ABSTRACT
From its inception in the nineteenth century to the present, the academic study of religion has been dominated by the comparative method.2
Alongside the study of individual religious traditions, most often on the basis of textual evidence, scholars have explored ways of studying “religion” and “religions” by comparing fundamental elements and strategies found in various different traditions. The validity of this approach to the study of religion has often been questioned, but it seems that no viable alternative has yet been presented.3 The comparative method in the study of religion is obviously fraught with difficulties. Power relations and ideology loom large in various stages of the process of comparison, for instance in the selection and naming of the subject, the selection of cultures or traditions to be compared, the description and contextualisation of the subject, and so on.4 This is why opponents of comparativism have little difficulty in pointing out the many examples of projects that have gone haywire, often on a monumental scale.
