The Encyclopedia of World Religions

diet and religion S 119

ror of Diana.” Offerings at Aricia attest to Diana’s connections with childbirth: They include models of human sexual organs. Stories about the priests of Diana at Nemi provided the title and structure to an influential study of religion published in the early 20th century, The Golden Bough by James George F RAZER . diet and religion Religious regulations about what people may eat and drink. Most religions order and regulate what people eat and drink. Sometimes they make eating and drinking into RITUALS . Examples include the Japanese tea cer emony and the Christian E UCHARIST . Sometimes they teach their adherents to slaughter animals in special ways or dedicate food to religious beings or for religious purposes. That is, they SACRIFICE and make offerings. Sometimes they ask followers to give up eating, drinking, or both, either partially or entirely, for a limited period of time. This is FASTING , which Muslims, for example, do during the month of Ramadan. Religions also make rules about ordinary eating and drinking. That is, they have dietary laws. Dietary laws answer such questions as what foods people should and should not eat, who may prepare and serve food, and when and how much people may eat. There is probably no item on which all religions agree. REGULATIONS CONCERNING MEAT One of the most common topics for dietary laws concerns the eating of meat. Some religions do not allow the eating of meat at all. Traditionally, most Hindus of the highest religious status have not eaten meat. Other Hindus consider some meat and animal products, such as milk, more accept able than others, such as beef. Many Buddhists have practiced vegetarianism. So have Jains, the Pythagoreans of ancient Greece, Manichaeans, and some Taoists. In the last decades of the 20th cen tury a number of North Americans adopted veg etarianism. They often did so because they wanted a healthy diet, a diet that was responsible to the environment, or both.

Some have rejected interreligious dialogue altogether. More traditional Christians have seen dialogue as abandoning the basic calling of a Chris tian: to proclaim the truth of Christianity. Some non-Christians have seen dialogue as a new and underhanded way for Christians to try to convert them. In their eyes, those who advocated dialogue were wolves in sheeps’ clothing. Diamond Sutra A relatively brief M AHAYANA Buddhist writing. It became important for practic ers of Z EN B UDDHISM as well as for other schools of B UDDHISM . The Diamond Sutra is one of a group of writ ings known as Prajna-paramita sutras, that is, “discourses concerned with perfect wisdom.” Originally an Indian book written in Sanskrit, it was translated into Chinese around 400 C . E . The sutra records a conversation between the B UDDHA and Subhuti, one of his most advanced disciples. The two rapidly recount a series of bold paradoxes that encapsulate Buddhist wisdom. For example, the Buddha teaches Subhuti that if anyone suggests that the Buddha has taught any thing, that person slanders the Buddha, because truth cannot be taught. The sutra also teaches that things that appear to us are transient, like objects in dreams. Diana A Roman GODDESS . Diana seems to have been a goddess of the woods and perhaps of the moon and its light. She was early identified with the Greek goddess A RTEMIS . In this capacity the Romans thought of her as a hunter, a midwife, and a goddess of the crossroads. The most important festival of Diana took place on the Ides of August (August 13). During this festival women would wash their hair and carry torches from Rome to Diana’s most impor tant shrine, a grove at Aricia. The festival was also especially important to slaves. Diana had an ancient temple in Rome. Her grove at Aricia was on the shores of Lake Nemi. In ancient times this lake was known as “the mir