Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

avatara

(Encyclopedia)avatara ăvˌətârə [key] [Skt.,=descent], incarnations of Hindu gods, especially Vishnu. The doctrine of avatara first occurs in the Bhagavad-Gita, where Krishna declares: “For the preservation o...

Banerjea, Sir Surendranath

(Encyclopedia)Banerjea, Sir Surendranath so͝orĕnˈdrənät bäˈnərjē [key], 1848–1926, Indian nationalist. One of the first Indians to join the Indian civil service, he was dismissed (1874) for a minor error...

Shrirangapattana

(Encyclopedia)Shrirangapattana srēˌrŭngˌgəpŭtˈnə [key], town (1991 pop. 21,905), Karnataka state, S India, on an island in the Kaveri River. There are Hindu monuments, some built in the 13th cent. Most of t...

Leiden, University of

(Encyclopedia)Leiden, University of, at Leiden, the Netherlands; founded 1575 by William the Silent, Prince of Orange. It became a state institution in the 19th cent. It has faculties of theology, law, medicine, sc...

Dewey, John

(Encyclopedia)Dewey, John, 1859–1952, American philosopher and educator, b. Burlington, Vt., grad. Univ. of Vermont, 1879, Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1884. He taught at the universities of Minnesota (1888–89), Michig...

Rome, University of

(Encyclopedia)Rome, University of, at Rome, Italy; founded 1303 by Pope Boniface VIII. It has faculties of jurisprudence; political science; economics and commerce; statistics, demography, and actuarial science; le...

Lovejoy, Arthur Oncken

(Encyclopedia)Lovejoy, Arthur Oncken, 1873–1962, American philosopher and intellectual historian, b. Germany, grad. Univ. of California, 1895, M.A. Harvard, 1897. He also studied at the Sorbonne before he began t...

Meiklejohn, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Meiklejohn, Alexander mĭkˈəljŏn [key], 1872–1964, American educator, b. Rochdale, England, grad. Brown Univ., 1893, Ph.D. Cornell, 1897. He taught philosophy at Brown (1897–1912), serving as d...

Davidson, Donald Herbert

(Encyclopedia)Davidson, Donald Herbert, 1917–2003, American philosopher, b. Springfield, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1939; Ph.D., 1949). A student of W. V. Quine, Davidson emerged as one of the major figures in p...

Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas

(Encyclopedia)Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas foiˈərbäkh [key], 1804–72, German philosopher, educated at Heidelberg and Berlin; son of Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach. At first a Hegelian, he abandoned absolute id...