Exam 2 Study Guide

Eastern Religious Traditions

Be familiar with the material in these sections or documents from the class website:

• Important Dates for Unit Two
• Important Terms for Unit Two

Be able to identify and describe/briefly discuss the following:

• the Bab
• Bahaullah
• Axial Age
• Parshva
• Mahavira
• "three jewels" of Jainism
• Siddhartha Gautama
• Four Noble Truths of Buddhism
• Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism
• six realms of rebirth in Buddhism
• Theravada & Mahayana Buddhism
• Bhagavad Gita
• four yogas (sacred paths) in Hinduism
• Krishna
• Guru Nanak
• Guru Sobindh Singh
• Five Ks of Sikhism (just the English translations)
• five "thieves" of Sikhism
• Spring and Autumn Period
• Warring States Period
• Hundred Schools of Thought
• Confucius
• Mengzi
• Xunzi
• Zhu Xi
• Laozi
• Zhuangzi
• four basic stages of Shrine Festival (matsuri) in Shinto
• five features of Shinto

You will not be asked about any specific dates. However, you should be able to put important people and/or events within a specific religious tradition in chronological order.

Sample questions:

• How did the founders of Bahai and Sikhism try to build bridges between different religious traditions of their day?
• Discuss the different ways in which karma is viewed in Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.
• What is the nature of salvation for Buddhists? How does it differ from salvation in the Abrahamic traditions?
• How did the development of the bhakti traditions transform Hinduism?
• How does the Sikh view of scripture compare with that of other religious traditions?
• How did Mengzi's interpretation of Confucius differ from Xunzi's interpretation?
• Discuss the Daoist concepts of Dao and De.
• Discuss Zhu Xi’s reinterpretation of Confucianism to include ideas from Daoism and/or Buddhism.
• Jainism, Hinduism, and Shinto all recognize the existence of many gods. How do followers of these three traditions differ in their understanding of the interactions between humans and the gods?