The Encyclopedia of World Religions

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haps even possessing people while they danced. Shamans especially danced to create and express their ecstasy as their patron god danced through them ( see SHAMANISM ). Dance has been performed and interpreted in different ways. In H INDUISM , dance often expresses the nature and mythology of the gods. The great god S IVA is called “nataraja,” king of the dance, and his repertoire of 108 dances enacts the stages of the world from creation to destruction. In S HINTO , sacred dance is more often seen as an offering to the gods for their entertainment. So is it also in China, though the solemn dance RITUALS of Con fucian students and mandarins also powerfully express the traditions and cohesion of their class. In the more devotional wings of J UDAISM (H ASIDISM ) and I SLAM (S UFISM , the “whirling dervishes”), dance expresses religious ecstasy or at least uninhibited, loving PRAYER and fervor. In the Catholic traditions of C HRISTIANITY , folk dances have usually been tol erated as a part of the celebration of holidays like May Day or C HRISTMAS but have rarely had a part in formal WORSHIP itself. P ROTESTANTISM has tended to reject dance altogether, or to regard it as purely secular. In recent times, however, there has been a move in some quarters to revive sacred dance, even performing decorous and expressive modern dances as parts of church or temple services. In Pentecostal circles, on the other hand, free and ecstatic dancing has increasingly arisen spontane ously as a sign of the Holy Spirit. Some of the new religions of Japan, like T ENRIKYO and Odori Shukyo (the “Dancing Religion”), have made dance their central act of worship. In one form or another,

Dalai Lama The head of the Tibetan Buddhist community and traditionally the ruler of Tibet. The first Dalai Lama assumed office in 1438, although he was not given that title until 1578, when the Mongol king, Alta Khan, gave the name Dalai Lama to the head of the Tibetan religious commu nity. Dalai means “ocean, all-encompassing”; lama means “supreme teacher.” The first Dalai Lama resided at the Tashil hunpo monastery in central Tibet, but his succes sors have ruled from Lhasa. The Dalai Lama is seen as an INCARNATION of A VALOKITESVARA , a BODHISATTVA . Tibetan B UDDHISM teaches that rebirth occurs 49 days after death ( see B ARDO T HODOL ). Successive Dalai Lamas are found by identifying signs on a child born 49 days after the death of the previous Dalai Lama. The candi date also demonstrates knowledge of the previous Dalai Lama’s possessions. In 1959 the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso (b. 1935), fled into exile to escape Chinese rule. In 1989 he received the Nobel Prize for peace for leading a peaceful resistance to the Chinese take over. dance and religion The significance and role of religious dancing. Like the music that usually accompanies it, dance has had a very wide role in religion but has sometimes been regarded with suspicion for its intoxicating effect and its associa tion with sensual feeling. In primal societies, dance frequently served the role of creating sacred times and places, dances being occasions of rich com munity activity when the gods were close and per

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