Arunism
Arunism is a religious and philosophical tradition which emerged in Syrtis Major on Mars during the 9th century. The faith's central figure is Arun, the Sabaean goddess of love [1]. It is the most common Martian religion today; roughly 700 million Martians, just over half the world's population, describe themselves as Arunists. It is also the youngest of the major Martian religions.
Arunism has been described variously as either monolatric or dualistic. Adherents generally reserve worship and veneration for Arun alone, but recognize the existence of many gods, spirits, and other divine beings. The religion developed out of Sabaean polytheism, the ancient religion of the Ruuknan, and Anharith traditional religion, an ethnic faith of Isidis. Its doctrines and practices largely descend from the Maatist school of priestly memorists, who were exiled from the City of Miir as apostates in 559.
Historians debate the exact origins of Arunism. Sole worship of Arun has been traced to east Sabaean and Anharith goddess cults as early as the 1st century. During the collapse of Old Anharinan in the 8th century, apocalyptic movements became popular. Avidah, a Maatist memorist, made a number of prophecies in 792 that became the basis of the religion's early written and psychic tradition. The faith spread rapidly through the world after becoming the de facto state religion of the First Triumvirate. During the Golden Age of the Ruuknan, Arunism developed into an organized, centrally governed religious body; today, it is highly decentralized, allowing for broad autonomy both for its places of worship and individual followers.
Modern scholars of religion describe Arunism as a broad spectrum of closely interrelated faith groups rather than a single entity. Multiple schools and branches of Arunism co-exist, often incorporating local spiritual beliefs and teachings. Martians, particularly Sabaeans, do not have an exclusive view of religious groups. Practicing Arunists often participate in other religious simultaneously. In the aftermath of first contact and colonization, a great deal of syncretism with earthly religions has become common in urban centers.
Background
Anharith tradition religion, Arunism's predecessor in Syrtis Major and Isidis, comprised the collective customs, folklore, laws, and spiritual rituals of the Anharith nations. This is one of many ways that the Anharith are culturally and socially distinct from the other nations of the Ruuknan. During the 7th century, Anharith religion was an organized faith run by a holy order of nomadic priests and psychics. They emphasized the veneration of gods, spirits, and certain legendary heroes, taught strict observance of divine laws, and led groups of faithful in psycho-spiritual rituals.
According to legend [2], the Anharith people's ancestors lived in a mythical queendom in Sabaea, the location of which is today unknown. Many enterprising Martian spiritualists have embarked on adventures into the desert in the hopes of finding this lost homeland - to little success. Around three thousand years ago, this region was conquered by the Empire of Shiian. The Empress is said to have executed, kidnapped, or hypnotized the ruling dynasty, razed the major cities, and sought to assimilate the rural population. Those who wished to maintain their traditions were forced into exile.
Anha, the mythical last princess of the realm, led the clans in exile across the Sabaean deserts to the Marshes of Isidis, where they settled. Her daughters founded a unified queendom of all the clans, today called Old Anharinan. This queendom, which first reliably appears in the historical record 2600 years ago, survived several major crises and political upheavals. It remained undisturbed by Shiianic imperialism or by the wars of succession which followed the imperial dissolution.
However, beginning in the year 715, Old Anharinan began to unravel due to various cultural and political differences between the clans and factions of the Anharith.
Beliefs & Cosmology
Arunists believe in an omnibenevolent, transcendent, and all-seeing deity, Arun. In more polite circumstances, she may be referred to as the Goddess. Arun is an Anharith reflex of a more ancient Sabaean deity, who Sabaeans identified as one of the 9 Great Divinities of their polytheistic religion. In Arunism, she is held to be the supreme ruler of a divine hierarchy in which many spiritual entities participate. Arunists do not consider her a creator deity, nor do they hold she was the first ruler of this spiritual realm; they believe she rules on behalf of a primordial and incomprehensible creator, referred to only as the One. Arun is generally held to be feminine, though many Arunists – particularly mystics – believe she has multiple aspects, some of which are aligned to other genders.
