Societies have beliefs, about underlying universe nature, that result in worship of higher powers {religion}.
topics
Religion involves faith, commitment, sacredness, miracles, feeling, mysticism, inspiration, religious language, and sacred writing. Religion involves heaven, hell, life after death, incarnation, immortality, and soul. Religion involves knowledge unity, integration, life meaning, universe causes, universe principles, universals, harmony, oneness, perfection, unity, and pluralism.
good and evil
Goodness and evil relate to sin, guilt, and forgiveness. Religion involves perfection, sin, morals, personal responsibility, laws, and free will.
gods
Religion studies existence, proofs, nature, and attributes of gods.
institutions
Religious institutions have sacraments and rituals.
culture
Rituals, emotions, beliefs, and rules differ in different cultures and religions, with many opposites.
purposes
Relieve fear and anxiety about death. Make people sacred. Control impulses. Control aggression. Provide consistent morals. Support social norms and values by sanctifying them. Ensure compliance with norms by emphasizing obedience, humility, and fatalism. Cleanse people of guilt. Provide fellowship. Provide beauty. Provide rituals for important family and social acts. Simplify life and thought but not too much. Posit spiritual world. Give outlet for prayer. Explain nature. Provide meaning to life. Provide beliefs, some supernatural. Provide power to dependent or weak. Provide significance. Provide identity. Provide group with shared moral beliefs. Give purpose to suffering and frustration. Give more meaning to victories and achievements.
Religion {natural religion} can have no revelation, no miracles, no sacraments, and no clergy, only morals and God.
Spiritual things {holy}| can be supernatural, capricious, awe-inspiring, feared, mysterious, and exciting. Religions feature sense of union between self and holy power.
Objects or people can have meaning and value and be deserving of awe and reverence {sacred}|. Sacred people or objects inspire total emotional belief and moral commitment. People can worship artworks instead of the sacred {idolatry, sacred}. Religion has sacred, magic, fetish, or totem objects. Such objects associate with gods and magical powers.
People can study existence and nature of God {theology}|, in writings or teachings supposed to have come directly from God {revealed theology}. Theology is about reasons for and against belief in God.
People can study nature to learn facts about God or support beliefs about God {rational theology} {natural theology}.
Something {god}| can be partially or wholly outside the physical universe and capable of affecting universe.
arguments for God
God must exist {ontological argument, God}. The physical universe proves that God exists {cosmological argument, God}. Universe purposes prove that God exists {teleological argument, God}. Hume and Kant disproved these arguments.
arguments against God
Perhaps, God does not exist. If evil exists, God cannot be completely good and cannot be all-powerful. The idea of God contains contradiction, because nothing is logical necessity. God cannot be omnipotent. God cannot be omniscient. God cannot be eternal.
Because people cannot ascertain truth of statements about God, such statements are meaningless. Attributes of God depend on human attributes and so do not necessarily apply to beings with no bodies. Spirits have no method of interacting with matter, unless they are part matter, or third substances mediate interactions.
No premises have universal acceptance as true. Valid reasoning is difficult about infinities or perfections.
disproofs of God
Supposed proofs of God have convincing disproofs that show contradictions. Today, theologians accept that there is no proof of God.
attributes
God can know people's experiences or know only what people's experiences are like. God can know things by standing outside time or by knowing everything to know at each instant. God can know choices that free wills can make, by observation or foreknowledge, or not know choices before, so self-limiting God's knowledge.
God can be the creator and have created and maintained physical and mental worlds. In Hebrew-Christian world-view, God created universe. The spirit of God moves universe. Man is the image of God. Souls have free will. The feeling of love is important in universe.
God can be essence.
God can be eternal and exist outside time and/or throughout time.
God can be good. God can be beneficent and compassionate. God can be sympathetic.
God can have no bound. However, God is finite, because physical quantities have quanta and are relativistic. Universe can have no bound but still be finite.
God can be intelligent and wise.
God can be like universe boundary, like being both inside and outside spherical surface. Boundary conditions define space points. God is then both immanent and transcendent. Universe is inside God and is the boundary of God.
God can be just.
God can be lawful and orderly in action.
God can expect duty, morality, submission, and other rights from humans.
God can be like mathematical law. If laws are necessary and sufficient, they organize themselves.
God can be mind with no viewpoint and have no body.
God gave commands to humans that establish right and wrong, commands are logically necessary, or both. God can be source of moral judgments. However, morals do not require God, because society and family are settings for moral development.
God has moral attributes. Good will triumph. God knows all and can do all. God wills that people do good. God does only good. God is just. God is merciful. God is loving. God wishes us to manifest his glory.
God can be powerful enough to change logic rules, alter past, and/or allow contradictions to exist simultaneously. Perhaps, God is self-constrained or otherwise constrained against doing these things.
God can be perfection.
God can be a person or personality. God is like a person, with will, agency, feelings, consciousness, and self. However, God is not like man, because God has no brain, glands, body, or human attributes. God can have no emotions, no will, no reason, no sense qualities or perception, and no free will.
God can be purposeful.
God can be self-subsisting and self-sufficient. God can be unconditioned.
Spirit is supernatural or mental substance or essence that is in or part of God. It has power to do things in physical world. It can be transmittable. It can have will. Holy Spirit of Christianity is the way that people know God. Soul receives it to give people Mind, which can then follow spiritual values. It allows people to partake of God or God's qualities. Thus, it enables people to tell true from false and good from evil, to have will and be able to choose, and to speak and know language. However, God is not spirit, because spirit, being non-physical, can have no direct affect on material world. Spirit cannot cause anything, because only physical things can affect physical things. No method exists by which people can detect spirit, because spirit does not affect mass-energy.
Substance is what is true reality, such as matter or mind. God can be fundamental substance, can just work with substance, or can have substance attributes. However, substance has no meaning actually. Underlying universe substrate has no such simple concepts.
God can be the highest or first reality. God can be the highest possible being. God can be logical or universal necessity.
God can be truth.
God can be unique.
God can be unknowable.
God can be will and be free to act immediately on all substances, without influences from other things.
existence of God
God is an existence that is in, as, and of itself. All God's attributes derive from this principle. However, God's possibility does not make necessity, because necessity and existence are about physical world. Existence is not a predicate.
To make things, atoms must bond, requiring a conscious agent {argument from atomic combinations} {atomic combinations, argument}.
Physical-universe existence proves that God exists {cosmological argument}. There must be a first existence, which is God. However, universe has vacuum energy and virtual particles, as well as quantum-mechanical laws.
Proofs {cosmological proof} can be about causes or movements. Effects must have causes, so causal chain must go back to a beginning cause {First Cause, religion}, which is God. Things move, and movements must have previous movements, back to a beginning movement by a prime mover, unmoved by anything else.
problems
God cannot be First Cause, because beginning cause presupposes universe exists, ready for first cause. God is not even about cause and effect, because causes must be physical or mathematical. If God is physical, physical laws limit God.
Universe power comes from its fundamental nature, that small volumes must have great energy, with no need for outside power sources. All things must always move, because motions are relative to observers, not absolute. All particles have intrinsic movements.
Arguments {design, argument} {argument from design} {argument from experience} can be about designing. Universe has unity, is in harmony, and has power and motion. It must have a designer, just as bodies and machines have designers and creators. God creates and designs universe.
problems
The presence of evil, pain, social injustice, and natural disasters point to low harmony and poor design, as well as question whether God is good. Universe harmony is only appearance. At smallest level, universe has quanta and fragments. At greatest level, universe is relative. God does not need to design, because complex things can arise from simpler things by evolution.
Arguments {argument from eternal truths} {eternal truths argument} can be about truth. Statements are true or false. Statements must exist in minds. Statements about essences, but not existences, can be always true or always false and so must exist in eternal mind. The world has facts {contingent truth, God}, which must come from eternal truths by the principle of sufficient reason. Existences show that there must be eternal mind.
problems
Essences are not necessarily real. Statements can exist in non-eternal minds. Truth can depend on time and location.
Proofs {experiential proof} {argument from religious experience} can be about experiences. Religious revelations and experiences are widespread and involve similar phenomena, so something or someone must inspire them. They can depend on God's existence and action. However, religious experiences are mental processes that depend on brain chemicals and activities, similar to other mental states. People do not yet know how mind works.
Proofs {mental proof} can be about mind and ideas. People know that other people have minds, by analogy with themselves. People can then use analogy to think of an all-knowing mind. Mind has meaningful ideas and has a highest idea, the idea of God, which mystics and religious experience can reveal, in which there seems to be unity of everything and generalized meaning. However, people can always think of something that is one better than the one before it, so people cannot truly think of a highest thing.
Proofs {mind proof} can be about mind. People have reason, mind, and imagination, whose cause is an all-intelligent being (C. S. Lewis). People are conscious and are part of God's consciousness or can experience God's consciousness, mind, or spirit. Universe has evolved higher intelligence forms, continuing even now, and God allows this by continual creation. However, no one yet knows how mind works. Evolution can build mind. Consciousness requires brains.
Proofs {moral proof} can be about morals. People have consciences and know moral laws. People can fail to follow moral laws or conscience and then feel this failure. This feeling is not about conditioning or self-interest, so God must have put moral laws and conscience in people (Kant). However, people develop feelings and ideas socially and can develop guilty feelings even about moral acts.
God must exist because things exist {ontological argument}. There must be a first existence, which is God. However, universe has vacuum energy and virtual particles, as well as quantum-mechanical laws.
Proofs {ontological proof} {argument ex consensu gentium} can be about perfection. God is perfection, the most perfect, most bountiful, and most knowledgeable. People have a mental concept of highest or perfect being, God, with all possible attributes. Only actual existence of such being can give people this idea, so it must actually exist (Anselm). Perhaps, belief in God is part of man's nature. Universe perfection allows people to know imperfection.
However, people can always think of something that is one better than the one before it, so people cannot truly think of a highest thing.
Proofs {perfection proof of God} can be about perfection or goodness. Because things are more or less good, true, and so on, there must be something that is the highest truth, goodness, and so on. However, there does not have to be only one.
Proofs {purpose proof of God} can be about purpose. Because all things act toward goals, even if without mind, so there must be a highest goal or purpose. However, there does not have to be only one.
Proofs {teleological proof} {argument from design with teleology} {argument from analogy} {teleological argument, religion} can be about purpose. Universe is infinitely complex, has order, and has purpose. There must be an intentional mind or intelligent designer to make the universe. God sets the purpose or is the purpose. However, natural selection designs organisms without purposes. Teleology depends on finding purposes, and universe has no clear purposes.
God causes itself {causa sui}. However, causes must already exist, so causing oneself cannot cause one's existence. Most theologians state that God has no cause, because God is necessary.
God can have created universe {creator}, have only given form or laws to universe, or be separate from universe. God created one universe from nothing, and God can modify all matter and events. God can have created it all at one time or creates it continuously.
However, God is not creator of everything, because organisms evolve and physical things make random combinations. Universe is not a machine or body. Matter and energy had to have intrinsic laws to exist, so God cannot have added laws or form. God cannot be separate, because universe is what is.
God can be sacred and/or supernatural {divine, God}. People can have a divine essence or part that can have personal relations with the Divine.
God can be in everything {immanence}|. However, God is not immanent, because space is not continuous but quantized. Infinitesimal space parts are always different and always changing, because small volumes have tremendous energies. Space contracts, expands, and curves over time, because space is dynamic. Time flow is not smooth and continuous but quantized.
God can be all-powerful {omnipotence} {omnipotent}. However, God is not omnipotent, because physical quantities have quanta, are uncontrollable during transitions, have random elements, are relativistic, and take time, so God cannot act immediately and simultaneously.
God can be everywhere at once {omnipresent}|.
God can perceive and know all {omniscience} {omniscient}. God can know everything about past, present, and future. However, God is not omniscient, because Gödel's proof shows that one system cannot contain all true things. Physical quantities are relativistic, so no one viewpoint exists. Physical quantities have quanta, so instruments cannot observe transitions.
Because nothing has existed always, something makes and destroys all things, and that something must have supreme being {supreme being}, existing in itself with no other cause. However, there does not have to be only one.
God can be above or around everything {transcendence} {transcendent}. God can stand outside time, space, and mind and transcend universe. However, God is not transcendent, because signals cannot reach all space simultaneously but travel at light speed. There is no absolute space or time to occupy. Space parts appear different relative to different observers. Space itself can expand and contract over time.
God can be unknowable. People can only know what God is not {via negativa}, such as not animal.
People can never know anything about God, spirits, or souls {agnosticism about God}. People can only know material world.
No God or gods exist {atheism}|.
Only one God exists. God is separate from material world {deism}|. God created material world according to laws and then left it alone. Such a god is not personal and does not answer prayers or care about humans. Abstract religion emphasized duty, modesty, charity, and tolerance.
Only one God exists {monotheism}|. God does not take material form or takes only one form. God has will and spirit and thinks like people think.
Only one God exists. God is in everything, and everything is part of God {pantheism}|.
Many god-like beings {polytheism}| live forever in higher world than Earth, can visit Earth and people, and can take any form.
Humanism {religious humanism}| can emphasize people and values, to make better lives. Humanism de-emphasizes mysticism, miracles, and rituals.
Spirits or souls are free to inhabit any object {spiritism}| {polydaemonism}. If spirits can enter or leave people, people must prevent bad spirits from entering and good spirits from leaving. Ancestor spirits are around constantly.
Believing in a higher world {supernaturalism}| emphasizes spirit world and good spirit {angel, spirit} and bad spirit {devil, spirit} actions.
Only one God exists. God is or has spirit {theism}| that is both immanent in everything in world and transcendent above everything in world.
Naturalism {theistic naturalism} can emphasize God's immanent presence in world as force of spiritual values. People can know God by this presence.
Almost all objects have psychology, soul, or spirit {animism, religion}|, which can cause harm or good, just as people can.
Animists often believe that universe has capricious power {mana} {animism, mana}, of which people must be in awe and careful.
Animism often includes rules {taboo}| to prevent bad luck and gain good luck.
People can have a spirit or spiritual body {soul}| {spirit}.
number
People can have only one soul. Perhaps, people can have demons or angels.
existence
Souls can continuously exist from universe beginning or can begin at conception or birth. Souls can survive after death or not.
Souls can exist in spiritual world, in heaven or hell, in human bodies, independently of body, in animal bodies, or in all living things.
properties
Souls can have different personalities, be the same, or be similar parts of larger soul-like things, such as God.
Souls can be eternal, be separate, and have history. Souls can be part of, and within, eternal divine memory.
Souls can be eternal divine views of present earthly existence.
Souls can represent eternal moral qualities of present life, with no further existence after death.
Souls can be person essence.
However, mind or essence comes from brain processes and structures, not necessarily from God. Souls can be anything, because they are not physical, and so do not carry meaning in physical world.
intellect
Body spiritual essence or mind is permanent, cannot change, and has no intellect. Souls connect to body mental faculties and are its individuality. Perhaps, souls have conscious life, involving decisions, actions, and responsibilities.
animals
Because animals can perceive, do they have souls?
Most religions say spiritual life can continue after death {immortality}| {life after death, soul}. Religions can say that spiritual life exists before birth.
types
Life after death can take several forms. Minds can continue, without any bodies. Minds can merge into collective mind. Perhaps, people have no minds but start completely different existences.
evidence
People have claimed that immortality indications are possible. Dreams show that spirit remains even when people are unconscious. People can affect others even after their deaths, so effects have spiritual cause. Most body changes do not alter human mind, and mind can alter without apparent body changes.
Perhaps, souls can be mortal {mortalism} {mortalist heresy}.
spiritual essence or mind {psyche}|.
Perhaps, spiritual essence, mind, or psyche can move to another body {metempsychosis} {transmigration}|, which then has life.
good spirit {angel, religion}|.
bad spirit {devil, religion}|.
One reason can relate all objects, events, and ideas {unity of explanation}|. Explanation can cover all history, from before space-time to after end. Unifying principles can integrate all knowledge categories. One story can answer all major questions and problems.
story
Explanations can be stories, in which humans play significant parts. History can include how human mind arose, what it is, and how it will change in the future. Stories can become better, as human history proceeds and humans gain more knowledge about universe and themselves. Countries, cultures, religions, philosophies, groups, and people have stories.
Limited knowledge and limited expression power cause stories to be part true and part false. Reasonable stories can be logically complete and consistent and not contradict known facts. Such stories can be the consensus of the worldwide community of educated people, from multiple countries, cultures, religions, philosophies, and groups. Good stories can foster international community of educated, humane, and objective people, by providing common knowledge, upon which they can improve.
people purpose
Why are there people? Why do gods need people? Why did gods make people?
People can be just accidents of history and not be necessary results of physical events.
People can be necessary, but their attributes are accidents of evolution and genetics.
people purpose: gods
Gods, using faculty like human will, can make people for reasons. Perhaps, gods needed people to fulfill purposes in universe. Perhaps, gods needed people for companionship. Perhaps, gods needed praise and respect. Perhaps, spirits of people affect spiritual world, or spiritual world needs them. Perhaps, people can freely choose, and so their actions constrain God's freedom and will.
In organized religions, God requires people to do God's work and God's purposes in the world, and God has plan for people.
In Christianity, God created people to provide fellowship for God and to love, obey, have faith in existence of, and serve God. They have life from God. People should be good, not evil.
truth
People can prove something false, by giving counterexample or showing contradiction. It is hard to prove something true, because counterexample or contradiction can only become apparent after obtaining more knowledge.
God was creator but then let everything move on its own {deus ex machina}|.
Religions have theories about death and universe end {eschatology}|.
Religion involves psychology {psychology, religion} {religion, psychology}.
emotion
Religion can express emotions, such as humility, reverence, awe, ecstasy, joy, and terror. Religion allies with art.
mystical experience
People can have unwilled short ineffable feelings of insight.
religious behavior
Religion seeks perfection through good behaviors. Pray. Fast. Sacrifice wants. Have patience. Seek unity with God. Be content. Concentrate on ideal things. Be humble. Do good works. Give alms. Contribute money. Worship. Tell truth. Honor oaths. Obey God. Repent sin. Serve. Perform rituals. Fear God. Live in harmony with other people. Respect people. Be serious and solemn. Trust in God. Have joy in faith. Be at peace with oneself. Resign oneself to fate. Be conscious of duty.
religious experience
Religions appear to have arisen from personal experiences. Religious experiences follow periods of uneasiness. Then insight grasps solution. People feel sense of wholeness and sense of something given from outside, without asking for it, without earning it. From such experiences, people can infer a giver. Givers can be something unseen outside person and have power to do amazing things.
Myths of flight and ascension suggest escape from one mode of being to another. Religious feeling can manifest as speaking in tongues, trembling, writhing, or religious possession.
People can have a dependency need {dependency attitude} {amaeru}.
People can have is total emotional belief {faith, religion}|.
People can follow a simple life of mediation and prayer {asceticism}, with few goods and few personal pleasures.
People can have sudden changes {conversion, religion}| in behavior from immoral to moral or from passive acceptance of faith to active spiritual life. Beliefs exchange for new beliefs. People can experience strong religious feelings {religious ecstasy, conversion} and change spiritual orientation.
causes
Conversion happens after religious and psychological preparation. Conversion happens after exhaustion or frustration. Conversion ends tension and conflict. Conversion can accompany belief in people's sinfulness, personal sense of sin, need for removing sin, religious faith, and heightened emotion.
results
People feel energy, joy, peace, and calmness. Conversion is passionate. Conversion surrenders self to outside control or direction. No single trait distinguishes converted people from others.
Prayers {prayer}| can be petitions, sin confessions, communions, or meditations.
People can have a feeling of receiving insight from God or angels {revelation, psychology}.
Religion prohibits behaviors {sin, religion}|, such as divorce, blasphemy, usury, drinking alcohol, gambling, eating certain foods, revenge, swearing, taking God in vain, and worshipping idols. Religion often prohibits expressing bodily desires for food or sex. Religion often discourages feeling pride and loving material things, including people. Religion denounces failure to give alms or contribute money. Main sins {deadly sins} {seven deadly sins} are lust, greed, pride, envy, sloth, wrath, and gluttony.
Religious feeling can manifest as guttural syllables sounding like speech {speaking in tongues}|, trembling, writhing, or religious possession.
Religion has communities of believers or practitioners {believer}.
People can belong to small believing groups {cult}. Cult membership indicates need to have guru and to have dependency need. Cults emphasize immediate happiness and contentment. Cults also stress ritual purity.
Religion features sense of common purpose and fellowship {fellowship, religion}|.
People can worship artworks instead of the sacred {idolatry, religion}|.
Church meetings {revival}| can heighten religious feeling and typically feature dramatic preaching about sin, hell, and damnation.
Religion has sacred symbolic behaviors {ritual}|.
Rituals {sacrifice, ritual}| can open communication between sacred and profane. One gives up something to make later gain.
Sects split from another church {schism}|.
People at religious schools {theological seminary} can train to preach and minister.
Religious people typically belong to religious associations {church}. Churches can be loose groups, have high institutionalization, or have full integration with society {ecclesia, church}.
Protestant Christian churches {denomination}| are separate and depend on family or primary group.
Churches {sect}| can have strict doctrine, high commitment, intolerance of others, and critical view of society. Sects split from another church by schism.
Religion and society {communal religion} integrate in many communities.
Religion {evangelical religion} can seek to spread doctrine or belief among non-believers, typically using missionaries and witnessing to try to convert others to their religion.
Religion {fundamentalism, religion}| can require members to adhere to simple, strict behavioral code and believe in simple, strict ideology. It can be reaction to social complexity, immorality, excess, and disorder. It can be reaction to poverty and hopelessness. It can be reaction to preserve personal or group identity. It can have belief that people are bad and need controls.
Religion {mainstream religion} can emphasize church-going, good works, faith, and fellowship. It does not emphasize doctrine or evangelism.
People can live in wholly religious community {monasticism}|.
There have been 100,000 religions {religions}.
In a nonVedic system {Ajivikai system}, selves go through 84,000 births, lives, and deaths, to pass through all stages of being and become human, and then achieve transcendence and release. Actions and demeanors show current being level. Asceticism, virtue, vice, human will, and human acts cannot affect progression of lives. There is no freedom. All things connect.
A Vedanta Hinduism extension {Buddhism} can emphasize compassion and self-denial.
method
Buddhism is a method, a way to heal oneself. People should have pure awareness, have unity, and live in the present. Simple Buddhism has no creed or mythology about this world or the next.
self
People actually have no egos, only body willings, sense qualities, perceptions, and desires.
method
People can control such thoughts, with no need to extinguish them by harsh measures. Through control, people gain freedom from desire and new relation to seemingly outer world. People gain self-composure, serenity, and calmness. Next, outer world disappears, in favor of inner being. People can lose their thoughts and desires and surrender self, to find their inner being. After enlightenment, people no longer need Buddhism.
illusion of the world
The world of things and people is many and transient {illusion of the world}. People are only physical forms, sensations, feelings, judgments, and dispositions. Knowledge categories are only imprecise thing and people groups. In Buddhism, cause ends when effect begins.
mind
Mind is unable to lead people to Truth or express Truth and so is not important. Mind perceives only true-reality projections and so sees world as real and outside self. Mind values things in world. Desires and perceptions lead to ignorance of Truth.
physical relation
Physical objects are all the same in essence. Physical objects can have different relations to other things.
sin
Buddhism has no ideas of sin or guilt.
gods
Esoteric Buddhism has gods.
In Japan, Daibutsu is the Grand Buddha. There is Newborn Buddha. Kangiten Shoten is Sacred Heaven. Jizo is Guardian of the Soul. Kannon is Mercy. Bishamon is Fortune. Fugen is Long Life. Kishimojin is patron of children. Arhan is holy disciple of Buddha. Inary is rice bearer. Oni is Gatekeeper of Hell. Benten is music and arts. Fudo is fire. Emma is Judge of the Dead.
