwa
13. Sultan Mohammed Tāhiru-d-Dīn Malīnug
14. Sultan Pakīr Mawlāna Mohammed Kayru-d-Dīn Kamza, generally
known as Pakīr Mawlāna or Pakīh Mawlāna
15. Sultan Pakaru-d-Din
16. Sultan Mohammed Amīru-l-Umara Alīmu-d-Dīn Kibād Sahriyāl
17. Sultan Kawāsa Anwāru-d-Dīn
18. Sultan Qudrata-l-Lāh Jamālu-l-A’lam Untung
19. Sultan Mohammed Makakwa
20. Sultan Mohammed Jalālu-d-Din Pablu, sometimes called Sultan
Wata
21. Sultan Mangigīn

Literal translation of Manuscript No. VI

IN THE NAME OF GOD THE COMPASSIONATE AND MERCIFUL.

PRAISE BE TO GOD THE LORD OF THE UNIVERSE. I HAVE FULL
SATISFACTION THAT GOD IS MY WITNESS

This book speaks of the origin of the rulers of Magindanao. The first known
rulers were Tabunaway and his brother Mamālu. One day they were cutting
bamboo to build a fish corral. Mamālu cut down all the trees except one
small stalk that was left standing alone. Tabunaway then called to Mamālu,
“Finish it up, because it omens ill to our fish corral.” Mamālu therefore cut
it and found in it a girl whose little finger was slightly cut by a slip of the
bolo. He carried the girl to Tabunaway, but Tabunaway told him to keep her
and adopt her as his child. This girl was named by Tabunaway Putri Tunīna.
On the other hand, there came out from Mecca Sharif Ali Zayna-l-Abidīn,
who proceeded to Bawangin (Malaysia) and settled at Juhūr. Here he
married the daughter of Sultan Iskandar Thul-Qarnayn of Juhūr, whose
name was Jūsul Āsiqin, and begot Sharif Kabungsuwan. Sharif
Kabungsuwan came to Magindanao to the mouth of the Tinundan. There he
met Tabunaway and accompanied him to the town of Magindanao. This is
Sharif Kabungsuwan, who converted to Islam all the people of
Magindanao, Slangan, Matampay, Lusud, Katittwān, and Simway, and who
was followed by all those who accepted Islam in the land of Magindanao.

And it came to pass that Tabunaway married Sharif Kabungsuwan to the

girl that was found inside the bamboo stalk, whose name was Putri Tunīna.
To them were born three daughters—Putri Māmūr, who married Mālang-sa-
Ingŭd, an older brother of Pulwa; Putri Mīlagandi, who married Pulwa, the
datu of Bwayan; and Putri Bay Batūla, who had no children.

Later Sharif Kabungsuwan married Angintābu, the daughter of Maka-apŭn,

a coast datu of Malabang, and begot Sharif Maka-alang.

Sharif Maka-alang married Bŭli, a Bilan woman who was found by Parāsab
in a crow’s egg. There were born to them a boy called Bangkāya and a girl
called Maginut.

Bangkāya married a woman of Magindanao and begot Dimasangkay. He

also married a woman of Matampay and begot Gūgū Sarikūla. Later he
married Ūmbŭn of Slangan and begot Kapitan Lāwut Bwīsan and Tagsan
and Pinwis.

Dimasangkay married a Simway woman and begot Būtu-na Samal, who

had no offspring, and Ūman, a woman. He married also Ŭmpas, the sister of
Sandab, and begot Ŭmbūrung, who was not well known.

Gūgū Sarikūla married Raja Putri, a Sūlug lady, who gave birth to Putri
Mampay. He also married the sister of Dasumālung of Linilwān and begot
Gāwu.
Kapitan Lāwut Bwīsan married Ambang, the daughter of Dalamba of
Slangan, whose son was Sultan Dipatwān Qudrat and whose daughter was
Gāyang.

Sultan Dipatwān Qudrat married Putri and begot Dundang Tidulay and
Arawaldi.

Dundang Tidulay married Paramāta Āsiya, a Bitalan lady, and begot Putri
Gunung Līdang, who was the first Bayalābi of Magindanao and who had no
offspring. His children from a concubine were Īla and Īja; from Angki, the
daughter of Katīb Syam and Puntyābak of Sawakungan, Sultan Mohammed
Barahamān and Sultan Mohammed Kahāru-d-Dīn Kuda.

Īla married Tawbālay and begot Gantar and Lumampaw and a daughter
Sarabanun.

Īja was married to Binulūkan and begot Marāja Layla Dangkaya and the
following daughters: Tŭmām, Pŭdtad, Darīsay, Nūrun, Lāyin, Imbu, Līlang,
Ābū, and Ampay, who had no offspring.

Sultan Barahamān begot from Panubāwun Raja Mūda Bulāgas and Sultan
Dipatwān Anwār, and Gūgū Jarnīk and Datu Ma-as Sumannap, and a
daughter Anig, and Gāwu, and Datu Sakalūdan Jamālu-d-Dīn, and Manjani
and Āwū and Tundug, and Ngwā and Lūgung. From Lady Bāsing, the
daughter of Makalindi, and Timbang Sarību, a lady of Sangīl, he begot
Sultan Jāpar Sādik Manāmir and Umarmaya Tubu-tubu, and the following
daughters: Maginut, Fātima, and Atik.

Sultan Kahāru-d-Dīn Kuda married Lady Sīnal, the daughter of Datu

Tambīnag, and begot Balingkŭl, Hajji Sayk Abdu-r-Rakmān Banswīl, and
Putri Kalāni Kŭning. By a concubine he begot Marāja Layla Bahar, Paki
Abdu-l-Kahār Ampan, and Hajji Sayk Abdu-r-Rakīm, Dinda, Dangsābu, Īla,
Talāma.

Raja Mūda Bulāgas married Tŭmbāyu, a lady of Bwayan, and begot

Baratamay and the daughters Nānun, Māyay, Antanu, and Putri. By a
concubine he begot Parāsab, Gūgū Ampwān, and the daughters Mustŭri,
Bāyu, and Dābu.

