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In recent years, scholars have continued to study rituals from a variety of perspectives, including the cognitive, evolutionary, and neuroscientific. These studies have resolved the origins, functions, and effects of ritual behavior and opened up new ways for understanding its role in human society and culture.
Many western societal rituals may look like rites of passage but miss some of the important structural and functional components. However, in many Native and African-American communities, traditional rites of passage programs are conducted by community-based organizations such as Man Up Global .
Many rituals are connected to a certain purpose, like initiation, ritual purification and preparation for an important happening or task. Among these are also the so-called rituals of transition, which occur at important moments of the human life cycle, like birth, adulthood/marriage, sickness and death. [7]
The ultimate purpose is to inculcate virtues, and samskaras are viewed in the Hindu tradition as means – not as ends – towards ripening and perfecting the human journey of life. [21] The eight good qualities listed by Gautama Dharmasutra are emphasized as more important than the forty samskara rituals, in verses 8.21-8.25, as follows,
A life cycle ritual is a ceremony to mark a change in a person's biological or social status at various phases throughout life. [1] Such practices are found in many societies and are often based on traditions of a community. [1] Life cycle rituals may also have religious significance that is stemmed from different ideals and beliefs. [1]
[18] As an example, Burkert gives the example of hunting rituals. Hunting, Burkert argues, took on a sacred, ritualistic aura once it ceased to be necessary for survival: "Hunting lost its basic function with the emergence of agriculture some ten thousand years ago. But hunting ritual had become so important that it could not be given up."
Other classes of rituals include divinatory rituals; ceremonies performed by political authorities to ensure the health and fertility of human beings, animals, and crops in their territories; initiation into priesthoods devoted to certain deities, into religious associations, or into secret societies; and those accompanying the daily offering ...
Religion may be defined as "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs," [1] whereas ritual is "an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or ...