Chapter (অধ্যায়): FUNDAMENTALS OF RELIGIONS PAGE-374Page: 374 of 516
FUNDAMENTALS OF RELIGIONS1
My mind can best grasp the religions of the world, ancient or modern, dead or living, through this fourfold division:
1. Symbology-The employment of various external aids to preserve and develop the religious faculty of man.
2. History-The philosophy of each religion as illustrated in the lives of divine or human teachers acknowledged by each religion. This includes mythology; for what is mythology to one race, or period, is or was history to other races or periods. Even in cases of human teachers, much of their history is taken as mythology by successive generations.
3. Philosophy-The rationale of the whole scope of each religion.
4. Mysticism-The assertion of something superior to sense-knowledge and reason which particular persons, or all persons under certain circumstances, possess; runs through the other divisions also.
All the religions of the world, past or present, embrace one or more of these principles, the highly developed ones having all the four.
Of these highly developed religions again, some had no sacred book or books and they have disappeared; but those which were based on sacred books are living to the present day. As such, all the great religions of the world today are founded on sacred books.
1 This incomplete article was found in the papers of Miss S.E. Waldo. The heading is inserted by us¯Publisher.