scholarly journals Running the Numbers for the Path of Mantra: Distinguishing the Thirteenth Bhūmi in Fifteenth-Century Tibet

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Rae Dachille
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Buddhist Text ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores a Buddhist text in which numbers set the very stakes for liberation. In 1404, Ngor chen Kun dga’ bzang po (1382–1456), who was to become one of the most esteemed tantric commentators of the Tibetan Sakya tradition, composed his first polemical text, Dispelling Evil Misunderstandings of the Explanation of the Ground of Zung ‘jug Vajradhara. In this early work, Ngor chen grapples with the relationship between the path of perfections and of secret mantra as conduits to liberation. I illuminate the ways in which ritual, exegesis, and pedagogy converge in Ngor chen’s text to reveal larger implications for distinguishing the eleventh and thirteenth grounds (bhūmi) of Buddhahood in fifteenth-century Tibet. In concluding, I highlight the art of differentiation as a fundamental Tibetan scholastic enterprise and briefly engage Ngor chen’s acts of distinguishing sūtra and tantra in conversation with those of key Tibetan predecessors and contemporaries.

scholarly journals Il pentagono come strumento per il disegno delle fortezze

X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Magnaghi-Delfino ◽  
Giampiero Mele ◽  
Tullia Norando
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Golden Section ◽  
Fibonacci Sequence ◽  
Isosceles Triangle ◽  
Luca Pacioli ◽  
Golden Triangle ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shape And Size

The pentagon as a tool for fortresses’ drawingStarting from the fifteenth century, the diagram of many fortresses has a pentagonal shape. Among the best known fortresses, in Italy we find the Fortezza da Basso of Florence, the Cittadella of Parma, the Cittadella  of Turin,  Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. The aim of this article is to analyze the reasons that link form and geometry to the planning of the design and the layout of pentagonal fortresses. The pentagon is a polygon tied to the golden section and to the Fibonacci sequence and it is possible to construct it starting from the golden triangle and its gnomon. This construction of the pentagon is already found in the book De Divina Proportione by Luca Pacioli and is particularly convenient for planning pentagonal fortresses. If one wants to draw the first approximated golden triangle, one can just consider the numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, for example 5 and 8, which establish the relationship between the sides: 5 units is the length of the base and 8 units the length of the equal sides. In the second isosceles triangle, which is the gnomon of the first, the base is 8 units long and equal sides are 5 units long; half of this isosceles triangle is the Pythagorean triangle (3, 4, 5). This characteristic of the golden triangles, that was already known by the Pythagoreans and, in a certain sense, contained in the symbol of their School, allows to build a pentagon with only the use of the ruler and the set square. The distinctive trait of the construction just described makes preferable to use the pentagon in the layout of the military architectures in the fieldworks. We have verified the relationship between numbers, shape and size in the layout of Castel Sant’Angelo (1555-1559) in which the approximate pentagon was the instrument for the generation of its form.

Identifying the Country of Meilugudun and the Significant Value of Zhou Qufei’s Lingwai daida

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Victoria Almonte
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
The North ◽  
Maritime Silk Road ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