In China, Shou Xing is god of longevity. Guan Yin is goddess of compassion. Duke Guan is god of war and literature. Cai Shen is god of wealth.
holidays
Ashada Purnima is first sermon of Buddha after attaining Mahaparinirvana in Kosi. Full Moon of Vaisakha is birth of Buddha. Vaisakha Purnima honors when Buddha attained bodhi or nirvana.
meditation
Buddhism has meditation styles. Recollection of the Buddha is a method. Vipassana or Insight is about breathing. Loving-kindness is about generalized compassion. Tantric Buddhism Wind mediation is about breath and spirit.
Chag-zôg Tibetan Buddhism meditations include Kargyü-School Great Seal meditations and Nying-ma or Ancient-School Great Perfection meditations. Focused Attention is on object or thought. Open Presence concentrates on object, thought, or image, to get to pure awareness. Non-Referential Compassion is a Loving-kindness meditation, including Sevenfold Causal Instructions, Equanimitous Exchange of Self and Other, and Giving and Taking.
People can have awakening {bodhi, Buddhism}.
In Buddhism, people have connections to, and/or are part of, true reality {Buddha nature}.
People have a conscious state {citta}.
People have belief or false belief {ditthi}.
People have mental pain {domanassa}, including grief.
People can know that no "other" or outside world exists {enlightenment}, only their being. After enlightenment, people no longer need Buddhism. All is void.
Voluntary actions have three causes {seeds of destiny} of destiny {karma, Buddhism}. They depend on former, current, and future acts. Karma can change by choosing different living styles.
Buddhism has three created worlds {lokas}: desires, pure forms with no desires, and no forms. People discover these worlds in sequence by going to deeper consciousness states.
Extinction {nibbana} is the highest goal, to quiet greed, hatred, and ignorance and reach unconditioned state.
World has signs or images {nimitta}.
People can be compassionate, friendly, clear-minded, and calm {nirvana, Buddhism}. Even nirvana itself loses all meaning after it happens. Achieving nirvana is the same as samsara. Nirvana is not a state or heaven.
People can have wisdom or understanding {panna}.
People can have concentration {samadhi, Buddhism}.
In Buddhism, one can achieve serene and mindful mental state {sammapatti, Buddhism} by meditation. It is the highest dhamma.
People can have proper conduct or moral rule {sila}.
People can have mental happiness {somanssa}.
People can have bodily pleasure or happiness {sukha}.
The Pali-Canon Three-Baskets {Tripitka} are for discipline, discourse, and extra doctrine.
Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha {Triple Gem}.
The senses or ways of knowing {Twelve Bases} are internal or external. Internal are eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. External are objects, sounds, odors, tastes, and mental objects.
People can have clinging or attachment {upadana} to ways of knowing, sense qualities, perspectives, rules/rituals, and self.
Sense qualities {upekkha} can be neither pleasant nor painful.
Feelings or sense qualities {vedana} are sukha, dukkha, somanssa, domanassa, and upekkha.
Ignorance causes karma, which causes knowledge types, which causes body knowledge, which causes the five senses, which cause object knowledge, which causes experiencing, which causes desire, which causes grasping, which causes rebirth, which causes decay, which causes death {Becoming Wheel} {Wheel of Becoming}.
Buddhism has devotions {bhakti}.
Path to enlightenment {Eightfold Path} includes right belief or view, resolve, speech, conduct, occupation, effort, contemplation or mindfulness, and concentration or ecstasy. In Buddhism, following Eightfold Path eliminates desire and suffering and breaks the reincarnation chain. Eightfold Path is middle way between materialism and ascetism.
Do not kill, steal, have sexual misconduct, use false speech, or use intoxicants nor become heedless {Five Precepts}.
Contemplate body, feelings, perceptions/thoughts, and consciousness as themselves {Four Foundations of Mindfulness}.
In Buddhism, wheels {prayer wheel} with many rolled-up mantras can spin during meditation.
Mahayana Buddhism has a liberation-from-self method {soteriology}.
In Buddhism, meditation exercises {Insight Meditation} are to develop insight or tranquility and concentration to achieve pure insight and tranquility {vipassana}.
Five causal or conditioned existence parts {Five Aggregates} form being: matter, feelings, perceptions, mental states or thoughts, and consciousness.
Mind {nama} is one of the Five Aggregates.
Matter {rupa} is one of the Five Aggregates.
Buddhism has four statements {Four Noble Truths} {Four Truths}. Existence is constant suffering and sorrow. Ignorance/illusion and desire cause suffering, by grasping existing world. People can suppress suffering by ending desire, ego, illusion, and ignorance. People can reach nirvana.
The middle way {marga, Buddhism} {middle path} is the Eightfold Path that ends dissatisfaction and suffering and liberates. It is one of the Four Noble Truths. According to Buddhism, people should follow the middle path, between worldly desires and harsh asceticism and discipline, and avoid both skepticism and dogma.
People can end {nirodha} dissatisfaction and suffering. It is one of the Four Noble Truths.
Desire/grasping {samudaya} causes dissatisfaction and suffering. It is one of the Four Noble Truths.
Life is dissatisfactory {dukkha} or has suffering. It is one of the Four Noble Truths. All life is dissatisfactory always. Dukkha is one of three truths or marks of existence.
Self is a name only, not reality {anatman} {anatta} {annatta} {no-self}. Self has no permanence and no substance. Anatman is one of three truths or marks of existence.
Material things and all existence are not permanent {anitya}. Anitya is one of three truths or marks of existence.
People can have transformation, enjoyment, and void {Triple Body}. Transformation is all things, events, and forms.
Doctrine {dharma, Buddhism} can mean reality, truth, physical law, physical nature, proper conduct, duty, justice, impartiality, mental state, or cause.
Enjoyment is physical-world compassion or knowledge {karuna, Buddhism}.
Void or Suchness is wisdom, intuition, and knowledge {prajna, Buddhism}.
Buddhist monks {arhat} can have obtained enlightenment.
Thai for Buddhist monk {bhikku}.
Living in the forest {forest-dweller} can remove suffering and defilement.
Older and respected monk {Luang Poh} is Venerable Father.
Thai title for Buddhist monk {Phra}.
Beginning monks {samanera} can take the Three Refuges and observe the Ten Precepts.
Buddhist community or Thailand monk {sangha}.
Buddhist temple {Ambhavan} is in Singhburi, north of Bangkok.
Thai county {Nai Amphur} {Amphur} of province has a sheriff.
Thailand capital {Ayudhya} [1350 to 1767] and province north of Bangkok.
Thai province {changwat}.
Thai ward or province district {amphur} {Tambon}.
ceremonial hall or monastery building {uposatha}.
Thai for Buddhist temple {wat}.
Sects {Buddhist sect} are Lamaism, Mahayana Buddhism, Hinayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism.
Buddhism is a vehicle or ferry {yana} to liberate oneself from desire, through enlightenment.
types
Hinayana Buddhism is the small boat or stricter way. Sri Lanka, Burma, and south India are Hinayana Buddhist or Theravada Buddhist. Mahayana Buddhism is the large boat or more varied way and includes Zen Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, and Lotus Buddhism. North India, China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan are Mahayana Buddhist. Mahayana Buddhism strengthened as Sakas and Yueh-Chi peoples moved into India. Vajrayana Buddhism is the diamond way or boat. Tibet and Mongolia are Vajrayana Buddhist.
Mahayana Buddhism features an infinite number of buddhas {Buddhology}, some related to heaven and some representing ideals. It has no solitary buddhas {pratyeka-buddha}. Monks do not become enlightened like buddhas, so it has no arhats. People should strive to become buddhas.
Buddhism {Esoteric Buddhism}, derived from Hinduism, can have deities.
Tibet has a Buddhist tradition {Dzogchen}.
Tibet has a Buddhism form {Lamaism} [700] similar to Mahayana Buddhism. Dalai Lama has been divine ruler of Tibet since 1640.
Buddhism {Vajrayana Buddhism} can be the diamond way, boat, or vehicle. Tibet and Mongolia are Vajrayana Buddhist.
The first formal Buddhism {Hinayana Buddhism} was stricter.
monk
Hinayana Buddhism requires a strict program of self-control and effort. Hinayana Buddhism believes that enlightenment requires becoming a monk and following strict law.
self
Buddha said, "All things are without self". Hinayana Buddhists expanded this idea to say that all things and ego are only infinitesimal moments and transient particles. Moment chains and particle aggregations appear as individuals. Nirvana ends delusion that momentary things are real.
Nothing is permanent {doctrine of momentariness} {momentariness doctrine} {Sautranika}, because effects differ. Reality is causes. People's thoughts are separate chains of reality. Outside events can affect thoughts, but thoughts are separate from exterior physical world. Suffering is part of the thought chain, and external physical world does not cause it. Sautrantika School purported to use secret meaning of Buddha's sermons and dialogues.
School {Sarvastivadin} {Realists} was last of early Hinayana schools and believes in 75 dharmas or substances.
Later formal Buddhism {Mahayana Buddhism} is less strict than Hinayana Buddhism.
physical world
The physical world is an illusion or magic show. The physical world always changes and is endless. All physical-world things depend on all others. Physical world is unreal Void.
essence of reality
The quintessence or real in things has attributes and activities. Attributes and activities can change, but quintessence does not change. All things are only such as they are in essence: "thus being thus". Essence has no description, because nothing else can describe it. Essence only describes itself. To people, the essence is the Void, because people cannot know fundamental reality.
knowledge
Real knowledge is not about language, concepts, perceptions, thinking, or world. True reality has no description. People can only experience it or have awareness of it.
schools
Madhyamika School is about the void. Sautrantika School is about realism through representation and causation. Vaibhasika School is about realism by direct experience. Yogacara School is about idealism and subjectivity.
behavior
All things in reality are Buddha things, so all people have Buddha nature in them and should try for Buddhahood. Bodhisattva worship is good.
behavior: method
People must strip away world from one's nature, to reveal Self. The first step toward true reality is to realize the unreality of all that one sees or knows and to resolutely set out to reach true reality. The next steps involve removing these influences from one's life: ending desire, building concentration, and quieting mind's active criticism and attention to detail. Finally, one can enter various states of insight {cosmic consciousness, Buddhism}, in which one feels at one with the universe in mystical state. Mahayana Buddhism allows yoga, Buddhism, Hindu rituals, and asceticism.
Buddha bodies
Buddha has three bodies. Gautama's historical body {nirmanakaya} existed on Earth. Transfigured body {sambhogakaya} exists in paradise. Transcendent cosmic-buddha body {dharmakaya} is identical with ultimate reality.
People have inner being or Self {atman, Buddhism}, which is independent, is imperishable, is unchanging, is not part of physical world, is not a created thing, cannot appear to senses, and cannot appear to will or by willing. Knowledge of this self must guide life.
Obtaining true awareness of inner self completely changes one's life and is the way to transcend the physical world. Such awareness is realizing that the physical world is an illusion, is purely material, and is fleeting and contradictory. People should show no interest but strive for true reality. Even mind, personality, and subconscious are part of physical world.
In Mahayana Buddhism, people who are about to enter nirvana can stay at pre-nirvana stage {bodhisattva}, out of compassion, to comfort and save other beings. They are completely indifferent and without ego but lead others to Buddhahood. They can resolve time as samsara and eternity as nirvana into one Void or suchness. Virtue causes power. Their potential perfection is still in world and yet is inexhaustible. They take delight, because suffering has ended. They can never relapse to ego state, because they have reached perfection. They value nothing of world and so give away all, without holding back or thought of consequences. They completely devote themselves to others' benefit.
They stay in world to represent compassion of the Void and universe. They are part of the Void and yet themselves. They can move about in the Void timelessly. They have boundless energy and are able to play as the Void does.
Bodhisattva shows the idea that the Buddha has renounced nirvana until all creatures have also attained it. Bodhisattvas embody compassion of all Buddhas.
famous ones
Buddhism has Four Great Bodhisattva. In Mahayana Buddhism, Lotus Sutra and Heart Sutra are about Avalokitesvara, Avalokiteshvara, Guan Yin, or Kannon. Vajrayana Buddhism has Padmapani, Holder of the Lotus. Theravada Buddhism has Lokesvara. Tibetan Buddhism has Chenrezig, Shadakshari, or Lord of the Six Syllables. The Dalai Lama manifests Avalokitesvara.
Ksitigarbha in India, Ti-tsang in China, Jizo Bosatsu in Japan, Earth Store Bodhisattva, or Di Zang in China founded everything. In Ksitigarbha Sutra or Earth Store Sutra, Buddha named Earth Store Bodhisattva the leading Buddhist until time of the next Buddha {Maitreya}. Enma or Yama, King of Hell, is an incarnation and is master of the Six Paths of Hell, Ghost, Animal, Man, Asura, and Deva.
method
Destined bodhisattva gains knowledge by action, to see consequences. He gains knowledge by role-playing. He sacrifices himself. He performs virtuous deeds. He suppresses display and pride. He performs acts that attract good karma and leave no room for bad karma. He acts as if he were bodhisattva already. He transcends and thereafter behaves perfectly by instinct alone. He sees the potential Buddhahood of all things clearly.
The physical world is an illusion {maya, Buddhism}, is purely material, and is fleeting and contradictory.
Bases of both true reality and physical world are unknowable and are void itself {sunya} {sunyata, Buddhism}.
Buddha has Three Bodies {Trikaya Doctrine}. The nirmana-kaya, apparent body, or created body is in time and space. The body {sambhoga-kaya} of mutual bliss or enjoyment is an archetype. Dharma-kaya or Reality body is enlightenment.
A Mahayana-Buddhism school {Avatamsaka}, based on Avatamsaka Sutra, stresses unity and interrelations [1 to 100]. It affected Zen.
Sukhavati {Pure Land School} of Mahayana Buddhism states that faith in the Buddha of Boundless Light or Amitabha can achieve nirvana [1 to 100]. The Buddha of Limitless Light or Life developed and spread in China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan and is largest sect in Buddhism. The Five Wisdom Buddhas are Amitabha, Vairocana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, and Amogasiddhi.
Schools {School of the Great Delight} can emphasize love and compassion [800]. School of the Great Delight uses sexual symbolism to show opposing universe properties, such as male and female and Void and Universe. Yab-Yum is the united couple.
People know things either through senses or by inference. Both ways have causal sequences {Vaibhasika} {everything exists school}. Suffering comes from outside world, but it is not enduring, because all events and objects are momentary. Some reality, such as space and nirvana, is permanent. Past, present, and future are real.
Mahayana-Buddhism schools {Yogacara School} {mind-only school} can be monistic.
reality
All things are mental, with no external objects. Things do not grow, extend, have duration, or have succession. Such properties are thought-manifestations. Experience cannot separate from awareness content. The world's creating principle is thought or ideation {vijnana, Yogacara}, not material substance. Thoughts and ego depend on vijnana. Mind contains the potential and the material for all possible thoughts. Thought material is not a thing and has no attributes but is sunya void itself and has suchness.
consciousness
The Void is pure consciousness, thought, reason, and prajna wisdom, as stated in Vedanta.
The eight consciousness types are the five senses, sense consciousness, classifier/discriminator, and stored consciousness of potential forms.
compassion
Compassion is pure reflex of Void. Universe itself is compassion, because its parts manifest the Void.
Individuals surrender ego through love and passion for the principle or God that caused their existence, to become part of the whole and gain happiness {Tantra} {Tantric Buddhism}. Tantra is to ensure happy life on Earth, to ensure one is in heaven after life, and eventually to reach liberation. Tantra uses pleasures of the world to progress higher. People rise through participation, not rejection.
reality
Tantra is return to Vedas. Tantra and popular Hinduism use sacred-word repetition and emphasize the positive side of maya, manifestations in the world. All things are real, holy, and pure. Universe changes are also real. The Void is consciousness, being, and bliss, all together and at once. People are always part of universe as real beings and consciousnesses.
classes
In Tantra, there are no castes, and women can participate.
goddess
Tantric initiates usually devote themselves to the goddess Maya-Sakti, consort of all gods. She is also Mahamaya, the World Illusion, because her power is what sustains physical world.
Initiates worship the goddess in different ways, depending on state. They worship her as bride, if they have rajas. They worship her as mother, if they have tamas. They worship her as servant, if they have sattva.
Initiates repeat mantras: prayers, incantations, and holy words. They make offerings. They envision the goddess in love and devotion. Initiates typically have images of the goddess. Ritual summons the goddess, from deep within. Self-surrender and service to the goddess lead to realization that inner self is the goddess.
unity
In Tantric Buddhism, individuals are not important, only whole. People should do their duty or role in the world, as ritual and service.
Tantric yoga has enjoyment {bhoga} of both joy and suffering.
Tantric rituals often use the five forbidden things {Five M's}: wine, meat, fish, parched grain, and sexual intercourse.
Tantra says release {moksa, Buddhism} is not the highest goal. Moksa is meaningless, because all is Void.
Tantra depends on the idea, "Who seeks nirvana" {nirvana, Tantra}.
Tantric initiates {sadhaka} enjoy bliss in knowledge of goddess.
Acts are religious rituals {yajna}. Tantric rituals often use the Five M's. Sex has a highly symbolic role. All things are divine and pure in Tantrism, even forbidden things. In Tantrism, overcoming seeming darkness of forbidden things releases from guilt and provides full realization.
Zen Buddhism {dhyana} {zen} says that there are many different yogas.
meditation
People can learn to suspend physical and mental responses, such as judgment and analysis, to stimuli. Zazen open meditation is consciousness without response.
no dogma
In Japan, Buddhism has no dogma but emphasizes realizing inner being through meditation and discipline.
school
Buddhism in Japan has Rinzai School.
Zen arts
Zen arts are tea ceremony, flute playing, archery, fencing, ju-jitsu, and brush drawing.
In yoga of pure Self-contemplation {dhyana, Zen}, mind concentrates on one thing.
Understanding or enlightenment can come in altered consciousness states {kensho}.
Philosophical puzzles {koan} about life can have no solution, show that truth changes depending on perspective, or show that there is no truth. "That which can be taken away from you is not worth keeping, and that which cannot be taken away from you, why should you be afraid of its being taken away?" Osho Zen Tarot. "Who am I?" "What is this?"
Religions {Christianity} can emphasize that God sacrificed Jesus to atone for human sins.
holidays
Sunday is holy day. Religious holidays are the following. Epiphany {Fête des Rois} is January 6, the 12th Night after Christmas, when the three kings visited baby Jesus. Candlemas is Mary's purification on February 2. St. Valentine's Day is February 14. Palm Sunday is Sunday before Easter. Easter is resurrection day, on Sunday between March 22 and April 25. Walpurgis Nacht is eve of May Day in central Europe. Eve of St. John is midsummer. Assumption is August 15. All Souls' Day or Day of the Dead, to pray for the dead, is on November 1. Christmas is birth of Jesus, on December 25 or January 6. Holy Innocent's Day is December 28. St. Sylvester's Day is New Years Eve.
People can have charity {agape}, or love of, and respect for, God.
Christians believe that their holy book {Bible} is God's word and guides conduct and faith. The Bible is Christian scripture.
parts
The Bible has Old Testament of Judaic scriptures. New Testament has the following books. The Gospel books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John give accounts of Jesus' life. Acts of the Apostles describes works of the apostles. There are 21 letters to churches, written by the apostle Paul. Revelations describes the Apocalypse.
meaning
The Bible can have four types of meaning. It can be literally true {literal meaning}. It can use allegory to teach {allegorical meaning}. It can have moral truth {tropological meaning}. It can tell about life after death {anagogical meaning}.
Staffs {crosier}| with crook or cross precede abbots, bishops, or archbishops.
God gives everything {God's grace} {grace of God}. People's works alone cannot save them.
In Catholicism, the bishop of Rome is the main bishop, because Jesus designated St. Peter, who became bishop of Rome, church leader {Petrine supremacy}.
People can have personal morality and contemplation {pietism}|.
God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit {Trinity}.
The first humans disobeyed God and, by inheritance, all people carry their sin {original sin}|. Perhaps, people also acquired ability to sin and guilt about sinning.
Catholic Church can give pardons {indulgence}| for sin.
Christianity has a symbol {cross, Christianity}.
Greek Orthodox Church uses a cross {double-beam cross} with two bars.
Lutheran Church uses a cross {Lutheran cross} with circle.
Russian Orthodox Church uses a cross {triple-beam cross} with three bars.
Crosses {Greek cross} can have four equal arms.
God, divines, or saints can change nature's laws {miracle}. Miracles imply suspending or breaking physical law. If universe allows physical law to break or temporarily not apply, much greater physical effects have to happen, over larger regions and times. Miracles imply that non-physical actions can happen. If non-physical actions happen, they have to have physical means to move physical things. Physical means are apparent for observed physical movements.
God impregnated Jesus's mother {Immaculate Conception}, according to the Bible.
Mary received God's message {Annunciation} that she was to have virgin birth of Jesus, according to the Bible.
According to Gospel of Luke, Mary sang a song {Magnificat} of praise after learning from an angel that she was to bear Jesus.
Perhaps, Jesus is god in human body {Incarnation}. Controversy concerns whether Jesus was only god, only human, or both.
According to the Bible, Mary was virgin {virgin birth}. Some Romans had claimed Caesar Augustus was god who had virgin birth, so early Christians used same tactic.
No record besides the Bible exists of Jesus' birthday or conception, but his conception was supposedly on March 25 and his birthday {Christmas} nine months later. December 25 is also consistent with Jesus being six months younger than John the Baptist.
According to the Bible, "wise men from the east" {Three Wise Men} {Magi, Bible} brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Jesus twelve days after his birth. Caspar, king of Chaldea, brought gold. Melchior, king of Nubia, brought frankincense. Balthazar, king of Babylon, brought myrrh. Gospel of Matthew does not mention how many wise men. Perhaps, they were Zoroastrians. Probably, wise men were actually fools or people performing fol-de-rol.
January 6 {Epiphany} is when wise men visited Jesus.
Return to spiritual and bodily life {resurrection, Christianity}| can follow death. According to the Bible, Jesus rose from the dead {Resurrection} and left his tomb after three days, on Easter Sunday. At the resurrection, God will judge people and assign them to heaven or hell. Heaven is where all is pleasant and one sees the face of God. Hell is pain and loss of God.
After revisiting the disciples, forty days after Resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven {Ascension, Jesus}, according to the Bible.
Rites {eucharist}| can simulate the Last Supper.
Churches can elect bishops and abbots {investiture}|.
Patrimony of St. Peter was land {Donation} in Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia that Constantine I supposedly gave to Pope.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse {Apocalypse} are Pestilence, Plague, Famine, and War.
Christians believe that Jesus died to redeem sin of all people who believe in him. He will return to judge everyone {Second Coming, Christ}, when kingdom of heaven will begin on Earth, or Earth will end.
The 11 original disciples, not including Judas, and later converted people {apostle, Jesus}| preached about Jesus.
Gabriel is angel of revelations {archangel, Christianity}|. Rafael and Michael are other archangels.
Scribes and Pharisees {pharisee}| were Jewish priests and officials, whom Jesus scorned.
Mary bore Jesus in a city {Bethlehem, Bible}, according to the Bible.
Jesus rested in a garden {Garden of Gethsemane} {Gethsemane} in Jerusalem, according to the Bible.
Jesus was crucified on a hill {Golgotha, Bible}, according to the Bible.
A stable feeding trough {manger, religion}| was a cradle for baby Jesus, according to the Bible.
Jesus rested on a Jerusalem hill {Mount of Olives, Bible}, according to the Bible.
Jesus grew up in a town {Nazareth, Bible} in north Palestine, according to the Bible.
patron saint of maidenhood {Saint Agnes}.
patron saint of Scotland {Saint Andrew}.
patron saint of Scandinavia {Apostle of Scandinavia} {Saint Ansgar}.
patron saint of defense {Saint Barbara}.
patron saint of Italy {Saint Catherina}.
patron saint of music {Saint Cecilia}.
patron saint of travelers {Saint Christopher}.
patron saint of England {Saint George}.
patron saint of Spain {Saint James}.
patron saint of scholars {Saint Jerome}.
Joan of Arc {Saint Joan of Arc} or Maid of Orleans was from France.
patron saint of Austria {Saint Leopold}.
patron saint of Russia {Saint Nicolaus}.
patron saint of Ireland {Saint Patrick}.
patron saint of doctors and nurses {Saint Sebastian}.
patron saint of Poland {Saint Sigismund}.
patron saint of Portugal {Saint Thomas}.
patron saint of female education {Saint Ursula}.
patron saint of Bohemia {Saint Wenceslaus}.
