| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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“Many scholars have felt impelled to emphasise the toleration of different sects and denominations evinced by Indian rulers. [...] It seems fairly clear that, traditionally in India, people readily transferred or distributed their allegiance between different sects, seeing no logical inconsistency in approaching different gods for different purposes, and that this apparently syncretic style of religious behaviour encouraged a relaxed attitude to what others did as well; evidently, too, rulers generally extended their acceptance of this practice. [...] Much of the evidence, then, suggests that all the diverse religious sects were freely tolerated by a prevailing world view that was ready to acknowledge a certain common validity. Yet it is unlikely that such a view could rise to the status of cultural orthodoxy without friction. Although references to religious wars and persecutions are conspicuously absent from the historical record of ancient India, this does not rule out lesser types of conflict, and some scholars believe that there is indeed evidence of localised disagreement and resentment. [...] For example, the Arthaśāstra gratuitously advises the agents of a king to help themselves, on behalf of the ruler, to the property of groups on the fringes of society who might not have powerful friends. Moreover, there are hints in scattered sources that the followers of orthodox Brahman teachers at times ganged up against Buddhist or Jain establishments that had lost their former patronage. [...] Still, hard evidence of religious persecution in these ancient times is scattered and fragmentary. In the absence of more solid evidence, the view has gained ground that pre-modern India had a cultural unity that precluded communal conflict, but we think that this picture is not sufficiently nuanced. Doniger’s perception that there was widespread persecution of non-Brahmans during the first millennium may fairly represent the situation that arose at certain times, but we cannot be at all sure how widespread the phenomenon was, or at what times it was most marked.//"Still, we should note that, simply as a matter of practical politics, there was at least one factor that would certainly have acted to limit the ferocity of any sectarian persecutions – the absence of a clear and powerful advantage at all times for kings in identifying themselves with the Brahman interest. No clear dividing line existed, in fact, between ruling families that were of ‘genuine’ ‘Aryan’ descent, and the rest; the ruling elite presided over heterogeneous populations within which Brahmanism, as an agent of Sanskritisation and as a common cultural denominator, was slowly feeling its way towards a new role, directed towards shaping an inclusive syncretism. Thus, the Brahmanical revival could not afford to go too far. Especially, it had to be very wary of attacking the prudent preference of kings for policies that had the capacity to attract wide support among the multiple disparate groups that constituted the citizenry. The Brahmans had to make do with whatever qualified honour they could find within the frame of an eclectic culture. Such structural constraints are likely to have kept them from striking at their enemies too wantonly.”
[1]
[1]: (Copland, Mabbett, Roy, Brittlebank and Bowles 2012: 74-77) Seshat URL: Zotero link: ATSZ6QBU |
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The following quotes suggests that government restrictions to convert was absent. “Niane concurs with the seventeenth century French traveller Jojolet de la Courbe, who called Kaabu a pagan kingdom [around the 13th century]. However, by the seventeenth century it was very tolerant of Islamic dyula traders – this tolerance may itself have been because the dyula themselves leavened their Islam with non-Islamic rituals.”
[1]
“ils se rendaient compte de l’impact des ‘Mandingues’ en tant que propagateurs de la religion musulmane dans presque toutes les regions de la Senegambie. L’influence culturelle que les Mandinka (musulmans) exerçaient dans les pays biafada entre les fleuves Geba et Korubal, et par ailleurs le degree important de metissage, impressionna Almada dans la deuxieme moitie du 16e siecle. En ce qui concerne le Badoora (Degola), il nota comment les Mandinka et les Biafada vivaient la paisiblement ensemble, se melangeaient et communiquaient bien entre eux, sans que pour autant les Biafada (Sooninkee) autochtones renoncent a leur religion (paienne) au profit de l’islam”
[2]
[1]: (Green 2011, 42) Green, T. 2011. The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: Zotero link: DV3R5U4Q [2]: (Giesing 2007, 246) Giesing, C. 2007. Tarikh Mandinka de Bijini (Guinée-Bissau): la mémoire des Mandinka et Sòoninkee du Kaabu. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Seshat URL: Zotero link: VUXVSEFT |
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‘‘‘NB the following quote generally describes the will of the Hoysalas rulers to maintain religious harmony. “While King Vishnuvardhana and his descendants were Vaishnava by faith, records show that the Hoysalas maintained religious harmony by building as many temples dedicated to Shiva as they did to Visnu.”
[1]
“An important aspect of Hoysala rule, until its decline, was its religious tolerance, which supported social cohesion within the empire. Under the influence of Ramanuja and other divines, Vishnuvardhana (r.1108–1152) was the first of the dynasty to convert to the increasingly popular Hindu Vaishnava faith (from Jainism, and changing his name from Bittiga in the process). He was inspired to build magnificent new temples at his capital of Dorasamudra (transferred from Belur) and elsewhere, but focused on the heartland of the Hoysala kingdom. Some 1500 temples are said to have been built during the Hoysala period, mostly dedicated to Vishnu and Shiva. Jainism continued also, and at least one of Vishnuvardhana’s queens, Shantala Devi, and a daughter were Jains. The former is known to have commissioned the (Vaishnava) Kappe Channigaraya temple (1117) at Belur, sited next to Vishnuvardhana’s Chennakesava temple of the same date.”
