“How I detest, Lord, the turpitude of Your works and these syrupy ghosts who burn incense to You and resemble You! Hating You, I have escaped the sugar mills of Your Kingdom, the twaddle of Your puppets. You are the damper of our flames and our rebellions, the fire hose of our fevers, the superintendent of our senilities. Even before relegating You to a formula, I trampled Your arcana, scorned Your tricks and all those artifices which produce Your toilette of the Inexplicable. You have generously endowed me with the gall Your pity spared Your slaves. Since there is no rest but in the shadow of Your nullity, the brute finds salvation by just handing himself over to You or Your counterfeits. I don’t know which is more pitiable. Your acolytes or myself: we all derive straight from Your incompetence: pitch, patch, hodgepodge—syllables of the Creation, of Your blundering…”
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Exercise of Insubmission
by E.M. Cioran
Ahimsa is a religious concept which advocates non-violence and a respect for all life. Ahinsa is Sanskrit for avoidance of himsa, or injury. It is interpreted most often as meaning peace and reverence toward all sentient beings. Ahimsa is an important doctrine of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism (pdf). I think if it has made any inroads into the modern westerner’s mind they have likely been through its connection to yoga. I will not comment on the concept itself here, becuase in truth I am by no means sure of my own opinion toward the “do not swat a fly” brand of radical pacism, but rather will offer up a few images from an interesting book I picked up a long while ago called Chinese Poems and Pictures on Ahimsa by Raghu Vira, published in 1954. As for the sentiment they express, well, decide for yourself the value.
For the past two thousand years China has been in close association with some of the highest thoughts of India.
Chinese records have given 61 A.D. as the date when Ming-ti, the Emperor of China, dreamt of a golden man flying into his palace. This was interpreted by the sages of the age as Lord Buddha entering China and bringing peace and solace to the Middle Kingdom.
Since then Indian Pandits and wise men have collaborated with Chinese men of letters in transmitting scriptures and philosophies to the Chinese race in a continuous flow of translations from Sanskrit to Chinese.
Indian thought has permeated every part of Chinese life which has been enlivened in manifold ways.
In the following pages we reproduce a unique set of Chinese poems and pictures on Ahimsa. The sensitivity of the calligraphed words and the power of the simple drawings on the pages opposite are unparalleled in India. Neither the Buddhists, nor the Jainas, nor the Vaishnavas have anything similar to offer. It was left to the Chinese genius to catch the cruelty that is being perpetrated on the poor creatures, whether for food, fun or sport, wittingly or unwittingly, and to portray the same with the power and refinement of a gentle and magnanimous soul.
To The Rescue
One crab has lost its legs.
Two crabs come to its rescue,
And carry it on their sympathetic backs.
These tiny creatures have the sense
Of love and compassion.
Of this why does man not take notice?
The Bereaved mother
Even the beasts have feelings of mother an child.
A dog knows how to protect its young.
And a cow how to caress its calf,
The mother hen closely watched and protects her fledgelings.
And it is said that an eel is always precautions to ward off
The danger that may entangle its young ones.
But men, merely to gratify their tongue,
Kill and separate others’ dear ones.
All dumb creatures suffer the pinch of pain as much as men.
The only difference is that men cry with tears.
For Pity’s Sake, Look Out!
The giraffe is said to be a very kind animal.
Endowed with divine intelligence,
It neither walks on growing grasses not steps on living insects.
Oh We all ought to take notice
That when we walk, we be ever careful,
Lest, knowing or unknowing,
Tiny creatures be tramples under our feet.
By so doing we can keep our kind heart
And guiltless conscience growing.
Heedless Torture
(the victim is a dragon-fly)
Teach the children carefully,
When they are young,
To cultivate a good heart,
And harm nobody.
And when a sympathetic heart is being enlarged,
One has paved the way to the sages.
A Painful Parting
The flower has fallen from its stalk.
The sun is about to plunge into darkness.
The cry of a painful parting is heard.
It makes me feel my heart breaking.
A Harrowing Spectacle
The spectacle is too lamentable to withstand,
Viewing it one’s heart breaks.
There are no words for it,
But only tears.
Last Night’s Catch
You said it was the success of the last night!
It was merely a crime.
You should repent and confess your misdeed.
Your prime obligation is to have a good soul,
And the virtue of kindness to all.
“They Are The Eyes Of Equals”
-Turginev
Compare and observe:
Your flesh is the same as mine.
The difference lies only in name:
I am a dog and you a man,
The distinction between us is in our form.
In essence we are comrades,
We possess a common soul.
Unfortunately I can’t offer any more info on the illustrations or original author of the poems because the text included at the beginning of the post was pretty much the only info offered. Hope you enjoyed.
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Before The Magnificent Seven, before The Seven Samurai, before The Seven Dwarfs, before The Seven Year Itch, before the Seven Year War, before The Seven Principles of Man, before The Temptation of the Seven Scientists, before The Seven Ravens, before The Seven Poor Travelers, before the seven ceremonies of the cherokee, before the seven sacraments of the Christians, before The Seven Against Thebes, before the dance of the seven veils, before the codification of seven deadly sins there were… (cue the orchestra swell) The Seven Sages!
“Who? Neva hoid ov’em.”
The Seven Sages of ancient Greece. They are considered by many to be the fathers of western philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy… at least in the general sense. Stories about them may be a touch apocryphal (for instance attribution for specific nuggets of wisdom is occasionally shifted from source to source among the seven) but they were none-the-less considered the great minds of the archaic western tradition.
