knowledge
king’s hair and nails, which are considered relics and are connected
with the growth of crops.
Further reading: Evans-Pritchard (1956); Gluckman (1965); Wilson (1970)
KNOWLEDGE
A concept that can be traced in the West to the Greek terms gnosis and
episteme. Within the context of religion, it is in tension or even conflict
with the concept of faith because knowledge can provide an awareness
of deep mysteries, and knowledge represents the cognitive aspect of reli-
gion. Although knowledge plays a role in faith-based religions, such as
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, its role is circumscribed to a degree
because it is faith not knowledge that leads an individual to salvation,
whereas non–faith-based religious traditions rely on some type of knowl-
edge to achieve liberation. Certain types of Hinduism, Buddhism, and
Daoism depend on knowledge for liberation.
In the Theravāda Buddhist tradition, genuine knowledge possesses no
relationship to a subject/object type of knowledge, which is transcended
by trance states to an intuitive insight into reality. Knowledge is also
associated with knowing doctrines in a kind of intellectual knowledge.
This is not considered a valid form of knowledge as it is regarded as
being untrustworthy owing to its connection to distorting mental factors
such as greed, hatred, and delusion. However, these can be controlled
through meditative practice enabling a person to see things as they really
are. The Sanskrit term for knowledge (jñāna) is often unfavorably com-
pared to wisdom (prajñā), an intuitive type of knowledge. In Mahāyāna
Buddhism, knowledge (jñāna) becomes a perfection that must be devel-
oped by the aspiring bodhisattva in order to attain a non-conceptualizing
type of knowledge free of the subject/object dichotomy that is often syn-
onymous with enlightenment.
In comparison to Buddhism, it is possible to find different accounts of
knowledge in the Hindu schools of Sāmhkya and Advaita Vedānta. The
Sāmkhya School argues that knowing the constituent elements of the
world leads to an awareness of the absolute distinction between matter
and the self, a fundamental reality obscured by an individual’s ignorance.
From another perspective, this process of knowledge implies an intuitive
awareness of the distinction of pure consciousness from whatever is not
consciousness that results in the awareness of a fundamental dualism of