Flashcards: Siddhartha
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Created by:
eblayney on December 13, 2009
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Description:
The following is a set of flashcards designed to help students with the background information that is necessary in order to have a sophisticated knowledge of the novel Siddhartha.
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Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 brahmin | In Hinduism, a member of the highest caste, originally composed of priests but is now occupationally diversified |
| Brahma(n) | In Hinduism, the eternal spirit from which all being originates and to which all return; also, "Atman" |
| ascetic | A person who practices great self-discipline or self-denial and refrains from pleasures & comforts, especially for religious reasons; fasting is a common practice |
| Om | Among the brahmins, the supreme & most sacred syllable & mantra, consisting in Sanskrit of the three sounds (a), (u), & (m), representing various fundamental triads & believed to be the spoken essence of the universe |
| Siddhartha | One name of the Buddha; lived c. 563-483 B. C.; an Indian religious leader & founder of Buddhism |
| Rig-Veda (Vedas) | In Hinduism, these are four canonical chants that form a large part of Hindu beliefs & are the most ancient collection of Hindu sacred verses |
| Upanishads | Groups of philosophical treatises contributing to the theology of ancient Hinduism & elaborating upon the earlier Vedas |
| samsara | In Hinduism & Buddhism, the eternal cycle of birth, suffering, death, & rebirth |
| swami | Sanskrit word that means an owner or prince |
| Buddha | In Sanskrit, name that means "Enlightened One" |
| caste | In Hinduism, any of the social divisions into which Hindu society is traditionally divided, each having its own privileges & limitations, transferred by inheritance from one generation to the next |
| reincarnation | The Hindu or Buddhist doctrine that person may be reborn successively into one of five classes of living beings (god or human or animal or hungry ghost or denizen of hell) depending on the person's own actions |
| karma | The force generated by a person's actions that determines how the person will be reborn in the next life |
| Nirvana | In Buddhism, the state of absolute blessedness attained through the extinction of the self; in Hinduism, a similar state in which reunion with Brahma is attained through the suppression of individual existence |
| The Four Noble Truths | The doctrines of Buddha: all life is suffering, the cause of suffering is attachment or ignorant desire, this desire can be destroyed, & the means to this is the Eightfold Path |