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Sacred Ashes
Sacred ashes are put to use in various religions. Background In Christianity, on Ash Wednesday, ashes of burnt palm leaves and fronds left over from Palm Sunday, mixed with olive oil, are applied in a cross-form on the forehead of the believer as a reminder of his inevitable physical death, with the intonation: "Dust thou art, and to dust will return" from Genesis 3:19 in the Old Testament. In Hinduism, sacred ashes or Vibhuti are used to smear, anoint or mark devotees. See also * Vibhuti In Hinduism, ''vibhuti'' ( sa, विभूति, vibhūti), also called ''bhasma'' or ''thiruneeru'', is sacred ash made of burnt dried wood, burnt cow dung and/or cremated bodies used in Agamic rituals. Hindu devotees apply ''vibhuti'' tradi ... References Religious symbols {{Hindu-theo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament. Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century Hellenistic Judaism in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Ancient Carthage, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite significant initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday is a holy day of prayer and fasting in many Western Christian denominations. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday and falls on the first day of Lent (the six weeks of penitence before Easter). It is observed by Catholics in the Roman Rite, Lutherans, Moravians, Anglicans, Methodists, Nazarenes, as well as by some churches in the Reformed tradition (including certain Congregationalist, Continental Reformed, and Presbyterian churches). As it is the first day of Lent, many Christians begin Ash Wednesday by marking a Lenten calendar, praying a Lenten daily devotional, and making a Lenten sacrifice that they will not partake of until the arrival of Eastertide. Many Christians attend special church services, at which churchgoers receive ash on their foreheads. Ash Wednesday derives its name from this practice, which is accompanied by the words, "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" or the dictum "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." The ashes ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week. For adherents of mainstream Christianity, it is the last week of the Christian solemn season of Lent that precedes the arrival of Eastertide. In most liturgical churches, Palm Sunday is celebrated by the blessing and distribution of palm branches (or the branches of other native trees), representing the palm branches which the crowd scattered in front of Christ as he rode into Jerusalem; these palms are sometimes woven into crosses. The difficulty of procuring palms in unfavorable climates led to their substitution with branches of native trees, including box, olive, willow, and yew. The Sunday was often named after these substitute trees, as in Yew Sunday, or by the general term Branch Sunday. In Syriac Christianity it is often c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forehead
In human anatomy, the forehead is an area of the head bounded by three features, two of the skull and one of the scalp. The top of the forehead is marked by the hairline, the edge of the area where hair on the scalp grows. The bottom of the forehead is marked by the supraorbital ridge, the bone feature of the skull above the eyes. The two sides of the forehead are marked by the temporal ridge, a bone feature that links the supraorbital ridge to the coronal suture line and beyond. However, the eyebrows do not form part of the forehead. In ''Terminologia Anatomica'', ''sinciput'' is given as the Latin equivalent to "forehead". (Etymology of ''sinciput'': from ''semi-'' "half" + ''caput'' "head".) Structure The bone of the forehead is the squamous part of the frontal bone. The overlying muscles are the occipitofrontalis, procerus, and corrugator supercilii muscles, all of which are controlled by the temporal branch of the facial nerve. The sensory nerves of the forehead connect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning"). Genesis is an account of the creation of the world, the early history of humanity, and of Israel's ancestors and the origins of the Jewish people. Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy; however, modern scholars, especially from the 19th century onward, place the books' authorship in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, hundreds of years after Moses is supposed to have lived.Davies (1998), p. 37 Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence, most scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical. It is divisible into two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the ancestr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in the Koine Greek language. The Old Testament consists of many distinct books by various authors produced over a period of centuries. Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections: the first five books or Pentateuch (corresponds to the Jewish Torah); the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon; the poetic and " Wisdom books" dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world; and the books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God. The books that compose the Old Testament canon and their order and names differ b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global population, known as Hindus. The word ''Hindu'' is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as '' Sanātana Dharma'' ( sa, सनातन धर्म, lit='the Eternal Dharma'), a modern usage, which refers to the idea that its origins lie beyond human history, as revealed in the Hindu texts. Another endonym is ''Vaidika dharma'', the dharma related to the Vedas. Hinduism is a diverse system of thought marked by a range of philosophies and shared concepts, rituals, cosmological systems, pilgrimage sites, and shared textual sources that discuss theology, metaphysics, mythology, Vedic yajna, yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vibhuti
In Hinduism, ''vibhuti'' ( sa, विभूति, vibhūti), also called ''bhasma'' or ''thiruneeru'', is sacred ash made of burnt dried wood, burnt cow dung and/or cremated bodies used in Agamic rituals. Hindu devotees apply ''vibhuti'' traditionally as three horizontal lines across the forehead and other parts of the body to honour Shiva. ''Vibhuti'' smeared across the forehead to the end of both eyebrows is called ''tripundra''. According to the ''Shiva Purana'', the particles of ash which cling to the skin when ''tripundra'' is applied are to be considered to be individual lingams. The scriptures further state that ''bhasma'' purifies the soul and elevates the devotee of Shiva, and that works done without wearing ''bhasma'' are fruitless. There are various methods for the application of the ashes, according to the ''Shiva Purana'', and various mantras to be recited during application. Other uses Another meaning of ''vibhuti'' is a 'glorious form', in contrast with ava ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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