Sultan Dipatwān Anwār married a lady of Agākan Munāwal and begot Raja
Bwayan Manuk. By a Bwayan lady he begot Tambāyū and Kandug; by
Lady Pāyak, Sultan Mohammed Tāhiru-d-Dīn Malīnug and Datu Sakalūdan
Gantar; by a concubine, Datu Lūkŭs Gānwi and Marāja Layla Yūsup and
Talinganup, and the daughters Dāging, Dāyang, Dawung, and Dang.

Gūgū Jarnīk begot Nānu and Kūnan.

Datu Ma-as Sumannap begot Midtŭd-sa-Ingŭd Bāni and Asan.

Nway begot Anday.

Āwū married Arādi and begot Talīla and Andu.

Lūgung married Lŭbas and begot Uranjib and Pīnaw.

Datu Sakalūdan Jamālu-d-Dīn married Layma, the daughter of Sultan Kuda,

and begot Mawlāna Kudanding Sabīru-l-Lāh and Datu Sakalūdan Lagat.

Tundug married Ajipāti and begot Rannik and Ami. By Palug he begot
Dīngan.

Umarmaya Tubu-tubu married Babak and begot Sharif Kunyaw and Sultan
Digra Alam and Pataw. He also married Andaw-mada, a Tawlan lady and
begot Bagŭmba, Sarabanun, and Bay. By a concubine he begot Jukulānu
adīwa, Bāl, Bŭli, and a daughter, Sajar.

Fātima married Datu Gūlay of Sulug and begot Raja Baginda Timbang.

Sultan Mohammed Jāpar Sādik Manāmir married Putri Kalāni Kŭning, the
daughter of Sultan Kuda, and begot Sultan Pakīr Mawlāna Mohammed
Kayru-d-Dīn Kamza, Sultan Mohammed Pakāru-d-Dīn Bulāgas Armansa,
and Samal, and the daughters Bayalābi Sari and Gindulūngan. By a
concubine he begot Dipatwān Palti, Jalālu-d-Dīn Tambi, Marajā Layla
Abdu-l-Lāh, Marāja Dinda Jambŭrang, Rastam, Kahār, Mamalum´pung,
and the daughters Amīna, Īnam, Panubāwun, Atshar, Bitun, Angki, and
Labyah.

Hajji Sayk Abdu-r-Rakmān Banswīl married Manjani, the daughter of

Sultan Barahamān, and begot Datu Sakalūdan, a Lingkung Tidulay, and
Putri Kintay, Kalūdan, the son of a concubine, Jāpar, Undung, Kapitan
Lawut Mohammed, and Ibrāhīm, and the following daughters: Dūni,
Pindaw, and Dasŭmbay.

Marāja Layla Bahar begot Badaru-d-Dīn and Sakandar, and the daughters
Dīna and Bidūry.

Paki Hajji Abdu-l-Kahār Ampan begot Ismāyil and Mīlug.

Hajji Sayk Abdu-r-Rakīm begot Namli, Amīna-l-Lāh, Yāsīn Kamīm,

Mohammed, Māwug, Akmad, and the daughters Latīpa, Badalya, Bulawan
Dagāyug, Dindyaw, Sitti.

Dinda married Abdul Patah, a Sūlug datu, and begot Pangyan Ampay.

Papani married Sumūkū and begot Mahrāja Layla Mindug and a daughter,
Sīnal.

Ungki married Simping and begot Īday.

Īla married Datu Wata Mapūti and begot Mīlug and Māyug.

The children of Talāma by Dumlinaw are Jiwana Jāya, Nasari, Palāwan, and
a daughter, Kurays.

The children of Maharāja Layla Parāsab by Pangyan Bata, the daughter of

Gūgū, are Māyug and Tāhir.

The children of Gūgū Ampwān are Makalapŭn, Kanday, Tāwug, and Udin,
the last two being daughters.
The children of Sultan Dipatwān Malīnug are Watamāma, Gūlay, Tawpan,
Ūkū, Bay Māyung, Dīngan, and Mustŭri.

Datu Sakalūdan a Kantar, begot by Nānaw, Anni and Mangki. Marāja Layla
Yūsup begot Īday, Ndawmada, Mŭnay, Bāyū, Dāyang, Zaman, Mŭning,
Tamāma, Undung, Ga-as, and Palti.

The children of Datu Lūkŭs Gānwi are Mŭnay from Bāyū, and Manūn and
Jamalya by a concubine.

The children of Talinganup are Dindu, Bungāyū, Ampay, Nānaw, and

Kunan.

Dāyang begot by Tuwyla Answay.

Dang begot by Sumāpa Jamālu-d-Dīn and Sabdulla.

Panubāwun begot by Bagwa Datu Tabunaway, Tamāma, Ulu, Timbang,

Gindu, and Ampay.

The children of Atshar from Sultan Yūsup are Isrā-il, Watababay Pāyak,
Mustŭri, Dadaw, Lyaw, and Kunan.

Bitun married Mawlāna Tāray and begot Agas and Kŭntay.

Angki married Raja Mūda Kalūdan and begot Jamālu-d-Dīn, Mīlug,

Ismāyil, Ayung, Āyū, and Fātima.

Rastam married Pīnaw and begot Dīngan and Kirām; he also begot Indīm
by a concubine.

Marāja Dinda Jambŭrang married Pīnaw and begot Danding, Isrā-il, Ani,
Bantīlan, Ayung, Īja, and Nānun.

Jalalu-d-Dīn Tambi begot Angkāya, Panji, Gūlay, Manalantang, Lūgung,

Mangki, Anday, Gāyung, Latīpa, Ami, Bŭli, Bahar, Darīsay, and Pataw; the
last eight being females.
Dipatwān Palti married Bŭli and begot Sarabanun. He also begot Sahābu-d-
Dīn, Ampan, Īja, Kŭntay, and Ayung by a concubine; the last three are
females.

