Abstract
A phenomenological and hermeneutical approach to the study of the ancient religions of Mesoamerica — among them the Mayas and the Aztecs (both the focus of this paper), as well as the Olmecs, Toltecs and others that lived in the same geographical context of Central America (to which we will refer herein) will garner insight into the defining features of these religions. To this end, we will follow Mircea Eliade, the famous Rumanian historian of religions, and approach the Mesoamerican ones from the angle of a new discipline, “religious anthropology”, which includes an in-depth study of all that makes up the religious dimension of culture and man.
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Notes
Julien Ries, Tratado de Antropologia Sagrada (Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 1995).
Michael Coe, Mexico (New York: 3rd ed., Thames and Hudson,1987 (Repr. 1988)); Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois, Cultura y Religion de la América Prehispknica (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1985); José Gomez Caffarena and Juan Martin Velasco, Filosofil `la de la Religion (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1973); Miguel Rivera Dorado, La Religion Maya (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1986); Gordon Brotherston, La América Indigena en su Literartura. Los Libros del Cuarto Mundo (México: Fondo Econômiro de Cultura, 1997).
Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley, “Crisis of Conscience, Riddle of Identity: Making Space for Cognitive Approach to Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 61:2 (Summer 1993), pp. 201–223.
Velga Vevere, “Theological Interpretation of the History of Religions,” Phenomenological Inquiry 20 (October 1996), pp. 87–104
See “Filosofia de la Religion of Jose Gomez Caffarena and Juan Martin Velasco, who wrote the first part of the book entitled: ”Fenomenologia de la Religion“. Ed. Revista de Occident (Madrid, 1973, pp. 55–56.
Vevere, op. cit.
Mircea Eliade, Tratado de Historia de las Religiones (Madrid: Cristiandad, 1981), pp. 24–25.
Ibid, p. 26.
This is David Carrasco’s main thesis in “Ciudades y simbolos. Las antiguas religions centroamericanas”, which opens the series of essays included in the last volume of Historia de las Creencias e Ideas Religiosas, published after Mircea Eliade’s death (Barcelona: Herder, 1996). Brotherston, op. cit., pp. 71–72. Eliade, op. cit., pp. 412–448 (on cosmogonie and exemplary myths).
Coe, op. cit.
Rivera Dorado, op. cit., pp. 32–33.
Historiade las Creencias e Ideas Religiosas, op. cit.; see El Mundo de los Olmecas, pp. 25–29.
Ibid, p. 26.
See S. K. Lothrep, Los Tesoros de la América Antigua (Geneva: SKYRA, Ediciones Destino, 1979), pp. 134–135.
See Mircea Eliade and Ioan I. Culiano, Diccionario de las Religiones (article on “Religiones de 16 America Central”) (Buenos Aires: Paidos Orientalia, 1992).
See Carrasco, op. cit., pp. 65–67; also, Manuel Ballesteros Gaibros, Cultura y Religion de la América
Prehispdnica (Madrid: BAC, 1985), pp. 234–235.
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Balzer, C. (2000). Phenomenology and Hermeneutics of the Ancient Mesoamerican Religions. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Paideia. Analecta Husserliana, vol 68. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2525-5_22
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