Christian religious belief system {Gnosticism} supposedly provides privileged knowledge of spiritual world. Gnosis (deep knowledge) came from divine being, through medium of Christ, who brought redemption. People have spark of the divine in them and long to leave material world and return to spiritual world. They need knowledge to do this.
spirits
God is unknowable divine being, solely of spiritual world. Spiritual world and beings sprang from thoughts of God. Lesser divinities {demiurge, Gnosticism} of spiritual world created material world and physical motion. However, creation and action are antagonistic to the truly spiritual.
theosophy
Gnosticism included other movements, such as theosophy.
Some early Christians believed that Jesus was person with human nature and did not unite divine and human {Monophysite controversy}.
Jesus was two separate persons, one divine and one human {Nestorian controversy}. There was no Virgin Birth.
There is no original sin, and people can be perfect without God's grace {Pelagianism}.
Christ {chi rho} (CHR).
Jesus, Savior of Man {IHS}.
Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews {INRI}.
Symbols {trefoil symbol} can be for Christian Trinity.
watchfulness, power, wisdom, and understanding symbol {Abraxas}.
Mystic star {Heptagram} is for magic.
creation symbol {Octagram}.
fate symbol {seven-headed serpent}.
stylized sun {sigil of the sun}.
stylized Earth {sigil of the world}.
stylized water and fire symbol {water-fire principle}.
Religions {Confucianism} can emphasize moral practical life and society.
gods
Confucianism added religious elements after Confucius died. Shang-ti is ruler of heaven. Confucius became a god.
learning
Learning's four parts are virtue, eloquence and logic, government, and morals and ethics.
metaphysics
Objects and physical, behavioral, emotional, and social phenomena have numerical principles, allowing study of medicine, psychology, and politics by same principles. The two main ideas are heart or mind {xin} and things or objects {wu}, also expressed as "principle" versus "practical" and "idealism" versus "empiricism". Paired relationships are male/female, order/disorder, or constructive/destructive {yin, Confucianism} {yang, Confucianism}. Things divisible by fives correlate {five phases}. Calendar depended on ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches.
scholarship
Confucianism requires scholarship {Ju School} and studies the Six Classics or Lui Yi.
Matter forms by li and carries desires {ch'i}.
People develop following their natures {hsing}, if nothing interferes. Hsing can be control of ch'i.
Proper conduct {jen}, which varies with relations to other people or things, maintains sympathy or kindness. Filial honor and temperance are good.
People should practice proper behavior {li, proper behavior}, depending on social status. People should treat subordinates as if they were superiors. Li is structures and patterns in nature according to Chu Hsi. Li is structures and patterns in mind, according to Wang Yang-ming. Li pairs with matter to make objects. Li acts to organize matter, desires, and thoughts correctly, according to Tai Chen.
Best ways {tao, Confucianism} to live exist.
People can live in the best way {te}.
People should do their duty and behave correctly using correct judgment {yi}, even if they do not know rules. Yi leads to courage and calm.
Aryans who entered India [-1500] had polytheistic religion {Hinduism}.
truth
Truth cannot use words, images, or things, only personal experience. Finding true reality requires human endeavor.
universe
Universe is product of divine will and desire of the One to become many. The world body contains upper, middle, and lower regions. Upper region {garuda} has multitude of heavens, with celestial musicians, female apsarases, and bird-like atmosphere gods. Heavens have rulers {Indra, ruler}. Souls earn merit and abide in heaven as gods during time between reincarnations. Middle region has man and beasts. Lower world contains Dravidian fertility gods who attend Shiva and Kubera, titans, ghosts, monsters, goblins, and water gods appearing as serpents.
holidays
Saraswati Puja honors Saraswati, goddess of learning and fine arts, on 5th day of new moon in January or February.
Holi is advent of spring, dedicated to Kama, god of love, on full moon in March. People spray colored powders and waters.
Sivaratri honors Shiva, on 14th day of new moon in March.
Janmastami is birthday of Krishna, 8th day of new moon in July or August.
In west India, Ganesh Chaturthi or Coconut Day is in honor of Ganesh, in August or September. In Bengal, Durga Puja is triumph of good over evil, in September or October. In north India, Dussera is Rama's victory over Ravana, in September or October.
Dewali or Festival of Lights is Rama's return from exile, after victory over Ravana, in October or November.
treasures
Hinduism has six treasures. First, mental quiet, then sense restraint, then end to sense qualities, then endurance, then concentration, and then perfect faith. People should master their minds and bodies, to eliminate all outside influences.
life
Hinduism identifies four areas of human life: artha, kama, dharma, and moksa. In Hinduism, life is ascetic, monastic, and meditative. There are periods of praying, yoga, daily rituals, and worship.
life: stages
In Hinduism, life has four stages: student, householder, retirement for meditation, and poor sage. The first two stages require the first three life-area skills, such as living in village and participating in civilization. After performing all duties, finishing raising family, and losing skill in craft, retirement to the forest is third life stage. In old age, people concentrate on self and need skills of the fourth life stage to prepare for death.
duty and reward
In Hinduism, people should do their duty, without need for reward. People should be indifferent.
ritual
In Hinduism, taking part in ritual acts, such as weddings or traditional crafts, gains solemnity and higher sense of life.
One should live one's proper dharma perfectly {Act of Truth}. Perfect faith and wisdom have power to accomplish magic. People gain satisfaction from duty and participating in the Law.
Villages had practitioners {vaidya} of Herbal Medicine {ayurveda}.
religious or meditation teacher {guru, Hinduism}.
health {egg symbol}.
Phallic shape {lingam} is symbol of Shiva.
eternity {lotus symbol}.
Ritual syllable OM or AUM, meaning silence, expresses the four consciousness states in its four Sanskrit letters {OM} (AUM).
The five arrows {Panca Sayaka} represent the five senses. Devi Lalithambika holds five arrows representing the five tanmatras or subtle elements.
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva {trimurti}.
Hinduism has gods {Hindu gods} {gods, Hinduism}.
Aditi is equivalent to Rhea.
Adityas are twelve minor sun gods who rule the months.
Agni is god of fire or sacrificial fire. Agni in Sanskrit, ignis in Latin, and ogon' in Russian all mean fire.
Ananga is Kama as bodyless, and so is about abstract love.
Asvins or Divine Physicians are Nasatya and Dasra, twin sons of Saranyu, goddess of Dawn, and Surya, god of Sun.
Atman is Self as Creator. Brahma is the Creator.
Brahmanaspati, Brhaspati, or Brihaspati is god of prayer and ritual devotion, and guru to Indra.
Devi is Mother Goddess.
Dyaus Pita is sky or Father Heaven and is like Zeus in Greek, Jupiter in Roman, and Tyr in German mythology.
Ganesa is Lord of Hosts, Shiva's son, guide of the soul, and breaker of the way.
Indra, god of thunderbolt and war, is king of the gods and slew Vrtra. Indra is like Zeus in Greek mythology.
Kala is the Absolute.
Kali is Sakti, the Black Goddess, the Great Power, or the Mother.
Kama is god of Love.
Krishna (black), Dark One, or Govinda is prophet of the Bhagavadgita and is the same as Vishnu.
Kundalini is the primal World Force in selves.
Manu is ancestor of man.
Maruts are storm-beings.
Matsyakanya, Satyavathi Devi, or Anantha Lakshmi is mermaid.
Mitra is god of friendship and alliances. Mitra is like Mithra in Persia.
Namuci is the cosmic magician: "He who does not let go".
Padma is Mother Goddess.
Parvathi or Sakti is consort of Shiva.
Prajapati is life-force itself, the need to create, the need not to be alone, and "Lord of Creatures".
Prithivi is the earth.
Pushan or Puchan is god of meeting.
Rati is mate of Kama and is goddess of sensual delight.
Rbhus are craftsmen.
Rudra is god of storm and wind, and sometimes death as part of Shiva.
Sakti is goddess of time, eternal power, and consort of the gods.
Savitar is sun as life-giver.
Shiva or Siva is god of eternity or universe, the destroyer, the cosmic dancer, and master yogi.
Soma is sacred potion or sacred plant itself.
Surya is sun god. Surya is like Apollo in Greek mythology.
Ushas is the dawn. Ushas is like Eos in Greek and Aurora in Roman mythology.
Varuna is god of the dead and one of the Adityas. Varuna is like Uranus in Greek mythology.
Vac is the word.
Vasanta is Spring.
The sage Vasudeva is father of Krishna and Balarama and had Devaki and Rohini as consorts.
Vayu is the wind.
Vishnu is the preserver, supreme god in Upanishads.
Vishvadevas are all gods.
India clans have an ancestor {Bharata}.
Creator {Brahma} lives one hundred years of Brahma. Brahma created Kumara.
Gods have a king {Indra, king of gods}.
Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana and Sanatkumara {Kumara} are four spiritual beings that must be also material.
Ramayana has a hero {Rama}.
King of underworld has a messenger {Yamdoot}.
People are now in the fourth and worse World Age, Kali Yuga, of present time cycle {Hindu ages}.
Each of the 14 eons {Manvantara} has Manu: Svayambhuva Manu, Svaracisa Manu, Uttama Manu, Tamasa Manu, Raivata Manu, Caksusa Manu, Vaivasvata Manu or Manu Vaivasvate, Savarni Manu, Daksa Savarni Manu, Brahma Savarni Manu, Dharma Savarni Manu, Rudra Savarni Manu, Deva Savarni Manu, Indra Savarni Manu. Current eon is the seventh {Vaivasvata Manu}. One mahayuga has four ages {yuga}. One Manvantara has 71 mahayugas. After Manvantara is Sandhi Kala.
The four ages {Yuga} are Kali Yuga or Iron Age [began -3102], Dwapar Yuga, Treta Yuga, and Satya Yuga or Krita Yuga, the last age.
The Word {verbum} is reality {panlinguistic monist}, as both language and world. Sanskrit grammarians developed this philosophy.
Shad Darshanas or Shad Darsanas {Six Systems} {Six Schools} are the six sides of orthodox Hinduism: Samkhya or Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa or Purva Mimamsa [250], Vedanta or Uttara Mimamsa, Vaisesika or Vaiseshika, and Nyaya.
Vedas {Vaidika} {Vedic philosophy} contain search for underlying unity of universe.
many
The physical world contains antagonistic forces, which nonetheless need and depend on each other. Good and evil derive meaning from their differences. Existence derives meaning from non-existence. Thus, all shapes and forms depend on, and relate to, each other.
one
Essence or One has diversified and become dynamic, balanced, and full of opposites. The One can become many and still be one.
body
Vedic philosophy identifies body parts and functions with universe parts and functions. Universe and human has same inner form. Universe and human are parts of unity. People natures and fates link to cosmos nature and fate.
sacrifice
Ritual of sacrifice is about link between universe and human.
personality
Vedic philosophy searches for the basis of personality. People have motivation, have animation, sustain themselves, and have inner nature. Knowing true and real Essence can bring power, magic, courage, peace, happiness, eternal life, and/or strength. By going inward to inner consciousness, people can escape from fear, pain, and death in world.
gods
Gods possess knowledge of true Essence and so have power. Gods possess powers of self-transformation or self-transmutation but only in certain ways and into certain forms. People can personally contact these powers through gods and thus gain powers themselves.
Hinduism {Agama Hindu Dharma} can be in Bali and among Tenggerese people of east Java.
Hinduism has an important book {Bhagavadgita}.
detachment
People should do all things as duties or rituals {detachment, Hinduism}, because everything is deterministic. People should not do things to reach goals or satisfy wants. People should not act as agents. People should do and think only of act itself, not of consequences or effects. People should keep on acting but should act selflessly. Austerity, alms, and offerings are duties and should not have feelings of sacrifice, pride, or reservations.
self
Self is the same as the One. Bodily changes, feeling, will, desire, rewards, or punishments should not affect Self.
transformation
All things are only temporary, formed by transformations of the One in playful dream-like foreordained games, dances, or illusions. Divine power produces all things by its transformations.
unity
The One is Creator, Maintainer, and Destroyer of universe. The One is indifferent to humans and all desires and attachments.
karma yoga
Yoga of Selfless Action {karma yoga} concentrates on one's inner Self, because One and Self are same thing. Because all arises from the One, people should surrender to, and merge with, the One. People should do their duty and perform the work of the One in the world.
Krishna
In Bhagavadgita, Krishna (Dark One), in human form, persuades prince to return to duty as soldier and leader.
Jayanta [880] wrote Nyayamanjari, about a system {Kusumanjali}. Gangesa [1200] wrote Tattvacintamani about Navya-Nyaya school in Navadvipa, Bengal. Annambhatta [1650] wrote Tarkasngraha. Visvanatha [1650] wrote Karikavali or Bhasa-pariccheda, with commentaries Dipika and Siddhanta-muktavali (Principles of Muktavali).
The Six Systems of Hinduism have an oldest system {Samkhya} {Sankhya}.
duality
World and human nature are separate. The world of matter {praktri, Samkhya} is completely separate from the infinite number of light-like conscious eternal selves {purusa, Samkhya}.
duality: matter
Matter is one thing but manifests itself in three gunas: tamas is inertia or tiredness, rajas is activity or pain, and sattva is harmony, tension, or pleasure.
duality: self
Self that associates with matter binds to the samsara endless round of birth and death. To disassociate Self from all matter, one can follow stages through proper techniques. Yoga can stop mind's spontaneous activities. Mind has ability to transform itself into whatever it senses, feels, or remembers, and always does so. Yoga can end restless transformations, which fix on the unreal. Yoga stills all senses, emotions, and thoughts and instead substitutes concentration on innermost being. Ending restless transformations reveals inner self.
cause and effect
Cause and effect are one. Effects re-form causes.
human body
Body has five senses, brain, life span, strength, breathing, intuition, and ego or consciousness.
knowledge hindrances
Five hindrances block true knowledge. Avidya is ignorance, thinking that conscious mind is and gives truth. Asmita is the idea that ego or mind is true Self. Raja is attachment, sympathy, interest, affection, love, and desire. Dvesa is hate, dislike, and repulsion. Abhinivesa (toward life) is desire to live.
mind
Mind activities include accurate perception through inference and testimony, inaccurate perception, fantasy, sleep, and memory.
organs of action
Humans have five organs of action: speaking, grasping, moving, evacuating, and reproducing. These and the five senses are gates or openings of body to outer world. Intelligence, ego, and judgment make up the "inner organ" that controls these gates.
prana
Five prana spirits or life-breaths are exhaling, inhaling, digesting or equalizing, ascending, and pervading. They maintain the body. Pranas continue after death, carrying previous impressions and nature of being.
self
Self is pervasive in the body, unchanging, eternal, not compound, unmoving, uninvolved, free, uncaused, uncausing, and infinite. Self appears to be alive, as reflected in matter's activity, but it is not. The "inner organ" of one's matter controls the life-process. Person's mind can know the light of the Self, but mind does not associate with Self at all. People cannot realize Self, because mind always distracts. Stopping mind gives clear view of Self.
unconsciousness
Yogis use asceticism, learning, prayer, and surrender of Self to the One to isolate self from world. People disengage selves from all matter and realize their isolation. All motion and action are part of matter and so end. Yogis reverse usual unfolding of matter, which starts with praktri, then makes subtle matter, and then makes actual matter, which has the most tamas. Self finally stands passive and individual, unconnected to rest of universe. People then abide in eternal unconsciousness.
history
Kapila or Bhagavatam wrote Sankhya Sutras and founded a school. Asuri was disciple of Kapila. Pancasika was disciple of Asuri and wrote sutras. Isvara-Krsna [400 to 500] wrote Sankhya-karikas or Sankhya-saptati. Gaudapada [700] wrote Sankhya-karika-bhasya. Vacaspati [840] wrote Sankhya-tattva-kaumudi about Sankhya-karika-bhasya. Aniruddha [1400 to 1500] wrote Sankhya-pravacana-sutravrtti about Sankhya-karika-bhasya. Vijnana-bhiksu [1650] wrote Sankhya-pravacana-bhasya. Sankhya-sara has comments about Kapila's Sankhya Sutras.
The Six Systems of Hinduism include a school {Mimamsa} about Veda liturgy and rituals. The sound of Sanskrit in hymns and repeated holy words, such as "Om", has meaning and is magic.
history
Jaimini [200] wrote Mimamsa-sutras, such as Purvamimamsa-sutra, and founded mimamsa. Sabara Svamin [400] wrote bhasya on Mimamsa-sutras. Prabhakara [650] wrote Brhati about Sabara bhasya. Kumarila Bhatta [700 to 800] wrote Sloka-varttika, Tantra-varttika, and Tuptika about Sabara bhasya. Salikanatha [600 to 700] wrote Prakarana-pancika and was Prabhakara's pupil. Parthasarathi [900] wrote Sastrapradipika (Scriptural Texts on Light). Madhva-Vidyaranya [1350 to 1380] wrote Nyaya-mala-vistara. Laugaksi Bhaskara [1600 to 1700] wrote Arthasangraha.
The Six Systems of Hinduism include a school {Nyaya} about logic and argument.
knowledge
Knowledge has four sources: perception, inference, analogy, and credible testimony. Inference is the only way to true knowledge. Inference is of three kinds. One is from cause to effect. Another is from effect to cause. Third is from perception to abstract principle.
causes
Three cause types are material or inhering cause, formal or shaping cause, and instrumental cause.
syllogism
Syllogisms have five parts: proposition, cause, cause example, cause recapitulation, and proposition restatement {conclusion, Nyaya}. This syllogism type uses the principle of invariable association.
source
Nyaya depends on Nyaya-sutra by Gautama or Aksapada.
history
Gautama, Gotama, or Aksapada [-550] wrote Nyayasutras and founded Nyaya. Vatsyayana [400] wrote Nyaya-bhasya about Nyayasutras. Udyotakara [600 to 700] wrote Nyaya-varttika about Nyaya-bhasya. Vacaspati [841] wrote Tatparyatika about Nyayasutras, Nyaya-bhasya, and Nyaya-varttika. Udayana [984] wrote Tatparyatika-parisuddhi.
The Six Systems of Hinduism include a school {Vaisesika} about atomistic cosmology. All substances, immediate qualities, universals, absences, movements, associations, differences, and inherences are atoms. All knowable things have atoms. All world atoms are fleeting and changing. Soul is not in time or space and so is eternal.
cause and effect
Cause makes something new emerge from itself.
source
Vaisesika depends on Vaisesika-sutra of Kanada.
history
Kanada, Uluka, or Acarya [-600] wrote Vaisesika Sutras and founded Vaisesika or Aulukya. Prasastapada [400 to 500] wrote Padartha-dharma-Sangraha bhasya, which expands on Vaisesika-sutra. Sridhara [991] wrote Nyayakandali. Vyomasiva wrote Vyomovati commentaries on Laksanavali of Prasastapada. Udayana [984] wrote Kiranavali. Vallabhacarya [1000 to 1100] wrote Nyayalilavati mixing Vaisesika and Nyaya. Sivaditya [900 to 1000] wrote Saptapadarthi. Visvanatha [1650] wrote Bhasa-pariccheda and Siddhanta-muktavali (Principles of Muktavali).
The Six Systems of Hinduism include a school {Vedanta} that modifies Vaidika or Vedic philosophy and depends on Upanishads.
schools
Vedanta has many schools, with different monism-dualism positions. Samkara is largest school and is intellectual Hinduism, with no myths, just meditation.
cause and effect
Cause is real, but effect is illusion. Change is illusion.
creation story
Brahman split into male and female and procreated.
enlightenment
The final stage of finding union with Brahman is state of pure rest, with end to mind transformations. People can know Brahman only by intuition. Enlightenment ends need for knowledge or reasoning, which are both illusions. Enlightened people have serenity, dignity, and majesty. They do not act in world. Any lingering karma carries on acts until they complete. They have become like Brahman and continue playing without participating or feeling affected. They are like sleepwalkers, indifferent to all things and actions. They are beyond time and silent.
gods
In Vedanta myths, the god Vishnu dreams. First, Vishnu makes Brahman, creation-principle and all-one, from his world-womb at his navel. Lotus located at navel is dreamed world of Vishnu. Vishnu is the humane preserver.
Rama, Krishna, and Buddha are Vishnu incarnations. Rama married Sita.
Devaki is virgin mother of Vishnu.
Shiva is the destroyer, dissolver, and reproducer.
Gods are only symbols or visible signs of powers, not channels for them.
intuition
People cannot know Brahman by ordinary knowledge, only intuition.
self stages
People find Self and understand true reality by proceeding through stages, using several methods to remove layers that hide the Self. Before starting, people should have good morals: doing good works without thought of reward or punishment, practicing yoga for ability to concentrate intensely, and studying Vedas for preparation.
After getting ready to search for Self by good morals, first method is to study texts and teachings, to use method of refutations to disprove erroneous inferences and analogies. Erroneous inference is that world is dual or plural. Other erroneous inferences attribute qualities or attributes to things. This method teaches that fears and desires are also needless and unreal.
Second method is meditation on Brahman, reflecting on reading. People feel personally conscious of God and know God as omnipotent and omniscient.
Third method is concentration on one thing to end mind's restlessness and end thought. People lose ego and see the identity of all things, because God is in all and in self. This state is pure sattva, with all tamas and rajas eliminated from self.
Fourth method is state of no consciousness, in which subject and object become one, so consciousness merges with Self. People, realizing that even sattva is delusion, achieve state of anonymity, complete loss of Self, and pure being.
suffering
People can accept pain and suffering by knowing that they are temporary and illusory.
unity
Because Brahman is in everything, all things balance and have harmony. Brahman includes all pairs of opposites. Evolutionary or dialectic processes make pairs of opposites. As opposites interact, world emanates from Brahman.
history
Badarayana or Bhasyakara [-500 to -200] wrote the Brahmasutras of Vedanta. Sankara or Iamkara [788 to 820] founded Advaita School. Atreya, Asmarathya, Audulomi, Karsnajani, Kasakrtsna, Badari were early Advaita sages. Bhaskara [996 to 1061] founded Bhedabheda School. Yadava-prakasha or Bhedabheda taught Ramanuja [1000]. Ramanuja [1017 to 1127] founded Visist-advaita School. Madhva [1238 to 1317] founded an Advaita school. Nimbarka [1000 to 1100] founded an Advaita school. Srikantha [1270] founded Saiva-visist-advaita School. Sripati [1400] founded Bheda-bhedatmaka-visist-advaita School. Vallabha [1479 to 1544] founded Suddh-advaita School. Suka [1550] founded Bhedavada School. Vijnana-bhiksu [1650] founded Atma-brahm-aikya-bhedavada School. Baladeva [1725] founded Acintya-bhedabheda School.
The One can manifest as material things, known objectively {adhidaivam}.
The One can manifest as individual self, known subjectively {adhyatman}.
In Vedanta, the 'causal' body can be in silent, dreamless, unchanging, and painless state of bliss {bliss} {ananda}. The blissful state feels conscious.
In Vedanta, Self {atman, Vedanta} is people's inner principle.
veils
Self makes illusory sheaths or veils of consciousness from body, life, and mental processes. These consciousnesses are not the Self, and the Self cannot be object of consciousness.
Actual human body has waking consciousness. Waking state has terror, illusion, pain, and change.
The 'subtle' body has dreaming consciousness and includes the life-force or life-breath {prana, Vedanta}, corresponding to air or breath. It also includes sense qualities or perception. It also includes reason or understanding. Dreaming state has terror, illusion, pain, and change.
The 'causal' body can be in a state of bliss {ananda, Vedanta} or ignorance {avidya, atman}. Both are silent, dreamless, unchanging, and painless. Ignorant state is like death and unconsciousness. Blissful state feels conscious.
Self
Self must remove these veils to reveal itself and go beyond consciousness. Self feels merged with Brahman.
Universal Self {atman-brahman} is inactive, rather than participating in and animating world. It encourages asceticism and monasticism, replacing the life affirming, joyful feeling in Hindu religion. It is the only reality. The rest is pure illusion.
