Alternative Titles:kyamuni, Gautama Buddha, Gotama Buddha, Sage of the kyas, Shaka, Shaka Nyorai, Shakyamuni, Siddhartha Gautama, Siddhattha

Buddha, (Sanskrit: Awakened One)clan name (Sanskrit) Gautama or (Pali) Gotama, personal name (Sanskrit) Siddhartha or (Pali) Siddhatta, (born c. 6th4th century bce, Lumbini, near Kapilavastu, Shakya republic, Kosala kingdom [now in Nepal]died, Kusinara, Malla republic, Magadha kingdom [now Kasia, India]), the founder of Buddhism, one of the major religions and philosophical systems of southern and eastern Asia and of the world. Buddha is one of the many epithets of a teacher who lived in northern India sometime between the 6th and the 4th century before the Common Era.

His followers, known as Buddhists, propagated the religion that is known today as Buddhism. The title buddha was used by a number of religious groups in ancient India and had a range of meanings, but it came to be associated most strongly with the tradition of Buddhism and to mean an enlightened being, one who has awakened from the sleep of ignorance and achieved freedom from suffering. According to the various traditions of Buddhism, there have been buddhas in the past and there will be buddhas in the future. Some forms of Buddhism hold that there is only one buddha for each historical age; others hold that all beings will eventually become buddhas because they possess the buddha nature (tathagatagarbha).

All forms of Buddhism celebrate various events in the life of the Buddha Gautama, including his birth, enlightenment, and passage into nirvana. In some countries the three events are observed on the same day, which is called Wesak in Southeast Asia. In other regions the festivals are held on different days and incorporate a variety of rituals and practices. The birth of the Buddha is celebrated in April or May, depending upon the lunar date, in these countries. In Japan, which does not use a lunar calendar, the Buddhas birth is celebrated on April 8. The celebration there has merged with a native Shint ceremony into the flower festival known as Hanamatsuri.

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Buddhism

from the teachings of the Buddha (Sanskrit: Awakened One), a teacher who lived in northern India between the mid-6th and mid-4th centuries bce (before the Common Era). Spreading from India to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism has played a central role in the spiritual, cultural, and

The clan name of the historical figure referred to as the Buddha (whose life is known largely through legend) was Gautama (in Sanskrit) or Gotama (in Pali), and his given name was Siddhartha (Sanskrit: he who achieves his aim) or Siddhatta (in Pali). He is frequently called Shakyamuni, the sage of the Shakya clan. In Buddhist texts, he is most commonly addressed as Bhagavat (often translated as Lord), and he refers to himself as the Tathagata, which can mean either one who has thus come or one who has thus gone. Information about his life derives largely from Buddhist texts, the earliest of which were not committed to writing until shortly before the beginning of the Common Era, several centuries after his death. The events of his life set forth in these texts cannot be regarded with confidence as historical, although his historical existence is accepted by scholars. He is said to have lived for 80 years, but there is considerable uncertainty concerning the date of his death. Traditional sources on the date of his death or, in the language of the tradition, passage into nirvana, range from 2420 bce to 290 bce. Scholarship in the 20th century limited this range considerably, with opinion generally divided between those who placed his death about 480 bce and those who placed it as much as a century later.

The Buddha was born in Lumbini (Rummin-dei), near Kapilavastu (Kapilbastu) on the northern edge of the Ganges River basin, an area on the periphery of the civilization of North India, in what is today southern Nepal. Scholars speculate that during the late Vedic period the peoples of the region were organized into tribal republics, ruled by a council of elders or an elected leader; the grand palaces described in the traditional accounts of the life of the Buddha are not evident among the archaeological remains. It is unclear to what extent these groups at the periphery of the social order of the Ganges basin were incorporated into the caste system, but the Buddhas family is said to have belonged to the warrior (Kshatriya) caste. The central Ganges basin was organized into some 16 city-states, ruled by kings, often at war with each other.

The rise of these cities of central India, with their courts and their commerce, brought social, political, and economic changes that are often identified as key factors in the rise of Buddhism and other religious movements of the 6th and 5th centuries bce. Buddhist texts identify a variety of itinerant teachers who attracted groups of disciples. Some of these taught forms of meditation, Yoga, and asceticism and set forth philosophical views, focusing often on the nature of the person and the question of whether human actions (karma) have future effects. Although the Buddha would become one of these teachers, Buddhists view him as quite different from the others. His place within the tradition, therefore, cannot be understood by focusing exclusively on the events of his life and times (even to the extent that they are available). Instead, he must be viewed within the context of Buddhist theories of time and history.

According to Buddhist doctrine, the universe is the product of karma, the law of the cause and effect of actions, according to which virtuous actions create pleasure in the future and nonvirtuous actions create pain. The beings of the universe are reborn without beginning in six realms: as gods, demigods, humans, animals, ghosts, and hell beings. The actions of these beings create not only their individual experiences but the domains in which they dwell. The cycle of rebirth, called samsara (literally wandering), is regarded as a domain of suffering, and the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is to escape from that suffering. The means of escape remains unknown until, over the course of millions of lifetimes, a person perfects himself, ultimately gaining the power to discover the path out of samsara and then compassionately revealing that path to the world.

A person who has set out on the long journey to discover the path to freedom from suffering, and then to teach it to others, is called a bodhisattva. A person who has discovered that path, followed it to its end, and taught it to the world is called a buddha. Buddhas are not reborn after they die but enter a state beyond suffering called nirvana (literally passing away). Because buddhas appear so rarely over the course of time and because only they reveal the path to liberation (moksha) from suffering (dukkha), the appearance of a buddha in the world is considered a momentous event in the history of the universe.

The story of a particular buddha begins before his birth and extends beyond his death. It encompasses the millions of lives spent on the bodhisattva path before the achievement of buddhahood and the persistence of the buddha, in the form of both his teachings and his relics, after he has passed into nirvana. The historical Buddha is regarded as neither the first nor the last buddha to appear in the world. According to some traditions he is the 7th buddha; according to another he is the 25th; according to yet another he is the 4th. The next buddha, named Maitreya, will appear after Shakyamunis teachings and relics have disappeared from the world. The traditional accounts of the events in the life of the Buddha must be considered from this perspective.

Accounts of the life of the Buddha appear in many forms. Perhaps the earliest are those found in the collections of sutras (Pali: suttas), discourses traditionally attributed to the Buddha. In the sutras, the Buddha recounts individual events in his life that occurred from the time that he renounced his life as a prince until he achieved enlightenment six years later. Several accounts of his enlightenment also appear in the sutras. One Pali text, the Mahaparinibbana-sutta (Discourse on the Final Nirvana), describes the Buddhas last days, his passage into nirvana, his funeral, and the distribution of his relics. Biographical accounts in the early sutras provide little detail about the Buddhas birth and childhood, although some sutras contain a detailed account of the life of a prehistoric buddha, Vipashyin.

Another category of early Buddhist literature, the vinaya (concerned ostensibly with the rules of monastic discipline), contains accounts of numerous incidents from the Buddhas life but rarely in the form of a continuous narrative; biographical sections that do occur often conclude with the conversion of one of his early disciples, Shariputra. While the sutras focus on the person of the Buddha (his previous lives, his practice of austerities, his enlightenment, and his passage into nirvana), the vinaya literature tends to emphasize his career as a teacher and the conversion of his early disciples. The sutras and vinaya texts, thus, reflect concerns with both the Buddhas life and his teachings, concerns that often are interdependent; early biographical accounts appear in doctrinal discourses, and points of doctrine and places of pilgrimage are legitimated through their connection to the life of the Buddha.

Near the beginning of the Common Era, independent accounts of the life of the Buddha were composed. They do not recount his life from birth to death, often ending with his triumphant return to his native city of Kapilavastu (Pali: Kapilavatthu), which is said to have taken place either one year or six years after his enlightenment. The partial biographies add stories that were to become well-known, such as the child princes meditation under a rose-apple tree and his four momentous chariot rides outside the city.

These accounts typically make frequent reference to events from the previous lives of the Buddha. Indeed, collections of stories of the Buddhas past lives, called Jatakas, form one of the early categories of Buddhist literature. Here, an event reminds the Buddha of an event in a past life. He relates that story in order to illustrate a moral maxim, and, returning to the present, he identifies various members of his audience as the present incarnations of characters in his past-life tale, with himself as the main character.

The Jataka stories (one Pali collection contains 547 of them) have remained among the most popular forms of Buddhist literature. They are the source of some 32 stone carvings at the 2nd-century bce stupa at Bharhut in northeastern Madhya Pradesh state; 15 stupa carvings depict the last life of the Buddha. Indeed, stone carvings in India provide an important source for identifying which events in the lives of the Buddha were considered most important by the community. The Jataka stories are also well-known beyond India; in Southeast Asia, the story of Prince Vessantara (the Buddhas penultimate reincarnation)who demonstrates his dedication to the virtue of charity by giving away his sacred elephant, his children, and finally his wifeis as well-known as that of his last lifetime.

Lives of the Buddha that trace events from his birth to his death appeared in the 2nd century ce. One of the most famous is the Sanskrit poem Buddhacharita (Acts of the Buddha) by Ashvaghosa. Texts such as the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya (probably dating from the 4th or 5th century ce) attempt to gather the many stories of the Buddha into a single chronological account. The purpose of these biographies in many cases is less to detail the unique deeds of Shakyamunis life than to demonstrate the ways in which the events of his life conform to a pattern that all buddhas of the past have followed. According to some, all past buddhas had left the life of the householder after observing the four sights, all had practiced austerities, all had achieved enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, all had preached in the deer park at Sarnath, and so on.

The life of the Buddha was written and rewritten in India and across the Buddhist world, elements added and subtracted as necessary. Sites that became important pilgrimage places but that had not been mentioned in previous accounts would be retrospectively sanctified by the addition of a story about the Buddhas presence there. Regions that Buddhism entered long after his deathsuch as Sri Lanka, Kashmir, and Burma (now Myanmar)added narratives of his magical visitations to accounts of his life.

No single version of the life of the Buddha would be accepted by all Buddhist traditions. For more than a century, scholars have focused on the life of the Buddha, with the earliest investigations attempting to isolate and identify historical elements amid the many legends. Because of the centuries that had passed between the actual life and the composition of what might be termed a full biography, most scholars abandoned this line of inquiry as unfruitful. Instead they began to study the processessocial, political, institutional, and doctrinalresponsible for the regional differences among the narratives of the Buddha. The various uses made of the life of the Buddha are another topic of interest. In short, the efforts of scholars have shifted from an attempt to derive authentic information about the life of the Buddha to an effort to trace stages in and the motivations for the development of his biography.

It is important to reiterate that the motivation to create a single life of the Buddha, beginning with his previous births and ending with his passage into nirvana, occurred rather late in the history of Buddhism. Instead, the biographical tradition of the Buddha developed through the synthesis of a number of earlier and independent fragments. And biographies of the Buddha have continued to be composed over the centuries and around the world. During the modern period, for example, biographies have been written that seek to demythologize the Buddha and to emphasize his role in presaging modern ethical systems, social movements, or scientific discoveries. What follows is an account of the life of the Buddha that is well-known, yet synthetic, bringing together some of the more famous events from various accounts of his life, which often describe and interpret these events differently.

Many biographies of the Buddha begin not with his birth in his last lifetime but in a lifetime millions of years before, when he first made the vow to become a buddha. According to a well-known version, many aeons ago there lived a Brahman named (in some accounts) Sumedha, who realized that life is characterized by suffering and then set out to find a state beyond death. He retired to the mountains, where he became a hermit, practiced meditation, and gained yogic powers. While flying through the air one day, he noticed a great crowd around a teacher, whom Sumedha learned was the buddha Dipamkara. When he heard the word buddha he was overcome with joy. Upon Dipamkaras approach, Sumedha loosened his yogins matted locks and laid himself down to make a passage across the mud for the Buddha. Sumedha reflected that were he to practice the teachings of Dipamkara he could free himself from future rebirth in that very lifetime. But he concluded that it would be better to delay his liberation in order to traverse the longer path to buddhahood; as a buddha he could lead others across the ocean of suffering to the farther shore. Dipamkara paused before Sumedha and predicted that many aeons hence this yogin with matted locks would become a buddha. He also prophesied Sumedhas name in his last lifetime (Gautama) and the names of his parents and chief disciples and described the tree under which the future Buddha would sit on the night of his enlightenment.

Over the subsequent aeons, the bodhisattva would renew his vow in the presence of each of the buddhas who came after Dipamkara, before becoming the buddha Shakyamuni himself. Over the course of his lifetimes as a bodhisattva, he accumulated merit (punya) through the practice of 6 (or 10) virtues. After his death as Prince Vessantara, he was born in the Tusita Heaven, whence he surveyed the world to locate the proper site of his final birth.

He determined that he should be born the son of the king Shuddhodana of the Shakya clan, whose capital was Kapilavastu. Shortly thereafter, his mother, the queen Maha Maya, dreamed that a white elephant had entered her womb. Ten lunar months later, as she strolled in the garden of Lumbini, the child emerged from under her right arm. He was able to walk and talk immediately. A lotus flower blossomed under his foot at each step, and he announced that this would be his last lifetime. The king summoned the court astrologers to predict the boys future. Seven agreed that he would become either a universal monarch (chakravartin) or a buddha; one astrologer said that there was no doubt, the child would become a buddha. His mother died seven days after his birth, and so he was reared by his mothers sister, Mahaprajapati. As a young child, the prince was once left unattended during a festival. Later in the day he was discovered seated in meditation under a tree, whose shadow had remained motionless throughout the day to protect him from the sun.

The prince enjoyed an opulent life; his father shielded him from exposure to the ills of the world, including old age, sickness, and death, and provided him with palaces for summer, winter, and the rainy season, as well as all manner of enjoyments (including in some accounts 40,000 female attendants). At age 16 he married the beautiful princess Yashodhara. When the prince was 29, however, his life underwent a profound change. He asked to be taken on a ride through the city in his chariot. The king gave his permission but first had all the sick and old people removed from the route. One old man escaped notice. Not knowing what stood before him, the prince was told that this was an old man. He was informed, also, that this was not the only old man in the world; everyonethe prince, his father, his wife, and his kinsmenwould all one day grow old. The first trip was followed by three more excursions beyond the palace walls. On these trips he saw first a sick person, then a corpse being carried to the cremation ground, and finally a mendicant seated in meditation beneath a tree. Having been exposed to the various ills of human life, and the existence of those who seek a state beyond them, he asked the king for permission to leave the city and retire to the forest. The father offered his son anything if he would stay. The prince asked that his father ensure that he would never die, become ill, grow old, or lose his fortune. His father replied that he could not. The prince retired to his chambers, where he was entertained by beautiful women. Unmoved by the women, the prince resolved to go forth that night in search of a state beyond birth and death.

When he had been informed seven days earlier that his wife had given birth to a son, he said, A fetter has arisen. The child was named Rahula, meaning fetter. Before the prince left the palace, he went into his wifes chamber to look upon his sleeping wife and infant son. In another version of the story, Rahula had not yet been born on the night of the departure from the palace. Instead, the princes final act was to conceive his son, whose gestation period extended over the six years of his fathers search for enlightenment. According to these sources, Rahula was born on the night that his father achieved buddhahood.

