Library Guides:  Comparative Religions

Reference Books
The Reference Collection is on the Main Floor of the COS Library

• Man, Myth & Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown    R133.03 M266
  This is a twenty-one volume set with great illustrations and covers world religions, cults, ancient cultures and their customs and magical beliefs.

• Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy    R181 C737
  This recently published one-volume work discusses Zoroastrianism, yoga, Vedanta, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Islam.

• Contemporary American Religion    R200 C761
  This is a very readable two-volume set published in 2000 which reflects the multicultural diversity of America's modern spirituality and  religious life.

• The Encyclopedia of Religion    R200.321 En56
  This 1987 edition in sixteen volumes covers beliefs, rituals, myths, and symbols and
  persons of worldwide religions from pre-history to modern times. 

• Encyclopedia of American Women and Religion    R200.82 B473
  This work focuses on women religious leaders historically and to modern times. The emphasis is on the societal aspects of religions more than coverage of specific teachings.

• New Catholic Encyclopedia    R282.03 N532
  This seventeen volume set updated through 1995 covers every aspect of the Church and its teachings worldwide.

• Encyclopedia Judaica    R296 En56
  This comprehensive sixteen volume set covers Jewish religion and contributions to world culture; however, the publication date is 1972.

• The Encyclopedia of Native American Religions, Updated Edition    R299.703 H669
  This one-volume work covers the spiritual traditions of the native peoples of United States and Canada before European contact. Biographies of religious practitioners are also included. Most entries are just one paragraph long.

• Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam    R297.03 S559
   There are 661 pages of detailed entries in this one-volume encyclopedia.

There are many more books on the subject of religion in the reference collection and also in the circulating collection. These are a starting point. 

Internet  Resources  

Hinduism

• Hindu Universe    http://hindunet.org    This site is developed and maintained by the Hindu Students Council, a voluntary organization based in Boston, MA. There are links to a variety of information such as a festival calendar, glossary, scriptures, teachers, gods and goddesses. On this site the link Web Universe is a gateway to a thousand more links on the topic of Hinduism and these pages appear to be more up-to-date. 

• Hinduism: the Basics    http://www.himalayanacademy.com/basics/

• Upanishads    http://realization.org/page/topics/upanishads.htm     These writings are the last group of texts added to the Vedas. Several schools of Hindu thought were founded on the Upanishads including the yoga schools.   

• Mahatma Gandhi: His life, work and philosophy    http://www.mkgandhi.org/index.html    This is a very comprehensive site including many volumes of his works.

   Buddhism

• Buddhist Studies WWW Virtual Library http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVL-Buddhism.html     This site is a gateway to over 600 links to Buddhism and Buddhist Studies. All of these links have been  inspected and evaluated  by the editors before they are added.

• Tricycle's Online Introduction to Buddhism    http://www.tricycle.com/new.php?p=Buddhist%20Basics   Tricycle is a non-profit quarterly magazine with the mission of educating readers in the Dharma. This is a good beginning site which cover the basics such as the life of the Buddha, vocabulary, meditation instruction and a description of the three major schools of Buddhism. There are excerpts from talks by some of  the leading Buddhist teachers today. 

• An Introduction to Buddhism    http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/buddhaintro.html     This site is beautifully and well designed by a professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania as an introduction for college students interested in Buddhist philosophy and psychology.

• Dharma the Cat: Philosophy with Fur!    http://www.dharmathecat.com/    This site uses cartoon humor to illustrate the basic teachings of Buddhism.

• Buddhanet.net    http://www.buddhanet.net/index.html   This site is sponsored by a non-profit organization promoting education regarding all branches of Buddhism.

          Taoism

• Taoism Information Page    http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/taoism/    This gateway site is well organized providing annotated links on Taoism and other Asian religions and philosophies and related topics.

• The Tao and Its Characteristics    http://www.isop.ucla.edu/eas/documents/DaoDeJing.htm    This translation is by James Legge and is linked to the UCLA Center for East Asian Studies.