In Vedanta, the 'causal' body can be in a state of silent, dreamless, unchanging, and painless non-consciousness {avidya, Vedanta}.
Ignorant state is like death and unconsciousness. Ignorance is physical-world instances, or universal pervading influence in physical world. In second sense, avidya is Brahman in personal role as Shiva-Vishnu, making life, evolving, maintaining, creating, destroying universe, and pervading all things. Brahman is like the Self, which makes its veils. As soon as people realize either Brahman or ignorance, they lose the realization, as Self merges with Brahman. Ordinary knowledge cannot know ignorance.
Impersonal spirit, essence, power, or energy is in everything and is unified Self {Brahman}. It is form and is formless. It has no properties {neti neti, Vedanta}. It is Holy Power, true reality, the One, or Essence. It is infinite, is all things, is identical in all things, is immanent in all things, and animates all things. It is creation principle. Primal force makes all temporal objects, events, and phenomena. Vishnu created it in dream. It retains consciousness of itself. It is omniscient and omnipotent. It is the Universal or highest God. All things are Brahman manifestations. Brahman has different degrees or spheres of power. It is rhythmic, cyclic gestures, game, play, dance, or illusion and is of no importance.
mind and world
Physical-world manifestations, including mind and thoughts, and spiritual world, of gods in their realms, will always continue, just as the One itself will continue. People ordinarily perceive the illusions as many separate things, not as the whole. Brahman can transform into any manifestation, and human minds continually transform. All manifestations and transformations are illusions, not true reality.
Self
Underlying both world and mind is higher Brahman or Self, unmoving, unchanging, and serene. The true Brahman remains separate, aloof, impersonal, and inactive. Brahman perceives the illusion as whole, with clarity and serenity {sattva, Vedanta}, unmoved by tamas or rajas. Brahman is cause of the world. Knowledge of Brahman leads to final emancipation. Sages differ about nature of Brahman, relation between individual and Brahman, nature of release, and method to attain liberation.
Previous actions have residues {karma, Vedanta}. Sages can become free from rebirth cycle, but karma causes all others to have endless reincarnation.
People can have consciousness {samadhi, Vedanta} of duality of Self and mind.
In first samadhi, mind sees Brahman, has cosmic consciousness, and feels the power of the One in oneself, but it comes from outside.
In second samadhi, one feels no duality, only complete silence.
Falling into an unconscious state as one begins to lose vision of Brahman can block second state. Distraction by other sense impressions can block second state. Desires, needs, likes, dislikes, or memories from unconscious mind can block second state. Pure enjoyment of first state can block second state, showing that mind still does not have enough discipline.
Books {Upanishads} concentrate on Self and interior world.
Souls transmigrate from one body to another, seeking union with Brahman {Vishnuism}. Brahman dies to give birth to the world, the one becomes many, and then all things die to return to Brahman, the many become one.
People should live ascetic life {yama, Hinduism}. General rules for ascetic life include non-violence {ahimsa}; word, thought, and deed truth and identity {satya, Vedanta}; no stealing {asteya}; celibacy; and possession rejection. Special practices {niyama} can achieve ascetic life: cleanliness, contentment, equanimity, austerity, indifference to desire, study, meditation, and devotion to personal god. Correct yoga body postures {asana} help, as does yoga breathing control {pranayama, Vedanta}.
The Six Systems of Hinduism include a school {yoga} that evolved from Samkhya.
method
Yoga has a meditation method, in eight steps, to bring mind to its essence by removing objective things. Samkhya yoga practice has four levels. The most ancient, simple, and lowest is observance of practices, rituals, and duties. The next level is to be insightful practitioner and have ability to truly concentrate. The next level is to be successful practitioner and to have truly suppressed mind. People reach this level by shedding tamas and rajas, leaving only sattva. Tamas and rajas, as unconscious and ego force, cause all hindrances to true knowledge, as dynamic opposes inert. Last level is to search for Self. This stage happens when one realizes that sattva only reflects Self and true Self is beyond it.
history
Patanjali [-200 to 300] wrote Yoga-sutras and founded Yoga. Sanatkumara and Jaigisavya wrote Yogashastra. Vyasa [400] wrote bhasya on Yogasutras. Tattvavaisaradi [850] wrote Vacaspati Misra, on Vyasabhasya. Yogavarttika [1650] wrote Vijnana-bhiksu, on Vyasabhasya. Bhasvati [1800 to 1900] wrote Hariharananda Aranya, on Vyasabhasya. Sankara wrote Yogabhasyavivarna, on Vyasabhasya. Rajamarttandavrtti [1000 to 1100] wrote Bhojadeva, on Yoga-sutras. Yogasutrapradipika has Bhavaganesa, on Yoga-sutras. Yoga-sutra-vrtti has Nagoji-bhatta, on Yoga-sutras. Yoga-mani-prabha has Ramananda Yati, on Yoga-sutras. Yoga-siddhanta-chandrika (Yoga Principles) has Narayana Tirtha, on Yoga-sutras. Yoga-sudhakara [1700 to 1800] has Sadasiva Brahmendra, on Yoga-sutras.
Stages correspond to body centers {chakra}, lying along spine.
Yoga {Kundalini yoga} can be a method to end sense qualities and suffering by purgation, cleanliness, concentration, and exercises and achieve union with universe, perfect self-knowledge, and isolation from all other souls. Kundalini yoga takes practitioners through stages {Lotus Ladder} from everyday dullness, to sex, to power and achievement, to compassion, to conquest of self and sex, to vision of God, to pure ecstasy.
Yogis can claim prophecy, levitation, astral projection, and other mental skills {siddhi, Yoga}.
Religions {Islam, religion} can say there is only one god, who is merciful but unknowable, and Mohammad is his final prophet. In Islam, Adam ate wheat, rather than the Bible's apple, for his original sin. All adults should pray five times a day, facing Mecca.
Spiritual power works magic {baraka}.
Islam has a symbol {crescent and star}.
prohibited {haram}|.
crescent moon {hilal}.
Mohammad had a vision {Mi'raj} of going to heaven on al-Borak, a winged animal.
Doctrine {ijma} can be that belief of most Moslems is infallibly true.
People can take revenge equal to loss, such as taking eye for loss of eye {Talion Law} {Law of Talion}.
Mohammad said the angel Jibril (Gabriel) revealed text {Koran} {Qurun} to him.
Koran and Hadith have Islamic laws {Sharia} {shari'a}.
All able adults should perform five duties {five pillars of Islam}. Accept and say "There is one God and Mohammad is his prophet." Pray five times a day. Give alms at rate 2.5% {zekat}. Fast in the holy month, Ramadan. Make the pilgrimage, called the Hajj, to Mecca at least once.
All able adults must go to Mecca at least once {pilgrimage}.
People can work for Islam and God, deny temptations and never perform wrongs, or defend Islamic society after attack {jihad}|.
People have practices or ways of living {sunna}.
All adults should give one-quarter {alms} of income for the poor and for Islam.
Practice {din} of religion by prayers is way of Islam.
A heretical Islam branch {Babism} depends on Islam but has a different idea of the Mahdi.
A heretical Islam branch {Bahaism} depends on Islam but has a different idea of the Mahdi. Service to others is a form of prayer. Justice is paramount. Bahaism has no clergy. God's manifestations were Krishna, Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ, and Mohammad.
Arab robe {abba}.
head covering {hijab}.
headdress {kaffiyah}.
face veil {niqab}.
keeping women veiled {purdah}.
Friday is holy day {Islam, holidays}.
Akheri-Chahar-Sumba remembers when Mohammad recovered slightly and bathed before he died, on Wednesday of Safar.
Id-e-Milad is Mohammad's Birthday.
Eide-Fetr, Id-ul-Fitr, Id-ul-Fitar, or Eid-al-Fitr is end of the month of Ramazan or Ramadan.
Eide-Mabus or Eide-Ghadir is when Gabriel revealed the Koran, on 2nd day of full moon after Ramazan or Ramadan.
Death of Mohammad.
First Day of Muharram.
Bakr-id, Id-uz-Zuha, or Eid-al-Adha is day of Abraham's sacrifice, on 10th day of last month of lunar year.
Shia
Arba'in.
Eide-Ghorban is day when Mohammad designated Ali as successor.
Death of Ali is in Ramazan.
Muharram or Tenth of Muharram or Ashura is martyrdom of Hassan and Hossein by Shimi, general of Yazid at Karbala, near Babylon, on 10th day of Muharram.
hajj last day {eid al-Adha}.
Ramadan last day {eid al-Fitr}.
pilgrimage to Mecca {hajj}|.
In the holy lunar month {Ramadan} {Ramazan}, in honor of Mohammad receiving the Koran, all adults should not eat, drink, smoke, or have sexual relations during daylight hours.
letters of unknown meaning {Alif Lam Mim} {Alif Lam Mim Suad} {Alif Lam Ra}.
evening or epoch {Asr}.
criterion of right and wrong {Furqan}.
book of the righteous {Iliyin}.
New Testament {evangel} {Injeel}.
Ka'bah is in Mecca {qiblah}.
Koran {Quran}.
People can mispronounce or misunderstand {Raina}.
book of the wicked {Sijjin}.
Torah or Pentateuch {Taurat} {Tavrat}.
watch over us {Unzurna}.
Psalms {Zabur}.
local god Baal {B'al}.
local goddess {Manat}.
help, or local god {Nasr}.
local god {Suwa}.
local goddess {Uzza}.
local god {Wadd}.
local god {Yaghus} {Yaghuth}.
local god {Yauq}.
In Islam, God asked Abraham {Abraham, Islam} to sacrifice his son Ishmael, not Isaac as in the Bible. Nimrod warred on Abraham. Abraham was first prophet of Islam.
tribe {Ad, tribe}.
first man {Adam, Islam}.
apostle of Jesus {Ahmad}.
imam (leader) of Ismaili Nizari Muslims of Ismaili Shi'a branch {Aga Khan}.
Gabriel is angel {archangel, Islam} of revelations. Michael is patron of Israelites. Israfil will sound the trumpet on judgment day. Azrael is angel of death.
Job {Ayub} {Ayyub}.
father of Abraham {Azar}.
theocracy head {caliph}.
People {Companions} went with Mohammad to Medina in the Hegira [622].
David {Dawood}.
Shaitan {devil, Islam}, the Opposer, is far from truth. Iblis, the Wicked One, is without hope.
bad spirits {Efreet}.
pharaoh {Firon}.
good and bad spirits {genii}|.
Persons {hafiz}| can memorize the Quran.
Egyptian in time of the pharaoh {Haman}.
Aaron {Haroun}.
Two angels {Harut} {Marut} were at Babel.
female fairies {houri}| {peri}.
prophet {Hud}.
Abraham {Ibrahim} is the Hanif.
Enoch {Idris}.
Elias {Ilyas}.
faith, man of faith, or mosque leader {imam, Islam}|.
father of Mary {Imran}.
Jeremiah {Irmiya}.
Jesus {Isa}.
Isaac {Ishaq}.
Isaiah {Ishaya}.
Abraham's son, progenitor of Arab people, and second prophet of Islam {Ishmael} {Ismail}.
Goliath {Jalut}.
Fifth prophet {Jesus} of Islam showed new side of God.
archangel Gabriel {Jibreel}.
bad spirits {Jinn} {Deves}.
A man {Joseph of Judea} married the beautiful Zulaikha in Egypt and has admiration in Islam.
caliph {khalif}.
Uncle {Lahab} of Mohammad opposed Islam.
sage {Luqman}.
Lot {Lut}.
Zoroastrians {Magians}.
At world's end, a man {al-Mahdi} {mahdi} will lead the faithful. Jesus will be al-Mahdi when he returns.
king, maker, or owner {Malik}.
Mary {Marium} was mother of Jesus.
archangel Michael {Meekaeel}.
Fourth prophet {Moses, Islam} of Islam received commandments.
Men {muezzin}| shout call to Islamic prayer from minarets.
Moses {Musa}.
People {Muslim} can humble themselves before, and submit to, God. World has one billion Muslims.
Nimrod {Namrud}.
Third prophet {Noah, Islam} of Islam survived the flood.
Noah {Nuh}.
Islam tells that there have been six prophets {prophet}: Abraham, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad.
A Musa inhabitant {Qaroun} opposed Islam.
Kaaba keepers {Qureaish} {Quraish}.
Sheba {Saba}.
Mandaeans {Sabians} are in south Iraq and Iran.
companions {sahaba}.
prophet {Salih}.
Samarians {Samiri}.
witness or martyr {Shaheed}.
descended from Mohammad {sherif}| {sharif}.
prophet {Shu'aib}.
King Solomon {Solomon, Islam} of Judea has admiration in Islam.
Soloman {Sulaiman}.
Saul {Talut}.
believers in Allah {umma}.
Ezra {Uzair}.
Guide or Ali {Vali}.
John the Baptist {Yahya}.
Jacob {Yaqoub}.
Jonah {Yunus}.
Joshua {Yusha} {al-Yasha}.
Joseph {Yusuf}.
A follower {Zaid} of Mohammad memorized the Quran.
Zacharias {Zakariya} was father of John the Baptist.
Ezekiel {Zul-Kifl} {Zulkifl}.
plain and mountain near Mecca and Mina {Arafat}.
land {Aram}.
A black stone {Hajaru'l-Aswad} is in the Kaaba in Mecca.
first region that Mohammad conquered, near Medina {Hejaz, Koran}.
valley midway between Mecca and Tayef {Hunain}.
mountain in south Arabia {Judi}.
The old sanctuary {Kaaba} {Caaba} in Mecca is pilgrimage goal of Islam adherents.
lake in paradise {Kausar}.
north Arabia goddess {Lat}.
Ma'an {Madyan} is in greater Syria.
place in or near Mecca {Marwa}.
Mohammad was born in a city {Mecca, Islam}, which is now Islam religious center.
first town that Mohammad conquered {Medina}.
mosque tower {minaret}|.
house of worship or "place of kneeling" {masjid} {mosque}|.
Site {Mount Arafat} of a speech by Mohammad [630] is near Mecca.
valley {Naml}.
town {Rass}.
place in or near Mecca {Safa}.
fountain in paradise {Salsabil}.
land {Samood}.
mountain in east Egypt {Sinai}.
brightest star {Sirius}.
fountain in paradise {Tasnim}.
town {Tubba}.
valley {Tuwa}.
town or Medina {Yasrib}.
tree in hell {Zaqqum}.
in the name of God {Bismillah}.
sayings of Mohammad {Hadith}.
if God wills {Inshallah}.
"There is no God but God and Mohammad is his prophet." {Shahada}.
God {Allah}.
Satan {Iblis}.
Satan {Shaitan}.
Sunni sects {Ibadi Islam} can be in Oman. Jabir ibn Zayd founded it.
Shi'a sect {Ismaili}.
A mystical philosophy {Sufism} {tasawwuf} of meditation and personal union with God comes from Islam. It is a gnostic system, emphasizing divine illumination, rather than behavior. The goal is to attain knowledge of higher reality. Practically, Sufis resist corruption, tyranny, cruelty, and wealth and help the poor and lower classes. Sufis do not turn away from life. They contend that one can learn from painful or hard situations. 40 days is time for mourning or other spiritual intervals.
Sufis {dervish}| need individual teaching to learn techniques. Sufi practices, such as spinning and dancing {whirling dervish}, are to induce autohypnosis.
People can have devotion to God {dhikr Allah}.
People can lose self in God or all-inclusive Self {fana}.
Feeling {haqiqa} of Islam goes beyond Islamic laws.
God is One, who unifies all {La ilaha illa 'Llah}.
Wool {suf} is the cloth worn by mystics. Safa means purity. Suffa is mosque's veranda.
Sufism has seven stages to salvation: repentance, fear of God or abstinence, piety and detachment, poverty, patience or ecstasy, trust in God and surrender to God, and contentment {tariqa}.
Sufism has a style of meditation {zikr}.
Mirrors and polished silver {mirror symbol, Sufism} are symbols that both reflect and contain God.
Moths {moth, symbol Sufism} are souls always moving toward the light of God.
Closed-tail peacocks {peacock symbol, Sufism} are selves that are not yet one with God.
Pearls {pearl symbol} are holders of Truth.
Rubies {ruby symbol} are wealth and happiness.
Water drops {water drop symbol} come from and return to sea, like humans and God.
Wells {well symbol} are Paradise.
Religions {Jainism} can be similar to Yoga and Samkhya Schools of Hinduism but simpler and non-Vedic.
reality
Jainism accepts that world exists. World will end with men at their lowest and world itself bestial.
gods
Hindu gods are for help against disease, disaster, and so on. Idols provide objects for contemplation. Jainism is atheistic.
samsara
People should forget actions, humanity, virtue, and everything, and try to obtain release from the eternal round of birth and death {samsara, Jainism}. Release comes through suffering, compassion, and self-detachment. People should reject the life-force to reproduce and stay alive and instead try to escape from cycles of death and rebirth forever. People should transcend individuality and all details, be free of all action, and have complete isolation from world. To feel no pain or pleasure, no desire, and no will requires intense concentration and endurance.
behavior
Jaina householders should not destroy life. They should not tell lie. They should not use another's property without permission. They should limit possessions. They should vow daily to go only in certain directions and distances. They should not talk or act uselessly. They should not think of sinful things. They should limit diet and pleasures each day. They should be chaste.
They should worship at proper times. They should fast on proper days. They should exercise charity every day by giving money and doing other things.
self
Self permeates the human body. Body hides Self. Soul is not Self. True Self has no personality. Self is just like all other Selves. Self can perceive truth directly.
In one way, selves are permanent. In one way, selves are not permanent. In one way, selves are permanent and then not. In one way, selves are not describable. In one way, selves are permanent but not describable. In one way, selves are not permanent but not describable. In one way, selves are permanent and then not but not describable.
sense
The five senses are brain, life span, bodily strength, speech, and breathing and make up human lives.
soul
People belong to one of six soul types, which depend on karma. Soul can be white or yellow, red or gray, and blue or black. White is highest and purest and least affected by bad karma. Killing is the blackest act.
People accumulate karma depending on their actions, which have goodness, badness, and nature. Acting uses up karma but also brings in more karma. Karma accumulation gives soul color. Goal is to become lighter and lighter in each life. Soul color determines whether people rise or fall in strata of the Universal body. Finally, people hope to be free of all color, and then Self will be clear and omniscient.
suffering
World is full of suffering.
unity
Universe is one human organism and is alive and eternal, as are people's inner Selves. All Selves are an infinite collection (Jiva).
saint
Jainist saints {tirthankara} {Makers of the River Crossing} achieved enlightenment after many reincarnations, through graded ascetic exercises. Saint stories are similar to story of the Buddha and depend on yaksas and nagas.
The saints have gone to the ceiling of the universe and dwell there in perfect peace, omniscient, timeless, without action, and without contact with rest of universe. Jainist saints are mild, ascetic, intellectual, and strong.
In statues, they have standing attitude {dismissing the body}, or they sit yoga-like. Saints have symbols. Jainists should contemplate Jainist saints as inspiration.
clothing
Jaina monks wear white robes or go naked.
Space {ajiva} includes movement {dharma, Jainism}, rest or position {adharma}, time {kala, Jainism}, and atomic matter {pudgala}. Pudgala has six degrees of density.
Truth has many sides, so people should have tolerance and mutual respect {anekantavada}.
The five events {Five Kalyamas} {Kalyamas} are the following. Soul enters embryo. Birth happens. Renunciation takes place. All destructive karma is gone. Liberation happens.
A matter form {karma, Jainism} has eight kinds: to block knowledge or perception, to create feelings, to cause delusions, to determine life length, to make personality or individuality, to make one's family, and to produce obstacles. Karma reduces the powers of Self or adds delimiting things to Self. Karma can enter soul through 42 channels. Souls go through rebirths until liberated from karma.
A mountain {Mount Sammada} sacred to Jainism is a place of enlightenment.
The five Vows {vratas} are Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Aparigraha, and Brahmacharya.
People can take a vow {ahimsa, Jainism} not to kill. All things are alive, and all life has unity, even vegetables.
People can take a vow {aparigraha} to limit possessions and be unattached.
Religions {Judaism} can be about loyalty to one tribal god, by following laws, rituals, and practices.
god
Judaism has only one God. In Judaism, Hebrews (wanderers) are God's chosen people. God commands that people love God and all other people. People should become like God in transcendence. No one can describe God in form or history. God does not state his purposes.
resurrection
Perhaps, at current-age end, God will raise people from the dead to live on the new Earth. In the resurrection, men and women will revert or advance to their optimal age.
sin
Adam and Eve sinned by accepting apple from Tree of Knowledge, causing them to lose Garden of Eden, to have to work, and to have pain at childbirth.
soul
Ancient Hebrews thought of the human being as body animated by God, with no soul, and thought people were mortal. Later, bodies have separate souls, which have life after death.
holidays
Saturday is holy day of Judaism, beginning at sundown on Friday and ending at sundown on Saturday. Purim is in March, when Esther saved Jews. Passover is typically one week before Easter, in April. Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement is in the High Holy Days at end of September. Feast of Booths or Ingathering is at harvest time. Hanukkah is near Christmas.
Jews spread over Mediterranean {Diaspora}, after fall of Jerusalem to Roman Republic.
A six-pointed star {Star of David} {Magen David} {Mogen David} symbolizes Judaism.
Places {synagogue}| are for reading and teaching law.
High priest wears rectangle {Urim vetumin} with 12 metal squares, for 12 tribes of Israel.
Letter permutations {gematria} have hidden meaning.
Jewish mysticism {Kabbalah} has cosmology based on Hebrew alphabet, using Platonist and Pythagorean ideas. Letters are numbers. Letter permutations have hidden meaning {gematria, Kabbalah}. Tetragrammaton is the four-letter name of Yahweh, YHVH. The ten Sefirot are parts of the one God, Ein Sof.
history
Isaac the Blind, Abraham Abulafia of Posquieres [1200 to 1300], Moses ben Nahman or Nahmanides [1194 to 1270], Moses Cordovero [1522 to 1570], Joseph Caro [1500 to 1570], Isaac Luria [1535 to 1572 or 1543 to 1620], Shabbetai Zevi or the False Messiah [1627 to 1676], Giovanni Pico della Mirandola [1463 to 1494], and Abraham Herrara are Kabbalists. Isaac Luria founded Chaverim or Friends.
Adam and Eve lived there {Garden of Eden} {Eden, garden}, and it contained Tree of Knowledge, according to the Old Testament.
Tree {Tree of Knowledge} was in Garden of Eden, according to the Old Testament.
chief priest and second in command to Moses during exodus from Egypt {Aaron}, according to the Old Testament.
first Hebrew {Abraham, Judaism}, according to the Old Testament.
first man or ground in Hebrew {Adam, Judaism}, according to the Old Testament.
Cain {Cain} and Abel were sons of Adam and Eve, and Cain killed Abel, according to the Old Testament.
A man {Daniel} escaped the lion's den when Jews were in captivity in Babylon, according to the Old Testament.
A woman {Esther} saved Jews from persecution in Babylon.
first woman {Eve}, according to the Old Testament.
Abraham's son {Isaac}, according to the Old Testament.
Jacob {Jacob} or Israel, Isaac's son, had 12 sons, for 12 tribes of Israel, according to the Old Testament.
Jacob's son {Joseph} went to Egypt and had a coat of many colors, according to the Old Testament.
After forty years of wandering after exodus from Egypt, after Moses [-1200 to -1100], a man {Joshua} fought at Jericho and led Jews into Canaan (Palestine), the land of milk and honey, according to the Old Testament.
A man {Methuselah} lived 900 years, according to the Old Testament.
Egyptian rulers nurtured a baby {Moses, Judaism}, after rescue from Nile River. He sent plagues on Egypt, led Jews out of Egypt, parted Red Sea, and received Ten Commandments, according to the Old Testament.
A man {Noah, Judaism} built the ark to survive the flood and had three sons, for the three races, according to the Old Testament.
Boaz loved a woman {Ruth}, according to the Old Testament.
early leader and prophet {Samuel}, according to the Old Testament.
