Recently I was reading this great blog post by the blog Sententiae Antiquae which translates some text from 14th-centry Italian scholar Petrarch:
Portrait of Petrarch, late 14th century, courtesy of Wikipedia
…Thus, almost no one is free. Everywhere there is servitude, the prison, the noose, unless some rare person somehow dissolves the knots of the world with the aid of some heavenly virtue.
Just turn your attention wherever you’d like: no place is free of tyranny. Wherever there are no tyrants, the people tyrannize. When you seem to have escaped the iron fist of one, you fall into the tyranny of the many, unless you can show me some place ruled by a just and merciful king…
From Invective Against a Man of High Rank, translated by Sententiae Antiquae blog
This reminds me of certain Buddhist texts, in particular the Larger Sutra on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life wherein Shakyamuni Buddha describes at length the challenges of living in this world:
“The poor and the underprivileged are constantly destitute. If, for example, they have no fields, they are unhappy and want them. If they have no houses, they are unhappy and want them. If they have none of the six kinds of domestic animals, such as cows and horses, or if they have no male and female servants, or lack money, wealth, clothes, food, or furnishings, they are unhappy and want those as well. If they possess some of them, others may be lacking. If they have this, they do not have that, and so they wish to possess all. But, even if by some chance they come to possess everything, it will soon be destroyed or lost. Then, dejected and sorrowful, they strive to obtain such things again, but it may be impossible. Brooding over this is to no avail. Exhausted in mind and body, they become restless in all their doings, and anxieties follow on their heels. Such are the troubles they must endure. Breaking out in cold sweats or fevers, they suffer unremitting pain. Such conditions may result in the sudden end of their lives or an early death. Since they have not done any good in particular, nor followed the Way [e.g. the Buddha-Dharma], nor acted virtuously, when they die, they will depart alone to an inferior world. Although they are destined to different states of existence, none of them understands the law of karma that sends them there.
translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki
Thus, going back to Petrarch, he writes in Latin:
Humani generis mores tibi nosse volenti, sufficit una domus.
“To one who wishes to know the ways of all the human race, One house alone should do the trick.“
From Invective Against a Man of High Rank, translated by Sententiae Antiquae blog
Being able to see the ways of man through one’s house (or even homō unus, one person) is the beginning of wisdom and the foundation of Buddhist metta.
The sound of the Gion Shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sāla flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.
Opening lines of the “Tales of the Heike“, Helen Craig McCullough’s translation
This is a very Buddhist sentiment, in my opinion. If you haven’t learned to confront your own mortality, then the rest of the Buddhist path is kind of meaningless. But maybe that’s just me. 🖖🏼
Many years ago, when I was studying abroad in Hanoi, Vietnam for a summer as part of an ill-fated effort to get into graduate school (tl;dr I dropped out and went into IT), I was at a museum dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, when I was approach by a Vietnamese man about my age. He really wanted to practice his English, and desperately wanted me to sit and practice with him. I felt weirded out at the time, and lied saying we could meet after I got out of the museum. We never met after that and chances are, the guards hussled him away after making a big scene, or he gave up.
Looking back many years later, I feel bad about it now. Knowing English in today’s world can really make or break someone’s career outside of the Anglophone world, and since English speakers were so rare in Hanoi at the time, unlike the more cosmopolitan Ho Chi Minh City, it might have been a rare opportunity for him to actually learn it from a native speaker, and not from rote memorization.
Long, long before English became the international language to learn by countless hopeful students, though, there was another widely spoken language that could make or break people’s careers: Akkadian.
(Disclaimer: A lot of information in this blog post is based on information contained in the Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler. If you like ancient languages, definitely get the book.)
Akkadian was one of several languages that existed in the ancient Middle East:
Sumerian – the language of Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) and such great cities as Ur, Babylon, Assur and Nineveh. Sumerian, is an isolate, meaning it was no known “genetic” relation to any other language we know of. Sumerian is also the oldest written language in the world. This is important as we’ll see.
Akkadian – the language of the Akkadian Empire (remember Sargon of Akkad?) that eventually supplanted Sumerian city-states. It is also the oldest of the Semitic languages which include modern Hebrew and Arabic.
Elamite – spoken by the Elamite people in south-western Iran. The Elamites were frequent rivals of the Sumerians among other peoples.