Confucianism

• Confucianism    http://www.connect.net/ron/confucianism.html    This is a link to the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia which gives a good four page overview of the topic.

• Confucius    http://www.friesian.com/confuci.htm    This well presented site is authored by a professor of philosophy at Los Angeles Valley College. There is a table presenting the basic moral terminology along with the Chinese character. There is also an explanation of the "Six Relations" and good links explaining terminology.

• Analects    http://www.isop.ucla.edu/eas/documents/lunyu.htm   This  translation by James Legge is linked to the UCLA Center for East Asian Studies.

Judaism

• Judaism and Jewish Resources    http://shamash.org/trb/judaism.html    A well-organized gateway to twelve thousand domains that connect to Judaism and Jewish life.

• MavenSearch - A Portal to the Jewish World    http://www.mavensearch.com/       Directory and search engine for Jewish content related websites. It links more than 15,000 websites with broader scope than religion only.

• Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal    http://www.utoronto.ca/wjudaism/   is an academic, refereed journal published on the Internet and devoted to scholarly debate on gender issues in Judaism.

• The Jewish Year    http://jewishnewyear.com/   This site provides information on Jewish festivals and  the calendar.
  

• Islamic Server of the MSA-USC      http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/    This site is presented by the Muslim Students Association at the University of Southern California. It's a very extensive site featuring translations of the Qur'an and other texts, a glossary of Islamic concepts among many other links.

• Glossary of Islamic Terms and Concepts    http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/glossary.html    This site is based on the booklet Introducing Islam to Non-Muslims by Hussein Khalid Al-Hussein and Ahmad Hussein Sakr.

• Introduction to Islam     http://www.mideasti.org/indepth/islam/      This site is an online version of a book published in 1988 by M. Cherif Bassiouni, Professor of Law at DePaul University, for those with "little or knowledge of Islam."

• The Holy Qur'an    http://www.wam.umd.edu/~stwright/rel/islam/Quran.html    This site is linked to the University of Maryland. The hypertext table of contents allows the reader to go directly to the individual chapters.

• Islamic Studies, Islam, Arabic, Religion    http://www.uga.edu/islam/   This is the website of Dr. Alan Godlas, professor of Religion at the University of Georgia.

• Sunni and Shia    http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/subdivisions/sunni_shia/     A discussion of the differences of  these two major divisions of Islam.

• Guide to Early Church Documents    http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/christian-history.html     This well organized site links to  documents of the early Church such as creeds and writings of the church fathers.

• Theology Library Sacred Scripture  http://www.shc.edu/theolibrary/bible.htm    This site is sponsored by the McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Mobile, Alabama, but the site includes Christian texts and perspectives other than Roman Catholic.

• The Bible, Revised Standard Version    http://etext.virginia.edu/rsv.browse.html     This site provided as a service by the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia. It provides a frames side-by side comparison with the Kings James Version.

• Bible Gateway BibleGateway.com is a free service for reading and researching scripture online in many  languages; the searching is by key words or by a specific scripture reference.
     

• Myths and Legends of the Sioux    http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/MclMyth.html   This is a link to the digital version of the book first published in 1916 in Bismarck, N.D., which is  linked to the University of Virginia's web page. The author was born in 1842 and was one quarter Sioux, and these stories were told to her personally by Sioux elders.

• The Sun-Dance of the Sioux   http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/SchSiou.html An eye-witness account first published in 1890 and made available on-line from the University of Virginia. 

• Native American Spirituality  http://www.religioustolerance.org/nataspir.htm  Overview with definitions and additional links.

• American Indian Cultural Resource Center  http://www.bluecloud.org/dakota.html  The principal purpose of the Center is to inform the general public of the world view, the philosophy of life, the spiritual insight of Native Peoples.

Other links on religion can be found at the COS Library's web page: Internet By Subject: World Religions.

This page was created:  June 13, 2001. 
 This page was last updated: November 13, 2006
For questions and comments, please mail to: ginah@cos.edu