[2]
[1]: (Bhargava 2010:1308) Bhargava, P. (2010). HOYASALA TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE – “THE LATER CHALUKYAN STYLE.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 71, 1307–1309. Seshat URL: Zotero link: NKX6XBSA [2]: (Dalziel 2016 online) Dalziel, N. R. (2016). Hoysala Empire. In J. Mackenzie (Ed.), The encyclopedia of empire. Wiley. Seshat URL: Zotero link: QCBZAH3X |
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“Despite Hinduism’s popularity as the religion of choice by both the Chalukyan royal family and the masses at large, the Chalukyan dynasty was tolerant of other religions and coexisted with followers of Jainist and Buddhist traditions, although Buddhism was becoming less popular in the region."
[1]
“The Chalukyas, like their predecessors in previous times, were tolerant towards all religions.”
[2]
[1]: (Sasaki 2012, 15) Sasaki, Bryce. 2012. “Chalukya Dynasties.” Edited by Andrea Stanton, Edward Ramsamy, Peter Seybolt, and Carolyn Elliott. Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa: An Encyclopedia. Thousand Oaks, Calif.; London: SAGE Publications.Seshat URL: Zotero link: PG9MHRIA [2]: (Bhandarkar 1957: 45) Bhandarkar, R. G. (1957). Early history of the Dekkan: Down to the Mahomedan Conquest. Calcutta: Susil Gupta (India) Private Limited. Seshat URL: Zotero link: PZEMWFTW |
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" I think there is a distinction between religious practices within Wari colonies, which might have become more important over time (Skidmore’s dissertation at Hatun Cotuyoc identified some realignment of identity within the Wari colony over time), but across the Cusco region there is no reason to infer a pressure to convert. In Moquegua, the collapse of the Tiwanaku colonies led to the settlement of some non-Wari populations around Cerro Baúl, but their material culture remained distinct (Tumilaca) from Wari populations. In fact, Nash has recently tried to reconcile the absence of Wari material culture among local populations by saying that the Wari were an empire whose pottery was so powerful that withholding it from local people made them compliant on the hopes that they might some day be invited to come to a Wari site to see it. Of course, from that interpretation, there are a lot of cultures that are absent from the Andes, and an empirical field of archaeology can’t really make any real contribution without working with patterns that are actually present." (R. Alan Covey, pers. comm. to R. Ainsworth, June 2023)
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‘‘‘ The following quotes suggest the peaceful coexistence of different religions in Chenla, though Hinduism enjoyed a higher status. “Hinduism as an all-encompassing religion may have absorbed local deities into the Hindu pantheon, binding the two belief systems into one. Buddhism’s flexibility in allowing most types of worship to suffice as methods toward enlightenment would make this religion easy to ensconce in Southeast Asia as well. Thus, during the Chenla period, non-elites were careful to make their public and required offerings to the Hindu city temples and attend public ceremonies and rituals; in their own villages and homes, however, it appears that traditional worship of age-old deities, and lineage ancestors, was alive and well. [...] [K]ings continued to allow their subjects to practice local religions, although this liberal religious policy came to a halt with the establishment of the Khmer Empire in the early ninth century.”
[1]
[1]: Steadman, S. R. (2016). Chapter 14: From Hunter-Gatherer to Empire. p.234-235. Archaeology of religion: cultures and their beliefs in worldwide context. Routledge. Seshat URL: Zotero link: VIRUTCPJ |
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‘‘‘ "The Nine Saints converted their new hermitages with very little opposition from the local pagan inhabitants, owing not only to their reputation for holiness and miraculous deeds, but also to explicit support from the Aksumite king, who occasionally made high-profile visitations to the monasteries. [...] Kaleb compelled the conversion of Matara, Aksum’s second largest city, situated midway between the capital and the sea, at the critical juncture between highlands and the coastal plain".
[1]
[1]: (Haas 2008: 116-123) Seshat URL: Zotero link: IQWD9I5I |
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Suspected unknown due to the antiquity of this quasi-polity, the nature of the data, and the fact that this aspect of the quasi-polity’s culture is not mentioned in a recent and comprehensive cultural history of the Yoruba, Ogundiran 2020.
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020) Seshat URL: Zotero link: ADQMAKPW |
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"With regard to the internal history of Ethiopia, the period from the seventh to twelfth century remains one of the most obscure and least understood. Hardly any contemporary sources have survived and those that have are frequently fragmentary and/or legendary in character. [...] The obscurity that characterizes much of Ethiopian history from the seventh century onward is only multiplied when we turn to the more specific question of Jews or Judaism during this period. Even the indirect sources of the kind used to make the tentative reconstructions suggested thus far in this book are, for the most part, lacking. We are forced, therefore, to rely on semi-legendary accounts of extremely limited historical value."
[1]
[1]: (Kaplan 1992: 42) Seshat URL: Zotero link: PT9MJQBE |
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