Hurrian – spoken by various peoples north of Mesopotamia, the most famous being the Mitanni.
Urartian – spoken by the kingdom of Urartu in eastern Turkey, and ultimately replaced Hurrian.
Luwian – spoken in south-west Turkey, this important language is pretty obscure now but once dominated a large region, and may have been spoken by the ancient Trojans.
Hittite – spoken by the Hittite Empire in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) and the Levant. Interestingly, the Hittites called themselves the Hatti (after their capitol Hattusa), but the term “Hittite” has been mis-applied by modern-day scholars who conflated them with another group.
Because Sumerian developed a sophisticated writing system called Cuneiform, and because of their central place in middle-eastern culture, the other languages above all adopted cuneiform with varying degrees of success despite being totally unrelated languages. This is important as we’ll see shortly.
Anyhow, back in the 24th century BCE Sargon of Akkad conquered Mesopotamia and setup what was probably the first empire in history: the Akkadian Empire. But he didn’t wipe out the Sumerians, and in fact Sumerian urban culture was highly revered by the Akkadians, who did their best to import things like the writing system, literature, religion and so on.
However, because Akkadian language and Sumerian were so different, this import wasn’t an easy one. Cuneiform uses a mix of ideograms (similar to Chinese characters) mixed with phonetic letters that only made sense in Sumerian. For example, 𒅅could mean a “door” (e.g. an ideogram), but phonetically it could be pronounced like ig in Sumerian. In Akkadian, this would become ig, ik, or iq. Elsewhere, sounds that could be distinguished in Sumerian could not be distinguished in Akkadian, and vice-versa.
Thus, the poor Akkadian scribes needed dictionaries to map Akkadian words to Sumerian Cuneiform text, like the one shown here.
Other languages in the list above had similar challenges, but cuneiform eventually became the writing system of choice for many centuries. Thus, in spite of the fact that these languages had no real relation to one another, they all used cuneiform based off of Sumerian.
Meanwhile, as the Akkadian Empire continued, Sumerian as a language gradually faded from conversation, and by 1600 BC it wasn’t spoke anymore, but was preserved as a sacred language and a language of literature. Meanwhile, Akkadian became more and more widely used, not just within the Empire, but among it’s neighbors. Even after the Empire fell, and newer empires such as the Babylonians and Assyrians briefly conquered,1 Akkadian was still widely used because it was already well-known by the populace and just easier than trying to supplant with yet another language.
The use of Akkadian as an internal language extended as far away as Egypt, where the Pharoah Akhenaten wrote a series of letters in Akkadian to subjects far away in Canaan (think modern Israel). Note that these “Amarna Letters” were written in the 14th century BCE, already 1000 years after Sargon of Akkad.
Even 1000 after that, Akkadian was still used, this time by the Hellenistic Greeks. Antiochus I Soter one of Alexander the Great’s generals who founded the Seleucid dynasty had this inscription made using Akkadian:
The Cylinder of Antiochus with translation, courtesy of Wikipedia
So…. what happened to Akkadian then? In short, it was replaced starting in the 8th century BCE by a rural language, first spoken by Aramean people around modern-day Damascus, called Aramaic. Aramaic, by the way, was the same language spoken by Jesus of Nazareth. The brutal Assyrian Empire had a policy of subjugating people by forcibly uprooting them and moving them to other areas of the Empire, where they would serve the Empire as soldiers or some other capacity. This had the unintended effect of spreading Aramaic among the population, and because Aramaic had an easier writing system the path of least-resistance was for people to use Aramaic more.
Small side note: once Akkadian became replaced as a spoken language, even Sumerian which had been closely tied to it as a literary language, disappeared with it.
Just as Sumerian withdrew more and more as a language of literature and religious ceremony, Akkadian similarly became less and less common except for official roles. By the time of Antiochus I Soter, it had largely disappeared from day to day usage, but still had a lot of cultural weight, hence the Cylinder of Antiochus. The Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II, also used it a few centuries earlier in his bronze steles and proclamations. Writings in Akkadian still appeared as late as the 1st century AD (not BC, AD) but by this point the language had been in active use for 2,500 years!
