What is Religion?

Some people see religion as private, intellectual activity, and others as social, bonding factor. Early religious study scholars, being under the influence of dominating Christianity, used to look at other religions from the perspective of the rigid unilineal evolutionist approach. They saw the inevitable movement from savagery to barbarism, to civilization. Therefore, religious believes were an important indicator of the evolutionary level of a society. In other words the general assumption was the inevitable progression from primitive superstition to more sophisticated and monotheistic view.

Later studies analyzed religious phenomenon from various perspectives, such as historicist, functionalist, psychological, structuralist, ecological, cross-cultural, cognitive, and symbolic. Modern scholars, such as Partridge, identified other groups as religious, which have not been traditionally considered as such before. For example the psychedelic users, cyberspirituality, extraterrestrial UFO believers, Occultic Western Demonology, and Eschatological apocalypcists, to name a few. I agree with Smith's (1962) view that when people are saying "I am not religious, I am spiritual", it is more than likely that they are participating in a different and probably competing tradition, requiring devices to distinguish and authorize it.

Sogdians, Their History and Culture

Sogdians originated in the area where presently Ukraine is located. According to linguistic history they are the originators of Indo-European languages. After Alexander the Great invaded the area, many of them moved South-East, and settled around present Southern Uzbekistan and Western Tajikistan. Their capital was the city of Samarkand. During that time it considered the Chinese territory.

Sogdians adapted quickly to Chinese customs. Some of them even changed their last name to Chinese "An", the most common one. They played an important role in commerce on the Silk Road between the fourth and ninths centuries CE. Sogdians merchants travelled across Eurasia to do business of making and selling things. As well, Sogdians played a major role in transmitting religions such as Manicheism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism eastwards along the Silk Road.

It was very florishing culture, even though they never invented their own empire. The impressive architecture, art sculptures and paintings were found in the area many centuries later can tell us about Sogdian cultural sophistication. They also invented many things, such as paper printing machine, which did not exist in Europe before then.

Below is the link to the article about Sogdian art:
http://weecheng.com/silk/tajik/sogdian.htm

Hou Hanshu

Hou Hanshu can be easily classified as the historical writing, as it is full of heroes, as well as descriptions of wars with precise dates. The people described in the text are very warlike. Their strength is measured by the size of the territory they inhibit.