The Story of the Irascible Yakṣa and the King Who Nearly Beheaded Himself in Dhanapāla's Tilakamañjarī

Author(s):  
CSABA DEZSŐ

The Tilakamañjarī, Dhanapāla's poem in prose (gadyakāvya) is one of the masterpieces of classical Sanskrit literature and deserves to be better known. What he says in one of the introductory verses about his contemporary audience is also true about the readers of our time: “People, smelling danger, turn away from prose which contains a forest of unbroken lines (i.e. compounds filling whole lines) and lots of descriptions, as they keep away from the many-coloured tiger which lives in the dense Daṇḍaka forest”. Although Dhanapāla shows more restraint in his descriptions and in the use of alliteration and long compounds than his illustrious predecessor Bāṇa, the extremely intricate plot of the Tilakamañjarī might discourage those who otherwise appreciate Sanskrit poetry. I am certain, however, that once a taste for gadyakāvya is acquired all these deterring factors turn into sources of delight.

Author(s):  
Vijaya Nagarajan

Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this book investigates aesthetic, symbolic, metaphorical, literary, mathematical, and philosophical meanings of the kōlam, the popular Tamil women’s daily ephemeral practice, a ritual art tradition performed with rice flour on the thresholds of houses in southern India. They range from concepts such as auspiciousness, inauspiciousness, ritual purity, and ritual pollution. Several divinities, too, play a significant role: Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, good luck, well-being, and a quickening energy; Mūdevi, the goddess of poverty, bad luck, illness, and laziness; Bhūdevi, the goddess of the soils, the earth, and the fields; and the god Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. Braiding art history, aesthetics, and design, this book analyzes the presence of the kōlam in medieval Tamil literature, focusing on the saint-poet Āṇṭāḷ. The author shows that the kōlam embodies mathematical principles such as symmetry, fractals, array grammars, picture languages, and infinity. Three types of kōlam competitions are described. The kinship between Bhūdevi and the kōlam is discussed as the author delves into the topics of “embedded ecologies” and “intermittent sacrality.” The author explores the history of the phrase “feeding a thousand souls,” tracing it back to ancient Sanskrit literature, where it was connected to Indian notions of hospitality, karma, and strangers. Its relationship to the theory of karma is represented by its connection to the five ancient sacrifices. This ritual is distinguished as one of the many “rituals of generosity” in Tamil Nadu.


Author(s):  
Hamsa Stainton

This chapter investigates the relationship between Sanskrit hymns of praise and classical Sanskrit literature. It first surveys the complicated and often ambiguous position of stotras within Sanskrit literary culture. Then it analyzes Jagaddhara Bhaṭṭa’s Stutikusumāñjali as an historically significant example of how devotional poets sought to elevate the status of the stotra form. Jagaddhara reaffirms the value of classical Sanskrit poetry and poetics even as he re-envisions this literary world as being justified and revitalized by devotional praise of Śiva. He incorporates and expands upon earlier traditions of poetry and poetics in creative ways, giving special prominence to the “flashy” style of poetry (citrakāvya) and the poetic figure of “repetition” (yamaka). His ambitious and innovative hymns, as well as those of later poets in Kashmir, testify to the vitality of Sanskrit literary production in the region and offer critical evidence in the debate about the so-called death of Sanskrit.


Haimaprabha ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 13-24
Author(s):  
गणेश Ganesh पाण्डेय Pandey

सूर्यवंशीयराज्ञो निमेः शरीरमन्थनाज्जातेन मिथिनाम्ना राज्ञा प्रवर्तितत्वात् तदीया राजधानी मिथिलेति प्रसिद्धिमुपगता । मिथिलायाः सीमासङ्कोचविस्तारयोर्जातेऽपि प्रवृmताध्ययने नेपालस्य साम्प्रतिकः द्विसङ्ख्यकः प्रदेशः मिथिलाक्षेत्रत्वेन गृहीतः । मिथिलाराज्यस्य सीमायाः परिवर्तने दृष्टेऽपि मिथिलासंस्वृते राजधानी जनकपुरं वर्तते । मिथिलायां वैदिककाले विश्वामित्रप्रभृतयो ऋषयो दृश्यन्ते । तेषु महर्षिर्याज्ञवल्क्यः सर्वाधिक्येन प्रदीप्तं मिथिलायाः प्रोज्ज्वलं रत्नं वर्तते । अर्वाचीनेषु कविषु वंशमणिशर्मा हरिकेलिमहाकाव्यमाध्यमेन सर्वोत्वृष्टं स्थानं लभते । मिथिलायां स्फुटरूपेण संस्वृmतकवितारचनायाः परम्परा सम्प्रत्यपि जीविता वर्तते । [This research confirms that the naming of the Mithila region was initiated by a king named Mithi, who was born by churning the body of Suryavanshi king Nimi. Although the border of Mithila has been constricting and widening over time, in this study, the current state number two of Nepal has been taken as Mithila region. Janakpur remained the capital of Mithilaculture even when the borders of Mithila state changed. Vishwamitra and other sages have been seen in Mithila during the Vedic period. Among them, MaharshiYajnavalkya is the brightest gem. In the modern age, it has been confirmed that Vanshamani Sharma has reached the best place through the epic Harikeli. This research has confirmed that the tradition of composing Sanskrit poetry in Mithila is still alive today.]