The prince left Kapilavastu and the royal life behind and entered the forest, where he cut off his hair and exchanged his royal robes for the simple dress of a hunter. From that point on he ate whatever was placed in his begging bowl. Early in his wanderings he encountered Bimbisara, the king of Magadha and eventual patron of the Buddha, who, upon learning that the ascetic was a prince, asked him to share his kingdom. The prince declined but agreed to return when he had achieved enlightenment. Over the next six years, the prince studied meditation and learned to achieve deep states of blissful concentration. But he quickly matched the attainments of his teachers and concluded that despite their achievements, they would be reborn after their death. He next joined a group of five ascetics who had devoted themselves to the practice of extreme forms of self-mortification. The prince also became adept at their practices, eventually reducing his daily meal to one pea. Buddhist art often represents him seated in the meditative posture in an emaciated form, with sunken eyes and protruding ribs. He concluded that mortification of the flesh is not the path to liberation from suffering and rebirth and accepted a dish of rice and cream from a young woman.

His companions remained convinced of the efficacy of asceticism and abandoned the prince. Now without companions or a teacher, the prince vowed that he would sit under a tree and not rise until he had found the state beyond birth and death. On the full moon of May, six years after he had left his palace, he meditated until dawn. Mara, the god of desire, who knew that the prince was seeking to put an end to desire and thereby free himself from Maras control, attacked him with wind, rain, rocks, weapons, hot coals, burning ashes, sand, mud, and darkness. The prince remained unmoved and meditated on love, thus transforming the hail of fury into a shower of blossoms. Mara then sent his three beautiful daughters, Lust, Thirst, and Discontent, to tempt the prince, but he remained impassive. In desperation, Mara challenged the princes right to occupy the spot of earth upon which he sat, claiming that it belonged to him instead. Then, in a scene that would become the most famous depiction of the Buddha in Asian art, the prince, seated in the meditative posture, stretched out his right hand and touched the earth. By touching the earth, he was asking the goddess of the earth to confirm that a great gift that he had made as Prince Vessantara in his previous life had earned him the right to sit beneath the tree. She assented with a tremor, and Mara departed.

The prince sat in meditation through the night. During the first watch of the night, he had a vision of all of his past lives, recollecting his place of birth, name, caste, and even the food he had eaten. During the second watch of the night, he saw how beings rise and fall through the cycle of rebirth as a consequence of their past deeds. In the third watch of the night, the hours before dawn, he was liberated. Accounts differ as to precisely what it was that he understood. According to some versions it was the four truths: of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to the cessation of suffering. According to others it was the sequence of dependent origination: how ignorance leads to action and eventually to birth, aging, and death, and how when ignorance is destroyed, so also are birth, aging, and death. Regardless of their differences, all accounts agree that on this night he became a buddha, an awakened one who had roused himself from the slumber of ignorance and extended his knowledge throughout the universe.

The experience of that night was sufficiently profound that the prince, now the Buddha, remained in the vicinity of the tree up to seven weeks, savouring his enlightenment. One of those weeks was rainy, and the serpent king came and spread his hood above the Buddha to protect him from the storm, a scene commonly depicted in Buddhist art. At the end of seven weeks, two merchants approached him and offered him honey and cakes. Knowing that it was improper for a buddha to receive food in his hands, the gods of the four directions each offered him a bowl. The Buddha magically collapsed the four bowls into one and received the gift of food. In return, the Buddha plucked some hairs from his head and gave them to the merchants.

He was unsure as to what to do next, since he knew that what he had understood was so profound that it would be difficult for others to fathom. The god Brahma descended from his heaven and asked him to teach, pointing out that humans are at different levels of development, and some of them would benefit from his teaching. Consequently, the Buddha concluded that the most suitable students would be his first teachers of meditation, but he was informed by a deity that they had died. He thought next of his five former comrades in the practice of asceticism. The Buddha determined through his clairvoyance that they were residing in a deer park in Sarnath, outside Varanasi (Banaras). He set out on foot, meeting along the way a wandering ascetic with whom he exchanged greetings. When he explained to the man that he was enlightened and so was unsurpassed even by the gods, the man responded with indifference.

Although the five ascetics had agreed to ignore the Buddha because he had given up self-mortification, they were compelled by his charisma to rise and greet him. They asked the Buddha what he had understood since they left him. He responded by teaching them, or, in the language of the tradition, he set the wheel of the dharma in motion. (Dharma has a wide range of meanings, but here it refers to the doctrine or teaching of the buddhas.) In his first sermon, the Buddha spoke of the middle way between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification and described both as fruitless. He next turned to what have come to be known as the Four Noble Truths, perhaps more accurately rendered as four truths for the [spiritually] noble. As elaborated more fully in other discourses, the first is the truth of suffering, which holds that existence in all the realms of rebirth is characterized by suffering. The sufferings particular to humans are birth, aging, sickness, death, losing friends, encountering enemies, not finding what one wants, finding what one does not want. The second truth identifies the cause of this suffering as nonvirtue, negative deeds of body, speech, and mind that produce the karma that fructifies in the future as physical and mental pain. These deeds are motivated by negative mental states, called klesha (afflictions), which include desire, hatred, and ignorance, the false belief that there is a permanent and autonomous self amidst the impermanent constituents of mind and body. The third truth is the truth of cessation, the postulation of a state beyond suffering, called nirvana. If the ignorance that motivates desire and hatred can be eliminated, negative deeds will not be performed and future suffering will not be produced. Although such reasoning would allow for the prevention of future negative deeds, it does not seem to account for the vast store of negative karma accumulated in previous lifetimes that is yet to bear fruit. However, the insight into the absence of self, when cultivated at a high level of concentration, is said to be so powerful that it also destroys all seeds for future lifetimes. Cessation entails the realization of both the destruction of the causes of suffering and the impossibility of future suffering. The presence of such a state, however, remains hypothetical without a method for attaining it, and the fourth truth, the path, is that method. The path was delineated in a number of ways, often as the three trainings in ethics, meditation, and wisdom. In his first sermon, the Buddha described the Eightfold Path of correct view, correct attitude, correct speech, correct action, correct livelihood, correct effort, correct mindfulness, and correct meditation. A few days after the first sermon, the Buddha set forth the doctrine of no-self (anatman), at which point the five ascetics became arhats, those who have achieved liberation from rebirth and will enter nirvana upon death. They became the first members of the sangha, the community of monks.

The Buddha soon attracted more disciples, sometimes converting other teachers along with their followers. As a result, his fame began to spread. When the Buddhas father heard that his son had not died following his great renunciation but had become a buddha, the king sent nine successive delegations to his son to invite him to return home to Kapilavastu. But instead of conveying the invitation, they joined the disciples of the Buddha and became arhats. The Buddha was persuaded by the 10th courier (who also became an arhat) to return to the city, where he was greeted with disrespect by clan elders. The Buddha, therefore, rose into the air, and fire and water issued simultaneously from his body. This act caused his relatives to respond with reverence. Because they did not know that they should invite him for the noon meal, the Buddha went begging from door to door instead of going to his fathers palace. This caused his father great chagrin, but the Buddha explained that this was the practice of the buddhas of the past.

His wife Yashodhara had remained faithful to him in his absence. She would not go out to greet him when he returned to the palace, however, saying that the Buddha should come to her in recognition of her virtue. The Buddha did so, and, in a scene often recounted, she bowed before him and placed her head on his feet. She eventually entered the order of nuns and became an arhat. She sent their young son Rahula to his father to ask for his patrimony, and the Buddha responded by having him ordained as a monk. This dismayed the Buddhas father, and he explained to the Buddha the great pain that he had felt when the young prince had renounced the world. He asked, therefore, that in the future a son be ordained only with the permission of his parents. The Buddha made this one of the rules of the monastic order.

The Buddha spent the 45 years after his enlightenment traveling with a group of disciples across northeastern India, teaching the dharma to those who would listen, occasionally debating with (and, according to the Buddhist sources, always defeating) masters from other sects, and gaining followers from all social classes. To some he taught the practice of refuge; to some he taught the five precepts (not to kill humans, steal, engage in sexual misconduct, lie, or use intoxicants); and to some he taught the practice of meditation. The majority of the Buddhas followers did not renounce the world, however, and remained in lay life. Those who decided to go forth from the household and become his disciples joined the sangha, the community of monks. At the request of his widowed stepmother, Mahaprajapati, and women whose husbands had become monks, the Buddha also established an order of nuns. The monks were sent out to teach the dharma for the benefit of gods and humans. The Buddha did the same: each day and night he surveyed the world with his omniscient eye to locate those that he might benefit, often traveling to them by means of his supernormal powers.

It is said that in the early years the Buddha and his monks wandered during all seasons, but eventually they adopted the practice of remaining in one place during the rainy season (in northern India, mid-July to mid-October). Patrons built shelters for their use, and the end of the rainy season came to mark a special occasion for making offerings of food and provisions (especially cloth for robes) to monks. These shelters evolved into monasteries that were inhabited throughout the year. The monastery of Jetavana in the city of Shravasti (Savatthi), where the Buddha spent much of his time and delivered many of the discourses, was donated to the Buddha by the wealthy banker Anathapindada (Pali: Anathapindika).

The Buddhas authority, even among his followers, did not go unchallenged. A dispute arose over the degree of asceticism required of monks. The Buddhas cousin, Devadatta, led a faction that favoured more rigorous discipline than that counseled by the Buddha, requiring, for example, that monks live in the open and never eat meat. When the Buddha refused to name Devadatta as his successor, Devadatta attempted to kill him three times. He first hired assassins to eliminate the Buddha. Devadatta later rolled a boulder down upon him, but the rock only grazed the Buddhas toe. He also sent a wild elephant to trample him, but the elephant stopped in his charge and bowed at the Buddhas feet. Another schism arose between monks of a monastery over a minor infraction of lavatory etiquette. Unable to settle the dispute, the Buddha retired to the forest to live with elephants for an entire rainy season.

Shortly before his death, the Buddha remarked to his attendant Ananda on three separate occasions that a buddha can, if requested, extend his life span for an aeon. Mara then appeared and reminded the Buddha of his promise to him, made shortly after his enlightenment, to pass into nirvana when his teaching was complete. The Buddha agreed to pass away three months hence, at which point the earth quaked. When Ananda asked the reason for the tremor, the Buddha told him that there are eight occasions for an earthquake, one of which was when a buddha relinquishes the will to live. Ananda begged him not to do so, but the Buddha explained that the time for such requests had passed; had he asked earlier, the Buddha would have consented.

At age 80 the Buddha, weak from old age and illness, accepted a meal (it is difficult to identify from the texts what the meal consisted of, but many scholars believe it was pork) from a smith named Chunda, instructing the smith to serve him alone and bury the rest of the meal without offering it to the other monks. The Buddha became severely ill shortly thereafter, and at a place called Kusinara (also spelled Kushinagar; modern Kasia) lay down on his right side between two trees, which immediately blossomed out of season. He instructed the monk who was fanning him to step to one side, explaining that he was blocking the view of the deities who had assembled to witness his passing. After he provided instructions for his funeral, he said that lay people should make pilgrimages to the place of his birth, the place of his enlightenment, the place of his first teaching, and the place of his passage into nirvana. Those who venerate shrines erected at these places will be reborn as gods. The Buddha then explained to the monks that after he was gone the dharma and the vinaya (code of monastic conduct) should be their teacher. He also gave permission to the monks to abolish the minor precepts (because Ananda failed to ask which ones, it was later decided not to do so). Finally, the Buddha asked the 500 disciples who had assembled whether they had any last question or doubt. When they remained silent, he asked two more times and then declared that none of them had any doubt or confusion and were destined to achieve nirvana. According to one account, he then opened his robe and instructed the monks to behold the body of a buddha, which appears in the world so rarely. Finally, he declared that all conditioned things are transient and exhorted the monks to strive with diligence. These were his last words. The Buddha then entered into meditative absorption, passing from the lowest level to the highest, then from the highest to the lowest, before entering the fourth level of concentration, whence he passed into nirvana.

The Buddha had instructed his followers to cremate his body as the body of a universal monarch would be cremated and then to distribute the relics among various groups of his lay followers, who were to enshrine them in hemispherical reliquaries called stupas. His body lay in a coffin for seven days before being placed on a funeral pyre and was set ablaze by the Buddhas chief disciple, Mahakashyapa, who had been absent at the time of the Buddhas death. After the Buddhas cremation, his relics were entrusted to a group of lay disciples, but armed men arrived from seven other regions and demanded the relics. In order to avert bloodshed, a monk divided the relics into eight portions. According to tradition, 10 sets of relics were enshrined, 8 from portions of the Buddhas remains, 1 from the pyres ashes, and 1 from the bucket used to divide the remains. The relics were subsequently collected and enshrined in a single stupa. More than a century later, King Ashoka is said to have redistributed the relics in 84,000 stupas.

The stupa would become a reference point denoting the Buddhas presence in the landscape of Asia. Early texts and the archeological record link stupa worship with the Buddhas life and the key sites in his career. Eight shrines are typically recommended for pilgrimage and veneration. They are located at the place of his birth, his enlightenment, his first turning of the wheel of dharma, and his death, as well as sites in four cities where he performed miracles. A stupa in Samkashya, for example, marked the site where the Buddha descended to the world after teaching the dharma to his mother (who died seven days after his birth) abiding in the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods.

The importance given to the stupa suggests the persistence of the Buddha in the world despite his apparent passage into nirvana. Two types of nirvana are commonly described. The first is called the nirvana with remainder, which the Buddha achieved under the Bo tree, when he destroyed all the seeds for future rebirth. This first nirvana is therefore also called the final nirvana (or passing away) of the afflictions. But the karma that had created his present life was still functioning and would do so until his death. Thus, his mind and body during the rest of his life were what was left over, the remainder, after he realized nirvana. The second type of nirvana occurred at his death and is called the final nirvana of the aggregates (skandha) of mind and body or the nirvana without remainder because nothing remained to be reborn after his death. Something, in fact, did remain: the relics found in the ashes of the funeral pyre. A third nirvana, therefore, is sometimes mentioned. According to Buddhist belief, there will come a time in the far distant future when the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha will disappear from the world and the relics will no longer be honoured. It is then that the relics that have been enshrined in stupas around the world will break out of their reliquaries and magically return to Bodh Gaya, where they will assemble into the resplendent body of the Buddha, seated in the lotus posture under the Bo tree, emitting rays of light that illuminate 10,000 worlds. They will be worshiped by the gods one last time and then will burst into flame and disappear into the sky. This third nirvana is called the final nirvana of the relics. Until that time, the relics of the Buddha are to be regarded as his living presence, infused with all of his marvelous qualities. Epigraphic and literary evidence from India suggests that the Buddha, in the form of his stupas, not only was a bestower of blessings, but was regarded as a legal person and an owner of property. The relics of the Buddha were, essentially, the Buddha.

The Buddha also remains in the world in the form of the texts that contain his words and statues that depict his form. There is no historical evidence of images of the Buddha being made during his lifetime. Indeed, scholars of Indian art have long been intrigued by the absence of an image of the Buddha on a number of early stone carvings at Buddhist sites. The carvings depict scenes in which obeisance is being paid, for example, to the footprints of the Buddha. One scene, considered to depict the Buddhas departure from the palace, shows a riderless horse. Such works have led to the theory that early Buddhism prohibited depiction of the Buddha in bodily form but allowed representation by certain symbols. The theory is based in part on the lack of any instructions for depicting the Buddha in early texts. This view has been challenged by those who suggest instead that the carvings are not depictions of events from the life of the Buddha but rather represent pilgrimages to and worship of important sites from the life of the Buddha, such as the Bo tree.

