and nontextual character, has captured the central place in
the popular American imagination. It stands in the middle
of the city’s ritual core, with the Capitol, the White House,
and the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials cardinally placed
on its four sides.
Perhaps it is the skyscraper, more than any other build-
ing, that symbolizes the city since the nineteenth century.
And while lacking sacrality, skyscrapers are not without sym-
bolic power. When the Twin Towers of the World Trade
Center in New York were destroyed on September 11, 2001,
the terrorists were attacking a symbol of U.S. financial domi-
nance. But subsequent events have cast a religious aura over
the site, making it into a place of martyrdom and heroic self-
sacrifice, a shrine to the mythical best qualities in the Ameri-
can spirit. Public and private rituals, the placing of flowers,
a lone flag flying over the debris, notes, names, and other
signs of grief all transformed the site almost immediately into
a shrine. Though some events were orchestrated public ex-
pressions of grief, most of the actions enacted there were
spontaneous. The changed significance of the site is a clear
example of the mutability of meaning noted in towers every-
where. No architectural meaning is final. A purely secular
building may become a sacred one, and the rituals that have
and will be performed at the site will influence the reception
of whatever structure succeeds the former monument to fi-
nancial power.
SEE ALSO Architecture; Axis Mundi; Basilica, Cathedral,
and Church; Mountains; Pyramids, overview article; Sacred
Space; Stupa Worship; Temple; Tombs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bloom, Jonathan. Minaret: Symbol of Islam. Oxford, U.K., 1989.
Carrasco, Davíd, Lindsay Jones, and Scott Sessions, eds. Me-
soamerica’s Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs.
Boulder, Colo., 2000.
Eliade, Mircea. Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism.
Translated by Philip Mairet. New York, 1961.
Gendrop, Paul, and Doris Heyden. Pre-Columbian Architecture of
Mesoamerica. Translated by Judith Stanton. New York,
1974.
Giedion, Sigfried. The Eternal Present: A Contribution on Constan-
cy and Change, vol. 2: The Beginnings of Architecture. Wash-
ington, D.C., 1964.
Harle, J. C. The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent.
2d ed. New Haven, Conn., 1994.
Kramrisch, Stella. The Hindu Temple. Calcutta, 1946.
Prache, Anne. Cathedrals of Europe. Ithaca, N.Y., 2000.
Rowland, Benjamin. The Art and Architecture of India: Buddhist,
Hindu, Jain. 3d rev. ed. Baltimore, Md., 1967.
Wu, Nelson I. Chinese and Indian Architecture: The City of Man,
the Mountain of God, and the Realm of the Immortals. New
York, 1963.
Xinian Fu, Daiheng Guo, Xujie Liu, Guxi Pan, Yun Qiao, and
Dazhang Sun. Chinese Architecture. Edited by Nancy S.
Steinhardt. New Haven, Conn., 2002.
JEFFREY F. MEYER (2005)
J. DANIEL WHITE (2005)TRADITION. The word tradition comes from the Latin
noun traditio (handing over), which derives from the verb
tradere (hand over, deliver). Traditio corresponds closely to
the Greek paradosis, which also comes from a verb (paradi-
domi) meaning “hand over.” Traditio and paradosis can be
used literally or figuratively, in the latter case often to mean
“teaching” or “instruction.” Traditio and paradosis were
commonly used in this sense by Latin and Greek Christian
theologians to denote the body of teachings preserved and
handed down by the church as “the Catholic faith.” In the
modern study of religion, however, a broader and more dif-
ferentiated concept of tradition must be employed.
THE CONCEPT OF TRADITION. Culture depends on teaching
and learning, and teaching and learning presuppose a tradi-
tion. The concept of tradition thus applies to all fields of cul-
ture, including science, arts and letters, education, law, poli-
tics, and religion.
A belief or practice in any field of culture may be said
to be a tradition to the extent that it is received from the
hands, lips, or the example of others rather than being dis-
covered or invented; that it is received on the assumption
that the authors and transmitters are reliable and therefore
the tradition valid; and that it is received with the express
command and conscious intention of further transmission
without substantial change. Hence, as a source of knowledge,
tradition is to be distinguished from rumor and fashion.
Rumor and fashion, although received from others, are not
necessarily assumed to be reliable or to merit transmission
without alteration; on the contrary, they invite speculation
and elaboration. Tradition, purporting to embody a fixed
truth from an authoritative source, demands faithfulness and
obedience.
Established traditions command respect because of their
relative antiquity and the presumed trustworthiness of their
authors and transmitters. Sacred traditions provide a link be-
tween the origin and destiny of things. The ancient Greek
poet and prophet Hesiod in his Theogony says that the
Muses, the daughters of Zeus, “inspired me with a divine
voice to tell of the things that are to come and the things that
were before” (ll. 31–32). Similarly, the sacred traditions of
all religions offer access to beginnings and insight into end-
ings that personal experience and unaided reason cannot
supply.
Sacred traditions sometimes tell of a golden age in the
past. They preserve glimmers of the glorious age and estab-
lish beliefs, practices, and institutions to help people cope
with the “iron age” of the present. At other times, traditionsTRADITION 9267