Word: sanskrit
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Were he alive today, the Buddha would be in jail for child-support violations. Two-and-a-half millenniums of adoration and mythology have obscured the unflattering fact that the Buddha was a deadbeat dad. So a shimmering new English translation of the Buddhacarita, the 2nd century Sanskrit poem chronicling his life, reminds us that in his search for enlightenment and release from samsara - the wheel of rebirths that condemns us to endless lives and thus suffering - he cruelly abandoned his wife and young son Rahula (whose name, making a not-so-subtle point, means "fetters...
...epic is part of the Clay Sanskrit Library, a new series that aims to do for Sanskrit literature what the Loeb Classical Library - publisher of those pocket-sized, green and red volumes found in many a university reading room - has done for Greek and Latin texts over the past century. As such, it's geared more toward lofty specialists and Indiana Joneses than curious general readers. The poem is cluttered with arcane history, dry scriptural debate and explanations of Buddhist doctrine - the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path and the Triple Refuge - that can be meticulous to the point...
...says Eric Cross, an expert on piezoelectric materials at Penn State University. According to Cross, the required materials are stiff, but if enough people are moving at the same time, he surmises, it's possible that that much energy could be produced. The rest of the electricity at Surya--Sanskrit for "sun god"--will come from solar panels and wind turbines...
...because the University recognizes the inherent value in understanding “non-Western” cultures and histories. The class of 2008’s graduates had the option to concentrate in African and African American studies, East Asian languages and civilizations, Near Eastern languages and civilizations, and Sanskrit and Indian studies. But what is still missing from Harvard’s academic offerings is the opportunity to study these fields as integrated pieces of history, literature, and social theory. While it is possible to be a history major and devote much of your studies to the history...
...shares a compound with the Mysore Mandala Yogashala. Just before sundown, a batch of eight students - all foreigners - are beginning their evening session with a Sanskrit mantra invoking Patanjali, the sage who compiled the Yoga Sutras, expounding ashtanga, or eight-limbed, yoga philosophy. The room is dimly lit and already slightly clammy when the students begin huffing and puffing their way through ten repetitions of surya namaskara, or sun salutation, the opening asana. Within a few minutes, their bodies are glistening with sweat as they flex themselves into scary positions, sometimes tugged and pushed by the teacher, all apparently impervious...