Pakīr Mawlāna Mohammed Amīru-d-Dīn Kamza begot the following: By

Dang, Raja Mūda Amīru-l-Umara Mohammed Alīmu-d-Dīn Kibād
Sahriyāl; by Dawung the daughter of Dipatwān Anwār, Līdang and Paywa;
by Dawa-dawa, Kuda, and Lalanu; by Bay Līnaw, Burhānu-d-Dīn; by
Sapar, Bāsing and Hājar; by Kānul, Pakū; by Sināyan, Mohammed Sahru-d-
Dīn, Āsim, and Tāwung; by Dalikāyin, Jamālu-d-Dīn, Gindu, Amīna, and
Ampay; by Talangāmi, Jamalya, Ami, Zamzam, and Ismāyil; by Mūna,
Sāra, Yāsīn, Malīnug, and Abdu-l-Lāh; by Mīda, Īdu, and Sād; by Ŭntay,
Isrā-il, Angkāya, and Tambi; by Palambi, Ndaw; by Jalya, Dudawa; by
Anggun, Pāyak; by Kalīma, Badaru-d-Dīn; by Jānim, Maryam; by Limbay,
Īsa; by Linuyāman, Sīnal; by Mīlagandi, Bilangkŭl.

Sultan Mohammed Pakāru-d-Dīn Bulāgas Armansa married Badwi and

begot Kartaw, Atik, Anday, and Pindaw, the last three being females. He
also married a concubine and begot Zaman, Sumannap, Bayna, and Nānaw,
the last two being females.

Datu Sakalūdan Lingkung Tidulay begot Kakā-it.

Datu Sakalūdan Lagat begot Parāsab, Ampan, Manunggul, Dāding Umar,

Dubwa, Tā-ib, Nānun, Māyay, and Gāyang.

Nānun married Datu-a-Wata Mapūti and bore Tamāyug, Dawa-dawa, and

Idāyū.

Māyay married Raja Bwayān Manuk and bore Maman, Tapūdi, Kŭdaw, and
Ampay.

Putri married Datu Maytŭm Bwīsan and bore Dubwa.

Tamaying married Bungu and begot Gangga. He also married Mangilay and
begot Answay and Anig. He again married a concubine and begot Parāsab
and Tŭli.
Baya-Lābi Sari married Mawlāna Kudanding Pŭrang Sabīlu-l-Lāh and bore
Maman, Abu Bakar, Kŭntay, Mindarakma, and Mimya.

Kibād Sahriyāl married Nīnig, the daughter of Dātū Sakalūdan Gantar, and
begot Yūsup and Fātima; by Watababay Apāyak he begot Anwār and Sul-
Karnayn; by Angki, Palti; by Kindaw, Badaru-d-Dīn and Māyug; by Jāmi,
Nasaru-d-Dīn; by Līna, Imrān; by Jūlya, Dīngan and Ibrāhīm; by Istipānya,
Ābidīn.

Babay Bāsing married Watamāma Sahābu-d-Dīn and bore Barahamān,

Kuda, Manāmir, Fātima Zuhra, Sari, and Mindarakma.

Púyuwa married Raja Bwayan Mālang and bore Sajar.

Burhān married Kudi and begot Jamālu-d-Dīn and Īla.

Mohammed Sahru-d-Dīn married Mulāk and begot Dumalúndung.

Pakū married Sultan Ajipāt and bore Kŭning.

Sīnal married Mundŭg and bore Dāru-d-Dīn.

Jamalya married Saydūna and bore Mohammed Idrīs and Tŭli.

To Gantar, the son of Jiwana Kŭnik, she bore Samal and Nīnig.

Jamālu-d-Dīn married Gāyang, the daughter Datu Sakalūdan Lagat, and

begot Amīna and Dawung.

Zamzam married Dindyaw, the child of Sayka Datu, and bore Paramāta.

Bŭli married Mupalal, the son of Namli, and bore Harmansa.

Badaru-d-Dīn married Putri, the daughter of Namli, and begot Jalālu-d-Dīn.

Sari married Amīl and bore Ibrāhīm and Sitti.

Nasaru-d-Dīn married Āyū and begot Kamid.

Kartaw married Paramāta, the daughter of Watamāma Gūlay, and begot
Putri Līdang, Ani, Jumjuma, and Gindulūngan; by Jayba he begot Jāya; by
Jamīla, Ndaw and Nangka; by Uyam, Dadawa and Naw; by Alīma, Nunay.

Pindaw married Lintang and begot Mīlug.

Ndīma married Hajji Kāri Abdu-r-Rakman and bore Mohammed, Tāha,

Banūn, and Panubāwun.

Completed on the day Thursday of the month Shaban. God’s knowledge is

superior.

Manuscript No. VII

The Genealogy of Bagumbayan

Introduction

The sultanate of Bagumbayan occupies the middle ground between the

Saylud or lower Rio Grande Valley and the Saraya or upper Rio Grande
Valley. It is located at the head of the delta, and really comprises the upper
part of the Saylud, and lies mainly along the banks of the southern branch
of the Rio Grande. It extends as far down the banks of the southern Rio
Grande as the upper borders of Tamontaka, and as far down as Libungan,
along the banks of the northern branch of the Rio Grande. Its upper limit is
Maysawa, a little above the Kakar or canal.

The present sultan, Abu-Bakar, lives at Bagumbayan proper, which is

located on the right bank of the southern Rio Grande about 3 miles below
Tambao or the fork. He is still addressed, at times, as the sultan of
Talakūkū, which was the proper address of his father, named after the older
name of the capital. The word Bagumbayan means “newly built,” and has
lately been applied to the sultanate on account of the late change of the
residence of the sultan. Talakūkū is the word that appears in all Spanish
records and histories. Kabuntalan is still older and is more used by the
Moros themselves. The old site of Kabuntalan was on the left bank of the
main river just above the fork. It has been completely abandoned.

Nagtangan is the oldest name and the one which appears first in this
manuscript.

This manuscript is copied from the original, which is in the possession of

the sultan himself. It was obtained through the favor of Datu Balabadan,
who is a relative of the sultan and who belongs to the same family or an
allied branch of the same.

