In ancient Japan offering occupied a particularly important place in religion because the relationship of the people to their gods seems frequently to have had the character of a bargain rather than of adoration. Black & White is a kind of ethics simulator, showing you the sum of your character and the consequences of your actions, physically imprinted on the shape of your world. The constituent elements of sacrifice have been incorporated into the particular religions and cultures of the world in various and often complex ways. In some Buddhist countries, like Japan, a perspective arose of the human world as a microcosm of the macrocosmic realms of the Buddhas. Yet cultic sacrifice has not developed in Buddhism, another religion that arose in India. Catholics know well. They typically give up some indulgence during Lent to remind them of Christ’s sacrifice. The authority of a once-powerful Roman Catholic Church hierarchy was broken by the flight of conservative Catholics (including many clerics) in 1945, and religious practice was further vitiated by communism and the acceleration of industrialization and consumerism. It is probable that the offerings were originally individual, but they gradually became collective, especially as all powers, including religious, were concentrated in the hands of the emperor, who officiated in the name of all his people.

There are also records of sacrifice, including human sacrifice, associated with the death of a ruler because it was thought proper for him to be accompanied in death with those who served him during life. In China sacrifice, like other aspects of religion, has existed at a number of different levels. Similar stories appear in Hebrew mythology, in the Hindu Vedas and in a large number of native American myths. Myths of various clans were combined and reorganized into a pan-Japanese mythology with the Imperial Household as its centre. The kami of the Imperial Household and the tutelary kami of powerful clans became the kami of the whole nation and people, and offerings were made by the state every year. Such practices were systematized supposedly around the start of the Taika-era reforms in 645. By the beginning of the 10th century, about 3,000 shrines throughout Japan were receiving state offerings. As the power of the central government declined, however, the system ceased to be effective, and after the 13th century only a limited number of important shrines continued to receive the Imperial offerings.

In the 8th century there emerged tendencies to interpret Shintō from a Buddhist viewpoint. According to an inscription of the 4th century bce (found at Tor Tignosa, 15 miles south of Rome), Aeneas is also called Lar, which indicates that the Lares, too, were originally regarded as divine ancestors and not as deities who presided over the farmland. Before that event, sacrifice was the central act of Israelite worship; and there were many categories of sacrificial rites that had evolved through the history of the Jews into a minutely detailed system found in that part of the Torah (Law; the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) that is ascribed by biblical scholars to the Priestly Code, which became established following the Babylonian Exile (586-538 bce). Ritual sacrifice was judged to be ineffective and in some of its forms to involve cruelty and to run counter to the law of ahimsa, or noninjury. Human sacrifice to natural deities and at burials was once common but seems generally to have been abandoned in the early Middle Ages. The most important of the syncretic schools to emerge were Ryōbu (Dual Aspect) Shintō and Sannō (“King of the Mountain,” a common name of the guardian deity of Tendai Buddhism) Shintō.

Buddhism was officially introduced into Japan in 552 ce and developed gradually. The blending of these elements with such established religions as Buddhism and Daoism influenced the great diversification of sacrificial rites in China. Furthermore, Buddhism emphasizes the notion of ethical sacrifices, acts of self-discipline, and there are instances of devotional offerings, such as burnt incense, to the Buddha. There are, however, in the Jataka stories of the Buddha’s previous births accounts of his self-sacrifices. Sin is not a measure of how bad we are, sin is a measure of how good we are not. The Di Manes, collective powers (later “spirits”) of the dead, may mean “the good people,” an anxious euphemism like the Greek name of “the kindly ones” for the Furies. This may include engaging in physical activities that channel their energy, such as sports or high-intensity workouts. Mars, whose name may or may not be Indo-European, was a high god of many Italian peoples, as liturgical bronze tablets found at Iguvium (Gubbio), the Tabulae Iguvinae (c. A few brief observations that may illustrate this variety and complexity are given here.