The king after David {Solomon, Judaism} was wise and wrote Song of Solomon. He chose true mother of disputed baby by threatening to divide it in half, according to the Old Testament.
Religions {mythology} can be about human-like gods and animals.
Arthur {Arthur}, King Uther Pendragon's illegitimate son, became king by being the only one that drew sword from stone. He received his sword Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. He established the noble and chivalrous Knights of the Round Table and took Guinevere for his queen.
His nephew or son, Sir Mordred, fatally wounded Arthur in his middle years, and three queens took Arthur to Isle of Avalon, from which he will someday return to save England.
legends
Irish, Welsh, Cornish, and North Breton legends joined to make Arthur, actual Anglo-Saxon invasion leader, into legend. Bretons carried story to Europe.
Arthur had castle {Camelot}.
Lady of the Lake received Arthur's sword {Excalibur}.
A knight association {Round Table} dedicated themselves to chivalry.
Pelles of Astolat's daughter {Elaine} married Lancelot.
Lancelot and Elaine's son {Galahad} was a pure knight.
Arthur's nephew and knight {Gawain} of the Round Table followed the Green Knight and married the ugly lady, who then turned back into princess.
A queen {Guinevere} is King Arthur's wife.
Arthur's good-humored foster brother {Kay}.
Lancelot of the Lake or Launcelot du Lac {Lancelot}, strongest and most-gallant knight, arrived from France as friend to Arthur. Elaine of Astolat was in love with Lancelot, who ignored her. Guinevere and Lancelot became close but not actual lovers, but their affair threw her honor into question. Lancelot married Elaine to end his association with Queen.
Arthur's magician and counselor {Merlin}.
Arthur's nephew or son {Mordred} fatally wounded King Arthur.
Arthur's sister and enchantress {Morgan Le Fay}.
A knight {Parsifal} {Percival} set out to find the Holy Grail, the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. Only a pure knight can find it, and it will bring virtue back to world. Either Parsifal or Galahad found it after many adventures.
A knight {Tristan} went to Ireland to bring back Isolde to be bride of King Mark of Cornwall. Tristan and Isolde accidentally drank a love draught, meant for King and bride, and fell passionately in love. Tristan went away but had to return, leading to both their deaths.
Heroes {Twelve Paladins} {Peers} of Charlemagne included Roland, Charlemagne's nephew.
Egypt had mythology {Egyptian mythology}. Ancient Egyptians thought that the god that created the universe created them directly, from nothing. Nature depended on gods' intentions. Gods spoke, were intelligent, had human passions, and were moral. At death, a great mechanical balance weighed heart against feather of truth to judge people.
Supreme deity {Amun} {Amen} is god of life and reproduction.
God {Anubis} conducts the dead to judgment.
Archfiend {Apep} {Apepi} tried to stop Sun from rising.
sacred bull {Apis}.
god of silence {Horus}.
Earth goddess {Isis} {Hathor} is sister and wife of Osiris and mother of Horus.
Heaven is arched body of sky goddess {Nut}, and stars are her jewels.
The god {Osiris} of Sun, Nile, warmth, life, and fruitfulness is regularly reborn as the calf Apis. His symbol is ram or cow.
sun god {Ra}.
ruler of Tartarus and god of medicine {Serapis}.
The prince of evil {Set} {Typhon} killed Osiris.
God {Thoth} of wisdom, learning, language, and number has ibis head or baboon head.
At beginning was dark and formless universe {Chaos, mythology}. Then Love appeared.
Mother Earth {Gaea} {Gaia} is mother of Titans and Giants. She was Terra {Terra, mythology} in Roman mythology.
Heaven or sky god {Uranus, Greek and Roman god} {Ouranos} was ruler of universe before Titans. He was father of Titans, Giants, and Cyclops. He was Caelus in Roman mythology.
Monsters {Cyclops}| had one eye. Uranus and Gaia had Brontes, Sterops, and Arges.
Uranus and Gaia had Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges. After Cronus castrated Uranus, Gaia received Uranus' genitalia residue and bore Giants {Giant, mythology} {Gigantes}: Agrios, Alcyoneus (leader), Aristaios, Clytius, Damysos, Enceladus, Ephialtes, Eurytus, Gration, Hippolytus, Leon, Mimas, Otus, Pallas, Peloreus, Polybotus, Porphyrion, Theodamus, and Thoon.
Giant {Antaeus}, who was invincible while touching ground, lost to Hercules, who lifted him up.
From the sky god Uranus and the earth goddess Gaia (Gaea) (Terra) came Titans {Titan, mythology}. The six females were Tethys (ocean), Theia (light), Phoebe (moon), Mnemosyne (memory), Themis (justice or law), and Rhea (earth). The six males were Oceanus (oldest, river, Tethys), Hyperion (sun, Theia), Coeus or Koios (intelligence or philosophy, Phoebe), Crius or Krios (ram, Eurbia), Iapetus or Iapetos (mankind, mortality, mountains, Clymene), and Cronus (youngest, agriculture, Rhea) in Greek mythology (Saturn in Roman mythology). Saturn ruled in the Golden Age. Hyperion had a son, Helios (sun), and two daughters, Eos (dawn) and Selene (moon). Coeus had daughters: Leto and Asteria. Iapetus had sons: Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius. Oceanus had a daughter: Metis (intelligence). Crius had sons: Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses. Cronus and Rhea made the Gods. Their three daughters were Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. The three sons were Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus.
Titan {Atlas, mythology} bore world on shoulders.
Greek Titan {Cronus} ruled Golden Age, until his son Zeus overthrew him. Kronos was father of the Gods. He is Saturn in Roman mythology.
The female creation-principle {Metis} in early Greek myth became bisexual later as Metis in Greek mythology or Phanes in Roman mythology. Later it became only male as Phanes.
Titan {Prometheus} created men and gave them fire. Zeus bound him to a rock. Hercules saved him.
Greek Titan {Rhea} was queen during the Golden Age and was mother of the Gods, Ops or Opis in Roman mythology, and Cybele in Phrygia.
Roman Titan {Saturn, giant} ruled the Golden Age, until Jupiter overthrew him. He was father of the Gods. He is Cronus in Greek mythology.
From Chaos and Love came the original gods {Greek and Roman gods} {gods, Greek and Roman}. Male Heaven or Sky was Uranus or Ouranos. Female Earth was Gaea or Gaia. Uranus and Gaea made the Titans, including Cronus and Rhea.
From Cronus and Rhea came the Gods: female Hestia (Greek) or Vesta (Roman), female Demeter (Greek) or Ceres (Roman), male Dis or Hades (Greek) or Pluto (Roman), male Poseidon (Greek) or Neptune (Roman), male Zeus (Greek) or Jupiter (Roman), and female Hera (Greek) or Juno (Roman).
Hera and Zeus produced male Hephaestus (Greek) or Vulcan (Roman), male Ares (Greek) or Mars (Roman), female Aphrodite (Greek) or Venus (Roman), male Hermes (Greek) or Mercury (Roman), female Artemis (Greek) or Diana (Roman), female Athena (Greek) or Minerva (Roman), and male Apollo or Apollon.
Twelve gods {Twelve Immortals} dwelt on Mount Olympus: female Demeter (Greek) or Ceres (Roman), male Poseidon (Greek) or Neptune (Roman), male Zeus (Greek) or Jupiter (Roman), female Hera (Greek) or Juno (Roman), male Hephaestus (Greek) or Vulcan (Roman), male Ares (Greek) or Mars (Roman), female Aphrodite (Greek) or Venus (Roman), male Hermes (Greek) or Mercury (Roman), female Artemis (Greek) or Diana (Roman), female Athena (Greek) or Minerva (Roman), male Apollo or Apollon, first female Hestia (Greek) or Vesta (Roman) and then male Dionysius (Greek) or Bacchus (Roman).
king of the winds {Aeolus}.
Roman god of medicine {Aesculapius}.
Phoebus Apollo {Apollo} is Greek and Roman god of light, prophecy, truth, healing, archery, and music. His cult was at Delphi and stressed reason, harmony, and justice.
Greek god of War {Ares}. He was Mars in Roman mythology.
Roman god of Vine, Inspiration, and Madness {Bacchus} and son of Jupiter and Semele. He was Dionysius in Greek mythology.
Roman god of Love {Cupid} is a baby with bow and arrow. He was Eros in Greek mythology.
Greek god of Vine, Inspiration, and Madness {Dionysius} and son of Zeus and Semele. Cult of Dionysius was about nature, ecstasy, and passion. Women Maenads participated in winter rituals. He was Bacchus in Roman mythology.
Greek god of Love {Eros}. He was Cupid in Roman mythology.
king of underworld or underworld itself {Hades}. He was Pluto in Roman mythology.
Greek messenger god {Hermes}, god of commerce and markets and guide of the dead, is thieving, shrewd, and cunning. He was Mercury in Roman mythology.
God of good beginnings {Janus} has two faces.
Supreme Roman god {Jove} {Jupiter, Roman god} is king of sky, rain, and storm clouds. He had many children. He was Zeus in Greek mythology.
Roman household gods {Lares} are ancestor spirits.
Roman god of war {Mars, Roman god}. He was Ares in Greek mythology.
Roman messenger god {Mercury, Roman god}, god of commerce and markets and guide of the dead, is thieving, shrewd, and cunning. He was Hermes in Greek mythology.
god of sleep {Morpheus}.
Roman ruler {Neptune, Roman god} of sea loved horses and carried trident. He was Poseidon in Greek mythology.
Merry, noisy god {Pan, god} with goat horns and feet, lived in wild places and played reed pipe.
king of underworld {Pluto, Greek god}. He was Hades in Greek mythology.
Greek ruler {Poseidon} of sea gave horses to men and carried trident. He was Neptune in Roman mythology.
God {Proteus} foretold the future and changed his shape.
Roman sun god {Sol} and Greek sun god {Helios}.
god of boundaries {Terminus}.
sea god {Triton}.
God {Vulcan} of fire is an armorer and smith and is ugly, lame, kindly, and peace-loving. He was Hephaestus in Greek mythology.
Supreme Greek god {Zeus} is king of sky, rain, and storm clouds. He had many children. He was Jupiter in Roman mythology.
Greek goddess {Aphrodite} of love and beauty was mother of Eros. She loved Adonis. She was Venus in Roman mythology.
Greek goddess of moon, hunt, wild animals, and darkness {Artemis}. She was Diana in Roman mythology.
Greek goddess {Astraea} of justice helped men in Golden Age.
Greek goddess of mischief {Ate}.
Pallas Athena {Athena} is Greek goddess of city, civilization, handicraft, agriculture, wisdom, and justice. She was goddess of Athens, with temples on Acropolis. She was Minerva in Roman mythology.
Greek goddess of the dawn {Aurora}.
Roman goddess of corn and harvests {Ceres}. She was Demeter in Greek mythology.
goddess of history {Clio}.
Greek goddess of corn and harvests {Demeter}. She was Ceres in Roman mythology.
Roman goddess of Moon, hunt, wild things, and darkness {Diana}. She was Artemis in Greek mythology.
Zeus' wife {Hera} is Greek goddess of marriage. She was Juno in Roman mythology. Hera is courage.
Roman goddess of marriage {Juno} is Jupiter's wife. She was Hera in Greek mythology.
Roman goddess of city, civilization, handicraft, agriculture, and wisdom {Minerva}. She was Athena in Greek mythology.
goddess of righteous anger {Nemesis}.
Greek goddess of victory {Nike}.
Girl {Psyche, Roman goddess} loved by Cupid became goddess of the soul.
Roman goddess {Venus, Roman goddess} of love and beauty and mother of Eros loved Adonis. She was Aphrodite in Greek mythology.
Roman virgin goddess {Vesta} of hearth, home, and family. She was Hestia in Greek mythology.
Achilles, Aeneas, Agamemnon, Ajax, Hector, Hercules, Odysseus in Greece or Ulysses in Rome, Paris, Perseus, Priam, and Troilus fought at Troy {Greek and Roman heroes}. Castor and Pollux are the Gemini twins.
The greatest Greek warrior {Achilles} in Trojan War killed Hector. He had protection from harm because he had dipped in River Styx, except for his heels. He died by arrow in the heel from Paris.
Trojan {Aeneas} loved Dido of Carthage, descended into Hell to find his father, and then founded Rome.
Greek commander {Agamemnon} at Troy killed his daughter Iphigenia to get to Troy. His wife, Clytemnestra, killed him on his return from Troy.
second-greatest Greek champion {Ajax}.
Twins {Gemini}, protectors of sailors, are the heroes Castor, for horsemanship, and Pollux, for boxing. They are sons of Jupiter, as the Swan, and Leda.
Priam's son {Hector} was the best Trojan warrior. He died at the hands of Achilles.
Greatest Greek hero {Hercules} {Herakles} performed 12 labors in penance for killing his wife while he was mad.
Greek hero {Odysseus} of Odyssey, same as Roman Ulysses, was wise and clever.
Priam's son {Paris, myth} judged Aphrodite fairest, causing Hera and Athena to be angry. When Helen was promised to him, he stole her and caused Trojan War. He killed Achilles by shooting arrow in his heel.
king of Troy during Trojan War {Priam}.
Priam's son {Troilus} loved Cressida. Achilles killed him.
Roman hero {Ulysses, myth} of Odyssey, wise and clever, was same as Greek Odysseus.
Centaurs, Cerberus, Charybdis, Chimera, Cyclops, Fauns, Gordon, Griffin, Harpies, Hydra, Medusa, Minotaur, Pegasus, Satyrs, Scylla, Sirens, and Sphinx {Greek and Roman monsters}.
Bellerophon, while riding Pegasus, killed a monster {Chimera}.
The king of the serpents {Cockatrice} {Basilisk} killed with one glance.
Roman goat-men {faun}| can live in wild places.
Monsters {Gorgon}, of which Medusa was one, with wings and snaky hair, caused men to turn to monsters if they looked on them.
half eagle and half lion {griffin}|.
Argonauts routed smelly, flying creatures {Harpies}.
Nine-headed creature {Hydra} grew two new heads if anyone chopped off head. Hercules killed it.
a Gorgon {Medusa}.
Theseus killed a half bull and half man {Minotaur} imprisoned in the labyrinth.
Birds {phoenix, myth}| can rise out of own ashes.
giant Indian-Ocean bird {roc}|.
Small reptile {salamander, myth}| did not burn in fire.
Goat men {satyr}| lived in the wild.
Circe changed maiden into monster {Scylla}, which attacked Jason, Odysseus, and Aeneas.
Winged lion {Sphinx} with woman's breast and face asked famous riddle.
Slim horses {unicorn, myth}| have one long horn.
two-legged winged dragon {wyvern}|.
Adonis, Amazons, Andromeda, Antigone, Argonauts, Calypso, Cassandra, Charon, Circe, Daedalus, Daphne, Dido, Dryads, Electra, Europa, Eurydice, Helen of Troy, Hero, Icarus, Leander, Medea, Midas, Naiads, Narcissus, Pandora, Penelope, Phaedra, Plutus, Psyche, Pygmalion, Sisyphus, and Tantalus {Greek and Roman people}.
Oracle {Delphi, myth} was for Apollo.
protectors of suppliants {Eumenides} {Fates}.
just pursuers and punishers of sinners {Fury} {Furies} {Enrinyes}: Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megara.
Bellerophon rode a winged horse {Pegasus}, to kill the Chimera.
Aphrodite loved a beautiful youth {Adonis}.
Adventurers {Argonauts} sailed to get Golden Fleece under Jason, in the ship Argo.
Boatman {Charon} ferries the dead across River Acheron.
Labyrinth architect {Daedalus} flew out of the labyrinth on manmade wings.
Greek son {Deucalion} of Prometheus and his wife Pyrrha were the only survivors of the flood. He cast behind him his mother's bones, stones of Earth. These became human beings. Hellen was their daughter, and she had sons: Ion, Aeolus, Dorus, and Achaeus. Thus, Hellenes began, with the four tribes Ionians, Aeolians, Dorians, and Achaeans.
Daedulus' son {Icarus} soared too close to Sun, as he flew on waxed feathers, and drowned.
Leader {Jason} of Argonauts married Medea.
He {Leander} loved Hero.
Bacchus granted a wish that everything he touched turned to gold to a king {Midas}.
King of Crete {Minos} was at Cnossus, his capital.
A youth {Narcissus} scorned maidens, and gods punished him by making him love himself, so he pined away and became a flower at death.
His father Laius, King of Thebes, ordered him {Oedipus} killed when he was a baby. A peasant found him, and he grew up to slay his father unknowingly, solve the riddle of the Sphinx, marry his mother, and become king of Thebes. Gods revealed his unknowing misdeeds to him after Thebes suffered famine and pestilence, and he tore out his eyes.
Agamemnon's son {Orestes} killed his mother and her lover, because they had killed his father. Furies pursued him until Athena pardoned him.
Gods killed mighty hunter {Orion} and placed him as star constellation.
Great musician and singer {Orpheus} sailed with Argonauts and saved them from the Sirens. He went to Hades to get back Eurydice but failed when he gazed back at her.
He {Perseus} killed Medusa and married Andromeda.
Roman allegorical figure {Plutus} represents wealth.
Sculptor {Pygmalion} created statue and fell in love with it.
Man {Sisyphus} forever rolls stone up hill in Hades, because he betrayed oath to Zeus.
Man {Tantalus} sits in pool in Hades but cannot drink or reach the fruits near him to eat.
Odysseus' son {Telemachus}.
Athens' king {Theseus} killed Minotaur, established democracy in Athens, and married Phaedra.
women warriors {Amazons} from Caucasus.
Perseus saved a daughter {Andromeda} of Cassiopeia from a sea serpent.
Oedipus' daughter {Antigone} buried her brother in defiance of Creon, and Creon put her to death.
Minos' daughter {Ariadne} gave a thread to Theseus, so that he could go in and out of the labyrinth.
Nymph {Calypso} loved Odysseus.
Agamemnon received as gift prophet {Cassandra} from Troy. Her fate was that no one believed her.
Witch {Circe} turned men into beasts. She did not get Odysseus but then helped him get to Hell.
Maiden {Daphne} loved by Apollo changed into laurel tree.
Founder {Dido} of Carthage loved Aeneas.
tree nymph {dryad}|.
Agamemnon's daughter and Orestes' sister {Electra}.
Zeus, in the guise of bull, carried off a woman {Europa}.
Wife {Eurydice} of Orpheus, who had gone to Hades to recover her, had to return to Hades because she looked back.
The three Graces {Graces}, Splendor, Mirth, and Good Cheer, represent grace and beauty.
Paris, Priam's son, carried off the wife of Agamemnon {Helen}, causing Trojan War.
Leander swam the Hellespont to her {Hero} every night, until he perished.
Priestess {Medea} of Golden Fleece in Colchis helped Jason get it and married him.
The nine daughters {Muses} of Zeus and Mnemosyne are: Erato {goddess, lyrics}, Euterpe {goddess, music}, Thalia {goddess, comedy}, Melpomene {goddess, tragedy}, Terpsichore {goddess, dance and choral song}, Urania {goddess, astronomy}, Clio {goddess, historical and heroic poetry}, Polyhymnia {goddess, hymn}, and Calliope {goddess, epic}. Calliope's son was Orpheus.
water nymph {naiad}|.
After the Golden Age, gods created the first woman {Pandora} from man. She opened a forbidden box, letting out all bad things, but she also let out Hope. Alternatively, she opened treasure box letting all good things escape, except that Hope remained.
wife of Odysseus {Penelope}.
Pluto carried a daughter {Persephone} of Demeter to Underworld, but she can return to Earth's surface every spring and so is maiden of Spring.
Theseus' wife {Phaedra} loved her stepson Hippolytus and killed herself.
Pluto carried a daughter {Proserpine} of Ceres to underworld.
Singers {siren}| lured sailors to their deaths on an island.
muse of dance {Terpsichore}.
Aegis, Augean Stables, Caduceus, Delphi, Eleusinean mysteries, Elysian fields, Golden Age, Golden Fleece, Gordion Knot, Halcyon Days, Labyrinth, Lethe, Lotus, Meander, Olympus, Pandora's Box, Pillars of Hercules, Styx, Tartarus, and Trojan Horse {Greek and Roman things}.
People must cross river {Acheron} of woe to get to Hades.
Food {ambrosia, gods}| of gods gives immortality.
Labor of Hercules diverted river to wash stables {Augean Stables} clean.
Mercury's magic wand {Caduceus}.
Savage animals {centaur, myth}|, half men and half horse, include Chiron, friend to man.
Dog {Cerberus} guards the gates of hell.
A whirlpool {Charybdis} is next to Scylla.
Religious celebration {Eleusinean mysteries} honors Demeter.
Blessed place {Elysian fields} in Underworld is for the good.
Fate {Fate} controls men's destinies and deaths.
Roman spirits {genius, god}| attend all people and places.
A time {Golden Age} of peace and happiness was in Italy, when Saturn ruled.
Fleece {Golden Fleece} was sought and obtained by Jason and Argonauts, with the help of Medea.
Complicated knot {Gordian Knot} was in oracle's temple in Phrygia. Whoever untied it was lord of Asia. Alexander the Great hacked it open.
For seven winter days {Halcyon days}, sea is calm.
Daedalus built a maze {Labyrinth} to hold the Minotaur.
River {Lethe} of Forgetfulness is in underworld.
Sweet flowers {lotus, myth}| make one forget all longings.
River {Meander} in Phrygia had many twists and turns.
drink of gods {nectar}|.
home of Greek and Roman Gods {Olympus}.
Hercules put rocks {Rock of Gibraltar} {Pillars of Hercules, myth} at mouth of Mediterranean Sea during his tenth labor.
From December 17 to December 23, a feast {Saturnalia} commemorated reign of Saturn over Earth in Golden Age.
River {Styx} of the unbreakable oath is one of the three rivers of Hades.
Deepest part {Tartarus} of hell holds Titans and Giants.
death {Thanatos}.
Large wooden horse {Trojan Horse} left by Greeks for Trojans contained Greek soldiers, who attacked after the horse was brought inside Troy.
west wind {Zephyr}.
Scandinavia had mythology {Norse mythology}. Gods were Odin, Thor, and Loki. Main goddess is Freya.
sea god {Aegir}.
Norse gods {Aesir}.
Odin's wise son {Balder}.
goddess of love and beauty {Freya}.
A giant's son {Loki} hated the Good. Loki killed another god with a stone.
The All-Father {Odin} {sky god} was chief god, gained wisdom by losing eye, and gave man runes and mead, both for poetry. Odin is northern name, and Woden is southern name.
Thunder God {Thor} was strongest Norse God, possessor of thunderbolts and hammer. Thor struggled with the World Serpent, pulled it out of sea, and killed it with his hammer. He also fought many-headed giant. He had red beard, which when it shook caused storms. He also had sacred ring, symbol of law and order. Throwing hammer of Thor replaced ax as weapon of sky god. Swastika was symbol of sky god. Thor was God of Justice.
Armed and mounted Norse virgins {Valkyries} were daughters of gods, selectors of the slain, attendants to Odin, and servants at Asgard.
Freyja and Freyr were chief gods in an earlier race {Vanir} of gods.
southern name of chief Norse god {Woden}.
Brunhilde, Sigurd, and Siegfried were people in Norse legends {Norse people}. Sigmund the Volsung, Hadding, and Harold Wartooth were Odin's heroes. Sigurd the Volsung killed dragon. Two birds warned him of the dragon's brother, a treacherous smith. He roasted the dragon's heart, burned his thumb, and thus sucked inspirational dragon's blood. Someone murdered Sigurd.
The hero Siegfried saved Valkyrie {Brunhilde} {Brunhild} and loved her.
Sigurd's brother {Gunnar} died in a snake pit, when King Atli took revenge.
giant {Hymir}.
Hero {Ragmar Lothbrok} slew dragon. His sons captured England.
Volsung's son {Sigmund} had a sister, Signy, who saved him from death. He then avenged himself on the murder of his father and brother.
A hero {Sigurd} {Siegfried} rescued Brunhilde from fire and married Gudrun. The wrath of Brunhilde killed him, and then she killed herself.
home of gods {Asgard}.
