The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Aztec religion S 41

Another common image shows Avalokitesvara in female form with 11 heads and a thousand arms. The 11 heads may recall one of the meanings of Avalokitesvara’s name, “lord of what is seen.” The thousand arms represent the bodhisattva’s limitless ability to shower her worshippers with benefits. An image very common in China shows Kuan-yin dressed in flowing garments, a serene, motherly expression on her face; in her arms she holds a jar the way a mother might hold a baby, and from the jar she pours water into a pond, a sign of her beneficent gifts. avatar A Sanskrit word for “descent”; in H INDU ISM the appearance of a god on Earth, especially the appearance of the god V ISHNU . The B HAGAVAD -G ITA says that whenever evil waxes and virtue wanes, Vishnu appears on Earth to restore order. There are many avatars of Vishnu, but ten has become the standard number. Temples in India are often dedicated to Vishnu’s “ten avatars.” Ideas vary about who these ten avatars are. The list often includes a tortoise on whose back the gods churned the ocean of milk; a one-horned sea creature who saved M ANU , the ancestor of all human beings, from the FLOOD ; a boar who raised the Earth on its tusks when it sank into the oceans; a dwarf who rescued the three worlds from an evil ruler; a man-lion who defeated an enemy immune to most creatures; Parasurama (“Rama with the axe”); R AMA ; K RISHNA ; the B UDDHA ; and Kalki, the avatar who will come on a white horse and begin a golden age. Some Hindus think J ESUS was an avatar of Vishnu, too. This is an identification that Chris tians generally reject.

Shi’ites maintain that, when M UHAMMAD died in 632 C . E ., the leadership of the Islamic commu nity passed to his male descendants. They call these leaders IMAMS . Shi’ites known as “twelvers” maintain that there was a line of 12 imams. The twelfth imam has been in hiding since 874 C . E . The community is now led by ayatollahs, religious scholars who speak on his behalf. The ayatollah best known in North Amer ica at the end of the 20th century was Ruhollah Khomeini (1900–89). In 1979 he instigated the overthrow of the shah of Iran, became the head of state, and led Iran in an aggressively anti American direction. Aztec religion The religion of the people who ruled the valley of Mexico (the region around present-day Mexico City) when the Spanish con quered it in the 16th century. According to legend, the Aztecs migrated to the valley of Mexico from the north. Around 1325 C . E . they settled a marshy island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Their patron god, Huitzilopochtli, had pointed the site out to them. By reclaiming land from the lake, they built a major city named Tenochtitlán (Mexico City, today). Three causeways connected it to land. By the time the Spanish arrived in the 1520s, Tenoch titlán had perhaps half a million inhabitants. By that time, too, the Aztecs had established their dominance over the entire region. The Aztecs had elaborate views of time and space. Good examples of these are the famous Aztec calendar stone and illustrations from ancient pictographic books known as codices. The Aztec views were very similar to those of the Maya ( see M AYA RELIGION ). The Aztecs resembled the Maya, too, in believing that they were living in the fifth world or, as they called it, the “fifth sun.” A famous story, the “Legend of the Suns,” relates the fate of the previous four worlds and predicts the fate of the fifth. The Aztecs worshipped several deities. Huitzilopochtli, “the Hummingbird of the Left,” was one of two deities worshipped at the great temple in the middle of Tenochtitlán.

Avesta See Z END A VESTA .

ayatollah Also spelled ayatullah; religious schol ars of highest rank in a branch of S HI ’ ITE I SLAM . Aya tollah is an Arabic and Persian word that means “light of G OD .” It denotes the religious scholars who lead a branch of Shi’ite Islam.