This collection of essays analyzes ¿tradition¿ as a category in the historical and comparative study of religion. The book questions the common assumption that tradition is simply the ¿passing down¿ or imitation of prior practices and discourses. It begins from the premise that many traditions are, at least in part, social fabrications, often deliberately serving particular ideological ends. Individual chapters examine a wide variety of historical periods and religions (Congolese, Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Cree, Esoteric, Hawaiian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, New Religious Movement, and Shinto). Different sections of the book consider tradition's relation to three sets of issues: legitimation and authority; agency and identity; modernity and the West.

Introduction: Gregory P. Grieve/Richard Weiss Tradition, Legitimation and Authority Michel Despland: Tradition; Frederick S. Colby: The Rhetoric of Innovative Tradition in the Festival Commemorating the Night of Muhammad's Ascension; Aaron W. Hughes: The ¿Golden Age¿ of Muslim Spain: Religious Identity and the Invention of a Tradition in Modern Jewish Studies; Félix Ulombe Kaputo: Central African Women: Victims between African and Christian Traditions; Michiaki Okuyama: Historicizing Modern Shinto: A New Tradition of Yasukuni Shrine; Titus Hjelm: Tradition as Legitimation in New Religious Movements Tradition, Agency and Identity Susanna Morrill: Women and the Book of Mormon: The Creation and Negotiation of a Latter-Day Saint Tradition; Jason A. Carbine: Shwegyin Sasana: Continuity, Rupture, and Traditionalism in a Buddhist Tradition; Richard Weiss: The Autonomy of Tradition: Creating Space for Indian Medicine; Greg Johnson: Incarcerated Tradition: Native Hawaiian Identities and Religious Practice in Prison Contexts; Kocku von Stuckrad: Whose Tradition? Conflicting Ideologies in Medieval and Early Modern Esotericism; Lee Rainey: Confucianism and Tradition; Earle Waugh: Dispatches from Memory: Genealogies of Tradition Tradition, Modernity, and the West Gregory P. Grieve: Histories of Tradition in Bhaktapur, Nepal: Or, How to Compile A Contemporary Hindu Medieval City; Ira Robinson: Hasid and Maskil: The Hasidic Tales of an American Yiddish Journalist; Michael Hawley: Re-Orienting Tradition: Radhakrishnan's Hinduism; David W. Machacek/Adrienne Fulco: Rights and Values in the American Constitutional Tradition; Frank Usarski: (Re)Making Tradition in an International Tibetan Buddhist Movement: A Lesson from Lama Gangchen and Lama Michel; Steven Engler: Afterward: Tradition¿s Legacy