Suchergebnisse

Letter from the burgermasters and City Council of Ravensburg to Archduke Sigismund of Austria, December 17, 1484 -- Guarantee of good behavior (Urfehde), Ravensburg, October 23, 1484 -- Instruction from Bishop Georg of Brixen to his ecclesiastical subordinates, July 23, 1485 -- Letter of Bishop Georg of Brixen to Institoris, September 21, 1485 -- Letter from Bishop Georg of Brixen to Archduke Sigismund, September 21, 1485 -- Letter from Archduke Sigismund of Austria to Bishop Georg of Brixen, October 8, 1485 -- Letter of Biship Georg of Brixen to Sigismund Sämer, parish priest in Axams, undated (mid-October, 1485) -- Vernacular protocol -- Latin protocols against the seven accused women -- Latin articles of suspected crimes and list of questions for further investigation of the seven suspects after their release -- Record of the proceedings against the seven accused women, October 29-31 and November 3, 1485 -- Letter from Bishop Georg of Brixen to Institoris, November 14, 1485 -- Letter from Bishop Georg of Brixen to an unnamed parish priest in Innsbruck, November 14, 1485 -- Letter of Bishop Georg of Brixen to Brother Nicolas, February 9, 1486 -- Letter of Bishop Georg of Brixen to Institoris, February 9, 1486 -- The Brixen memorandum.

The focus of the present research is to reconstruct the original meaning of the culturally dense term Ved. dákṣiṇā / Pa. dakkhiṇā, which, in the late Vedic language, specifically means the gift due to the priest who officiates the rite in favour of a patron. The discussed data make it possible to postulate a com- pletely different meaning for this term in the early Vedic texts, where it is used to evoke an 'auspicious condition' prototypically proper to a successful leader, both as an effect of previous glorious deeds and as a possible cause of further prosperity. We propose that in the Vedic context this term should be translated as 'magnificence', in which we distinguish two facets, namely: a more abstract one, that is magnificence in potency, as a result of past merits and often associated to the gods' favour, and magnificence in action, i.e. the (sometimes material) outcome of such a condition. The latter may become the crucial ingredient of a simple devotional act of offering. Albeit with the expected differences, we find also in Pali sources a comparable emphasis on such an act of offering, in particular when addressed to a worthy recipient. Indeed, retrofitting the late meaning of dakṣiṇā/dakkhiṇā to the earlier cul- tural and linguistic stages leads to a miscomprehension of many relevant pas- sages and pivotal features of both Vedic and early Buddhist ancient religious and political ideology. This is why we dedicate the last part of the paper to investigating how this assumed notion of 'magnificence' matches with what we know about the most ancient Indo-Aryan societal forms and with what is assumed about the evolution of these forms. We hope in this way to be able to add a crucial element to the interpretation of the cultural dynamic at work between the Buddhist and Vedic cultures, a dynamic characterised by some unresolved tensions such as preservation versus innovation and identity con- struction versus syncretic strategies.