Vajrapani (Sanskrit Vajrapāṇi, Pali Vajirapāṇi, "holder of the thunderbolt," lit. meaning, "Vajra in [one's] hand") is one of the earliest-appearing bodhisattva in various sub-schools of Mahayana Buddhism.
He is alleged to be the protector and guide of the historical Buddha Gautama and rose to symbolize the Buddha's power.
Vajrapāni is also called Chana Dorje and Chador and extensively represented in Buddhist iconography as one of the earliest three protective deities or bodhisattvas surrounding the Buddha. Each of them symbolizes one of the Buddha's virtues... More
(Para Bellum) Nov. 6, 2025: Did ancient Rome really copy its religion from more ancient Greece — or is that just a modern myth? This video uncovers the true origins of Roman religion and shows how it developed into a unique and complex system of beliefs unlike anything in Greece.
The earliest Italic tribes of the Tiber Valley, whose worldview was shaped by animism (the belief that nature itself is alive with spirit), totemism (sacred tribal animals like wolves, woodpeckers, and boars), and fetishism — the idea that certain objects held divine power.
Discover the “pledges of Rome’s eternity,” seven sacred relics believed to guarantee the survival of the Roman state. From there, trace how Etruscan and Greek religion influenced Rome.
The Etruscans gave Roman gods human form, while the Greeks provided myths to explain their origins — pairing Jupiter with Zeus, Venus with Aphrodite, Mars with Ares, and so on.
But this blending was never perfect. Roman gods had different roles, personalities, and meanings. Explore gods the Greeks never had:
Janus, god of beginnings and endings;
Quirinus, protector of the Roman people;
the household Lares and personal Genius;
Pomona, Vertumnus, Terminus, Mefitis, and many others.
Roman religion also worshipped abstract values like Virtus (Valor), Pax (Peace), Fides (Loyalty), and Disciplina (Discipline), building entire temples to ideas rather than personalities.
Unlike Greek religion -- which emphasized myth, emotion, art, and beauty -- Roman religion was about duty, tradition, and exact ritual. The Romans believed the gods cared less about faith and more about whether rituals were performed flawlessly.
Every sacrifice, prayer, and gesture had to be precise — or repeated from the beginning. Divination was another core part of Roman religion.
Inherited from the Etruscans, practices like haruspicy (reading the entrails of sacrificed animals) and auspicy (interpreting bird signs) guided political decisions, wars, and daily life.
Uncover stories like Publius Claudius Pulcher at the Battle of Drepana, who mocked the sacred chickens — and lost an entire fleet.
Roman priests were not a separate religious class. Priesthoods were held by politicians and generals — Julius Caesar, Cicero, Sulla, Augustus, and Scipio Africanus all served as priests while leading the state, proving how religion and politics were inseparable in Rome.
In the end, Roman religion wasn’t a copy of Greek religion — it was a fusion of Italic, Etruscan, and Greek beliefs shaped by Roman values: duty, order, family, and the power of the state.
This video uncovers how it worked, what the Romans truly believed, and why their religious system helped build one of the greatest empires in history.
Bibliography
1. Beard, Mary. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. Profile Books, 2015.
2. Beard, Mary, John North, and Simon Price. Religions of Rome. Vol. 1: A History. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
3. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Haruspicum Responsis. 4. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Natura Deorum.
5. Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities.
6. Plutarch. Parallel Lives.
7. Scheid, John. An Introduction to Roman Religion. Indiana University Press, 2003.
8. Turcan, Robert. The Gods of Ancient Rome. Routledge, 2000.
9. Varro, Marcus Terentius. Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum (Fragments).
10. Wissowa, Georg. Religion und Kultus der Römer. C.H. Beck, 1912.
11. Rüpke, Jörg. “Divination and Roman Political Decision-Making.” Numen 44 (1997): 1–22.
12. Rüpke, Jörg, ed. A Companion to Roman Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
13. North, John. “Roman Religion.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 7. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