Consecrated images of the Buddha are central to Buddhist practice, and there are many tales of their miraculous powers. A number of famous images, such as the statue of Mahamuni in Mandalay, Myanmar, derive their sanctity from the belief that the Buddha posed for them. The consecration of an image of the Buddha often requires elaborate rituals in which the Buddha is asked to enter the image or the story of the Buddhas life is told in its presence. Epigraphic evidence from the 4th or 5th century indicates that Indian monasteries usually had a room called the perfumed chamber that housed an image of the Buddha and was regarded as the Buddhas residence, with its own contingent of monks.

Some four centuries after the Buddhas death, movements arose in India, many of them centred on newly written texts (such as the Lotus Sutra) or new genres of texts (such as the Prajnaparamita or Perfection of Wisdom sutras) that purported to be the word of the Buddha. These movements would come to be designated by their adherents as the Mahayana, the Great Vehicle to enlightenment, in contradistinction to the earlier Buddhist schools that did not accept the new sutras as authoritative (that is, as the word of the Buddha).

The Mahayana sutras offer different conceptions of the Buddha. It is not that the Mahayana schools saw the Buddha as a magical being whereas non-Mahayana schools did not. Accounts of the Buddhas wondrous powers abound throughout the literature. For example, the Buddha is said to have hesitated before deciding to teach after his enlightenment and only decides to do so after being implored by Brahma. In a Mahayana sutra, however, the Buddha has no indecision at all, but rather pretends to be swayed by Brahmas request in order that all those who worship Brahma will take refuge in the Buddha. Elsewhere, it was explained that when the Buddha would complain of a headache or a backache, he did so only to convert others to the dharma; because his body was not made of flesh and blood, it was in fact impossible for him to experience pain.

One of the most important Mahayana sutras for a new conception of the Buddha is the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarika-sutra), in which the Buddha denies that he left the royal palace in search of freedom from suffering and that he found that freedom six years later while meditating under a tree. He explains instead that he achieved enlightenment innumerable billions of aeons ago and has been preaching the dharma in this world and simultaneously in myriad other worlds ever since. Because his life span is inconceivable to those of little intelligence, he has resorted to the use of skillful methods (upuya), pretending to renounce his princely life, practice austerities, and attain unsurpassed enlightenment. In fact, he was enlightened all the while yet feigned these deeds to inspire the world. Moreover, because he recognizes that his continued presence in the world might cause those of little virtue to become complacent about putting his teachings into practice, he declares that he is soon to pass into nirvana. But this also is not true, because his life span will not be exhausted for many more billions of aeons. He tells the story of a physician who returns home to find his children ill from having taken poison during his absence. He prescribes a cure, but only some take it. He therefore leaves home again and spreads the rumour that he has died. Those children who had not taken the antidote then do so out of deference to their departed father and are cured. The father then returns. In the same way, the Buddha pretends to enter nirvana to create a sense of urgency in his disciples even though his life span is limitless.

Such a view of the identity of the Buddha is codified in the doctrine of the three bodies (trikaya) of the Buddha. Early scholastics speak of the Buddha as having a physical body and a second body, called a mind-made body or an emanation body, in which he performs miraculous feats such as visiting his departed mother in the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods and teaching her the dharma. The question also was raised as to whom precisely the Buddhist should pay homage when honouring the Buddha. A term, dharmakaya, was coined to describe a more metaphorical body, a body or collection of all the Buddhas good qualities or dharmas, such as his wisdom, his compassion, his fortitude, his patience. This corpus of qualities was identified as the body of the Buddha to which one should turn for refuge.

All of this is recast in the Mahayana sutras. The emanation body (nirmanakaya) is no longer the body that the Buddha employs to perform supernatural feats; it is rather the only body to appear in this world and the only body visible to ordinary humans. It is the Buddhas emanation body that was born as a prince, achieved enlightenment, and taught the dharma to the world; that is, the visible Buddha is a magical display. The true Buddha, the source of the emanations, was the dharmakaya, a term that still refers to the Buddhas transcendent qualities but, playing on the multivalence of the term dharma, came to mean something more cosmic, an eternal principle of enlightenment and ultimate truth, described in later Mahayana treatises as the Buddhas omniscient mind and its profound nature of emptiness.

Along with additional bodies of the Buddha, the Mahayana sutras also revealed the presence of multiple universes, each with its own buddha. These universescalled buddha fields, or pure landsare described as abodes of extravagant splendour, where the trees bear a fruit of jewels, the birds sing verses of the dharma, and the inhabitants devote themselves to its practice. The buddha fields became preferred places for future rebirth. The buddhas who presided there became objects of devotion, especially the buddha of infinite light, Amitabha, and his Western Paradise called Sukhavati. In the buddha fields, the buddhas often appear in yet a third form, the enjoyment body (sambhogakaya), which was the form of a youthful prince adorned with the 32 major marks and 80 minor marks of a superman. The former include patterns of a wheel on the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, elongated earlobes, a crown protrusion (usnisa) on the top of his head, a circle of hair (urna) between his brows, flat feet, and webbed fingers. Scholars have speculated that this last attribute derives not from a textual source but the inadequacies of early sculptors.

The marvelous physical and mental qualities of the Buddha were codified in numerous litanies of praise and catalogued in poetry, often taking the form of a series of epithets. These epithets were commented upon in texts, inscribed on stupas, recited aloud in rituals, and contemplated in meditation. One of the more famous is thus gone, worthy, fully and completely awakened, accomplished in knowledge and virtuous conduct, well gone, knower of worlds, unsurpassed guide for those who need restraint, teacher of gods and humans, awakened, fortunate.

The rest is here:
Buddha | Biography & Facts | Britannica.com

When the mind is somber, broad daylight gives birth to demons and evil spirits. When the mind is clear, a dark room has its blue sky. That which is self-concious and ulterior is far from the Truth. That which is Mindless, is near. Taoist poem.

Theres a common saying in Zen that says after Satori (Enlightenment, there sits the ordinary old man.

Something extraordinary happens through Enlightenment, but nothing at all. Vedanta the philosophy Buddhism originates from translates to the end of knowledge.

If Enlightenment is the end of knowledge, the end of struggles and the end of suffering, what is left in life? What is there left to do after the struggle is gone? After all, isnt part of the beauty of life the struggle, the tears, the heartache and finding healing and peace through it all?

If theres nothing left to do, if theres nothing left to strive for, whats the point of living? Whats the point of living when life itself has no point? Whats the point if the game of life isnt worth playing?

There is a point though; the creation of your story. The only difference is after Enlightenment and the realization of One Taste, we no longer identify with the drama.

But detachment does not mean not participating. Its not an escape from life; its simply creating your story with the awareness that you are not the story. It doesnt bother you when your life takes a wrong turn or when something goes awry. In the same way you can celebrate when something wonderful in your life happens, but you dont get attached because you realize that your story is not you.

Everything in life is a story. The evolution of the Universe, from unconscious matter to becoming conscious, is a story. The Eros of human consciousness, how we evolve from duality and separateness to Enlightenment and union, is a story.

The search for meaning and beauty outside ourselves, and realizing that happiness can only come from within, is yet another story. We turn even the most mundane things (like washing the dishes) into a story. We have all sorts of feelings about everything and we use those feelings and associations to mold our story. Life is a series of stories.

In The Voice of Knowledge, Don Miguel Ruiz makes the point that we are all artists. We are all constantly dreaming, constantly creating and molding our stories. Based on the investment of our beliefs, we shape our story. Since were always perceiving new things and events, we filter some out and accept other information and ideas based on how it aligns with the story we want to create.

Like Ruiz, I think its a much more powerful paradigm to see ourselves as artists and not just people. Even if you dont think youre the creative type, you are creating all the time. You cant not create. Every time you breathe, move, or open your mouth, you are creating.

Have you ever taken a step back and just observed life, while thinking How the hell am I here? Its in that stupefying moment you realize that youre the architect of life, but theres no blueprint. We have this mysterious internal compass, but beyond that were on our own. We have to fend for ourselves and make things up as we go along.

We have to take control and steer through life the best we can. Whats most is that we take the wheel and dont live on accident. What matters is that we dont give up our power and relinquish the ownership of our minds.

We have to realize the power of:

There is a lot of credit (and merit) given to creating a beautiful space. We spend inordinate amounts of time decorating our homes, buying new clothes and products in the effort to make our lives more desirable.

But not much credit is given to the beautification of our minds.

We adorn our homes and spaces with expensive things. We often associate the value of our lives with the value of our possessions. Once we buy or obtain the object of our desire, within a few days or hours were thinking about our next purchase. The illness of materialism has a stranglehold on us; we are always in need of our next fix.

The reality is that this search for the beautification of our bodies and our spaces will never satisfy us. We have more luxury and more convenience than a lot of Royalty had a few hundred years ago. In fact, royal servants now have more luxury than the same Kings they served a few hundred years ago. Obviously something is seriously wrong. Our value system is distorted. If internal wealth is the greatest asset you can have, why is it so overlooked? Because you cant see a luxurious mind. You cant brag to your friends about it. You cant say Hey Jim, look at the shiny mind Ive got. Your internal space looks like a pile of shit.

So if we can Feng Shui our external space, can we Feng Shui our minds?

I think so. Its something Ive been personally vying for.

As I said earlier, the problem with creating a luxurious inner space is that you cant exactly see a beautiful mind. You cant measure it, you cant compare it. Paradoxically, I think this misconceived flaw is its most attractive quality. Our obsession with measurement quantification seems unhealthy at best, anyway.

Creating a beautiful mind is about placing permanent fixtures of beautiful ideas in the corners of your mind. Its about cleaning the cobwebs of self-limiting beliefs. Its about creating the auto-response to be impeccable with your word, and to not ever use your mind against yourself. Its about coming to terms with your practical mind, and creating a relationship between your head and your heart. Its about taking ownership of your mind, and realizing that that is the most powerful and precious gift that you have.

If youre at all like me, its easy to see yourself as an artist for a little while. You might last a few hours or a few days. But then the routine and monotony of life sinks back in. Everything seems to be a repeat of the day before. Every day seems exactly the same.

Ive found that the best way to combat slipping into the black-hole of monotony is by realizing each moment is brand new. Past and present are illusions. Even if you feel like youve been doing the same thing, you really havent. This moment is all there is and each time you do something, its for the first time. Actually, it isnt even the first; that would imply that theres a second and a third. Rather this is the only time youve done whatever youre doing now, and it always will be.

Each moment, each day, we write another page in our story. Its hard not to get caught up in the routine of life. Each day seems the same and we take for granted our artistic power. We put off the beautification of our minds. Another day, we think. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes.

The truth is, if we dont keep ourselves present and realize that with each day we are creating, we will never get to it. Well wake up 10 years later and wonder what the hell happened.

We can choose to make our stories a masterpiece, or mediocre. But the point is that we choose now. If we put off our choice, we give up our power. I dont know about you, but I cant afford to put it off anymore. I cant betray myself any longer.

I admit I dont have all the answers, and I havent quite figured out how to completely resist reverting into a routine. What can we do to make our lives more like a work of art, and less like a colorless repeat of yesterday? I would personally love to hear your thoughts on how you remember the artistry of your life and how you resist living uniformly.

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Whats the Point of Life After Total Enlightenment? - Paid ...

The pair sped through DeVoes consciousness to find his good side, only to find him dead in his classroom. Instead, the pair realized that if Ralph gained control of his body again, DeVoe would disappear. DeVoe sent multitudes of copies of himself after the two, but they both managed to come out on top and Ralph gained control of his body again just in time to save Cecile from being choked to death by the Clifford.

The pair sped through DeVoes consciousness to find his good side, only to find him dead in his classroom. Instead, the pair realized that if Ralph gained control of his body again, DeVoe would disappear. DeVoe sent multitudes of copies of himself after the two, but they both managed to come out on top and Ralph gained control of his body again just in time to save Cecile from being choked to death by the Clifford.

However, just before losing control of the body, DeVoe had put his consciousness into his hoverchair, which then activated a hologram of himself and caused the satellites to fall from the sky. However, Marlize deactivates the chair, while Barry, Cisco, Ralph, and [[Nora Allen II|Nora Allen]] managed to stop all of the satellites from killing any civilians, leaving the Enlightenment a complete failure.

However, just before losing control of the body, DeVoe had put his consciousness into his hoverchair, which then activated a hologram of himself and caused the satellites to fall from the sky. However, Marlize deactivates the chair, while Barry, Cisco, Ralph, and [[Nora|a mysterious speedster]] managed to stop all of the satellites from killing any civilians, leaving the Enlightenment a complete failure.{{Ep|We Are The Flash}}

*The Enlightenment is very similar to [[Genesis (event)|Genesis]] which was created by [[Damien Darhk]]. Both were the end game of the Big Bad of Season Four of a show, both events intended to reshape the world on a global scale, and both events are biblical references. Also, when both plans are foiled, both villains decide to submit destroy the world instead.

*The Enlightenment is very similar to [[Genesis (event)|Genesis]] which was created by [[Damien Darhk]]. Both were the end game of the Big Bad of Season Four of a show, both events intended to reshape the world on a global scale, and both events are biblical references. Also, when both plans are foiled, both villains decide to submit destroy the world instead.

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Enlightenment - tvsignals.com

Apple of Enlightenment (, Apple of Wisdom) is a machine[1] that makes prophecies that is mentioned in EarthBound.

Giygas was in possession of the Apple of Enlightenment before the events of Earthbound, where it foretold Giygas's defeat at the hands of a child named Ness. To disprove this prophecy, he initiates his invasion of Earth 20 years before it was prophesied, only to be defeated by Ninten the first time.

The prophecy was still being told at least 10 years into Ness's future where he succeeded in plunging all into darkness, which prompts Buzz Buzz to travel back to Ness's time to warn him. Although it predicted that Ness and his friends would defeat Giygas, Pokey claimed that it never predicted his own involvement with Giygas' plans.

In Earthbound, it's never clearly stated what or who the Apple really is, so there is a theory that it's a manuscript that Apple Kid wrote. This explains why Pokeywas never mentioned in the prophecy, since the two never heard of each other.The Japanese original that is clear that the Apple is a "prophecy-telling machine in Gyiygs possession [that] has foretold that Gyiygs machinations will end in failure" disproves this theory.[1]

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Apple of Enlightenment - EarthBound Wiki

From Theden, a translation of a speech given last year by German center-right political activist Manfred Kleine-Hartlage.

It is not automatic, and it does not happen by chance, that people indeed manage to live together peacefully and orderly; it is an astonishing wonder that they do. Every culture is a fine network of thousands and thousands of largely unwritten rules, values, shared memories, shared beliefs. Every culture is a unique, specific answer to the question of how people do it, and when I say unique, then that means inevitably these answers vary: there are cultures in which the family clan and its unconditional cohesion is the basis of society, which protects individuals, and there are on the other hand individualistically-influenced cultures like ours, in which you trust the state and the laws to provide this protection, and which relies on everyone else doing the same. There are cultures in which the ability and willingness to use force has prestige value, and there are cultures like ours in which violence is outlawed. There are cultures in which yielding is considered a sign of weakness, and there are cultures like ours, in which conflicts are regarded as mere differences of opinion, which are at best discharged discursively and at worst in court.Yet these other cultures do not necessarily work worse than ours, but just differently. Islam, for example, does what is needed to provide a cultural system: it organizes the society. But it organizes it differently than our Christian or Western system. The problem only begins where one locks together two, three, four or more different and incompatible cultures in the same country, so they are crammed together, but do not belong together.

