Figures whose authority rests on wisdom rather than on revelation, office or descent, which makes this the widest heading in the category and the loosest. It holds the Chinese classical philosophers, the Vedanta commentators, jurists such as Maimonides and Al-Ghazali, and the founders of the Japanese Buddhist schools. What gathers them is partly what they lack: no tradition represented here calls them prophet, priest or king. That makes the shelf a residue as much as a category, so a place on it should be read as a statement about the kind of authority a figure held, not as a claim that any two of them are comparable.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingA heading of the atlas's own making rather than a category from the study of religion: figures revered for wisdom and teaching rather than for rule, prophecy or miracle. 2 Peoples and Traditions CoveredA cover term over traditions with unrelated criteria for the office: the rishi of Vedic India, the acharya of the Indian schools, the Tirthankara of Jainism, the rabbinic sage, the junzi and the classical masters of China. None of those words is what the English word names, and the heading should not be read as one class of person. 2 Learn More
The sages
This group gathers sages: figures revered above all for wisdom: teachers, philosophers, seers and learned masters whose insight rather than miracle or rule defines their place in tradition. It is the largest character grouping in the atlas and spans many cultures.
The browser will find the wise figures of many traditions, the rishis of India, the teachers of Chinese thought, the philosophers and holy teachers of other cultures. The entries describe each sage's teaching and the tradition that remembers them.
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Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005The classification of religious figuresView the Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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