The original is a very old copy and many of the leaves and margins are torn
and have fallen into pieces. The handwriting is fair and plain, but the
composition and grammar are very poor. The orthographical errors
committed in writing Moro names in Arabic characters are very numerous
and greatly change the expression of the words. It is evident that the
original author was a poor writer, and did not have the usual practical
knowledge in writing in Arabic characters that other Moro authors had.

The dialect is strictly that of Magindanao. The titles of the datus are similar
to those used in Magindanao. Two new titles, Jukulānu and Jīwana, appear
often, and in all probability are applied to subdatus of the same rank as
Gūgū, Umar Maya, Marāja Layla, etc.

Literal translation of Manuscript No. VII

Genealogy of Kabuntalan
IN THE NAME OF GOD THE COMPASSIONATE AND MERCIFUL

This book speaks of the ancestors of the datus of Nagtangan. Daman asked
for a datu from Bwayan and got Dikāya. Dikāya married a Nagtangan wife
and begot Dŭka. Dŭka married Lantyan, a Malitigaw woman, and begot
Myadung. He also married a woman called Ambun and begot Babak and
Naw and Sūman.

Babak married Umar Maya, Tubu-tubu, and bore Sarīpada Kunyaw, Sultan
Digra Alam, and Pataw. Umar Maya married also Andawmada, a Tawlan
lady, and begot Bagamba, Sarabanun, and Bay. By a concubine he begot
Jukulānu Dīwa and Bāl, and the daughters Bŭli and Gaw and Bahar.

Sarīpada Kunyaw married Anik and begot Sultan Mohammed Alīmu-d-Dīn,

who had no offspring, Mawlāna Mŭndŭg, and Datu Sakalūdan Dūdin. He
also married Andawmada, an Ipuktn lady, and begot Baya-Wata. By a
concubine he begot Jīwana Jambang, and the following daughters:
Kumkuma, Ayag, Pāyak, Talīlah, and Minding.

Sultan Digra Alam married Nyā, a Magindanao woman, and begot Raja
Muda Mangindra and Mohammed; by Bay he begot Baya-Lābi; by a
Talayan woman he begot Baya-Wata Līlang.

Bagamba married Raja Bwayan and bore Sultan Darimbang.

Sarabanun begot Kamad, Ūbuk, and Dumpiras. Jukulānu Dīwa begot

Marajal, Bāya Nāyug, Jukulānu Kŭnuk, Jukulānu Badal, and Undung, and
the daughters Atik, Ilug, Nawila.

Bāl begot Ginda, Abas, Duwi, and Dangkay, and a daughter, Bŭli. Bŭli
married Mupāt Salām and bore Bānun. She also married Aspa and bore
Jīwana Kŭnik.

Mawlāna Mŭndŭg begot Wata-māma Kamad and Ngyan. By a concubine he

begot Dūla, Dastara, Jaynal, and Ālam, and the daughters Dadaw and
Sambāsing. By Lamidas he begot Kadīja; by a concubine, Daldal; by
Saban, Amīnu-l-Lāh.
Datu Sakalūdan Dūdin married Amīna, the daughter of Jukulānu Dīwa, and
begot Danding, Madaga, Kudanding, Pātima, Gindulūngan, and Anat. By a
concubine he begot Gānwi and Kunan.

Baya-Wata married Timbang Sūlug and begot Wata-māma Damda.

Jīwana Jimbang begot Asab and Pata.

Raja Muda Mangindra married Māyung, a Binilwan lady, and begot Anīg,
Umun, Daywa, and Dawada; and the sons, Sultan Mohammed-sa-
Barahamān, Kŭnday, Pataw, Jānipan, and Dindyaw. By a concubine he
begot Lubāba; by Baya-lābi, Ingkung.

Baya-Wata married Aman and begot Īnuk, Ūkū, and Anti, and the daughter
Wata-Babay Dīdu.

Gūgū Kirām begot Anti, Nānun, Lintang, Dīdu, Ngŭlū, and Bānun.

Marāja Layla Dikāya begot Marāja Layla Kandug, Kūnan, Marāja Layla
Amad, and Papung.

Sultan Mohammed Darimbang begot Raja Bwayān Paki, Damda, and

Pidtaylan. By a concubine he begot Kakayt.

Kamad married Anīg and begot Bulawan, Īnuk, and Dagāyug. By a

concubine he begot Māma-sa-Ilud, and Kŭntay.

Ūbuk begot Daga, Māma-Santi, Bŭlūg, and Tawp.

Dupiras begot Lyaw and Dabū by a concubine.

Jukulānu Kŭnuk married Dawada, the daughter of Raja Muda Mangindra,

and begot Tamay and Diyug.

Jukulānu Badal married Mayakay and begot Panggu. He also married Gīnu,
the daughter of Wata-māma Kamad, and begot Ungji, Ulanulan, Indalan,
Udamag, Kadidung, Aslan, Amīnalla, Duwag, Nyūgaw, and Tiban.
Ūdung married Ninaw and begot Mamag, Tŭli, Līlang, Lastam, Aning, and
Ālungan. By Baybay he begot Nāmar; by Lŭmba, Indig and Dandung.

Nawila married Lūgung, the son of Jalāludīn Tambi, and bore Putri and
Kirig.

Ginda begot Malaga.

Abas married Ngyan, the daughter of Mawlāna Mŭndŭg, and begot Atshar
and Pinayū; and Nānaw by a concubine.

Wata-Māma Kamad begot Ginū.

Dulay begot Bandun, Jawala, Bŭli, and Dyaw. By Payaka he begot Kubung
and Paygwan.

Dastara’s children lived in Kūran.

Alam married Gindulūngan and begot Malatunul. Gindulūngan married

Mawg, the son of the sultan of Tūba, and bore Qudrat.

Ngyan married Abas and begot Atshar and Pināyu.

Dadaw married Badang and begot Jambrang, a twan (sir) of Lawgan.

Kadīja married Ātun, Datu of Burūngan; her children lived at Burūngan.

Daldal married Kāyag and begot Sarīpa and Nyaw.

