TERMS STARTING WITH
compendium ::: 1. A brief treatment or account of a subject, esp. an extensive subject; concise treatise. 2. A short, complete summary; an abstract.
compendium ::: n. --> A brief compilation or composition, containing the principal heads, or general principles, of a larger work or system; an abridgment; an epitome; a compend; a condensed summary.
compendiums ::: pl. --> of Compendium
TERMS ANYWHERE
abbreviature ::: n. --> An abbreviation; an abbreviated state or form.
An abridgment; a compendium or abstract.
Abhidhammatthasangaha. In PAli, "Summary of the Meaning of Abhidharma"; a synoptic manual of PAli ABHIDHARMA written by the Sri Lankan monk ANURUDDHA (d.u.), abbot of the Mulasoma VihAra in Polonnaruwa, sometime between the eighth and twelfth centuries CE, but most probably around the turn of the eleventh century. (Burmese tradition instead dates the text to the first century BCE.) The terse Abhidhammatthasangaha Has been used for centuries as an introductory primer for the study of abhidharma in the monasteries of Sri Lanka and the THERAVADA countries of Southeast Asia; indeed, no other abhidharma text has received more scholarly attention within the tradition, especially in Burma, where this primer has been the object of multiple commentaries and vernacular translations. The Abhidhammatthasangaha includes nine major sections, which provide a systematic overview of PAli Buddhist doctrine. Anuruddha summarizes the exegeses appearing in BUDDHAGHOSA's VISUDDHIMAGGA, though the two works could hardly be more different: where the Visuddhimagga offers an exhaustive exegesis of THERAVADA abhidharma accompanied by a plethora of historical and mythical detail, the Abhidhammatthasangaha is little more than a list of topics, like a bare table of contents. Especially noteworthy in the Abhidhammatthasangaha is its analysis of fifty-two mental concomitants (CETASIKA), in distinction to the forty-six listed in SARVASTIVADA ABHIDHARMA and the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA. There is one major PAli commentary to the Abhidhammatthasangaha still extant, the PorAnatīkA, which is attributed to Vimalabuddhi (d.u.). The Abhidhammatthasangaha appears in the Pali Text Society's English translation series as Compendium of Philosophy.
Abhidharmasamuccaya. (T. Chos mngon pa kun las btus pa; C. Dasheng Apidamo ji lun; J. Daijo Abidatsuma juron; K. Taesŭng Abidalma chip non 大乘阿毘達磨集論). In Sanskrit, "Compendium of Abhidharma"; an influential scholastic treatise attributed to ASAnGA. The Abhidharmasamuccaya provides a systematic and comprehensive explanation of various categories of DHARMAs in ABHIDHARMA fashion, in five major sections. Overall, the treatise continues the work of earlier abhidharma theorists, but it also seems to uphold a MAHAYANA and, more specifically, YOGACARA viewpoint. For example, unlike SARVASTIVADA abhidharma materials, which provide detailed listings of dharmas in order to demonstrate the range of factors that perdure throughout all three time periods (TRIKALA) of past, present, and future, Asanga's exposition tends to reject any notion that dharmas are absolute realities, thus exposing their inherent emptiness (suNYATA). The first section of the treatise, Laksanasamuccaya ("Compendium of Characteristics"), first explains the five SKANDHA, twelve AYATANA, and eighteen DHATU in terms of their attributes (MATṚKA) and then their includedness (saMgraha), association (saMprayoga), and accompaniment (samanvAgama). The second section of the treatise, Satyaviniscaya ("Ascertainment of the Truths"), is generally concerned with and classified according to the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvAry AryasatyAni). The third section, Dharmaviniscaya ("Ascertainment of the Dharma"), outlines the teachings of Buddhism in terms of the twelve divisions (DVADAsAnGA[PRAVACANA]) of texts in the TRIPItAKA. The fourth section, PrAptiviniscaya ("Ascertainment of Attainments"), outlines the various types of Buddhist practitioners and their specific realizations (ABHISAMAYA). The fifth and last section, SAMkathyaviniscaya ("Ascertainment of Argumentation"), outlines specific modes of debate that will enable one to defeat one's opponents. Fragments of the Sanskrit text of the Abhidharmasamuccaya (discovered in Tibet in 1934) are extant, along with a Tibetan translation and a Chinese translation made by XUANZANG in 652 CE. A commentary on the treatise by STHIRAMATI, known as the AbhidharmasamuccayavyAkhyA(na), was also translated into Chinese by Xuanzang.
Asanga. (T. Thogs med; C. Wuzhao; J. Mujaku; K. Much'ak 無著) (c. 320-c. 390 CE). a.k.a. Arya Asanga, Indian scholar who is considered to be a founder of the YOGACARA school of MAHAYANA Buddhism. In the Tibetan tradition, he is counted as one of the "six ornaments of JAMBUDVĪPA" ('dzam gling rgyan drug), together with VASUBANDHU, NAGARJUNA and ARYADEVA, and DIGNAGA and DHARMAKĪRTI. Born into a brAhmana family in Purusapura (modern-day Peshawar, Pakistan), Asanga originally studied under SARVASTIVADA (possibly MAHĪsASAKA) teachers but converted to the MahAyAna later in life. His younger brother was the important exegete Vasubandhu; it is said that he was converted to the MahAyAna by Asanga. According to traditional accounts, Asanga spent twelve years in meditation retreat, after which he received a vision of the future buddha MAITREYA. He visited Maitreya's abode in TUsITA heaven, where the bodhisattva instructed him in MahAyAna and especially YogAcAra doctrine. Some of these teachings were collected under the name MaitreyanAtha, and the Buddhist tradition generally regards them as revealed by Asanga through the power of the future buddha. Some modern scholars, however, have posited the existence of a historical figure named MAITREYANATHA or simply Maitreya. Asanga is therefore associated with what are known as the "five treatises of MaitreyanAtha" (the ABHISAMAYALAMKARA, the DHARMADHARMATAVIBHAGA, the MADHYANTAVIBHAGA, the MAHAYANASuTRALAMKARA, and the RATNAGOTRAVIBHAGA). Asanga was a prolific author, composing commentaries on the SAMDHINIRMOCANASuTRA and the VAJRACCHEDIKAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA. Among his independent treatises, three are particularly important. The ABHIDHARMASAMUCCAYA sets forth the categories of the ABHIDHARMA from a YogAcAra perspective. The MAHAYANASAMGRAHA is a detailed exposition of YogAcAra doctrine, setting forth such topics as the ALAYAVIJNANA and the TRISVABHAVA as well as the constituents of the path. His largest work is the compendium entitled YOGACARABHuMIsASTRA. Two of its sections, the sRAVAKABHuMI and the BODHISATTVABHuMI, circulated as independent works, with the former important for its exposition of the practice of DHYANA and the latter for its exposition of the bodhisattva's practice of the six PARAMITA; the chapter on sĪLA is particularly influential. These texts have had a lasting and profound impact on the development of Buddhism, especially in India, Tibet, and East Asia. Among the great figures in the history of Indian Buddhism, Asanga is rare for the breadth of his interests and influence, making significant contributions to philosophy (as the founder of YogAcAra), playing a key role in TATHAGATAGARBHA thought (through the RatnagotravibhAga), and providing significant expositions of Buddhist practice (in the YogAcArabhumi).
Auctoritas: St. Augustine distinguishes divine from human authority: Auctoritas autem partim divina est, partim humana: sed vera, firma, summa ea est quae divina nominatur. Thus God is the highest authority. It is distinctly advantageous to rely on authority: Auctoritati credere magnum compendium. est, nullus labor. Both authority and reason impel us to learn: Nulli autem dubium est gemino pondere nos impelli ad discendum, auctoritatis atque rationis. -- J.J.R.
Bodhicittavivarana. (T. Byang chub sems 'grel). In Sanskrit, "Exposition of the Mind of Enlightenment"; a work traditionally ascribed to NAGARJUNA, although the text is not cited by NAgArjuna's commentators BUDDHAPALITA, CANDRAKĪRTI, or BHAVAVIVEKA. This absence, together with apparently tantric elements in the text and the fact that it contains a sustained critique of VIJNANAVADA, have led some scholars to conclude that it is not the work of the same NAgArjuna who authored the MuLAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA. Nonetheless, the work is widely cited in later Indian MahAyAna literature and is important in Tibet. The text consists of 112 stanzas, preceded by a brief section in prose. It is essentially a compendium of MAHAYANA theory and practice, intended for bodhisattvas, both monastic and lay, organized around the theme of BODHICITTA, both in its conventional aspect (SAMVṚTIBODHICITTA) as the aspiration to buddhahood out of compassion for all sentient beings, and in its ultimate aspect (PARAMARTHABODHICITTA) as the insight into emptiness (suNYATA). In addition to the refutation of VijNAnavAda, the text refutes the self as understood by the TĪRTHIKAs and the SKANDHAs as understood by the sRAVAKAs.
bodhicittotpAda. (T. byang chub kyi sems bskyed pa; C. fa puti xin; J. hotsubodaishin; K. pal pori sim 發菩提心). In Sanskrit, "generating the aspiration for enlightenment," "creating (utpAda) the thought (CITTA) of enlightenment (BODHI)"; a term used to describe both the process of developing BODHICITTA, the aspiration to achieve buddhahood, as well as the state achieved through such development. The MAHAYANA tradition treats this aspiration as having great significance in one's spiritual career, since it marks the entry into the MahAyAna and the beginning of the BODHISATTVA path. The process by which this "thought of enlightenment" (bodhicitta) is developed and sustained is bodhicittotpAda. Various types of techniques or conditional environments conducive to bodhicittotpAda are described in numerous MahAyAna texts and treatises. The BODHISATTVABHuMI says that there are four predominant conditions (ADHIPATIPRATYAYA) for generating bodhicitta: (1) witnessing an inconceivable miracle (ṛddhiprAtihArya) performed by a buddha or a bodhisattva, (2) listening to a teaching regarding enlightenment (BODHI) or to the doctrine directed at bodhisattvas (BODHISATTVAPItAKA), (3) recognizing the dharma's potential to be extinguished and seeking therefore to protect the true dharma (SADDHARMA), (4) seeing that sentient beings are troubled by afflictions (KLEsA) and empathizing with them. The Fa putixinjing lun introduces another set of four conditions for generating bodhicitta: (1) reflecting on the buddhas; (2) contemplating the dangers (ADĪNAVA) inherent in the body; (3) developing compassion (KARUnA) toward sentient beings; (4) seeking the supreme result (PHALA). The Chinese apocryphal treatise DASHENG QIXIN LUN ("Awakening of Faith According to the MahAyAna") refers to three types of bodhicittotpAda: that which derives from the accomplishment of faith, from understanding and practice, and from realization. JINGYING HUIYUAN (523-592) in his DASHENG YIZHANG ("Compendium on the Purport of MahAyAna") classifies bodhicittotpAda into three groups: (1) the generation of the mind based on characteristics, in which the bodhisattva, perceiving the characteristics of SAMSARA and NIRVAnA, abhors saMsAra and aspires to seek nirvAna; (2) the generation of the mind separate from characteristics, in which the bodhisattva, recognizing that the nature of saMsAra is not different from nirvAna, leaves behind any perception of their distinctive characteristics and generates an awareness of their equivalency; (3) the generation of the mind based on truth, in which the bodhisattva, recognizing that the original nature of bodhi is identical to his own mind, returns to his own original state of mind. The Korean scholiast WoNHYO (617-686), in his Muryangsugyong chongyo ("Doctrinal Essentials of the 'Sutra of Immeasurable Life'"), considers the four great vows of the bodhisattva (see C. SI HONGSHIYUAN) to be bodhicitta and divides its generation into two categories: viz., the aspiration that accords with phenomena (susa palsim) and the aspiration that conforms with principle (suri palsim). The topic of bodhicittotpAda is the subject of extensive discussion and exegesis in Tibetan Buddhism. For example, in his LAM RIM CHEN MO, TSONG KHA PA sets forth two techniques for developing this aspiration. The first, called the "seven cause and effect precepts" (rgyu 'bras man ngag bdun) is said to derive from ATIsA DIPAMKARAsRĪJNANA. The seven are (1) recognition of all sentient beings as having been one's mother in a past life, (2) recognition of their kindness, (3) the wish to repay their kindness, (4) love, (5) compassion, (6) the wish to liberate them from suffering, and (7) bodhicitta. The second, called the equalizing and exchange of self and other (bdag gzhan mnyam brje) is derived from the eighth chapter of sANTIDEVA's BODHICARYAVATARA. It begins with the recognition that oneself and others equally want happiness and do not want suffering. It goes on to recognize that by cherishing others more than oneself, one ensures the welfare of both oneself (by becoming a buddha) and others (by teaching them the dharma). MahAyAna sutra literature typically assumes that, after generating the bodhicitta, the bodhisattva will require not one, but three "incalculable eons" (ASAMKHYEYAKALPA) of time in order to complete all the stages (BHuMI) of the bodhisattva path (MARGA) and achieve buddhahood. The Chinese HUAYAN ZONG noted, however, that the bodhisattva had no compunction about practicing for such an infinity of time, because he realized at the very inception of the path that he was already a fully enlightened buddha. They cite in support of this claim the statement in the "BrahmacaryA" chapter of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA that "at the time of the initial generation of the aspiration for enlightenment (bodhicittotpAda), complete, perfect enlightenment (ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI) is already achieved."
Bo dong. Name of a place in central Tibet and of a small, institutionally independent Tibetan Buddhist sect with its major seat at Bo dong E monastery. The sect was founded in about 1049 in the Shigatse region of Tibet by the BKA' GDAMS geshe (DGE BSHES) Mu dra pa chen po, who invited SthirapAla ('Bum phrag gsum pa), a contemporary of ATIsA DĪPAMKARAsRĪJNANA, to stay in the monastery on his arrival from India. The monastery's earlier history is not well known, though it is compared by some to the more famous Bka' gdams monastery GSANG PHU NE'U THOG, founded by RNGOG LEGS PA'I SHES RAB. KO BRAG PA BSOD NAMS RGYAL MTSHAN, an abbot of Bo dong, is known for his teaching of the KALACAKRA sadangayoga practice, and for propagating a lineage of the LAM 'BRAS "path and result" teaching that was later subsumed into the SA SKYA tradition. The Bo dong sect, as it is now known, begins properly with BO DONG PHYOGS LAS RNAM RGYAL, who wrote a huge encyclopedic work De nyid 'dus pa ("Compendium of the Principles") in 137 volumes (in the incomplete published edition). The monastary of Bsam lding (Samding) overlooking Yam 'brog mtsho retains an affiliation with the Bo dong sect; it was founded for a student of Phyogs las rnam rgyal, the Gung thang princess Chos kyi sgron me (1422-1455). It is the only Tibetan monastery whose abbot is traditionally a woman; her incarnations are said to be those of the goddess VAJRAVARAHĪ (T. Rdo rje phag mo), "Sow-Headed Goddess."
Bo dong Phyogs las rnam rgyal. (Chokle Namgyal) (1376-1451). The twenty-third abbot of Bo dong E monastery, founded in about 1049 by the BKA' GDAMS geshe (DGE BSHES) Mu dra pa chen po, and the founder of the BO DONG tradition. His collected works, said to number thirty-six titles, include his huge encyclopedic work De nyid 'dus pa ("Compendium of the Principles"); it alone runs to 137 volumes in the incomplete edition published by Tibet House in Delhi. Phyogs las rnam rgyal (who is sometimes confused with Jo nang pa Phyogs las rnam rgyal who lived some fifty years earlier) was a teacher of DGE 'DUN GRUB (retroactively named the first DALAI LAMA) and MKHAS GRUB DGE LEGS DPAL BZANG, both students of TSONG KHA PA. Among his leading disciples was the king of Gung thang, Lha dbang rgyal mtshan (1404-1463), whose daughter Chos kyi sgron me (1422-1455) became a nun after the death of her daughter and then the head of Bsam lding (Samding) monastery, which her father founded for her. The monastery is the only Tibetan monastery whose abbot is traditionally a woman; incarnations are said to be those of the goddess VAJRAVARAHĪ (T. Rdo rje phag mo), "Sow-Headed Goddess."
