Lecture | Network Event
Sacred Economies Symposium
- Date
- Thursday 19 September 2019
- Time
- Location
-
Matthias de Vrieshof
Matthias de Vrieshof 3
2311 BZ Leiden - Room
- 1.04 (Verbarium)
Sacred Economies Symposium
With four presentations by Edmund Hayes (Early Islam), Berthe Jansen (Tibetan Buddhism), Peter Szántó (Indian Buddhism) and Nazanin Tamari (Zoroastrianism).
The intersection between religion and economic interests benefits from comparison. Pre-modern religious communities have often posited a connection between spiritual and economic life; but also the ascetic orientation in religion has often created a tension between the resources needed to run religious institutions and the spiritual ends they were meant to serve. These tensions were often very successfully harmonized as in monastic economies and pilgrimage economies across premodern Eurasia. Equally, however, tensions could provoke reform movements which gave rise to radical change of old orders. This workshop will explore some of the harmonies and dissonances between religious institutions and their economic interests: wealth, property, land ownership; tithes and taxation, and the circulation and sale of relics and holy artifacts.