Talīlah begot Sābu-Dīn. Sābu-Dīn begot Abu Bakar, Mindung, Kawan, Ītug,
and Pimbar.

Nānaw married Tamāma and begot Kalumpŭnit.

Datu Sakalūdan married Lady Tīdung and begot Tīma and Randu. He also
married Yungāyu and begot Andam and Bāsing.

Barāyim married Anu, the daughter of Maraga, and begot Raprūk.

Raja Bwayan Mohammed Alīmu-Dīn married Ani, a lady of Magindanao,
the grandmother of Mupāt Idāyat, and begot Kabāyan. By Māyay, a lady of
Kabalūkan, he begot the sultan of Magindanao; by a concubine, Gūgū
Jambŭrang; by Salāya, Gūgū Panāsang; by Dadayu, Nŭgal and Gansing; by
Pandarágan, Gāga; by Sitti, Itug; by Kasimna, Atung and Panunggu; by
Takdung, Bāsing; by Īnam, Atabwān; by Inding, Apŭn; by Amil,
Nangālung.

Alīmu-Dīn, the grandson of Baya-lābi Sari, married Maraga, the daughter

of Ginda, and begot Tŭka and Dubwang.

Kudanding married Kindang and begot Āyung. By Tīma, a lady of Tīdung,

he begot Putri; by Īja, Limulang and Sīna; by Nāyung, Gandang and Kŭtay;
by Nawg, Babayāsi.

Datu Tamay and Diyug were cousins. Kibād was their second cousin. Tagi
was a brother, the son of Maryam. Qudrat was another cousin. Anatan, datu
of Kabuntalan, was their uncle.

Madaga married Sultan Mohammed-sa-Barahamān and bore Māyug and

Sultan Iskandar Manāmir, which makes three datus of Kabuntalan. Anatan,
datu of Kabuntalan, married Jawya and begot Dīdu, Untung, and Padīdu.
By Malāli, he begot Pāwag and Kirig and Dyaw and Parug; by Sitti,
Umbag; by Madīdu, Anaw and Baralaga.

Wata-Māma Balindung Adamŭnda married Ani and begot Asim, Iday,

Kalug, Kŭntay, Nānun, and Tayting. By a woman of Kadingilan he begot
Bantīlan.

Asab begot Putri.

Pata married Jīwana Aryung and begot Kibād, Kanapya, Sarapūdin, and
Ilm.

Daywa married Datu Pālug of Binirwan and bore Kŭnik, Bānun, and Iyaw.
Dindyaw married Marāja Layla Kandug and bore Talawung and Dastara.
Mawlāna Mawg married Īday, the daughter of Balindung, and begot
Maning, Ampal, Līlang, Anti, Bagwa Datu, and Tapūdi.

Kāwan married Timbay and begot Paydu, Dandayung, and Īday.

Pānggu married Talung, the daughter of Marāja Layla Kandug, and begot
Ulanan, Tubu-tubu, and a daughter, Tyā. He also married Kubra and begot
Ūla.

Tamay married Antam and begot Limulang and Makabwat.

Diyug married Tŭli, the daughter of Undung, and begot Paki, Dada, Tingaw
Pulwa, Myāyū, Mālug, and Tinābun.

Mamag married Dīdung and begot Babay, Māma, Diruyūdŭn, and

Manángka.

Anti, the son of Gūgū Kirām, begot Muyūka, Pinagūnay, Kŭnaw, Pindaw,
and Bungāyū.

Nglū married Tabābay and begot Nawīla and Amil.

Lintang begot Bantūgŭn.

Brāyim married Anu and begot ——.

Raja married Dabu and begot Kirig and Pakamaman.

Ingkung married Dubung and begot Arimaw, Kalug, Sarību, Padaw, Dŭkin,
and a daughter, Mayla. By a concubine he begot Pinū, Bilālang, and
Talawd.

Marāja Layla Akad married Miyāyū and begot Inal, Īdu, and Atshar.

Sultan Mohammed Iskandar Manāmir married Sarīp, the daughter of the

sultan of Magindanao, and begot Iskandar Sulkarnayn and Sahābu-d-Dīn.
By Gāyang he begot Idrīs; by Kāti, Māmūnu-r-Rashīd, Kindang, and
Puyuwa; by Apsa, Kadīja.
The grandfather of Baya-lābi Sarīp, by her father, was Raja Bwayan. Her
grandfather, by her mother, was Sultan Diruyūdŭn of Bagu Ingŭd.

Tāgi married Manjanay and begot Lintang and Paramāta. By Putri, the
daughter of Kudanding, he begot Pindaw; by Apsa, an Ilanun, Dubuwa,
Tŭku, Pakīr, and Pandīta; by Bayid, Māma-sa-Ingŭd; by Dabū, Bwīsan; also
Kúmkuma.

Idrīs married Minda, the grandmother of Umar-Maya Anti, and begot

Sindad. By another woman he begot Kŭnik.

Sultan Mohammed-sa-Barahamān begot also Kamsa. Kamsa begot Itaw,

Jimbah, Antil, Limpŭl, and Mandi.

Dipatwān Mīnug married Madaga and begot Tandwal, Pipikan, Pamupun,

Diluyūdŭn, and Talambūngan.

Kŭnik married Pinduk and begot Nīnig, Marajal, and Kumipang. By

Kumāla he begot Bunti and Muyuk; by Paydu, Atik.

Namal married Tīma and begot Tantung, Sawad, and Mohammed.

Bulawan married Rajalam and begot Bula, Anggrīs, and Pindug.

Raja Muda Asim begot Pintay and Ubāb.

Kalug begot Talūlad and Māyay, and Katampara and Talāma, the last two
from Kurma.

Kintay married Balug and begot Dalmatan, Muntya, Tālib, and Alūngan.

Gānwi married Itug and begot Gāyug. He also married Bāsing and begot
Anday, Atshar, Lŭping, and Ūtung.

Qudrat married Idāyū, the daughter of the Sultan of Balīlah, and begot
Bwīsan, Dundang, and Nūni. By Līlang he begot Asibi; by Tapayā
Migāyad; and by Agak, Mohammed.
Rastam married Dawag and begot Tawp, Ampan, Igay, and Payluyan. He
also married Uman and begot Saligan, Gambil, and Timbaw.

