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In this second volume of the Garland of Past Lives , Aryashura applies his elegant literary skill toward composing fourteen further stories that depict the Buddha’s quest for enlightenment in his former lives. Here the perfection of forbearance becomes the dominant theme, as the future Buddha suffers mutilations from the wicked and sacrifices himself for those he seeks to save. Friendship, too, takes on central significance, with greed leading to treachery and enemies transformed into friends through the transformative effect of the future Buddha’s miraculous virtue. The setting for many such moral feats is the forest. Portrayed as home for the future Buddha in his lives as an animal or ascetic, the peaceful harmony of this idyllic realm is often violently interrupted by intrusions from human society. Only the future Buddha can resolve the ensuing conflict, influencing even kings, in the stories but also throughout Asian history, to express wonder and devotion at the startling demonstrations of virtue they encounter.

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The Garland of Past Lives is a collection of thirty four stories depicting the miraculous deeds performed by the Buddha in his previous rebirths. Composed in the fourth century C.E. by the Buddhist monk Aryashura, the text’s accomplished artistry led Indian aesthetic theorists to praise its elegant mixture of verse and prose. The twenty stories in this first volume deal primarily with the virtues of giving and morality. Ascetics sacrifice their lives for hungry tigers, kings open their veins for demons to drink their blood, helmsmen steer their crew through perilous seas, and quail chicks quench forest fires by proclaiming words of truth. The experience is intended to arouse astonishment in the audience, inspiring devotion, through the future Buddha’s transcendence of conventional norms in his quest to acquire enlightenment and save the world from suffering. The importance of such stories of past lives in traditional Buddhist culture, throughout Asia and up to today, cannot be overestimated.

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King Harsha, who reigned over the kingdom of Kanauj from 606 to 647 CE, composed two Sanskrit plays about the mythical figures of King Udayana, his queen, Vásava·datta, and two of his co-wives. The plays abound in mistaken identities, both political and erotic. The characters masquerade as one another and, occasionally, as themselves, and each play refers simultaneously to itself and to the other.Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC FoundationFor more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

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Plato's best-known work, The Republic was written around 380 BC. Largely a Socratic dialogue concerning justice, the order and character of the just city-state and the just man, it serves as the forerunner for such other classics of political thought as Cicero's De Republica, St. Augustine's City of God, and Thomas More's Utopia. Among the ideas put forth are the eternal conflict between the world of the senses (the cave) and the world of ideas (the world outside the cave), and the philosopher's role as mediator between the two. Also: Kallipolis, a hypothetical city-state ruled by a philosopher king, and the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the role of the philosopher and poetry in society.

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В этом томе представлены работы С. Я. Сендеровича по фольклору. 2-ое исправленное и дополненное издание монографии «Морфологии загадки» посвящено народной загадке из устных традиций, одному из древнейших, быстро исчезающих жанров культуры. Загадка отличается краткостью, эксцентричностью и поэтической интенсивностью. Исследование посвящено реконструкции из дошедшего до нас материала основополагающих особенностей жанра и формулирует результаты в форме своего рода «генетического кода». Подвергаются испытанию общепринятые в среде фольклористов представления и формируется свежий взгляд на строй и жизнь загадки в их взаимосвязи. Загадка предстает как исключительно своеобразная и сложная фигура речи и необходимый институт в жизни древнейшего и традиционного общества. В том включено расследование особенностей и генезиса русской былины – в конфликте с существующими теориями. Включено и совместное с В. В. Ляпуновым исследование структуры и функций плана выражения русской пословицы.

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Сборник включает материалы Международной научной конференции «Мультимедийные и цифровые технологии в собирании, сохранении и изучении фольклора», которая была организована отделом фольклора Института мировой литературы им. А. М. Горького РАН (Москва) и прошла 16-18 ноября 2011 г. при финансовой поддержке Российского гуманитарного научного фонда (проект № 11-04-14061г, рук. В. М. Гацак) и Программы ОИФН РАН «Текст во взаимодействии с социокультурной средой: уровни историко-литературной и лингвистической интерпретации» (проект «Мультимедийная текстология фольклора (экспериментальное издание памятников)», рук. Е. В. Миненок). Интернет-трансляция конференции была проведена при финансовой поддержке РГНФ (проект № 10-04-12113в, рук. А. Б. Куделин).

