The Maya (Ancient Peoples and Places)

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The last day of the 260-day cycle would be 13 Ajaw, and it would repeat once again commencing with 1 Imix. The ancient Mayans presumably had no knowledge or scientific understanding of the human hormonal system. Subsequent studies have decoded these astronomical almanacs, which include records of the cycles of the Sun and Moon, including eclipse tables, and all of the naked-eye planets. The longest surviving Maya text by far was recovered from the steps of the pyramid of Copan and is about 2500 glyphs long.

In this wonderful gem of a book, Andy Rotman offers us a compelling translation of a set of ten Sanskrit Buddhist stories about ‘hungry ghosts’ ( preta ) taken from the Avadānaśataka (“One Hundred Stories”), an important early Indian anthology of Buddhist narratives. Its unique features include an introduction that discusses the themes of impermanence, mindfulness, and joy and explores the relationship between them. Between 1880 and 1900, Dresden librarian Ernst Förstemann succeeded in deciphering the Maya numerals and the Maya calendar and realized that the codex is an ephemeris. New finds here and elsewhere entail a complete reinterpretation of the relationship between the warrior-kings of the classic Maya lowlands and Teotihuacan, the greatest city of pre-Conquest America.One of the most revered spiritual figures of our time—His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama—tells the story of his life in this intimate, timeless, and approachable book. A triumph of scholarship, it can be read with profit by specialists and students, as well as by visitors to the realm of the Maya. And through this incessant talk they create the key to their adaptive success: tradition, that is to say, the unquestioned lore of how things are done, the rules and regulations of how to live, routines about how to stay healthy, and, ultimately, how to survive.

The story of the Maya is something one easily gets addicted to; catch the bug, and you'll want to keep digging. It contains lots of photos and illustrations (mostly quite old and in black-and-white)and provides a good overview and introduction to the topic. The Mayan sacred book the Popol Vuh tells of the creation of the universe, the world of gods and demi-gods and the creation of mankind. Bolleter’s commentaries provide guidance to the reader on how to engage with each koan and koans in general, and direct guidance in to meditate with koans. The 108 modern koans offered within address sexuality and childbirth, family, parenthood, work, money and even the nature time itself.More than any other introduction to the Maya, O'Neil's book draws together the fascinating story of the emergence and flowering of Maya civilization with the long history of scholarly attempts to reconstruct and understand that civilization. These discoveries show the Maya were building on a vast scale centuries before the Classic Period began around AD 300.