Anyhow, looking back Akkadian was an amazing language in its own right. Here is an inscription from the Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi, a poem composed in 14th century BCE by a priest about the misfortunes of a wealthy, powerful man at the time. This version is provided by the University of Yale in their Cuneiform Commentaries Project, though I have removed the priest’s commentary lines in between for easier readability:
If a man has bought silver or gold, a male or a female slave, an ox, a sheep, or a donkey—or anything for that matter— from another man or from another man’s slave without witnesses or contract, or if he accepted something for safekeeping without same, then this man is a thief and hence to be killed.
Rough pronunciation guide: š is like English “sh”
But who knows, maybe Akkadian will be cool again someday. 😎
1 Much of ancient Mesopotamian history can be summed up by one empire conquering after another, holding territory for 100-200 years, and then being conquered by someone else. They may eventually come back as a newer, stronger, but the general pattern repeated itself. As an amateur history nerd, I think a lot of this had to do with a combination of terrain (flat, open, hard to defend) and unstable governments patterned off of personal charisma. Good leaders conquered, lousy leaders got conquered.
A Rennaisance-era depiction of the Roman god Saturn, complete with scythe. Note the lack of olive oil. Courtesy of Wikipedia
December 17th was formerly the start of an ancient Roman holiday called Saturnalia. To celebrate, let me post this awesome video by Historia Civilia about it:
Contrary to popular belief, Christmas is not directly derived from Saturnalia, but did adopt some aspects such as gift giving and festivities. Christmas derives its date more from a later Roman holiday named Sol Invictus. Early Christians at that time likened Jesus to the Sun which was venerated in Sol Invictus, hence the connection.
As a Classics nerd, though, I will be celebrating Saturnalia.
Io Saturnalia, one and all.
P.S. I find the Roman god Saturn really fascinating for some reason due to his unusual portfolio, ancient traditions that predate Greek influence, symbolism and such. I keep thinking what a cleric in Dungeons and Dragons would look like worshipping Saturn.
This time of year, my wife always gets us some Asian pears to enjoy. Asian pears, or nashi (梨) in Japanese, have the shape and consistency of apples, but the taste of a regular pear.
An Asian pear, courtesy of WikipediaA western pear, courtesy of Wikipedia
What’s interesting though is how these fruits are called in English and Japanese:
English
Japanese
English meaning
Pear
Yōnashi (洋梨)
Western pear
Asian pear
Nashi (梨)
Pear
Each language tends to assume their pear is the default, and the more exotic version is described in geographic relation to it. An “asian” pear compared to a “western” pear. This is a fun example of how each language and culture has inherent biases. The biases here aren’t chauvinistic or hostile, just part of a natural tendency of people to see the world with themselves, their culture and language as the center.
Food and language can tell us a lot about ourselves and the world around us. 😄
P.S. Another, less geographic example are green onions vs. onions (the round ones). In Japanese, green onions are called negi (ネギ) and the round ones are called tamanegi (玉ねぎ, lit. “ball onions”). In English, the round ones are the “default” onions, while green onions are described in relation to it. In Japanese, it’s basically the opposite. I have no idea why one onion is considered the default compared to the other, but usually there’s some benign reason for it lost to time.
Based on experience of being a Buddhist (with a few interruptions) since I was 16, I’ve learned that reading about Buddhism and living Buddhism, especially within a Buddhist culture, are two different things.
My wife, who is Japanese and whose father works in the funeral industry, has always had a good, intuitive understand of Buddhism even if she has seldom studied it. I, on the other hand, approached it for a long, long time from a more scholarly (read: “amateur scholarly”), analytical standpoint. It was only in recent years, that I started to realize the short-comings of “academic-only Buddhism” and kind of started over.
Case in point: in Japanese culture, you sometimes hear the Buddhist term bonnō (煩悩).1 I heard this term over the years, but lately I have heard it a lot while listening to a certain Japanese language Buddhist + comedy podcast.
The term bonnō in Japanese is derived from the Sanskrit term klesha, via Chinese, which in English is translated as “mental defilements”, “mental delusions”, etc. From a textbook perspective, these deluded mental states are the ones that cloud judgment, and cause people to do unwholesome conduct, further creating negative karma, and fostering conditions that keep one bound on the never-ending cycle of birth and rebirth (not to mention suffering in this life). Further, the most fundamental kleshas are defined as greed, anger, and ignorance, leading to other kleshas and so on.