In mainstream religious Arunism, all gods and spirits are divinely bound, subservient to Arun, and unable to resist her divine will, being inextricably part of her domain. In dualistic Arunism, they are legally subservient to Arunism, but able to rebel and act of their own accord, inevitably becoming opposed to her. These branches of Arunism have many sacred rituals for warding of these rebellious gods and spirits. Arunists believe in many categories of spiritual entities, each being of a different discrete rank, role, and form. Mystical Arunists have devoted centuries of religio-psychic study to these beings.
While human religions often believe gods, spirits, and other divinities dwell in heaven, Martian religions often have their divinities reside within the mind. Martian philosophy and spirituality has long described the mind as a point of connection between the physical world and the 'world of the gods.' This is also true in Aruism, and mystics have produced spiritual maps of the divine world. Arunist religious texts hold that some of these beings appear to physical beings to communicate revelations from Arun or her attendant deities. It is said that these revelations, and the actions of Arun's holy people – consecreated priests, prophets, and memorists – reveal the wisdom and desires of Arun.
In addition to religious and spiritual Arunism, the faith system spawned many schools of philosophy. Some groups conceive of the Goddess as more deistic or pantheistic; some forgo true belief in her divinity entirety in favor of Arunist ethics, which to this day forms the basis of moral philosophy on the Red Planet. Human scholars have compared these viewpoints to earthly secular humanism. Philosophical or cultural Arunists often still participate in religious rituals, further complicating efforts to categorize Martian religions views.
Maatism's influence on Arun veneration
Many of the Maatist school of memorists, descended from Maatiya and her followers, settled in the Anharinan after their exile. The City of Miir had outlawed and expelled the Maatist school, which had been accused of - among other things - denying the divinity of Sin Shiian, advocating psychic individualism, worshiping false gods, willful misinterpretation of memories, and improper treatment of holy relics. The Maatists were proponents of individual rights, psychic privacy, and parental rights for circle spouses. In addition, they strongly disapproved of telepathic thralldom and imperial deification.
Many of these beliefs came to influence Arunism both philosophically and spiritually. A major Maatist ritual, the transferring of memories on one's deathbed, became an important death rite for Arun-worshipers.
See main article: Maatism
Practices
Arunists do not appear to have a strict doctrine of the afterlife. Some branches of Arunism believe in reincarnation, but the majority appear to believe in a permanent death of one's individual experience; it is assumed – as with many Martian religions – that death is followed by a person's rejoining of the original whole-mind which comprised Martian sentience before the dawn of civilization.
Superstitions around death endure, and Arunists generally cremate their dead. In a typical Arunist funeral, the deceased is wrapped in a death shawl and burned on a pyre. The shawl is usually blue or purple, colors of divinity and nobility. They may also be cremated in a kiln or other chamber, especially if the deceased is of lower social status. Martians, especially Sabaeans, believe that the soul or spirit of a dead person may be trapped within their body if their body is not burned. Ashes are not kept in urns or any other container, but are instead allowed to scatter to the wind after the funeral service.
Adherents may worship privately in household altars, communally at clan-specific shrines, or in public shrines built in major cities. Since the industrial revolution, public worship with those of other clans has become more common due to radical changes to the traditional way of life. Public shrines are staffed by priests, memorists, and monks. Each of these individuals are consecrated according to ancient Sabaean tradition, being anointed with sand. In ancient times – and among very fundamentalist religious groups – this rite was achieved by the complete immersion of the seeker into desert sand. Modern practices usually involve pouring sand over the face of the individual, or drawing runes with sand on their bare skin.
Worship consists of auditory or telepathic chanting, silent prayers led by a priest, rituals incorporating water. Often, water is used as a sacrificial offering to the Goddess or one of her attendant spirits. Drinking water is considered the greatest offering possible in Sabaean culture, probably because of its relative rarity. In other rituals, practitioners drink water communally, sharing the same goblet or receiving their own goblets and taking water from a collective bowl.
