Sunni Muslims believe that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) had said that he was leaving the book (Quran) behind him for his followers to learn, understand and practice the religion. Of special interest is the fact that the Wiradjuri-Kamilaroi of Australia practice public prayer on only two occasions: the burial of a man and the consecration of puberty. In Greece, poetic prayer can be distinguished from ceremonial prayer. These include benedictions (blessings), litanies (alternate statements, titles of the deity or deities, or petitions and responses), ceremonial and ritualistic prayers, free prayers (in intent following no fixed form), repetition or formula prayers (e.g., the repetition of the name of Jesus in Eastern Orthodox Hesychasm, a quietistic monastic movement, or the repetition of the name of Amida Buddha in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism), hymns, doxologies (statements of praise or glory), and other forms. The most solemn form of the vow is the devotio (“act of devotion”), by which a chief offers himself to the divinity in order to obtain victory. He often addresses his prayers, however, to various numina (spiritual powers): the dead, the divinities of nature, protective gods or actor gods, the Supreme Being localized somewhere in heaven, or a feminine divinity linked to the earth (i.e., the great mother).

Its geometric elegance and symbolic significance have made it a powerful talisman for those drawn to the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment and the expansion of human potential. Especially where human skulls have been broken open and the hollow bones split, the interpretation of cannibalism is unavoidable. Here, rather than isolated parts of human skeletons scattered about a settlement, human remains occasionally are found in association with remains of foodstuffs in waste pits or in holes and tunnels that served as sacrificial sites. A most important form of prayer, however, is found in the conjurations and exorcisms of a priest or believer and in lamentations, which are particularly numerous and which often end in a refrain similar to a litany. Prayer in gestures is also found among the Semangs. The forms that prayer takes in the religions of the world, though varied, generally follow certain fixed patterns. Prayers of praise developed out of meditation or experiences of religious elevation and utilized various patterns in both public and private ceremonies.

The prayer itself generally takes two forms, depending on whether it implies a request or is simply limited to praise. The prayer of request has a juridical pattern in which the offering, as a contractual element, dominates. A number of hymns of later date celebrate the king, but their intent is to request divine protection first for him and his country. There also is a long acrostic poem in praise of the god Marduk, creator of heaven and earth, and hymns that the Babylonians recited at the new year, at the beginning of spring, and at the celebration of Marduk. One such hymn, addressed to Marduk (the Babylonian sun god), apparently goes back to the 12th century bce. The religiously minded individual might have spirituality included with the religion, if one were to posit a spirituality. Though there are many individual Greek hymns in existence, the only official collection remaining contains the Orphic Hymns (addressed to the ancient hero Orpheus); it dates from the Greco-Roman period (c. In the Shang Dynasty (about 2000 BC), the earliest period we know much about, people in China worshipped a lot of different gods – weather gods and sky gods, and also a higher god who ruled over the other gods, called Shang-Ti.

It is impossible to determine the historical precedence of one over the others, and it is difficult to describe the most rudimentary prayer because certain forms escape modern scholars, so much so that it has been assumed by some that prayer was absent in earliest religion. They believe that excessive prayer serves no purpose. Another form of prayer is the votum (“vow”), in which a person undertakes to offer to the divinity, in exchange for divine favour, a sacrifice, the building of a temple, or other such offerings. The first form may have been a cry, then brief formulas repeated as incantations, such as “Come… Another form is spontaneous prayer, without any precise formulation, which is found, for example, among the Aeta, Baluga, Ita, and other aboriginal peoples of the Philippines and the Alacaluf (Halakwulups) of Tierra del Fuego. Though some songs of joy have been found, most are adjurations. Hades and Dionysus, in whose honour they rage and celebrate the Bacchus rites, are one and the same. Prayer is one of the most ancient expressions of religion. The prayer initiated the liturgical action; without it there could be no ceremony.