taxonomy question

[Andrey Klebanov]

Dear members of the list!
my sincere apologies for a series of my blank emails, which I have just noticed! 
not sure, how it could happen and whether it might be a bug in the "versions" feature of the new OS X Lion.

what I thought to mention was a quotation from Suśrutasaṃhitā that came to my mind by reading the word "dichotomy" and then Dr. Gangsten's mentioning of sthāvara-jaṅgama. It also [most probably] places the human being (the object of medical applications and the main subject of medical science) - puruṣa -  outside of this classification.

SS 1.1.22: ... loko hi dvividhaḥ sthāvaro jaṅgamaś ca dvividhātmaka evāgneyaḥ saumyaś ca ... tatra puruṣaḥ pradhānaṃ tasyopakaraṇam anyat, tasmāt puruṣo 'dhiṣṭhānam || 

and later on the origin of oṣadhi-s
1.1.29 tāsāṃ sthāvarāś caturvidhāḥ vanaspatayo vṛkṣā vīrudha oṣadhaya iti | ....
1.1.30 jaṅgamāḥ khalv api catuvidhāḥ jarāyujāṇḍajasvedajodbhijjāḥ | 

(just as a side-note: the distinction of sthāvara-jaṅgama is more commonly found in medical treatises as a classification of poisons by the type of their carrier, see e.g. chapter 2 and 3 of SS Kalpasthāna)   

with my repeated apologies 

best
Andrey

On 05.08.2011, at 21:41, Andrey Klebanov wrote:

> of 
> 
> On 05.08.2011, at 20:24, Michael Brattus Jones wrote:
> 
>> Here is an interesting binary classification in two levels, though it doesn't situate humans in juxtaposition to the insentient, just to gods and animals.
>> The Kauśika Sūtra mentions "the mother of gods and mortal beings," then, unpacking the latter term, "mortal beings," it specifies "mother of animals and men."
>> 
>> bhartrī devānām uta martyānāṃ bhartrī prajānām uta mānuṣāṇām | (KauśS_13,14[106].7)
>> [transliteration taken from Arlo Griffiths' GRETIL etext - thank you!]
>> 
>> I hope it helps.
>> 
>> Michael Brattus Jones
>> mbjones at utexas.edu
>> PhD Student, Dept. of Asian Studies
>> University of Texas at Austin
>> 
>> From: Herman Tull <hwtull at MSN.COM>
>> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
>> Sent: Friday, August 5, 2011 12:26 PM
>> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] taxonomy question
>> 
>> CU 5.10.8 sets up a taxonomy of sorts in its reference to the “small things” (kshudrANi) that continually live and die in the round of rebirth, in distinction to men who attain one of the two paths after death (path of the gods, path of the fathers).
>> 
>> Herman Tull
>> 
>> From: James Hartzell
>> Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 12:05 PM
>> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
>> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] taxonomy question
>> 
>> Thanks Adheesh, I'd forgotten about "carācara" (mobile/immobile), and thanks for the reference.
>> 
>> Can we state then that what we modern folks call inanimate objects, as well as plants, fit the acara category, and then all animals and humans fit the cara category?  Or are there other distinctions?
>> 
>> My linguist colleague has clarified that she's looking specifically for the linguistic taxonomy of this.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> James
>> 
>> On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Adheesh Sathaye <adheesh1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>    Dear James,
>> 
>>    In the epics, the phrase "carācara" (mobile/immobile) is quite common--see for example Bhagavad-gītā 10.39:
>>    yac cāpi sarvabhūtānāṃ bījaṃ tad aham arjuna |
>>    na tad asti vinā yat syān mayā bhūtaṃ carācaram ||
>> 
>> 
>>    All best wishes,
>> 
>>    Adheesh
>> 
>> 
>>    ----
>>    Adheesh Sathaye
>>    Department of Asian Studies
>>    University of British Columbia
>> 
>>    On Aug 5, 2011, at 8:36 AM, James Hartzell wrote:
>> 
>>    > HI
>>    >
>>    > A colleague has asked me the following question, and I thought some on this list might readily know the answer:
>>    >
>>    > 'Do you have in Sanskrit a conceptual dichotomy that corresponds to living/non-living or animate/inanimate?
>>    > What exactly does the taxonomy look like? (is the opposition something like human vs. animals vs plants vs material objects, or human and animal vs. plants vs material objects or human and animal and plant vs. material objects, or otherwise?)'
>>    >
>>    > Cheers
>>    > James Hartzell
>>    > Guest Researcher
>>    > CIMeC, Center for Mind/Brain Sciences
>>    > University of Trento
>>    > Mattarello, TN, Italy
>>    >
>