The Encyclopedia of World Religions

284 S masks and religion

rally arises: If multiplicity and difference do not characterize reality, what is the source of the mul tiplicity and difference that everyone perceives? The Advaita answer is maya. Multiplicity and dif ference are merely appearances. They arise from ignorance of the true nature of reality. Because of maya, our perceptions are mistaken, in the way that a person may step on a rope at night and mis take it for a snake. Maya religion The religion of the people living in the Yucatan Peninsula and northern Central Amer ica before Europeans discovered the Americas. The Maya may be considered the classic civilization of pre-Columbian America. Their culture established patterns that all other Mesoamericans adopted. The Maya civilization began as early as 300 B . C . E . The classic period, associated with sites such as Tikal in Guatemala, ran from roughly 300 to 800 C . E . At the end of the classic period Maya civilization did not disappear; the postclassic Maya built wonders such as those at Chichén Itzá in Mexico. Maya culture fully deserves the name “civili zation,” a term that denotes a way of life based on cities. Maya culture concentrated at ceremonial centers. The most outstanding religious features of these centers remain: tall, stepped pyramids. They provided a base for Maya temples and a platform for the performance of RITUALS . The well-known Maya ballcourts, shaped like a capital “I,” were the sites of ritual ballgames. Maya rituals were primarily sacrificial. The Maya sacrificed animals and, especially in the post classic period, human beings. They also presented offerings of their own blood. They collected blood from a variety of body parts: tongues, arms, legs, earlobes, and genital organs. For example, in one ritual the queen pulled a thorned rope through her tongue. This use of blood may shock some North Americans today, who tend to overlook the exten sive use of blood imagery in C HRISTIANITY . Some scholars suggest helpfully that in giving blood, the Maya entered into a relationship of exchange with the forces of life in the universe. These forces gave the Maya life; the Maya gave them life in return.

Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2004); Karen L. King, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 2003); Marvin Meyer and Esther A. de Boer, The Gospels of Mary: The Secret Tradition of Mary Magdalene, the Companion of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004); Jane Schaberg, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament (New York: Continuum, 2002). masks and religion Disguises put on for reli gious reasons. The wearing of masks as a part of a religious occasion is a common feature of P RIMAL R ELIGION , and though not a central aspect of most contemporary religion, is still seen at H ALLOWEEN , in various traditional European quasi-religious fes tivals (St. Nicholas Day, Mardi Gras), and in some sacred dances of such traditions as S HINTO , T IBETAN RELIGION , and H INDUISM . Masks are frequently employed in Native American religions. The fundamental purpose of RITUAL masks is to enable the wearer to iden tify with or represent a god or spirit, including demonic and ancestral spirits. This can be done for dramatic purposes, as when mask-wearing is part of a sacred play, dance, or rite in which supernatu ral entities must be portrayed in order to instruct an audience, or as an offering to the deities them selves. They can also, as in the case of shamans going into trance, be a part of the performer’s own subjective identification with a god or spirit. Many religious masks are of remarkable artistic power and afford deep insights into the culture’s spiritual consciousness. maya A Sanskrit word for “appearance,” some times translated “illusion.” Maya is especially important in the Indian philosophical school known as Advaita V EDANTA . According to Advaita Vedanta, there is no ulti mate difference between the reality that underlies the universe ( BRAHMAN ) and the reality that under lies the human person ( ATMAN ). The question natu