Buddhaghosa. (S. Buddhaghosa) (fl. c. 370-450 CE). The preeminent PAli commentator, who translated into PAli the Sinhalese commentaries to the PAli canon and wrote the VISUDDHIMAGGA ("Path of Purification"), the definitive outline of THERAVADA doctrine.There are several conflicting accounts of Buddhaghosa's origins, none of which can be dated earlier than the thirteenth century. The Mon of Lower Burma claim him as a native son, although the best-known story, which is found in the CulAVAMSA (chapter 37), describes Buddhaghosa as an Indian brAhmana who grew up in the environs of the MAHABODHI temple in northern India. According to this account, his father served as a purohita (brAhmana priest) for King SangAma, while he himself became proficient in the Vedas and related Brahmanical sciences at an early age. One day, he was defeated in a debate by a Buddhist monk named Revata, whereupon he entered the Buddhist SAMGHA to learn more about the Buddha's teachings. He received his monk's name Buddhaghosa, which means "Voice of the Buddha," because of his sonorous voice and impressive rhetorical skills. Buddhaghosa took Revata as his teacher and began writing commentaries even while a student. Works written at this time included the NAnodaya and AttHASALINĪ. To deepen his understanding (or according to some versions of his story, as punishment for his intellectual pride), Buddhaghosa was sent to Sri Lanka to study the Sinhalese commentaries on the PAli Buddhist canon (P. tipitaka; S. TRIPItAKA). These commentaries were said to have been brought to Sri Lanka in the third century BCE, where they were translated from PAli into Sinhalese and subsequently preserved at the MAHAVIHARA monastery in the Sri Lankan capital of ANURADHAPURA. At the MahAvihAra, Buddhghosa studied under the guidance of the scholar-monk SanghapAla. Upon completing his studies, he wrote the great compendium of TheravAda teachings, Visuddhimagga, which summarizes the contents of the PAli tipitaka under the threefold heading of morality (sīla; S. sĪLA), meditative absorption (SAMADHI), and wisdom (paNNA; S. PRAJNA). Impressed with his expertise, the elders of the MahAvihAra allowed Buddhaghosa to translate the Sinhalese commentaries back into PAli, the canonical language of the TheravAda tipitaka. Attributed to Buddhaghosa are the VINAYA commentaries, SAMANTAPASADIKA and KankhAvitaranī; the commentaries to the SUTTAPItAKA, SUMAnGALAVILASINĪ, PAPANCASuDANĪ, SARATTHAPPAKASINĪ, and MANORATHAPuRAnĪ; also attributed to him is the PARAMATTHAJOTIKA (the commentary to the KHUDDAKAPAtHA and SUTTANIPATA). Buddhaghosa's commentaries on the ABHIDHAMMAPItAKA (see ABHIDHARMA) include the SAMMOHAVINODANĪ and PANCAPPAKARAnAttHAKATHA, along with the AtthasAlinī. Of these many works, Buddhaghosa is almost certainly author of the Visuddhimagga and translator of the commentaries to the four nikAyas, but the remainder are probably later attributions. Regardless of attribution, the body of work associated with Buddhaghosa was profoundly influential on the entire subsequent history of Buddhist scholasticism in the TheravAda traditions of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.
Bunkyo hifuron. (文鏡秘府論). In Japanese, "A Mirror on Literature and a Treasury of Marvels Treatise"; a work on classical Chinese poetics and prosody, composed by the Japanese SHINGONSHu monk KuKAI, probably in the early ninth century. The work was intended to serve as a vade mecum on classical Chinese writing style and literary allusions for Japanese ranging from novice monks who needed to know how to parse Buddhist MANTRAs and DHARAnĪs to diplomats or scribes who had to compose elegant Chinese prose and verse. The treatise is titled a "mirror on literature" because it describes correct Chinese style and a "treasury of marvels" because it serves as a literary compendium and thesaurus. The text is significant not only because of its impact on the development of Japanese classical-Chinese writing, but also because its extensive extracts of original Chinese sources (most now lost) stand as a valuable resource for the study of Tang literature.
compendia ::: pl. --> of Compendium
compendium ::: 1. A brief treatment or account of a subject, esp. an extensive subject; concise treatise. 2. A short, complete summary; an abstract.
compendium ::: n. --> A brief compilation or composition, containing the principal heads, or general principles, of a larger work or system; an abridgment; an epitome; a compend; a condensed summary.
compendiums ::: pl. --> of Compendium
compend ::: n. --> A compendium; an epitome; a summary.
comprisal ::: n. --> The act of comprising or comprehending; a compendium or epitome.
Dasheng dayi zhang. (J. Daijo daigisho; K. Taesŭng taeŭi chang 大乗大義章). In Chinese "Compendium of the Great Purport of the Mahāyāna," in three rolls; also known as the Jiumoluoshi fashi dayi, or "The Great Purport of the Great Master KUMĀRAJĪVA." The Dasheng dayi zhang is a compendium of letters that Kumārajīva wrote in reply to LUSHAN HUIYUAN's inquiries about MAHĀYĀNA doctrine. There are a total of eighteen categories of questions that are concerned largely with the nature of the dharma body (DHARMAKĀYA), emptiness (suNYATĀ), and the mind (CITTA). The Dasheng dayi zhang is a valuable source for studying the development of Mahāyāna thought in China.
Dasheng yi zhang. (J. Daijo gisho; K. Taesŭng ŭi chang 大乗義章). In Chinese, "Compendium of the Purport of Mahāyāna"; compiled by JINGYING HUIYUAN; a comprehensive dictionary of Buddhist numerical lists that functions as a virtual encyclopedia of MAHĀYĀNA doctrine. Huiyuan organized 249 matters of doctrine into five sections: teachings, meanings, afflictions, purity, and miscellaneous matters (this last section is no longer extant). Each section is organized numerically, much as are some ABHIDHARMA treatises. The section on afflictions begins, for instance, with the meaning of the two hindrances and ends with the 84,000 hindrances. These various listings are then explained from a Mahāyāna perspective, with corroboration drawn from quotations from scriptures, treatises, and the sayings of other teachers. The Dasheng yi zhang serves as an important source for the study of Chinese Mahāyāna thought as it had developed during the Sui dynasty (589-618).
Dazhidu lun. (J. Daichidoron; K. Taejido non 大智度論). In Chinese, "Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom"; an important Chinese text that is regarded as the translation of a Sanskrit work whose title has been reconstructed as *MāhāprājNāpāramitāsāstra or *MahāprajNāpāramitopedesa. The work is attributed to the MADHYAMAKA exegete NĀGĀRJUNA, but no Sanskrit manuscripts or Tibetan translations are known and no references to the text in Indian or Tibetan sources have been identified. The work was translated into Chinese by the KUCHA monk KUMĀRAJĪVA (344-413) between 402 and 406; it was not translated into Chinese again. Some scholars speculate that the work was composed by an unknown Central Asian monk of the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school who had "converted" to MADHYAMAKA, perhaps even Kumārajīva himself. The complete text was claimed to have been one hundred thousand slokas or one thousand rolls (zhuan) in length, but the extant text is a mere one hundred rolls. It is divided into two major sections: the first is Kumārajīva's full translation of the first fifty-two chapters of the text; the second is his selective translations from the next eighty-nine chapters of the text. The work is a commentary on the PANCAVIMsATISĀHASRIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRA, and is veritable compendium of Buddhist doctrine, replete with quotations from a wide range of Indian texts. Throughout the translation, there appear frequent and often substantial interlinear glosses and interpolations, apparently provided by Kumārajīva himself and targeting his Chinese readership; it is the presence of such interpolations that has raised questions about the text's Indian provenance. In the first thirty-four rolls, the Dazhidu lun provides a detailed explanation of the basic concepts, phrases, places, and figures that appear in the PaNcaviMsatisāhasrikāprajNāpāramitā (e.g., BHAGAVAT, EVAM MAYĀ sRUTAM, RĀJAGṚHA, buddha, BODHISATTVA, sRĀVAKA, sĀRIPUTRA, suNYATĀ, NIRVĀnA, the six PĀRAMITĀ, and ten BALA). The scope of the commentary is extremely broad, covering everything from doctrine, legends, and rituals to history and geography. The overall concern of the Dazhidu lun seems to have been the elucidation of the concept of buddhahood, the bodhisattva career, the MAHĀYĀNA path (as opposed to that of the HĪNAYĀNA), PRAJNĀ, and meditation. The Dazhidu lun thus served as an authoritative source for the study of Mahāyāna in China and was favored by many influential writers such as SENGZHAO, TIANTAI ZHIYI, FAZANG, TANLUAN, and SHANDAO. Since the time of the Chinese scriptural catalogue KAIYUAN SHIJIAO LU (730), the Dazhidu lun, has headed the roster of sĀSTRA materials collected in the Chinese Buddhist canon (DAZANGJING; see also KORYo TAEJANGGYoNG); this placement is made because it is a principal commentary to the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ sutras that open the SuTRA section of the canon. Between 1944 and 1980, the Belgian scholar ÉTIENNE LAMOTTE published an annotated French translation of the entire first section and chapter 20 of the second section as Le Traité de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse, in five volumes.
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The Talmud comprises the Mishnah (mishnah, &
Dharmakīrti. (T. Chos kyi grags pa; C. Facheng; J. Hosho; K. Popch'ing 法稱) (c. 600-670 CE). Indian Buddhist logician, who was one of the most important and influential figures in the history of Buddhist philosophy. Dharmakīrti was the author of a series of seminal works building on his predecessor DIGNĀGA's PRAMĀnASAMUCCAYA ("Compendium on Valid Knowledge"), defending it against criticism by Brahmanical writers and explaining how accurate knowledge could be gleaned (see PRAMĀnA). His "seven treatises on pramāna" (T. TSHAD MA SDE 'DUN) are the PRAMĀnAVĀRTTIKA ("Commentary on Valid Knowledge") and PRAMĀnAVINIsCAYA ("Determination of Valid Knowledge"), as well as the NYĀYABINDU ("Drop of Reasoning"), the Hetubindu ("Drop of Reasons"), the Sambandhaparīksā ("Analysis of Relations"), the SaMtānāntarasiddhi ("Proof of Other Mental Continuums"), and the Vādanyāya ("Reasoning for Debate"). Dharmakīrti proposed a causal efficacy connecting the sense object and sensory perception as the basis of reliable perception (PRATYAKsA), thereby attempting to remove the potential fallacy in Dignāga's acceptance of the infallibility of sense data themselves. Dharmakīrti wrote explanations of many of his own works, and DHARMOTTARA, sākyamati, PRAJNĀKARAGUPTA, and Manorathanandin, among others, wrote detailed commentaries on his works. He had a profound influence on the exchange between subsequent Indian Buddhist writers, such as sĀNTARAKsITA, KAMALAsĪLA, and HARIBHADRA, and contemporary Brahmanical Naiyāyika and MīmāMsaka thinkers. His work subsequently became the focus of intense study in Tibet, first in GSANG PHU NE'U THOG monastery where RNGOG BLO LDAN SHES RAB and later PHYWA PA CHOS KYI SENG GE established through their commentaries on the PRAMĀnAVINIsCAYA an influential tradition of interpretation; it was questioned by SA SKYA PAndITA in his TSHAD MA RIGS GTER, giving rise to a second line of interpretation more in line with Dharmakīrti's original works. There is a question of Dharmakīrti's philosophical affiliation, with elements in his works that reflect both SAUTRĀNTIKA and YOGĀCĀRA doctrinal positions.
Dignāga. [alt. Dinnāga] (T. Phyogs glang; C. Chenna; J. Jinna; K. Chinna 陳那) (c. 480-c. 540). Indian monk regarded as the formalizer of Buddhist logic (NYĀYA; HETUVIDYĀ). Dignāga was an influential innovator in Buddhist inferential reasoning or logical syllogisms (PRAYOGA; SĀDHANA), an important feature of Indian philosophy more broadly, which occupies a crucial place in later Indian and Tibetan philosophical analysis. The Indian Nyāya (Logic) school advocated that there were five necessary stages in syllogistic reasoning: (1) probandum or proposition (PRATIJNĀ), "The mountain is on fire"; (2) reason (HETU), "because there is smoke," (3) analogy (udāharana), "Whatever is smoky is on fire, like a stove, but unlike a lake"; (4) application (upanāya), "Since this mountain is smoky, it is on fire"; (5) conclusion (nigamana), "The mountain is on fire." Using the same example, Dignāga by contrast reduced the syllogism down to only three essential steps: (1) probandum or proposition (PAKsA), "the mountain is on fire"; (2) reason (hetu), "because there is smoke"; (3) exemplification (dṛstānta), "whatever is smoky is on fire, like a stove," and "whatever is not on fire is not smoky, like a lake," or, more simply, "like a stove, unlike a lake." Dignāga is also the first scholiast to incorporate into Buddhism the Vaisesika position that there are only two valid means of knowledge (PRAMĀnA): direct perception (PRATYAKsA, which also includes for Buddhists the subcategory of YOGIPRATYAKsA) and inference (ANUMĀNA). Dignāga's major works include his PRAMĀnASAMUCCAYA ("Compendium on Valid Means of Knowledge"), ĀLAMBANAPARĪKsĀ ("Investigation of the Object"), and Nyāyamukha ("Primer on Logic"), which is available only in Chinese translation. See also DHARMAKĪRTI.
Dohan. (道範) (1179-1252). A Kamakura-period SHINGON scholar-monk from KoYASAN, who wrote extensively on the works of KuKAI and KAKUBAN. He is well known for his esoteric writings on the PURE LAND, especially the Himitsu nenbutsusho ("Compendium on the Secret Contemplation of Buddha"). Dohan was ordained at the age of fourteen under Myonin (1148-1229) at Shochiin, and he later studied under KAKUKAI at Keoin. In 1237, Dohan was appointed head administrator of Shochiin. In 1243, a violent dispute erupted between Kongobuji and Daidenboin, which resulted in the exile of Dohan and around thirty other Koyasan elders. Dohan's travel diary, Nankai ruroki ("Record of Wandering by the Southern Sea"), records his time in exile on the island of Shikoku, traveling to many sites associated with Kukai. One of his dharma lectures from his time in exile survives as Dohan goshosoku ("Dohan's Letter"), a short discussion of AJIKAN, or contemplation of the letter "a." In 1249, Dohan was pardoned by imperial decree and permitted to return to Koyasan, where he passed away in 1252.
Fahua zhuan[ji]. (J. Hokke den[ki]; K. Pophwa chon['gi] 法華傳[]). In Chinese, "Compendium of the 'Lotus Sutra,'" also known as the Hongzan fahua zhuan[ji], was composed by Huixiang during the Tang dynasty. This work included much information regarding the translation, circulation, commentaries, epigraphy, illustrations, magical lore, and other aspects of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA. Several other comparable compendia devoted exclusively to the Saddharmapundarīkasutra are still extant (by authors from China, Korea, and Japan), testifying to the scripture's popularity throughout East Asia.
Gottfried de Purucker ::: Occult Glossary, A Compendium of Oriental and Theosophical Terms
Jingying Huiyuan. (J. Joyo Eon; K. Chongyong Hyewon 浄影慧遠) (523-592). Chinese monk and putative DI LUN exegete during the Sui dynasty. Huiyuan was a native of DUNHUANG. At an early age, he entered the monastery of Guxiangusi in Zezhou (present-day Shanxi province) where he was ordained by the monk Sengsi (d.u.). Huiyuan later studied various scriptures under the VINAYA master Lizhan (d.u.) in Ye, the capital of the Eastern Wei dynasty. In his nineteenth year, Huiyuan received the full monastic precepts from Fashang (495-580), ecclesiastical head of the SAMGHA at the time, and became his disciple. Huiyuan also began his training in the DHARMAGUPTAKA "Four-Part Vinaya" (SIFEN LÜ) under the vinaya master Dayin (d.u.). After he completed his studies, Huiyuan moved back to Zezhou and began his residence at the monastery Qinghuasi. In 577, Emperor Wu (r. 560-578) of Northern Zhou began a systematic persecution of Buddhism, and in response, Huiyuan is said to have engaged the emperor in debate; a transcript of the debate, in which Huiyuan defends Buddhism against criticisms of its foreign origins and its neglect of filial piety, is still extant. As the persecution continued, Huiyuan retreated to Mt. Xi in Jijun (present-day Henan province). Shortly after the rise of the Sui dynasty, Huiyuan was summoned by Emperor Wen (r. 581-604) to serve as overseer of the saMgha (shamendu) in Luozhou (present-day Henan). He subsequently spent his time undoing the damage of the earlier persecution. Huiyuan was later asked by Emperor Wen to reside at the monastery of Daxingshansi in the capital. The emperor also built Huiyuan a new monastery named Jingyingsi, which is often used as his toponym to distinguish him from LUSHAN HUIYUAN. Jingying Huiyuan was a prolific writer who composed numerous commentaries on such texts as the AVATAMSAKASuTRA, MAHĀPARINIRVĀnASuTRA, VIMALAKĪRTINIRDEsA, SUKHĀVATĪVYuHASuTRA, sRĪMĀLĀDEVĪSIMHANĀDASuTRA, SHIDI JING LUN (VASUBANDHU's commentary on the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA), DASHENG QIXIN LUN, and others. Among his works, the DASHENG YI ZHANG ("Compendium of the Purport of Mahāyāna"), a comprehensive encyclopedia of Mahāyāna doctrine, is perhaps the most influential and is extensively cited by traditional exegetes throughout East Asia. Jingying Huiyuan also plays a crucial role in the development of early PURE LAND doctrine in East Asia. His commentary on the GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING, the earliest extant treatise on this major pure land scripture, is critical in raising the profile of the Guan jing in East Asian Buddhism. His commentary to this text profoundly influenced Korean commentaries on the pure land scriptures during the Silla dynasty, which in turn were crucial in the the evolution of Japanese pure land thought during the Nara and Heian periods. Jingying Huiyuan's concept of the "dependent origination of the TATHĀGATAGARBHA" (rulaizang yuanqi)-in which tathāgatagarbha is viewed as the "essence" (TI) of both NIRVĀnA and SAMSĀRA, which are its "functioning" (YONG)-is later adapted and popularized by the third HUAYAN patriarch, FAZANG, and is an important precursor of later Huayan reconceptualizations of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA; see FAJIE YUANQI).
