800 BC-Odyssey

The Odyssey (/ˈɒdəsi/;^[1] Greek: Ὀδύσσεια Odýsseia, pronounced [o.dýs.sej.ja] in Classical Attic) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The Odyssey is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second-oldest extant work of Western literature; the Iliad is the oldest. Scholars believe the Odyssey was composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia.^[2]

The poem mainly focuses on the Greek hero Odysseus (known as Ulysses in Roman myths), king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War.^[3] In his absence, it is assumed Odysseus has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres (Greek: Μνηστῆρες) or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage.

The Odyssey continues to be read in the Homeric Greek and translated into modern languages around the world. Many scholars believe the original poem was composed in an oral tradition by an aoidos (epic poet/singer), perhaps a rhapsode (professional performer), and was more likely intended to be heard than read.^[2] The details of the ancient oral performance and the story's conversion to a written work inspire continual debate among scholars. The Odyssey was written in a poetic dialect of Greek—a literary amalgam of Aeolic Greek, Ionic Greek, and other Ancient Greek dialects—and comprises 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter.^[4][5] Among the most noteworthy elements of the text are its non-linear plot, and the influence on events of choices made by women and slaves, besides the actions of fighting men. In the English language as well as many others, the word odyssey has come to refer to an epic voyage.

The Odyssey has a lost sequel, the Telegony, which was not written by Homer. It was usually attributed in antiquity to Cinaethon of Sparta. In one source,^[which?] the Telegony was said to have been stolen from Musaeus by either Eugamon or Eugammon of Cyrene (see Cyclic poets).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey

http://www.ahshistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Homer-Odyssey.pdf

800 BC-Iliad

The Iliad (/ˈɪliəd/;^[1] Ancient Greek: Ἰλιάς Ilias, pronounced [iː.li.ás] in Classical Attic; sometimes referred to as the Song of Ilion or Song of Ilium) is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.

Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege; the earlier events, such as the gathering of warriors for the siege, the cause of the war, and related concerns tend to appear near the beginning. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles' looming death and the sack of Troy, although the narrative ends before these events take place. However, as these events are prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly, when it reaches an end the poem has told a more or less complete tale of the Trojan War.

The Iliad is paired with something of a sequel, the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer. Along with the Odyssey, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the 8th century BC.^[2] Recent statistical modelling based on language evolution gives a date of 760–710 BC.^[3] In the modern vulgate (the standard accepted version), the Iliad contains 15,693 lines; it is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16452/16452-h/16452-h.htm

800 BC-Brahmana

The Brahmanas (/ˈbrɑːmənə/; Sanskrit: ब्राह्मणम्, Brāhmaṇa) are a collection of ancient Indian texts with commentaries on the hymns of the four Vedas. They are primarily a digest incorporating myths, legends, the explanation of Vedic rituals and in some cases philosophy.^[1][2] They are a layer or category of text embedded within each Veda, and form a part of the Hindu śruti literature.^[3][4]

The Brahmanas are particularly noted for their instructions on the proper performance of rituals, as well as explain the original symbolic meanings- translated to words and ritual actions in the main text.^[1]Brahmanas lack a homogeneous structure across the different Vedas, with some containing chapters that constitute Aranyakas or Upanishads in their own right.^[5]

Each Vedic shakha (school) has its own Brahmana. Numerous Brahmana texts existed in ancient India, many of which have been lost.^[6] A total of 19 Brahmanas are extant at least in their entirety.

The dating of the final codification of the Brahmanas and associated Vedic texts is controversial, which occurred after centuries of verbal transmission.^[7] The oldest is dated to about 900 BCE, while the youngest Brahmanas (such as the Shatapatha Brahmana), were complete by about 700 BCE.^[1][8][9] According to Jan Gonda, the final codification of the four Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and early Upanishads took place in pre-Buddhist times (ca. 600 BCE).^[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmana

http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil.htm#Brahm

http://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbr/index.htm

877-777 BC-Parshva

Parshvanatha (Pārśvanātha), also known as Parshva (Pārśva), was the twenty-third Tirthankara of Jainism.^[3][4] He is the earliest Jain leader (c. 872 – c. 772 BCE) for whom there is reasonable evidence of having been a historical figure.^[5][6]

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Historicity[edit]

Circumstantial evidence including a description of the teachings of Parshvanatha in the Sayings of the Seers, dictates that Parshvanatha can be viewed as a historical figure.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]}

