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Lion's Share
The lion's share is an idiomatic expression which now refers to the major share of something. The phrase derives from the plot of a number of Aesop's Fables, fables ascribed to Aesop and is used here as their generic title. There are two main types of story, which exist in several different versions. Other fables exist in the East that feature division of prey in such a way that the divider gains the greater part - or even the whole. In English the phrase used in the sense of ''nearly all'' only appeared at the end of the 18th century; the French equivalent, ''le partage du lion'', is recorded from the start of that century, following La Fontaine's Fables, La Fontaine's version of the fable. The Phaedrus version The early Latin version of Phaedrus (fabulist), Phaedrus begins with the reflection that "Partnership with the mighty is never trustworthy". It then relates how a cow, a goat and a sheep go hunting together with a lion. When it comes to dividing the spoil, the lion says, ...
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Idiom
An idiom is a phrase or expression that largely or exclusively carries a Literal and figurative language, figurative or non-literal meaning (linguistic), meaning, rather than making any literal sense. Categorized as formulaic speech, formulaic language, an idiomatic expression's meaning is different from the Literal and figurative language, literal meanings of each word inside it. Idioms occur frequently in all languages. In English language, English alone there are an estimated twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions. Some well known idioms in English are "spill the beans" (meaning "reveal secret information"), "it's raining cats and dogs" (meaning "it's raining intensely"), and "break a leg" (meaning "good luck"). Derivations Many idiomatic expressions were meant literally in their original use, but occasionally the attribution of the literal meaning changed and the phrase itself grew away from its original roots—typically leading to a folk etymology. For instance, the ...
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Neo-Latin
Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy during the Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and then across northern Europe after about 1500, as a key feature of the humanist movement. Through comparison with Classical Latin, Latin of the Classical period, scholars from Petrarch onwards promoted a standard of Latin closer to that of the ancient Romans, especially in grammar, style, and spelling. The term ''Neo-Latin'' was however coined much later, probably in Germany in the late eighteenth century, as ''Neulatein'', spreading to French and other languages in the nineteenth century. Medieval Latin had diverged quite substantially from the classical standard and saw notable regional variation and influence from vernacular languages. Neo-Latin attempts to retur ...
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Edward Byles Cowell
Edward Byles Cowell, (23 January 1826 – 9 February 1903) was a noted translator of Persian poetry and the first professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge University. Early life Cowell was born in Ipswich, the son of Charles Cowell and Marianne Byles. Samuel Cowell, the printer, was his uncle and Elizabeth "Beth" Cowell, the painter, was his sister. He became interested in Oriental languages at the age of fifteen, when he found a copy of Sir William Jones's works (including his ''Persian Grammar'') in the public library. Self-taught, he began translating and publishing Hafez within the year. On the death of his father in 1842 he took over the family business. He married in 1845, and in 1850 entered Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied and catalogued Persian manuscripts for the Bodleian Library. From 1856 to 1867 he lived in Calcutta as professor of English history at Presidency College. He was also as principal of Sanskrit College from 1858 to 1864. In this year he discove ...
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Jataka
The ''Jātaka'' (Sanskrit for "Birth-Related" or "Birth Stories") are a voluminous body of literature native to the Indian subcontinent which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. Jataka stories were depicted on the railings and Toran_(art), torans of the stupas. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is "one of the oldest classes of Buddhist literature."Skilling, Peter (2010). ''Buddhism and Buddhist Literature of South-East Asia,'' pp. 161–162. Some of these texts are also considered great works of literature in their own right.Shaw, Sarah (2006). ''The Jatakas: Birth Stories of Bodhisatta'', p. xxii. Penguin UK. The various Indian Buddhist schools had different collections of jātakas. The largest known collection is the ''Jātaka (Pali Canon), Jātakatthavaṇṇanā'' of the Theravada school, as a textual division of the Pāli Canon, included in the ''Khuddaka Nikaya'' of the ''Sutta Pitaka''. In these stories, the future B ...
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Bharhut Jataka
Bharhut is a village in the Satna district of Madhya Pradesh, central India. It is known for a Buddhist stupa, unique in that each panel is explicitly labelled in Brahmi characters saying what the panel depicts. The major donor for the Bharhut stupa was King Dhanabhuti. The Bharhut sculptures are some of the earliest examples of Indian and Buddhist art, later than the monumental art of Ashoka (), and slightly later than the early Shunga-period reliefs on railings at Sanchi Stupa No.2 (starting circa 115 BCE). It is more provincial in quality than the sculpture at Sanchi, Amaravati Stupa and some other sites, a large amount of sculpture has survived, generally in good condition. Recent authors date the reliefs of the railings of Bharhut circa 125–100 BCE, and clearly after Sanchi Stupa No.2, compared to which Bharhut has a much more developed iconography. The torana gateway was made slightly later than the railings, and is dated to 100–75 BCE. Historian Ajit Kumar gives a l ...