“Oh.”
Oh indeed. And yet their names are not exactly common knowledge are they? No cars or candy bars named after them. Such is the injustice of daddy time.
So who specifically were these seven dudes so filled with sagacity that they deserve their own ancient-world version of mensa? Well the early philosophy fan-boys debated about their exact make-up just exactly as a group of Trekkies might debate the make-up of the magnificent seven of Starfleet. I am going to go with Plato’s version here (because as far as historical accounting goes, he was not only the philosophy club president but he was also a member.)
Solon of Athens
Occupation: “Beloved tyrant.”
Catch phrase: “Nothing in excess.”
Athenians addressed him as: “Sir”
Turn-ons: Lawgiving, statesmanship, arbitration, lyric poetry, long walks on the beach.
Claim to fame: Creating a supreme court. Repealing the laws of Dracon, which punished even small offenses with death, making only murder and manslaughter punishable by death. Allowed the poor to participate in government. And lastly basically the founding of the Western tradition of constitutional government in the laying of the foundation for classical Greek culture.
Chilon of Sparta
Known as: “The laconic spartan.”
His enemies called him: “The Fartin’ Spartan.”
Catch phrase: “Know thyself.” (It has never been satisfactorily settled as to whether he meant in the metaphysical sense or what we’d now call the “Biblical” sense.)
Alternate catch phrase: “I’m Chilon like Gillagon.”
It is said that: He died of joy in the arms of his son, who had just gained a prize at the Olympic games.
Bias of Priene
Catch phrases: “Too many workers spoil the work.” “All men are wicked.” “Speak of the Gods as they are.”
Example of his sagacity: He wisely said that as a judge, he would rather decide a dispute between two of his enemies than between two of his friends. No matter what he ruled in the first case, one of the two enemies would become his friend, but in the second case, one of his two friends would become an enemy.
Final Irony: He was a preeminent lawyer and judge of his time and yet his name would, through coincidence, come to mean “a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment, prejudiced.”
Cleobulus of Lindos
Catch Phrase: “Moderation is the chief good.”
His Father once told him: “Don’t be such a sagenheimer!”
Turn-ons: hexameter verse, egyptian philosophy, Minerva, tyrany.
Example of his sagacity: he wisely said when a man goes out of his house, he should consider what he is going to do: and when he comes home again he should consider what he has done.
Greatest lapse in judgement: naming his daughter “Cleobulina.”
Pittacus of Mitylene
Catch phrase: “Know thine opportunity.”
Turn-ons: Killing athenians, being a general, elegiac metre, floppy hats.
Terms the archaic poet Alcaeus used to describe him:
Sarapous (because he was splay-footed and dragged his feet.)
Cheiropodês (because he had scars on his feet.)
Phuskôn or Gastrôn (because he was fat.)
Agasurtos (because he was lazy and dirty.)
Person who Pitticus exiled: Alcaeus the archaic poet.
Periander of Corinth
Catch phrase: “Forethought in all things.”
Corinthians called him: “Master.”
Good deed: He restricted the number of slaves in Corinth.
Real reason for doing so: To keep the citizens too busy to conspire against him.
Accomplishment: he constructed the famed Diolcos, which carried ships over the isthmos of corinth for a thousand years, in order to kick much naval ass.
Turn-ons: Killing his wife, sending his enemies children off to become eunuchs, puppies.
Admission: Plato actually left Periander off his list because he was a huge dick.
Thales of Miletus
Catch phrase: “To bring surety brings ruin.”
Turn-ons: Astronomy, engineering, mathematics, romantic dinners.
Turn-offs: His mother asking him over and over again to marry her.
When asked why he had no children he answred: “Becuase I love children.”
Claims to fame: Being the first man in history to correctly predict a solar-eclipse. Being the first man in history to have specific mathematical discoveries attributed to him. Determining the height of an Egyptian pyramid by measuring the length of its shadow. Dividing the year into 365 days. Being a world class smart-ass.
Truth be told it is Thales (pronounced Thay-lees) who led me to this post in the first place. There are so many anecdotal stories about him that I would feel it remiss not to offer him special treatment and relate at least one.
When Solon went to visit Thales, Solon asked why he did not get married and have children. Thales gave no reply, but he hired an actor, who a few days later pretended to have just arrived from Athens. Solon asked this actor for the latest news, and the actor said that nothing important had happened, except there was a funeral of some young man who had died while his famous father happened to be away. “Poor man,” said Solon, “but what is his name?” With every question and answer, Solon got more and more worried, until finally he mentioned his own name. “That’s the man!” said the actor, and Solon went into all of the usual expressions of grief while Thales watched impassively. After a while, Thales said to Solon: “You asked why I did not marry and have children. You now see the reason.”
So there you have it friends a refresher course, complete with a few eensy-weensy lies, on The Seven Sages. Hope you enjoyed.
For more see:
The lives and opinions of eminent philosophers.
The Seven Sages, Between Legend and History.
The Seven Sages of Ancient Greece.
The Seven Wise Men of Antiquity.
For further sagacity see:
Lastly I must mention that the images in this post were adapted from The Morse Library of Benoit College’s excellent online version of the The Nuremberg Chronicle , a sprawling medieval history of the world, which, owing to it’s amazing illustrations (some by a young Albrecht Dürer) alone, deserves its own post. Perhaps another time.
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