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An Atash Behram (Fire of Victory) is the highest grade of a fire that can be placed in a Zoroastrian fire temple as an eternal flame, the other two lower graded fires are Atash Adaran and below Adaran is the Atash Dadgah- these three grades signify the degree of reverence and dignity these are held in. The establishment and consecration of the Atash Behram fire is the most elaborate of all the grades of fire. It involves the gathering of 16 different types of fire, including lightning, fire from a cremation pyre, fire from trades where a furnace is operated, and fires from the hearths as is also the case for the Atash Adaran. Each of the 16 fires is then subject to a purification ritual before it joins the others. A large team of priests are required for the purification and consecration ceremonies, which can take up to a year to complete. The religious significance of gathering purifying and consecrating several fires is to purify and “return back” to Ahura Mazda His first pure creation in its pristine form, to become a focus of worship and His eternal pure symbol, never allowed to go out. The sacred Udvada Atash Behram, the Fire temple at Udvada, for example, kindled in 721 AD in Sanjan, burns continually to this day, now in Udvada since 1741, and housed in a magnificent Persian style temple building since 1742

396
28 Sep 2022

Topic Review

Transdisciplinarity

Transdisciplinarity connotes a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach. It applies to research efforts focused on problems that cross the boundaries of two or more disciplines, such as research on effective information systems for biomedical research (see bioinformatics), and can refer to concepts or methods that were originally developed by one discipline, but are now used by several others, such as ethnography, a field research method originally developed in anthropology but now widely used by other disciplines. The Belmont Forum elaborated that a transdisciplinary approach is enabling inputs and scoping across scientific and non-scientific stakeholder communities and facilitating a systemic way of addressing a challenge. This includes initiatives that support the capacity building required for the successful transdisciplinary formulation and implementation of research actions.

396
11 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Shanrendao (善人道 "Way of the Virtuous Man") is a Confucian religious movement in northeast China. Its name as a social body is the Universal Church of the Way and its Virtue (万国道德会 Wànguó Dàodéhuì) or simply the Church of the Way and its Virtue (道德会 Dàodéhuì), which is frequently translated as the Morality Church. Shanrendao can be viewed as one of the best examples of the jiàohuà (教化 "spiritual transformation") movements. It is one of the most prominent religions of redemption of China , and was formally established as the Universal Church of the Way and its Virtue in Shandong in 1921 by Jiang Shoufeng (1875-1926), a member of the Confucian Church (孔教会 Kǒngjiàohuì) of Kang Youwei. Kang Youwei himself was the president of the church during the last year of his life. The movement was concerned with a reconstitution of morality, at a time in which people no longer understood what morality means because of the decline of religion. By the 1930s the religion had a strong presence in Manchuria, where it persists to the present day.:10 A great contribution came from Jiang Shoufeng's son, Jiang Xizhang (1907-2004), an intellectual prodigy who composed commentaries on the Confucian classics before the age of ten. Father and son composed vernacular versions of the classics in order to disseminate Confucianism among the Chinese masses. After the World War I, Xizhang wrote a leaflet, the Xizhanlun with anti-war teachings inspired by the content of the world religions. The strongest impetus in the social importance of the movement, however, came from Wang Fengyi (王凤仪 1864-1937), a charismatic healer and preacher of peasant origins who led the Universal Church of the Way and its Virtue in the 1930s. He is celebrated as a peasant saint throughout northeast China, a shànrén (善人 "virtuous man") with the epithet "Wang the Good" or "Virtuous King" (王善人), a wordplay as his surname means "king" or "ruler".

395
20 Oct 2022

Topic Review

Karakandu or Karakanda was a powerful legendary Jain emperor of Kalinga (Odisha and North Andhra), who is said to have lived between 9th Century B.C to 6th Century B.C. He is a celebrated hero of many Jain and Buddhist religious scriptures. Ancient Buddhist text of Kumbhakara Jataka mentions him to be the Pratyekabuddha or the enlightened living being. Karakandu was a great devotee of the 23rd Jain tirthankar Parshvanatha who had preached Jainism in Kalinga around 850 B.C. Karakandu was also refereed as the "Bull among Kings" by Mahavira, the 24th Jain tithankar. Successive Jain writers over the years have placed him in the group of four Chakravati kings of the Indian subcontinent during his time who also were considered as prateykabudhhas namely, Nagnajit of Gandhara, Nemi or Nimi of Videha, Durmukha or Dwimukha of Panchala and Karakandu of Kalinga. After achieving victory over many kings and ruling for a long term, Karakandu became a Jain Sramana and left the throne and kingdom in charge of his son. During his time Kalinga was a Jain stronghold often described as the Kalinga Jinasana which may be compared to the later era Buddhist Janapadas. It was Jain monk Kanakmara's work in Apabrhamasa or Prakrit language known as Karakandu Cariu which gives detailed events about his life.

395
24 Oct 2022

Topic Review

The Shenxian Zhuan, sometimes given in translation as the Biographies of the Deities and Immortals, is a hagiography of immortals and description of Chinese gods, partially attributed to the Daoist scholar Ge Hong (283-343). In the history of Chinese literature, the Shenxian Zhuan followed the Liexian Zhuan ("Collected Biographies the Immortals").

394
11 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Proto-Hlai is the reconstructed ancestor of the Hlai languages. Proto-Hlai reconstructions include those of Matisoff (1988), Thurgood (1991), Wu (2000), Ostapirat (2004), and Norquest (2007).

394
29 Sep 2022

Topic Review

Proto-Trans–New Guinea

Proto-Trans–New Guinea is the reconstructed proto-language ancestral to the Trans–New Guinea languages. Reconstructions have been proposed by Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley.

394
19 Oct 2022

Topic Review

{{multiple issues| Digital addict is used to refer to a person who compulsively uses digital technology, which would manifest as another form of addiction if that technology was not as easily accessible to them. Colloquially, it can be used to describe a person whose interaction with technology is verging on excessive, threatening to absorb their attention above all else and consequently having a negative impact on the well-being of the user. The primary theory is digital technology users develop digital addiction by their habitual use and reward from computer applications. This reward triggers the reward center in the brain that releases more dopamine, opiates, and neurochemicals, which over time can produce a stimulation tolerance or need to increase stimulation to achieve a “high” and prevent withdrawal. Used as a conversational phrase, digital addict describes an increasingly common dependence on devices in the digital age.

394
20 Oct 2022

Topic Review

Superintendent (Ecclesiastical)

Superintendent is a title for the head of an administrative division in some Protestant denominations. A superintendent is one who superintends (oversees) the work of less-senior clergy. The title took the place of bishop in Northern Germany and Scandinavia after the Protestant Reformation, since bishop (from Greek: ἐπίσκοπος, romanized: epískopos, lit. overseer) was associated with Roman Catholicism. It was also used in the early days of the Church of Scotland. Later, the title was adopted to describe clerical positions in the hierarchy of Methodist churches.

393
25 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Aboulia or abulia (from Greek: βουλή, meaning "will"), in neurology, refers to a lack of will or initiative and can be seen as a disorder of diminished motivation (DDM). Aboulia falls in the middle of the spectrum of diminished motivation, with apathy being less extreme and akinetic mutism being more extreme than aboulia. The condition was originally considered to be a disorder of the will, and aboulic individuals are unable to act or make decisions independently; and their condition may range in severity from subtle to overwhelming. It is also known as Blocq's disease (which also refers to abasia and astasia-abasia).

393
31 Oct 2022

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