Achilles slaying the Amazon queen Penthesilea Glossary of proper names & Greek and Latin terms Achaians or Achaeans: the name by which the first Indo-European occupants of Greece, prior to the Dorian invasion, were collectively known; perhaps originally a specific tribe. It is the common Homeric term for the Greeks. Achilles: son of Peleus (king of Phithia and a grandson of Zeus) and Thetis, a sea goddess. He was the mightiest Greek hero in the Trojan War. In his infancy, his mother dipped him into the Styx and so made him invulnerable except in the heel by which she held him. She later tried t

Poscidon the brother of Zeus and the Lord of the seas, was also the Master of Horses The Gods at War Excerpt from the Iliad by Homer Not on the tramp of the multitudes, not on the cry of the legions Founds the strong man his strength but the god he carries within him. Extract from Talthybius' discourse to the Greek army Ilion - The Book of Achilles Thus beside the beaked ships and all around you, O war-starved Achilles, Achaeans armed for the fight, And up the plain from them the Trojans did likewise. But powerful Zeus, from the many-ridged peak of Olympus, Bade Themis call the gods to a meeting, and quickly

Illumination, Heroism and Harmony Preface The task of preparing teaching-learning material for value- oriented education is enormous. There is, first, the idea that value-oriented education should be exploratory rather than prescriptive, and that the teaching- learning material should provide to the learners a growing experience of exploration. Secondly, it is rightly contended that the proper inspiration to turn to value-orientation is provided by biographies, autobiographical accounts, personal anecdotes, epistles, short poems, stories of humour, stories of human interest, brief passages filled with pregnant meanings, reflective short essays written

Pre - Contents Cover Page Acknowledgements This monograph is part of a series on Value-oriented Education centered on three values: Illumination, Heroism and Harmony. The research, preparation and publication of the monographs that form part of this series are the result of the cooperation of the following members of the research team of the Sri Aurobindo International Institute of Educational Research, Auroville: Abha, Alain, Anne, Ashatit, Auralee, Bhavana, Christine, Claude, Deepti, Don, Frederick, Ganga, Jay Singh, Jean-Yves, Jossy, Jyoti Madhok, Kireet Joshi, Krishna, Lala, Lola, Mala, Martin, Mirajyoti, Namrita, Olivier, P

-08_Sri Aurobindo^s Ilion.htm Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo's Ilion Introduction If we regard the powers of reality as so many Godheads we can say that the overmind releases a million godheads into action, each empowered to create its own world, each world capable of relation, communication and interplay with the others Overmind consciousness is global in its cognition and can hold any number of seemingly fundamental differences together in a reconciling vision... what to the mental reason are contraries are to the overmind intelligence complementaries. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine In Sri Aurobindo’s own words, hi

Agastya, Darasuram temple, photo Olivier Barot The Colloquy of Indra and Agastya Rig Veda LI 70 na nunamasti no svah kastadveda yadadbhutam, anyasya cittamabhi samcarenyamutadhitam vi nasyati. 1. Indra 1. It is not now, nor is It tomorrow; who knoweth that which is Supreme and Wonderful? It has motion and action in the consciousness of another, but when It is approached by the thought, It vanishes. kim na indra jighamsasi bhrataro marutastava, tebhih kalpasva sadhuya ma nah samarane vadhih. 2. Agastya 2. Why dost thou seek to smite us, O Indra? The Maruts a

The Book of the Gods Excerpt from Ilion by Sri Aurobindo So on the earth the seed that was sown of the centuries ripened; Europe and Asia, met on their borders, clashed in the Troad. All over earth men wept and bled and laboured, world-wide Sowing Fate with their deeds and had other fruit than they hoped for. Out of desires and their passionate griefs and fleeting enjoyments Weaving a tapestry fit for the gods to admire, who in silence Joy, by the cloud and the sunbeam veiled, and men know not their movers. They in the glens of Olympus, they by the waters of Ida Or in their temples worshipped in vain or with heart-strings

Gods and the World Introduction Man’s dedication to the quest/or meaning is certainly as old as his existence on earth, and the belief in gods, in whatever form, has been present in all cultures of the world since time immemorial, even though questioned and denied from time to time. Carl Jung,¹ the father of depth psychology, viewed Man's urge towards transcendent meaning as an instinct sui generis٭ in the human psyche, or as he would say, "an innate predisposition of mankind.” All over the world, the spiritual foundation of a society is reflected in a body of myths which are symbols of human experience each culture values and preserves because they embody i

The Upanishads The Parable of the Gods The Kena Upanishad (third part) brahma ha devebhyo vijigye tasya ha hrahmano vijaye deva amahiyanta, ta aiksantasmakamevayam vijayo smakamevayam mahimeti. 1 1. The Eternal conquered for the gods and in the victory of the Eternal the gods grew to greatness. This was what they saw, "Ours the victory, ours the greatness." taddhaisam vijajnau tebhyo ha pradurbabhnva tanna vyajanata kimidam yaksamiti. 2. 2. The Eternal knew their thought and appeared before them; and they knew not what was this mighty Daemon. tegnimabmvan jataveda etadvijanihi kimetadyaksamiti tatheti. 3. Pa

A bust of the epic poet Homer (2nd century BC) The Iliad Introduction The earliest examples of Greek literature are two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which most scholars today agree to attribute to one single great poet, Homer. Both epics were written down sometime in the 8th century BC. During this period the Greeks, after a long dark age following the collapse of the Mycenaean culture in the 12th century BC, had once again developed a civilisation complex enough to need writing and had learned alphabetic script from the Phoenicians.¹ Despite the acquisition of writing these Greeks lagged far behind the Mycenaeans. Politically they were less organ