In wanting and introducing a multi-ethnic state, society is put in the state of an (at least) latent civil war. In running this, the society falls into a permanent structural crisis that is constantly reinforced with progressive mass immigration, which stirs up conflicts, encourages vigilantism, destroys the social consensus of values, and destroys the conditions of social peace. He who teaches his own children peacefulness does so because of ethical values ultimately rooted in Christianity. Then forcing the thus peacefully behaved people to live together with others who come from cultures married to violencesuch as that Nigerianmakes them specifically and systematically victimized. This invites an endless liability.The 7500 Germans since 1990 who have become victims of immigrant violence are victims of a policy daring enough to destroy society: out of ideological blindness; out of greed for cheap, easily exploitable labor, whose situation is precarious at the same time, for the welfare state will collapse at the point of exhaustion (this one also a quite desirable result of mass immigration for certain circles); out of hatred for his own people, those damn Germans they want nothing to do with; andnot the leastout of lust for power. There is a reason why there are elites in all Western countries who carry out the destruction of peoples and their transformation into mere splintered populations: peoples are in fact solidarities that can also kick their rulers out. The battle cry with which the rule of the SED [the Soviet-installed Socialist ruling party of East Germany] was overthrown 23 years ago did not read We are the population. It read: We are the people! A mere population, consisting of dozens of warring ethnicities, will never overthrow the ruler. They cannot. A democracy needs its demos. A despotism on the other hand, a dictatorship, a totalitarian regimeyes, such a thing needs a population.The destruction of the people is one side of the same coin, to which the other side is the transfer of their rights to supranational institutions: to the EU, the WTO, the IWF, the NATO, the UN and dozens elseall institutions that cannot be controlled from below, but that determine our lives: that dictate to us the rules by which we live, and dictate to us which foods we should eat, which people we have to live together with in our country, against whom we must go to war, and into what inscrutable bank-conglomerate our tax dollars disappear.What is here in the making as understood is a global despotism of elites who resist any responsibility and any control. And the systematically induced mass migration, this largest mass migration in 1500 yearswhen this migration of peoples led to the collapse of Roman civilizationis part of this process.Against todays events it has been argued, the Peoples Mourning Day is dedicated to the mourning of German war victims, and crime victims were indeed not war victims. And I say: They are just that! They are victims of a war that is being waged against all the peoples of Europe, not only against the Germans.

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The Dark Enlightenment

The Enlightenment (also known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason;[1] in French: le Sicle des Lumires, lit.'"the Century of Lights"' in German: Aufklrung, "Enlightenment" and in Italian: LIlluminismo, Enlightenment)[2] was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, "The Century of Philosophy".[3]

The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centred on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy and came to advance ideals like liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state.[4][5] In France, the central doctrines of the Enlightenment philosophers were individual liberty and religious tolerance, in opposition to an absolute monarchy and the fixed dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism, along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxyan attitude captured by the phrase Sapere aude, "Dare to know".[6]

French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715 (the year that Louis XIV died) and 1789 (the beginning of the French Revolution). Some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. Les philosophes (Frenchfor "the philosophers") of the period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses and in printed books and pamphlets. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Enlightenment.[7]

The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution.[8] Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and Spinoza.[9] The major figures of the Enlightenment included Beccaria, Diderot, Hume, Kant, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Voltaire. Some European rulers, including Catherine II of Russia, Joseph II of Austria and Frederick II of Prussia, tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism.[10] Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence (1776). One of his peers, James Madison, incorporated these ideals into the United States Constitution during its framing in 1787.[11]

The most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopdie (Encyclopaedia). Published between 1751 and 1772 in thirty-five volumes, it was compiled by Diderot, d'Alembert (until 1759) and a team of 150 scientists and philosophers. It helped spread the ideas of the Enlightenment across Europe and beyond.[12] Other landmark publications were Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique (Philosophical Dictionary; 1764) and Letters on the English (1733); Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality (1754) and The Social Contract (1762); Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776); and Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748). The ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789. After the Revolution, the Enlightenment was followed by the intellectual movement known as Romanticism.

Ren Descartes' rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking. His attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His scepticism was refined by John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and David Hume's writings in the 1740s. His dualism was challenged by Spinoza's uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus (1670) and Ethics (1677).

These laid down two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: first, the moderate variety, following Descartes, Locke and Christian Wolff, which sought accommodation between reform and the traditional systems of power and faith, and second, the radical enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression and eradication of religious authority. The moderate variety tended to be deistic, whereas the radical tendency separated the basis of morality entirely from theology. Both lines of thought were eventually opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment, which sought a return to faith.

In the mid-18th century, Paris became the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines and dogmas. The philosophic movement was led by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law, and for science based on experiments and observation. The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. While the Philosophes of the French Enlightenment were not revolutionaries and many were members of the nobility, their ideas played an important part in undermining the legitimacy of the Old Regime and shaping the French Revolution.

Francis Hutcheson, a moral philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words, "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers". Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method (the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience and causation) and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by his protgs David Hume and Adam Smith.[17] Hume became a major figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy.

Immanuel Kant (17241804) tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason.[18] Kant's work continued to shape German thought and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century.[19] Mary Wollstonecraft was one of England's earliest feminist philosophers.[20] She argued for a society based on reason and that women as well as men should be treated as rational beings. She is best known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1791).[21]

Science played an important role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favour of the development of free speech and thought. Scientific progress during the Enlightenment included the discovery of carbon dioxide (fixed air) by the chemist Joseph Black, the argument for deep time by the geologist James Hutton and the invention of the steam engine by James Watt.[22] The experiments of Lavoisier were used to create the first modern chemical plants in Paris and the experiments of the Montgolfier Brothers enabled them to launch the first manned flight in a hot-air balloon on 21 November 1783 from the Chteau de la Muette, near the Bois de Boulogne.[23]

Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. The study of science, under the heading of natural philosophy, was divided into physics and a conglomerate grouping of chemistry and natural history, which included anatomy, biology, geology, mineralogy and zoology.[24] As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally: Rousseau criticized the sciences for distancing man from nature and not operating to make people happier.[25] Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopdie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire and milie du Chtelet. Some historians have marked the 18th century as a drab period in the history of science.[26] However, the century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry.

Scientific academies and societies grew out of the Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge in contrast to the scholasticism of the university.[27] During the Enlightenment, some societies created or retained links to universities, but contemporary sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university's utility was in the transmission of knowledge while societies functioned to create knowledge.[28] As the role of universities in institutionalized science began to diminish, learned societies became the cornerstone of organized science. Official scientific societies were chartered by the state in order to provide technical expertise.[29] Most societies were granted permission to oversee their own publications, control the election of new members and the administration of the society.[30] After 1700, a tremendous number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe and by 1789 there were over seventy official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined the term "the Age of Academies" to describe the 18th century.[31]

The influence of science also began appearing more commonly in poetry and literature during the Enlightenment. Some poetry became infused with scientific metaphor and imagery, while other poems were written directly about scientific topics. Sir Richard Blackmore committed the Newtonian system to verse in Creation, a Philosophical Poem in Seven Books (1712). After Newton's death in 1727, poems were composed in his honour for decades.[32] James Thomson (17001748) penned his "Poem to the Memory of Newton", which mourned the loss of Newton, but also praised his science and legacy.[33]

Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed a "science of man",[34] which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett, Adam Ferguson, John Millar and William Robertson, all of whom merged a scientific study of how humans behaved in ancient and primitive cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity. Modern sociology largely originated from this movement[35] and Hume's philosophical concepts that directly influenced James Madison (and thus the U.S. Constitution) and as popularised by Dugald Stewart, would be the basis of classical liberalism.[36]

In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, often considered the first work on modern economics as it had an immediate impact on British economic policy that continues into the 21st century.[37] It was immediately preceded and influenced by Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune drafts of Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (Paris, 1766). Smith acknowledged indebtedness and possibly was the original English translator.[38]

Cesare Beccaria, a jurist, criminologist, philosopher and politician and one of the great Enlightenment writers, became famous for his masterpiece Of Crimes and Punishments (1764), later translated into 22 languages,[39] which condemned torture and the death penalty and was a founding work in the field of penology and the Classical School of criminology by promoting criminal justice. Another prominent intellectual was Francesco Mario Pagano, who wrote important studies such as Saggi Politici (Political Essays, 1783), one of the major works of the Enlightenment in Naples; and Considerazioni sul processo criminale (Considerations on the criminal trial, 1787), which established him as an international authority on criminal law.[40]

The Enlightenment has long been hailed as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture.[41] The Enlightenment brought political modernization to the West, in terms of introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies. This thesis has been widely accepted by Anglophone scholars and has been reinforced by the large-scale studies by Robert Darnton, Roy Porter and most recently by Jonathan Israel.[42][43]

John Locke, one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers,[44] based his governance philosophy in social contract theory, a subject that permeated Enlightenment political thought. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes ushered in this new debate with his work Leviathan in 1651. Hobbes also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.[45]

Both Locke and Rousseau developed social contract theories in Two Treatises of Government and Discourse on Inequality, respectively. While quite different works, Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau agreed that a social contract, in which the government's authority lies in the consent of the governed,[47] is necessary for man to live in civil society. Locke defines the state of nature as a condition in which humans are rational and follow natural law, in which all men are born equal and with the right to life, liberty and property. However, when one citizen breaks the Law of Nature both the transgressor and the victim enter into a state of war, from which it is virtually impossible to break free. Therefore, Locke said that individuals enter into civil society to protect their natural rights via an "unbiased judge" or common authority, such as courts, to appeal to. Contrastingly, Rousseau's conception relies on the supposition that "civil man" is corrupted, while "natural man" has no want he cannot fulfill himself. Natural man is only taken out of the state of nature when the inequality associated with private property is established.[48] Rousseau said that people join into civil society via the social contract to achieve unity while preserving individual freedom. This is embodied in the sovereignty of the general will, the moral and collective legislative body constituted by citizens.

Locke is known for his statement that individuals have a right to "Life, Liberty and Property" and his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor. Tutored by Locke, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury wrote in 1706: "There is a mighty Light which spreads its self over the world especially in those two free Nations of England and Holland; on whom the Affairs of Europe now turn".[49] Locke's theory of natural rights has influenced many political documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence and the French National Constituent Assembly's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

The philosophes argued that the establishment of a contractual basis of rights would lead to the market mechanism and capitalism, the scientific method, religious tolerance and the organization of states into self-governing republics through democratic means. In this view, the tendency of the philosophes in particular to apply rationality to every problem is considered the essential change.[50]

Though much of Enlightenment political thought was dominated by social contract theorists, both David Hume and Adam Ferguson criticized this camp. Hume's essay Of the Original Contract argues that governments derived from consent are rarely seen and civil government is grounded in a ruler's habitual authority and force. It is precisely because of the ruler's authority over-and-against the subject, that the subject tacitly consents and Hume says that the subjects would "never imagine that their consent made him sovereign", rather the authority did so.[51] Similarly, Ferguson did not believe citizens built the state, rather polities grew out of social development. In his 1767 An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Ferguson uses the four stages of progress, a theory that was very popular in Scotland at the time, to explain how humans advance from a hunting and gathering society to a commercial and civil society without "signing" a social contract.

Both Rousseau and Locke's social contract theories rest on the presupposition of natural rights, which are not a result of law or custom, but are things that all men have in pre-political societies and are therefore universal and inalienable. The most famous natural right formulation comes from John Locke in his Second Treatise, when he introduces the state of nature. For Locke, the law of nature is grounded on mutual security or the idea that one cannot infringe on another's natural rights, as every man is equal and has the same inalienable rights. These natural rights include perfect equality and freedom, as well as the right to preserve life and property. Locke also argued against slavery on the basis that enslaving yourself goes against the law of nature because you cannot surrender your own rights, your freedom is absolute and no one can take it from you. Additionally, Locke argues that one person cannot enslave another because it is morally reprehensible, although he introduces a caveat by saying that enslavement of a lawful captive in time of war would not go against one's natural rights.

As a spillover of the Enlightenment, nonsecular beliefs expressed first by Quakers and then by Protestant evangelicals in Britain and the United States emerged. To these groups, slavery became "repugnant to our religion" and a "crime in the sight of God."[52] These ideas added to those expressed by Enlightenment thinkers, leading many in Britain to believe that slavery was "not only morally wrong and economically inefficient, but also politically unwise."[53] As these notions gained more adherents, Britain was forced to end its participation in the slave trade.

The leaders of the Enlightenment were not especially democratic, as they more often look to absolute monarchs as the key to imposing reforms designed by the intellectuals. Voltaire despised democracy and said the absolute monarch must be enlightened and must act as dictated by reason and justice in other words, be a "philosopher-king".[54]

In several nations, rulers welcomed leaders of the Enlightenment at court and asked them to help design laws and programs to reform the system, typically to build stronger states. These rulers are called "enlightened despots" by historians.[55] They included Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Leopold II of Tuscany and Joseph II of Austria. Joseph was over-enthusiastic, announcing many reforms that had little support so that revolts broke out and his regime became a comedy of errors and nearly all his programs were reversed.[56] Senior ministers Pombal in Portugal and Johann Friedrich Struensee in Denmark also governed according to Enlightenment ideals. In Poland, the model constitution of 1791 expressed Enlightenment ideals, but was in effect for only one year before the nation was partitioned among its neighbors. More enduring were the cultural achievements, which created a nationalist spirit in Poland.[57]

Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, saw himself as a leader of the Enlightenment and patronized philosophers and scientists at his court in Berlin. Voltaire, who had been imprisoned and maltreated by the French government, was eager to accept Frederick's invitation to live at his palace. Frederick explained: "My principal occupation is to combat ignorance and prejudice... to enlighten minds, cultivate morality, and to make people as happy as it suits human nature, and as the means at my disposal permit".[58]

The Enlightenment has been frequently linked to the French Revolution of 1789. One view of the political changes that occurred during the Enlightenment is that the "consent of the governed" philosophy as delineated by Locke in Two Treatises of Government (1689) represented a paradigm shift from the old governance paradigm under feudalism known as the "divine right of kings". In this view, the revolutions of the late 1700s and early 1800s were caused by the fact that this governance paradigm shift often could not be resolved peacefully and therefore violent revolution was the result. Clearly a governance philosophy where the king was never wrong was in direct conflict with one whereby citizens by natural law had to consent to the acts and rulings of their government.

