5th century BCE

A ritual is a formal, patterned rite performed on an occasion: a sacrament, an initiation, a calendrical observance, a rite of passage, a consecration. This category gathers the set rites of religious and esoteric practice, recording for each what the rite consists of, the tradition that performs it, and what it is held to accomplish.

Rites tend to be prescribed and repeatable, done in a set way, at set times or on set occasions, and much of a tradition's life is carried in them: birth, initiation, marriage and death are marked by rite in nearly every tradition, as are the turning-points of the year.

Traditions understand their rites in different ways, as effecting a real change (a sacrament that conveys grace, an initiation that alters status), as commemorating an event, as maintaining a cosmic or social order, or as a means of purification or protection, and the entries record the tradition's own understanding.

The rituals group by function (initiatory, calendrical, funerary, purification, sacrificial, devotional and the rest), so a reader can compare how different traditions mark the same passage. The ongoing disciplines of religious life, as opposed to set rites, are treated as practices.