Biography[edit]

Parshvanatha was born on the tenth day of the dark half of the month of Paush to King Asvasena and Queen Vamadevi of Benaras (now Varanasi).^[14][7][15] He belonged to the Ikshvaku dynasty.^[16][17] He assumed and began to practice the twelve basic vows of the adult Jain householder when he reached the age of eight.^[18]

Parshvanatha lived as formal prince of Varanasi and at the age of thirty, he renounced the world to become a monk.^[19] He meditated for eighty-four days before attaining Kevala Jnana.^[20] He achieved moksha at the age of one hundred atop Shikharji,^[7][15] which is known today as the Parasnath Hills after him. Parshvanatha was called purisādāṇīya (beloved of men), a name which shows that he must have been a genial personality.^[16] He remains beloved among Jains.^[21]

Previous Births[edit]

• Marubhuti - Visvabhuti, the prime minister of King Aravinda had two sons, elder one named Kamath and younger one named Marubhuti (Parshvanatha). Kamath killed Marubhuti and died as a criminal.^[22]
• Elephant - He was then reborn as an elephant in the forests of Vindyachal. His name was Vajraghosha (Thundering Voice of Lightening). Meanwhile, King Aravinda, after death of his minister Marubhuti, renounced his throne and was leading an ascetic life. When the elephant came near Aravinda, he recalled his previous human life by the blessings of Aravinda and became calm. Kamath was reborn as a serpent this time.^[23] One day, when the elephant went to a river to quench his thirst, the serpent attacked him and he died the peaceful death of absolute renunciation.^[24]
• Sasi-prabha - Vajraghosha was reborn as Sasi-prabha (splendor of the moon) in the twelfth heaven and the serpent went to hell.^[24]
• Agnivega - After spending a luxurious life in heaven, he was reborn as prince Agnivega (strength of fire). He ascended the throne of his father which he later renounced to lead an ascetic life. Kamath was reborn as a serpent again after hell and again killed the ascetic in Himalayas during penance.^[25]
• When he was a prince he saved two snakes that had been trapped in a log in an Kamath’s fire. Later, the snakes were reborn as Dharnendra, the lord of the underworld kingdom of the nāgas, and Padmavati. Dharnendra and Padmavati sheltered Parshvanatha from a storm sent by a Meghmali (Kamath reborn).^[26]

Teachings[edit]

18 feet (5.5 m) sculpture of Parshvanatha in the Parshvanatha basadi at Halebidu

According to the Kalpa Sūtra, Parshvanatha had 164,000 śrāvakas (male lay followers) and 327,000 śrāvikās (female lay followers) and 16,000 sādhus (monks) and 38,000 sādhvīs (nuns). He had eight ganadharas (chief monks): Śubhadatta, Āryaghoṣa, Vasiṣṭha, Brahmacāri, Soma, Śrīdhara, Vīrabhadra and Yaśas. After his death, the ganadhara Śubhadatta became the head of the monastic order. He was then succeeded by Haridatta, Āryasamudra and Keśī.^[19]

Śvētāmbara texts explain that a sage named, Keśī was born about 166 to 250 years after the death of Parshvanatha met the Indrabhuti Gautama, the chief disciple of Mahavira and asked him twelve questions.^[27] One of the question as mentioned in Śvētāmbara text was "The Law taught by the great sage Parsva, recognises but four vows, whilst that of Vardhamana enjoins five". Therefore, according to Śvētāmbara texts, Parshvanatha taught four vows instead of the presently famous five vows (mahavratas).^[28] This view is however not accepted by the Digambaras. On this, Champat Rai Jain in his essay titled "The Origin of The Swetambara Sect" wrote:

The first question Kesi put to Gautam was why did Mahavira insist upon the observance of five vows when Parashvanath did not mention five but only four, excluding celibacy? But the question would have had a point if it could be shown that salvation could be obtained without the observance of celibacy. So far as I understand Swetambara books themselves insist upon an observance of this vow, and it is not possible that two omniscient teachers, i. e., Parashvanath and Mahavira could teach different things.

— Champat Rai Jain^[29]

In literature[edit]

Acharya Jinasena's Mahapurāṇa include Ādi purāṇa and Uttara-purāṇa. It was completed by Acharya Gunabhadra, the disciple of Jinasena in the 8th century C.E. In Ādi purāṇa, life events of Rishabhanatha, Bahubali and Bharata are detailed out.^[30]

Kalpa Sūtra is biographies of the Jain Tirthankaras, notably Parshvanatha and Mahavira.

