Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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Sages

67 of 554 entries in Figures. Click any to see everything it connects to.

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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 Grouping
A 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 Covered
A 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
Directory
Category
Figures 1

Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani

Sages
7 links

Abdu'l-Baha

Sages
10 links

Adi Shankara

Sages
10 links

Akiva ben Joseph

Sages
6 links

Akka Mahadevi

Sages
3 links

Al-Ghazali

Sages
7 links

Andal

Sages
2 links

Atisha

Sages
8 links

Atri

Sages
3 links

Buddhaghosa

Sages
2 links

Chaitanya

Sages
6 links

Chen Tuan

Sages
4 links

Cheng Yi

Sages
9 links

Confucius

Sages
38 links

Dogen

Sages
3 links

Evagrius Ponticus

Sages
3 links

George Whitefield

Sages
7 links

Hadewijch of Antwerp

Sages
3 links

Hakuin

Sages
4 links

Heinrich Bullinger

Sages
9 links

Honen

Sages
4 links

Huineng

Sages
7 links

Ibn Abbas

Sages
4 links

Ibn Taymiyya

Sages
7 links

Imhotep

Sages
5 links

Johanan ben Zakkai

Sages
5 links

Jonathan Edwards

Sages
9 links

Julian of Norwich

Sages
2 links

Kabir

Sages
8 links

Kukai

Sages
7 links

Lalleshwari

Sages
3 links

Laozi

Sages
28 links

Longchenpa

Sages
1 link

Madhva

Sages
2 links

Maimonides

Sages
16 links

Marguerite Porete

Sages
3 links

Mechthild of Magdeburg

Sages
2 links

Meister Eckhart

Sages
3 links

Mencius

Sages
8 links

Mirabai

Sages
3 links

Moinuddin Chishti

Sages
7 links

Namdev

Sages
5 links

Patanjali

Sages
8 links

Philipp Melanchthon

Sages
5 links

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

Sages
6 links

Ramakrishna

Sages
7 links

Ramana Maharshi

Sages
1 link

Ramanuja

Sages
5 links

Saicho

Sages
6 links

Shinran

Sages
5 links

Thomas a Kempis

Sages
5 links

Tukaram

Sages
4 links

Vishvamitra

Sages
7 links

Vivekananda

Sages
6 links

Vyasa

Sages
12 links

Xuanzang

Sages
11 links

Xunzi

Sages
5 links

Zhu Xi

Sages
16 links

Zhuangzi

Sages
11 links

Asanga

Sages
5 links

Gautama Akshapada

Sages
2 links

Jaimini

Sages
5 links

Kanada

Sages
2 links

Khidr

Sages
2 links

Peter Bulkeley

Sages
4 links

Thomas Hooker

Sages
3 links

Vasubandhu

Sages
6 links
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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.

Sources
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005The classification of religious figuresView the Source
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