Арии. Веди. Санкхя и Йога
Сборник студии и статии
Collection of papers and articles on ancient Indian literature and culture
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Сборник студии и статии
Collection of papers and articles on ancient Indian literature and culture
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Iz brojnih razloga - ponekih pozitivnih, a mnogih negativnih - ima dosta zanimanja za sufizam na Zapadu i među modernim, obrazovanim klasama islamskog svijeta. Raspad jednog manjeviše homogenog “vrijednosnog sistema” modernog svijeta; osjećaj nesigurnosti u odnosu na budućnost; nerazumijevanje poruka religija koje prevladavaju na Zapadu, posebno kršćanstva, čije su inherentne pouke sve nedostupnije; želja za vizijom duhovnog svijeta u okruženju kojem sve više nedostaje kvaliteta te mnogi drugi faktori - svi zajedno - doprinose toj potrazi za duhovnim učenjima orijentalnih religija. Ova potraga na Zapadu je započela već sa prethodnom generacijom, pojavom općeg interesa za hinduizam i budizam; međutim, pošto je mnogo toga napisanog, čak i prakticiranog u tom periodu bilo ili lažno ili, u najboljem slučaju, površno, zanimanje za te tradicije – posebno u proučavanju vedante i zena – uskoro postaje pomodnost koja je - za generaciju koja traži stalno nova i drugačija iskustva, bez dubljeg prodiranja u bilo koje od njih – brzo postala dosadna i zamorna.
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U sveukupnoj povijesti muslimanskog mišljenja klasična perzijska poezija je bila ta koja je već od ranijih vremena položila temelje onoj duhovnoj pojavi u mislećoj tradiciji islama danas znanoj kao ‘religija ljubavi’(dīn al-’ishq, madhab al-’ishq). Motrena u svjetlu duhovnih činjenica uzetih iz sveobuhvatnog sadržaja primarnih vrela islama Kur’āna i Hadīsa, ‘religija ljubavi’se jednostavno nadaje kao istinska vjera u pogledu Božijem od predvječnosti do postvječnosti, posebice ukazivanjima o činu Božijeg stvaranja svijeta i krunskog Božijeg stvorenja u njemu – čovjeka. Bez nje kao takvegotovo da uopće nije moguće podizati ono što se nazivakulturnim identitetom jedne društvene zajednice. Kakogod je Ljubav prevladavala u Božijem tvoračkom razvijanju‘stranica’ Prirode kao ‘prve objave’ Božije, skupa sa božanskim atributima Znanja i Milosti, ona je većma dominirala i u Božijem oblikovanju njegova krunskog stvorenja, čovjeka, koga je Bog oblikovao u dvije egzistencijalne inačice (Sād, 75), dotaknuvši ga sa ‘svoje Dvije Ruke’, smjestivši njegovo srce ‘među dva prsta Milostivoga’,1 to jeste između božanske Ljubavi i Znanja, i učinivši ga jednom od krajnjih svrha vlastitog stvaranja,baš onih svrha u čijim ljudskim cjeloživotnim plodovima trebaju biti sukusirani najbolji učinci božanske Ljubavi i Znanja.
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If there is an author with whom all the volumes of the dominant philosophical style in Byzantium can be covered at a high level, if we want to enter this style through the work of a single philosopher, his name without any doubt is Maximus the Confessor. In every aspect - in a meaningful, structural and methodological perspective - he should be regarded as the father of Byzantine philosophy and of Byzantine theology in general, so his significance for the East is comparable only to Augustine's importance for Western culture.
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Bratislav Ivanov's new book is dedicated to the values and traditions of the Japanese culture. Already in the early twentieth century, French scientist Henry Dumolard draws attention to the fact that the Japanese people are guided by their logic and draw conclusions that are often incomprehensible to Europeans. To understand the Japanese people, we need to know the values that form the core of their culture. A key to their understanding is the geographical environment, mythology, religion, and Japan's history.
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The book I'm offering to the readers’ attention includes two parts - a brief introduction to the Chinese hieroglyphs in order to clarify their function in Japanese writing and etymology of one hundred Chinese hieroglyphs. The hundred hieroglyphs are selected by the Chinese Ministry of Culture in a way that is representative of the hieroglyphs as a whole. I hope this book will be useful to all who are interested in hieroglyphic cultures. – Bratislav Ivanov
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Bratislav Ivanov is a Bulgarian author of works in areas of linguistics and culture of Japan and a translator from Japanese language. He graduated in Japanese Language and Literature from the Moscow State University. He took his specialization at the Japanese Language Institute. He is the author of many Japanese language articles and books, as well as a series of translations of classical Japanese poetry. He is the first classical Japanese language teacher at Sofia University. Bratislav Ivanov teaches Theoretical Grammar of Japanese Language at Sofia University and Veliko Tarnovo University "St. St. Cyril and Methodius". At present, he is the director of the Bulgarian-Japanese Educational and Cultural Center at the 18th School "William Gladstone" in Sofia. In 2009, Bratislav Ivanov was awarded the oldest Japanese Order - the Order of the Rising Sun - for contributions to the Japanese language studies and his teaching in Bulgaria.
