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Learn the meaning, synonyms, examples, and history of the word ritual, which can be an adjective or a noun. A ritual is a ceremonial act or action, or a system of rites, or a habitual practice.
- Overview
- Nature and significance
- The origin approach
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ritual, the performance of ceremonial acts prescribed by tradition or by sacerdotal decree. Ritual is a specific, observable mode of behaviour exhibited by all known societies. It is thus possible to view ritual as a way of defining or describing humans.
Human beings are sometimes described or defined as a basically rational, economic, political, or playing species. They may, however, also be viewed as ritual beings who exhibit a striking parallel between their ritual and verbal behaviour. Just as language is a system of symbols that is based upon arbitrary rules, ritual may be viewed as a system of symbolic acts that is based upon arbitrary rules.
The intricate yet complex relation between ritual and language can be seen in the history of various attempts to explain ritual behaviour. In most explanations, language becomes a necessary factor in the theory concerning the nature of ritual, and the specific form of language that is tied to explanations of ritual is the language of myth. Both myth and ritual remain fundamental to any analysis of religions.
The earliest approach was an attempt to explain ritual, as well as religion, by means of a theory concerned with historical origin. In most cases, this theory also assumed an evolutionary hypothesis that would explain the development of ritual behaviour through history. The basic premise, or law, for this approach is that ontogeny (development of an individual organism) recapitulates phylogeny (evolution of a related group of organisms), just as the human embryo recapitulates the stages of human evolutionary history in the womb—e.g., the gill stage. The solution to explaining the apparently universal scope of ritual depended upon the success in locating the oldest cultures and cults. Scholars believed that if they could discover this origin, they would be able to explain contemporary human rituals.
There are almost as many solutions as authors in this approach. In the search for an origin of ritual, research turned from the well-known literate cultures to those that appeared to be less complex and preliterate. The use of the terms primitive religion and primitive cultures comes from this approach in seeking an answer to the meaning of ritual, myth, and religion. Various cultures and rituals were singled out, sacrifice of either men or animals becoming one of the main topics for speculation, though the exact motivation or cause of sacrificial ritual was disputed among the leading authors of the theory. For W. Robertson Smith, a British biblical scholar who first published his theory in the ninth edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (1875–89), sacrifice was motivated by the desire for communion between members of a primitive group and their god. The origin of ritual, therefore, was believed to be found in totemic (animal symbolic clan) cults; and totemism, for many authors, was thus believed to be the earliest stage of religion and ritual. The various stages of ritual development and evolution, however, were never agreed upon. Given this origin hypothesis, rituals of purification, gift giving, piacular (expiatory) rites, and worship were viewed as developments, or secondary stages, of the original sacrificial ritual. The Christian Eucharist (Holy Communion), along with contemporary banquets and table etiquette, were explained as late developments or traits that had their origin and meaning in the totemic sacrifice.
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Ritual is a system of symbolic acts based on arbitrary rules that defines or describes human behaviour. Learn about the origin, evolution, and function of ritual in various cultures and religions from Britannica's experts.
- Hans H. Penner
Learn the meaning of ritual as a way of doing something regularly, often as part of a religious ceremony, or as a set of actions and words. See examples of ritual in different contexts and collocations with related words.
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or revered objects. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.
Learn the meaning of ritual as a way of doing something regularly, often as part of a religious ceremony, and see how it is used in sentences and phrases. Find out the pronunciation, synonyms and translations of ritual in different languages.
noun. an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite. a system or collection of religious or other rites. observance of set forms in public worship. a book of rites or ceremonies. a book containing the offices to be used by priests in administering the sacraments and for visitation of the sick, burial of the dead, etc.
