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Knowledge Resources: Traditions

Knowledge Resources traditions pages provide an overview of beliefs and practices of the world’s major religions. Resources cover key people, organizations, and scriptural passages.

Buddhism1 Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion based on the spiritual and moral precepts of Siddhārtha Gautama (c. 5th century BCE), an enlightened teacher known as the Buddha who stressed liberation from the cycle of suffering and rebirth. Buddhism has no definitive scriptural canon shared across denominations; Theravada Buddhists revere the Pali Canon as authoritative, while Mahayana Buddhists place greater importan...

Christianity Christianity
Christianity is a religious tradition based on the spiritual and ethical teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians believe to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and God incarnate. As an Abrahamic faith, it shares the Old Testament with Judaism, from which it split in the 1st century CE, while the New Testament is distinctly Christian, recounting the life of Jesus and the ministries of his ap...

Hinduism Hinduism
Hinduism is an Indian religion encompassing diverse ritualistic Vedic traditions stressing the importance of karma and societal norms. The vast field of Hindu scriptures includes the Vedas, Brāhmanas, Āranyakas, Upanishads, Purānas, and the epics known as the Rāmāyana and the Mahābhārata, the latter of which contains the important Bhagavad Gītā. Hinduism is roughly divided into four ma...

Islam Islam
Islam is a religious tradition stressing submission to God according to the revelations from God to the prophet Muhammad (570/571-632 CE), whom Muslims hold to be the last in a line of prophets including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muhammad's revelations are recorded in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam, and Muslims also consider Hadith - reports of Muhammad's sayings and customs - to be...

Judaism Judaism
Judaism is an ethnoreligious tradition centered on the idea of a covenant between God and the Jewish people that can be traced back to the prophets Abraham and Moses. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and an extensive interpretative literature (Mishna and Talmud) outline the laws and practices that provide a basis for the different contemporary currents of Judaism, including Orthodox, Conservative, and...