MahāsaMnipātasutra. (T. 'Dus pa chen po'i mdo; C. Dafangdeng daji jing; J. Daihodo daijukkyo; K. Taebangdŭng taejip kyong 大方等大集經). In Sanskrit, the "Great Compilation"; an anthology of texts that, along with the RATNAKutASuTRA, is one of the two major compendiums of MAHĀYĀNA sutras. The collection consists of seventeen Mahāyāna sutras, and was probably first compiled in the third century CE but did not reach its final form until the fifth century or later; the anthology was translated into Chinese by DHARMAKsEMA c. 414 CE. The entire collection is only extant in Chinese, although individual sutras in the collection are extant in Sanskrit and Tibetan. It includes such sutras as the Ākāsagarbhasutra and the CANDRAGARBHAPARIPṚCCHĀ, an important text on the decline of the dharma.
Miram Ch'ungji. (宓庵冲止) (1226-1292). Korean monk from the late Koryo dynasty and sixth-generation successor to the SUSoNSA religious society (K. kyolsa; C. JIESHE) established by POJO CHINUL; also known as Pophwan. In 1244, Miram passed the highest-level civil examination at the age of nineteen. He was subsequently appointed to the Hallim academy, the king's secretariat, and was later sent to Japan as an emissary. When he heard that state preceptor (K. kuksa; C. GUOSHI) CH'UNGGYoNG CH'oNYoNG was residing at the nearby monastery of Sonwonsa in Kaegyong, he decided to become the master's disciple. In 1286, after Ch'unggyong passed away, Ch'ungji succeeded him as head of the Susonsa society. He later went to Yanjing (present-day Beijing) at the request of the Yuan emperor Shizong (r. 1260-1294). He passed away in 1292 at the age of sixty-seven, and was given the posthumous title and name State Preceptor Won'gam. He was a talented poet and his poetry can be found in the Tongmunson. His extant writings also include the Chogye Won'gam kuksa orok, Haedong Chogye cheyukse Won'gam kuksa kasong, and Haedong Chogye Miram hwasang chapcho. A compendium of his writings, the Won'gam kuksa chip, is no longer extant.
Nabathean Agriculture was translated about 1860 by Orientalist Chwolsohn into German from the Arabic translation of the Chaldean, widely considered a forgery. The Jewish scholar Maimonides (1135-1204), however, spoke pointedly of it as a specimen of archaic literature, though he disagreed with its teachings. Chwolsohn describes the book as a complete initiation into the mysteries of the “pre-Adamite” nations, and a compendium of Chaldean and other ancient lore. But the book shows periods of incalculable duration and numberless dynasties preceding the so-called Adamic race. The doctrines propounded therein were originally told by Saturn to the Moon, who communicated them to her eidolon, who revealed them to the author of the original work, Qu-tamy.
Nāgārjuna. (T. Klu sgrub; C. Longshu; J. Ryuju; K. Yongsu 龍樹). Indian Buddhist philosopher traditionally regarded as the founder of the MADHYAMAKA [alt. Mādhyamika] school of MAHĀYĀNA Buddhist philosophy. Very little can be said concerning his life; scholars generally place him in South India during the second century CE. Traditional accounts state that he lived four hundred years after the Buddha's PARINIRVĀnA. Some traditional biographies also state that he lived for six hundred years, apparently attempting to identify him with a later Nāgārjuna known for his tantric writings. Two of the works attributed to Nāgārjuna, the RATNĀVALĪ and the SUHṚLLEKHA, are verses of advice to a king, suggesting that he may have achieved some fame during his lifetime. His birth is "prophesied" in a number of works, including the LAnKĀVATĀRASuTRA. Other sources indicate that he also served as abbot of a monastery. He appears to have been the teacher of ĀRYADEVA, and his works served as the subject of numerous commentaries in India, East Asia, and Tibet. Although Nāgārjuna is best known in the West for his writings on emptiness (suNYATĀ), especially as set forth in his most famous work, the "Verses on the Middle Way" (MuLAMADHYAMAKAKĀRIKĀ, also known as the MADHYAMAKAsĀSTRA), Nāgārjuna was the author of a number of works (even when questions of attribution are taken into account) on a range of topics, and it is through a broad assessment of these works that an understanding of his thought is best gained. He wrote as a Buddhist monk and as a proponent of the Mahāyāna; in several of his works he defends the Mahāyāna sutras as being BUDDHAVACANA. He compiled an anthology of passages from sixty-eight sutras entitled the "Compendium of Sutras" (SuTRASAMUCCAYA), the majority of which are Mahāyāna sutras; this work provides a useful index for scholars in determining which sutras were extant during his lifetime. Among the Mahāyāna sutras, Nāgārjuna is particularly associated with the "perfection of wisdom" (PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ) corpus. According to legend, Nāgārjuna retrieved from the Dragon King's palace at the bottom of the sea the "Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines" (sATASĀHASRIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRA), which the Buddha had entrusted to the undersea king of the NĀGAs for safekeeping. He also composed hymns of praise to the Buddha, such as the CATUḤSTAVA, and expositions of Buddhist ethical practice, such as the Ratnāvalī. (Later exegetes classify his works into a YUKTIKĀYA, or "logical corpus," and a STAVAKĀYA, or "devotional corpus.") Nāgārjuna's works are addressed to a variety of audiences. His philosophical texts are sometimes directed against logicians of non-Buddhist schools, but most often offer a critique of the doctrines and assumptions of Buddhist ABHIDHARMA schools, especially the SARVĀSTIVĀDA. Other works are more general expositions of Buddhist practice, directed sometimes to monastic audiences, sometimes to lay audiences. An overriding theme in his works is the bodhisattva's path to buddhahood, and the merit (PUnYA) and wisdom (PRAJNĀ) that the bodhisattva must accumulate over the course of that path in order to achieve enlightenment. By wisdom here, he means the perfection of wisdom (prajNāpāramitā), declared in the sutras to be the knowledge of emptiness (suNYATĀ). Nāgārjuna is credited with rendering the poetic and sometimes paradoxical declarations concerning emptiness that appear in these and other Mahāyāna sutras into a coherent philosophical system. In his first sermon, the DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANASuTRA, the Buddha had prescribed a "middle way" between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. Nāgārjuna, citing an early sutra, spoke of a middle way between the extremes of existence and nonexistence, sometimes also referred to as the middle way between the extremes of permanence (sĀsVATĀNTA) and annihilation (UCCHEDĀNTA). For Nāgārjuna, the ignorance (AVIDYĀ) that is the source of all suffering is the belief in SVABHĀVA, a term that literally means "own being" and has been variously rendered as "intrinsic existence" and "self-nature." This belief is the mistaken view that things exist autonomously, independently, and permanently; to hold this belief is to fall into the extreme of permanence. It is equally mistaken, however, to hold that nothing exists; this is the extreme of annihilation. Emptiness, which for Nāgārjuna is the true nature of reality, is not the absence of existence, but the absence of self-existence, viz., the absence of svabhāva. Nāgārjuna devotes his Mulamadhyamakakārikā to a thoroughgoing analysis of a wide range of topics (in twenty-seven chapters and 448 verses), including the Buddha, the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, and NIRVĀnA, to demonstrate that each lacks the autonomy and independence that are mistakenly ascribed to it. His approach generally is to consider the various ways in which a given entity could exist, and then demonstrate that none of these is tenable because of the absurdities that would be entailed thereby, a form of reasoning often described in Western writings as reductio ad absurdum. In the case of something that is regarded to be the effect of a cause, he shows that the effect cannot be produced from itself (because an effect is the product of a cause), from something other than itself (because there must be a link between cause and effect), from something that is both the same as and different from itself (because the former two options are not possible), or from something that is neither the same as nor different from itself (because no such thing exists). This, in his view, is what is meant in the perfection of wisdom sutras when they state that all phenomena are "unproduced" (ANUTPĀDA). The purpose of such an analysis is to destroy misconceptions (VIKALPA) and encourage the abandonment of all views (DṚstI). Nāgārjuna defined emptiness in terms of the doctrine of PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA, or "dependent origination," understood in its more generic sense as the fact that things are not self-arisen, but are produced in dependence on causes and conditions. This definition allows Nāgārjuna to avoid the claim of nihilism, which he addresses directly in his writings and which his followers would confront over the centuries. Nāgārjuna employs the doctrine of the two truths (SATYADVAYA) of ultimate truth (PARAMĀRTHASATYA) and conventional truth (SAMVṚTISATYA), explaining that everything that exists is ultimately empty of any intrinsic nature but does exist conventionally. The conventional is the necessary means for understanding the ultimate, and the ultimate makes the conventional possible. As Nāgārjuna wrote, "For whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible."
Nispannayogāvalī. (T. Rdzogs pa'i rnal 'byor gyi 'phreng ba). In Sanskrit, "Garland of Perfect Yoga," a compendium of tantric SĀDHANAs (with descriptions of MAndALAs and deities) by the eleventh-century Indian master ABHAYĀKARAGUPTA.
*Nyāyānusāra. (C. Shun zhengli lun; J. Junshoriron; K. Sun chongni non 順正理論). In Sanskrit, "Conformity with Correct Principle"; influential VAIBHĀsIKA ABHIDHARMA treatise by SAMGHABHADRA (c. fifth century CE). It is intended as a refutation of VASUBANDHU 's popular ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA and its presentation of what it purports to be the orthodox positions of the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school. The *Nyāyānusāra is both an exposition of the abhidharma philosophy of the Kashmiri Sarvāstivāda Vaibhāsikas and a critical commentary on Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosabhāsya, which advocated many positions that critiqued the Kashmiri Vaibhāsika school. The *Nyāyānusāra is roughly three times its rival text's length and sought to defend the Vaibhāsikas against Vasubandhu's portrayal of their doctrines. For this reason, XUANZANG (who translated the text into Chinese) says that the original title of the text was the *Kosakaraka (C. Jushi bao lun) or "Hailstones upon the Kosa." As but one example of its criticisms, SaMghabhadra's opening critique of Vasubandhu centers on the latter's assumption that abhidharma does not represent the teaching of the Buddha himself. To refute Vasubandhu's misinterpretations, SaMghabhadra cites scriptural passages that prove the Vaibhāsika position, drawn from scripture (SuTRA) but also from the massive ABHIDHARMAMAHĀVIBHĀsĀ compendium of abhidharma. In addition to scriptural citation, SaMghabhadra also resorts to logical argumentation (YUKTI) to refute Vasubandhu's positions, both by exposing the contradictions explicit in Vasubandhu's own presentations of doctrine and by demonstrating how Vasubandhu's positions would undermine fundamental principles of Buddhist doctrine. In addition to his challenge of Vasubandhu, SaMghabhadra also criticizes the positions of other Vaibhāsika detractors, including the Dārstāntika teacher srīlāta, and the SAUTRĀNTIKA master Sthavira; SaMghabhadra's goal is thus clearly to defend Vaibhāsika abhidharma against any and all comers. The *Nyāyānusāra is only extant in Xuanzang's eighty-roll Chinese translation (the Sanskrit title is a reconstruction); portions of the original Sanskrit text have, however, been preserved in citations from other Indian texts, such as commentaries to the Abhidharmakosabhāsya by STHIRAMATI, Purnavardhana, and YAsOMITRA.
Pramānasamuccaya. (T. Tshad ma kun btus; C. Jiliang lun; J. Juryoron; K. Chimnyang non 集量論). In Sanskrit, "Compendium on Valid Knowledge"; the most famous work of DIGNĀGA, the great Buddhist logician of the late fifth and early sixth centuries, and considered the foundational text of Buddhist logic and epistemology. In it, Dignāga describes direct perception (PRATYAKsA) as being free from thought (KALPANĀ), and distinguishes between the objects of direct perception and thought, with direct perception able to discern specific characteristics (SVALAKsAnA), while thought deals only with general characteristics (SĀMĀNYALAKsAnA). In discussing the five sense consciousnesses and the mental consciousness (MANOVIJNĀNA), he asserted that the sense consciousnesses operate exclusively through direct perception, whereas the mental consciousness knows objects through both direct perception and inference (ANUMĀNA). In explaining the function of thought, Dignāga described thought as operating through the negative route of APOHA, whereby thought does not perceive its object directly, but instead through the conceptual elimination of everything that is not the object. In this work, Dignāga also examines the elements of a logical syllogism (PRAYOGA) and the relations that must pertain among its various constituents in order for that statement to result in a correct inference.
Ratna gling pa. (Ratna Lingpa) (1403-1478). An important treasure revealer (GTER STON) of the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism, credited with discovering twenty-five collections of treasure texts (GTER MA). As a youth, he was identified as the reincarnation of Lang gro Dkon mchog 'byung gnas, one of the twenty-five disciples of PADMASAMBHAVA. According to traditional sources, he is said to have uncovered in a single lifetime the treasures ordinarily discovered in three lifetimes, and therefore is known under three names: Zhig po gling pa (Shikpo Lingpa), 'Gro 'dul gling pa (Drodul Lingpa), and Ratna gling pa. The treasures included RDZOGS CHEN teachings, peaceful and wrathful guru SĀDHANAs, AVALOKITEsVARA practices, and MAHĀMUDRĀ texts. He also searched extensively for ancient tantras and oral traditions and compiled an extensive RNYING MA'I RGYUD 'BUM, a compendium of the tantras and tantric exegetical literature of the Rnying ma sect; that compendium is no longer extant, but it served as the basis of the rnying ma'i rgyud 'bum of 'JIGS MED GLING PA.
Rnying ma'i rgyud 'bum. (Nyingme Gyübum). A compendium of the tantras and tantric exegetical literature of the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism; considered apocryphal by the redactors of the Tibetan Buddhist canon (BKA' 'GYUR), the collection thus represents an alternative or supplementary Rnying ma canon of tantric scriptures. Numerous editions are extant, including the SDE DGE edition (twenty-six volumes), the Gting kye (twenty-six volumes), the Skyi rong (thirty-seven volumes), the Tsham brag (forty-six volumes), and the Vairo rgyud 'bum (eight volumes). All but the last divide the tantras into the standard Rnying ma doxographical categories of MAHĀYOGA, ANUYOGA, and ATIYOGA, although within those categories differences emerge (the Vairo rgyud 'bum, for example, includes only atiyoga). Further editions include those recently discovered in Kathmandu and the so-called Waddell edition, a close relative to the Gting kye. All but the Sde dge are manuscripts. Catalogues of Buddhist texts were made as far back as the eighth century, but the roots of the Rnying ma'i rgyud 'bum go back to the second propagation of Buddhism in Tibet (roughly the eleventh to thirteenth centuries). In opposition to the new translation sects (GSAR MA) that developed around newly imported tantras, adherents of the earlier translations coalesced into the Rnying ma, or "ancients," sect. There is evidence that 'Gro mgon Nam mkha' 'phel, the son of one of the earliest proponents of the Rnying ma sect, NYANG RAL NYI MA 'OD ZER, arranged a collection of early tantras in eighty-two volumes, which is no longer extant. The Vairo rgyud 'bum also may date as far back as the twelfth century, although its origins are unclear. When BU STON RIN CHEN GRUB edited the Tibetan Buddhist canon in the fourteenth century, he excluded the tantras found in the Rnying ma'i rgyud 'bum on the basis that he could find no Indic originals with which to authenticate them. Bu ston's position has been shown by Tibetan and Western scholars to have been partisan and inconsistent, and several tantras he excluded, such as the VAJRAKĪLAYA tantras, are accepted by other sects. Some excluded tantras do in fact appear to be early combinations of Indic and Tibetan material, while others, especially later revelatory scriptures (GTER MA) are entirely of Tibetan composition. An early version of the Rnying ma'i rgyud 'bum that may have influenced later editions was that of RATNA GLING PA, no longer extant. The Tshams brag appears to have been commissioned by Tsham brag bla ma Ngag dbang 'brug pa (1682-1748) and was based on a still earlier Bhutanese version. GTER BDAG GLING PA's edition later became the basis for that of 'JIGS MED GLING PA, in twenty-five volumes, which was produced in 1772, and is known as the Padma 'od gling edition. This in turn was the basis for the Sde dge block-print edition, carved between 1794 and 1798 and overseen by Dge rtse pan chen 'Gyur med mchog grub (1761-1829) of KAḤ THOG monastery.
saddarsanasamuccaya. In Sanskrit, "Compendium of the Six Views," a work by the eighth-century Indian scholar Haribhadra (or Haribhadra Suri) of the svetāmbara school of Jainism. The six views refer to six schools of Indian philosophy: Buddhism, Jainism (see JAINA), and the four Hindu schools of Nyāya, SāMkhya, Vaisesika, and MīmāMsā. The work also contains an appendix on the so-called "materialist" school, Cārvāka. The work remains useful to scholars of Buddhism for articulating how Buddhist doctrines were interpreted by non-Buddhist schools.