Kibād married Nīnig and begot Pinduma and Dulan.

Bantūgan married Lagay and begot Ayug and Gambis. He married also
Tubu and begot Dawa, Dulan, and Balalagay. By Abu, he begot Bwanda.

Andam married Pūdin and Bangkas, Māyung, Māma-sa-Ingŭd, Gandi, and

Gimbang.

Amīnūla married Bāsing and begot Ragīnut, Angjum, and Anu.

Pāwag married Tapūdi and begot Talīla, Maytŭm, Mantya, and Sandag.

Kirig married Baliwan and begot Nānwi.

Sapūla begot Mindal, Awa, Ijang, Rŭging, and Nyaw.

Datu sa-Dalīkan married Dagāyug and begot Pāyak, who lived in the care
of a Manobo of Dalīkan—not the one who was intrusted to the care of
Sultan Mohammed Iskandar Manāmir of Kabuntalan by a Tiruray of
Dalīkan. This latter woman was the daughter of the former and was not an
inheritance for the Nagtanganŭn because the datu did not furnish her with a
dowry. Angki married Puwi and begot Dangus and Tapūdi, the cousin of the
sultan’s mother.

Sultan Diluyūdŭn of Bagu Ingŭd married Jumjuma, the daughter of

Dipatwān Marajānun, and begot Danding and Māyung. By Kabayan, a lady
of Kabalūkan, he begot Apan, Bwat, and Timbukung; by Adung, Panalaw;
by Paku, Gasing and Dgaw; by Raja, Muntya; by Ampas, Kambang; by
Angkung, Salamat and Gindu; by Bītu, Kapya, Tīmu, and Naypitan and
Pinamīli; by Idag, Ūyag, Makalay, Singag; by Kalīmah, Umbul; by Ibad,
Amad; by Batata, Dalding, the daughter of Gandum, Maguman; by Anuk,
Kulaga; by Ingi, Paytakay, Bungalus Pimpingan, and Idag.
The sultan of Magindanao married Māyung, the daughter of the sultan of
Bagu Ingŭd, Sarīp, and begot Bāngun, the sultan Raja Muda Bāyaw, Bagu,
and Gidu. By Atik, a lady of Makatūdugan, he begot Laga and Tandu; by
Wayda, Talumpa and Taganŭk; by Matundun, Malatunul, Sarabanun, and
Bisinti; by Awig, Gubal; by Kŭdaw, Isad; by Myayug, Atik, Blaw, Ngyan;
by Malāyū, Makaw; by Kŭmbay, Byalung.

IN THE NAME OF GOD THE COMPASSIONATE AND MERCIFUL.

The first datu of Bwayan was Budtul, who married a woman from
Magindanao and begot Mālang-sa-Ingŭd and Pulwa. Putri Māmūr was
married first to Mālang-sa-Ingŭd, but after his death she married Pulwa.
Pulwa married also Budang of Tijaman, and begot Dikāya.

The History of Bagumbayan.

The two greatest powers that figured prominently in the Rio Grande Valley
are the sultan of Magindanao and the raja of Bwayan. These rulers have at
all times been considered as greater in power and higher in rank than any
other ruler in the valley. In the latter part of the eighteenth century and
during the main part of the nineteenth century the sultan of Kabuntalan also
figured prominently and held a very intimate relation and a close position to
both of the other sultans, which position he still holds at the present time.

It appears that the first ruler of Kabuntalan was Dikāya, the son of a raja
Bwayan, who simply held the honorary title of datu. His successor had no
male heir, and one of his daughters, Babak, married Umar Maya Tubu-tubu
of Magindanao, who became ruler of Kabuntalan and whose son was the
first mentioned sultan there. This makes the line of descent of Kabuntalan
related by Babak to the line of Bwayan and by Umar Maya to that of
Magindanao. This relation to both Magindanao and Bwayan and the
intermediate position Kabuntalan holds to both Saylud and Saraya have
been very prominent factors in the history-making events of the valley, and
have successively been taken advantage of by both Spanish and American
authorities managing the affairs of the country.

Diagram No. 5 gives in a very explicit and clear manner the names of the
rulers of Kabuntalan or Bagumbayan, the order of their descent and
succession, and the relation they hold to each other. Their names in the
order of precedence are as follows:

1. Datu Dikāya
2. Datu Dŭka
3. Datu Umar Maya
4. Sultan Digra Alam
5. Sultan Mohammed Alīmu-d-Dīn
6. Sultan sa-Barahamān
7. Sultan Mohammed Iskandar Manāmir
8. Sultan Iskandar Sul-Karnayn
9. Sultan Idrīs
10. Sultan Abu Bakar

The diagram shows also the principal relations of Bagumbayan to Bwayan

and to Magindanao.

Very little is known about the early history of Kabuntalan. Datu Kali
Ibrahim, who is the chief judge of Bagumbayan, told the following story:

Soon after the arrival of Dikāya in Kabuntalan the chief people of the
village took their new datu in a boat on a little excursion. When they had
gone some distance from the village they engaged in a sham fight and one
party attacked the datu. This affair was prearranged and planned to test the
courage and power of their datu. They made their attack with krises and
bamboo lances. Dikāya was frightened and ran away. The people lost
respect for him and expelled him from the village. Some time later he won
their friendship by his good behavior and was reinstated as datu of
Kabuntalan.

The statement on page 47 that Dikāya was the son of Pulwa was taken from
the Bwayan tarsila and is added on account of the relation it bears to the
subject. The part of the tarsila of Bwayan which bears on this subject states
that Dikāya was the son of Pulwa by a concubine, and that Dikāya begot
Dŭka, who married Rantyan, a Malitigaw lady whose mother was Agŭb.
The children of Dŭka and Rantyan were Bulus, Manalidtū, Puwi, and
Miyandung.

