Ninth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

The paper focuses on the visual symbols of religions. I would like to analyse three religious symbols from viewpoint of how they can be used to express the idea of religious-philosophical, theological theories. The first is a tribal symbol of a shaman drum from Central-Asia, the second is a medieval Christian motif with the main animal symbols of Christianity in a concentric circle-structure and the third is the Chinese Taoist symbol of Bagua with the eight octagonal trigrams and the Yin and Yang motif in its centre. All of them have a central geometrical structure and a complex visual content. Naturally, they have absolutely different cultural-religious background, subject matters, and themes, as we can understand their accurate meanings by their semantic examination. However, when they are submitted to a syntactic analysis, the similar visual logic in their compositions is clearly visible. According to the syntactic analyses. With the help of the theory and method of visual semiotics, we could analyse the common cognitive schemes in different religious symbols.