Abstract During the last century, considerable interest arose regarding Chinese knowledge of western territories, with a long list of works being published on the topic. Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China (1959) states that Arab thinking had clearly influenced the Chinese conception of geography over the centuries. Zhang Xinglang analyses the relationship between the Chinese empire and countries overseas, focusing on Islamic countries and particularly those in the north of Africa. Feng Chengjun’s western territories toponyms and Gudai nanhai diming huishi have provided two powerful and even fundamental tools for the research presented here. The first gathers together a large collection of toponyms from various literary works; these are written in western language with their relative transcription or translation in Chinese. The second, the Gudai nanhai diming huishi, is divided in two volumes analysing many Chinese toponyms and their use in several geographical works. Li Qingxin’s Haishang Sichou zhilu, focuses on the development of the Maritime Silk Road and its economic-political consequences for China’s empire. Gabriele Foccardi’s research focuses instead on the motives for Chinese travellers and their expeditions, highlighting the historical and social differences between the different dynasties. Friedrich Hirth and William Rockhill provide a crucial literary resource with their translation of Zhao Rukuo’s work, Zhufanzhi (1966), as does J.V.G. Mills with his annotated translation of Ma Huan’s Yingya shenglan, a journey work of the fifteenth century. Yang Wuquan’s research into Zhou Qufei’s work, published in 1999, identifies several toponyms used by Zhou and compares several foreign geographical works. Zhou Qufei and Zhao Rukuo were both imperial officials during the Southern Song dynasty. They spent many years in the border territories of China: Zhou Qufei in Qinzhou, Guangxi province, and Zhao Rukuo in Quanzhou, Fujian province. Their works mention several toponyms never used before in Chinese texts: ‘Meilugudun’, or ‘Meilugu’ (as written by Zhao Rukuo), is one of these. The identification of this toponym has not been determined until now. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to determine which kingdom was identified with the ‘Meilugudun’ toponym during the Song Dynasty. Two different questions are here discussed and resolved. First, can the land of Meilugudun be identified with the city of Merv in Turkmenistan? Second, do Zhou’s ‘Meilugudun’ and Zhao’s ‘Meilugu’ both stand for the same place? This paper can be divided into four sections. The first section focuses on Zhou Qufei, the second on Zhao Rukuo. The third analyses and compares previous scholars’ studies. The fourth proposes the new identification of the Meilugudun kingdom.

The Literary and the Political in the Fifteenth Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-80
Author(s):  
Pankaj Jha
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Political History ◽  
North India ◽  
The Political ◽  
Literary Cultures ◽  
Literature History ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Regional Histories

Historians rarely write about the fifteenth century in north India. When they do, it is within certain set frames, for instance, as an interregnum, or as part of ‘regional’ histories. Occasionally, they write about the ferment of the bhakti ‘movement’ during the period. Tracing the narrow lanes of this historiography, the chapter also points to recent researches that raise some interesting questions. These relate to military labour, literary cultures, vernacularization, multilingualism, and so on. Apart from taking a critical stock of this historiography, the chapter explores how literary history might be fruitfully linked to ‘mainstream’ political history. It analyses meanings of, and the relationship between, literature, history, and power. Texts are not just innocent sources and repository of information. They are also seen as interventions in an ongoing conversation with other texts in the same and related themes and areas.

Time and accounting in the Middle Ages: An Italian-based analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Adamo ◽  
David Alexander ◽  
Roberta Fasiello
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Accounting Information ◽  
Accounting Practice ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

This work is focused on an issue scarcely examined in the literature, concerning the analysis of the relationship existing between time and accounting practice. The aim is to highlight how changes in the interpretation of the concept of time influenced the development of accounting practices and contributed to the rise of periodical accounting reporting from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth century. The socio-economic context existing in Italy in the Middle Ages, the development of commercial partnerships among merchants ( compagnie) and the international trade created the conditions for the development of periodical reporting. The relevance assigned to time in economic activity is one of the crucial factors of the rise of accounting information related to recurring accounting periods. Furthermore, the article shows how the concept of time is important and its significance widely underestimated, in a variety of further applications.

The Art of the Judicial Opinion: On Tawlīj in Fifteenth-Century Tunis

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-381
Author(s):  
David Powers
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Inheritance Law ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Minor Children ◽  
Financial Transactions ◽  
The Guardian ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Inter Vivos

AbstractIn an effort to circumvent the constraints of Islamic inheritance law, a Muslim proprietor may attempt to shift assets to his or her desired heir/s by means of an inter vivos transaction, e.g., a gift, acknowledgement of a debt, sale, or creation of a family endowment. In the present essay, I analyze a case that occurred in fifteenth-century Tunis in which a father, taking advantage of his role as the guardian of his minor children, engages in a series of financial transactions that appear to have as their goal the disinheritance of certain other children. The differing responses to this case by two Mālikī jurists provides an opportunity to explore the relationship between the choice of a judicial style and the direction of a judicial outcome.

