A Popilar Dictionary of Hinduism Karel Werner

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20 A POPULAR DICTIONARY OF HINDUISM through the whole of creation as a connecting route between heaven and earth, i.e. the transcendental dimension and the phenomenal world. Ajantā a famous site near Aurangabad with Buddhist cave shrines and temples dated from the second century B.C. till the seventh century A.D. It is important also for the iconography of Hindu deities. Ajita Keśakambali (cca 500 B.C.) a nāstika and lokāyata, i.e. an antireligious and materialist philosopher who believed that everything was just a combination of the four material elements (earth, water, air, fire), and that individual beings ceased to exist after death. Ājīvika a nāstika (i.e. denying the validity of the Vedic tradition) and deterministic school of thought which probably already existed around 700 B.C. and was prominent around 500 B.C. It contained the teaching of four elements, the atomic theory and the view that all events, including the fate of beings in successive lives, were the result of destiny (niyati) and that everybody would reach an end of sorrow at the appointed time after a certain fixed number of world periods. ājñā (command) cakra the spiritual centre in the subtle body, located between the eyebrows. It is in the shape of a lotus with two petals, as taught in the Yoga system. akāla timeless, an epithet of brahman. Akāla a name of Brahma. ākāśa space, ether; sometimes added as fifth to the four ‘great elements’ (earth, water, air, fire) which form material reality. imperishable; letter ‘a’; as the imperishable sound; a designation for brahman. a name of goddess Vāc. the goddess of misfortune, the older sister of . Allāhābād (Ilāhābād) see Prayāga. Almsgiving is very important in Hinduism as a source of acquiring merit for future lives on the one hand, and as a means of support for ascetics, mendicants and sādhus of many varieties who live only on charity, on the other. The saintlier the recipient, the greater the merit derived from giving. (Tamil: ‘lost in God’) a designation for the Tamil poets and saints (active mainly from the seventh to the tenth century A.D.), leaders of South Indian devotional movements, often authors of devotional hymns praising , Rāma and the love games of . They were also singers and musicians and opposed the orthodox Brahminic monopolism of worship and the caste system. Amarāvatī (‘place of immortality’) the name of Indra’s celestial abode; a medieval city on the river Kistna in Andhra Pradesh, once a centre of Buddhist learning (now a village, but with a state College). (vern. ‘mother’), also: Bhavānī a name of Durgā. Ambedkar, Bhīmrāo Rām (1891–1956) leader of the untouchables, who fought for their emancipation by legal means. As the son of an army school headmaster,
INTRODUCTION 21 he received a good early education. Supported by the Mahārāja of Baroda, he obtained a grant and was the first untouchable to be awarded a B.A. degree in Bombay in 1912, then in Columbia an M.A. in 1915 and a Ph.D. in 1916. Later he studied law at Gray’s Inn and Political Science in the London School of Economics, before entering politics back home. He was the first Law Minister (1947–51) in independent India and drafted its Constitution, which outlawed castes and untouchability. As his efforts to raise the actual status of his fellow untouchables in Hindu society made little headway because of widespread Hindu prejudice, he saw no place for them or himself within Hinduism and publicly embraced Buddhism in October 1956. Many mass conversions of untouchables took place subsequently. He died suddenly on 6th December of the same year. one of the names or incarnations of Umā, the wife of Śiva (popular also with Jains). Her name occurs first in the VS, but there she is Rudra’s sister. Originally perhaps a nature goddess, she is still associated with autumn. immortality; nectar, the drink of immortality which, according to a myth, was obtained by the gods and demons (asuras), who were originally mortal, when churning the cosmic ocean. According to one mythological version it is stored in the moon, which periodically refills after the gods and blessed ancestors have drunk the nectar from it, thus accounting for its waning and waxing. partial incarnation of god. one of the Ādityas, representing the quality of sharing, apportioning, evaluating. anādi (without beginning) eternal, an epithet of brahman and Brahma or of the highest deity. anāhata ‘unstruck’, i.e. silent; anāhata cakra: the spiritual centre in the subtle body opposite the central point of the chest, in the shape of a twelve-petalled lotus; anāhata śabda: the mystic sound heard in the cakra when reached by in her upward movement. ānanda bliss; the third component of the compound saccidānanda, designating the experience of the ultimate reality in the Advaita Vedānta system; ānanda : an ecstatic dance of joy. ānandamaya ‘consisting of bliss’, ‘bliss-like’; ānandamaya kośa (‘bliss-made sheath’): a Vedāntic term for the highest or spiritual body in the system of five sheaths, the other four kośas being: annamaya, , manomaya, and vijñānamaya. Ānandamayī Mā (1896–1982) a modern Hindu spiritual teacher and mystic. Born in the village of Kheora, now in Bangladesh, she spent most of her life wandering, later between many āśrams founded by her for her followers. Her teaching can be described as a kind of ecstatic bhakti with Advaitic background combined with a certain tolerance or respect for traditional Hindu observances, but the goal is the realisation of oneness. Ānand Mārg a neo-Hindu movement with predominantly social and educational aims. Founded in 1955 at Jamālpur by Prahbāt Ranjan Sarkār, it spread throughout South and South East Asia and into the U.S.A., but less into Europe.
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A Popilar Dictionary of Hinduism Karel Werner

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