Religious syncretism at contact points

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The observed pattern by which a travelling tradition, on arrival, is expressed in the visual, linguistic and ritual vocabulary already present — rather than replacing what it meets. Examples in the record include Gandharan sculpture rendering the Buddha with Hellenistic drapery and facial conventions; the Xi'an stele of 781 describing Christian doctrine in Daoist and Buddhist Chinese vocabulary; Javanese monumental Buddhism at Borobudur alongside Hindu temple building; and Sufi-mediated Islam in Southeast Asia absorbing Hindu-Buddhist artistic and courtly forms. 'Syncretism' is itself a contested analytic term — some scholars object that it implies an original purity that never existed, and prefer 'localisation', 'vernacularisation' or 'translation'. This package uses it descriptively, not evaluatively, and takes no position on whether any resulting form is more or less authentic.

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