words from the museum
This Islamic method came to be known as كاغذ ابرى kâghaz-e abrî, although often the simplified form of, ابرى abrî, is also found in several historic texts.[3] This was translated by the late scholar Dr. Annemarie Schimmel to mean “clouded paper” in Persian. Certain Turkish writers have suggested that the word may be of Turkish origin related to the word abreh ابره meaning “colorful” or “variegated”, though this specific term has never been concretely proven to have been used in relation to the art. It may have been the case that both Persian and Turkish meanings were simultaneously understood by artisans, many of which were conversant in both languages at that time, and even enjoyed as an expression of poetic nuance. Most historical Persian and Turkish texts known that refer to this kind of paper use the word abrî alone. Today in Iran it is often called ابرو بادabrû-bâd, meaning “cloud and wind”.[4]
an ancient way of writing manuscripts and other inscriptions.
Rather than going from left to right as in modern English, or right to left as in Hebrew and Arabic, alternate lines must be read in opposite directions.
The name is borrowed from the Greek language. Its etymology is from βοÏÏ‚ – bous, “ox” + στÏÎφειν – strefein, “to turn” (cf. strophe), because the hand of the writer goes back and forth like an ox drawing a plow across a field and turning at the end of each row to return in the opposite direction (i.e., “as the ox ploughs”).
an oblong enclosure with a horizontal line at one end, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name, coming into use during the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Pharaoh Sneferu. The Ancient Egyptian word for it was shenu, and it was essentially an expanded shen ring. In Demotic, the cartouche was reduced to a pair of parentheses and a vertical line.
The worship of books of wisdom (jnanapuja) assumed an important role in temple ritual. The public recitation and worship of texts, as well as the display of the manuscript itself, still forms an important part of Buddhist and Jain worship.
Known as tsakali in Tibetan, empowerment images are small square paintings that depict numerous subjects related to the performance of specific empowerment rituals. Such an image could be a simple painting of a ritual vase or a flower, or tsakalis may depict more complex sets of deities or spiritual masters that are associated with a specific initiation ritual. These empowerment images, which are not particularly known for their artistic merits, are usually placed during the empowerment ritual upon a heap of grain, contained in a bowl, or sometimes at the top of a ritual cake. During the initiation ceremony, the initiating master visualizes the corresponding subjects portrayed on the tsakali, whether it is an article of offering or a host of meditational deities, being actually present where the tsakali is placed, and then conducts the relevant initiation rite. Each cycle of initiation rites, such as the famous Rinjung cycle of initiations, has a distinct collection of a large number of these empowerment images, which collectively make up the complete symbolic iconography of a particular cycle of empowerment practices. The samples displayed here belong to a cycle of initiation rites of the Tibetan Bon tradition known as The Inner, Outer and the Secret Empowerment.