I mean, that kind of makes sense. It might be interesting from an intellectual standpoint, but it’s not very practical. It doesn’t resonate with one’s life much.
But, while listening to the podcast, I realized that bonnō in everyday language just means all the stupid shit we do, think, or expect that causes us more grief.
That time I said something snarky to my wife and we got into a big fight? bonnō.
That time I (again) ate too much at the company holiday party and made myself sick? bonnō.
That time I played a Magic: The Gathering draft at my local game store without any practice or research, and got upset about a 0-4 ? bonnō.
That one session of Adventurer’s League I was super excited about, and waited all week for, and then it turned out to suck? bonnō.
That one girl that I really wanted to date in college, and when we finally did go out, it was super obvious we weren’t compatible? bonnō.
And so on. Bonnō is an interesting concept because we create grief for ourselves all the time, in small ways, in big ways, and so on. All of it derives from fundamental misunderstandings with other people, bad assumptions based on limited information, or unrealistic expectations that didn’t accord with reality.
Bonnō is not something limited to “trashy” people, though. People who are well-educated or come from affluent backgrounds are just as afflicted by bonnō as anyone else; the nature of their afflictions may be different, but you’d be fooling yourself into thinking that just because you went to college and had a class on European Colonialism in the 18th century that you’re somehow more enlightened than other people.
From the Japanese-Buddhist perspective, you are still bonpu (凡夫, sometimes pronounced “bonbu“): that is to say, a run-of-the-mill person subject to the same basic afflictions, same basic patterns of behavior, selfish ego, etc.
Nor is this some red pill vs. blue pill nonsense either.2 People who consider3 themselves smarter or more awakened like to think that it’s a matter of awakening to some higher truth, and suddenly BAM you’re a new, better man.
No, as far as Buddhism is concerned, it doesn’t work that way. In the end, you just need two things:
Self-reflection. You can’t stop being a dick-head if you aren’t aware you’re acting like a dick-head.
Cultivating wholesome qualities. Every defilement has a corresponding wholesome quality to counteract it: Anger is counteracted with good-will, greed with self-restraint, ignorance with wisdom, and so on.
Oh, and patience. A lot of patience. Even if you’re dead-set on the path to Enlightenment, you can not overcome old habits easily. A river does not change course overnight. Lots of mistakes are made, but remember to keep reflecting on your own behavior and determine what’s wholesome and what’s not.
As the Buddha said to his step-mother (who became a nun):
“As for the qualities of which you may know, ‘These qualities lead to dispassion, not to passion; to being unfettered, not to being fettered; to shedding, not to accumulating; to modesty, not to self-aggrandizement; to contentment, not to discontent; to seclusion, not to entanglement; to aroused persistence, not to laziness; to being unburdensome, not to being burdensome’: You may categorically hold, ‘This is the Dhamma [the Buddha’s teaching], this is the Vinaya [the Buddhist monastic community], this is the Teacher’s instruction.'”
translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (with emphasis added by me)
The results of putting the Dharma into practice speak for themselves, if given time.
1 Pronounced “bohn-noh”.
2 Sorry, Neo, that was just a Dayquil you swallowed, lolz.
3 People consider themselves a lot of things. Welcome to the world of bonnō.
In addition to my recent adventures in adventure module writing, and gardening, I finally got a belated Father’s Day gift recently:
The Mythic Odysseys of Theros (MOoT) is a cross-over reference guide between Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, specifically the Greek-mythology inspired plane of Theros. Theros is a kind of idealized plane of what Greek mythology would be if taken out of historical context and allowed to run free. It is a world full of gods exerting a direct influence on the world, satyrs, minotaurs, city-states loosely modeled after ancient Greek city states, etc.
This leads to some interesting mechanics in MOoT that are worth sharing here:
Many of the typical “high-fantasy” character races that are found in D&D are not in Theros: elves, dwards, gnomes. They didn’t exist in classical Greek mythology (nor Magic the Gathering’s plane of Theros) and do not exist here. They are replaced by centaurs, satyrs, minotaurs, etc.
Unlike the usual, somewhat loose, mechanics between clerics and gods, the piety mechanics in MOoT provide clear benefits for characters who explicitly do things to advance their god’s agenda.