Twilight of the Gods or downfall of gods {Götterdämmerung}.
Fates {Norns}.
Earth will face destruction in the future {Ragnarok} {Ops} {Twilight of the Gods}.
Magical inscriptions {rune, Norse}| were for protection.
Icelandic magic sign {torshamarr}.
The home {Valhalla} of dead Norse heroes is a room of Asgard.
An ash tree {Yggdrasil} was between heaven, Earth, and hell. Mimir was well at one root. Odin drank of it to gain wisdom.
Religions {Shintoism} can be animistic and be Japan's indigenous religion. Shinto rituals are about purification. Sun goddess is the greatest god and is ancestress of emperors.
Shinto has festivals {bon} for ancestors.
One should practice purification {harai}.
good spirits {Kami}.
Monotheistic religions {Sikhism} can follow Hindu practices and emphasize devotion to God and love of people. Sikhism rejects castes and church leaders. Sikh means student or learner.
clothing
Men have uncut hair all over body {kesh}, wear full-length cotton underwear {kaccha}, keep short knife {kirpan}, have comb for long hair {kangha}, wear steel bracelet {kara}, and wear turban.
holidays
Vaisakhi is new year's day, in mid-April, and is a holiday honoring Gobind Singh.
number of Sikhs
World has 20,000,000 Sikhs, 2% of India's people.
House of worship or "gateway to the guru" {gurdwara}.
Nine gurus {guru, Sikhism} came after the first, Nanak. Gobind Singh was the 10th and last Sikh guru.
Sikh warriors can be lions {Singh}.
In Taoism, the way or path {tao, Taoism} is the mystical underlying principle of all things. It is transcendent, as ultimate reality. It is immanent as universe itself. It is the order in people's lives, as serenity and grace. It emphasizes simple living with no desires, much contemplation, and few activities. Spontaneity, naturalness, and openness have value. In Esoteric Taoism, tao is psychic power of societal links and so relates to mysticism. In popular Taoism, tao relates to magic. Many secret societies in China are Taoist.
Creative quietude {wu wei} is yielding to tao.
Male {yin, Taoism} and female {yang, Taoism}, philosopher and king, Heaven and Earth, or creating and destroying forces exist in necessary pairs {yin-yang, Taoism} {yang and yin} {yin and yang}. Yang is unbroken lines, and yin is broken lines. They must have balance. Yang and yin cause movement, cycles, and opposites. Nothing can be permanent or dominant for long. Because all values are relative, even contrary things share identity.
Religions {Zoroastrianism} can be about good, as the sun god and light, versus evil, as darkness. Zoroastrians number 150,000, with 60,000 in Iran.
gods
Zoroastrianism is basically monotheistic. Ahura-Mazda or Ormuzd has fire as symbol, created the universe, gave ox as holy animal to man, and leads gods {Amesha Spentas} of goodness. Angra Mainyu or Ahriman is Destructive Spirit, who leads the evil ancient Persian gods {daevas}.
light
Light or good and darkness or evil are the two universe principles and are always in conflict. Their war causes all motion. Good and evil forces are equal, but good will win at universe end, and paradise will come.
people
First man was Mashya, and first woman was Mashyana. Yima saved the animals from the flood. His successor Thraetaona had three sons, and Airya, Sairima, and Tura divided Earth.
saints
Before Zoroaster, the three saints were Vivanghant, Athwya, and Thrita. Zoroaster or Zarathustra founded the religion [-630].
Zoroastrians {Ghebers} are in Iran.
Zoroastrians {Parsee} {Parsi} are in India.
Holiday of shortest daylight of the year {Chelleh} {Yalda} is approximately December 21 in Persia.
Holiday of first day of autumn {Mihrgan} is approximately September 21 in Persia.
Holiday of first day of spring {Nowruz} is approximately March 21 in Persia.
Holiday of fire discovery {Sadeh} is approximately January 30 in Persia.
Religion includes gods, soul, life-after-death, and religion types.
Traditionally, founded Carvaka, Charvaka, Lokayata, Laukayatikas, or Lokayatikas School of materialism, a non-Vedic atheistic system. Sense gratification is good.
Mithraism emphasized loyalty, fasting, temperance, strict ethics, baptism, sacred banquets, and mysticism. Mithra was an ancient god of India and Iran, who slew a sacred bull in a grotto.
He lived 216 to 276 and proclaimed himself intercessor {Paraclete} with God. He emphasized asceticism, prayer, and understanding of God. He combined Christianity and Zoroastrianism gnostically, so spirit is Light, and matter is Dark {Manichaeism}. Sassanid Shah Sapor I supported him. After Sapor I died, Zoroastrianism Magi persuaded next shah to reject Manichaeism.
He helped develop the Ajivikai system.
He lived ? to -500 and developed the Ajivikai system, which is similar to Jainism and is non-Vedic. Ajivika are followers of Gosala [-485]. Ajivika ended [1300].
Mixcoatl or Cloud Serpent was god of the hunt, Milky Way, stars, or heavens in Aztec and other Mesoamerican religions. Perhaps, a Chichimec lord or Toltec ruler, of Culhuacan in central Mexico, conquered Teotihuacán [900].
Quetzalcoatl or Feathered Serpent was god of wind, creativity, and fertility in Aztec and other Mesoamerican religions. Perhaps, Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl ruled 923 to 947, was Mixcoatl's son, and founded capital at Tula, 60 km north of Mexico City. It had 30,000 and 60,000 people, with temples and palaces. Opponents of worshiping Quetzalcoatl drove him from city, and he went to Chichen Itza [990].
He lived 1753 to 1826 and founded Shaykhi Shi'a religious movement. Shi'a believes that there were twelve Imams starting with Ali ibn Abu Talib and ending with Muhammad al-Mahdi, who will return before judgment day as the Mahdi or Mihdi. Shaykh Ahmad said he communicated with the coming Mahdi. Shaykh Ahmad or his successor Siyyid Kazim predicted that the Mahdi was coming. Shaykhi began to search for Qa'im or Promised One of the Shiites and said it was the Bab [1844]. One was Ali Muhammad or the Báb, who said he was the Mahdi and Persia executed him [1850]. Bahá'í Faith comes from Shaykh Ahmad, Siyyid Kazim, the Báb, and then Bahá'u'lláh. Another was Haji Karim Khan of Kirman, who escaped punishment and had no followers.
He lived 1819 to 1850, was Muslim, and announced that soon person was to come to unify all people [1844]. Later he said he was Mahdi. Iranian government killed him [1850].
He lived 1817 to 1892 and was Babi. He then claimed he was the Promised One of all ages [1863]. He had to leave Iran, and Ottomans imprisoned him in Acre, Lebanon.
He lived 1844 to 1921 and was Baha'u'llah's oldest son. Baha'u'llah appointed him to lead Bahaism [1892 to 1921].
He lived 1897 to 1957 and was Abdu'l-Baha's grandson. He led Bahaism [1921 to 1957] and set up the administrative order.
He is Avarih or Wanderer.
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He lived -563 to -483. He is also Buddha {Enlightened One} {Awakened One}, Arahat (conqueror or worthy one), Siddhartha (accomplisher of aim), Tathagata (arriver at truth), and Sakyamuni or Shakyamuni {silent sage of the Sakyas}. He had ten major disciples.
He was wealthy during youth, but he left his easy life at 29 [-534] to see the world and encountered sick man, old pauper, and dead man. His Great Renunciation of luxury was at Kapilavastu [-534]. He began to search for the meaning of life and found enlightenment by understanding source of suffering. He had Great Struggle to find knowledge. According to Buddhism, while under the Bo tree at Gaya or Uruvela, Kama-Mara, god of desire and death, tempted him but did not affect him. He completely introverted. He stayed seven days and nights under the tree and then moved to new tree and stayed there seven days and nights. He experienced the Great Awakening and became the Buddha [-538]. He felt state of nothingness with no individualness and total mystical knowledge {nirvana, Buddha}. He repeated this five more times. When he again saw the world, he realized that what he had experienced was beyond speech. He felt to talk about it was vain. According to Buddhism, Brahman, the Creator, implored him to teach all creation, awaken it from the dream of life, and show it the Path, though few can take it. He proclaimed his doctrine at Sarnath and died at Kusinagara [-483].
He advocated ascetic life, with no rituals, no castes, and no gods. He did not claim to be god, but his followers worshipped him.
Monk communities began.
He was Buddha's disciple.
Buddhist monks established discipline and law.
Buddhist monks established discipline and law.
Buddhist monks opposed second-council laws. One group felt that only observing Rules of Vinaya or Canon Law achieved Buddhahood. The other group felt that Buddhahood was in everyone already and anyone can develop it.
First Buddhist Council resulted in division into Mahayana and Hinayana.
He was Greek king of Sagala in Bactria [-155 to -130]. Nagasena persuaded him to become Theravada Buddhist.
He persuaded Milinda or Menander, Greek king of Sagala in Bactria [-155 to -130], to become Theravada Buddhist.
Way of the Elders or Lesser Vehicle is mainly practiced in south Asia.
Mahayana Buddhism allowed less stringent practices than Theravada Buddhism. Mahayana means greater vehicle. Hinayana means lesser vehicle.
Three Baskets {tripitaka} {tipitaka} are Vinaya Pitaka, Sutra Pitaka, and Abhidharma Pitaka. Buddhist oral teachings are Theravada Buddhism scripture. Other schools are Mahayana and Vajrayana. Vinaya Pitaka is practices and ethical code for monks and nuns. Sutra Pitaka has Buddha's life, dialogues, and teachings {agamas} {nikayas}. Anguttara Nikaya is in Sutra Pitaka fourth division. Abhidharma Pitaka (Toward Higher Thought or Toward Reality) systematically investigates mind and matter. Tripitaka parts include Cullavagga, Dipavamsa, Mahavagga, Mahavamsa, Niddesa, Parivara, Patisambhida, and Sataka.
He wrote Tripitaka first basket, which has rules for the sangha monastic community.
He wrote Tripitaka second basket, Sutta Pitaka, Sutrapitaka, or Basket of Discourses, which has the Five Nikayas. Longer Nikaya and Shorter Nikaya are first two parts and are Buddha's dialogues. Third Nikaya is Anguttara or Progressive Addition, which states doctrines by units, then pairs, threes, fours, then to tens. Fourth Nikaya is Satlyutta or Clusters, which states Logia or doctrines by subject. Sutrapitaka contains the Girimananda Sutra (Discourse to the Venerable Girimananda), Mahanidana Sutra (Great Discourse on Origination), Mangala Sutra (Discourse on Blessings), Metta Sutra (Discourse on Loving-Kindness), Ratana Sutra (Discourse on Precious Jewels), Samannaphala Sutra (Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship), and Theranama Sutra (Discourse on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone). Fifth Nikaya is in Sutrapitaka or third basket.
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Mahayana sutras include Ratnagunasamchayagatha, Vajracchedika, Lankavatara, and Vimalakirti-nirdesa. Philosophical arguments are in Shastras.
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Buddhism split into Hinayana, or little boat, and Mahayana, or great boat. Buddha worship began. Gods are Buddhas of past and future.
Buddhist missionaries arrived.
Buddhism is Fotism in China.
He was later Sautranika. Words are always general, never particular, and serve to negate {exclusion theory of meaning}.
Tantras, mantras, and yantras are about Vishnu, Shiva, or Devi. Shaivism agamas, such as Kamika, are about Shiva. Shakta tantras are about Devi. Vishnuism samhitas are about Vishnu.
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Council established Mahayana Buddhism.
He founded Madhyamika, Sunyavada, or Voidist School of Mahayana Buddhism. He used the dialectic to break fixed conceptions and to prove that all signs are meaningless, that all is and is not, and that all statements are refutable {Doctrine of the Void}.
Epistemology
To have true knowledge, people should detach from everything and be aware of Emptiness. Using logic to prove contradictions forces coming to the concept of emptiness, neither being nor non-being. Therefore, all things are empty. They come into being for moments but are dependent. In emptiness, there is no contradiction and no strife.
Knowledge depends on external-object reality, but their reality comes from ability to know, so everything depends on varying perspectives and is not certain. Cause and effect are both meaningless. Pain and pleasure are both meaningless.
Ethics
The highest goal is the Void, but Void is neither void nor not-void, because it is indescribable, with no goal, no burden, and no conflict.
Middle Way is balanced moderate life. People should not attach {non-attachment} to the 75 dharmas.
Metaphysics
Only one Void exists, so no metaphysics is true. Only relations exist. Things only have momentary existence. Being or substance is always ordering and forming {dharma, Nagarjuna}, with no permanent order or form.
Buddhism arrived.
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He developed Yogacara (Vijnanavada) School of Mahayana Buddhism, was Asanga's half-brother, and worked on logic.
He lived 300 to ?, developed Yogacara (Vijnanavada) School of Mahayana Buddhism, and was Vasubandhu's brother. Perhaps, Maitreyanatha wrote some.
Buddhism arrived.
He lived 384 to 414, was Kuramajiva's student, and started and led Hua-yen School [410 to 414], a Zen precursor. He was of Maadhyamikas School, Madhyamaka School, San-lun tsung, or School of the Three Treatises. The schools used Nagarjuna's Madhyamika-sastra (Spiritual Texts on the Middle Way) and Dvadasadvara or Twelve Gates and Aryadeva's Sata-sastra or Treatise in One Hundred Verses. Another influence was Yogacara.
School depends on the Avatamsaka Sutra or Flower Garland Sutra. All comes from dharma (higher thought). Leaders were Seng-chao, Tao-sheng, Tu-shun [557 to 640], Chih-yen [602 to 668], Fa-ts'ang [643 to 712], Ch'eng-kuan [737 to 838], and Ts'ung-mi [780 to 841].
He lived 360 to 434, was Kuramajiva's student, and headed Hua-yen School after Seng-chao [414 to 434].
Large Buddhist temples and cave temples began in China.
He lived 480 to 540 and was of Mahayana-Buddhism Yogacara School. He replaced older logic {trairuupia} with implication {vyaapti}.
He started rational T'ien-t'ai School in China, which uses Lotus Sutra Fa-hua Ching or Saddharmapu.
Buddhism arrived and affected art, architecture, music, and writing.
He was Dignaga's student and listed cognition types and how they relate to their objects.
He lived 617 to 686, in Sil Lah period, united Buddhist-sect teachings, and added Tao and Confucian ideas. He was one of the Ten Sages of the Ancient Korean Kingdom. He followed the way of the flow of the wind {poong-ryu-do}, using the idea of nothingness {mu, Buddhism} to eliminate dualities and achieve unity.
He lived 774 to 835 and introduced Tantric Buddhism to Japan as Shingon or True Word School. All people can attain enlightenment, by meditation, mantras {shingon}, and hand movements. Enlightenment requires ten stages. The final stage is identity with the Buddha {Mahavairocana}. He was a calligrapher. Perhaps, he invented Japan's hiragana script.
He brought Mahayana Buddhism to Tibet, and there he is second Buddha.
From the rational T'ien-t'ai School in China, he went to Japan and founded [806] the Tendai School in Japan.
He derived metaphysics and epistemology from Tantric Buddhism and developed Kashmir Shaivism. Female energy resides in the body, and people need to become aware of this knowing, wishing, and acting power.
Aesthetics
He invented an aesthetics theory {theory of rasa} {rasa theory, Abhinavagupta}.
He lived 1133 to 1212, broke with royal court's Tendai Buddhism and military's Shingon or Tantric Buddhism, and introduced Pure Land Buddhism based on Shan-tao or Zendo [1176]. Honen, Dogen, Nichiren, and Honen's disciple Shinran developed popular Buddhism {Kamakura Buddhism}. Honen developed Jodo-shu, and his disciple Shinran derived Jodoshin-shu.
He lived 1173 to 1262, was Honen's student, founded Pure-Land sect, and said Amida has all power.
Buddhism arrived.
He lived 1870 to 1966 and translated many Buddhist books into English.
He lived 1879 to 1950 and was Tantric Buddhist.
He lived 1935 to ?, became Dalai Lama [1940], and went into exile in India [1959], when China took over Tibet.
He lived 1931 to ? and tried psilocybin, then LSD, with Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner in 1960's.
By legend, Bodhidharma was 28th in line of transmission from Buddha's disciple Kasyapa, founded Chan or Zen in China as mixture of Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism, and was first Patriarch of Zen. His story is in Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp [527]. Chan says that all people have Buddha nature, but thought and feeling obscure it.
He lived 487 to 593 and was second Patriarch of Zen Buddhism.
He lived ? to 606 and was third Patriarch of Zen Buddhism [580 to 606].
He lived 580 to 651 and was fourth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism.
He lived 601 to 675 and was fifth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism. His student Faju [638 to 689] started Northern School.
He lived 637 to 713 and was sixth and last Patriarch of Zen Buddhism [675 to 713].
He lived 655 to 713 and was Hui-neng's disciple. Zen-Buddhism Soto School depends on his teachings.
He lived 660 to 740, was Hui-neng's disciple, and taught Shih-t'ou Hsi-ch'ien.
He lived 670 to 762, was Hui-neng's disciple, started Southern School, and opposed Northern-School creation.
He lived 677 to 744, was Hui-neng's disciple, and started Hongzhou School. Zen-Buddhism Rinzai School depends on his teachings.
He lived 700 to 790 and was Hsuan-chueh Hsing-ssu's disciple.
He lived 709 to 788 and was Nan-yueh Huai-jang's disciple.
He lived 720 to 814, was Chao-chou's disciple, and founded first Zen community. Chao-chou was previous Zen-Buddhist leader.
He lived 748 to 834 and was Ma-tsu's disciple.
He lived ? to 850 and was Pai-chang's disciple.
He lived 778 to 897 and was Nan-chuan's disciple.
He lived 830 to 867, was Hung-po's disciple, and led to Rinzai School. He started the shout "Ho" or "Kwatz".
He lived 980 to 1052.
He lived 1141 to 1215 and introduced Zen to Japan, as Rinzai School, building on Ch'an Buddhism in China. He began tea ceremony and brought green tea from China to Japan.
He lived 1200 to 1253, came from China, and started Zen-Buddhism Eiheiji or Soto School. "Enlightenment and practice are one." All things already have enlightenment. All things have their times.
He lived 1394 to 1481.
He lived 1518 to 1591 and perfected tea ceremony.
He lived 1573 to 1645 and perfected Zen swordsmanship. He emphasized that mind should not focus or rest {no mind} but be ready to act at any time and place.
He lived 1622 to 1693 and was Zen master.
He lived 1685 to 1768 and was Zen poet and painter. People need to meditate during all activities.
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A supernova or planet conjunction happened within several years of Jesus' birth.
He was Mary's husband.
She was Jesus' mother.
He lived -28 to 30, preached the Messiah's coming [25], and baptized Jesus.
He lived -4 to 29 and was probably born in Nazareth. His name was Joshua or Savior, common Hebrew name. Jesus is Greek for the Hebrew name Joshua. Messiah means Anointed or Savior in Hebrew. Christ is Greek for Anointed. Immanuel means "God with us" in Hebrew. His ideas and life are Christianity's basis.
According to the Bible, he was born to Joseph and Mary of Nazareth in a stable when they traveled to Bethlehem to pay taxes, and he lay in the stable feeding trough {manger, Bible}. However, he was more likely born in animal quarters in a relative's house in Nazareth.
His father and he were carpenters. According to the Bible, at age 12 he argued with Hebrew elders about scriptures. At age 30, he began preaching the Messiah's coming and that the weak and poor will triumph if they are righteous, on Judgment Day. He had 12 disciples, Peter, John, Judas Iscariot, and others. According to the Bible, he conjured enough food for crowd from several loaves and fishes, turned water into wine, and raised Lazarus from the dead. He preached Sermon on the Mount and Beatitudes. He told parables about the Talents, the Prodigal Son, and the Good Samaritan. He said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" {golden rule, Jesus}. At age 33, he came to Jerusalem. Crowds greeted him on Palm Sunday. He denigrated the Scribes and Pharisees. He broke with Judaism and drove out moneychangers at the Temple. He rested on the Mount of Olives with Mary and Martha, Simon the Leper's sisters. Sanhedrin priest council condemned him to death for blasphemy. Judas betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver. Pontius Pilate had him arrested in Garden of Gethsemane. He had his Last Supper on Thursday. The people did not choose to let him go free when Pilate let the people choose. The hostile crowd chose Barabbas. Romans crucified him on Good Friday, between two thieves. He carried his cross to Golgotha, the Crucifixion site. He spoke seven sayings while on the cross, such as "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." and "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Soldier speared him to make sure he was dead. Joseph and Nicodemus took him to tomb. He was not there when Mary Magdalene came on Easter Sunday to embalm his body, the Resurrection after three days. According to the Bible, forty days after Resurrection, he ascended into heaven {Ascension, Bible} after revisiting the disciples.
He advocated Jewish law but opposed harsh interpretations. He used Essene ideas. Christian laws have same ideas, but different emphases, than Jewish laws.
He was Jesus' disciple and went to India [52 to 72]. Someone killed him.
The Bible tells that, after Jesus' death, the 11 remaining disciples saw tongues of fire and received the gift of speaking in many tongues {Pentecost}, and began evangelizing.
The people freed convicted criminal, instead of Jesus, when Pilate let them choose.
They received Jesus' body from the cross.
He lived ? to 33 and was Jesus' disciple but betrayed Jesus to the authorities with a kiss.
She found Jesus' tomb empty.
They gave care to Jesus and were Simon the Leper's sisters.
He lived ? to 64. Jesus said of his disciple Peter, "Upon this rock, I will build my church."
He was the most mystical of Jesus' disciples. He probably did not write Gospel of John.
Some Christian writings, gospels, letters, and prophecies are not in the Bible.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John used this work.
He was one of the first seven church deacons and became a martyr [34].
He lived 10 to 63, was born and educated in Tarsus, wrote in Greek, founded Christian ideas and organization, visited churches in Asia Minor and Greece, and died in Rome [67]. Saul became the apostle Paul after his conversion [35] by a light ray. He visited Jerusalem [37], stayed at Tarsus [37 to 43], stayed at Antioch [43 to 44], visited Jerusalem [44 or 45], took his first mission [45 to 49], visited Jerusalem [49 or 50], took his second mission [50 to 53], visited Jerusalem [53], took his third mission [53 to 57], visited Jerusalem [57], faced arrest [57], went to Rome [59], was captive at Rome [60 to 62], and took a mission [62 to 66]. Someone killed him [67]. He said Jesus was God and wrote about soul versus body.
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Christians decided to preach to Gentiles, without requiring or following Jewish customs or laws. Jesus's brother James and Peter were there. Perhaps, Paul was there. They baptized Christians. Christians performed eucharist Last-Supper rites. Christians believed that Jesus rose from the dead, will return to Earth soon for Last Judgment, and will then give them eternal life.
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He received epistle from Paul, his friend.
It is oldest gospel of the Bible.
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It has 100 Greek letters and has same wording as Matthew and/or Mark in the Bible.
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Luke wrote biblical history in Greek.
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He lived 37 to 101.
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Christianity separated into Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church, and Serbian Orthodox Church, among others.
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Churches were at Antioch, Alexandria, Laodicea near Antioch, Jerusalem, Edessa, Nicaea, Ephesus, Byzantium, Athens, Sparta, Thessalonika, Syracuse, Hippo Regius, Naples, Rome, Lugdunum (Lyon) in southeast France, and Canterbury. Hippo Regius (Bona or Annuba, Algeria) is west of Carthage. Bishops and deacons began. The Seven Churches of the Apocalypse are Ephesus, Laodicea, Pergamum, Philadelphia, Smyrna, Sardis, and Thyatira.
People discovered Gnostic tracts north of Luxor [1945].
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Arian, Sabellian, Manichaean, Pelagian, and Donatist controversies were about Trinity and Incarnation.
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He lived 50 to 117 [98 to 117].
He was bishop of Hierapolis.
He lived 69 to 155.
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He was first Alexandrian Gnostic.
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He was bishop of Athens and first Christian apologist.
He was of Valentinian School.
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He lived 100 to 165 and became Roman Catholic saint. Knowledge requires special revelation from God, because senses and demons make reason and nature obscure.
