At 10:25 AM 10/12/2005 -0800, you wrote:
>Isn't Magic derived from the sanskrit word maya? Magic
>as the manipulation of maya???
I'm not sure this has been adequately responded to as I haven't followed
the entire thread.
But for what it's worth:
Linguistically, 'magic' comes from the name of a Western Archaemenid
Persian priest class: the Magi. Interestingly, right there at the
beginning, the very distinction we like to create between 'magic' and
'religion' is problematic. Just as in Egypt, the 'priest' and 'magician'
are one and the same. Persian magu- becomes a Greek loanword (magos,
mageia), enters Latin, and at some point Old French (magia, magie) and so
finds its way into English as magic.
In my article for JSM2 I looked at these words and how they are connected
in historical linguistics with the Indo-European root *mag(h)-, a lexeme
whose cognates chiefly connote "power, ability, effectiveness" (among other
things). I also looked at Sanskrit maya, which ultimately appears to be
derived from a different Indo-European root: *med-, connoting concepts to
do with measure.
~ Aaron
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