In Arunist weddings, special shawls are worn and psychic rituals between the newlyweds are conducted by a religiously-ordained memorist. Salvationist ideas in Arunism focus less on predictions of an afterlife and more on the redemption of the world as a whole, through divinely-inspired morality and good works. Some have incorporated ideas from Salvationist Shiianism, suggesting that Arun will incarnate corporeally in the world once it has been purified through her laws and teachings.
History of Early Arunism
As the Old Queendom entered its decline, several memorists began preaching of an imminent apocalypse and reshaping of the world, at the same time mingling with early adopters of the sole veneration of Arun. Avidah, a memorist from the city of Soruu, south of Deshanor, began worshipping Arun in 775. She began to orally teach her students and followers, the Avidians, a combination of ethical precepts, political ideas, and salvationist theology. She experienced psychic visions and became adept at sharing, transferring, and interpreting memories. At her command, her followers documented her teachings and ideas, as well as a number of prophecies she is said to have discovered through visions. These prophecies are still popularly sold in Martian bookstores, usually with some reference to current events.
Her followers, armed with the recently-invented technology of printing, spread her message far and wide. In 792, she began to prophesize the imminent collapse of the united queendom. The Queen of Old Anharinan, Raan Kiya, ordered the dispersal of her followers and called for Avidah's execution. She and her closest students were kidnapped; after resisting telepathic conditioning, they were burned at the stake [3] as an example.
In 795, a mob of dissidents deposed Raan Kiya from the Obsidian Seat in Deshanor, and her body left to rot in the sand dunes outside the city. However, when no ruler could earn the support of the councils, Old Anharinan collapsed into many warring factions, with the queens in Deshanor having no power over them. Amid this new political decentralization, Arunism emerged as a new religious movement in the 820s and 830s, synthesizing old Avidian ideas with the Anharith traditional faith.
This new religion was popular with the laity, as opposed to memorists or any form of clergy; instead, a kind of all-believers priesthood emerged, preaching to all nations of the Anharinan. They combined the Anharith faith's customs and laws with Avidian precepts, recontextualizing them as the divinely-revealed mandates of Arun. The old gods, spirits, and mythic heroes of the Anharith remained. They became subservient divinities, the sacred attendants and messengers of Arun herself, venerated only with Arun's blessing.
The early Aruunists eschewed the shrines, temples, or holy houses which later became integral to the faith. Instead, priests adopted a nomadic lifestyle, performing their duties in the old tradition of the Anharith religion. This helped to rapidly expand the faith's appeal. By the twelfth century, Arunism had become the Anharinan's majority religion; many provinces bordering the cultural region converted to the faith as well. At the same time, Aruunism was also becoming more centralized - at the apex of this trend, the faith became more centralized than it is today. Adherents developed an organized system of religious orders, a priesthood of primary authority in the City of Deshanor, and even theodemocratic bodies governing the religion's written tradition.
Beginning in the 1220s, the industrialization and the outbreak of the Unification Wars had dramatic and cumulative effects on the religion.
See main article: The First Triumvirate.
[1] Arun's domain has also been characterized as passion, beauty, mercy, etc.
[2] Historians acknowledge that all accounts regarding the foundation of the old Queendom of the Anharith are steeped in legend, mythology, and willful ideological distortion. Some of the myths may yet contain historical facts; it is known that Sin Shiian led brutal conquests on many now-forgotten realms of the Ruuknan, dispersing or slaughtering disloyal nations. The legend of the founding may be inspired by an oral tradition which refers back to these events.
[3] While this mode of execution appears extremely barbaric to many human cultures, death by burning was - and largely still is in conservative, religious cultures - a more compassionate method than most others available, because it purifies and releases the soul of the condemned.
