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Product Description
What is Symbolism? The answer to this question has been known to challenge altogether man's life; and ignorance of it can reasonably be said to have produced all the gravest problems of our time. With reference to the great religions of the world, and in particular to Christianity and Islam, Martin Lings here gives us the answer in the clearest terms, with an unusually wide scope of illustration, a versatility to which the list of the chapters headings bear some witness.
At one point we are gripped by the universal message of our old Lithuanian songs which speak to us, in the language of symbols, from a remote antiquity; at another we are with the Queen of Sheba at her deeply symbolic meeting with Solomon, as recounted in the Qur'an. The central theme is man, stripped of his sub-human excrescences and re-endowed with his infinitely precious primordial heritage, and the reader is quickly impelled to identify himself with that centre. Nor is it only his intelligence that impels him, for the further we read, the more we renew our deeply ingrained consciousness that everything - numbers, elements, senses, colours, etc. - has a vertical dimension that gives it a divine significance; and this awareness brings with it an existential sense of that dimension in ourselves.
Additional Information
| Author | Lings, Martin |
|---|---|
| Full Title | Symbol and Archetype |
| Binding | Softcover |
| Publisher | Perennial Books |
| Pages | 51 |
| ISBN | 0900588284 |
| Language | English |
| Short Description | Martin Lings discusses the significance of symbolism, not as merely a literary or artistic device, but rather as concepts which possess transcendental meanings. |
| Table of Contents | Preface What is Symbolism? The Decisive Boundary The Symbolism of the Pairs The Symbolism of the Triad of Primary Colours The Archetypes of Devotional Homage The Language of the Gods The Quranic Symbolism of Water The Symbolism of the Luminaries in Old Lithuanian Songs The Seven Deadly Sins in the Light of the Symbolism of Number The Symbolism of the Mosque and the Cathedral in the Light of the Stations of Wisdom The Symbolism of the Sense of Taste Index |
| About the Author | Martin Lings was born in Burnage, Lancashire, 1909. After taking an English degree at Oxford in 1932, he was appointed Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon at the University of Kaunas. His interest in Islam and in Arabic took him to Egypt in 1939, and in the following year he was given a lectureship in Cairo University. During this time, he also worked as a secretary for René Guénon. In 1952 he returned to England and took a degree in Arabic at London University. From 1970-74 he was Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books at the British Museum (in 1973 his Department became part of the British Library) where he had been in special charge of the Qur’an manuscripts, amongst other treasures, since 1955. Dr. Lings passed from this world on 12 May 2005 and is survived by his wife. Dr. Martin Lings is the author of the authoritative biography of the Prophet, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. He has also written What is Sufism?, Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions, Shakespeare in Light of Sacred Art, The Book of Certainty, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century, A Return to The Spirit: Answers to Questions, and The Quranic Art of Calligraphy and Illumination. He is also the author of The Underlying Religion and Collected Poems, both available from ITP. In addition his books, he wrote the article on Sufism in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the chapter on Sufism in the Cambridge University Publication Religion in the Middle East, and numerous articles for the quarterly journal, Studies in Comparative Religion. |
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