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Like “The Catcher in the Rye” or “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, “Botchan”, a hilarious tale about a young man's rebellion against "the system" in a country school, is a classic of its kind. Among Japanese readers both young and old it has enjoyed a timeless popularity, making it, according to Donald Keene, "probably the most widely read novel in modern Japan." The setting is Japan's Deep South, where the author himself spent some time teaching English in a boys' school. Into this conservative world, with its social proprieties and established pecking order, breezes Botchan, down from the big city, with scant respect for either his elders or his noisy young charges; and the result is a chain of collisions large and small. Much of the story seems to occur in summer, against the drone of cicadas, and in many ways this is a summer book light, funny, and never slow-moving. Here, in a lively new translation much better suited to Western tastes than any of its forebears, Botchan's homespun appeal is all the more apparent, and even those who have never been near the sunlit island on which these calamitous episodes take place should find in it uninterrupted entertainment.
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When the undefeated samurai Miyamoto Musashi retreated to a cave in 1643 and wrote The Book of Five Rings, a manifesto on swordsmanship, strategy, and winning for his students and generations of samurai to come, he created one of the most perceptive and incisive texts on strategic thinking ever to come from Asia. Musashi gives timeless advice on defeating an adversary, throwing an opponent off-guard, creating confusion, and other techniques for overpowering an assailant that will resonate with both martial artists and everyone else interested in skillfully dealing with conflict. For Musashi, the way of the martial arts was a mastery of the mind rather than simply technical prowess—and it is this path to mastery that is the core teaching in The Book of Five Rings. Written not only for martial artists but for anyone who wants to apply the timeless principles of this text to their life, the book analyzes the process of struggle and mastery over conflict that underlies every level of human interaction.
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The book studies the Ancient Egyptian religion. The author describes the creation and its driving forces through the view of Egyptian concepts. The idea of God and the divine manifestations, the place of man in the world and the ways to achieve immortality are explored. The exposition is based on the study of ancient hieroglyphic texts and is illustrated with numerous examples. The book is intended for a wide range of readers who are interested in the religion and culture of Ancient Egypt. It contains three chapters: the world of gods, the creation of the world and the world of men. Special attention is paid on the concept of the kingship in Ancient Egypt. The Egyptian terminology and the names of gods and goddesses are formed as a dictionary at the еnd of the book.
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"Amduat – Text of the Hidden Chamber" is an ancient Egyptian esoteric book that describes and magically recreates the journey of the Sun God to Duat (the Realm of the Dead). The book has been recorded on the walls of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings - it contains the names of the inhabitants of the afterlife, their sacred images and spells to overcome the obstacles in this journey. It is a secret doctrine taught by the Egyptian king and his companions. It appears for the first time in the middle of the second millennium BC, and its tradition is preserved until the sunset of Egyptian civilization. The book is a magical means of immortality, and with its help one goes the same space cycle to his resurrection as the Sun God on his night journey to the new sunrise. The edition contains an introduction, a translation from Ancient Egyptian and a commentary on the book. It is published for the first time in Bulgarian.
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The "Book of the Gates" is the third book of Ancient Egyptian Religious Texts series, which includes the main works of the Egyptian sacred tradition. "The Book of the Gates" is an ancient Egyptian magical book devoted to journey of the god of sun to the afterlife. Its name has been given because of the gates that close the spaces between the various parts of the underground kingdom. The book is intended for the Egyptian ruler; it was unavailable to the uninitiated. It first appeared in the middle of the New Kingdom (XIV BCE) and was recorded on the walls of the royal tombs.This edition contains an introduction, an ancient Egyptian translation (accompanied by translation), images of the scenes and commentary. It is published for the first time in Bulgarian.
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Evliya Celebi was an enlightened man in a variety of ways who believed in equality, freedom of thought and intellectual debate, and found all of these things present in Islamic societies. Over the course of his travels, he wrote ten volumes detailing his adventures. ‘Seyahatname’ – Book of Travels – is a unique and important text, representing one of the few accounts of the 17th century and the Ottoman world from the perspective of a Muslim. These are not just factual accounts, Evliya had a great imagination and just as important as his journal entries were the imaginative storytelling that ran alongside, elaborating, exaggerating, and fantasizing. Through his stories, we are prompted to think more imaginatively about our own travels and journeys to other cities. This 17th-century Muslim traveler can sometimes seem narrow-minded and yet this same man can stand in St Stephens Cathedral in Vienna and be moved by the music he hears. Sometimes these encounters lead to nothing but sometimes they lead to stories which are so deeply felt, and so universally melodic that they leave echoes which can still be heard and felt today. In 2011, the year which would have been his 400th birthday, Evliya is being paid homage as UNESCO’s Man of the Year.