Sādhanamālā. (T. Sgrub thabs rgya mtsho). In Sanskrit, "Garland of Methods," sometimes attributed to ABHAYĀKARAGUPTA; an important compendium of some three hundred individual tantric SĀDHANAs, the latest of which were composed around the twelfth century. In addition to the details its provides about tantric practice during this period, the detailed descriptions of the deities to be visualized are an important source of tantric Buddhist iconography. The version preserved in Tibetan is entitled Sādhanasāgara, "Ocean of Methods."
sāntaraksita. (T. Zhi ba 'tsho) (725-788). Eighth-century Indian Mahāyāna master who played an important role in the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet. According to traditional accounts, he was born into a royal family in Zahor in Bengal and was ordained at NĀLANDĀ monastery, where he became a renowned scholar. He is best known for two works. The first is the TATTVASAMGRAHA, or "Compendium of Principles," a critical survey and analysis of the various non-Buddhist and Buddhist schools of Indian philosophy, set forth in 3,646 verses in twenty-six chapters. This work, which is preserved in Sanskrit, along with its commentary by his disciple KAMALAsĪLA, remains an important source on the philosophical systems of India during this period. His other famous work is the MADHYAMAKĀLAMKĀRA, or "Ornament of the Middle Way," which sets forth his own philosophical position, identified by later Tibetan doxographers as YOGĀCĀRA-*SVĀTANTRIKA-MADHYAMAKA, so called because it asserts, as in YOGĀCĀRA, that external objects do not exist, i.e., that sense objects are of the nature of consciousness; however, it also asserts, unlike Yogācāra and like MADHYAMAKA, that consciousness lacks ultimate existence. It further asserts that conventional truths (SAMVṚTISATYA) possess their own character (SVALAKsAnA) and in this regard differs from the other branch of Madhyamaka, the *PRĀSAnGIKA. The Yogacāra-Madhyamaka synthesis, of which sāntaraksita is the major proponent, was the most important philosophical development of late Indian Buddhism, and the MadhyamakālaMkāra is its locus classicus. This work, together with the MADHYAMAKĀLOKA of sāntaraksita's disciple Kamalasīla and the SATYADVAYAVIBHAnGA of JNĀNAGARBHA, are known in Tibet as the "three works of the eastern *Svātantrikas" (rang rgyud shar gsum) because the three authors were from Bengal. sāntaraksita's renown as a scholar was such that he was invited to Tibet by King KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN. When a series of natural disasters indicated that the local deities were not positively disposed to the introduction of Buddhism, he left Tibet for Nepal and advised the king to invite the Indian tantric master PADMASAMBHAVA, who subdued the local deities. With this accomplished, sāntaraksita returned, the first Buddhist monastery of BSAM YAS was founded, and sāntaraksita invited twelve MuLASARVĀSTIVĀDA monks to Tibet to ordain the first seven Tibetan monks. sāntaraksita lived and taught at Bsam yas from its founding (c. 775) until his death (c. 788) in an equestrian accident. Tibetans refer to him as the "bodhisattva abbot." The founding of Bsam yas and the ordination of the first monks were pivotal moments in Tibetan Buddhist history, and the relationship of sāntaraksita, Padmasambhava, and Khri srong lde btsan figures in many Tibetan legends, most famously as brothers in a previous life. Prior to his death, sāntaraksita predicted that a doctrinal dispute would arise in Tibet, in which case his disciple Kamalasīla should be invited from India. Such a conflict arose between the Indian and Chinese factions, and Kamalasīla came to Tibet to debate with the Chan monk Moheyan in what is referred to as the BSAM YAS DEBATE, or the "Council of Lhasa."
sāntideva. (T. Zhi ba lha). Eighth-century Indian monk of NĀLANDĀ monastery, renowned as the author of two influential MAHĀYĀNA texts: the BODHICARYĀVATĀRA (a long poem on the practice of the bodhisattva path) and the sIKsĀSAMUCCAYA (a compendium of passages from Mahāyāna sutras corroborating the explanations given in the Bodhicaryāvatāra). Nothing is known of his life apart from legends. According to these tales, he was of royal birth but renounced the world before his investiture as king. At Nālandā monastery, he was known as an indolent monk. In order to humiliate him, his fellow monks challenged him to recite sutras before the assembly. He asked whether they wished to hear something old or something new. When they requested something new, he recited the Bodhicaryāvatāra. When he reached the ninth chapter, on wisdom (PRAJNĀ), he began to rise into the air and disappeared, never to return. For this reason, there is some controversy as to how the ninth chapter ends, and indeed, there are different recensions of the text, one longer and one shorter. Based on the contents of the Bodhicaryāvatāra's ninth chapter, Tibetan doxographers count sāntideva as a proponent of the *PRĀSAnGIKA-MADHYAMAKA. The Bodhicaryāvatāra was very influential in Tibet; particularly noteworthy is the BKA' GDAMS tradition of dge bshes Po to ba, who lists it and the siksāsamuccaya, along with the BODHISATTVABHuMI, MAHĀYĀNASuTRĀLAMKĀRA, Āryasura's JĀTAKAMĀLĀ, and the UDĀNAVARGA, as the six fundamental treatises of the Bka' gdams tradition.
SarvatathāgatatattvasaMgraha. (T. De bzhin gshegs pa thams cad kyi de kho na nyid bsdus pa; C. Yiqie rulai zhenshishe dasheng xianzheng sanmei dajiaowang jing; J. Issainyorai shinjitsusho daijogenshozanmai daikyoogyo; K. Ilch'e yorae chinsilsop taesŭng hyonjŭng sammae taegyowang kyong 一切如來眞實攝大乘現證三昧大敎王經). In Sanskrit, "Compendium of Principles of All the Tathāgatas"; one of the most important Buddhist tantras, whose influence extended through India, China, Japan, and Tibet. Likely dating from the late seventh century, the text presented a range of doctrines, themes, and practices that would come to be regarded as emblematic of tantric practice. These include the the view that sĀKYAMUNI Buddha did not actually achieve enlightenment under the BODHI TREE but did so through ritual consecration. The commentaries to the SarvatathāgatatattvasaMgraha recount that Prince SIDDHĀRTHA was meditating on the banks of the NAIRANJANĀ River when he was roused by the buddha VAIROCANA and all the buddhas of the ten directions, who informed him that such meditation would not result in the achievement of buddhahood. He thus left his physical body behind and traveled in a mind-made body (MANOMAYAKĀYA) to the AKANIstHA heaven, where he received various consecrations and achieved buddhahood. He next descended to the summit of Mount SUMERU, where he taught the YOGATANTRAs. Finally, he returned to the world, reinhabited his physical body, and then displayed to the world the well-known defeat of MĀRA and the achievement of buddhahood under the Bodhi tree. The tantra also include the violent subjugation of Mahesvara (siva) by the wrathful bodhisattva VAJRAPĀnI, suggesting competition between Hindu and Buddhist tantric practitioners at the time of its composition and the increasing importance of violent imagery in Buddhist tantra. Such important elements as the five buddha families (PANCATATHĀGATA) and the practice of visualizing oneself as a deity also appear in the text. The tantra is also important for the prominment role given to the buddha Vairocana. In East Asia, the SarvatathāgatatattvasaMgraha was particularly influential in the form of the VAJRAsEKHARA, the reconstructed Sanskrit title derived from the Chinese translations of the first chapter of the SarvatathāgatatattvasaMgraha made by VAJRABODHI and AMOGHAVAJRA during the Tang dynasty. This would become a central text for the esoteric traditions of China and Japan. The full text of the SarvatathāgatatattvasaMgraha was not translated into Chinese until Dānapāla completed his version in 1015. Ānandagarbha (fl. c. 750) wrote an important commentary on the SarvatathāgatatattvasaMgraha called Tattvālokakarī ("Illumination of the Compendium of Principles Tantra"), and sākyamitra (fl. c. 750) wrote a commentary called KosalālaMkāra ("Ornament of Kosala"). Ānandagarbha's mandala ritual called Sarvavajrodayamandalavidhi is a ritual text based on the first chapter of the SarvatathāgatatattvasaMgraha. The tantra was very influential in Tibet during both the earlier dissemination (SNGA DAR) and the later dissemination (PHYI DAR) periods. Classified as a yogatantra, it was an important source during the later period, for example, for such scholars as BU STON RIN CHEN GRUB and TSONG KHA PA in their systematizations of tantra.
Schröder, (Friedrich Wilhelm Karl) Ernst, 1841-1902. German mathematician. Professor of mathematics at Karlsruhe, 1876-1902. His three-volume Algebra der Logik (1890-1895, with a posthumous second part of vol. 2 published in 1905) is an able compendium and systematization of the work of his predecessors. With contributions of his own, and may be regarded as giving in nearly all essentials the final form of the Nineteenth Century algebra of logic (q.v.), including the algebra of relatives (or relations). -- A.C.
Shes bya kun khyab mdzod. (Sheja Kunkyap Dzo). In Tibetan, "Treasury Embracing All Knowledge"; the title of a multivolumed encyclopedic compendium of Tibetan Buddhist thought, composed by the Tibetan luminary 'JAM MGON KONG SPRUL BLO GROS MKTHA' YAS between 1862 and 1864. The work consists of a brief root text in verse together with an extensive prose autocommentary, and is one of the earliest examples of the author's place in the nonsectarian (RIS MED) movement. The work is one of five "treasuries" (KONG SPRUL MDZOD LNGA) written and edited by the master.
siksāsamuccaya. (T. Bslab pa kun las btus pa; C. Dasheng ji pusa xue lun; J. Daijoju bosatsugakuron; K. Taesŭng chip posal hak non 大乘集菩薩學論). In Sanskrit, "Compendium of Training," a work by the eighth-century Indian MAHĀYĀNA master sĀNTIDEVA. It consists of twenty-seven stanzas on the motivation and practice of the BODHISATTVA, including BODHICITTA, the six perfections (PĀRAMITĀ), the worship of buddhas and bodhisattvas, the benefits of renunciation, and the peace derived from the knowledge of emptiness (suNYATĀ). The topic of each of the stanzas receives elaboration in the form of a prose commentary by the author as well as in illustrative passages, often quite extensive, drawn from a wide variety of Mahāyāna SuTRAs. Some ninety-seven texts are cited in all, many of which have been lost in their original Sanskrit, making the siksāsamuccaya an especially important source for the textual history of Indian Buddhism. These citations also offer a window into which sutras were known to a Mahāyāna author in eighth-century India. The digest of passages that sāntideva provides was repeatedly drawn upon by Tibetan authors in their citations of sutras. Although sāntideva's BODHICARYĀVATĀRA and siksāsamuccaya both deal with similar topics, the precise relation between the two texts is unclear. Several of the author's verses appear in both texts and some of the sutra passages from the siksāsamuccaya also appear in the Bodhicaryāvatāra. One passage in the Bodhicaryāvatāra also refers readers to the siksāsamuccaya, but this line does not occur in the DUNHUANG manuscript of the text and may be a later interpolation.
srāvakabhumi. (T. Nyan thos kyi sa; C. Shengwen di; J. Shomonji; K. Songmun chi 聲聞地). In Sanskrit, the "Stage of the Listener" or "Stage of the Disciple," a work by ASAnGA included in the first and main section (Bahubhumika/Bhumivastu, "Multiple Stages") of his massive compendium, the YOGĀCĀRABHuMI. The work, which also circulated as an independent text, deals with practices associated with the sRĀVAKA (disciples) and consists of four major sections (yogasthāna), which treat spiritual lineage (GOTRA), different types of persons (PUDGALA), preparation for practice (PRAYOGA), and the mundane path (LAUKIKAMĀRGA) and supramundane path (LOKATTARAMĀRGA). The first yogasthāna on spiritual lineage is divided into three parts. First, the stage of lineage (gotrabhumi) discusses the spiritual potentiality or lineage (gotra) of the srāvaka from four standpoints: its intrinsic nature, its establishment or definition (vyavasthāna), the marks (LInGA) characterizing the persons belonging to that lineage, and the classes of people in that lineage. Second, the stage of entrance (avatārabhumi) discusses the stage where the disciple enters upon the practice; like the previous part, this section treats this issue from these same four standpoints. Third, the stage of deliverance (naiskramyabhumi) explains the stage where the disciple, after severing the bonds of the sensual realm (KĀMADHĀTU), practices to obtain freedom from passion (VAIRĀGYA) by following either the mundane or supramundane path; this section subsequently discusses thirteen collections or equipment (saMbhāra) necessary to complete both paths, such as sensory restraint, controlling food intake, etc. This stage of deliverance (naiskramyabhumi) continues over the second through fourth yogasthānas to provide an extended treatment of sravāka practice. The second yogasthāna discusses the theoretical basis of sravāka practice in terms of persons (pudgala), divided into nineteen subsections on such subjects as the classes of persons who cultivate the sravāka path, meditative objects, descriptions of various states of concentration (SAMĀDHI), hindrances to meditation, etc. The third yogasthāna concerns the preliminary practices (prayoga) performed by these persons, describing in detail the process of training. This process begins by first visiting a teacher. If that teacher identifies him as belonging to the srāvaka lineage, the practitioner should then cultivate in five ways: (1) guarding and accumulating the requisites of samādhi (samādhisaMbhāra-raksopacaya), (2) selection (prāvivekya), (3) one-pointedness of mind (CITTAIKĀGRATĀ), (4) elimination of hindrances (ĀVARAnA-visuddhi), and (5) cultivation of correct mental orientation (MANASKĀRA-bhāvanā). Among these five, the section on cittaikāgratā contains one of the most detailed discussions in Sanskrit sources of the meditative procedures for the cultivation of sAMATHA and VIPAsYANĀ. In the fourth yogasthāna, the practitioner, who has accomplished the five stages of application (prayoga), proceeds to either the mundane (laukika) or supramundane (lokottara) path. On the mundane path, the practitioner is said to be reborn into the various heavens of the subtle-materiality realm (RuPADHĀTU) or the immaterial realm (ĀRuPYADHĀTU) by cultivating the four subtle-materiality meditative absorptions (RuPĀVACARADHYĀNA) or the four immaterial meditative absorptions (ĀRuPYĀVACARADHYĀNA). On the supramundane path, the sravāka practices to attain the stage of worthy one (ARHAT) by relying on the insight of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvāry āryasatyāni). See also BODHISATTVABHuMI.
summary ::: a comprehensive and usually brief abstract, recapitulation, or compendium of previously stated facts or statements.
Summists: (Lat. Summa, a compendium) A group of writers in the 12th to 14th centuries who produced compendious, encyclopedic works known as Summae. Beginnings of the summa-form are to be found in Peter Abaelard's Sic et Non (early 12th C.) and Peter Lombard's Libri IV Sententiarum (mid 12th C.). Theological Summae consisted of collections of opinions (sententiae) from earlier authorities, particularly Patristic, with some attempt at a resolution of the conflicts in such opinions. Hugh of St. Victor may have been the first to use the name, Summa. Wm. of Auxerre (Summa Aurea), Alexander of Hales and his fellow Franciscans (Summa universae theologiae), John of La Rochelle (S. de anima), St. Albert (S. de Creaturis, and an incomplete S. Theologiae), and St. Thomas Aquinas (S. contra Gentiles, and S. Theologiae), are important 13th C. Summists. There were philosophical Summae, also, such as the S. Logicae of Lambert of Auxerre, the S. modorum stgnificandi of Siger of Courtrai (14th C.), and the Summa philosophiae of the Pseudo-Grosseteste (late 13th C.). -- V.J.B.
Sutrasamuccaya. (T. Mdo kun las btus pa; C. Dasheng baoyaoyi lun; J. Daijo hoyogiron; K. Taesŭng poyoŭi non 大乘寶要義論). In Sanskrit, "Compendium of Sutras," a work attributed to NĀGĀRJUNA, an anthology of passages from sixty-eight mainly MAHĀYĀNA sutras (or collections of sutras), organized under thirteen topics. These topics extol the bodhisattva and the Mahāyāna path, noting the rarity and hence precious nature of such things as faith in the Buddha, great compassion, and laymen who are able to follow the bodhisattva path. The text is of historical interest because it provides evidence of the Mahāyāna sutras that were extant at the time of Nāgārjuna. These include, in addition to various PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ sutras, such famous works as the LAnKĀVATĀRASuTRA, the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA, the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA, and the VIMALAKĪRTINIRDEsA. The Chinese translation was made by Dharmaraksa (c. 1018-1058) during the Northern Song dynasty and was among the last stratum of Indian materials to be entered into the Chinese Buddhist canon (C. DAZANGJING).
TattvasaMgraha. (T. De kho na nyid bsdus pa). In Sanskrit, the "Compendium of Principles"; one of the major works of the eighth-century Indian master sĀNTARAKsITA. It is a massive work in 3,646 verses, in twenty-six chapters. The verses themselves are called the TattvasaMgrahakārikā; there is also an extensive prose commentary by sāntaraksita's student, KAMALAsĪLA, entitled the TattvasaMgrahapaNjikā. The TattvasaMgraha is a polemical text, surveying the philosophical positions of a wide variety of non-Buddhist (and some Buddhist) schools on a number of topics or principles (TATTVA) and demonstrating their faults. These topics include matter (prakṛti), the person (PURUsA), God (īsvara), the self (ĀTMAN), and valid knowledge (PRAMĀnA), among many others. Among the schools whose positions are presented and critiqued are SāMkhya, Nyāya, Vaisesika, Mīmāmsā, Advaita Vedānta, JAINA, and VĀTSĪPUTRĪYA. The work is of great value to scholars for its presentation (albeit polemical) of the tenets of these schools as they existed in eighth-century India. The commentary often provides the names and positions of specific philosophers of these schools. ¶ The term is also the abbreviated title of the SarvatathāgatatattvasaMgraha; see SARVATATHĀGATATATTVASAMGRAHA.
