Enlightenment: Did you mean...?

Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793) was a French journalist, abolitionist, and politician who played a prominent role in the French Revolution (1789-1799). A leader of the Girondins, a moderate political faction, Brissot was instrumental...

Magadha was an ancient kingdom located on the Indo-Gangetic plains in eastern India and spread over what is today the modern state of Bihar. At the height of its power, it claimed suzerainty over the entire eastern part of the country (roughly...

Krishna (Krsna or Hari Krishna) is a major god of the Hindu pantheon and considered the eighth incarnation of Vishnu. He is perhaps the most popular of all the heroes of Hindu mythology. Krishna's adventures appear in the Mahabharata, Bhagavad...

The social contract is an idea in philosophy that at some real or hypothetical point in the past, humans left the state of nature to join together and form societies by mutually agreeing which rights they would enjoy and how they would be...

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was an English philosopher and liberal social reformer best known as the founder of utilitarianism based on the greatest happiness principle, that is, rationally judging the success of a law by considering how many...

Western astrology refers to a form of divination based on the motion of astronomical objects such as stars or planets. The belief that astronomical objects are divine or influence events on Earth is found in many cultures, but the practices...

Ryoanji (Ryōan-ji) is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan which is today most famous for its Zen rock garden with its enigmatic arrangement of stones. Founded in the 15th century CE, the temple is one of the most visited tourist spots in...

The Longmen Grottoes, a Buddhist cave complex located 13 kilometers south of Luoyang in China's Henan province, form some of the most significant and exquisite representations of ancient Chinese stone art. Created over the course of approximately...

Lumbini is a village, archaeological site, and place of pilgrimage honored as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, l. c. 563-483 BCE) located in modern-day Rupandehi District of Nepal, Province 5, near the Indian border. It was...

The Ginkakuji Temple in Kyoto, Japan, formally referred to as Jisho-ji and otherwise known as 'The Serene Temple of the Silver Pavilion', was first built in the 15th century CE. It is a Rinzai Zen temple with the complex consisting of the...