As Pulwa must have lived about the year 1550, and as Digra Alam must
have ruled about the year 1770, the statement that Dŭka married Ambun
and begot Babak, the mother of Digra Alam, can not be accepted as true.
Some links in the list are evidently missing, but the fact is that the right to
rule Kabuntalan belonged to the descendants of Dŭka, and was principally
derived from Bwayan.

The first ruler of Kabuntalan addressed as sultan was Digra Alam, the son
of Umar Maya and Babak. Diagram No. 5 shows plainly that Digra Alam
must have ruled about the same time as Sultan Pakīr Mawlāna Kanza of
Mindanao, or his brother, Pakāru-d-Dīn, that is about the year A. D. 1770.

In a treaty between the Spanish Government and the sultan of Kabuntalan

in the year 1857 the sultan is addressed as sultan of Tambao. He must be
either Sultan Iskandar Sul-Karnayn or Sultan Idrīs, probably the latter.

About midway between Tambao and Libungan on the left bank of the river
is a small monument, possibly a tomb, erected in memory of those who died
during the fight between the Spaniards and Sultan Idrīs. In 1861 Tambao
and Taviran or Tapidan were occupied by the Spaniards. In 1884 Sultan
Idrīs submitted unconditionally to the Spanish authorities and received their
protection against Datu Ūtū. Datu Ayūnan of Taviran, Datu Balabadan’s
brother, aided the Spanish authorities in the war against Datu Ūtū and was
one of the most prominent datus of Talakūkū and Magindanao.

Manuscript No. VIII

The Ancestors of the Datus of Mindanao

Introduction

This manuscript is a copy of the original in the possession of Datu Mastura.

It was written by the same original author as Manuscript No. II and belongs
to the same class and style of composition. It consists of nineteen
paragraphs that give the names of the first rulers or datus of nineteen
datuships of Mindanao. A few Malay words are used at the beginning of
each paragraph. Each paragraph begins as if it were written as a separate
document or statement, distinct from all the rest, and in the same manner as
their letters and books generally begin.

The Arabic words sūrat, riwāyat, kissa, hadīs, asal, meaning book,
narrative, story, discourse, origin, respectively, are all used to signify book
or history. The word tsharetra is Malay and means a story. Sarsila or salsila
and tarsila mean genealogy or history and are used in the same sense.

Literal translation of Manuscript No. VIII

IN THE NAME OF GOD THE COMPASSIONATE AND MERCIFUL

1. This book tells about the ruler of Bwayan. The first ruler of Bwayan was
Pulwa, the first raja Bwayan. He begot Raja Sirūngan, the second raja
Bwayan. Pulwa married the daughter of Sarīp Kabungsuwan.

2. This is a statement about the ruler of the country of Mandanāwi, the Land
of Peace. The first datu of Magindanao was Mangalang or Maka-alang, the
son of Sarīp Kabungsuwan, from Angintābu. Maka-alang was the second
sarīp; Sarīp Kabungsuwan was the first.
3. This is the genealogy of the ruler of the country (or town) of Ilanun. The
first datu of Malabang was Gantar, the father of Maka-apŭn and Angintābu.

4. This story tells about the ruler of Bakayawan. The first datus of
Bakayawan were Mirūgung and Dimalawang.

5. This is the history of the ruler of Bayābaw. The first datu of Bayābaw
was Kalangīt. His son was Pundama, who married Ŭmpas. The end.

6. This is the history of the ruler of Balabagan. The first datu of Balabagan
was Dungkŭlang. His son Rimba was sultan of Balabagan. The end.

7. This is the history of the ruler of Pidātan. The first datu of Pidātan was
Dyam, sultan of Pidātan. He begot Punduma. Punduma begot Tawgung.

8. The first datu of Lumbāyanági was Sultan Gulambay. He begot Ranu.

9. The first datu of Dupilas was Dindu, who was called Datu sa-Palaw. He
begot Dimalawang.

10. The first datu of Sūlug was Sarīp Pāyang, who begot Raja Hasan, sultan
of Sūlug.

11. The first datu of Sangīr was Makalindi. Makalindi married Timbang
Sarību and begot Manāmil, sultan of Sangīr.

12. The first datu of Malālis was Ampwan, sultan of Malālis.

13. The first datu of Dulangan was Alip, the son of Abu, sultan of
Dulamgan.

14. The first datu of Makadar was Sultan Limba, who also is a son of Abu.

15. The first datu of Didagŭn was Abad. Abad begot Dumalundung, who
was sultan of Didagŭn.

16. The first datu of Barīra was Dŭmak. Dŭmak begot Antāgu, who was
sultan of Barīra.
17. The first datu of Sīkŭn was Amat. Amat begot Salumbay, datu of Islnŭn.

18. The first datu of Kadingīlan was Kapūsan, the brother of Salumbay, son
of Amat.

19. The first datu of Magulalngŭn was Balbal, who married Marādi, the
daughter of the sultan of Tatarīkŭn, and begot Burwa. Burwa became sultan
of Tatarīkŭn.

Here ends the genealogy of all the countries or towns.

The History of Magindanao

Before the first mass was celebrated on the northern shore of Mindanao
mosques had been built on the fertile banks of the Pulangi, and before
Legaspi landed on Cebu Kabungsuwan had been declared and
acknowledged datu of Magindanao.

The Mohammedan conqueror of Mindanao was neither an admiral of a fleet

nor a leader of an army of regular troops. He had no nation back of him to
reënforce his battalions nor a royal treasury to support his enterprise. His
expedition was not prompted by mere chivalry or the gallant adventures of
discovery. He was not looking for a new route to rich lands nor searching
for spices and gold dust. The emigrant sought a new land to live in, and
trusted his fortune and success to the valor of his crew and the influence of
his witchcraft.