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Encyclopedia Of The Brethren Of Purity
The ''Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' (, Rasā'il Ikhwān al-ṣafā') also variously known as the ''Epistles of the Brethren of Sincerity'', ''Epistles of the Brethren of Purity'' and ''Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Loyal Friends'' is an Islamic encyclopedia"The work only professes to be an epitome, an outline; its authors lay claim to no originality, they only summarize what others have thought and discovered. What they do lay claim to is system and completeness. The work does profess to contain a ''systematized'', harmonious and co-ordinated view of the universe and life, its origin and destiny, formed out of many discordant, incoherent views; and it does claim to be a 'complete account of all things' - to contain, in epitome, all that was known at the time it was written. It refers to more profound and special treatises for fuller information on the several sciences it touches upon, but it does claim to touch on all sciences, all departments of knowledge, and ...
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Adam
Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This action introduced death and sin into the world. This sinful nature infected all his descendants, and led humanity to be expelled from the Garden. Only through the crucifixion of Jesus, humanity can be redeemed. In Islam, Adam is considered '' Khalifa'' (خليفة) (successor) on earth. This is understood to mean either that he is God's deputy, the initiation of a new cycle of sentient life on earth, or both. Similar to the Biblical account, the Quran has Adam placed in a garden where he sins by taking from the Tree of Immortality, so loses his abode in the garden. When Adam repents from his sin, he is forgiven by God. This is seen as a guidan ...
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Odo Of Cheriton
Odo of Cheriton (1180/1190 – 1246/47) was an English preacher and fabulist who spent a considerable time studying in Paris and then lecturing in the south of France and in northern Spain. Life and background Odo belonged to a Norman family which had settled in Kent and were named from their manor at Cheriton, Kent, Cheriton. He, however, was brought up at the family's new manor on the other side of the county in Farningham. His father William had been a crusader with Richard I of England, Richard Coeur de Lion and then added to the family's fortunes as a supporter of John, King of England, King John. His son Odo studied at the University of Paris, where he had gained the degree of Master (''Magister'') by 1211, after which he was granted custody of the church at Cheriton. There is uncertainty whether his degree was in theology, but by the end of the decade he was describing himself as ''Doctor Ecclesiae'' (doctor of the church) when his popular sermons on the Sunday Gospels were ...
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Masnavi
The ''Masnavi'', or ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' (, DIN 31635, DMG: ''Mas̲navī-e maʻnavī''), also written ''Mathnawi'', or ''Mathnavi'', is an extensive poem written in Persian language, Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, also known as Rumi. It is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines.Allamah Mohamad Taghi Jafari, ''Tafsir Masnavi''Karim Zamani, ''Tafsir Masnavi Ma'navi'' The ''Masnavi'' is one of the most influential works of Sufism, ascribed to be like a "Quran in Persian". Some Muslims regard the ''Masnavi'' as one of the most important works of Islamic literature, falling behind only the Quran. It has been viewed by many commentators as the greatest mystical poem in world literature. It is a spiritual text that teaches Sufis how to reach their goal of being truly in love with God. General description The title ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' () means "The Spiritual Masnavi (poetic form), Couplets". The ''Masnavi'' is a poet ...
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Rumi
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (), or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi '' faqih'' (jurist), Maturidi theologian (''mutakallim''), and Sufi mystic born during the Khwarazmian Empire. Rumi's works were written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Turkish, Arabic and Greek in his verse. His ''Masnavi'' (''Mathnawi''), composed in Konya, is considered one of the greatest poems of the Persian language.C.E. Bosworth, "Turkmen Expansion towards the west" in UNESCO History of Humanity, Volume IV, titled "From the Seventh to the Sixteenth Century", UNESCO Publishing / Routledge, p. 391: "While the Arabic language retained its primacy in such spheres as law, theology and science, the culture of the Seljuk court and secular literature within the sultanate became largely Persianized; this is seen in the early adoption of Persian epic names by the Seljuk rulers (Qubād, Kay Khusraw and so on) and in the use of Pers ...
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Persian Poetry
Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Caucasus, and Turkey, regions of Central Asia (such as Tajikistan), South Asia and the Balkans where the Persian language has historically been either the native or official language. For example, Rumi, one of the best-loved Persian poets, born in Balkh (in modern-day Afghanistan) or Wakhsh (in modern-day Tajikistan), wrote in Persian and lived in Konya (in modern-day Turkey), at that time the capital of the Seljuks in Anatolia. The Ghaznavids conquered large territories in Central and South Asia and adopted Persian as their court language. There is thus Persian literature from Iran, Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan, the wider Caucasus, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Tajikistan and other parts of Centra ...
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