MOoT elevates the “hero” element1 of D&D by giving each character an extra starting ability totally outside of the standard Player’s Handbook. The ability is something that grows and develops as the hero accomplishes deeds.
All of these things mean that adventures on Theros aren’t always portable to other planes and campaigns (and definitely not Adventurers League legal), unless your DM allowed for such a transfer of abilities and deities. The fact that they even exist though makes a fun and interesting campaign in Theros, and likely one you’d play again with different characters, gods, etc.
Let me take a moment to talk about the book: it is gorgeous, even by the standards of D&D module books. The artwork is truly inspired, and I admit I enjoy thumbing through the book sometimes if nothing else than to just enjoy the art.
Also, the book is really well-organized in terms of getting started on building a character within Theros, and how they will relate to his/her deity of choice. There’s also an option for atheistic characters (some characters races are more inclined to this than others).
Theros as a module and as a plane lends itself more to “save the village, destroy monster” type adventures, than intrigue adventures (a la Eberron), but this also means that as a parent it’s probably easier to make stores for younger kids, which is part of the reason I got the book. I own the Eberron book, and it’s pretty interesting, but also poses some challenges which I’ll cover in a later post.
Also, in my case, as a promo I also received laminated map detailing several places on Theros, such as the Underworld, and so on. I don’t know easily available these are, but it may yet come in handy soon.
Anyhow, I am eager to try this out with the kids, especially my younger son who’s itching to battle monsters again.
1 Interestingly, the ancient Greek notion of a “hero” is not the same as the modern interpretation. Think of them more like obnoxious supermen with questionable moral judgment.
Apollo came like night. He took his place beyond the ships, and shot his arrows, and his silver bow howled. First he struck the mules and running dogs, then turned his piercing weapon on the people, and pyres were always burning, piled with corpses.
This month, June, is the third month in lockdown over COVID-19. It’s amazing that three months have already passed. At first, we were, like many others, in full panicmode, swinging between constant fear of getting ill and enjoying as much food, drink and home entertainment as we could. My sense of religious faith was pretty shaken back then, too.
"It is right to believe in the gods no longer if injustice will surpass what is just"
Later, we struggled to get into a routine for home-schooling our kids, finding adequate facial coverage, and then losing my job. Finally, as I settled (thankfully) into a new job, and the family into a home-schooling routine, we’ve gotten used to life under lockdown. My spiritual faith renewed itself with greater dedication, too.
We miss our friends and family terribly, but we remain cautious yet hopeful we’ll see them again soon.
After lockdown, things are gradually shifting from pure survival to looking toward the future. We are making plans again (albeit pretty far into the future), and I look forward to the day that the kids can finally get out of the house and see their friends.
Still, as we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, it is a good time to reflect on those we’ve lost on the way. The deadly arrows of ἡ ἑκηβόλος (hé hekébolos), Apollo the Far-shooter as he was called in The Iliad, have rained down on our communities and it will take years before we fully return to a sense of normalcy. We’ve lost loved ones, businesses in our community, and so much else, and they won’t be coming back.
The character Caduceus Clay from the show Critical Role grew his tea leaves from the soil of the graveyard he previously tended, but he reminds us all that everything we enjoy is through other people:
So as we gradually reemerge from lockdown, let us not forget those who lost their lives, and let us not forsake those still struggling from this terrible pandemic. The next time you enjoy a BBQ this summer with friends, don’t hesitate to pour a libation too. 🖖🙏🏼
P.S. Featured image from the Netflix Witcher series, season 1.
For Mothers Day, I wanted to share a well-known proverb in Japanese language:
花より団子 (hana yori dango)
This means something like “treats over flowers”. Flowers are fine, but the way to a person’s heart is good food, in other words. The term “dango” are small Japanese sweets made from rice and sometimes sweet bean paste:
My wife often jokes about this with me, when her birthday, or our anniversary, or Mothers Day rolls around. Since she likes Korean food and boxed chocolates, she prefers those over flowers. Similarly, I like it when she cooks my favorite foods.
Food is a strange thing in that it’s essential for survival, yet it also can be so much more.
P.S. Happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there reading this!
P.P.S. Dango taste nothing like what Westerners expect from “sweets”, but are pretty tasty in their own right.
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 
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