Re: Religious text in Conlangs

On Wednesday 30 April 2003 02:47 pm, Jake X wrote:
> [@'lis r\out]:
>
> > I haven't done any liturgical texts yet, but there are descriptions
of
> > Shayanan religions in the encyclopedia on the web site.
>
> Sounds very exotic and well, complicated.  I need to see more on the
> Shayanan
> religions before I begin to understand what they are about.  If you
have any
> more
> typed up, and you wouldn't mind sending it to me offlist,  I'm very
> intrigued
> and interested in how you worked them out and more on how they
actually
> pray/worship
> (or do they at all?).
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jake
>
>
Well, it's a whole planet, and what's currently on the website is
basically the tourist-guide, temple-gift-shop view of (some of) the
religions.

And figuring out how to explain alien philosophy and theology ( and what
words they need for them) is not easy...

Whether people pray (and how they pray) depends partly on how you (and
they) define prayer. Almost all of the religions practice sacramental
illuminatory chemistry on special occasions.

The Seekers of the Light/Flame/Truth (the Sufi Buddhists) are into
marathon sessions of chanting, drumming and dancing: sort of a cross
between a Sun Dance, a voudoun ritual, and a rave with decent lighting.

The folks with the Temple at the South Pole are what human
anthropologists would class as a mystery cult: they don't discuss the
details with outsiders. Same for the Maze-related monastic order.

In the system that includes the Hasri, prayer tends to involve making
visible offerings along with talking to the Powers.

One important factor that may not be clear from the website is that the
religions were the only large-scale social structures on Shayana before
the Imperials arrived. So the various religions have even more
political and historical ramifications than would be the case here. The
Hasrian religious system gets a lot of attention on the website because
the Hasri's Inner Clan funded and organized the building of Cherani
Station.


--
Elyse Grasso

The World of Cherani Station
www.data-raptors.com/cherani/index.html
Cherani Tradespeech
www.data-raptors.com/cherani/tradespeech.html