Having a fair admixture of Malay blood in him and sufficient Arabian

energy and enthusiasm to push on, he came and conquered and soon found
himself at home in Mindanao as well as at Juhūr. There was no racial
prejudice to contend against and the language of the new land was akin to
his own. But true to his religion, as he was true to his ancestry, his faith
suffered no defeat. No submission was accepted without conversion, and no
friendship was cultivated with the unfaithful. He married in the land of his
conquest, and the ties of faith were soon strengthened by the ties of blood
and kinship; and as the first generation passed and the second generation
followed, the conqueror and the conquered became one in blood and
sympathy, one in faith, and one in purpose. A new dynasty which stood for
Islam, for progress, and for civilization arose on the ruins of barbarism and
heathenism. Savage and fierce as the Moros look, they are greatly superior
to the surrounding pagans who inhabit the hills and the interior of
Mindanao. Once their equals and kinsmen, they have vastly surpassed them
now and are preëminently above them. With Mohammedanism came art
and knowledge, and communication with the outside world was established.

For four centuries two different agencies of civilization have been at work
in the Philippine Islands. One started in the north and worked its way south,
continually progressing and constantly growing in power and improving in
character. The other began in the south and extended north, but it soon
reached a definite limit, and like a tree stunted in its growth it reverted to its
wild nature and grew thorny and fruitless. The first graft of the tree of
Magindanao was not aided by later irrigation. The first wave of immigration
was not reënforced, and with an ebb tide it lost most of its size and force.

The Moros of Mindanao figured very prominently in the history of the

Philippines. They were never united under one flag, but they formed
different sultanates, some of which attained considerable power and fame.
In the fullness of his glory, the sultan of Magindanao ruled over the whole
southern coast of Mindanao from Point Tugubum, east of Mati, to
Zamboanga, and beyond this latter point to the outskirts of Dapitan. All the
pagan tribes living around the Gulf of Davao and in the Sarangani country,
and all the Subanos west of Tukurun and Dapitan submitted to his power
and paid him tribute. In the upper Rio Grande Valley the power of the rajas
of Bwayan was felt and respected as far as the watershed of the Cagayan
Valley on the north and the inaccessible slopes of Mount Apo on the east.
The Ranao Moros controlled the whole country and the seacoast west of
Cagayan de Misamis and north of the Illana Bay.
The large majority of the Moro sultanates are, however, small, and have
never been fully numbered or described. They generally represent small
divisions of territory and subdivisions of tribes, each under one chief who
calls himself sultan or datu. Nevertheless, tribal relations and language
group these petty divisions into two large distinct groups, the Magindanao
and the Iranun. The Magindanao group includes the majority of the tribes.
The Iranun group is restricted to the tribes living along the eastern coast of
the Bay of Illana from the point of Polloc to the neighborhood of Tukurun,
and the whole Ranao region lying between that line and the Bay of Iligan.

The Magindanao group is the greater of the two in number, in the extent of
its territory, and in fame. Indeed, all the Moros of Mindanao, except the
Iranun, were at one time under one influence and were brought under the
sole control of the sultan of Magindanao.

The Samal Moros, who are variously classified by different writers and who
are often mentioned as one of the main divisions of the Moros of Mindanao,
are really foreign to Mindanao and belong to a distinct and separate group.
Until recently they had never been independent, but had lived under the
protection of various datus, and always served the datu for the protection he
afforded them, or paid him tribute. They were sea rovers and had no claim
on territory anywhere. Lately they have settled down on the Island of
Basilan, the Sulu Archipelago, and around the Zamboanga peninsula. The
Samals were the latest of the Malay people to arrive in the Philippine
Islands. In fact, they are the only Malay people of whom we have positive
historical statement of emigration from the Malay Peninsula to Sulu and
Mindanao, and were in all probability Mohammedans prior to their arrival
in the Philippine Islands. With the Magindanao and Iranun peoples it is
different. They were in the land and belonged to the native element of the
country long before their conversion to Islam.

Islam was successfully introduced and firmly established in Mindanao by

one man. This same man founded the sultanate of Magindanao and
reformed the whole system of government among his converts. His full
name was Sharif Mohammed Kabungsuwan, generally known as Sharif
Kabungsuwan.
Kabungsuwan was without doubt the greatest Mohammedan adventurer
who trod the soil of the island. But both the traditions of Magindanao and
its written records state that he was preceded by two pioneers, the first of
whom was Sharif Awliya. Awliya was universally regarded as a relative and
a predecessor of Kabungsuwan. His history is wrapped in myths. He is said
to have come to Mindanao in the air to search for paradise, or that part of it
which remained in Mindanao, and, while he was looking for it on the hill of
Tantawan (Cotabato), to have found a houri who was sent to him from
heaven. He married this houri and she bore a daughter called Paramisuli.
Later the sharif returned to the west, but his wife and daughter remained in
Magindanao.

The second arrival in Magindanao was Sharif Maraja, who married

Paramisuli and was thought to have begotten Tabunaway and Mamālu, who
were the chiefs of Magindanao when Kabungsuwan arrived in the land.
Sharif Maraja is said to have had a brother called Sharif Hasan, who
accompanied him as far as Basilan, but who stopped there and founded the
sultanate of Sulu. Whether Bidayan, the son of Sharif Hasan, who is
mentioned in the fourth tarsila, should be Bidin, the abbreviated form of
Zainul-Abidin, who was the first sultan of Sulu, it is not easy to say. No
copy of the Sulu genealogy has been obtained as yet, and no authoritative
statement can be made. But it is universally believed that the first sultan of
Sulu came from Basilan, and that the ancestors of the sultans of Bruney,
Sulu, and Magindanao were brothers.

Sharif Kabungsuwan was the son of Sharif Ali Zainul Abidin, a descendant
of the Prophet Mohammed who emigrated from Hadramut, southern Arabia,
to Juhūr, Malay Peninsula. The sultan of Juhūr, was evidently a
Mohammedan then, and was called Iskandar Thul-Karnayn, the Arabic
appellation of Alexander the Great. The word “Sharif” is Arabic and means
“noble.” It is a title which is universally given to the descendants of the
Prophet Mohammed. The full title is “Sayid Sharif,” the “master and
noble.” The Arabians generally use the first word, Sayid, alone, but the
Moros have adopted the second. Being highly respected on account of his
ancestry, Zainul-Abidin was given the hand of the sultan’s daughter in
marriage. Her name was Jūsul Asiqīn, a corrupted form of the Arabic name
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