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He lived 110 to ? and started Marcionites. They rejected Old Testament.
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He lived 110 to 180.
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He opposed Gnostics and Marcion.
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He was bishop of Hierapolis.
He was Platonist.
It has story of the Blessed Blandina.
He was Greek, was bishop of Lugdunum (Lyon) in France, and is a Father of the Church.
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He was bishop of Antioch.
He lived 154 to 223. Concerning Fate or Book of the Laws of the Countries is about him.
Pseudo-Clementines used this work.
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He was bishop of Hieropolis.
He lived 160 to 225 and was Christian Apologist. He said, "I believe what is absurd" {credo quia absurdum est} because it showed the work of God.
Epistemology
People cannot know revelation by thinking, and revelation has no connection with philosophy. Only faith can give religious belief {fideism}, not reason.
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He was Patriarch of Antioch [191 to 211].
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He lived 170 to 247.
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He lived 160 to 236 and was bishop of Rome.
Doctors of the Church are first Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine and later Pope Gregory. Ambrose was bishop of Milan. Augustine was bishop of Hippo.
Gregory the Illuminator founded it near Mount Ararat.
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He lived 256 to 336, became a priest [313], and said Jesus was not eternal and was lower than God.
Roman Empire allowed Christianity.
He lived 275 to 339, was Pamphilius' student [240 to 309], was bishop of Caesarea [314 to 339] in Palestine, and cross-referenced the Gospels. He was never pope [309 to 310]. Caesarea is on coast between Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Heretical Trinity doctrine opposed Athanasius' and Eusebius' doctrine.
Council proclaimed that Jesus was God and man and that Athanasius' and Eusebius' Trinity doctrine is true. Council rejected Arianism.
Eugenios or Mar Augin founded it on Mt. Izla above Nisibis in Mesopotamia.
Church had seven councils.
Epiphanius [315 to 403] founded it. He was bishop of Constantia or Salamis in Cyprus [367 to 403].
He lived ? to 352 and became Catholic patron saint of children.
He lived 297 to 373, was bishop of Alexandria [328 to 373], was a Doctor of the Church, and was for orthodoxy during Arian crisis. He wrote orthodox Catholic doctrine of Trinity and Incarnation. Jesus had body and same substance as god {homoousion}, whereas Arians said Jesus was not like god.
First monastery is in Red Sea Mountains of northeast Egypt.
Caesarea is capital of Cappadocia, which is in east-central Anatolia or Asia Minor.
Martin of Tours founded first monastery, in France.
Martin of Tours founded it.
He lived 340 to 397, was bishop of Milan [374 to 397], was a Doctor of the Church, and became a Roman Catholic saint. Church is independent of state.
He lived 340 to 420 and was a Doctor of the Church.
Monastery founded by Augustine was west of Carthage.
Augustine founded it. Thagaste was in Numidia and is Souk Ahras, which is where Algeria meets Tunisia.
He lived 390 to 459, was ascetic, and sat on a pillar.
Paulinus [354 to 431] and his wife Theresia founded it.
Orthodoxy said pictures of God are not sinful. Iconoclasm said not to use pictures of God. Greek Church used icons, but western church attacked this custom.
Some early Christians {Monophysite} believed that Jesus was person with human nature and did not unite divine and human {Monophysitism}. Severus [? to 538], Dioscurus [? to 454], Timothy Aelurus [? to 477], Peter Mongus of Alexandria [? to 490], and Timothy IV the Patriarch of Alexandria [517 to 535] were Monophysites. Greens were for monophysitism, which said Christ was only body or only spirit. Blues were for orthodoxy, which said Christ was both body and spirit.
Orthodoxy said Christ had one will and nature. Monotheletism said Christ had just one will but two natures, divine and human.
Orthodoxy said Mary was mother of God. Nestorianism said Mary was not mother of God, because Jesus was born a man.
Christianity came to Wales.
Christianity came to Scotland.
He lived 354 to 420 and was Christian. People have free will and can choose salvation. Heaven is reward for virtue. Will is completely free. There is no original sin, and people can be perfect without God's grace {Pelagianism, Pelagius}. There is no grace of God. Alternatively, people can just freely will and believe {semi-Pelagianism}.
He lived ? to 444, was bishop of Alexandria [412 to 444], was a Doctor of the Church, and opposed Nestorius. Jesus united divine and human in one person {orthodox doctrine}.
He lived 386 to 451 and was Patriarch of Constantinople [428 to 431]. Jesus was two separate persons, one divine and one human {Nestorian controversy, Nestorius}. There was no Virgin Birth. Council of Ephesus [431] rejected this heresy and exiled him, so he started Nestorian churches.
He lived 385 to 461. He brought Christianity to Ireland [433] and built many churches. He used the shamrock to explain the Doctrine of the Trinity. He set up commission to compile Irish law [441]. He converted Ireland to Christianity [457] and is Catholic patron saint of Ireland.
Stoudios or Studius was from Rome and founded it.
He lived ? to 538, was Patriarch of Antioch [512 to 518], and was Monophysite.
Finnian [? to 548] founded it in Meath in Leinster in east Ireland.
Benedict founded it under strict rules. Monte Cassino is south of Rome.
He lived 480 to 547 and organized first monastic system, Benedictines, at monastery south of Rome. Monks had to work, study, and pray {Benedict's Rule}. He became Roman Catholic saint. Benedictine Order had copies in many places, and some had women.
Cassiodorus founded it in south Italy.
Caesarius of Arles [468 to 542] was bishop [502 to 542].
The Three Chapters were against Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and letter of Ibas to Maris. Facundus, Bishop of Hermiane wrote Defensio trium capitulorum or Defense of the Three Chapters. Emperor Justinian issued edict anathematizing the Three Chapters [543 or 544].
He lived 521 to 597, came from Ireland to Scotland, set up a Christian monastery on Iona island [563], and became a Roman Catholic saint.
He lived ? to 604. King Ethelbert of Kent became Christian.
Celtic Church and Roman Catholic missionaries converted Saxon, Jute, and Angle kings to Christianity from base in Canterbury.
Gall or Gallen founded it. It is in Steinach Valley in east Switzerland.
Bobbio is Bobium or Ebovium and is in Emilia-Romagna in north Italy. Columba established it.
Aidan founded it on island in Northumbria in northeast England.
Synod chose Roman Christianity over Celtic thought.
Patriarch of Constantinople was head of Greek Orthodox Church, and emperor appointed him. The four main patriarchies were Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. Church leaders married. Orthodox monks prayed and practiced discipline, as original Egyptian monks had done in third century. Greek Church used icons {iconoclasm}, but western church attacked this use.
Roman and Greek churches met but did not agree.
After Charlemagne's coronation, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches split.
He lived 815 to 885. Czechs and Slovaks became Orthodox.
He lived 826 to 869 and invented Cyrillic alphabet with Methodius. Czechs and Slovaks became Orthodox.
Duke William the Pious of Aquitaine founded Benedictine abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Cluny in Burgundy in northwest France [910].
Benedictine order reorganized under modified rules. 300 Cluniac monasteries [1150] were under abbot of Cluny.
Tarn-region Neo-Manichaean sect emphasized strict morals and the Bible and opposed Catholic-Church worldliness. It first appeared at Synod of Orléans [1022] and faced a crusade [1209].
He lived 1000 to 1088 and was Nominalist. He believed that the bread and wine cannot change into Jesus' body and blood, because their qualities stayed the same.
Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches split.
He lived 1050 to 1122 and founded Nominalism and Scholasticism. He believed that the Trinity was three distinct objects, not one. Council at Reims [1092] condemned the heresy.
Cistercian order founded a monastery.
He lived 1081 to 1151 and built St. Denis Abbey, first Gothic church. He started Gothic art and said that art is necessary to see truth and beauty. He counseled Louis VI and Louis VII and was their historian. St. Denis is in Ile-de-France, near Paris.
He lived ? to 1217, sold all his goods, arranged for his family [1176], began to preach, and started Waldenses, Vaudois, Valdesii, Vallenses, the Poor, Leonistae, Poor Men of Lyons, Sandaliati, Insabbatati, Sabbatati, or Sabotiers, which emphasized strict morals and the Bible and opposed Catholic-Church worldliness. They congregated in west Piedmont in north Italy by 1200 to 1210 and exist now.
He lived 1182 to 1226 and founded Franciscan religious order.
He lived 1170 to 1221 and founded Dominican monastic order [1216].
One pope returned to Rome from Avignon, and the other pope stayed.
Lutheran church is Aristotelian in philosophy.
Catholic Church became less powerful as sects broke away and nations formed. Printing lessened church-school influence. Italian politics weakened church.
Reformed churches are Augustinian in philosophy.
Sects {Protestant} separated from Roman Catholic Church, differently in different countries: Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Moravian. Current Protestant denominations include Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Mormon, Jehovah's Witnesses, Anglican, Episcopal, Pentecostal, Salvation Army, Unitarian, Moravian, and Anabaptist.
He lived 1483 to 1546 and began Protestant Reformation when he posted his 95 Theses on church door at Worms [1517]. He broke away from Roman Catholic Church, started Reformation, and founded Lutheran Church. He helped found educational system and translated Bible into German. Faith is more important than good works. Grace of God redeems sin. Reason, tainted by original sin, is inimical to God.
He lived 1491 to 1556 and founded Society of Jesus {Jesuit} monastic order [1539], to serve the pope as teachers and missionaries. He later became Catholic saint.
He lived 1509 to 1564, broke away from Roman Catholic Church, and founded Calvinism.
God has all authority, dictated the Bible, and created good world. People are sinful. Christ can redeem them. People are predestined to heaven or hell. People should work hard and try to be successful. Redemption is by faith alone, but thrift, industry, order, and steadfastness are virtues. God knows all actions at time's beginning {predestination, Calvin}. The Bible has religious authority, not Pope.
Christians came as missionaries.
He lived 1497 to 1560 and broke away from Roman Catholic Church. He used Aristotle to make philosophy for Protestantism.
Reform movement started in Catholic Church. School included Ignatius of Loyola and Girolamo Savonarola.
Bishop Challoner revised it in 18th century.
He lived 1548 to 1617 and was Jesuit.
People use reason to choose right from wrong under obligation to God.
Law
Law is about will of superior commanding obligation from inferiors. Laws can be natural, divine, human, and eternal. Human laws require compliance, require payment for non-compliance, grant privileges, and grant authority and legitimacy.
Metaphysics
Reality is individual essences expressed in entities.
Bible version includes only books in Masoretic and Vulgate texts. Other Christian books are in Apocrypha.
He lived 1598 to 1672 and was mystic. Word sounds have meaning, which can lead to deeper understanding.
He lived 1703 to 1758 and was Puritan.
Epistemology
People know the primary and secondary qualities from God and so can perceive harmony and beauty.
Ethics
God gives sense of virtue and kindness to all beings. God knows all infallibly, so all events are necessary, not contingent. People have no free will, though God is not the cause and is not forcing choice.
Metaphysics
All things depend on God, which is eternal and everywhere and conscious. All is deterministic.
He lived 1688 to 1772, had visions, and started Swedenborg cult, which was popular in Romantic era.
He lived 1853 to 1900. People can realize their perfect human natures and so become like Jesus, both God and man {godmanhood}. World-soul {Sophia} left God to make the world and will return to God as world progresses, a Gnostic idea.
He lived 1878 to 1947 and followed Gurdjieff {Fourth Way School}.
He lived 1872 to 1949 and was mystic. Means {legominism} can transmit information about certain events of long-past ages. People struggle, through working on themselves, to awaken conscience and create soul.
He lived 1886 to 1968. God is unknowable but sent Jesus to those that had the grace of God to know the truth of the gospels.
He lived 1906 to 145 and was Protestant theologian.
He lived 1892 to 1971 and was Protestant theologian. Man depends on goodness of God to overcome sin.
He lived 1886 to 1965 and was Protestant theologian. Expressions of self are attempts to fulfill self-potential {entelechy, self}.
He lived ? to 97 and built papacy power and Holy See of Rome.
He lived ? to 352 and increased Holy-See power.
He lived ? to 417 and increased Holy-See power.
He lived ? to 461 and increased Holy-See power.
He lived 540 to 604, encouraged monasticism, established clergy laws, developed Gregorian chant or plain song, and held off Lombards. He refused to recognize Patriarch of Constantinople and so split eastern from western Church.
He lived ? to 655 and built church and papacy power.
He lived 820 to 867 and increased papal authority. Roman aristocrats controlled papacy.
He lived 1020 to 1085 and allied with Normans of Italy. His reforms lost support and Henry IV of Germany led opposition. Henry IV took Rome [1083] and set up anti-pope. Robert Guiscard and Normans in Italy rescued Gregory VII but then lost Rome again. As pope, he started reform {Hildebrandine reform}, which ended simony, lay bishop investiture, celibacy-vow violations, and priest marriage. He transferred pope's election to College of Cardinals.
He lived 1025 to 1100. Henry IV of Holy Roman Empire installed Guibert of Ravenna as pope, after making Pope Gregory VII flee Rome.
He lived 1035 to 1099. As pope, he started First Crusade and continued Pope Gregory VII's church reforms.
He lived 1105 to 1181. As pope, he excommunicated Frederick Barbarossa [1176].
He lived 1161 to 1216. As pope, he tried to make church supreme over all rulers. He first gave Holy Roman Empire to Otto IV, then Philip of Swabia, then Otto IV, and then Frederick II. He struggled with Frederick II for power. He put King John of England under interdict until he submitted and declared Magna Carta invalid. Philip II of France resisted but then followed divorce law.
Innocent III reorganized papal territories and gained Tuscany but did not get north Italy cities.
He encouraged Fourth Crusade and recognized Latin Empire of Constantinople set up by Fourth Crusade, but Osmanli Turks helped Byzantines regain Constantinople.
He authorized Franciscan Order, who had mission to the poor, started by Francis of Assisi.
He lived ? to 1227. As pope, he authorized Dominican order for scholarship and preaching and revised Franciscan order.
He lived 1195 to 1254. As pope, he deposed Frederick II of Holy Roman Empire at synod. He led fourth Lateran Council [1251] on church laws.
He lived 1235 to 1303. As pope, he struggled with Philip IV of France over taxes and interfered in Florence.
He lived 1264 to 1314. As pope, he dissolved Knights Templar and formulated canon law. Philip IV of France controlled him.
Philip IV of France blocked Pope Boniface VIII and moved papacy to Avignon.
He lived 1397 to 1455. As pope, with Frederick III of Holy Roman Empire, he ended Great Schism by Concordat of Vienna, which undid Council-of-Basel acts. He rebuilt St. Peter's Cathedral. Nicholas of Cusa tried to reform German Church.
He lived 1405 to 1464. As pope, he struggled with Louis XI of France and tried to unite Europe against Ottoman Empire.
He lived 1414 to 1484. As pope, he struggled with Louis XI of France, fought Lorenzo de' Medici in Pazzi Conspiracy, and founded Sistine Chapel.
He lived 1431 to 1503. As pope, he was Lucrezia Borgia's and Cesare Borgia's father and was an art patron.
He lived 1443 to 1513. As pope, he restored papal rule of Papal States and fought Italian Wars. He called fifth Lateran Council, which condemned the idea {Gallicanism} that French king was supreme over church in France. He patronized art.
He lived 1475 to 1521 and was pope [1513 to 1521].
He lived 1475 to 1534 and was Medici. As pope, he first opposed but then crowned Charles V as Holy Roman Empire emperor. He opposed Henry VIII's divorce.
He lived 1468 to 1549. As pope, he founded modern Inquisition and censorship and began Catholic reform.
He lived 1476 to 1559. As pope, he altered papacy.
He lived 1504 to 1572. As pope, he united Spain and Venice against Ottoman Empire. He implemented Third-Council-of-Trent reforms.
He lived 1502 to 1585. As pope, he began Gregorian calendar, established new canon law, and led Fourth Council of Trent. Fourth Council of Trent established modern Catholic Church foundation. He did not deal with German Protestants.
He lived 1521 to 1590. As pope, he improved Papal-States administration and beautified Rome.
He lived 1568 to 1644 and was of Barberini family.
He lived 1876 to 1958. As pope, he opposed Communism in Italy.
He lived 1881 to 1963. As pope, he modernized Catholic Church. Church became more ecumenical at second Vatican Council.
He lived 1897 to 1978.
He lived 1920 to 2005.
He lived -551 to -478 and established Chinese-law foundations.
Confucianism is about how to live practical and wise life. Do not do to people what you would not like them to do to you {golden rule, Confucius}. Maintain tradition and social order, such as loyalty to ruler and family, conformity to social behavior rules, and sympathy for others. Become educated, do one's duty, have virtue, have courage, obey, and be deferent. People should have self-discipline, not be selfish or seek profit, have filial piety, tell truth, have knowledge, be benevolent and humane, and have jen. People should have correct behavior {li, Confucius}, which leads to correct inner states. People that have proper behavior for their social station cause imitation by others, out of sense of correctness, and people, society, and government then follow correct way of living, because they have virtue. Good government requires wisdom and righteousness.
Universe obliges people to be moral {Decree of Heaven} {t'ien ming}. All things in universe have fates {Destiny} {ming} that determine social position, wealth, health, and so on. People should accept fate and concentrate on living morally and benevolently {tao, Confucius} {Way of the Sages}.
He lived -372 to -289 and was Confucian. People innately have compassion, are courteous, are good, love parents, respect older people, care about other people, and have sense of right and wrong. They innately can have shame and can be benevolent, dutiful, ritualistic, and wise. Ethical sense develops naturally, and society only needs to assist development.
He lived -298 to -238 and was Confucian. People are naturally selfish, envious, hateful, and desirous, and so cause conflict, violence, crime, and wanton behavior. People develop desires that society must regulate. Society imposes order and so helps people gain more satisfaction overall.
He lived -179 to -104 and was Confucian. Confucianism became China's political system and religion [136] {Mandate of Heaven}. Human life and universe both have good and bad, active and passive, and yin and yang and so have cycles.
Confucianism became dominant.
The Five Classics are Shu ching or Canonical Book of Documents by Wu ching, Shih ching or Canonical Book of Songs, I ching or Canonical Book of Changes, Li Chi or Canon of Rites, and Ch'un-Ch'iu or Spring and Autumn Annals.
He lived 768 to 824, was neo-Confucian, followed Mencius, and was against Buddhism. He wrote in old style prose {gu wen}, as did Meng Jiao [751 to 814].
He lived 772 to 841, followed Mencius, and was against Buddhism.
He lived 1017 to 1073 and combined Neo-Taoism and Confucianism to make ideas used in later Neo-Confucianism.
He lived 1011 to 1077 and was neo-Confucian.
He lived 1020 to 1077 and was neo-Confucian.
He lived 1032 to 1085, was brother to Ch'eng I, and was idealist neo-Confucian.
He lived 1033 to 1107, was brother to Ch'eng Hao, was rational Neo-Confucian, and started new Confucianism, Ch'eng-Chu School. All things have unchanging pattern and changing matter. People need to live properly and have education to discern the pure patterns in impure matter.
He lived 1130 to 1200, wrote the Four Books, and started neo-Confucian Ch'eng-Chu School, which blended Ch'eng-I ideas, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.
All things have unchanging pattern and changing matter. Principles {li, Chu Hsi} {t'ai ch'i} interact with matter and energy {ch'i, matter}. People need to live properly and have education to discern the pure patterns in impure matter.
The Four Beginnings are feeling shame, deferring to others, sharing other's feelings, and perceiving. The Four Virtues are being wise, loving humanity, acting correctly, and following ritual.
The Seven Emotions are hate, love, happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and wanting. The Four Books are Lun-yü, Ta Hsüeh, Chung Yung, and Meng-tzu.
He lived 1138 to 1193, was Neo-Confucian, and blended Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in Lu-Wang School.
Sung Dynasty used Neoconfucianism to make social relations rigid and formal and to emphasize knowledge and learning.
He lived 1472 to 1529, was Neo-Confucian, and blended Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in Lu-Wang School. He used moral principles to unify close-relationship types. Mind or heart {hsin} is the most-important thing. People should observe and control their minds.
He lived 1489 to 1546 and taught the sijo poet Hwang Chini. Great harmony {taehwa} unites the "i" and "ki" of neo-Confucianism.
He lived 1501 to 1570. He emphasized effort and devotion {chisung}, as neo-Confucian mental strength {kyung} with emphasis on action. Process allows the "i" and "ki" of neo-Confucianism to derive from each other.
He lived 1536 to 1584. Process allows the "i" to become the "ki" of neo-Confucianism.
He lived 1583 to 1657, was Neo-Confucian, and established it as religion during Tokugawa Shogunate.
He lived 1619 to 1692 and was Confucian.
He lived 1635 to 1704 and was Confucian.
He lived 1724 to 1777 and was Confucian.
Aryan immigrants replaced native culture in north India. Vedic people relate to Achaeans. They had beliefs and gods similar to those in Homer.
Vedas are in Sanskrit, describe Vaidika or Vedic religion, and emphasize nature and joy of living. Veda means knowledge. Vedas are the revealed texts {sruti, text}. Vedic philosophy demonstrates connections {bandhu} among astronomical, physiological, and spiritual. Universe is infinite. Knowledge can be about objects and paradoxical or about perceiving subjects with no paradoxes.
Hymn {sama, hymn} {saman} or hymns {samagana} is the basic format. Fire priests {Atharvan} sang incantations. Vedas have mantra sections. Vedas have older hymns and ritual texts {Samhita}. Brahmanas and Upanishads are later.
In the Manu Samhita, Manu was father of humans and founded Vedic culture between the Sarasvati and Drishadvati rivers. Gheranda Samhita is about yoga. Dakshinamurti Samhita is about the mantra {shri vidya} of the Goddess Tripurasundari or Lakshmi. Charaka Samhita [-400 to -200], Sushruta Samhita [-400], Ashtanga Sangraha [-400 to -300 by Vagbhata] and Ashtanga Hridayam [-400 to -300 by Vagbhata] are about Ayurveda.
Traditional Indian epics {Mahakavyas} including Mahabharata and Ramayana, fables or stories {Puranas}, laws {Dharma Sastras}, aphorisms {Sutras}, philosophies {Agamas} including Mantras, Tantras, and Yantras, philosophies {Dyasanas} including Vedanta, science texts, and grammar texts are "what is remembered" {smriti} {human writings}, which includes everything not in Vedas {divine writings}. The eighteen main Smritis are Manu Smriti {Laws of Manu} written by Manu, Yajnavalkya Smriti written by Yajnavalkya of Mithila, Parasara Smriti, Vishnu Smriti, Daksha Smriti, Samvarta Smriti, Vyasa Smriti, Harita Smriti, Satatapa Smriti, Vasishtha Smriti, Yama Smriti, Apastamba Smriti, Gautama Smriti, Devala Smriti, Sankha-Likhita Smriti, Usana Smriti, Atri Smriti, Saunaka Smriti.
Arthaveda, Nitishastras, or science of statecraft is Upaveda in Rig Veda. Most important is Kautiliya's Arthashastra [-300], stating kshatriya rule and society doctrine.
In Indian tradition, Paila collected the Rig-Vedic hymns as directed by Vyasa. Vyasa wrote the Rig-Veda Samhita.
Sarasvati River is a river in many hymns. Dravidians or Dasa were enemies of Vedic Aryans.
In Vedas, he was Vyasa's father, was Kapila's student, received Vishnu Purana from Pulastya, taught Maitreya, and wrote Dharmasastra about law.
He was Scholiast. Vedas are spiritual knowledge, mythology, and Yajna Mantras (Ritual Mantras). Deva means donor, luminous, and heaven resident {Dyusthan}. Devas are Agni in earth, Vayu or Indra in sky, and Surya (Sun) in heaven.
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Before the Bhagavadgita begins, Arjuna, the Pandavasi leader, goes to survey the field of battle and his enemies, the Kauravas. His charioteer is Lord Krishna, Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of the World, who then sings Song of the Blessed Lord.
He wrote most Upanishads. His disciples were Gargi Vacaknavi and Vidagdha Shakalya.
