Atisha Quotes on Knowledge
Atisha Dipankara Shrijnana was a Bengali Buddhist philosopher and monk, abbot of the great Indian monastic university of Vikramashila, who, late in life, accepted an invitation from the Tibetan king Yeshe-O to come to Tibet, where he spent his last twelve years restoring monastic discipline and the integrity of Buddhist teaching. This page collects quotes attributed to Atisha on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Atisha:
“Receive every teaching as if it were medicine for the precise illness of your own heart.”
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“She who bears plants endowed with many varied powers, may Prithivī for us spread wide and favour us. In whom the sea, and Sindhu, and the waters, in whom our food and corn-lands had their being.”
Excerpt from the Prithvi Sukta in the Atharva Veda 12.1-63 (trans. by Maurice Bloomfield, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 42, 1897). The Prithvi Sukta is often regarded as the first national song, e.g. C.f. Jain, M. (2010). Parallel pathways: Essays on Hindu-Muslim relations, 1707-1857. chapter V. -
“Atharva Veda, in A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics , p.56”
God is really one, only one. -
“Whoever knows Atharva Veda knows all.”
Vyasa on Atharva Veda quoted in [ Seer of the Fifth Veda: Kr̥ṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa in the Mahābhārata (Google eBook) , p.5 -
“Vyasa on Atharva Veda quoted in [ Seer of the Fifth Veda: Kr̥ṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa in the Mahābhārata (Google eBook) , p.5”
Whoever knows Atharva Veda knows all. -
“Ralph T.H. Griffith , in The Hymns of the Atharvaveda”
The Atharva Veda is a Vedic-era collection of spells , prayers , charms , and hymns. There are prayers to protect crops from lightning and drought, charms against venomous serpents, love spells, healing spells, hundreds of verses, some derived from the Rig Veda , all very ancient.