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The book brings an original presentation of unique materials from the mid- 1970s which have not been published in an English language monograph so far. It contains a visual analysis of historical photographs from Buryatia and Tibet and the analysis of author's own field observations and recordings of interviews.
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An intellectual biography of one of the most influential Chinese political and social thinkers at the turn of XIXth/XXth centuries.
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The cultural relations between India and Romania are interesting to study and to understand. India is a country of immense diversity, of extraordinary customs, and a genuine feast of opinions, which attracts researchers from all over the world. Romanians are people with a profound sensibility. The two cultures met on the common ground of spirituality and the results are remarkable, as it is shown in this special volume.
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𝑆𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑠 𝐶𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑐𝑎 is a multilingual collection of papers presented at the international scientific conference that has been organized by the Department of Classical and Eastern Languages and Cultures of St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgaria) since 2002. Until 2015, the conference was held annually. Since 2018, it is held once every two years. St Cyril and St Methodius University Press issues the collection within the Dr. Nicola Piccolo series. The wide range of topics and the opportunity for authors to submit their academic publications in the original language attracts researchers from all over the world.
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Exploring a significant amount of secondary literature on “Zhuangzi” has led us to the conclusion not only that so many individual interpretations exist, but that the presence of an incredible variety of readings is perplexing. They are often contradictory and puzzling due to their remoteness from the original text (the inner chapters of the treatise, which we reconstructed thanks to the invaluable help of an excellent connoisseur of the old Chinese language we cooperated with)2. The reason for the detection of many voices in the composition with the alleged authorship of Zhuang Zhou only in its inner section requires further research. The ambiguous assessments of its contemporary interpreters are probably due to the free creative play of different genres in the writings of the early Daoists.Exploring a significant amount of secondary literature on “Zhuangzi” has led us to the conclusion not only that so many individual interpretations exist, but that the presence of an incredible variety of readings is perplexing. They are often contradictory and puzzling due to their remoteness from the original text (the inner chapters of the treatise, which we reconstructed thanks to the invaluable help of an excellent connoisseur of the old Chinese language we cooperated with)2. The reason for the detection of many voices in the composition with the alleged authorship of Zhuang Zhou only in its inner section requires further research. The ambiguous assessments of its contemporary interpreters are probably due to the free creative play of different genres in the writings of the early Daoists.
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The hermeneutic approach to the philosophical background of ancient Chinese thought reveals an aspiration to combine the traditional values of the East with the achievements of existential analytics. Daoist cultural heritage attracts Europeans not only with its mirror otherness but mainly with the harmonic relationship of man and nature, as oneness with the Way (道 – Dao). Many authors, including poets, writers, philosophers, cultural anthropologists, scientists, etc. have adopted the fundamental difference between the East and the West as a way of dichotomous thinking based on ontological and epistemological distinctions. Such presuppositions have become the starting point for elaborate theories, comparative studies and political science developments relating to the ‘far-eastern spirit’, peoples, traditions and destinies. We ask ourselves whether to construct an overview concerning the early Daoist parables and sayings as an imaginary whole is justified and to what extent. Despising technocratic rationality and the artificiality of modern technological culture, Daoism and the cultural orientations broadly associated with it, provide an ideal source of alternative creativity. It discloses the impermanence of the hidden meaning in life and the assumption that the universe or some fundamental issues in society could not necessarily be manifested in philosophical theories, but can be embodied in the performance of poetry, allegory, image thinking. It carries out a kind of philosophical criticism – the idea that with the transition from the epistemological to the ontological implication, the so called ‘common sense’ may exist in other branches of knowledge and modes of speech. Daoists focus on nonstandard, non-competitive mind, challenging the legitimacy of their own conceptual schemes. Dao-language implies the unconditional, irreducible presence of the Way which precedes all the artificially fixed meanings. The so called ‘image thinking’ encompasses the Boundless and is opposed to the distortion of any natural discourses. As a kind of incarnation of the Great Ultimate, the speech is born in the empty mind just as the sound occurs in silence, so ‘forgetting the words’ (Zhuangzi) is a precondition of any cognition.
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The influence of radical islam is spreading not only in the Middle East but also around the rest of the world. With the surge of the terrorist attacks in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and USA, commited in the name of radical organizations such as Islamic State and Al Qaeda, there is an urgent need of finding a solution to counter radicalization among the muslim population and converts around the world. In this paper the roots of the modern doctrine of the radical islam are explained as well as the reason why sufism can be used as an instrument to fight the radicalization in islam.
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