Hindu texts can be about guru's teaching to disciple {upanishad, guru}. Upanishads are part of the Hindu Shruti (Revealed) scriptures and are about meditation and philosophy. Veda Brahmana or Aranyaka added older Upanishads. Recent Upanishads were separate.
Manu, Brihaspati, Ayasya and Narada are Vedic sages in Upanishads. Yajnavalkya is in most Upanishads. He taught negating thoughts {neti-neti} to reach truth. Uddalaka Aruni, Shwetaketu, Shandilya, Aitareya, Pippalada, and Sanat Kumara are other sages in Upanishads.
The oldest and longest conversation is Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad or Great and Secret Teachings of the Forest, about world and humans. Manukya Upanishad is about "silence" {manukya} and the syllable OM. The Upanishads include Questions, Lord, and By Whom?
Upanishads use metaphors, such as metaphor of the chariot and metaphor of two birds on one tree. 95-year cycles synchronize Sun and Moon cycles. Yajna means sacrifice.
He lived -800 to -740 and wrote book about altar construction {Sulbasutra}, which required pi and square root of two and constructed circles from rectangles and squares from circles.
He founded Vaisesika and set rules for Hindu living under caste system. Castes were saint or sage {mahatma, caste}, priest {brahmin, caste}, noble {ksatriya, caste} {khathruja, caste}, merchant {vaisya, caste}, worker {sudra, caste}, and person with no caste {harajan, caste} {pariah, caste} {outcast, caste}, whom no one should touch {untouchable, caste}.
He lived -600 to -540 and solved general linear equation.
He founded Samkhya.
He started Nyaya and was logician.
Vishnu is supreme god. Ikshvau is ancestor of Solar Dynasty.
In Vedas, he was born at end of Dvapara Yuga, was a legendary sage, incarnated Lord Krishna, wrote the Mahabharata for understanding, wrote the eighteen Puranas, established teaching through Upanishads or Upakhyanas, and arranged Vedas. He wrote the Bhagavata for Devarshi Narada. He established the three paths of Karma, Upasana, and Jnana. Dhritarashtra, Pandu, and Vidura are his sons. There have been twenty-nine Vyasas. Gurupurnima or Vyasa Purnima or Full Moon of Vyasa is Vyasa's birthday.
Brahmanic-period [-900 to -500] Brahmanas or Brahmin Books, such as Shatapatha Brahmana, are in Hindu revealed texts {Sruti} {Shruti} and describe and interpret Rig-vedic rituals. Rig-veda has Aitareya-Brahmana (Shakala shaka) or Kaushitaki-Brahmana (Bashakala shaka). Samaveda has P Brahmana and Sadv Brahmana (Kauthuma) or Jayminiya Brahmana. Yajurveda has the Brahmanas in the samhitas about Krishna: Maitrayani samhita, Carakakatha samhita, Kapisthalakatha samhita, and Taittiriya samhita. Yajurveda has Taittiriya-Brahmana, Shatapatha-Brahmana (Shukla, Vajasaneyi Madhyandina), and Shatapatha-Brahmana (Shukla, Kanva). Atharvaveda has GopB (Paippalada). The prose myths and legends are about Brahman {highest reality}, explain theology, and state sacrifice meanings. Brahma Sutras have four chapters, each with four sections. Brahma Sutras are for understanding Sruti.
By tradition, Vyasa wrote them.
In Vedas, he was Vyasa's student. He wrote Purvamimamsa, Upadesa, Rudramsa, Shasthamsa, and Saptamsa sutras; Varnada Lagna and other lagnas; and Shakti Yoga and Raja Yogas. He founded Mimamsa. Sanskrit is the true language and leads to truth. Language is not conventional or veil. Sanskrit sounds have meaning, so hymns and mantras are themselves magic.
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He wrote about Hinduism.
He lived -350 to -275.
He wrote animal fables.
Natyasastras tell how to play heroes and other characters and how to interpret emotions in all situation types. Experiencing art equals tasting object essence {rasa theory, Bharata}. Abhinaya (toward Drama) is about dramaturgy. Bharata Natyam, Khathakali, and Kudiattam Yaksagana are India dance forms that follow Bharata's technique and his concept of Abhinaya. Rasananda is ultimate bliss. The older Shilpa Shastras describe how to perform the Agama or liturgical texts and include Vishnudharmotara Purana, Samaranganasutradhara, Sukranitisara, and Shilpa Ratna.
He wrote about Upanishads.
He wrote about Upanishads.
He wrote about Upanishads.
He wrote about Upanishads.
Shaivism Hinduism is an old Hindu school and is mystical, devotional, and pantheistic. Shiva is highest god. Ganesa, Ganesha, Lord of Hosts, Ganapati, or Lord of the Ganas was Shiva's and Parvati's (Sakti's) son. Ganas are followers of Shiva.
Devotees are Saivas or Saivites. They can worship Siva as lingam (light) universe symbol. They can worship Siva Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. Tamils of south India and Sri Lanka are often Saivas. Benares is holy city. The twelve Jyotirling or Golden Lingam (Golden Lights) shrines are famous. A Saivite temple is at Chidambaram in south India. In Middle Ages, Nayanars or Nayanmars saints from south India developed Saivism. By tradition, the legendary sage Agastya spread Saivism and Tamil language.
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By tradition, Vyasa wrote them. They are about history {purana, history}, such as gods, devotions, Ayurveda, Jyotish, cosmology, dharma, karma, and reincarnation. Ayurveda is about medicine. Jyotish is about light or astrology. The eighteen Puranas have three groups of six. Rajasika Puranas or Brahma Puranas include Brahma, Brahmanda, Brahma Vaivarta, Markandeya, Bhavishya, and Vamana. Markandeya includes Devi Mahatmyam, important for Shaktas. Sattvika Puranas or Vaishnavite Puranas or Vishnu and the Goddess Parvati Puranas include Vishnu, Bhagavata or Srimad Bhagavata, Naradeya, Garuda, Padma, and Varaha. Padma defines Sutra. Tamasika Puranas or Shiva and Shakti Puranas include Vayu, Linga, Skanda, Agni, Matsya, and Kurma. All Puranas speak of the goddess Lakshmi.
There are different existences {loka}, such as heaven {Svarga} and hell {Naraka}. Svarga is for demigods {devas}, and King Indra rules it. The King of Justice, Dharmaraj or Yama, rules Naraka. Satyaloka is for Brahma, the highest existence. Vaikuntha is for Vishnu, for those who have left material worlds.
Mahapuranas and Upapuranas are about kings, heroes, and gods. Sthala Puranas are about temple creation and history. Kula Puranas are about castes.
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Traditionally, Vyasa wrote one of the 18 puranas.
He lived 570 to 651 and studied semantics.
She was Tantric Buddhist. In Nepalese Buddhism, one can gain transcendence through erotic behavior {mahasukha}.
He wrote about Upanishads.
He first expounded Advaita Vedanta and was Govinda's teacher. Govinda taught Sankara.
He was Gaudapada's pupil and studied Vedanta.
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He founded the later Prabhakara School of Mimamsa and taught Salikanatha, who wrote Prakaranapancika. The first Mimansa school was the Kumarila School.
He lived 686 to 745, studied Mimamsa, and wrote about realism.
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He lived 788 to 820, was Govinda's pupil, and founded Advaita Vedanta or Non-dualist School. He founded the Dashanamis, who renounce world to meditate.
A phrase {That art Thou} is in Vedas and means that individuals are part of consciousness. Selves and the Self are one, with no God.
World, language, and sense qualities that people experience are real but are illusory and produce ignorance. People must suppress desires to gain real knowledge. Only the Brahman is ultimate reality.
He lived ? to 841, wrote commentaries on the six Hindu systems, and established Nyasa.
He combined the six Hindu systems.
He wrote about Hinduism and invented proofs of gods. All things have cause and must have been made, requiring maker. To make things, atoms must bond, requiring conscious agent {argument from atomic combinations, Udayana}. Earth is stationary and not falling, as Earthly things fall, requiring holder. People have skills, requiring first teacher. People can understand writing and can write, requiring absolute knowledge.
From Dvaitadvaita School, he derived a Difference and Non-Difference philosophy {Bhedabheda}. He began a Vaisnavism sect {Sanaka-sampradaya}. All things differ but unify in God.
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He lived 1017 to 1137 and started Visistadvaita Vedanta or Qualified Non-Dualism or Vishishta Advaita or Non-dualism of the Differentiated. He led south-India Shri Vaishnavism. Vaishnavas worship Vishnu as embodiment of Brahman.
People are separate from God and want to experience and love God. People can feel god-like in dependence on God. People should live actively in the world without trying to control anything or get something. People perform acts to please gods, which are Brahman manifestations.
God, matter, and souls all exist in unity. Matter comes from creative powers of God.
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He lived 1238 to 1317, was dualist during the Bhakti movement, tried to refute Carvaka philosophy, and started Vedanta Tattvavada, True Philosophy, Advaita, Dvaita, or Dualist School.
He said that Vedanta, including Upanishads, Bhagavadgita, and Brahmasutras, revealed that individual self {atman} and ultimate reality {brahman} differ, rather than being the same {non-dualist}. Independent reality {svatantra} is Brahman, and dependent reality {paratantra} is souls {jivas} and objects {jada}. He said this was realistic based on people's perceptions {tattvavada}. God is not the world and is not self. The self is the same as other selves and is not the same as object. All objects differ and are not God or the Self.
He lived 1268 to 1380, headed [1331] Smarta Order, and was minister for King Bukka of Vijayanagara Empire. Sankaracharya founded the Smarta Order. The sixteen philosophy systems are in order of knowledge: Carvaka, Buddha, Arhata or Jaina, purna-prajna, Nakulisa-Pasupata, Saiva, Pratyabhijna, Rasesvara, Vaiseshika or Aulukya, Akshapada or Nyaya, Jaiminiya, Paniniya, Sankhya, Patanjala or Yoga, Vedanta or System of Sankaracharya, and Advaita Vedanta or System of Sankara.
He lived 1315 to 1387 and was court minister.
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He lived 1479 to 1531 and founded a Vaishnavite cult in Rajasthan and Gujarat. He believed Shuddhadvaita-School monism, in which Krishna or Bala Krishna or Vatsalya Bhava or Purushottama is Brahman. He emphasized grace {pushti} and devotion {bhakti, Vallabha}. The highest grace {Maha Pushti} {Anugraha} can attain release. The body of Krishna {Akshara} {Satchidananda} emits sparks to make things.
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He lived 1836 to 1886, followed Vedanta, and was a mystic. All religions are about uniting with God. People can be divine by serving others and God, expressing one spirit. His student was Swami Vivekananda.
He lived 570 to 632, was born in Mecca, was merchant-traveler, was epileptic, and founded Islam. He is also Mahomet, Mahmoud, Mehemet, or Muhammad.
He meditated in the mountains [610] and one day became inspired on Mount Hira. He had vision that the Angel Gabriel instructed him to preach new faith centered on one true God, Allah. He proclaimed that there was one god and that he was the messenger and last prophet. He taught that believers in Allah submitted to God {Muslim, Mohammad}.
He had a vision of going to Mi'raj heaven on al-Borak, a winged animal.
Tribal leaders opposed him. He fled to Medina [622] after losing battle in Mecca, flight called the Hegira. He gained rule in Medina but then suffered another defeat and escaped to cave. People did not find him in cave because he did not destroy spider's web. He conquered until he won Hejaz, region near Medina. He went to Mecca [630] and overthrew Caaba or Kaaba, the old sanctuary. He saved the black stone, called Hajaru'l-Aswad. Mecca became religious center. He later conquered Damascus. He died at Mecca [632] at his favorite wife Ayesha's house, after preaching from Mount Arafat.
She lived 642 to 699 and was Mohammad's favorite wife and Abu Bekr's daughter.
She lived 615 to 632, was Mohammad's daughter, and married Ali.
After losing battle in Mecca, Mohammad fled to Medina [622] {Hegira}.
Islam split into Shia and Sunni. Shia said Ali was true caliph. Sunni said caliph should be from Mohammed's direct line.
He lived ? to 748 and founded Mu'tazila school. Second leader was Amr of Ubayd [? to 761]. Baghdad schools opposed it.
Scholars wrote it in Baghdad. Hadith determine how to live as Muslim {Sunnah}. There also are histories and biographies, commentaries on Qur'an, and legal analyses.
Scholars wrote it in Baghdad.
He lived 1058 to 1111 and was main Sufi philosopher. He identified twenty false philosophical claims, later discussed by Averroës.
Islam came with traders and became main Indonesia religion.
He lived 1164 to 1240 and followed Sufi principles and unity of divine being {pantheism, Arabi}.
He lived 1703 to 1792 and started Salafi or Wahabi sect, which reformed Sunni Islam and emphasized simple life with no rites.
He lived 1924 to 1996 and wrote about Sufism.
By legend, he was first Jainist saint. His son was Gommata or Bahubali.
By legend, he was the 22nd Jainist saint.
He lived -872 to -772 and was the 23rd Jainist saint.
He lived -550 to -480, founded Jainism [-526], is the 24th and last Jainist saint, is Jina or the Victor, and was in non-Aryan ksatriya caste. After 12 years of self-abuse, he attained enlightenment, omniscience, and release. He had 11 disciples.
He lived -1392 to -1272, stated Mosaic Law, and codified criminal law. The Bible tells that he received the Ten Commandments and that he was Hebrew leader before Joshua.
Hebrew Bible has Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim. The Nevi'im Prophets are Joshua, Judges, First Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, Second Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekial. The Twelve Minor Prophets are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Ketuvim or Writings {Hagiographa} are Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles.
The Hebrew-Bible first five books are the Five Books of Moses, Pentateuch, Hamisha Humshei Torah, Humash, or Chumash. A scroll with the five books is a Sefer Torah. Torah books are Bereishit or Genesis, Shemot or Exodus, Vayikra or Leviticus, Bemidbar or Numbers, and Devarim or Deuteronomy. Bereishit has creation story. Shemot has flight from Egypt. Devarim has Moses' speeches. Torah can mean all written and oral law, including Tanakh, Mishnah, Talmud, and midrashic literature.
Priests held councils {sanhedrin}. A Sanhedrin condemned Jesus to death for blasphemy [29]. Tribes held councils {Great Sanhedrin}.
He lived 50 to 135, wrote about meditation and mysticism, was a Mishnah scholar {Tannaim}, and was main oral source for Mishnah and midrash halakha. He visualized God's bright robe {chalub}. He linked traditional practices to biblical texts. God foresees everything, but people have free choice, though God knows the choice.
He led rebellion against Rome [132 to 135].
He lived 135 to 217, codified Mishnah or Oral Tradition, and was Sanhedrin president.
Talmud or Shas is Mishnah with Gemara.
Mishnah or Repetition has Hebrew texts from rabbis and records Jewish oral law [200]. Judah haNasi or Judah the Prince or Rabbi compiled it in Aramaic. It does not cite written law.
Gemara records comments on Mishnah by Palestine and Babylon rabbis [200 to 500]. Rabbis compared written and oral law.
Yerushalmi Gemaras differ from Bavli Gemaras, so there is Jerusalem Talmud (Palestinian Talmud) and Babylonian Talmud. Rav Muna and Rav Yossi wrote Yerushalmi Gemara in Israel [350]. P'nei Moshe and Korban ha-Eidah are comments.
Rav Ashi and Ravina wrote the Babylonian Talmud [250 to 550] in Babylon [550].
Savoraim or Rabbanan Savoraei were post-Talmudic rabbis, who worked for next 250 years, making final version [700]. Rashi or Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac [1040 to 1105] commented. Tosafot, Additions, or Supplements are additional comments compiled by French and German rabbis. Talmud also has analyses by Maharshal or Solomon Luria, Maharam or Meir Lublin, and Maharsha or Samuel Edels. The Rosh by Asher ben Jehiel and The Rif by Isaac Alfasi are legal commentaries in Talmud.
Additions to Mosaic Law resulted from scripture searches {midrash, search} for meaning, using four methods {Talmud, method}. One is for simple meaning {peshat, meaning}. One is for hidden meaning {remes, meaning}, of seemingly unmeaningful words. One is for the homily, prophecy, and sermon meaning {derush}. One is for metaphysical meanings, theosophy, and religious mysteries {sod, meaning}.
Midrash is about Hebrew-Bible legal and non-legal texts, using peshat or direct meaning, remez or hint, derash or exegesis, and sod or mystic. Tannaitic texts are the following. Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael is about Exodus [300 to 500]. Mekhilta de Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai is about Exodus [300 to 400]. Sifra is about Leviticus and is by Rabbi Akiva [250]. Sifre is about Numbers and Deuteronomy and is by Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael [250]. Sifre Zutta or Small Sifre is about Numbers [300 to 330]. Talmudic texts are the following. Midrash Qohelet is about Ecclesiastes [800 to 850]. Midrash Esther is about Esther [940]. Pesiqta is about Pentateuchal and Prophetic lessons [700 to 750]. Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer is about events in Pentateuch [700 to 800]. Tanchuma or Yelammedenu is about Pentateuch [800 to 900]. Midrash Shemuel is about Books of Kings. Midrash Tehillim is about Psalms. Midrash Mishle is about Proverbs. Yalqut Shimeoni is about scripture. Seder Olam Rabbah or Seder Olam is by Rabbi Yose ben Halafta and goes from universe creation to Jerusalem Second-Temple construction. Yalkut Shimoni is collection about scriptures by Shimon ha-Darshan [1200 to 1300]. Tanna Devei Eliyahu is about commandments and prayer and includes Seder Eliyahu Rabbah and Seder Eliyahu Zuta. Midrash Rabbah has Rabboth or Great Commentaries about the Bible, Bereshith Rabba or Genesis Rabbah [500 to 600], Shemot Rabba or Exodus Rabbah [1000 to 1200], Vayyiqra Rabba, Leviticus Rabba [650], Bamidbar Rabba or Numbers Rabba [1100 to 1200], Devarim Rabba or Deuteronomy Rabba [900 to 1000], Shir Hashirim Rabba or Song of Songs Rabbah [800 to 850], Ruth Rabba [800 to 850], and Eicha Rabba or Lamentations Rabbah [600 to 700].
They were Jewish rabbis {rav} {rab} and judged cases.
He lived 352 to 427, led academy at Sura, and started compiling the Gemara of Babylonian Talmud.
He lived ? to 421 and helped compile the Gemara of the Babylonian Talmud.
He lived ? to 499, led academy at Sura, and finished compiling the Gemara of the Babylonian Talmud.
He lived ? to 525 and finished compiling the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli).
Hebrew scholars and rabbis {Masoretes} {Masorets} in Tiberias compiled Hebrew-Bible critical notes. Karaite ben Asher family preserves Masoretic Text. Masoretes invented the current Hebrew vowel-notation system.
He lived 882 to 942, led Talmudic Academy, was systematic, and studied language. God knows all but does not force or cause people's actions.
He lived 939 to 1038, expanded Akiva's work, and explored higher consciousness.
He was pietist.
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He lived 1240 to 1305 and was Jewish mystic.
Sun worship began. Sun was disk with spokes. Organized religion, religious ceremonies, and priests began. Ship carried the Sun.
Sky-god bull, ram, stallion, or boar is a procreation symbol. Sky-god ax or thunderbolt symbolizes power. Sky-god sword or spear is a procreation symbol. The idea of marriage of sky god with earth goddess began.
Gods spoke, were intelligent, had human passions, and were moral.
Priests replaced shamans, as year and seasons became important. It had sacrifices. Ancestor worship had dolmen stone graves. The myth of a divine animal, man, or woman that dies to give edible plants to people began. The myth of an Earth goddess of fertility and the dead began. The myth of a great serpent of rain, wind, new foods, and wisdom began. The myth of a door to the land of the dead began.
Ashur is principal god of war and empire.
Ea was god of air. Main gods were god of wisdom and god of water. Other gods were god of the plow, goddess of fertility, and goddess of war. Tiamat, Tibir, Tagtug, or Tibiria was a fish-woman and main Sumer goddess. She was similar to Tanit of Phoenicia, Anat of Sumer, Isis, and Gaia. Sumer had temples, sacrifices, and spring festival. Kings were also priests. The idea of afterlife began.
Potnia is main Crete and Mycenae goddess and Poseidon's mother.
Tabiti is main Celt goddess. Lorelei is a Celtic fish-woman {mermaid}, who lured men to danger. Mermaids are Celtic in origin. Druids believed in immortality and angels.
Mannus, first man and Tuisto's son, started the Germanic tribes Ingvaeones, Irminones, and Istvaeones. Tuisto, Tuisco, Thuisco, or Thuiskon, derived from the number two, started all Germanic tribes, as a hermaphrodite. Perhaps, he/she was the giant Ymir. Mannaz or Manwaz means human being in Proto-Germanic, from Proto-Indo-European man.
Astarte was goddess of love and fertility. Her consort was Adonis.
Cybele was the gods' mother and a fertility goddess. Her consort was Attis.
A new religion {Orphic religion} developed from Bacchus cults. Metis was creator. Zeus was chief god.
Wodan was god of the dead, magic, inspiration, and war. Tiwaz was god of sky, law, and battlefield. Alaisiagae were female spirits of battle under the war god. Later, Alaisiagae became Valkyries.
Delphic Oracle had advised against fighting Persians, but Greece won, and Apollo cult declined.
He lived 1796 to 1867.
Emperor Temmu commissioned it.
Shinto is Way of the Spirits {Kami-no-michi}.
Earlier history book Kojiki, Furukotofumi, or Records of Ancient Matters [680] is in Chinese.
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He lived 1666 to 1728 and started Kogaku School, which studied original Confucian writings.
He lived 1627 to 1705 and started Kogaku School or Study of Antiquity School, which studied original Confucian writings.
He lived 1730 to 1801 and started return to Shintoism and ancient myth {kokugaku}, in Kokugaku or Kogaku School [1764]. Foreign influence should not change Japanese culture. Sorrow results from passing away {mono no aware, sorrow}, as in classical Japanese literature.
He lived 1776 to 1843 and started return to Shintoism and ancient myth, in Kokugaku or Kogaku School.
He lived 1469.1123 to 1520 and began Sikhs in west Punjab. Babur imprisoned him [1520]. His companion was Mardana.
He lived 1666 to 1708, was the 10th Sikh guru, and emphasized militarism.
During Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, Contention of a Hundred Schools of Thought included Confucianism, logicians, Mohism, Taoism, Legalism, and School of Yin-Yang.
He founded Taoism. All things reverse direction. People should minimize their wants to minimize losses and gain more.
Lieh Tzu lived -400 to -300. Work is Taoist.
He explained and popularized Taoism Tao-Teh-King. If people have judgments based on differing perspectives, no method is available to conclude which judgment is correct. Therefore, truth is elusive. People should not have expectations or perspectives. Distinctions among ideas are not important. Emotions about life and ideas should minimize.
He lived -179 to -122, was a Taoist philosopher, and was Kao-tsu's grandson and emperor's cousin. Kao-tsu or Liu Pang founded Western Han dynasty.
He lived 226 to 249.
He lived 221 to 300 and was Neo-Taoist.
He lived ? to 312, was Neo-Taoist, and used Hsiang Hsiu's text.
He lived -660 to -583, received knowledge on Mountain of Holy Conversations, and codified laws. He converted Vishtaspa, a northeast-Iran king. Someone killed him, but his son-in-law, Jamespa, preserved his sayings in the Avesta, Zoroastrian scripture. Zand is Avesta comments. Zarathushtra composed the 18 poems of Gathas, the oldest Avesta part, and Yasna Haptanghaiti or Seven-Chapter Sermon. By myth, the god Ahura Mazda gave him the law.
Bundeheshn is about creation, legends, and geography. Dinkart is about religious deeds, laws, and rituals and summarizes the Avesta. Datistan-e-Dinik, Arda-Viraf Namak, and Ayatkar Zariran are three texts about King Gashtasp, his brother, his commander Zarir, and their war against Arjasp, the Turanian king. Karnamak-i-Arttacksher-i-Papakan or Karnameh Ardeshir Babakan is about Ardeshir, Shahpur, and Hormoz, who were three Sassanian kings.
Aturpat was Hemet's son.
He was Farukhzat's son.
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