Alexis de Tocqueville described the French Revolution as the inevitable result of the radical opposition created in the 18th century between the monarchy and the men of letters of the Enlightenment. These men of letters constituted a sort of "substitute aristocracy that was both all-powerful and without real power". This illusory power came from the rise of "public opinion", born when absolutist centralization removed the nobility and the bourgeoisie from the political sphere. The "literary politics" that resulted promoted a discourse of equality and was hence in fundamental opposition to the monarchical regime.[59] De Tocqueville "clearly designates ... the cultural effects of transformation in the forms of the exercise of power".[60]

Enlightenment era religious commentary was a response to the preceding century of religious conflict in Europe, especially the Thirty Years' War.[61] Theologians of the Enlightenment wanted to reform their faith to its generally non-confrontational roots and to limit the capacity for religious controversy to spill over into politics and warfare while still maintaining a true faith in God. For moderate Christians, this meant a return to simple Scripture. John Locke abandoned the corpus of theological commentary in favor of an "unprejudiced examination" of the Word of God alone. He determined the essence of Christianity to be a belief in Christ the redeemer and recommended avoiding more detailed debate.[62] In the Jefferson Bible, Thomas Jefferson went further and dropped any passages dealing with miracles, visitations of angels and the resurrection of Jesus after his death, as he tried to extract the practical Christian moral code of the New Testament.[63]

Enlightenment scholars sought to curtail the political power of organized religion and thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war.[64] Spinoza determined to remove politics from contemporary and historical theology (e.g., disregarding Judaic law).[65] Moses Mendelssohn advised affording no political weight to any organized religion, but instead recommended that each person follow what they found most convincing.[66] A good religion based in instinctive morals and a belief in God should not theoretically need force to maintain order in its believers and both Mendelssohn and Spinoza judged religion on its moral fruits, not the logic of its theology.[67]

A number of novel ideas about religion developed with the Enlightenment, including deism and talk of atheism. According to Thomas Paine, deism is the simple belief in God the Creator, with no reference to the Bible or any other miraculous source. Instead, the deist relies solely on personal reason to guide his creed,[68] which was eminently agreeable to many thinkers of the time.[69] Atheism was much discussed, but there were few proponents. Wilson and Reill note: "In fact, very few enlightened intellectuals, even when they were vocal critics of Christianity, were true atheists. Rather, they were critics of orthodox belief, wedded rather to skepticism, deism, vitalism, or perhaps pantheism".[70] Some followed Pierre Bayle and argued that atheists could indeed be moral men.[71] Many others like Voltaire held that without belief in a God who punishes evil, the moral order of society was undermined. That is, since atheists gave themselves to no Supreme Authority and no law and had no fear of eternal consequences, they were far more likely to disrupt society.[72] Bayle (16471706) observed that, in his day, "prudent persons will always maintain an appearance of [religion]," and he believed that even atheists could hold concepts of honour and go beyond their own self-interest to create and interact in society.[73] Locke said that if there were no God and no divine law, the result would be moral anarchy: every individual "could have no law but his own will, no end but himself. He would be a god to himself, and the satisfaction of his own will the sole measure and end of all his actions."[74]

The "Radical Enlightenment" promoted the concept of separating church and state, an idea that is often credited to English philosopher John Locke (16321704).[78] According to his principle of the social contract, Locke said that the government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he said must therefore remain protected from any government authority.

These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with the social contract, became particularly influential in the American colonies and the drafting of the United States Constitution.[79] Thomas Jefferson called for a "wall of separation between church and state" at the federal level. He previously had supported successful efforts to disestablish the Church of England in Virginia[80] and authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.[81] Jefferson's political ideals were greatly influenced by the writings of John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton,[82] whom he considered the three greatest men that ever lived.[83]

The Enlightenment took hold in most European countries, often with a specific local emphasis. For example, in France it became associated with anti-government and anti-Church radicalism, while in Germany it reached deep into the middle classes, where it expressed a spiritualistic and nationalistic tone without threatening governments or established churches.[84] Government responses varied widely. In France, the government was hostile, and the philosophes fought against its censorship, sometimes being imprisoned or hounded into exile. The British government, for the most part, ignored the Enlightenment's leaders in England and Scotland, although it did give Isaac Newton a knighthood and a very lucrative government office.

The very existence of an English Enlightenment has been hotly debated by scholars. The majority of textbooks on British history make little or no mention of an English Enlightenment. Some surveys of the entire Enlightenment include England and others ignore it, although they do include coverage of such major intellectuals as Joseph Addison, Edward Gibbon, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Alexander Pope, Joshua Reynolds and Jonathan Swift.[85] Roy Porter argues that the reasons for this neglect were the assumptions that the movement was primarily French-inspired, that it was largely a-religious or anti-clerical, and that it stood in outspoken defiance to the established order.[86] Porter admits that, after the 1720s, England could claim few thinkers to equal Diderot, Voltaire or Rousseau. Indeed, its leading intellectuals such as Edward Gibbon,[87] Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson were all quite conservative and supportive of the standing order. Porter says the reason was that Enlightenment had come early to England and had succeeded so that the culture had accepted political liberalism, philosophical empiricism, and religious toleration of the sort that intellectuals on the continent had to fight for against powerful odds. Furthermore, England rejected the collectivism of the continent and emphasized the improvement of individuals as the main goal of enlightenment.[88]

In the Scottish Enlightenment, Scotland's major cities created an intellectual infrastructure of mutually supporting institutions such as universities, reading societies, libraries, periodicals, museums and masonic lodges. The Scottish network was "predominantly liberal Calvinist, Newtonian, and 'design' oriented in character which played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment".[90] In France, Voltaire said that "we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization".[91] The focus of the Scottish Enlightenment ranged from intellectual and economic matters to the specifically scientific as in the work of William Cullen, physician and chemist; James Anderson, an agronomist; Joseph Black, physicist and chemist; and James Hutton, the first modern geologist.[17][92]

Several Americans, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, played a major role in bringing Enlightenment ideas to the New World and in influencing British and French thinkers.[93] Franklin was influential for his political activism and for his advances in physics.[94][95] The cultural exchange during the Age of Enlightenment ran in both directions across the Atlantic. Thinkers such as Paine, Locke and Rousseau all take Native American cultural practices as examples of natural freedom.[96] The Americans closely followed English and Scottish political ideas, as well as some French thinkers such as Montesquieu.[97] As deists, they were influenced by ideas of John Toland (16701722) and Matthew Tindal (16561733). During the Enlightenment there was a great emphasis upon liberty, republicanism and religious tolerance. There was no respect for monarchy or inherited political power. Deists reconciled science and religion by rejecting prophecies, miracles and Biblical theology. Leading deists included Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason and by Thomas Jefferson in his short Jefferson Bible from which all supernatural aspects were removed.[98]

Prussia took the lead among the German states in sponsoring the political reforms that Enlightenment thinkers urged absolute rulers to adopt. There were important movements as well in the smaller states of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover and the Palatinate. In each case, Enlightenment values became accepted and led to significant political and administrative reforms that laid the groundwork for the creation of modern states.[99] The princes of Saxony, for example, carried out an impressive series of fundamental fiscal, administrative, judicial, educational, cultural and general economic reforms. The reforms were aided by the country's strong urban structure and influential commercial groups and modernized pre-1789 Saxony along the lines of classic Enlightenment principles.[100]

Before 1750, the German upper classes looked to France for intellectual, cultural and architectural leadership, as French was the language of high society. By the mid-18th century, the Aufklrung (The Enlightenment) had transformed German high culture in music, philosophy, science and literature. Christian Wolff (16791754) was the pioneer as a writer who expounded the Enlightenment to German readers and legitimized German as a philosophic language.[101]

Johann Gottfried von Herder (17441803) broke new ground in philosophy and poetry, as a leader of the Sturm und Drang movement of proto-Romanticism. Weimar Classicism (Weimarer Klassik) was a cultural and literary movement based in Weimar that sought to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical and Enlightenment ideas. The movement (from 1772 until 1805) involved Herder as well as polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) and Friedrich Schiller (17591805), a poet and historian. Herder argued that every folk had its own particular identity, which was expressed in its language and culture. This legitimized the promotion of German language and culture and helped shape the development of German nationalism. Schiller's plays expressed the restless spirit of his generation, depicting the hero's struggle against social pressures and the force of destiny.[102]

German music, sponsored by the upper classes, came of age under composers Johann Sebastian Bach (16851750), Joseph Haydn (17321809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (17561791).[103]

In remote Knigsberg, philosopher Immanuel Kant (17241804) tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority. Kant's work contained basic tensions that would continue to shape German thought and indeed all of European philosophy well into the 20th century.[104]

The German Enlightenment won the support of princes, aristocrats and the middle classes and it permanently reshaped the culture.[105] However, there was a conservatism among the elites that warned against going too far.[106]

In the 1780s, Lutheran ministers Johann Heinrich Schulz and Karl Wilhelm Brumbey got in trouble with their preaching as they were attacked and ridiculed by Immanuel Kant, Wilhelm Abraham Teller and others. In 1788, Prussia issued an "Edict on Religion" that forbade preaching any sermon that undermined popular belief in the Holy Trinity and the Bible. The goal was to avoid skepticism, deism and theological disputes that might impinge on domestic tranquility. Men who doubted the value of Enlightenment favoured the measure, but so too did many supporters. German universities had created a closed elite that could debate controversial issues among themselves, but spreading them to the public was seen as too risky. This intellectual elite was favoured by the state, but that might be reversed if the process of the Enlightenment proved politically or socially destabilizing.[107]

The Enlightenment played a distinctive, if small, role in the history of Italy.[108][109] Although most of Italy was controlled by conservative Habsburgs or the pope, Tuscany had some opportunities for reform. Leopold II of Tuscany abolished the death penalty in Tuscany and reduced censorship. From Naples, Antonio Genovesi (171369) influenced a generation of southern Italian intellectuals and university students. His textbook "Diceosina, o Sia della Filosofia del Giusto e dell'Onesto" (1766) was a controversial attempt to mediate between the history of moral philosophy on the one hand and the specific problems encountered by 18th-century commercial society on the other. It contained the greater part of Genovesi's political, philosophical and economic thought guidebook for Neapolitan economic and social development.[110] Science flourished as Alessandro Volta and Luigi Galvani made break-through discoveries in electricity. Pietro Verri was a leading economist in Lombardy. Historian Joseph Schumpeter states he was "the most important pre-Smithian authority on Cheapness-and-Plenty".[111] The most influential scholar on the Italian Enlightenment has been Franco Venturi.[112][113]

In Russia, the government began to actively encourage the proliferation of arts and sciences in the mid-18th century. This era produced the first Russian university, library, theatre, public museum and independent press. Like other enlightened despots, Catherine the Great played a key role in fostering the arts, sciences and education. She used her own interpretation of Enlightenment ideals, assisted by notable international experts such as Voltaire (by correspondence) and in residence world class scientists such as Leonhard Euler and Peter Simon Pallas. The national Enlightenment differed from its Western European counterpart in that it promoted further modernization of all aspects of Russian life and was concerned with attacking the institution of serfdom in Russia. The Russian enlightenment centred on the individual instead of societal enlightenment and encouraged the living of an enlightened life.[114] A powerful element was prosveshchenie which combined religious piety, erudition and commitment to the spread of learning. However, it lacked the skeptical and critical spirit of the European Enlightenment.[116]

Enlightenment ideas (owiecenie) emerged late in Poland, as the Polish middle class was weaker and szlachta (nobility) culture (Sarmatism) together with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth political system (Golden Liberty) were in deep crisis. The political system was built on republicanism, but was unable to defend itself against powerful neighbors Russia, Prussia and Austria as they repeatedly sliced off regions until nothing was left of independent Poland. The period of Polish Enlightenment began in the 1730s1740s and especially in theatre and the arts peaked in the reign of King Stanisaw August Poniatowski (second half of the 18th century). Warsaw was a main centre after 1750, with an expansion of schools and educational institutions and the arts patronage held at the Royal Castle.[117] Leaders promoted tolerance and more education. They included King Stanislaw II Poniatowski and reformers Piotr Switkowski, Antoni Poplawski, Josef Niemcewicz and Jsef Pawlinkowski, as well as Baudouin de Cortenay, a Polonized dramatist. Opponents included Florian Jaroszewicz, Gracjan Piotrowski, Karol Wyrwicz and Wojciech Skarszewski.[118]

The movement went into decline with the Third Partition of Poland (1795) a national tragedy inspiring a short period of sentimental writing and ended in 1822, replaced by Romanticism.[119]

The Enlightenment has always been contested territory. According to Keith Thomas, its supporters "hail it as the source of everything that is progressive about the modern world. For them, it stands for freedom of thought, rational inquiry, critical thinking, religious tolerance, political liberty, scientific achievement, the pursuit of happiness, and hope for the future."[120] Thomas adds that its detractors accuse it of shallow rationalism, nave optimism, unrealistic universalism and moral darkness. From the start, conservative and clerical defenders of traditional religion attacked materialism and skepticism as evil forces that encouraged immorality. By 1794, they pointed to the Terror during the French Revolution as confirmation of their predictions. As the Enlightenment was ending, Romantic philosophers argued that excessive dependence on reason was a mistake perpetuated by the Enlightenment because it disregarded the bonds of history, myth, faith, and tradition that were necessary to hold society together.[121]

The term "Enlightenment" emerged in English in the later part of the 19th century,[122] with particular reference to French philosophy, as the equivalent of the French term Lumires (used first by Dubos in 1733 and already well established by 1751). From Immanuel Kant's 1784 essay "Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklrung?" ("Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?"), the German term became Aufklrung (aufklren = to illuminate; sich aufklren = to clear up). However, scholars have never agreed on a definition of the Enlightenment, or on its chronological or geographical extent. Terms like les Lumires (French), illuminismo (Italian), ilustracin (Spanish) and Aufklrung (German) referred to partly overlapping movements. Not until the late nineteenth century did English scholars agree they were talking about "the Enlightenment".[121][123]

Enlightenment historiography began in the period itself, from what Enlightenment figures said about their work. A dominant element was the intellectual angle they took. D'Alembert's Preliminary Discourse of l'Encyclopdie provides a history of the Enlightenment which comprises a chronological list of developments in the realm of knowledge of which the Encyclopdie forms the pinnacle.[124] In 1783, Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn referred to Enlightenment as a process by which man was educated in the use of reason.[125] Immanuel Kant called Enlightenment "man's release from his self-incurred tutelage", tutelage being "man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another".[126] "For Kant, Enlightenment was mankind's final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance".[127] The German scholar Ernst Cassirer called the Enlightenment "a part and a special phase of that whole intellectual development through which modern philosophic thought gained its characteristic self-confidence and self-consciousness".[128] According to historian Roy Porter, the liberation of the human mind from a dogmatic state of ignorance is the epitome of what the Age of Enlightenment was trying to capture.[129]

Bertrand Russell saw the Enlightenment as a phase in a progressive development which began in antiquity and that reason and challenges to the established order were constant ideals throughout that time.[130] Russell said that the Enlightenment was ultimately born out of the Protestant reaction against the Catholic counter-reformation and that philosophical views such as affinity for democracy against monarchy originated among 16th-century Protestants to justify their desire to break away from the Catholic Church. Though many of these philosophical ideals were picked up by Catholics, Russell argues that by the 18th century the Enlightenment was the principal manifestation of the schism that began with Martin Luther.[130]

Jonathan Israel rejects the attempts of postmodern and Marxian historians to understand the revolutionary ideas of the period purely as by-products of social and economic transformations. He instead focuses on the history of ideas in the period from 1650 to the end of the 18th century and claims that it was the ideas themselves that caused the change that eventually led to the revolutions of the latter half of the 18th century and the early 19th century. Israel argues that until the 1650s Western civilization "was based on a largely shared core of faith, tradition and authority".