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В настоящем издании собраны доклады, предоставленные для международной научной конференции «Заговорные тексты в структурном и сравнительном освещении». Время и место проведения конференции: 27–29 октября 2011, Российский государственный гуманитарный университет (Москва). Организаторы конференции: Комиссия по заговорам Международного общества по изучению фольклорных нарративов (ISFNR), Российскофранцузский центр исторической антропологии им. М. Блока РГГУ, Институт языкознания РАН, Институт славяноведения РАН. Комиссия по заговорам Международного общества по изучению фольклорных нарративов (ISFNR) ставит своей целью координацию изучения магического фольклора в разных странах, разработку методов системного описания и изучения заговорной традиции, подготовку региональных и международных указателей заговоров. С этой целью Комиссия ежегодно проводит конференции и готовит к изданию их материалы. Предыдущие конференции состоялись в Лондоне (2003, 2005), Пече (2007), Тарту (2008), Афинах (2009), Бухаресте (2010). С деятельностью Комиссии можно познакомиться на ее сайте: http://www.isfnr.org/files/committee charms.html.

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Folk art – Russian fairy tales is a wonderful collection of the most famous Russian fairy tales. The “Russian skazki” (“skazatz” means to tell) are the mass of folk-tales distributed widely throughout all the Russias. Handed down, by constant repetition, from generation to generation, a possession common to peasant's hut and Prince's palace from a time when history did not exist, they are to-day, from Archangel to the Black Sea, and from Siberia to the Baltic, almost as much a part of the life of the people as the language itself. Famous Russian fairy tales are Vasilisa the Beautiful, Sister Alenushka, brother Ivanushka, The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf, Marya Morevna, Princess Frog or Frog-tsarevna, Finist Clear Falcon's feather or Finist the Falcon.

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Monsters have been spotted everywhere, not just hiding under a child’s bed, lurking in the closet, or springing forth from folkloric tales. Exploring the history, mythology, pop culture, and the world of the supernatural, The Monster Book: Creatures, Beasts, and Fiends of Nature is a comprehensive resource of the monster menagerie from around the world. Examining the lore and legends, as well as the first-person accounts of bizarre freaks of nature and spine-tingling paranormal entities, it details each beast with thorough research, while recounting the facts in an engaging narrative.This fascinating look at monsters investigates nearly 200 beings, beasts, freaks, and fiends, ranging from the renowned and celebrated to the little-known and inglorious, including Werewolves, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, the chupacabra, Mothman, the Abominable Snowman, the Mongolian Death Worm, Living Pterosaurs, Alien Big Cats, Lizard Man, Lake Worth Monster, the Monstrous Monitor, South American Sasquatch, the Jersey Devil, Sea Serpents, Phantom Black Dogs, and much, much more.

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Rampaging, driven, killing machines. Soulless and dead. Infected and infectious. Zombies. The epidemic of the living dead is stronger than ever in today’s pop-culture, but long before exotic viruses, biological warfare, and sinister military experiments brought the dead back to life in our cinemas and on our television screens, there were the dark spells and incantations of the ancient Egyptians, the Sumerians, and the Babylonians. Blending the historical with the modern, the biographical with the literary, the plants and animals with bacteria and viruses, the mythological with the horrifying true tales, The Zombie Book: The Encyclopedia of the Living Dead is a comprehensive resource to understanding, combating, and avoiding zombies.More than 250 entries cover everything from hit television shows, books, and movies, including The Walking Dead, World War Z and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, to zombies’ ignominious role in folklore and mythology, such as the Greek god Asclepius, ancient Voodoo religion, and the Native American Wendigo legend. The Zombie Book: The Encyclopedia of the Living Dead examines mad cow disease, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the Centers for Disease Control preparing for the end of the world, and much, much more.

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