UNIFORM ::: An intermediate language developed for reverse engineering both COBOL and Fortran.[The REDO Compendium, H. van Zuylen ed, Wiley 1993]. (1994-12-06)
UNIFORM An intermediate language developed for reverse engineering both {COBOL} and {Fortran}. ["The REDO Compendium", H. van Zuylen ed, Wiley 1993]. (1994-12-06)
Vaibhāsika. (T. Bye brag smra ba; C. Piposha shi; J. Bibashashi; K. Pibasa sa 毘婆沙師). In Sanskrit, "Followers of the Vibhāsā"; the ĀBHIDHARMIKAs associated with the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school of ABHIDHARMA, especially in KASHMIR-GANDHĀRA in northwestern India but even in BACTRIA. Because these masters considered their teachings to be elaborations of doctrines found in the Sarvāstivāda abhidharma treatise, the ABHIDHARMAMAHĀVIBHĀsĀ, they typically referred to themselves as the Vaibhāsika; hence, the Kashmiri strand of Sarvāstivāda may be called either Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāsika, or, simply, Vaibhāsika. The root text of the Vaibhāsika school is the Abhidharmamahāvibhāsā (a.k.a. Mahāvibhāsā), a massive encyclopedic compendium of Sarvāstivāda doctrine. The Vaibhāsikas maintained that the Mahāvibhāsā was originally spoken by the Buddha himself, and that the various interlocutors-including divinities, sĀRIPUTRA, and others-who facilitate the work's catechistic structure were summoned by the Buddha for the sake of the text's composition. The Gandhāran response to this and other claims made by the Vaibhāsikas led to the formation of an offshoot that rejected the authority of this abhidharma literature. This offshoot called itself the SAUTRĀNTIKA, or "Those Who Adhere to the SuTRAs." The Vaibhāsika abhidharma system maintains the existence of seventy-five constituent factors (DHARMA). Seventy-two of these are conditioned (SAMSKṚTA) and three are unconditioned (ASAMSKṚTA). Like most other schools of Buddhism, the Vaibhāsikas affirmed the selflessness (ANĀTMAN) of persons and the momentary (KsAnIKA) nature of conditioned dharmas. However, they maintained that these factors have their own real existence that endures in past, present, and future modes. They believed these factors to be both real and eternal-a view for which they generated many elaborate justifications. They also believed external objects to be composed of minute particles, like atoms (PARAMĀnU). According to the Vaibhāsikas, consciousness (VIJNĀNA) or cognition has no form that is independent of its object; the Vaibhāsika model of the relationship between consciousness and its objects is therefore sometimes referred to as "direct realism" (see ĀKĀRA). VASUBANDHU's ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA is mainly concerned with abhidharma theory as it was explicated in the Vaibhāsika school; in comparison to the Mahāvibhāsā, however, the Abhidharmakosabhāsya presents a more systematic overview of Sarvāstivāda positions and, at various points in his expositions, Vasubandhu criticizes Sarvāstivāda doctrine from the standpoint of its more progressive Sautrāntika offshoot. This criticism elicited a spirited response from later Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāsika scholars, such as SAMGHABHADRA in his *NYĀYĀNUSĀRA. The Vaibhāsika disappeared as an independent school sometime around the seventh or eighth centuries CE.
Wang Rixiu. (王日休) (d. 1173). Chinese lay Buddhist during the Song dynasty (960-1279), who played an important role in revitalizing the PURE LAND (JINGTU) tradition, also known by his Buddhist name of Longshu. Although Wang was an accomplished Confucian scholar, he renounced all aspiration for civil office and instead devoted himself to pure land devotions, charitable activities, and a daily regimen of one thousand prostrations. Wang is best known as the author of Longshu zhengguan jingtu wen ("Longshu's Extended Writings on the Pure Land"), written in 1160, an extensive compendium of materials on the SUKHĀVATĪ pure land of AMITĀBHA, drawn from sutras, commentarial writings, and biographical materials, with Wang's own exegeses. The collection offers practical instructions on how to have faith, and achieve rebirth, in the pure land, as well as a series of edifying tales about the successful rebirths and miracles that others generated through their own devotions.
Yiqiejing yinyi. (J. Issaikyo ongi; K. Ilch'egyong ŭmŭi 一切經音義). In Chinese, "Pronunciation and Meaning of All the Scriptures"; a specialized Chinese glossary of Buddhist technical terminology. As more and more Indian and Central Asian texts were being translated into Chinese, the use of Sanskrit and Middle Indic transcriptions and technical vocabulary increased, leading to the need for comprehensive glossaries of these abstruse terms. Because of the polysemous and sacred character of such Buddhist doctrinal concepts as BODHI, NIRVĀnA, and PRAJNĀ, many Chinese translators also preferred to transcribe rather than translate such crucial terms, so as not to limit their semantic range to a single Chinese meaning. The Indian pronunciations of proper names were also commonly retained by Chinese translators. Finally, the spiritual efficacy thought to be inherent in the spoken sounds of Buddhist spells (MANTRA) and codes (DHĀRAnĪ) compelled the translators to preserve as closely as possible in Chinese the pronunciation of the Sanskrit or Middle Indic original. By the sixth century, the plethora of different transcriptions used for the same Sanskrit Buddhist terms led to attempts to standardize the Chinese transcriptions of Sanskrit words, and to clarify the obscure Sinographs and compounds used in Chinese translations of Buddhist texts. This material was compiled in various Buddhist "pronunciation and meaning" (yinyi) lexicons, the earliest of which was the twenty-five-roll Yiqiejing yinyi compiled by the monk Xuanying (fl. c. 645-656). Xuanying, a member of the translation bureau organized in the Chinese capital of Chang'an by the renowned Chinese pilgrim, translator, and Sanskritist XUANZANG (600/602-664), compiled his anthology in 649 from 454 of the most important MAHĀYĀNA, sRĀVAKAYĀNA, VINAYA, and sĀSTRA materials, probably as a primer for members of Xuanzang's translation team. His work is arranged by individual scripture, and includes a roll-by-roll listing and discussion of the problematic terms encountered in each section of the text. For the more obscure Sinographs, the entry provides the fanqie (a Chinese phonetic analysis that uses paired Sinographs to indicate the initial and final sounds of the target character), the Chinese translation, and the corrected transcription of the Sanskrit, according to the phonologically sophisticated transcription system developed by Xuanzang. Xuanying's compendium is similar in approach to its predecessor in the secular field, the Jingdian shiwen, compiled during the Tang dynasty in thirty rolls by Lu Deming (c. 550-630). The monk Huilin (783-807) subsequently incorporated all of Xuanying's terms and commentary into an expanded glossary that included difficult terms from more than 1,300 scriptures; Huilin's expansion becomes the definitive glossary used within the tradition. Still another yinyi was compiled later during the Liao dynasty by the monk Xilin (d.u.). In addition to their value in establishing the Chinese interpretation of Buddhist technical terms, these "pronunciation and meaning" glossaries also serve as important sources for studying the Chinese phonology of their times.
Yogācārabhumisāstra. [alt. Yogācārabhumi] (T. Rnal 'byor spyod pa'i sa'i bstan bcos; C. Yuqieshidi lun; J. Yugashijiron; K. Yugasaji non 瑜伽師地論). In Sanskrit, "Treatise on the Stages of Yogic Practice"; an encyclopedic work that is the major treatise (sĀSTRA) of the YOGĀCĀRA school of Indian Buddhism. It was widely influential in East Asia and Tibet, being translated into Chinese by XUANZANG between 646 and 648 and into Tibetan circa 800. Authorship is traditionally ascribed to ASAnGA (or, in China, to MAITREYA), but the size and scope of the text suggest that it is the compilation of the work of a number of scholars (possibly including Asanga) during the fourth century CE. The work is divided into five major sections. The first and longest, comprising approximately half the text, is called the "Multiple Stages" (Bahubhumika or Bhumivastu) and sets forth the stages of the path to buddhahood in seventeen sections. The two most famous of these sections (both of which are preserved in Sanskrit and which circulated as independent works) are the sRĀVAKABHuMI and the BODHISATTVABHuMI, the latter providing one of the most detailed discussions of the bodhisattva path (MĀRGA) in Indian literature. In this section, many of the central doctrines of the Yogācāra school are discussed, including the eight consciousnesses, the ĀLAYAVIJNĀNA, and the three natures (TRISVABHĀVA). The structures and practices of the paths of the sRĀVAKA, PRATYEKABUDDHA, and BODHISATTVA are presented here in the form that would eventually become normative among MAHĀYĀNA scholasts in general (not just adherents of Yogācāra). The second section, "Compendium of Resolving [Questions]" (ViniscayasaMgrahanī), considers controversial points that arise in the previous section. The third section, "Compendium of Interpretation" (VyākhyānasaMgrahanī), examines these points in light of relevant passages from the sutras; it is interesting to note that the majority of the texts cited in this section are Sanskrit ĀGAMAs rather than Mahāyāna sutras. The fourth, called "Compendium of Synonyms" (ParyāyasaMgraha) considers the terms mentioned in the sutras. The fifth and final section, "Compendium of Topics" (VastusaMgraha), considers central points of Buddhist doctrine, including PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA and BODHI. This section also contains a discussion of VINAYA and (in the Chinese version) ABHIDHARMA.
Zohar: A Jewish mystical work, the oldest known treatise on Hebrew esoteric teachings, which became the classic text of the Kabalah and the Bible of medieval mysticism and occultism. It is a compendium of Jewish esoteric thought on the nature and attributes of God, the mysteries of the Tetragrammaton (q.v.), the evolution of the cosmos, the nature of man’s soul, magic, astrology, etc.
Zohar, Sepher haz-Zohar (Hebrew) Zohar, Sēfer Hazzohar [from the verbal root zāhar light, to be bright, to shine] Book of the light; the principal work or compendium of the Qabbalists, forming with the Book of Creation (Sepher Yetsirah) the main canon of the Qabbalah. It is written largely in Chaldean interspersed with Hebrew, and is in the main a running commentary on the Pentateuch. Interwoven are a number of highly significant sections or books scattered apparently at random through the volumes: sometimes incorporated as parallel columns to the text, at other times as separate portions.
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2 Kathryn Schulz
2 John Gregory Dunne
1:Nothing can become certain for the intellect except through God's influence ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Compendium 1.129)., #KEYS
2:Be therefore followers of God as most dear children, and walk in love" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Compendium of Theology 2.5)., #KEYS
3:The fact that Christ died uttering a loud cry gave evidence of the divine power in Him ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Compendium of Theology, ch. 216)., #KEYS
4:We do not pour forth our prayers as individuals, but with unanimous accord we declare, "Our Father" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Compendium Theologiae 2.5)., #KEYS
5:When Christ descended into hell He freed those who were detained there for the sin of our first parent, but left behind those who were being punished for their own sins ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Compendium of Theology 2.235)., #KEYS
6:The recurring beat that moments God in Time.
Only was missing the sole timeless Word
That carries eternity in its lonely sound,
The Idea self-luminous key to all ideas,
The integer of the Spirit's perfect sum
That equates the unequal All to the equal One,
The single sign interpreting every sign,
The absolute index to the Absolute.
There walled apart by its own innerness
In a mystical barrage of dynamic light
He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile
Erect like a mountain-chariot of the Gods
Motionless under an inscrutable sky.
As if from Matter's plinth and viewless base
To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme
Ascended towards breadths immeasurable;
It hoped to soar into the Ineffable's reign:
A hundred levels raised it to the Unknown.
So it towered up to heights intangible
And disappeared in the hushed conscious Vast
As climbs a storeyed temple-tower to heaven
Built by the aspiring soul of man to live
Near to his dream of the Invisible.
Infinity calls to it as it dreams and climbs;
Its spire touches the apex of the world;
Mounting into great voiceless stillnesses
It marries the earth to screened eternities.
Amid the many systems of the One
Made by an interpreting creative joy
Alone it points us to our journey back
Out of our long self-loss in Nature's deeps;
Planted on earth it holds in it all realms:
It is a brief compendium of the Vast.
This was the single stair to being's goal.
A summary of the stages of the spirit,
Its copy of the cosmic hierarchies
Refashioned in our secret air of self
A subtle pattern of the universe.
It is within, below, without, above.
Acting upon this visible Nature's scheme
It wakens our earth-matter's heavy doze
To think and feel and to react to joy;
It models in us our diviner parts,
Lifts mortal mind into a greater air,
Makes yearn this life of flesh to intangible aims,
Links the body's death with immortality's call:
Out of the swoon of the Inconscience
It labours towards a superconscient Light.
If earth were all and this were not in her,
Thought could not be nor life-delight's response:
Only material forms could then be her guests
Driven by an inanimate world-force.
Earth by this golden superfluity
Bore thinking man and more than man shall bear;
This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate;
It calls out of our dense mortality
The conscious spirit nursed in Matter's house.
The living symbol of these conscious planes,
Its influences and godheads of the unseen,
Its unthought logic of Reality's acts
Arisen from the unspoken truth in things,
Have fixed our inner life's slow-scaled degrees.
Its steps are paces of the soul's return
From the deep adventure of material birth,
A ladder of delivering ascent
And rungs that Nature climbs to deity.
Once in the vigil of a deathless gaze
These grades had marked her giant downward plunge,
The wide and prone leap of a godhead's fall.
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.
The great World-Mother by her sacrifice
Has made her soul the body of our state;
Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
Divinity's lapse from its own splendours wove
The many-patterned ground of all we are.
An idol of self is our mortality.
Our earth is a fragment and a residue;
Her power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds
And steeped in their colour-lustres dimmed by her drowse;
An atavism of higher births is hers,
Her sleep is stirred by their buried memories
Recalling the lost spheres from which they fell.
Unsatisfied forces in her bosom move;
They are partners of her greater growing fate
And her return to immortality;
They consent to share her doom of birth and death;
They kindle partial gleams of the All and drive
Her blind laborious spirit to compose
A meagre image of the mighty Whole.
The calm and luminous Intimacy within
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,#KEYS
7:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study
Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.
The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.
Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.
Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.
Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.
Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.
The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.
The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.
Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.
The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.
The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.
The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.
Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.
The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.
The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.
The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.
The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.
The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.
Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.
The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.
The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.
The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.
The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.
Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.
Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.
Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.
Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.
The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.
The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.
The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.
The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.
The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.
Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.
Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.
Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.
The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.
The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.
Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.
Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.
Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.
First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.
Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.
The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.
The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.