There is little consensus on the precise beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, though the beginning of the 18th century (1701) or the middle of the 17th century (1650) are often used as epochs. French historians usually place the period, called the Sicle des Lumires ("Century of Enlightenments"), between 1715 and 1789, from the beginning of the reign of Louis XV until the French Revolution. If taken back to the mid-17th century, the Enlightenment would trace its origins to Descartes' Discourse on the Method, published in 1637. In France, many cited the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica in 1687.[134] It is argued by several historians and philosophers that the beginning of the Enlightenment is when Descartes shifted the epistemological basis from external authority to internal certainty by his cogito ergo sum published in 1637.[135][136][137] As to its end, most scholars use the last years of the century, often choosing the French Revolution of 1789 or the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (18041815) as a convenient point in time with which to date the end of the Enlightenment.[138]

In the 1944 book Dialectic of Enlightenment, Frankfurt School philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno argued:

Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth radiates under the sign of disaster triumphant.[139]

In the 1970s, study of the Enlightenment expanded to include the ways Enlightenment ideas spread to European colonies and how they interacted with indigenous cultures and how the Enlightenment took place in formerly unstudied areas such as Italy, Greece, the Balkans, Poland, Hungary and Russia.[140]

Intellectuals such as Robert Darnton and Jrgen Habermas have focused on the social conditions of the Enlightenment. Habermas described the creation of the "bourgeois public sphere" in 18th-century Europe, containing the new venues and modes of communication allowing for rational exchange. Habermas said that the public sphere was bourgeois, egalitarian, rational and independent from the state, making it the ideal venue for intellectuals to critically examine contemporary politics and society, away from the interference of established authority. While the public sphere is generally an integral component of the social study of the Enlightenment, other historians have questioned whether the public sphere had these characteristics.[141]

In contrast to the intellectual historiographical approach of the Enlightenment, which examines the various currents or discourses of intellectual thought within the European context during the 17th and 18th centuries, the cultural (or social) approach examines the changes that occurred in European society and culture. This approach studies the process of changing sociabilities and cultural practices during the Enlightenment.

One of the primary elements of the culture of the Enlightenment was the rise of the public sphere, a "realm of communication marked by new arenas of debate, more open and accessible forms of urban public space and sociability, and an explosion of print culture", in the late 17th century and 18th century.[142] Elements of the public sphere included that it was egalitarian, that it discussed the domain of "common concern," and that argument was founded on reason.[143] Habermas uses the term "common concern" to describe those areas of political/social knowledge and discussion that were previously the exclusive territory of the state and religious authorities, now open to critical examination by the public sphere. The values of this bourgeois public sphere included holding reason to be supreme, considering everything to be open to criticism (the public sphere is critical), and the opposition of secrecy of all sorts.[144]

The creation of the public sphere has been associated with two long-term historical trends: the rise of the modern nation state and the rise of capitalism. The modern nation state, in its consolidation of public power, created by counterpoint a private realm of society independent of the state, which allowed for the public sphere. Capitalism also increased society's autonomy and self-awareness, as well as an increasing need for the exchange of information. As the nascent public sphere expanded, it embraced a large variety of institutions and the most commonly cited were coffee houses and cafs, salons and the literary public sphere, figuratively localized in the Republic of Letters.[146] In France, the creation of the public sphere was helped by the aristocracy's move from the King's palace at Versailles to Paris in about 1720, since their rich spending stimulated the trade in luxuries and artistic creations, especially fine paintings.[147]

The context for the rise of the public sphere was the economic and social change commonly associated with the Industrial Revolution: "Economic expansion, increasing urbanization, rising population and improving communications in comparison to the stagnation of the previous century".[148] Rising efficiency in production techniques and communication lowered the prices of consumer goods and increased the amount and variety of goods available to consumers (including the literature essential to the public sphere). Meanwhile, the colonial experience (most European states had colonial empires in the 18th century) began to expose European society to extremely heterogeneous cultures, leading to the breaking down of "barriers between cultural systems, religious divides, gender differences and geographical areas".[149]

The word "public" implies the highest level of inclusivity the public sphere by definition should be open to all. However, this sphere was only public to relative degrees. Enlightenment thinkers frequently contrasted their conception of the "public" with that of the people: Condorcet contrasted "opinion" with populace, Marmontel "the opinion of men of letters" with "the opinion of the multitude" and d'Alembert the "truly enlightened public" with "the blind and noisy multitude".[150] Additionally, most institutions of the public sphere excluded both women and the lower classes.[151] Cross-class influences occurred through noble and lower class participation in areas such as the coffeehouses and the Masonic lodges.

Because of the focus on reason over superstition, the Enlightenment cultivated the arts.[152] Emphasis on learning, art and music became more widespread, especially with the growing middle class. Areas of study such as literature, philosophy, science, and the fine arts increasingly explored subject matter to which the general public, in addition to the previously more segregated professionals and patrons, could relate.[153]

As musicians depended more and more on public support, public concerts became increasingly popular and helped supplement performers' and composers' incomes. The concerts also helped them to reach a wider audience. Handel, for example, epitomized this with his highly public musical activities in London. He gained considerable fame there with performances of his operas and oratorios. The music of Haydn and Mozart, with their Viennese Classical styles, are usually regarded as being the most in line with the Enlightenment ideals.[154]

The desire to explore, record and systematize knowledge had a meaningful impact on music publications. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique (published 1767 in Geneva and 1768 in Paris) was a leading text in the late 18th century.[154] This widely available dictionary gave short definitions of words like genius and taste and was clearly influenced by the Enlightenment movement. Another text influenced by Enlightenment values was Charles Burney's A General History of Music: From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (1776), which was a historical survey and an attempt to rationalize elements in music systematically over time.[155] Recently, musicologists have shown renewed interest in the ideas and consequences of the Enlightenment. For example, Rose Rosengard Subotnik's Deconstructive Variations (subtitled Music and Reason in Western Society) compares Mozart's Die Zauberflte (1791) using the Enlightenment and Romantic perspectives and concludes that the work is "an ideal musical representation of the Enlightenment".[155]

As the economy and the middle class expanded, there was an increasing number of amateur musicians. One manifestation of this involved women, who became more involved with music on a social level. Women were already engaged in professional roles as singers and increased their presence in the amateur performers' scene, especially with keyboard music.[156] Music publishers begin to print music that amateurs could understand and play. The majority of the works that were published were for keyboard, voice and keyboard and chamber ensemble.[156] After these initial genres were popularized, from the mid-century on, amateur groups sang choral music, which then became a new trend for publishers to capitalize on. The increasing study of the fine arts, as well as access to amateur-friendly published works, led to more people becoming interested in reading and discussing music. Music magazines, reviews and critical works which suited amateurs as well as connoisseurs began to surface.[156]

The philosophes spent a great deal of energy disseminating their ideas among educated men and women in cosmopolitan cities. They used many venues, some of them quite new.

The term "Republic of Letters" was coined in 1664 by Pierre Bayle in his journal Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres. Towards the end of the 18th century, the editor of Histoire de la Rpublique des Lettres en France, a literary survey, described the Republic of Letters as being:

In the midst of all the governments that decide the fate of men; in the bosom of so many states, the majority of them despotic... there exists a certain realm which holds sway only over the mind... that we honour with the name Republic, because it preserves a measure of independence, and because it is almost its essence to be free. It is the realm of talent and of thought.[157]

The Republic of Letters was the sum of a number of Enlightenment ideals: an egalitarian realm governed by knowledge that could act across political boundaries and rival state power.[157] It was a forum that supported "free public examination of questions regarding religion or legislation".[158] Immanuel Kant considered written communication essential to his conception of the public sphere; once everyone was a part of the "reading public", then society could be said to be enlightened.[159] The people who participated in the Republic of Letters, such as Diderot and Voltaire, are frequently known today as important Enlightenment figures. Indeed, the men who wrote Diderot's Encyclopdie arguably formed a microcosm of the larger "republic".[160]

Many women played an essential part in the French Enlightenment, due to the role they played as salonnires in Parisian salons, as the contrast to the male philosophes. The salon was the principal social institution of the republic[161] and "became the civil working spaces of the project of Enlightenment". Women, as salonnires, were "the legitimate governors of [the] potentially unruly discourse" that took place within.[162] While women were marginalized in the public culture of the Old Regime, the French Revolution destroyed the old cultural and economic restraints of patronage and corporatism (guilds), opening French society to female participation, particularly in the literary sphere.[163]

In France, the established men of letters (gens de lettres) had fused with the elites (les grands) of French society by the mid-18th century. This led to the creation of an oppositional literary sphere, Grub Street, the domain of a "multitude of versifiers and would-be authors".[164] These men came to London to become authors, only to discover that the literary market simply could not support large numbers of writers, who in any case were very poorly remunerated by the publishing-bookselling guilds.[165]

The writers of Grub Street, the Grub Street Hacks, were left feeling bitter about the relative success of the men of letters[166] and found an outlet for their literature which was typified by the libelle. Written mostly in the form of pamphlets, the libelles "slandered the court, the Church, the aristocracy, the academies, the salons, everything elevated and respectable, including the monarchy itself".[167] Le Gazetier cuirass by Charles Thveneau de Morande was a prototype of the genre. It was Grub Street literature that was most read by the public during the Enlightenment.[168] According to Darnton, more importantly the Grub Street hacks inherited the "revolutionary spirit" once displayed by the philosophes and paved the way for the French Revolution by desacralizing figures of political, moral and religious authority in France.[169]

The increased consumption of reading materials of all sorts was one of the key features of the "social" Enlightenment. Developments in the Industrial Revolution allowed consumer goods to be produced in greater quantities at lower prices, encouraging the spread of books, pamphlets, newspapers and journals "media of the transmission of ideas and attitudes". Commercial development likewise increased the demand for information, along with rising populations and increased urbanisation.[170] However, demand for reading material extended outside of the realm of the commercial and outside the realm of the upper and middle classes, as evidenced by the Bibliothque Bleue. Literacy rates are difficult to gauge, but in France the rates doubled over the course of the 18th century.[171] Reflecting the decreasing influence of religion, the number of books about science and art published in Paris doubled from 1720 to 1780, while the number of books about religion dropped to just one-tenth of the total.

Reading underwent serious changes in the 18th century. In particular, Rolf Engelsing has argued for the existence of a Reading Revolution. Until 1750, reading was done intensively: people tended to own a small number of books and read them repeatedly, often to small audience. After 1750, people began to read "extensively", finding as many books as they could, increasingly reading them alone.[172] This is supported by increasing literacy rates, particularly among women.[173]

The vast majority of the reading public could not afford to own a private library and while most of the state-run "universal libraries" set up in the 17th and 18th centuries were open to the public, they were not the only sources of reading material. On one end of the spectrum was the Bibliothque Bleue, a collection of cheaply produced books published in Troyes, France. Intended for a largely rural and semi-literate audience these books included almanacs, retellings of medieval romances and condensed versions of popular novels, among other things. While some historians have argued against the Enlightenment's penetration into the lower classes, the Bibliothque Bleue represents at least a desire to participate in Enlightenment sociability.[174] Moving up the classes, a variety of institutions offered readers access to material without needing to buy anything. Libraries that lent out their material for a small price started to appear and occasionally bookstores would offer a small lending library to their patrons. Coffee houses commonly offered books, journals and sometimes even popular novels to their customers. The Tatler and The Spectator, two influential periodicals sold from 1709 to 1714, were closely associated with coffee house culture in London, being both read and produced in various establishments in the city.[175] This is an example of the triple or even quadruple function of the coffee house: reading material was often obtained, read, discussed and even produced on the premises.[176]

It is extremely difficult to determine what people actually read during the Enlightenment. For example, examining the catalogs of private libraries gives an image skewed in favor of the classes wealthy enough to afford libraries and also ignores censured works unlikely to be publicly acknowledged. For this reason, a study of publishing would be much more fruitful for discerning reading habits.[177]

Across continental Europe, but in France especially, booksellers and publishers had to negotiate censorship laws of varying strictness. For example, the Encyclopdie narrowly escaped seizure and had to be saved by Malesherbes, the man in charge of the French censure. Indeed, many publishing companies were conveniently located outside France so as to avoid overzealous French censors. They would smuggle their merchandise across the border, where it would then be transported to clandestine booksellers or small-time peddlers.[178] The records of clandestine booksellers may give a better representation of what literate Frenchmen might have truly read, since their clandestine nature provided a less restrictive product choice.[179] In one case, political books were the most popular category, primarily libels and pamphlets. Readers were more interested in sensationalist stories about criminals and political corruption than they were in political theory itself. The second most popular category, "general works" (those books "that did not have a dominant motif and that contained something to offend almost everyone in authority") demonstrated a high demand for generally low-brow subversive literature. However, these works never became part of literary canon and are largely forgotten today as a result.[179]

A healthy, and legal, publishing industry existed throughout Europe, although established publishers and book sellers occasionally ran afoul of the law. For example, the Encyclopdie condemned not only by the King, but also by Clement XII, nevertheless found its way into print with the help of the aforementioned Malesherbes and creative use of French censorship law.[180] However, many works were sold without running into any legal trouble at all. Borrowing records from libraries in England, Germany and North America indicate that more than 70percent of books borrowed were novels. Less than 1percent of the books were of a religious nature, indicating the general trend of declining religiosity.[157]

A genre that greatly rose in importance was that of scientific literature. Natural history in particular became increasingly popular among the upper classes. Works of natural history include Ren-Antoine Ferchault de Raumur's Histoire naturelle des insectes and Jacques Gautier d'Agoty's La Myologie complte, ou description de tous les muscles du corps humain (1746). Outside ancien rgime France, natural history was an important part of medicine and industry, encompassing the fields of botany, zoology, meteorology, hydrology and mineralogy. Students in Enlightenment universities and academies were taught these subjects to prepare them for careers as diverse as medicine and theology. As shown by Matthew Daniel Eddy, natural history in this context was a very middle class pursuit and operated as a fertile trading zone for the interdisciplinary exchange of diverse scientific ideas.[181]

The target audience of natural history was French polite society, evidenced more by the specific discourse of the genre than by the generally high prices of its works. Naturalists catered to polite society's desire for erudition many texts had an explicit instructive purpose. However, natural history was often a political affair. As Emma Spary writes, the classifications used by naturalists "slipped between the natural world and the social... to establish not only the expertise of the naturalists over the natural, but also the dominance of the natural over the social".[182] The idea of taste (le got) was a social indicator: to truly be able to categorize nature, one had to have the proper taste, an ability of discretion shared by all members of polite society. In this way natural history spread many of the scientific developments of the time, but also provided a new source of legitimacy for the dominant class.[183] From this basis, naturalists could then develop their own social ideals based on their scientific works.[184]

The first scientific and literary journals were established during the Enlightenment. The first journal, the Parisian Journal des Savans, appeared in 1665. However, it was not until 1682 that periodicals began to be more widely produced. French and Latin were the dominant languages of publication, but there was also a steady demand for material in German and Dutch. There was generally low demand for English publications on the Continent, which was echoed by England's similar lack of desire for French works. Languages commanding less of an international marketsuch as Danish, Spanish and Portuguesefound journal success more difficult and more often than not a more international language was used instead. French slowly took over Latin's status as the lingua franca of learned circles. This in turn gave precedence to the publishing industry in Holland, where the vast majority of these French language periodicals were produced.

Jonathan Israel called the journals the most influential cultural innovation of European intellectual culture. They shifted the attention of the "cultivated public" away from established authorities to novelty and innovation and instead promoted the "enlightened" ideals of toleration and intellectual objectivity. Being a source of knowledge derived from science and reason, they were an implicit critique of existing notions of universal truth monopolized by monarchies, parliaments and religious authorities. They also advanced Christian enlightenment that upheld "the legitimacy of God-ordained authority"the Biblein which there had to be agreement between the biblical and natural theories.

