TEARS have always played important roles as symbols and signs in religious life around the world, yet they have only recently begun to attract significant scholarly interest. From the tears shed in love and longing for the absent Kṛṣṇa by the gopis (milk maidens) in Brindavin to those shed by Shiʿi Muslims during the annual remembrance of the martyrdom of al-Husayn; from the tears of compunction of Christian mystics to "the welcome of tears" of the Tapirapé people of central Brazil (in which friends literally bathe each other when meeting), tears are ubiquitous in the world's religions. A general overview of tears in the history of religions based on a general phenomenology of tears enables us to appreciate many of symbolic associations tears have had in diverse religious traditions, as well as their many uses in religious rituals. No attempt is made here to exhaust the...