1968 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 171-176
Author(s):  
Claus Vogel
Keyword(s):  

Abstract1. Among the many stereotyped similes occurring in Sanskrit literature, ornate and otherwise, those formed with (Pra)Bhinnāñjana require some elucidative comment inasmuch as neither the object nor the point of comparison are entirely clear in this case.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Ji Ma

AbstractGiven the many types of suboptimality in perception, I ask how one should test for multiple forms of suboptimality at the same time – or, more generally, how one should compare process models that can differ in any or all of the multiple components. In analogy to factorial experimental design, I advocate for factorial model comparison.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Spurrett

Abstract Comprehensive accounts of resource-rational attempts to maximise utility shouldn't ignore the demands of constructing utility representations. This can be onerous when, as in humans, there are many rewarding modalities. Another thing best not ignored is the processing demands of making functional activity out of the many degrees of freedom of a body. The target article is almost silent on both.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tomasello

Abstract My response to the commentaries focuses on four issues: (1) the diversity both within and between cultures of the many different faces of obligation; (2) the possible evolutionary roots of the sense of obligation, including possible sources that I did not consider; (3) the possible ontogenetic roots of the sense of obligation, including especially children's understanding of groups from a third-party perspective (rather than through participation, as in my account); and (4) the relation between philosophical accounts of normative phenomena in general – which are pitched as not totally empirical – and empirical accounts such as my own. I have tried to distinguish comments that argue for extensions of the theory from those that represent genuine disagreement.


1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 179-187
Author(s):  
Clifford N. Matthews ◽  
Rose A. Pesce-Rodriguez ◽  
Shirley A. Liebman

AbstractHydrogen cyanide polymers – heterogeneous solids ranging in color from yellow to orange to brown to black – may be among the organic macromolecules most readily formed within the Solar System. The non-volatile black crust of comet Halley, for example, as well as the extensive orangebrown streaks in the atmosphere of Jupiter, might consist largely of such polymers synthesized from HCN formed by photolysis of methane and ammonia, the color observed depending on the concentration of HCN involved. Laboratory studies of these ubiquitous compounds point to the presence of polyamidine structures synthesized directly from hydrogen cyanide. These would be converted by water to polypeptides which can be further hydrolyzed to α-amino acids. Black polymers and multimers with conjugated ladder structures derived from HCN could also be formed and might well be the source of the many nitrogen heterocycles, adenine included, observed after pyrolysis. The dark brown color arising from the impacts of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter might therefore be mainly caused by the presence of HCN polymers, whether originally present, deposited by the impactor or synthesized directly from HCN. Spectroscopic detection of these predicted macromolecules and their hydrolytic and pyrolytic by-products would strengthen significantly the hypothesis that cyanide polymerization is a preferred pathway for prebiotic and extraterrestrial chemistry.


Author(s):  
Benjamin F. Trump ◽  
Irene K. Berezesky ◽  
Raymond T. Jones

The role of electron microscopy and associated techniques is assured in diagnostic pathology. At the present time, most of the progress has been made on tissues examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and correlated with light microscopy (LM) and by cytochemistry using both plastic and paraffin-embedded materials. As mentioned elsewhere in this symposium, this has revolutionized many fields of pathology including diagnostic, anatomic and clinical pathology. It began with the kidney; however, it has now been extended to most other organ systems and to tumor diagnosis in general. The results of the past few years tend to indicate the future directions and needs of this expanding field. Now, in addition to routine EM, pathologists have access to the many newly developed methods and instruments mentioned below which should aid considerably not only in diagnostic pathology but in investigative pathology as well.


Author(s):  
D.T. Grubb

Diffraction studies in polymeric and other beam sensitive materials may bring to mind the many experiments where diffracted intensity has been used as a measure of the electron dose required to destroy fine structure in the TEM. But this paper is concerned with a range of cases where the diffraction pattern itself contains the important information.In the first case, electron diffraction from paraffins, degraded polyethylene and polyethylene single crystals, all the samples are highly ordered, and their crystallographic structure is well known. The diffraction patterns fade on irradiation and may also change considerably in a-spacing, increasing the unit cell volume on irradiation. The effect is large and continuous far C94H190 paraffin and for PE, while for shorter chains to C 28H58 the change is less, levelling off at high dose, Fig.l. It is also found that the change in a-spacing increases at higher dose rates and at higher irradiation temperatures.


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