{"id":48319,"date":"2016-01-24T17:34:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-24T17:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=48319"},"modified":"2016-01-24T17:34:31","modified_gmt":"2016-01-24T17:34:31","slug":"juxtaposition-chess-in-wahhabism-and-buddhism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=48319","title":{"rendered":"Juxtaposition: chess in Wahhabism and Buddhism"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — on the focus of similarity — sameness or differences? ]
\n.<\/p>\n

\"SPEC<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I said recently, juxtaposition does not imply eqivalence<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

It is only too easy these days to see a headline like Chess is ‘haram and a waste of time,’ says grand mufti of Saudi Arabia<\/a> and view it purely in terms of Islam. It is in fact an Islamic ruling, though non-binding (there was, in fact, a chess tournament scheduled to take place in Mecca today<\/a>, January 22, 2016), and can also be found in Shia sources (Grand Ayatollah Sistani<\/strong> of Iraq has also ruled against the game<\/a>) — but many people who intensely dislike Islam may nonetheless admire Buddhism, and the Buddha dispproved of the game, even when played “in the air”..<\/p>\n

Hey, to get a better sense of what “in the air” means here, let’s take a look at a different, more informative translation<\/a> (albeit on that would not have fit into the procrustean bed of my DoubleQuote<\/strong> format:<\/p>\n

Whereas some honorable recluses and brahmins, while living on food offered by the faithful, indulge in the following games that are a basis for negligence: atthapada<\/em> (a game played on an eight-row chess-board); dasapada<\/em> (a game played on a ten-row chess-board); akasa<\/em> (a game of the same type played by imagining a board in the air); pariharapatha<\/em> (“hopscotch,” a diagram is drawn on the ground and one has to jump in the allowable spaces avoiding the lines); santika<\/em> (“spellicans,” assembling the pieces in a pile, removing and returning them without disturbing the pile); khalika<\/em> (dice games); ghatika<\/em> (hitting a short stick with a long stick); salakahattha<\/em> (a game played by dipping the hand in paint or dye, striking the ground or a wall, and requiring the participants to show the figure of an elephant, a horse etc.); akkha<\/em> (ball games); pangacira<\/em> (blowing through toy pipes made of leaves); vankaka<\/em> (ploughing with miniature ploughs); mokkhacika<\/em> (turning somersaults); cingulika<\/em> (playing with paper windmills); pattalaka<\/em> (playing with toy measures); rathaka<\/em> (playing with toy chariots); dhanuka<\/em> (playing with toy bows); akkharika<\/em> (guessing at letters written in the air or on one’s back); manesika<\/em> (guessing others’ thoughts); yathavajja<\/em> (games involving mimicry of deformities) \u2014 the recluse Gotama abstains from such games and recreations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

I trust that that juxtaposition of Mufti and Buddha carries an element of surpise. By way of contrast, one could always make a less surprising (less challenging?) juxtaposition, between the Grand Mufti — Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh<\/strong> — and Benjamin Franklin<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\"SPEC-chess-is-haram<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron — on the focus of similarity — sameness or differences? ] . As I said recently, juxtaposition does not imply eqivalence. It is only too easy these days to see a headline like Chess is ‘haram and a waste of time,’ says grand mufti of Saudi Arabia and view it purely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[361,701,649,526,529,753,786,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-buddhism","category-buddhist","category-charles-cameron","category-games","category-islam","category-saudi-arabia","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48319"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48337,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48319\/revisions\/48337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}