The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:One would suppose that the battle for religious liberty was won in the United States two hundred years ago. However, in the time since, and right now, powerful voices are always raised in favor of bigotry and thought control. It is useful, then, to have a compendium of the thoughts of great men and women of all faiths (and of none) on the subject, to convince us that we men and woman of freedom are not and never have been alone. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:The Rosary is the compendium of the entire Gospel. ~ Pope Paul V, #NFDB
2:In brief, the Tree of Life is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy and theology. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
3:Each particle of matter is an immensity, each leaf a world, each insect an inexplicable compendium. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater, #NFDB
4:The Bible was not written for entertainment purposes, so it's a real hodgepodge and a compendium of all kinds of stuff. ~ Robert Crumb, #NFDB
5:In the Pirkei Avoth, the Jewish ethical compendium from the third century, it is written, "In a place with no people, try to be a person" (2:6). ~ Melissa Fay Greene, #NFDB
6:Even God cannot make two times two not make four. ~ Hugo Grotius, as quoted in Delbert D. Thiessen (ed.), A Sociobiology Compendium: Aphorisms, Sayings, Asides, p. 18., #NFDB
7:I still wish this book was just a compendium of searing photographs I took in Afghanistan during my years as a sexy war correspondent, but hey, there is still time. ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
8:Fernanda was scandalized that she did not understand the relationship of Catholicism with life but only its relationship with death, as if it were not a religion but a compendium of funeral conventions. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
9:Alchemy... as Newton and others have stressed, does not trade in metals, but gives pregnant allegories, impenetrable by the uninterested. It describes a process, not a compendium. It cannot be opened, it must be done. ~ Simon Sarris, #NFDB
10:A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
11:New York is at once cosmopolitan and parochial, a compendium of sentimental certainties. It is in fact the most sentimental of the world's great cities - in its self-congratulation a kind of San Francisco of the East ~ John Gregory Dunne, #NFDB
12:New York is at once cosmopolitan and parochial, a compendium of sentimental certainties. It is in fact the most sentimental of the world's great cities - in its self-congratulation a kind of San Francisco of the East. ~ John Gregory Dunne, #NFDB
13:This was unlike the Gemara, the elaboration on the Mishna, which could go on for pages about why a certain law was the way it was and how it was known. The Mishna was both easy and dull, a straightforward compendium of laws. ~ Shulem Deen, #NFDB
14:The oldest cliché in the world is about "what's lost in translation," but you don't very often read much intelligent about what's gained by translation, and the answer is everything. Our language is a compendium of translation. ~ Sam Hamill, #NFDB
15:On golfer Rory McIlroy's collapse in the final round of the 2011 Masters: We had hoped to compare the young Northern Irishman to the great Masters champions but instead had to reach for the compendium of great golfing train wrecks. ~ Matt Dickinson, #NFDB
16:We carry with us the wonders, we seek without us: There is all Africa, and her prodigies in us; we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies, wisely learns in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
17:Medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practitioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid, the chances are that we may be relying on a scientific truth the error of which will be recognized in a few years time. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
18:The Bible reveals God’s soul to us in a way that no other book is able to do. It is history, wisdom, and poetry. It is unparalleled as a compendium of theology, philosophy, and ethics. It is a gospel tract, distilling the essence of our relationship with an eternal God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
19:For, medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid, the chances are that we may be relying on a scientific truth the error of which will be recognised in a few years’ time ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
20:We carry with us the wonders, we seek without us: There is all Africa, and her prodigies in us; we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies, wisely learns in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume.” When ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
21:For, medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practitioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid the chances are that we may be relying on a scientific truth the error of which will be recognised in a few years’ time. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
22:A language is a compendium of the history, geography, material and spiritual life, the vices and virtues, not only of those who speak it, but also of those who have spoken it through the centuries. The words, the grammar, the syntax are a chisel that shapes our thought. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
23:Aquinas was once asked, with what compendium a man might become learned? He answered "By reading of one book." ~ Jeremy Taylor, Life of Christ, Part II. S, XII. 16. He also quotes Acclus, XI. 10, Stanza Gregory, St. Bernard, Seneca, Quintilian, Juvenal. See British Critic. No. 59, p. 202., #NFDB
24:Bezos is a fan of e-mail newsletters such as VSL.com, a daily assortment of cultural tidbits from the Web, and Cool Tools, a compendium of technology tips and product reviews written by Kevin Kelly, a founding editor of Wired. Both e-mails are short, well written, and informative. ~ Brad Stone, #NFDB
25:In Erling Nicolai Rolfsrud’s compendium of memorable women and men from North Dakota, “Mustache” Maude Black, for that was the name of my grandparents’ benefactress, is described as not un-womanly, though she dressed mannishly, smoked, drank, was a crack shot and a hard-assed camp boss. These ~ Louise Erdrich, #NFDB
26:A lot of guys write books that are nothing but a compendium of women they’ve had sex with. Those guys are vapid assholes. Yet there are times when getting laid can pull your ego and confidence up from the ashes, especially when you are young and honestly feel out of your league. It’s meaningless in the long run but at the time it works. ~ Doug Stanhope, #NFDB
27:Remnants is an extraordinary gift…a kind of Rosetta Stone of the African American woman’s soul – all the ‘remnants,’ the bits and pieces Rosemarie carefully saved, remembered, nurtured, in her ancestors, relatives and self coming together in this extremely useful compendium of wisdom, of sureness and insight that we will be able to use for generations to come. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
28:Journey through the Power of the Rainbow represents a condensed compendium of literary efforts from a life dedicated to transforming the themes of injustice, grief, and despair that we all encounter during some unavoidable point of our existence into a sustainable life-affirming poetics of passionate creativity, empowered spiritual vision, and inspired commitment. ~ Aberjhani, #NFDB
29:Closely related are the entries in his bestiary, a compendium of short tales of animals and moral lessons based on their traits. Bestiaries were popular among the ancients and in the Middle Ages, and the spread of printing presses meant that many were reprinted in Italy beginning in the 1470s. Leonardo had a copy of the bestiary written by Pliny the Elder and three others by medieval compilers. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
30:laboratory. Ours is not a ‘lab faith,’ but a ‘journey faith,’ a historical faith. God has revealed himself as history, not as a compendium of abstract truths. I am afraid of laboratories, because in the laboratory you take the problems and then you bring them home to tame them, to paint them artificially, out of their context. You cannot bring home the frontier, but you have to live on the border and be audacious. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
31:And just look at these books!” said Hermione excitedly, running a finger along the spines of the large leather-bound tomes. “A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions . . . The Dark Arts Outsmarted . . . Self-Defensive Spellwork . . . wow . . .” She looked around at Harry, her face glowing, and he saw that the presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what they were doing was right. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
32:One would suppose that the battle for religious liberty was won in the United States two hundred years ago. However, in the time since, and right now, powerful voices are always raised in favor of bigotry and thought control. It is useful, then, to have a compendium of the thoughts of great men and women of all faiths (and of none) on the subject, to convince us that we men and woman of freedom are not and never have been alone. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
33:For, medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practitioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid, the chances are that we may be relying on a scientific truth the error of which will be recognized in a few years’ time. So that to believe in medicine would be the height of folly, if not to believe in it were not greater folly still, for from this mass of errors there have emerged in the course of time many truths. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
34:The real battle for Christians today is not Armageddon, it is the battle for a sensible approach to that ancient library of books we call the Bible. The Bible was written by human beings, with all the longings, prejudices and illusions that characterise us as a species. It is not an apocalyptic almanac, a mystical code book, an inerrant textbook for living. It is a compendium of a particular people's struggle with meaning; so it should encourage us to do the same in our day. ~ Richard Holloway, #NFDB
35:Nature has but one plan of operation, invariably the same in the smallest things as well as in the largest, and so often do we see the smallest masses selected for use in Nature, that even enormous ones are built up solely by fitting these together. Indeed, all Nature's efforts are devoted to uniting the smallest parts of our bodies in such a way that all things whatsoever, however diverse they may be, which coalesce in the structure of living things construct the parts by means of a sort of compendium. ~ Marcello Malpighi, #NFDB
36:In the Java world, security is not viewed as an add-on a feature. It is a pervasive way of thinking. Those who forget to think in a secure mindset end up in trouble. But just because the facilities are there doesn't mean that security is assured automatically. A set of standard practices has evolved over the years. The Secure Coding Standard for Java is a compendium of these practices. These are not theoretical research papers or product marketing blurbs. This is all serious, mission-critical, battle-tested, enterprise-scale stuff. ~ James Gosling, #NFDB
37:Pessoa invented The Book of Disquiet, which never existed, strictly speaking, and can never exist. What we have here isn’t a book but its subversion and negation: the ingredients for a book whose recipe is to keep sifting, the mutant germ of a book and its weirdly lush ramifications, the rooms and windows to build a book but no floor plan and no floor, a compendium of many potential books and many others already in ruins. What we have in these pages is an anti-literature, a kind of primitive, verbal CAT scan of one man’s anguished soul. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
38:37. 'But more potent forces motivated these subsequent authors as well. Across cultures and eras, the two greatest powers behind the production and dissemination of knowledge - which is to say, its CONTROL - have been RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES and THE STATE, and one or the other typically provided both the financial means and the ideological ends for compendium projects'. Against the backdrop of this quote, why is it important to devise your own opinion on every subject, having previously conducted your own private investigation? Discuss at length. ~ Kathryn Schulz, #NFDB
39:We debase the richness of both nature and our own minds if we view the great pageant of our intellectual history as a compendium of new information leading from primal superstition to final exactitude. We know that the sun is hub of our little corner of the universe, and that ties of genealogy connect all living things on our planet, because these theories assemble and explain so much otherwise disparate and unrelated information not because Galileo trained his telescope on the moons of Jupiter or because Darwin took a ride on a Galápagos tortoise. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
40:In 1934, he wrote an essay envisioning a great compendium of electronic documents that could be accessed via a computer in your household: a reseau, or “web.” “Here, the workspace is no longer cluttered with any books. In their place, a screen and a telephone within reach,” Otlet wrote. “Over there, in an immense edifice, are all the books and information. From there, the page to be read . . . is made to appear on the screen. The screen could be divided in half, by four, or even by ten, if multiple texts and documents had to be consulted simultaneously. ~ Clive Thompson, #NFDB
41:This superstitious, family-oriented existence is the background to 'The Lay of Loddfafnir' and the whole of Havamal (Myth and Note25). This great compendium of aphorisms and advice on right conduct offers a commonsensical and sober (though sometimes witty) picture of the day to day life of the Norsemen, and it is a far cry from the heady image of Vikings on the rampage. Value life itself; censure naivete; cherish and celebrate friendships; beware treachery; practice moderation; be hospitable (but not too hospitable); try to win the fame and good name that will outlive you: these are the leitmotifs of the Havamal. ~ Kevin Crossley Holland, #NFDB
42:When, in 1970, palaeontologist Lambert Beverley Halstead pointed out that Scrotum is a scientifically valid name and the first ever proposed for a dinosaur, a shudder went through the normally stolid taxonomic community. Things may not have been helped by the fact that Halstead seems to have been obsessed with dinosaur sex. His most memorable work is an illustrated compendium of dinosaurian copulatory positions—a sort of reptilian Kama Sutra—that includes a ‘leg over’ manoeuvre by the sauropods, the largest dinosaurs of all—that many consider highly dubious. On at least two occasions Halstead took to the stage, where, with his wife, he demonstrated some of the more arcane postures.* ~ Tim Flannery, #NFDB
43:The etymological meaning of Veda is sacred knowledge or wisdom. There are four Vedas: Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva. Together they constitute the samhitas that are the textual basis of the Hindu religious system. To these samhitas were attached three other kinds of texts. These are, firstly, the Brahmanas, which is essentially a detailed description of rituals, a kind of manual for the priestly class, the Brahmins. The second are the Aranyakas; aranya means forest, and these ‘forest manuals’ move away from rituals, incantations and magic spells to the larger speculations of spirituality, a kind of compendium of contemplations of those who have renounced the world. The third, leading from the Aranyakas, are the Upanishads, which, for their sheer loftiness of thought are the foundational texts of Hindu philosophy and metaphysics. ~ Pavan K Varma, #NFDB
44:It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent. You can draw up a tremendous list of reasons why it should be insupportable. The fogs, the smoke, the dirt, the darkness, the wet, the distances, the ugliness, the brutal size of the place, the horrible numerosity of society, the manner in which this senseless bigness is fatal to amenity, to convenience, to conversation, to good manners – all this and much more you may expatiate upon. You may call it dreary, heavy, stupid, dull, inhuman, vulgar at heart and tiresome in form. [...] But these are occasional moods; and for one who takes it as I take it, London is on the whole the most possible form of life. [...] It is the biggest aggregation of human life – the most complete compendium of the world. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
45:But no. That was analogy rather than homology. What in the humanities they would call a heroic simile, if he understood the term, or a metaphor, or some other kind of literary analogy. And analogies were mostly meaningless — a matter of phenotype rather than genotype (to use another analogy). Most, of poetry and literature, really all the humanities, not to mention the social sciences, were phenotypic as far as Sax could tell. They added up to a huge compendium of meaningless analogies, which did not help to explain things, but only distorted perception of them. A kind of continuous conceptual drunkenness, one might say. Sax himself much preferred exactitude and explanatory power, and why not? If it was 200 Kelvin outside why not say so, rather than talk about witches’ tits and the like, hauling the whole great baggage of the ignorant past along to obscure every encounter with sensory reality? It was absurd. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
46:I shall never go back, I said to myself.
A door had shut, the low door in the wall I had sought and found in Oxford; open it now and I should find no enchanted garden.
I had come to the surface, into the light of common day and the fresh sea-air, after long captivity in the sunless coral palaces and waving forests of the ocean bed.
I had left behind me – what? Youth? Adolescence? Romance? The conjuring stuff of these things, "the Young Magician's Compendium," that neat cabinet where the ebony wand had its place beside the delusive billiard balls, the penny that folded double and the feather flowers that could be drawn into a hollow candle.
"I have left behind illusion," I said to myself. "Henceforth I live in a world of three dimensions — with the aid of my five senses."
I have since learned that there is no such world; but then, as the car turned out of sight of the house, I thought it took no finding, but lay all about me at the end of the avenue. ~ Evelyn Waugh,#NFDB
47:The Human Genome Project, the full sequence of the normal human genome, was completed in 2003. In its wake comes a far less publicized but vastly more complex project: fully sequencing the genomes of several human cancer cells. Once completed, this effort, called the Cancer Genome Atlas, will dwarf the Human Genome Project in its scope. The sequencing effort involves dozens of teams of researchers across the world. The initial list of cancers to be sequenced includes brain, lung, pancreatic, and ovarian cancer. The Human Genome Project will provide the normal genome, against which cancer’s abnormal genome can be juxtaposed and contrasted. The result, as Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project describes it, will be a “colossal atlas” of cancer—a compendium of every gene mutated in the most common forms of cancer: “When applied to the 50 most common types of cancer, this effort could ultimately prove to be the equivalent of more than 10,000 Human Genome Projects in terms of the sheer volume of DNA to be sequenced. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
48:As the British Empire fell, the Afrikaner rose up to claim South Africa as his rightful inheritance. To maintain power in the face of the country’s rising and restless black majority, the government realized they needed a newer and more robust set of tools. They set up a formal commission to go out and study institutionalized racism all over the world. They went to Australia. They went to the Netherlands. They went to America. They saw what worked, what didn’t. Then they came back and published a report, and the government used that knowledge to build the most advanced system of racial oppression known to man. Apartheid was a police state, a system of surveillance and laws designed to keep black people under total control. A full compendium of those laws would run more than three thousand pages and weigh approximately ten pounds, but the general thrust of it should be easy enough for any American to understand. In America you had the forced removal of the native onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people at the same time. That was apartheid. ~ Trevor Noah, #NFDB
49:Brother Ramiro carried the carefully wrapped Compendium between his chest and his folded arms as they crossed the town square. Adelard glanced at the trio of scorched stakes where heretics were unburdened of their sins by the cleansing flame. He had witnessed many an auto da fé here since his arrival from France.
"Note how passersby avert their eyes and give us a wide berth," Ramiro said.
Adelard had indeed noticed that. "I don't know why. They can't know that I am a member of the tribunal."
"They don't. They see the black robes and know us as Dominicans, members of the order that runs the Inquisition, and that is enough. This saddens me."
"Why?"
"You are an inquisitor, I am a simple mendicant. You would not know."
"I was not always an inquisitor, Ramiro."
"But you did not know Ávila before the Inquisition arrived. We were greeted with smiles and welcomed everywhere. Now no one looks me in the eye. What do you think their averted gazes mean? That they have heresies to hide?"
"Perhaps."
"Then you are wrong. It means that the robes of our order have become associated with the public burnings of heretics to the exclusion of all else. ~ F Paul Wilson,#NFDB
50:I took care to replace the Compendium in its correct pamphlet, and in doing so dislodged a slim pamphlet by Grastrom, one of the most eccentric authors in Solarist literature. I had read the pamphlet, which was dictated by the urge to understand what lies beyond the individual, man, and the human species. It was the abstract, acidulous work of an autodidact who had previously made a series of unusual contributions to various marginal and rarefied branches of quantum physics. In this fifteen-page booklet (his magnum opus!), Grastrom set out to demonstrate that the most abstract achievements of science, the most advanced theories and victories of mathematics represented nothing more than a stumbling, one or two-step progression from our rude, prehistoric, anthropomorphic understanding of the universe around us. He pointed out correspondences with the human body-the projections of our sense, the structure of our physical organization, and the physiological limitations of man-in the equations of the theory of relativity, the theorem of magnetic fields and the various unified field theories. Grastrom’s conclusion was that there neither was, nor could be any question of ‘contact’ between mankind and any nonhuman civilization. This broadside against humanity made no specific mention of the living ocean, but its constant presence and scornful, victorious silence could be felt between every line, at any rate such had been my own impression. It was Gibarian who drew it to my attention, and it must have been Giarian who had added it to the Station’s collection, on his own authority, since Grastrom’s pamphlet was regarded more as a curiosity than a true contribution to Solarist literature” (pg.170). ~ Stanis aw Lem, #NFDB
51:Perhaps also there are some necessary truths about mind, language, and perception after all, a compendium of superscientific truths awaiting discovery and dissemination by philosophers.
If so, however, one would expect the same to be true of other subjects. For example, one would expect there to be a set of necessary truths about all possible living things; and another set about all possible stars and galaxies; and another set about all possible forms of matter; and so on. One would expect, that is, a significant compendium of a priori knowledge on almost every significant subject: space, time, motion, light, matter, planets, fire, cosmology, life, weather, medicine, and so forth. Given the thousands of years philosophers have had to penetrate these subjects, we might well ask in which books the apodictic fruits of so much a priori labour have been written down.
Put thus bluntly, the question is embarrassing. There is no such accumulated compendium of important a priori truths on any of these topics. And this despite the fact that philosophers have been talking and theorizing with enthusiasm about all of them for over twenty-five centuries. Claims of necessary truth have regularly been made, but empirical refutation has been their most common fate. What has accumulated instead is a rich compendium of a posteriori knowledge, a compendium born of the continuing labours of various subdivisions of earlier philosophy, subdivisions now quite properly identified as sciences. It now seems silly to expect philosophical techniques to reveal important necessary truths about all possible planets, or all possible forms of matter, or all possible living things. But if it is just plain silly to expect this for planets, matter, and life, why should it be sound philosophy to expect it for language, mind, and perception? ~ Paul M Churchland,#NFDB
52:It was this hierarchy—so central to Western cosmology for so long that, even today, a ten-year-old could intuitively get much of it right—that was challenged by the most famous compendium of all: Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert’s eighteen-thousand-page Encyclopédie. Published between 1751 and 1772, the Encyclopédie was sponsored by neither the Catholic Church nor the French monarchy and was covertly hostile to both. It was intended to secularize as well as to popularize knowledge, and it demonstrated those Enlightenment commitments most radically through its organizational scheme. Rather than being structured, as it were, God-down, with the whole world flowing forth from a divine creator, it was structured human-out, with the world divided according to the different ways in which the mind engages with it: “memory,” “reason,” and “imagination,” or what we might today call history, science and philosophy, and the arts. Like alphabetical order, which effectively democratizes topics by abolishing distinctions based on power and precedent in favor of subjecting them all to the same rule, this new structure had the effect of humbling even the most exalted subjects. In producing the Encyclopédie, Diderot did not look up to the heavens but out toward the future; his goal, he wrote, was “that our descendants, by becoming more learned, may become more virtuous and happier.”