14. Scheid, John. An Introduction to Roman Religion. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
15. Scheid, John. Graeco Ritu: A Typically Roman Way of Honoring the Gods.
16. Bispham, Edward, and Christopher Smith, eds. Religion in Archaic and Republican Rome and Italy: Evidence and Experience
17. Schultz, Celia E., and Paul B. Harvey, eds. Religion in Republican Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
(MisunderstAndy) June 19, 2025: There are a lot of gods in the [allegedly monotheistic Judeo-Christian, written in polytheistic Israel/Palestine but appropriated in large part from super ancient Sumerian texts] Bible. Here's a video about those deities. The true history of the Hebrew Jewish national God
PBS America (UK, Aug. 8, 2022); Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Vajra Sky Over Tibet | Journey into Buddhism (full special)
(PBS America) From PBS, this stunning pilgrimage, “beautifully shot in Tibet’s most sacred sites” as described by Variety, received the blessing of the 14th Dalai Lama and bears witness to the indomitable faith of the Tibetan Buddhist community and the imminent threat to its very survival. Traveling through breathtaking Himalayan terrain, this is the third film in John Bush’s Yatra Trilogy.
Called “eye-opening and essential if you have an interest in Eastern spirituality” by the Boston Globe and an “illuminating meditation” by Variety, these visually stunning documentaries are cinematic pilgrimages to legendary places in Southeast Asia and Tibet, including the spiritual wonders of Laos, Thailand, Burma, Bali, Cambodia, Java, and Central Tibet.
ABOUT: Welcome to PBS America, a British TV channel from America’s public service broadcaster, PBS, showcasing award-winning American history, science, current affairs, plus arts and culture shows alongside the works of living legend Ken Burns, output is all hand-picked by a British team. More PBS America:
Website: pbsamerica.co.uk, twitter.com/pbsamerica, facebook.com/PBSAmerica,instagram.com/pbsintheuk.Vajra Sky Over Tibet | Journey into Buddhism FULL SPECIAL | PBS America
youtu.be/fxDnEUitkWg
Nun Namdak Choeying, 44, prays in room she shares with
two other nuns in Dharamsala. In Tibet she aspired for full ordination and escaped to India in 2006. She dreams of being reunited with five siblings and parents in Tibet and immerses herself in prayers to keep her mind
occupied (A).
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Monk Dorjee, 38, and his father, 27 years apart.
In 1959, following the failed Tibetan uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama sought refuge in [Himalayan] India. Soon after that, thousands of Tibetans followed suit in order to escape religious and cultural persecution [by the Chinese].
a Tibetan photographer currently working for the Associated Press based in New Delhi, has produced a body of work documenting the plight of Tibetan exiles now living in India.
A car drives along a road that snakes beneath snow-capped peaks near
Zoji La in Indian Kashmir. Many Tibetans say that being in the mountains
makes them miss their homeland.
(Uprising Archive) Documentary overview of events in Tibet in the spring of
2008 as reported to the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy by
verified sources. Not an exhaustive account. More: tchrd.org; uprisingarchive.org.
Kalsang, 19, studies Buddhism near
Dharamsala.
Like so many other Tibetans before him, Topgyal was 8-years-old when his parents paid a smuggler to take him across the Himalayan mountains on a week-long journey by foot from Tibet to Dharamsala, in the state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India. He has not seen his family since.
In 2007, while studying English literature at a college near Mumbai, Topgyal took photography classes in the evening and began freelancing for the AP in New Delhi a year later.
He began photographing his schoolmates and others who were smuggled out of Tibet at an early age, and he soon realized that the photo document was a powerful tool to show the world the difficulties Tibetan exiles faces.
“The great tragedy of my life is not being separated from my family,” he said to the New York Times, “but being separated from the sensibility of missing them after living without them for decades.”
Alex Grey discusses his direct experience with a mind expanding, shamanic substance. The drug (an entheogen) in question is the sacramental Ayahuasca -- an Amazon tea brewed from a jungle vine and tree bark.
More than psychedelic and/or hallucinogenic properties, the molecule of consciousness (DMT) it contains is said to have the ability (like ancient manna, soma, amrita, and the divine or immortal nectar) to put one in communication with otherwise unseen beings. Grey claims its effects are those spoken of in Buddhist meditation and enlightenment.
Its serotonergic effects are indeed analogous to those of Prozac and other synthetic pharmaceuticals aimed at rebalancing brain chemistry -- without the toxic side effects of consuming fluoride and other excipients.
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