Midterm Vocab Flashcards
(41 cards)
Monsoon
the seasonal wind of the Indian Ocean and southern Asia, blowing from the southwest in summer and from the northeast in winter.
Bubonic Plague
a serious, sometimes fatal, infection with the bacterial toxin Yersinia pestis, transmitted by fleas from infected rodents and characterized by high fever, weakness, and the formation of buboes, especially in the groin and armpits.
Hinduism
the common religion of India, based upon the religion of the original Aryan settlers as expounded and evolved in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, etc., having an extremely diversified character with many schools of philosophy and theology, many popular cults, and a large pantheon symbolizing the many attributes of a single god. Buddhism and Jainism are outside the Hindu tradition but are regarded as related religions.
Buddhism
a religion, originated in India by Buddha (Gautama) and later spreading to China, Burma, Japan, Tibet, and parts of southeast Asia, holding that life is full of suffering caused by desire and that the way to end this suffering is through enlightenment that enables one to halt the endless sequence of births and deaths to which one is otherwise subject.
Reincarnation
the belief that the soul, upon death of the body, comes back to earth in another body or form.
Moksha
the belief that the soul, upon death of the body, comes back to earth in another body or form.
Nirvana
freedom from the endless cycle of personal reincarnations, with their consequent suffering, as a result of the extinction of individual passion, hatred, and delusion: attained by the Arhat as his goal but postponed by the Bodhisattva.
Eightfold Path
the eight pursuits of one seeking enlightenment, comprising right understanding, motives, speech, action, means of livelihood, effort, intellectual activity, and contemplation.
Skanskrit
Ancient type of calligraphy.
Caste System
the rigid Hindu system of hereditary social distinctions based on castes
Cultural Diffusion
Spreading culture from one place to another.
Judaism
the monotheistic religion of the Jews, having its ethical, ceremonial, and legal foundation in the precepts of the Old Testament and in the teachings and commentaries of the rabbis as found chiefly in the Talmud. Compare Conservative Jew, Orthodox Jew, Reform Jew.
Christianity
the Christian religion, including the Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox churches
Islam
the religious faith of Muslims, based on the words and religious system founded by the prophet Muhammad and taught by the Koran, the basic principle of which is absolute submission to a unique and personal god, Allah.
Ten Commandments
he precepts spoken by God to Israel, delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai; the Decalogue. Ex. 20; 24:12,34; Deut. 5. Though the numbering of these commandments may differ in some religions, that which has been followed in this dictionary is based on the King James Version of the Bible.
Five Pillars
The expectations and morals that Muslims had to live by.
Torah
the Pentateuch, being the first of the three Jewish divisions of the Old Testament.
Animism
the belief that natural objects, natural phenomena, and the universe itself possess souls.
Shintoism
the native religion of Japan, primarily a system of nature and ancestor worship.
Four Noble Truths
the doctrines of Buddha: all life is suffering, the cause of suffering is ignorant desire, this desire can be destroyed, the means to this is the Eightfold Path.
Polytheism
the doctrine of or belief in more than one god or in many gods.
Monotheism
the doctrine or belief that there is only one God.
Code Hammurabi
a Babylonian legal code of the 18th century b.c. or earlier, instituted by Hammurabi and dealing with criminal and civil matters.
Brahma
the first member of the Trimurti, with Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer.
