metaphorsThe Buddhist Jātaka tales of the Buddha’s former lives are narratives that
transmit Buddhist ethical values. Many Buddhist texts begin with the
phrase “Thus have I heard,” which reflects the importance of memory in
the preserving, recalling, and sharing of the teachings of the Buddha. In
contrast to the revealed literature of the Vedas in ancient India, the people
accept a body of literature called smriti (that which is remembered), which
is a humanly derived and constructed literary tradition grounded in the
collective memory of the culture. Even the revealed Vedas are preserved
for centuries by an oral tradition of memorizing these sacred texts. The
same thing can be said for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other religious
traditions.
Further reading: Ricoeur (2004)METAPHORS
These are elements of language that allow humans to express something
else because of resemblance and kinship. It is possible to find metaphors
throughout the sacred scriptures of many religious traditions because
they expand language by enabling a person to express a message using
ordinary images that connote several layers of significance. The “throne
of God” evokes, for instance, an image of majesty, royalty, and regal
splendor with respect to a divine being with a metaphor taken from
everyday life with which there are attached a number of cultural connota-
tions. Metaphors are embraced by mystics cross-culturally to express
experiences that cannot be put into words. The great Islamic Sufi poet
Rumi (b. 1207) represents excellent examples of a mystical use of meta-
phor. He uses the game of polo to liken the ball to a lover without hands
and feet and the stick that strikes the ball is God. He uses the metaphor
of the rose to suggest the beauty and wrath (thorn) of God. Rumi’s use of
animal imagery is suggestive because the camel represents the spiritual
journey, the lion is a model of the holy man, a parrot is eloquent and life-
giving, and the falcon represent the soul; when the falcon’s eyes are
covered it suggest the soul’s captivity to the world.
As evident in some of the examples from the poetry of Rumi, the
philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) observes that a metaphor is part
of a language game that governs naming, but it does not give a person
new information about reality. A metaphor manifests the phenomenon
of predication because it only makes sense in a sentence. From one