Paridis de Puteo: A Fifteenth-Century Civilian’s Concept of Papal Sovereignty

1987 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 369-392
Author(s):  
Diana Perry
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Fundamental Study ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
Modern Mind ◽  
Political Evaluation ◽  
City State ◽  
The Relationship

Sovereignty—suprema potestas—in the later Middle Ages was not blessed with Austinian simplicity: it was a complex and contradictory thing. Held by the ecclesiastical and lay powers, held by pope, emperor, king, and city-state, few populi were subjected to one authority alone. Not only did there exist a hierarchy of sovereign powers in the Western community, de iure and de facto, but the suprema potestas was in itself limited. It was the extent of this limitation and the degree of sovereignty possessed by the various governments which exercised, to a very large extent, the minds of later medieval and Renaissance jurists. A major reordering of the relationship between the spiritual and secular authorities was occasioned with the propounding of the via media by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Thomistic doctrine did much to promote and enhance the importance of civil government at the expense of hierocratic theories, but, as Michael Wilks observes in his fundamental study of medieval sovereignty, it proved to be almost as dangerous to the concept of the societas humana as to that of the societas christiana. Quite simply, as long as moral standards were applied to earthly government, political evaluation was forced into the theological sphere, and so, to some degree, into the realm of papal determination. And to Thomistic influences, as Michael Wilks again remarks, the civilians nearly all succumbed. Laying their claims very largely upon the bases of Roman law and Aristotle, legists expounded a profoundly secular philosophy; but the seemingly logical conclusion—logical, that is, to the modern mind—that secular man was freed from the theological order was not reached. The pope retained both a unique degree of dignitas and a superior degree of authority; he was head of the populus christiana, and this awesome position bestowed upon him certain ultimate rights and responsibilities in the affairs of secular corpora, even though these corpora were sovereign entities. In other words, papal sovereignty, although increasingly restricted and relegated to the realm of theory as the early modern State evolved, none the less remained a potent force; indeed, as it will be seen, in a particular aspect it fulfilled for the jurist a critical need of the young State.

‘Abd al-Qādir al-Marāghī and ‘Alī b. Muḥammad Binā'ī: two fifteenth-century examples of notation Part 2: Commentary

1995 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-39
Author(s):  
O. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Text Setting ◽  
Musical Practice ◽  
Reliable Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
History Of Composition ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

Part 1 of this paper was concerned principally with the various problems that confront any attempt to provide a satisfactory transcription of these two examples. Given the nature of the difficulties encountered, it is clear that any generalizations we might wish to derive from them can only be tentative and provisional. Nevertheless, the paucity of comparable material, which on the one hand renders the interpretative hurdles all the more difficult to surmount, on the other makes the urge to draw at least some conclusions from the material provided by ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Marāghī and Binā'ī well-nigh irresistible. Such conclusions would involve, essentially, an assessment of the extent to which their notations shed light on the musical practice of the period and provide reliable evidence for the history of composition and styles of textsetting. But in any evaluation of this nature it is essential to avoid the temptation to confuse the sources with the speculative editorial interventions that produce the versions presented in part 1 (exs. 26–8 and 30). The area about which least can be said with regard to the naqsh notated by Binā'ī is, therefore, the nature of the text-setting, while with regard to ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Marāghī's notations it is, rather, the first topic we may consider, the relationship between melody and the underlying articulation of the rhythmic cycle.

Human/nature relations in the Arctic: changing perspectives

Polar Record ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (167) ◽  
pp. 277-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail Osherenko
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Balanced Development ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives ◽  
Regenerative Development ◽  
Arctic Policy ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTDiffering conceptions of the relationship between humans and the environment shape policies regarding Arctic development and protection. From the fifteenth century to the early twentieth century, conquest and colonization perspectives prevailed. While vestiges of these views still color Arctic policy, the dominant approach of governments today is balanced development. On the horizon, alternative conceptions are gradually changing both policy decisions and decision-making processes in the Arctic. These include sustainable and regenerative development, rational ecology, ecofeminism, and indigenous perspectives.

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