The Sacrificial Imaginary

This chapter examines the vitalism entailed in Vedic sacrifice, the Axial transformation of that theme in the Upaniṣads, and the philosophies that attempted to categorize and analyse life into specific components. Finally, we will see how a full philosophy of life comes to articulation in the tantric traditions. All these modes of thinking and practice were deeply concerned about offering repair, correcting ignorance and giving relief from the constant suffering entailed by life, and the desire for life that has so often been negatively evaluated in this history. The chapter examines the earliest sources that articulate some understanding of the category of life itself in terms of sacrifice, namely the Vedic scriptures, and goes on to discuss medieval Brahmanism, the tantric traditions, and modernity.

A Systematic Assessment of “Axial Age” Proposals Using Global Comparative Historical Evidence

Proponents of the Axial Age contend that parallel cultural developments between 800 and 200 BCE in what is today China, Greece, India, Iran, and Israel-Palestine constitute the global historical turning point toward modernity. The Axial Age concept is well-known and influential, but deficiencies in the historical evidence and sociological analysis available have thwarted efforts to evaluate the concept’s major global contentions. As a result, the Axial Age concept remains controversial. Seshat: Global History Databank provides new tools for examining this topic in social formations across Afro-Eurasia during the first two millennia BCE and first millennium CE, allowing scholars to empirically evaluate the varied and contrasting claims researchers have put forward. Results undercut the notion of a specific “age” of axiality limited to a specific geo-temporal localization. Critical traits offered as evidence of an axial transformation by proponents of the Axial Age concept appeared across Afro-Eurasia hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of years prior to the proposed Axial Age. Our analysis raises important questions for future evaluations of this period and points the way toward empirically-led, historical-sociological investigations of the ideological and institutional foundations of complex societies.

Paleochronic reversion in Psophocarpus: Dynamics II, rhizogeny on floral anatomic fields

Paleochronic reversion is confirmed in Psophocarpus as a basic floral ground state. That state can expand to include dynamics T (g,,h) ) of axial expansion (AE) as a permutation (T X ) phase beginning as phyllotactic floral phylloid (T Phyld ) and/or axial decompression (T Axl ) manifest as linear elongation (T Long ) and/or rotation (T Rtn ) and/or latitudinal (TS Lat ) expansion. Organ regions present a continuum as a vector space LT Axl of floral axial transformation. A generative phase of meristem activity (T (Rz, SAM, Infl) ) can follow. Experiments with 49 phylloid and/or phyllome paleochronically reverted flowers presented varying degrees of phyllotactic permutation involving development of a pericladial stalk (PCL) and/or inter-bracts stem (IBS) and/or activated pedicel (PdcL) and/or gynophore (Gnf), Cupule-like (Gnf)/Cupl-Lk) elongation. A meristem generative function included rhizogeny as root site generation (RSG) at the calyx (Cl), PCL, bracts (Bt), IBS, PdcL and/or Gnf/Cupl-Lk regions manifest as eigenvector functions as RSG whose density of generation was associated with permutation of the ground state. A continuum of pedicel to calyx regions constitutes a subset [PdcL,Cl] of a linear vector space [Bt,Crpl]=T X → [PdcL,Crpl]=LT Axl whose extension is defined within the space: ∑ F PdcL + F Bt (1,,z) ± S IBS (1,,x) + F PCL (1,,w) + F Cl + F Gyncm ± S Gnf ± S Cupl-Lk = L T Axl . The vector space LT Axl transforms to a master vector field (F [c,..,d] ) of generated Euclidian eigenvectors so that: LT Axl → F [c,..,d]

A systematic assessment of 'Axial Age' proposals using global comparative historical evidence

Proponents of the Axial Age contend that parallel cultural developments between 800 and 200 BCE in what is today China, Greece, India, Iran, and Israel-Palestine constitute the global historical turning point towards modernity. While the Axial Age concept is well-known and influential, deficiencies in the historical evidence and sociological analysis available have thwarted efforts to evaluate the Axial Age concept’s major global contentions. As a result, the Axial Age concept remains controversial. Seshat: Global History Databank provides new tools for examining this topic in social formations across Afro-Eurasia during the first two millennia BCE and first millennium CE, allowing scholars to empirically evaluate the many varied— and contrasting—claims put forward about this period. Our systematic investigation undercuts the notion of a specific 'age' of axiality limited to a specific geo-temporal localization. Critical traits offered as evidence of an axial transformation by proponents of the Axial Age concept are shown to have appeared across Afro-Eurasia hundreds and in some cases thousands of years prior to the proposed Axial Age. Our analysis raises important questions for future evaluations of this period and points the way towards empirically-led, historical-sociological investigations of the ideological and institutional foundations of complex societies.

Complex ceramic structures. I. Weberites

The weberite structure (A 2 B 2 X 7) is an anion-deficient fluorite-related superstructure. Compared with fluorites, the reduction in the number of anions leads to a decrease in the coordination number of the B cations (VI coordination) with respect to the A cations (VIII coordination), thus allowing the accommodation of diverse cations. As a result, weberite compounds have a broad range of chemical and physical properties and great technological potential. This article summarizes the structural features of weberite and describes the structure in several different ways. This is the first time that the stacking vector and stacking angle are used to represent the weberite structure. This paper also discusses the crystallographic relationship between weberite, fluorite and pyrochlore (another fluorite-related structure). The cation sublattices of weberite and pyrochlore are correlated by an axial transformation. It has been shown that the different coordination environment of anions is due to the alternating layering of the AB 3 and A 3 B close-packed cation layers. A stability field of weberite oxides is proposed in terms of the ratio of ionic radius of cations and relative bond ionicity. In addition, a selection of weberite compounds with interesting properties is discussed.