It is to Diderot’s Encyclopédie that we owe every modern one, from the Britannica and the World Book to Encarta and Wikipedia. But we also owe to it many other kinds of projects designed to, in his words, “assemble all the knowledge scattered on the surface of the earth.” It introduced not only new ways to do so but new reasons—chief among them, the diffusion of information prized by an élite class into the culture at large. The Encyclopédie was both the cause and the effect of a profoundly Enlightenment conviction: that, for books about everything, the best possible audience was the Everyman. ~ Kathryn Schulz,#NFDB
53:The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics. ~ Karl Marx,#NFDB
54:The recurring beat that moments God in Time.
Only was missing the sole timeless Word
That carries eternity in its lonely sound,
The Idea self-luminous key to all ideas,
The integer of the Spirit's perfect sum
That equates the unequal All to the equal One,
The single sign interpreting every sign,
The absolute index to the Absolute.
There walled apart by its own innerness
In a mystical barrage of dynamic light
He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile
Erect like a mountain-chariot of the Gods
Motionless under an inscrutable sky.
As if from Matter's plinth and viewless base
To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme
Ascended towards breadths immeasurable;
It hoped to soar into the Ineffable's reign:
A hundred levels raised it to the Unknown.
So it towered up to heights intangible
And disappeared in the hushed conscious Vast
As climbs a storeyed temple-tower to heaven
Built by the aspiring soul of man to live
Near to his dream of the Invisible.
Infinity calls to it as it dreams and climbs;
Its spire touches the apex of the world;
Mounting into great voiceless stillnesses
It marries the earth to screened eternities.
Amid the many systems of the One
Made by an interpreting creative joy
Alone it points us to our journey back
Out of our long self-loss in Nature's deeps;
Planted on earth it holds in it all realms:
It is a brief compendium of the Vast.
This was the single stair to being's goal.
A summary of the stages of the spirit,
Its copy of the cosmic hierarchies
Refashioned in our secret air of self
A subtle pattern of the universe.
It is within, below, without, above.
Acting upon this visible Nature's scheme
It wakens our earth-matter's heavy doze
To think and feel and to react to joy;
It models in us our diviner parts,
Lifts mortal mind into a greater air,
Makes yearn this life of flesh to intangible aims,
Links the body's death with immortality's call:
Out of the swoon of the Inconscience
It labours towards a superconscient Light.
If earth were all and this were not in her,
Thought could not be nor life-delight's response:
Only material forms could then be her guests
Driven by an inanimate world-force.
Earth by this golden superfluity
Bore thinking man and more than man shall bear;
This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate;
It calls out of our dense mortality
The conscious spirit nursed in Matter's house.
The living symbol of these conscious planes,
Its influences and godheads of the unseen,
Its unthought logic of Reality's acts
Arisen from the unspoken truth in things,
Have fixed our inner life's slow-scaled degrees.
Its steps are paces of the soul's return
From the deep adventure of material birth,
A ladder of delivering ascent
And rungs that Nature climbs to deity.
Once in the vigil of a deathless gaze
These grades had marked her giant downward plunge,
The wide and prone leap of a godhead's fall.
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.
The great World-Mother by her sacrifice
Has made her soul the body of our state;
Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
Divinity's lapse from its own splendours wove
The many-patterned ground of all we are.
An idol of self is our mortality.
Our earth is a fragment and a residue;
Her power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds
And steeped in their colour-lustres dimmed by her drowse;
An atavism of higher births is hers,
Her sleep is stirred by their buried memories
Recalling the lost spheres from which they fell.
Unsatisfied forces in her bosom move;
They are partners of her greater growing fate
And her return to immortality;
They consent to share her doom of birth and death;
They kindle partial gleams of the All and drive
Her blind laborious spirit to compose
A meagre image of the mighty Whole.
The calm and luminous Intimacy within
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,#NFDB
55:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study
Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.
The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.
Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.
Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.
Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.
Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.
The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.
The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.
Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.
The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.
The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.
The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.
Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.
The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.
The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.
The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.
The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.
The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.
Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.
The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.
The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.
The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.
The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.
Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.
Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.
Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.
Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.
The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.
The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.
The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.
The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.
The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.
Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.
Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.
Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.
The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.
The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.
Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.
Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.
Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.
First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.
Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.
The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.
The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.
The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants #reading list,#NFDB
56:Tasker Norcross
“Whether all towns and all who live in them—
So long as they be somewhere in this world
That we in our complacency call ours—
Are more or less the same, I leave to you.
I should say less. Whether or not, meanwhile,
We’ve all two legs—and as for that, we haven’t—
There were three kinds of men where I was born:
The good, the not so good, and Tasker Norcross.
Now there are two kinds.”
“Meaning, as I divine,
Your friend is dead,” I ventured.
Ferguson,
Who talked himself at last out of the world
He censured, and is therefore silent now,
Agreed indifferently: “My friends are dead—
Or most of them.”
“Remember one that isn’t,”
I said, protesting. “Honor him for his ears;
Treasure him also for his understanding.”
Ferguson sighed, and then talked on again:
“You have an overgrown alacrity
For saying nothing much and hearing less;
And I’ve a thankless wonder, at the start,
How much it is to you that I shall tell
What I have now to say of Tasker Norcross,
And how much to the air that is around you.
But given a patience that is not averse
To the slow tragedies of haunted men—
Horrors, in fact, if you’ve a skilful eye
To know them at their firesides, or out walking,—”
“Horrors,” I said, “are my necessity;
And I would have them, for their best effect,
Always out walking.”
Ferguson frowned at me:
265
“The wisest of us are not those who laugh
Before they know. Most of us never know—
Or the long toil of our mortality
Would not be done. Most of us never know—
And there you have a reason to believe
In God, if you may have no other. Norcross,
Or so I gather of his infirmity,
Was given to know more than he should have known,
And only God knows why. See for yourself
An old house full of ghosts of ancestors,
Who did their best, or worst, and having done it,
Died honorably; and each with a distinction
That hardly would have been for him that had it,
Had honor failed him wholly as a friend.
Honor that is a friend begets a friend.
Whether or not we love him, still we have him;
And we must live somehow by what we have,
Or then we die. If you say chemistry,
Then you must have your molecules in motion,
And in their right abundance. Failing either,
You have not long to dance. Failing a friend,
A genius, or a madness, or a faith
Larger than desperation, you are here
For as much longer than you like as may be.
Imagining now, by way of an example,
Myself a more or less remembered phantom—
Again, I should say less—how many times
A day should I come back to you? No answer.
Forgive me when I seem a little careless,
But we must have examples, or be lucid
Without them; and I question your adherence
To such an undramatic narrative
As this of mine, without the personal hook.”
“A time is given in Ecclesiastes
For divers works,” I told him. “Is there one
For saying nothing in return for nothing?
If not, there should be.” I could feel his eyes,
And they were like two cold inquiring points
Of a sharp metal. When I looked again,
To see them shine, the cold that I had felt
Was gone to make way for a smouldering
266
Of lonely fire that I, as I knew then,
Could never quench with kindness or with lies.
I should have done whatever there was to do
For Ferguson, yet I could not have mourned
In honesty for once around the clock
The loss of him, for my sake or for his,
Try as I might; nor would his ghost approve,
Had I the power and the unthinking will
To make him tread again without an aim
The road that was behind him—and without
The faith, or friend, or genius, or the madness
That he contended was imperative.
After a silence that had been too long,
“It may be quite as well we don’t,” he said;
“As well, I mean, that we don’t always say it.
You know best what I mean, and I suppose
You might have said it better. What was that?
Incorrigible? Am I incorrigible?
Well, it’s a word; and a word has its use,
Or, like a man, it will soon have a grave.
It’s a good word enough. Incorrigible,
May be, for all I know, the word for Norcross.
See for yourself that house of his again
That he called home: An old house, painted white,
Square as a box, and chillier than a tomb
To look at or to live in. There were trees—
Too many of them, if such a thing may be—
Before it and around it. Down in front
There was a road, a railroad, and a river;
Then there were hills behind it, and more trees.
The thing would fairly stare at you through trees,
Like a pale inmate out of a barred window
With a green shade half down; and I dare say
People who passed have said: ‘There’s where he lives.
We know him, but we do not seem to know
That we remember any good of him,
Or any evil that is interesting.
There you have all we know and all we care.’
They might have said it in all sorts of ways;
And then, if they perceived a cat, they might
Or might not have remembered what they said.
267
The cat might have a personality—
And maybe the same one the Lord left out
Of Tasker Norcross, who, for lack of it,
Saw the same sun go down year after year;
All which at last was my discovery.
And only mine, so far as evidence
Enlightens one more darkness. You have known
All round you, all your days, men who are nothing—
Nothing, I mean, so far as time tells yet
Of any other need it has of them
Than to make sextons hardy—but no less
Are to themselves incalculably something,
And therefore to be cherished. God, you see,
Being sorry for them in their fashioning,
Indemnified them with a quaint esteem
Of self, and with illusions long as life.
You know them well, and you have smiled at them;
And they, in their serenity, may have had
Their time to smile at you. Blessed are they
That see themselves for what they never were
Or were to be, and are, for their defect,
At ease with mirrors and the dim remarks
That pass their tranquil ears.”
“Come, come,” said I;
“There may be names in your compendium
That we are not yet all on fire for shouting.
Skin most of us of our mediocrity,
We should have nothing then that we could scratch.
The picture smarts. Cover it, if you please,
And do so rather gently. Now for Norcross.”
Ferguson closed his eyes in resignation,
While a dead sigh came out of him. “Good God!”
He said, and said it only half aloud,
As if he knew no longer now, nor cared,
If one were there to listen: “Have I said nothing—
Nothing at all—of Norcross? Do you mean
To patronize him till his name becomes
A toy made out of letters? If a name
Is all you need, arrange an honest column
Of all the people you have ever known
268
That you have never liked. You’ll have enough;
And you’ll have mine, moreover. No, not yet.
If I assume too many privileges,
I pay, and I alone, for their assumption;
By which, if I assume a darker knowledge
Of Norcross than another, let the weight
Of my injustice aggravate the load
That is not on your shoulders. When I came
To know this fellow Norcross in his house,
I found him as I found him in the street—
No more, no less; indifferent, but no better.
‘Worse’ were not quite the word: he was not bad;
He was not… well, he was not anything.
Has your invention ever entertained
The picture of a dusty worm so dry
That even the early bird would shake his head
And fly on farther for another breakfast?”
“But why forget the fortune of the worm,”
I said, “if in the dryness you deplore
Salvation centred and endured? Your Norcross
May have been one for many to have envied.”
“Salvation? Fortune? Would the worm say that?
He might; and therefore I dismiss the worm
With all dry things but one. Figures away,
Do you begin to see this man a little?
Do you begin to see him in the air,
With all the vacant horrors of his outline
For you to fill with more than it will hold?
If so, you needn’t crown yourself at once
With epic laurel if you seem to fill it.
Horrors, I say, for in the fires and forks
Of a new hell—if one were not enough—
I doubt if a new horror would have held him
With a malignant ingenuity
More to be feared than his before he died.
You smile, as if in doubt. Well, smile again.
Now come into his house, along with me:
The four square sombre things that you see first
Around you are four walls that go as high
As to the ceiling. Norcross knew them well,
269
And he knew others like them. Fasten to that
With all the claws of your intelligence;
And hold the man before you in his house
As if he were a white rat in a box,
And one that knew himself to be no other.
I tell you twice that he knew all about it,
That you may not forget the worst of all
Our tragedies begin with what we know.
Could Norcross only not have known, I wonder
How many would have blessed and envied him!
Could he have had the usual eye for spots
On others, and for none upon himself,
I smile to ponder on the carriages
That might as well as not have clogged the town
In honor of his end. For there was gold,
You see, though all he needed was a little,
And what he gave said nothing of who gave it.
He would have given it all if in return
There might have been a more sufficient face
To greet him when he shaved. Though you insist
It is the dower, and always, of our degree
Not to be cursed with such invidious insight,
Remember that you stand, you and your fancy,
Now in his house; and since we are together,
See for yourself and tell me what you see.
Tell me the best you see. Make a slight noise
Of recognition when you find a book
That you would not as lief read upside down
As otherwise, for example. If there you fail,
Observe the walls and lead me to the place,
Where you are led. If there you meet a picture
That holds you near it for a longer time
Than you are sorry, you may call it yours,
And hang it in the dark of your remembrance,
Where Norcross never sees. How can he see
That has no eyes to see? And as for music,
He paid with empty wonder for the pangs
Of his infrequent forced endurance of it;
And having had no pleasure, paid no more
For needless immolation, or for the sight
Of those who heard what he was never to hear.
To see them listening was itself enough
270
To make him suffer; and to watch worn eyes,
On other days, of strangers who forgot
Their sorrows and their failures and themselves
Before a few mysterious odds and ends
Of marble carted from the Parthenon—
And all for seeing what he was never to see,
Because it was alive and he was dead—
Here was a wonder that was more profound
Than any that was in fiddles and brass horns.
“He knew, and in his knowledge there was death.
He knew there was a region all around him
That lay outside man’s havoc and affairs,
And yet was not all hostile to their tumult,
Where poets would have served and honored him,
And saved him, had there been anything to save.
But there was nothing, and his tethered range
Was only a small desert. Kings of song
Are not for thrones in deserts. Towers of sound
And flowers of sense are but a waste of heaven
Where there is none to know them from the rocks
And sand-grass of his own monotony
That makes earth less than earth. He could see that,
And he could see no more. The captured light
That may have been or not, for all he cared,
The song that is in sculpture was not his,
But only, to his God-forgotten eyes,
One more immortal nonsense in a world
Where all was mortal, or had best be so,
And so be done with. ‘Art,’ he would have said,
‘Is not life, and must therefore be a lie;’
And with a few profundities like that
He would have controverted and dismissed
The benefit of the Greeks. He had heard of them,
As he had heard of his aspiring soul—
Never to the perceptible advantage,
In his esteem, of either. ‘Faith,’ he said,
Or would have said if he had thought of it,
‘Lives in the same house with Philosophy,
Where the two feed on scraps and are forlorn
As orphans after war. He could see stars,
On a clear night, but he had not an eye
271
To see beyond them. He could hear spoken words,
But had no ear for silence when alone.
He could eat food of which he knew the savor,
But had no palate for the Bread of Life,
That human desperation, to his thinking,
Made famous long ago, having no other.
Now do you see? Do you begin to see?”
I told him that I did begin to see;
And I was nearer than I should have been
To laughing at his malign inclusiveness,
When I considered that, with all our speed,
We are not laughing yet at funerals.
I see him now as I could see him then,
And I see now that it was good for me,
As it was good for him, that I was quiet;
For Time’s eye was on Ferguson, and the shaft
Of its inquiring hesitancy had touched him,
Or so I chose to fancy more than once
Before he told of Norcross. When the word
Of his release (he would have called it so)
Made half an inch of news, there were no tears
That are recorded. Women there may have been
To wish him back, though I should say, not knowing,
The few there were to mourn were not for love,
And were not lovely. Nothing of them, at least,
Was in the meagre legend that I gathered
Years after, when a chance of travel took me
So near the region of his nativity
That a few miles of leisure brought me there;
For there I found a friendly citizen
Who led me to his house among the trees
That were above a railroad and a river.
Square as a box and chillier than a tomb
It was indeed, to look at or to live in—
All which had I been told. “Ferguson died,”
The stranger said, “and then there was an auction.
I live here, but I’ve never yet been warm.
Remember him? Yes, I remember him.
I knew him—as a man may know a tree—
For twenty years. He may have held himself
A little high when he was here, but now …
Yes, I remember Ferguson. Oh, yes.”
272
Others, I found, remembered Ferguson,
But none of them had heard of Tasker Norcross.
~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,#NFDB
5 Occultism
2 Integral Yoga
2 Christianity
1 Thelema
1 Philosophy
1 Hinduism
5 Sri Aurobindo
5 Aleister Crowley
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Carl Jung
3 Liber ABA
2 The Synthesis Of Yoga
2 Savitri
2 Aion
2 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
beyond a convenient Compendium of the more
important truths of Free Masonry.) He said that since
--
it, appears difficult; but this is a glamour cast by Maya. It is a Compendium
various systems of philosophy.
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A Compendium of divine invention's feats
She has combined to make the unreal true
02.01 - The World-Stair, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is a brief Compendium of the Vast.
This was the single stair to being's goal.
