Myth and Religion: A Philosophical Study of Mircea Eliade s Theory of Myth

One of the leading scholars in the field of history of religions is Mircea Eliade, who lived in France and England for the last decade of his life. Although mythologists believe that myth has various functions, according to Eliade myth is always an account of creation. It tells how creation has begun and how it will accomplish. Therefore myth has a close relation with ontology. It speaks of primordial realities, of what really happened, and what was fully manifested. Eliade believes that the reality is the sacred, which pre-eminently is real. His analysis is based on the distinction between the sacred and the profane. This article mentions Eliade's perspectives within a variety of academic fields, including mythology, philosophy of religion, and religious study, and surveys the relation between religion and myth. Finally, it discusses about mythic- symbolic characteristics of religions.