Guru Gobind Singh has penned life history of Parshvanatha in a composition called the Paranath Avtar, which is included in the Dasam Granth.^[31]

Iconography[edit]

Parshvanath is the most popular object of Jain devotion. He is closely associated with compassion, although he is free from the world of rebirth like all Tirthankaras and therefore unable to aid his devotees 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parshvanatha

900 BC-Epic of Erra

Erra (sometimes called Irra) is an Akkadian plague god known from an 'epos'^[1] of the eighth century BCE. Erra is the god of mayhem and pestilence who is responsible for periods of political confusion. In the epic that is given the modern title Erra, the writer Kabti-ilani-Marduk,^[2] a descendant, he says, of Dabibi, presents himself^[3] in a colophon following the text as simply the transcriber of a visionary dream in which Erra himself revealed the text.

The poem opens with an invocation. The god Erra is sleeping fitfully with his consort (identified with Mamītum and not with the mother goddess Mami)^[4][5] but is roused by his advisor Išum and the Seven (Sibitti or Sebetti), who are the sons of heaven and earth^[6]—"champions without peer" is the repeated formula—and are each assigned a destructive destiny by Anu. Machinist and Sasson (1983) call them "personified weapons". The Sibitti call on Erra to lead the destruction of mankind. Išum tries to mollify Erra's wakened violence, to no avail. Foreign peoples invade Babylonia, but are struck down by plague. Even Marduk, the patron of Babylon, relinquishes his throne to Erra for a time. Tablets II and III are occupied with a debate between Erra and Išum. Erra goes to battle in Babylon, Sippar, Uruk, Dūr-Kurigalzu and Dēr. The world is turned upside down: righteous and unrighteous are killed alike. Erra orders Išum to complete the work by defeating Babylon's enemies. Then the god withdraws to his own seat in Emeslam with the terrifying Seven, and mankind is saved. A propitiatory prayer ends the work.

The poem must have been central to Babylonian culture: at least thirty-six copies have been recovered from five first-millennium sites—Assur, Babylon, Nineveh, Sultantepe and Ur^[7]—more, even, as the assyriologist and historian of religions Luigi Giovanni Cagni points out, than have been recovered of the Epic of Gilgamesh.^[8]

The text appears to some readers to be a mythologisation of historic turmoil in Mesopotamia, though scholars disagree as to the historic events that inspired the poem: the poet exclaims (tablet IV:3) "You changed out of your divinity and made yourself like a man."

The Erra text soon assumed magical functions^[9] Parts of the text were inscribed on amulets employed for exorcism and as a prophylactic against the plague. The Seven are known from a range of Akkadian incantation texts: their demonic names vary,^[10] but their number, seven, is invariable.

The five tablets containing the Erra epos were first published in 1956,^[11] with an improved text, based on additional finds, appearing in 1969.^[12] Perhaps 70% of the poem has been recovered.^[13]

Walter Burkert^[14] noted the consonance of the purely mythic seven led by Erra with the Seven Against Thebes, widely assumed by Hellenists to have had a historical basis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erra_(god)

https://zsitchinindex.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/the-erra-epic/

1000-600 BC-Classic of Poetry, Documents, and Changes

The Classic of Poetry, also Shijing or Shih-ching, translated variously as the Book of Songs, Book of Odes, or simply known as the Odes or Poetry (Chinese: 詩; pinyin: Shī) is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, comprising 305 works dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. It is one of the "Five Classics" traditionally said to have been compiled by Confucius, and has been studied and memorized by scholars in China and neighboring countries over two millennia. Since the Qing dynasty, its rhyme patterns have also been analysed in the study of Old Chinese phonology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry

http://ctext.org/book-of-poetry

The Book of Documents (Shujing, earlier Shu-king) or Classic of History, also known as the Shangshu, is one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature. It is a collection of rhetorical prose attributed to figures of ancient China, and served as the foundation of Chinese political philosophy for over 2,000 years.