1.00 - Preface, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
I am greatly indebted to Madame H. P. Blavatsky's writings, and I believe I shall not be too egotistical in claiming that a proper understanding of the principles outlined herein will reveal many points of subtlety and philosophic interest in her Secret Doctrine , and aid in the comprehension of this monumental work of hers. The same is also true of S. L. McGregor Mathers' translation of portions of the Zohar, " The Kaballah Unveiled ", and of Arthur E. Waite's excellent Compendium of the Zohar, " The Secret Doctrine in Israel ", both of which are closed books, in the main, to most students of mystical lore and philosophy who do not have the specialized comparative knowledge which I have endeavoured to incorporate in this little book.
I should here call attention to a tract, the author of which is unknown, entitled The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom, of which splendid translations have been made by W. Wynn Westcott, Arthur E. Waite, and Knut Stenring. In the course of time this appears to have become incorporated into, and affiliated with, the text of the Sepher Yetsirah, although several critics place it at a later date than the genuine Mishnahs of the Sepher Yetsirah. However, in giving the titles of the Paths from this tract, I have named throughout the source as the Sepher Yetsirah to avoid unnecessary confusion. It is to be hoped that no adverse criticism will arise on this point.
1.01 - Historical Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Qabalistic research. The first-named (an Aristotelean) made a really noble attempt to reconcile Qabalah with the academic philosophy of his day, and wrote a treatise which is an excellent Compendium of the Qabalah.
Mirandola and Reuchlin were Christians who took up a study of the Qabalah with the ulterior motive of obtaining a suitable weapon wherewith to convert Jews to Chris- tianity. Some Jews were so misguided and sadly bewildered by the mangling of texts and distorted inter- pretations which ensued that they actually forsook
1.01 - Maitreya inquires of his teacher (Parashara), #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Now truly all that was told me formerly by Vaśiṣṭha, and by the wise Palastya, has been brought to my recollection by your questions, and I will relate to you the whole, even all you have asked. Listen to the complete Compendium of the Pur pas, according to its tenour. The world was produced from Viṣṇu: it exists in him: he is the cause of its continuance and cessation: he is the world[16].
Footnotes and references:
--
[14]: Purāṇa sanhitā kerttā Bhavān bha p. 6 viṣyati. You shall be a maker of the Sanhitā, or Compendium of the Purāṇas, or of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, considered as a summary or Compendium of Pauranic traditions. In either sense it is incompatible with the general attribution of all the Purāṇas to Vyāsa.
[15]: Whether performing the usual ceremonies of the Brahmans, or leading a life of devotion and penance, which supersedes the necessity of rites and sacrifices.
1.03 - To Layman Ishii, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
Precious Mirror Cave (244). f Hakuin loosely paraphrases a statement in the Comprehensive Records of Yun-men (Yun-men kuang-lu). An early Chinese commentary on this apprises us of the fact that warm excrement produced during the summer months has an especially foul smell. g The Dragon Gate is a three-tiered waterfall cut through the mountains of Lung-men to open up a passage for the Yellow River. It was said that on the third day of the third month, when peach trees are in flower, carp that succeeded in scaling this waterfall turned into dragons. h Compendium of the Five Lamps, ch. 1. Also Case 41 in the Gateless Barrier. i Compendium of the Five Lamps, ch. 3. j Based on lines in a verse by Yuan-wu K'o-ch'in: "I venerate the Sixth Patriarch, an au thentic old
Buddha who manifested himself in the human world as a good teacher for eighty lifetimes in order to help others" (cited in Trei's Snake Legs for Kaien-fusetsu, 21v). k The head monk in Huang-po's assembly at this time is not identified in the standard accounts of this episode in Record of Lin-chi and Records of the Lamp. He is given as Chen Tsun-su (Mu-chou Taotsung, n.d.) in some other accounts. In none of the versions does he utter such words directly to Linchi. l A winged tiger would be even more formidable. m In the Record of Lin-chi account (also Blue Cliff Record, Case 11), the head monk in Huang-po's assembly tells Lin-chi to ask Huang-po about the essential meaning of the Buddha Dharma. He goes to
--
Successive Records of the Lamp, ch. 23). o This generally follows the account in Compendium of the Five Lamps, ch. 9. p Tao-wu Yuan-chih (769-835) and his student Chien-yuan went to pay their respects to someone who had passed away. Chien-yuan rapped on the coffin and said, "Living or dead?" Tao-wu replied,
"I won't say living. I won't say dead." "Why won't you say?" asked Chien-yuan. "I won't say,"
--
Mount Sumeru, because inhabitants enjoy lives of interminable pleasure; and being enthralled in the worldly wisdom and skillful words (sechibens) of secular life. Dried buds and dead seeds (shge haishu) is a term of reproach directed at followers of the Two Vehicles, who are said to have no possibility for attaining complete enlightenment. t In the system of koan study that developed in later Hakuin Zen, hosshin or Dharmakaya koans are used in the beginning stages of practice (see Zen Dust, 46-50). The lines Hakuin quotes here are not found in the Poems of Han-shan (Han-shan shih). They are attributed to Han-shan in Compendium of the Five Lamps (ch. 15, chapter on Tung-shan Mu-ts'ung): "The master ascended the teaching seat and said, 'Han-shan said that "Red dust dances at the bottom of the well. / White waves rise on the mountain peaks. / The stone woman gives birth to a stone child. / Fur on the tortoise grows longer by the day." If you want to know the Bodhi-mind, all you have to do is to behold these sights.'" The lines are included in a Japanese edition of the work published during Hakuin's lifetime. u The Ten Ox-herding Pictures are a series of illustrations, accompanied by verses, showing the Zen student's progress to final enlightenment. The Five Ranks, comprising five modes of the particular and universal, are a teaching device formulated by Tung-shan of the Sto tradition. v Records of the Lamp, ch. 10. w Liu Hsiu (first century) was a descendant of Western Han royalty who defeated the usurper Wang
Mang and established the Eastern Han dynasty. Emperor Su Tsung (eighth century) regained the throne that his father had occupied before being been driven from power. x Wang Mang (c. 45 BC-23 AD) , a powerful official of the Western Han dynasty, and rebellious
1.07 - The Prophecies of Nostradamus, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
32 The text of the various mss. is supposed to go back to the Compendium
theologicae veritatis of Hugh of Strasbourg (13th cent.). Cf. Kelchner, Der
1.14 - Bibliography, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Hugh of Strasbourg. Compendium theologicae veritatis. Venice,
1492.
1.14 - Noise, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
You will recall that in Yoga the concise Compendium of Initiated Instruction is:
Sit still
2.28 - Rajayoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This arrangement of the psychic body is reproduced in the physical with the spinal column as a rod and the ganglionic centres as the Chakras which rise up from the bottom of the column, where the lowest is attached, to the brain and find their summit in the brahmarandhra at the top of the skull. These Chakras or lotuses, however, are in physical man closed or only partly open, with the consequence that only such powers and only so much of them are active in him as are sufficient for his ordinary physical life, and so much mind and soul only is at play as will accord with its needs. This is the real reason, looked at from the mechanical point of view, why the embodied soul seems so dependent on the bodily and nervous life, -- though the dependence is neither so complete nor so real as it seems. The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake, -- therefore it is called the kundalini sakti, -- in the lowest of the Chakras, in the muladhara. When by Pranayama the division between the upper and lower Prana currents in the body is dissolved, this Kundalini is struck and awakened, it uncoils itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the shakti meets Put less symbolically, in more philosophical though perhaps less profound language, this means that the real energy of our being is lying asleep and inconscient in the depths of our vital system, and is awakened by the practice of Pranayama. In its expansion it opens up all the centres of our psychological being in which reside the powers and the consciousness of what would now be called perhaps our subliminal self; therefore as each centre of power and consciousness is opened up, we get access to successive psychological planes and are able to put ourselves in communication with the worlds or cosmic states of being which correspond to them; all the psychic powers abnormal to physical man, but natural to the soul develop in us. Finally, at the summit of the ascension, this arising and expanding' energy meets with the superconscient self which sits concealed behind and above our physical and mental existence; this meeting leads to a profound Samadhi of union in which our waking consciousness loses itself in the superconscient. Thus by the thorough and unremitting practice of Pranayama the Hathayogin attains in his own way the psychic and spiritual results which are pursued through more directly psychical and spiritual methods in other Yogas. The one mental aid which he conjoins with it, is the use of the Mantra, sacred syllable, name or mystic formula which is of so much importance in the Indian systems of Yoga and common to them all. This secret of the power of the Mantra, the six Chakras and the Kundalini shakti is one of the central truths of all that complex psycho-physical science and practice of which the Tantric philosophy claims to give us a rationale and the most complete Compendium of methods. All religions and disciplines in India which use largely the psycho-physical method, depend more or less upon it for their practices.
Rajayoga also uses the Pranayama and for the same principal psychic purposes as the Hathayoga, but being in its whole principle a psychical system, it employs it only as one stage in the series of its practices and to a very limited extent, for three or four large utilities. It does not start with Asana and Pranayarna, but insists first on a moral purification of the mentality. This preliminary is of supreme importance; without it the course of the rest of the Rajayoga is likely to be troubled, marred and full of unexpected mental, moral and physical perils.517 This moral purification is divided in the established system under two heads, five Yamas and five Niyamas. The first are rules of moral self-control in conduct such as truth-speaking, abstinence from injury or killing, from theft, etc.; but in reality these must be regarded as merely certain main indications of the general need of moral self-control and purity. Yama is, more largely, any self-discipline by which the rajasic egoism and its passions and desires in the human being are conquered and quieted into perfect cessation. The object is to create a moral calm, a void of the passions, and so prepare for the death of egoism in the rajasic human being. The Niyamas are equally a discipline of the mind by regular practices of which the highest is meditation on the divine Being, and their object is to create a sattwic calm, purity and preparation for concentration upon which the secure pursuance of the rest of the Yoga can be founded.
3.07 - The Formula of the Holy Grail, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
supreme hieroglyph of Truth, a Compendium of the Sacred Knowledge. Many volumes have been written with regard to it; but, for
our present purpose, it will be necessary only to explain how it
3.18 - Of Clairvoyance and the Body of Light, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
2. We postulate that it is possible to construct a Compendium of
hieroglyphs sufficiently elastic in meaning to include every possible
--
Let us first consider the question of the Compendium of symbols.
The alphabet of a language is a more or less arbitrary way of
37.02 - The Story of Jabala-Satyakama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
The knowledge and realisation that he had gained from his life of a wandering cowherd are the basic truth of the world, the supreme secret of creation. He realised that Brahman is the ultimate Truth, the one and only Reality. The signs or qualities of this ultimate Truth or Reality are four. Brahman may be described as if in a group of four aphorisms, like the first four aphorisms of the Brahmasutra, the basic Compendium of Vedantic thought, which Shankara has commented on in-very clear terms. If you know his commentary on these four aphorisms, you get to know practically the entire philosophy of the Vedanta as interpreted by Shankara.
The first of the aphorisms taught to Satyakama implies that Brahman has made himself manifest, for He is selfmanifest. Another Upanishad has said the same thing: tameva bhantam anubhati sarvam,"His is the Light that illumines all." Of this self-luminous form of Brahman or God the four limbs are the four quarters. He is manifest on all sides, above and below, in every direction, and he is not only thus manifest; there is also no end or limit to his manifestation. Hence, as a second step in our knowledge, we learn that God or Brahman is the Infinite. This Infinity too has four limbs or lines: (1) earth, or the physical and material extension, (2) mid-air, or the expanse of the vital worlds, (3) the vast expanses of mind, and (4) the oceanic reaches of the higher worlds that stand above the mind. The third attribute or quality of God is Luminosity, He is the Bright, the Effulgent One - He is the supreme light. Of His Brightness or Effulgence the symbols are four, the four that serve as the medium or base: these are fire, the sun, the moon and the stars. Fire is enkindled on the solid earth of matter; the sun burns in the mid-regions of life; the moon illumines with its cooling rays the regions of the quiet and happy mind; and the stars give us the brilliance of the world beyond mind. It is needless to add that the Seer is not speaking here in terms of astronomy. He has been expressing his meaning through the help of significant symbols or metaphors. And finally, the Reality or God is made up of Form: that is to say, He has put Himself forth variously through a multitude of forms, rupam rupam pratirupo babhuva.And the functions or instrumentalities through which Form has taken shape are the four main powers of sense-consciousness. These are: (I) the power of sensitivity, the capacity of living contact and intimate or close experience, of which the sense of touch represents to us the external form or activity, for through it we get a sense of reality as living existence; (2) the power of vision or sight, for through the eyes we get a sense of form and definite shape; (3) the power of hearing, for the organ of hearing gives us a sense of rhythm, of sound, the form of articulate speech; and (4) the power of mind which, being the centre of thinking, gives us a sense of meaning, builds the forms of thought.
APPENDIX I - Curriculum of A. A., #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians , reprint of Franz Hartmann. ::: An invaluable Compendium.
Scrutinium Chymicum , by Michael Maier. ::: One of the best treatises on alchemy.
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
nations, on the authority of undeniably au thentic documents." It is "an invaluable Compendium, the
full epitome of the Doctrines held, of the arts and sciences, not only of the Chaldeans, but also of the
--
copies and is a Chaldean, now very incomplete Compendium. As already said, Enoichion means in
Greek the "inner eye," or the Seer; in Hebrew, and with the help of Masoretic points it means the
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
In the Golden Legend, a thirteenth-century Compendium of
lives of the saints written by the Dominican friar Jacobus de
BOOK XIII. - That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam's sin, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
Gieseler's Compendium of Ecclesiastical History. 5 vols.
Neander's General Church History. 9 vols.
ENNEAD 06.05 - The One and Identical Being is Everywhere Present In Its Entirety.345, #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
To make so lucid and capable a Compendium of the works of so great a giant of philosophy as Plotinos, the author must have spent much time in analysing the text and satisfying himself as to the meaning of many obscure passages; to test his absolute accuracy would require the verification of every reference among the hundreds given in the tables at the end of the pamphlet, and we have only had time to verify one or two of the more striking. These are as accurate as anything in a digest can rightly be expected to be. In addition to the detailed chapters on the seven realms of the Plotinic philosophy, on reincarnation, ethics, and sthetics, we have introductory chapters on Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Emanationism, and on the relationship of Plotinos to Christianity and Paganism.
Those who desire to enter into the Plotinian precincts of the temple of Greek philosophy by the most expeditious path CANNOT do BETTER than take this little pamphlet for their guide; it is of course not perfect, but it is undeniably THE BEST which has yet appeared. We have recommended the T.P.S. to procure a supply of this pamphlet, for to our Platonic friends and colleagues we say not only YOU SHOULD, but YOU MUST read it.
The Library of Babel, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
which is the formula and perfect Compendium of all the rest: some librarian has
gone through it and he is analogous to a god. In the language of this zone
--- Overview of noun compendium
The noun compendium has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
1. collection, compendium ::: (a publication containing a variety of works)
2. compendium ::: (a concise but comprehensive summary of a larger work)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun compendium
2 senses of compendium
Sense 1
collection, compendium
=> publication
=> work, piece of work
=> product, production
=> creation
=> artifact, artefact
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
Sense 2
compendium
=> summary, sum-up
=> statement
=> message, content, subject matter, substance
=> communication
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun compendium
1 of 2 senses of compendium
Sense 1
collection, compendium
=> anthology
=> archives
=> compilation, digest
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun compendium
2 senses of compendium
Sense 1
collection, compendium
=> publication
Sense 2
compendium
=> summary, sum-up
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun compendium
2 senses of compendium
Sense 1
collection, compendium
-> publication
=> reissue, reprint, reprinting
=> new edition
=> book
=> volume
=> read
=> impression, printing
=> collection, compendium
=> periodical
=> magazine, mag
=> tip sheet
=> reference, source
=> republication
Sense 2
compendium
-> summary, sum-up
=> argument, literary argument
=> capitulation
=> compendium
=> condensation, abridgement, abridgment, capsule
=> conspectus
=> curriculum vitae, CV, resume
=> line score
=> outline, synopsis, abstract, precis
=> overview
=> roundup
=> sketch, survey, resume
=> summation, summing up, rundown
--- Grep of noun compendium
compendium
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selforum - every person compendium of humanity
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Shin Megami Tensei Devil Children: Light & Dark -- -- Actas -- 52 eps -- - -- Action Kids Adventure Fantasy Magic Game Supernatural Demons Sci-Fi -- Shin Megami Tensei Devil Children: Light & Dark Shin Megami Tensei Devil Children: Light & Dark -- A series based off of the Shin Megami Tensei Devil Children: Light & Dark games (known as DemiKids in the U.S.). -- -- The year is 200X. Jin, Akira and Lena are three child hood friends who like mysterious things. One day in the library, along with the mysterious transfer student Ami, they find the "Akuma Compendium". They chanted an incantation in the book and, to their surprise, devils appeared. Ami then told Jin and Akira that they are the Devil Children that will decide the fate of the world. She hands them their Devil Risers. The group then pass through the "Door of Time" to the land of Valhalla where they fight an evil ruler known as Imperius who plans on conquering all of the world. The Nakama of Jin is Rand, a Sol Lion, and Akira's is Gale, a Hylon. -- -- (Source: Wikipedia.org) -- TV - Oct 5, 2002 -- 1,484 6.37
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