The Golden Bough

By Frazer, James, George

Book Id: WPLBN0100750536
Format Type: PDF (eBook)
File Size: 2.59 MB.
Reproduction Date: 1/26/2025

Title:	The Golden Bough
Author:	Frazer, James, George
Volume:
Language:	Malayalam
Subject:	Non Fiction, Geography, Anthropology, Recreation, Anthropology, Magic, Religion, Science
Collections:	Authors Community
Historic Publication Date:	2025
Publisher:	Maruthoor Purushothaman

Member Page:	Maruthoor Purushothaman
Citation APA MLA Chicago Frazer, J. G. (2025). The Golden Bough. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
'The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion' is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, by the Scottish Anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. It was published in twelve volumes during the period of 1906–1915.Frazer attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat, and many other symbols and practices whose influences had extended into 20th-century culture.His thesis is that the most ancient religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king in accordance with the cycle of the seasons. Frazer proposed that mankind's understanding of the natural world progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought. The influence of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature and thought has been substantial

Summary
The abridged edition of The Golden Bough contains four books, each of which contains a varying number of chapters. Many of the chapters contain subchapters that were longer sections in the original work. The book follows a single line of argument, which includes a series of comparisons between ancient and Christian religious rituals, a discussion of nature and crops as symbols of fertility, and the retelling of myths that involve the killing of priest-kings across various cultures. These elements coalesce in the conclusion that all cultures require real or symbolic sacrifices to secure their continued existence and confirm their belief that they can influence the world through either magic or science. The book uses the symbol of the golden bough, which is a branch of mistletoe picked from an oak tree, to unify the argument because it appears in a variety of cultural myths that symbolize the union of life and death.