Our passage from the Word of God today is Deuteronomy 31:24 which reads: "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished."
Our quote today is from Boris Pasternak. She said: "Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary."
In this podcast, we are using as our texts: "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt, and "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. If you enjoy this podcast, please feel free to purchase any one of these books from our website.
Our first topic for today is "Spirituality as Quest, Part 3 - Buddha" from the book, "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt.
Here is our second selection from Buddha's Dhammapada.
Chapter XIII (13) - THE WORLD.
Do not follow the evil law! Do not live on in thoughtlessness! Do not follow false doctrine! Be not a friend of the world.
Rouse thyself! do not be idle! Follow the law of virtue! The virtuous rests in bliss in this world and in the next.
Follow the law of virtue; do not follow that of sin. The virtuous rests in bliss in this world and in the next.
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Our second topic for today is "Reading a Story, Part 7" from the book, "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.
Bidpai
The Panchatantra, a collection of beast fables from India, is attributed to its narrator, a sage named Bidpai, a legendary figure about whom almost nothing is known for certain.
We are so accustomed to the phrase Aesop's fables that we might almost start to think the two words inseparable, but in fact there have been fabulists (creators or writers of fables) in virtually every culture throughout recorded history. The Panchatantra, which means "The Five Chapters" in Sanskrit, is based on earlier oral folklore. The collection was composed some time between 100 B. C. and 500 A. D. in a Sanskrit original now lost, and is primarily known through an Arabic version of the eighth century and a twelfth-century Hebrew translation. The stories are didactic, teaching niti, the wise conduct of life, and artha, practical wisdom that stresses cleverness and self-reliance above more altruistic virtues.
Now here is one of Bidpai's fables called "The Tortoise and the Geese."
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