Although the existence of dictionaries and encyclopedias spanned into ancient times, the texts changed from simply defining words in a long running list to far more detailed discussions of those words in 18th-century encyclopedic dictionaries.[188] The works were part of an Enlightenment movement to systematize knowledge and provide education to a wider audience than the elite. As the 18th century progressed, the content of encyclopedias also changed according to readers' tastes. Volumes tended to focus more strongly on secular affairs, particularly science and technology, rather than matters of theology.

Along with secular matters, readers also favoured an alphabetical ordering scheme over cumbersome works arranged along thematic lines.[189] Commenting on alphabetization, the historian Charles Porset has said that "as the zero degree of taxonomy, alphabetical order authorizes all reading strategies; in this respect it could be considered an emblem of the Enlightenment". For Porset, the avoidance of thematic and hierarchical systems thus allows free interpretation of the works and becomes an example of egalitarianism.[190] Encyclopedias and dictionaries also became more popular during the Age of Enlightenment as the number of educated consumers who could afford such texts began to multiply.[188] In the later half of the 18th century, the number of dictionaries and encyclopedias published by decade increased from 63 between 1760 and 1769 to approximately 148 in the decade proceeding the French Revolution (17801789).[191] Along with growth in numbers, dictionaries and encyclopedias also grew in length, often having multiple print runs that sometimes included in supplemented editions.[189]

The first technical dictionary was drafted by John Harris and entitled Lexicon Technicum: Or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. Harris' book avoided theological and biographical entries and instead it concentrated on science and technology. Published in 1704, the Lexicon technicum was the first book to be written in English that took a methodical approach to describing mathematics and commercial arithmetic along with the physical sciences and navigation. Other technical dictionaries followed Harris' model, including Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia (1728), which included five editions and was a substantially larger work than Harris'. The folio edition of the work even included foldout engravings. The Cyclopaedia emphasized Newtonian theories, Lockean philosophy and contained thorough examinations of technologies, such as engraving, brewing and dyeing.

In Germany, practical reference works intended for the uneducated majority became popular in the 18th century. The Marperger Curieuses Natur-, Kunst-, Berg-, Gewerkund Handlungs-Lexicon (1712) explained terms that usefully described the trades and scientific and commercial education. Jablonksi Allgemeines Lexicon (1721) was better known than the Handlungs-Lexicon and underscored technical subjects rather than scientific theory. For example, over five columns of text were dedicated to wine while geometry and logic were allocated only twenty-two and seventeen lines, respectively. The first edition of the Encyclopdia Britannica (1771) was modelled along the same lines as the German lexicons.[192]

However, the prime example of reference works that systematized scientific knowledge in the age of Enlightenment were universal encyclopedias rather than technical dictionaries. It was the goal of universal encyclopedias to record all human knowledge in a comprehensive reference work.[193] The most well-known of these works is Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert's Encyclopdie, ou dictionnaire raisonn des sciences, des arts et des mtiers. The work, which began publication in 1751, was composed of thirty-five volumes and over 71 000 separate entries. A great number of the entries were dedicated to describing the sciences and crafts in detail and provided intellectuals across Europe with a high-quality survey of human knowledge. In d'Alembert's Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, the work's goal to record the extent of human knowledge in the arts and sciences is outlined:

As an Encyclopdie, it is to set forth as well as possible the order and connection of the parts of human knowledge. As a Reasoned Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, it is to contain the general principles that form the basis of each science and each art, liberal or mechanical, and the most essential facts that make up the body and substance of each.[194]

The massive work was arranged according to a "tree of knowledge". The tree reflected the marked division between the arts and sciences, which was largely a result of the rise of empiricism. Both areas of knowledge were united by philosophy, or the trunk of the tree of knowledge. The Enlightenment's desacrilization of religion was pronounced in the tree's design, particularly where theology accounted for a peripheral branch, with black magic as a close neighbour.[195] As the Encyclopdie gained popularity, it was published in quarto and octavo editions after 1777. The quarto and octavo editions were much less expensive than previous editions, making the Encyclopdie more accessible to the non-elite. Robert Darnton estimates that there were approximately 25 000 copies of the Encyclopdie in circulation throughout France and Europe before the French Revolution.[196] The extensive, yet affordable encyclopedia came to represent the transmission of Enlightenment and scientific education to an expanding audience.[197]

One of the most important developments that the Enlightenment era brought to the discipline of science was its popularization. An increasingly literate population seeking knowledge and education in both the arts and the sciences drove the expansion of print culture and the dissemination of scientific learning. The new literate population was due to a high rise in the availability of food. This enabled many people to rise out of poverty, and instead of paying more for food, they had money for education.[198] Popularization was generally part of an overarching Enlightenment ideal that endeavoured "to make information available to the greatest number of people".[199] As public interest in natural philosophy grew during the 18th century, public lecture courses and the publication of popular texts opened up new roads to money and fame for amateurs and scientists who remained on the periphery of universities and academies.[200] More formal works included explanations of scientific theories for individuals lacking the educational background to comprehend the original scientific text. Sir Isaac Newton's celebrated Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published in Latin and remained inaccessible to readers without education in the classics until Enlightenment writers began to translate and analyze the text in the vernacular.

The first significant work that expressed scientific theory and knowledge expressly for the laity, in the vernacular and with the entertainment of readers in mind, was Bernard de Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686). The book was produced specifically for women with an interest in scientific writing and inspired a variety of similar works.[201] These popular works were written in a discursive style, which was laid out much more clearly for the reader than the complicated articles, treatises and books published by the academies and scientists. Charles Leadbetter's Astronomy (1727) was advertised as "a Work entirely New" that would include "short and easie [sic] Rules and Astronomical Tables".[202] The first French introduction to Newtonianism and the Principia was Elments de la philosophie de Newton, published by Voltaire in 1738.[203] milie du Chtelet's translation of the Principia, published after her death in 1756, also helped to spread Newton's theories beyond scientific academies and the university.[204] Writing for a growing female audience, Francesco Algarotti published Il Newtonianism per le dame, which was a tremendously popular work and was translated from Italian into English by Elizabeth Carter. A similar introduction to Newtonianism for women was produced by Henry Pemberton. His A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy was published by subscription. Extant records of subscribers show that women from a wide range of social standings purchased the book, indicating the growing number of scientifically inclined female readers among the middling class.[205] During the Enlightenment, women also began producing popular scientific works themselves. Sarah Trimmer wrote a successful natural history textbook for children titled The Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature (1782), which was published for many years after in eleven editions.[206]

Most work on the Enlightenment emphasizes the ideals discussed by intellectuals, rather than the actual state of education at the time. Leading educational theorists like England's John Locke and Switzerland's Jean Jacques Rousseau both emphasized the importance of shaping young minds early. By the late Enlightenment, there was a rising demand for a more universal approach to education, particularly after the American and French Revolutions.

The predominant educational psychology from the 1750s onward, especially in northern European countries was associationism, the notion that the mind associates or dissociates ideas through repeated routines. In addition to being conducive to Enlightenment ideologies of liberty, self-determination and personal responsibility, it offered a practical theory of the mind that allowed teachers to transform longstanding forms of print and manuscript culture into effective graphic tools of learning for the lower and middle orders of society.[207] Children were taught to memorize facts through oral and graphic methods that originated during the Renaissance.[208]

Many of the leading universities associated with Enlightenment progressive principles were located in northern Europe, with the most renowned being the universities of Leiden, Gttingen, Halle, Montpellier, Uppsala and Edinburgh. These universities, especially Edinburgh, produced professors whose ideas had a significant impact on Britain's North American colonies and later the American Republic. Within the natural sciences, Edinburgh's medical school also led the way in chemistry, anatomy and pharmacology.[209] In other parts of Europe, the universities and schools of France and most of Europe were bastions of traditionalism and were not hospitable to the Enlightenment. In France, the major exception was the medical university at Montpellier.[210]

The history of Academies in France during the Enlightenment begins with the Academy of Science, founded in 1635 in Paris. It was closely tied to the French state, acting as an extension of a government seriously lacking in scientists. It helped promote and organize new disciplines and it trained new scientists. It also contributed to the enhancement of scientists' social status, considering them to be the "most useful of all citizens". Academies demonstrate the rising interest in science along with its increasing secularization, as evidenced by the small number of clerics who were members (13 percent).[212] The presence of the French academies in the public sphere cannot be attributed to their membership, as although the majority of their members were bourgeois, the exclusive institution was only open to elite Parisian scholars. They perceived themselves as "interpreters of the sciences for the people". For example, it was with this in mind that academicians took it upon themselves to disprove the popular pseudo-science of mesmerism.[213]

The strongest contribution of the French Academies to the public sphere comes from the concours acadmiques (roughly translated as "academic contests") they sponsored throughout France. These academic contests were perhaps the most public of any institution during the Enlightenment.[214] The practice of contests dated back to the Middle Ages and was revived in the mid-17th century. The subject matter had previously been generally religious and/or monarchical, featuring essays, poetry and painting. However, by roughly 1725 this subject matter had radically expanded and diversified, including "royal propaganda, philosophical battles, and critical ruminations on the social and political institutions of the Old Regime". Topics of public controversy were also discussed such as the theories of Newton and Descartes, the slave trade, women's education and justice in France.[215]

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Age of Enlightenment - Wikipedia

Who are you? asks the caterpillar in Lewis Carrolls famous book Alice in Wonderland. Alice hesitantly replies, II hardly know.

Many people share her uncertainty.

Have you ever asked yourself who you really are beneath the personality, thought and belief system that youve accumulated over the years? Perhaps you are on your own journey of personal development or a spiritual path, however you dene it, with a deep longing to live to your full potential.

Over time youve become good at displaying and even identifying with your public face or persona, the one that helps you get along in life. You are not alone. Its part of the human socialization process. Yet at a deep level you know theres a real, authentic you that wants to wake up and live with more compassion and freedom, energy and purpose.

Maybe you are simply looking for:

a greater ability to handle stress a calmer and clearer mind more focus and purpose in your life improved relationships and communication skills a life with more passion and energy a deeper sense of happiness and freedom

Perhaps you have your own unique intentions or goals?

If these words have meaning for you then I encourage you to sign up for this retreat.

Go here to read the rest:
Enlightenment Intensive Retreats | in Alberta, Canada

xkcd: Enlightenment

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Enlightenment

{{Title text: But the rules of writing are like magic spells. If you never acquire them, then not using them says nothing.}}[[Two Internet Bodhisattvas lecture a pupil encircled by a wheel placed upon the ground.]]Boddhisatva 1: To achieve *Internet Enlightenment*, you must free yourself from insecurity. Novice: But insecurity keeps me humble!Boddhisatva 1: No. Insecurity leads to conceit. Conceit leads to judgment. Judgment leads to being an asshole.[[A laptop is placed on a stand in front of the student]]Novice: I'm ready, How do I begin?Boddhisatva 1: Type this sentence: "I heard you're idea's and their definately good"[[The laptop has been smashed to the floor. The circle, one full of hope and excitement, is now full of despair and no students]]Boddhisatva 1: She wasn't ready.Boddhisatva 2: Its a difficult road.

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xkcd: Enlightenment

The English term enlightenment is the western translation of the term bodhi, "awakening", which was popularised in the Western world through the 19th century translations of Max Mller. It has the western connotation of a sudden insight into a transcendental truth.

The term is also being used to translate several other Buddhist terms and concepts used to denote insight (prajna, kensho and satori); knowledge (vidhya); the "blowing out" (Nirvana) of disturbing emotions and desires and the subsequent freedom or release (vimutti); and the attainment of Buddhahood, as exemplified by Gautama Buddha.

What exactly constituted the Buddha's awakening is unknown. It may probably have involved the knowledge that liberation was attained by the combination of mindfulness and dhyna, applied to the understanding of the arising and ceasing of craving. The relation between dhyana and insight is a core problem in the study of Buddhism, and is one of the fundamentals of Buddhist practice.

In the western world the concept of (spiritual) enlightenment has taken on a romantic meaning. It has become synonymous with self-realization and the true self and false self, being regarded as a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning.[pageneeded], [pageneeded], [pageneeded], [pageneeded]

Robert S. Cohen notes that the majority of English books on Buddhism use the term "enlightenment" to translate the term bodhi. The root budh, from which both bodhi and Buddha are derived, means "to wake up" or "to recover consciousness". Cohen notes that bodhi is not the result of an illumination, but of a path of realization, or coming to understanding. The term "enlightenment" is event-oriented, whereas the term "awakening" is process-oriented. The western use of the term "enlighten" has Christian roots, as in Calvin's "It is God alone who enlightens our minds to perceive his truths".

Early 19th century bodhi was translated as "intelligence". The term "enlighten" was first being used in 1835, in an English translation of a French article, while the first recorded use of the term 'enlightenment' is credited (by the Oxford English Dictionary) to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (February, 1836). In 1857 The Times used the term "the Enlightened" for the Buddha in a short article, which was reprinted the following year by Max Mller. Thereafter, the use of the term subsided, but reappeared with the publication of Max Mller's Chips from a german Workshop, which included a reprint from the Times-article. The book was translated in 1969 into German, using the term "der Erleuchtete". Max Mller was an essentialist, who believed in a natural religion, and saw religion as an inherent capacity of human beings. "Enlightenment" was a means to capture natural religious truths, as distinguished from mere mythology.[note 1]

By the mid-1870s it had become commonplace to call the Buddha "enlightened", and by the end of the 1880s the terms "enlightened" and "enlightenment" dominated the English literature.

Bodhi (Sanskrit, Pli), from the verbal root budd, "to awaken", "to understand", means literally "to have woken up and understood". According to Johannes Bronkhorst, Tillman Vetter, and K.R. Norman, bodhi was at first not specified. K.R. Norman:

It is not at all clear what gaining bodhi means. We are accustomed to the translation "enlightenment" for bodhi, but this is misleading ... It is not clear what the buddha was awakened to, or at what particular point the awakening came.[18]

According to Norman, bodhi may basically have meant the knowledge that nibbana was attained, due to the practice of dhyana. Originally only "prajna" may have been mentioned, and Tillman Vetter even concludes that originally dhyana itself was deemed liberating, with the stilling of pleasure of pain in the fourth jhana. Gombrich also argues that the emphasis on insight is a later development.

In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi refers to the realisation of the four stages of enlightenment and becoming an Arahant. In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi is equal to supreme insight, and the realisation of the four noble truths, which leads to deliverance. According to Nyanatiloka,

(Through Bodhi) one awakens from the slumber or stupor (inflicted upon the mind) by the defilements (kilesa, q.v.) and comprehends the Four Noble Truths (sacca, q.v.).

This equation of bodhi with the four noble truths is a later development, in response to developments within Indian religious thought, where "liberating insight" was deemed essential for liberation. The four noble truths as the liberating insight of the Buddha eventually were superseded by Prattyasamutpda, the twelvefold chain of causation, and still later by anatta, the emptiness of the self.

In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhi is equal to prajna, insight into the Buddha-nature, sunyata and tathat. This is equal to the realisation of the non-duality of absolute and relative.

In Theravada Buddhism pann (Pali) means "understanding", "wisdom", "insight". "Insight" is equivalent to vipassana', insight into the three marks of existence, namely anicca, dukkha and anatta. Insight leads to the four stages of enlightenment and Nirvana.