The Book of Documents was the subject of one of China's oldest literary controversies, between proponents of different versions of the text. The "New Text" version was preserved from Qin Shi Huang's burning of books and burying of scholars by scholar Fu Sheng. The longer "Old Text" version was supposedly discovered in the wall of Confucius' family estate in Qufu by his descendant Kong Anguo in the late 2nd century BC, lost at the end of the Han dynasty and rediscovered in the 4th century AD. Over time, the "Old Text" version of the Documents became more widely accepted, until it was established as the imperially sanctioned edition during the early Tang dynasty. This continued until the late 17th century, when the Qing dynasty scholar Yan Ruoqu demonstrated that the additional "Old Text" chapters not contained in the "New Text" version were actually fabrications "reconstructed" in the 3rd or 4th centuries AD.

The chapters are grouped into four sections representing different eras: the semi-mythical reign of Yu the Great, and the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. The Zhou section accounts for over half the text. Some of its New Text chapters are among the earliest examples of Chinese prose, recording speeches from the early years of the Zhou dynasty in the late 11th century BC. Although the other three sections purport to record earlier material, most scholars believe that even the New Text chapters in these sections were composed later than those in the Zhou section, with chapters relating to the earliest periods being as recent as the 4th or 3rd centuries BC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Documents

http://ctext.org/shang-shu

The I Ching ([î tɕíŋ]), or Classic of Changes, is an ancient divination text and the oldest of the Chinese classics. Possessing a history of more than two and a half millennia of commentary and interpretation, the I Ching is an influential text read throughout the world, providing inspiration to the worlds of religion, psychoanalysis, business, literature, and art. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC), over the course of the Warring States period and early imperial period (500–200 BC) it was transformed into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings."^[2] After becoming part of the Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the I Ching was the subject of scholarly commentary and the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East, and eventually took on an influential role in Western understanding of Eastern thought.

The I Ching uses a type of divination called cleromancy, which produces apparently random numbers. Four numbers, 6 to 9, are turned into a hexagram, which can then be looked up in the I Ching book, arranged in an order known as the King Wen sequence. The interpretation of the readings found in the I Ching is a matter of centuries of debate, and many commentators have used the book symbolically, often to provide guidance for moral decision making as informed by Taoism and Confucianism. The hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching

http://ctext.org/book-of-changes/yi-jing

1050 BC-Babylonian Theodicy

Babylonian Theodicy is a poem written within ancient Babylonia.

The poem is inscribed onto clay in the Middle-Babylonian language,^[1] which is a form of language which dates to a period (according to one source) of the years 1600 to 900 B.C.^[2] The poem might also be known as An Akkadian dialogue on the unrighteousness of the world or The Babylonian Koheleth.^[3]

Contents

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Content[edit]

The poem is an example of wisdom literature, which is a form of writing which shows two people providing contrary positions on a subject, in the form of a dialogue.^[4]

The poem is a dialogue between two people who are friends. One of the persons is suffering, and the poem shows him revealing the acts of evil done by people in the society around him, while the other person is shown attempting to add perspective on these acts of dubious morality, by him stating the nature of the occurrence of justice within the order of everything that exists (in the universe), an order that exists because it was made by a divinity.^[5]

The first line reads:^[4]

O sage...come let me speak to you...let me recount to you...

and the speaker proceeds to recount first hand experiences and his grief, referred to as lumnu libbi which means, in literal translation, evil of the heart, but which in everyday lexicon might be called anguish or heartache, which is to say, a kind of emotional and psychological suffering. Having described his state of pain, the sufferer attributes this to an occurrence in his life, which is abandonment at an early age, when he was orphaned, in addition to which, he was abandoned and also deprived of any emotional and psychological support from another. The sufferer is confused and baffled by his suffering, and ultimately, the poem shows him failing to find any clarity as to why this misfortune in life should have befallen him. The sufferer hopes to gain a cathartic release purely by the act of anothers listening to his recounting of his tale of woe, if it is his companion might be amiable and therefore might provide of a form of compassion, the sufferer states, in the last stanza ^[4] (the translation made by Professor W.G.Lambert ^[3][4]):

....behold my grief-help me, look on my distress; know it.

and the last part of the last line reads:^[1]

May the god who has thrown me off give help, may the goddess who has [abandoned me] show mercy, for the shepherd Šamaš guides the peoples like a god.

The Babylonian Theodicy is, with regards to its dialogic nature of a sufferer and friend(s), formally very similar to the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible.^[3][4][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_Theodicy

http://www.etana.org/node/582