In Mahayana Buddhism Prajna (Sanskrit) means "insight" or "wisdom", and entails insight into sunyata. The attainment of this insight is often seen as the attainment of "enlightenment".[need quotation to verify]

Kensho and Satori are Japanese terms used in Zen traditions. Kensho means "seeing into one's true nature." Ken means "seeing", sho means "nature", "essence", c.q Buddha-nature. Satori (Japanese) is often used interchangeably with kensho, but refers to the experience of kensho. The Rinzai tradition sees kensho as essential to the attainment of Buddhahood, but considers further practice essential to attain Buddhahood.

East-Asian (Chinese) Buddhism emphasizes insight into Buddha-nature. This term is derived from Indian tathagata-garbha thought, "the womb of the thus-gone" (the Buddha), the inherent potential of every sentient being to become a Buddha. This idea was integrated with the Yogacara-idea of the laya vijna, and further developed in Chinese Buddhism, which integrated Indian Buddhism with native Chinese thought. Buddha-nature came to mean both the potential of awakening and the whole of reality, a dynamic interpenetration of absolute and relative. In this awakening it is realized that observer and observed are not distinct entities, but mutually co-dependent.

The term vidhya is being used in contrast to avidhya, ignorance or the lack of knowledge, which binds us to samsara. The Mahasaccaka Sutta[note 2] describes the three knowledges which the Buddha attained:

According to Bronkhorst, the first two knowledges are later additions, while insight into the four truths represents a later development, in response to concurring religious traditions, in which "liberating insight" came to be stressed over the practice of dhyana.

Vimutti, also called moksha, means "freedom", "release",[note 3] "deliverance". Sometimes a distinction is being made between ceto-vimutti, "liberation of the mind", and panna-vimutti, "liberation by understanding". The Buddhist tradition recognises two kinds of ceto-vimutti, one temporarily and one permanent, the last being equivalent to panna-vimutti.[note 4]

Yogacara uses the term raya parvtti, "revolution of the basis",

... a sudden revulsion, turning, or re-turning of the laya vijna back into its original state of purity [...] the Mind returns to its original condition of non-attachment, non-discrimination and non-duality".

Nirvana is the "blowing out" of disturbing emotions, which is the same as liberation.[web 1] The usage of the term "enlightenment" to translate "nirvana" was popularized in the 19th century, due, in part, to the efforts of Max Muller, who used the term consistently in his translations.

Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, is said to have achieved full awakening, known as samyaksabodhi (Sanskrit; Pli: sammsabodhi), "perfect Buddhahood", or anuttar-samyak-sabodhi, "highest perfect awakening".

The term buddha has acquired somewhat different meanings in the various Buddhist traditions. An equivalent term for Buddha is Tathgata, "the thus-gone". The way to Buddhahood is somewhat differently understood in the various buddhist traditions.

In the suttapitaka, the Buddhist canon as preserved in the Theravada-tradition, a couple of texts can be found in which the Buddha's attainment of liberation forms part of the narrative.[40][note 5]

The Ariyapariyesana Sutta[note 6] describes how the Buddha was dissatisfied with the teachings of Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, wandered further through Magadhan country, and then found "an agreeable piece of ground" which served for striving. The sutra then only says that he attained Nibbana.

The Mahasaccaka Sutta[note 7] describes his ascetic practices, which he abandoned. There-after he remembered a spontaneous state of jhana, and set out for jhana-practice. After destroying the disturbances of the mind, and attaining concentration of the mind, he attained three knowledges (vidhya):

According to the Mahasaccaka Sutta these insights, including the way to attain liberation, led the Buddha himself straight to liberation. called "awakening."

Schmithausen[note 8] notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36. Bronkhorst notices that

...the accounts which include the Four Noble Truths had a completely different conception of the process of liberation than the one which includes the Four Dhyanas and the destruction of the intoxicants.

It calls in question the reliability of these accounts, and the relation between dhyana and insight, which is a core problem in the study of early Buddhism. Originally the term prajna may have been used, which came to be replaced by the four truths in those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the four jhanas. Bronkhorst also notices that the conception of what exactly this "liberating insight" was developed throughout time. Whereas originally it may not have been specified, later on the four truths served as such, to be superseded by pratityasamutpada, and still later, in the Hinayana schools, by the doctrine of the non-existence of a substantial self or person. And Schmithausen notices that still other descriptions of this "liberating insight" exist in the Buddhist canon:

"that the five Skandhas are impermanent, disagreeable, and neither the Self nor belonging to oneself";[note 9] "the contemplation of the arising and disappearance (udayabbaya) of the five Skandhas";[note 10] "the realisation of the Skandhas as empty (rittaka), vain (tucchaka) and without any pith or substance (asaraka).[note 11]

An example of this substitution, and its consequences, is Majjhima Nikaya 36:42-43, which gives an account of the awakening of the Buddha.

In Theravada Buddhism, reaching full awakening is equivalent in meaning to reaching Nirva.[web 2] Attaining Nirva is the ultimate goal of Theravada and other rvaka traditions.[web 3] It involves the abandonment of the ten fetters and the cessation of dukkha or suffering. Full awakening is reached in four stages.

In Mahyna Buddhism the Bodhisattva is the ideal. The ultimate goal is not only of one's own liberation in Buddhahood, but the liberation of all living beings.

In time, the Buddha's awakening came to be understood as an immediate full awakening and liberation, instead of the insight into and certainty about the way to follow to reach enlightenment. However, in some Zen traditions this perfection came to be relativized again; according to one contemporary Zen master, "Shakyamuni buddha and Bodhidharma are still practicing."

But Mahayana Buddhism also developed a cosmology with a wide range of buddhas and bodhisattvas, who assist humans on their way to liberation.

In the western world the concept of enlightenment has taken on a romantic meaning. It has become synonymous with self-realization and the true self, being regarded as a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning.

The use of the western word enlightenment is based on the supposed resemblance of bodhi with Aufklrung, the independent use of reason to gain insight into the true nature of our world. In fact there are more resemblances with Romanticism than with the Enlightenment: the emphasis on feeling, on intuitive insight, on a true essence beyond the world of appearances.

The equivalent term "awakening" has also been used in a Christian context, namely the Great Awakenings, several periods of religious revival in American religious history. Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of increased religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and the late 19th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.

The romantic idea of enlightenment as insight into a timeless, transcendent reality has been popularized especially by D.T. Suzuki.[web 4][web 5] Further popularization was due to the writings of Heinrich Dumoulin.[web 6] Dumoulin viewed metaphysics as the expression of a transcendent truth, which according to him was expressed by Mahayana Buddhism, but not by the pragmatic analysis of the oldest Buddhism, which emphasizes anatta. This romantic vision is also recognizable in the works of Ken Wilber.

In the oldest Buddhism this essentialism is not recognizable.[web 7] According to critics it doesn't really contribute to a real insight into Buddhism:[web 8]

...most of them labour under the old clich that the goal of Buddhist psychological analysis is to reveal the hidden mysteries in the human mind and thereby facilitate the development of a transcendental state of consciousness beyond the reach of linguistic expression.

A common reference in western culture is the notion of "enlightenment experience". This notion can be traced back to William James, who used the term "religious experience" in his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" further back to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the infinite. Schleiermacher used the notion of "religious experience" to defend religion against the growing scientific and secular critique.

It was popularised by the Transcendentalists, and exported to Asia via missionaries. Transcendentalism developed as a reaction against 18th Century rationalism, John Locke's philosophy of Sensualism, and the predestinationism of New England Calvinism. It is fundamentally a variety of diverse sources such as Hindu texts like the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, various religions, and German idealism.

It was adopted by many scholars of religion, of which William James was the most influential.[note 12]

The notion of "experience" has been criticised. Robert Sharf points out that "experience" is a typical western term, which has found its way into Asian religiosity via western influences.[note 13]

The notion of "experience" introduces a false notion of duality between "experiencer" and "experienced", whereas the essence of kensho is the realisation of the "non-duality" of observer and observed.[dead link] "Pure experience" does not exist; all experience is mediated by intellectual and cognitive activity. The specific teachings and practices of a specific tradition may even determine what "experience" someone has, which means that this "experience" is not the proof of the teaching, but a result of the teaching. A pure consciousness without concepts, reached by "cleaning the doors of perception" as per romantic poet William Blake[note 14], would, according to Mohr, be an overwhelming chaos of sensory input without coherence.

Sakyamuni's Buddhahood is celebrated on Bodhi Day. In Sri Lanka and Japan different days are used for this celebration.

According to the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka, Sakyamuni reached Buddhahood at the full moon in May. This is celebrated at Wesak Poya, the full moon in May, as Sambuddhatva jayanthi (also known as Sambuddha jayanthi).[web 9]

According to the Zen tradition, the Buddha reached his decisive insight on 8 December. This is celebrated in Zen monasteries with a very intensive eight-day session of Rhatsu.

It rests upon the notion of the primacy of religious experiences, preferably spectacular ones, as the origin and legitimation of religious action. But this presupposition has a natural home, not in Buddhism, but in Christian and especially Protetstant Christian movements which prescribe a radical conversion.

See Sekida for an example of this influence of William James and Christian conversion stories, mentioning Luther and St. Paul. See also McMahan for the influence of Christian thought on Buddhism.

[T]he role of experience in the history of Buddhism has been greatly exaggerated in contemporary scholarship. Both historical and ethnographic evidence suggests that the privileging of experience may well be traced to certain twentieth-century reform movements, notably those that urge a return to zazen or vipassana meditation, and these reforms were profoundly influenced by religious developments in the west [...] While some adepts may indeed experience "altered states" in the course of their training, critical analysis shows that such states do not constitute the reference point for the elaborate Buddhist discourse pertaining to the "path".

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Enlightenment in Buddhism - Wikipedia

Thu 5 Apr 2018Conway HallThe Night Shift Mozarts Horns

Mozart Horn Concerto no.1Mozart Horn Concerto no. 4

Roger Montgomery horn

Mozarts horn concertos in the original home of freethought.

Sun 1 Apr 2018Opra de Monte-CarloMozart: Master of Deception, with Sir Roger Norrington

Mozart Symphony No. 33Mozart Horn Concerto No.4Mozart Horn Concerto No.1Mozart Symphony No. 36

Sir Roger Norrington conductorRoger Montgomery horn

More from the ultimate musical game-player

There is more to Mozart than meets the eye. His repertoire is replete with surprises and deceptions.

Sat 31 Mar 2018The Anvil, BasingstokeBachs St Matthew Passion

Bach St Matthew Passion

Mark Padmore director/EvangelistRoderick Williams ChristusClaudia Huckle contraltoHugo Hymas tenorLouise Kemny sopranoJessica Cale sopranoEleanor Minney mezzo-sopranoMatthew Brook bassChoir of the Age of Enlightenment

A powerful depiction of the Easter Story.

Commemorate Easter with BachsSt Matthew Passion, featuring an all-star line-up of singers, led by Mark Padmore.

Fri 30 Mar 2018ICE Krakow Congress CentreBachs St Matthew Passion

Bach St Matthew Passion

Mark Padmore director/EvangelistRoderick Williams ChristusClaudia Huckle contraltoHugo Hymas tenorLouise Kemny sopranoJessica Cale sopranoEleanor Minney mezzo-sopranoMatthew Brook bassChoir of the Age of Enlightenment

A powerful depiction of the Easter Story.

Commemorate Easter with BachsSt Matthew Passion, featuring an all-star line-up of singers, led by Mark Padmore.

Bachs St Matthew Passion ProgrammeMon 26 Mar 2018

Heresthe programme for our performance of Bachs St Matthew Passion on Monday 26 March at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre. You can pick up a physical copy free of charge on the night itself.

Mark Padmore explores Bachs St Matthew PassionMon 26 Mar 2018

Its designed to disturb. It should get under the skin and worry us.

Mark Padmore explores Bachs St Matthew Passion, and the advantages of performing it without a conductor.

Performing the St Matthew PassionFri 23 Mar 2018

Leader Matthew Truscott tells us what its like to perform Bachs St Matthew Passion without a conductor, but instead following the breathing of singer and director, Mark Padmore.

Bachs B minor Mass (1748)

Following much-praised accounts of the St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio, conductor Stephen Layton now turns to Bachs mighty B minor Mass.

Mark Padmore on Bachs St Matthew PassionMon 5 Mar 2018

Mark Padmore explains his view of the St Matthew Passion, and the role of the Evangelist

The Corridors of Power programmeMon 26 Feb 2018

Heresthe programme for ourThe Corridors of Power concert on Tuesday 27 February at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre. You can pick up a physical copy free of charge on the night itself.

After Beethoven?Tue 20 Feb 2018

After ten concerts in three different countries, our Beethoven tour with Nicola Benedetti came to an end in Abu Dhabi yesterday. If youre at risk of Beethoven withdrawal, we asked our Co-Principal Viola Max Mandel for more Beethoven that you might want to read, watch or listen to next.

The Corridors of Power: playlist previewWed 7 Feb 2018

One of the more unusual concerts in our 2017/18 Visions, Illusions and Delusions season is The Corridors of Power, a mixture of Haydn and Mozart conducted by our old frienddm Fischer.

Behind the scenes with Nicola BenedettiMon 5 Feb 2018

Challenging in different ways but so enjoyable.

Nicola Benedetti chats about performing Beethoven on period instruments as she joins us on tour around the UK and US.

Marin and Nicola join our pre-concert talkFri 2 Feb 2018

If youre coming to our concert with Marin Alsop and Nicola Benedetti at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, on Sunday, get there early for the pre-concert talk at 6pm.

Were delighted both Marin and Nicola have agreed to join us for the discussion alongside our Principal Flute, Lisa Beznosiuk.

The talk is free in the Clore Ballroom from 6pm to 6.30pm.

Marin Alsop and Nicola Benedetti programmeFri 2 Feb 2018

Heresthe programme for ourMarin Alsop and Nicola Benedetti concert on Sunday 4 February at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre (but its also good if youre going to one of the other performances). You can pick up a physical copy free of charge on the night itself.

If you cant see it, just clickhere.

In depth: A new cadenza by Nicola BenedettiThu 1 Feb 2018

In the classical era, composers such as Mozart and Beethoven often included passages called cadenzas towards the end of their concertos. These were either improvised or pre-composed, and gave the soloist the chance to show off the full range of her or his skills.

For Nicola Benedettis performances of Beethovens Violin Concerto with us, shes worked with composer Petr Limonov to write a new cadenza premiered on this tour, for which shell be accompanied by our Principal Timpani, Adrian Bending.

What does it mean to be free?Tue 30 Jan 2018

Today were announcing the concerts in our 2018/19 season as Resident Orchestra at Southbank Centre.

Its called Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and its the second in ourSix Chapters of Enlightenment, six years of concerts celebrating the thought that made the modern world.

Fresh Night Shifts for 2018Wed 10 Jan 2018

Classical music hasnt always been about sitting silently in a concert hall, glugging down a pre-poured glass of wine in the interval and polite applause.

With The Night Shift, we take classical music back to its lively, informal roots with gigs in pubs, night clubs and other venues where you like to spend your time. Enjoy two half hour sets of classical music, played by some of the finest players in the business, without the usual rules.

Symmetry in music: Particle physicist Tara ShearsThu 4 Jan 2018

Professor Tara Shears came to talk to us about antimatter as part of our Bach, the Universe and Everything series atKings Place. We learnt there is more connecting Bach and particle physics than you might imagine.

Name us a Handel concertTue 12 Dec 2017

Its been a while, but the time has come for you to put your musical thinking caps on for a our traditional name a concert feature.

We need a name for the following concert coming up in 2018. Think Handel, Telemann, organs and, possibly, feasts.

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