Lam and goad

ected from Lām)

Lamedh

ل‍,ل

Phonemic representation

l, ɫ

Position in alphabet

Numerical value

Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician

Greek

Latin

Cyrillic

Lamed or Lamedh is the twelfth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Lāmed

, Hebrew'Lāmed ל, Aramaic Lāmadh

, Syriac Lāmaḏ ܠ, and Arabic Lām ل. Its sound value is [l].

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Lambda (Λ), Latin L, and Cyrillic Л.

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Hebrew Lamed[edit]

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced	Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
ל	ל	ל

Hebrew spelling: לָמֶד

Pronunciation[edit]

Lamed transcribes as an alveolar lateral approximant /l/.

Significance[edit]

Lamed in gematria represents the number 30.

With the letter Vav it refers to the Lamedvavniks, the 36 righteous people who save the world from destruction.

As an abbreviation, it can stand for litre. Also, a sign on a car with a Lamed on it means that the driver is a student of driving (the Lamed stands for lomed, learner).

As a prefix, it can have two purposes:

It can be attached to verb roots, designating the infinitive (Daber means "speak", Ledaber means to speak).
It can also act as a preposition meaning "to" or "for".

Arabic lām[edit]

The letter is named lām, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form:	ل‎	ـل‎	ـلـ‎	لـ‎

Some examples on its uses in Modern Standard Arabic. (Normally, diacritics are not written):

Lām is used as a prefix in two different ways. Lām-kasra (لـِ, /li/) is essentially a preposition meaning "to" or "for", as in لِوالدي liwālidī, "for my father". In this usage, it has become concatenated with other words to form new constructions often treated as independent words: for instance, لِماذا limāḏā, meaning "why?", is derived from لـِ li and ماذا māḏā, meaning "what?" thus getting "for what?". This construction is virtually semantically identical the equivalent in most Romance languages, e.g. French pourquoi, Spanish por qué, and Italian perché (though ché is an archaism and not in current use).

The other construction, lām-fatḥa (لَـ /la/) is used as an emphatic particle in very formal Arabic and in certain fixed constructions, such as لَقد laqad (itself an emphatic particle for past-tense verbs) and in the conditional structure لو...لَـ law...la, effectively one of the forms of if...then....

The goad is a traditional farming implement, used to spur or guide lifestock, usually oxen, which are pulling aplough or a cart; used also to round up cattle. It is a type of long stick with a pointed end, also known as the cattle prod. Though many people are unfamiliar with them today, goads have been common throughout the world. Goads in various guises are iconographic devices and may be seen in the 'elephant goad' or 'ankusha' (Sanskrit) in the hand of Ganesha, for example.

The word is from Middle English gode, from Old English gād.

The crook and flail depicted in Egyptian iconography.

According to the biblical passage Judges 3:31, Shamgar son of Anath killed six hundred Philistines with an ox goad.

Tischler and McHenry (2006: p. 251) in discussing the biblical account of 'goad' hold:

In the early days, before Israel had its own metal industries, farmers had to rely on the Philistines to sharpen their goads, as well as other metal tools, the plowshares and mattocks, forks, and axes (1 Sam. 13:21).

The image of prodding the reluctant or lazy creature made this a useful metaphor for sharp urging, such as the prick of conscience, the nagging of a mate, or the "words of the wise," which are "firmly embedded nails" in human minds (Ecclesiastes 12:11-12).^[1]

Ploughing with oxen: a miniature from an early-16th-century manuscriptheld at the British Museum. The ploughman on the right appears to carry a goad. The ox on the left appears to react to it. Note the spike or prod at the end of this goad.

Saint Paul, recounting the story of his conversion before King Agrippa, told of a voice he heard saying ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’^[2] Some versions of the actual account of his conversion earlier in the Acts of the Apostles also use the same phrase.^[3]

In the Latin alphabet, the letter L is derived from the Semitic crook or goad which stood for /l/. This may originally have been based on an Egyptian hieroglyph that was adapted by Semites for alphabetic purposes. Pollack (2004: p. 146), in discussing 'Lamed, Path 22' the path from Gevurah to Tiferet, Justice, in the pathworking of the esoteric Kabbalah, states:

We switch sides now and bring the power of Gevurah to the center. Lamed means 'goad' and in particular an ox-goad, as if we use the power of Gevurah to goad that Aleph ox, the silent letter, into a more tangible physical existence in the heart of the tree [of life]. Lamed begins the Hebrew words for both "learn" and "teach," and so encompasses the most Kabbalist of activities, study. Kabbalah has never been a path of pure sensation, but always has used study to goad us into higher consciousness. Lamed, alone of the Hebrew alphabet, reaches above the height of all the other letters. Through learning we extend ourselves above ordinary awareness

from Ankusha)

17th century Ankusha from South India.

The elephant goad, bullhook, or ankus (from Sanskrit aṅkuśa or ankusha) is a tool employed in the handling and training of elephants.^[1] It consists of a hook (usually bronze or steel) which is attached to a 60 – 90 cm (two- or three-foot) handle, ending in a tapered end.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]The cities of Los Angeles and Oakland, California, USA, have banned the use of bullhooks.^[6]

A relief at Sanchi and a fresco at the Ajanta Caves depict a three-person crew on the war elephant, the driver with an elephant goad, what appears to be a noble warrior behind the driver and another attendant on the posterior of the elephant.^[7] Nossov and Dennis (2008 p 19) report that two perfectly preserved elephant goads were recovered from an archaeological site at Taxila and are dated from 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE according to Marshall. The larger of the two is 65 cm long.^[7]

Nossov and Dennis (2008: p. 16) state:

An ankusha, a sharpened goad with a pointed hook, was the main tool for managing an elephant. Theankusha first appeared in India in the 6th-5th century BC and has been used ever since, not only there, but wherever elephants served man.^[8]

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Fabrication and construction[edit]

The handle can be made of any material, from wood to ivory, depending on the wealth and opulence of the owner. Contemporary bullhooks which are used for animal handling generally have handles made of fibreglass, metal, plastic, or wood.

The elephant goad is found in armouries and temples all across India, where elephants march in religious processions and perform in various civil capacities. They are often quite ornate, being decorated with gemstones and engravings to be appropriate for the ceremonies in which they are used.

Iconography[edit]

The Hindu god Ganesha holding an elephant goad in his right upper arm

The elephant goad is a polysemic iconographic ritual tool in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, in the inclusive rubric of Dharmic Traditions.^{[citation needed]}

The elephant has appeared in cultures across the world. They are a symbol of wisdom in Asian cultures and are famed for their memory and intelligence, where they are thought to be on par with cetaceans^[9] andhominids.^[10] Aristotle once said the elephant was "the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind".^[11]The word "elephant" has its origins in the Greek ἐλέφας, meaning "ivory" or "elephant".^[12]

In iconography and ceremonial ritual tools, the elephant goad is often included in a hybridized tool, for example one that includes elements of Vajrakila, 'hooked knife' or 'skin flail' (Tibetan: gri-gug, Sanskrit: kartika), Vajra and Axe, as well as the goad functionality for example. Ritual Ankusha were often finely wrought of precious metals and even fabricated from ivory, often encrusted with jewels. In Dharmic Traditions the goad/ankusha and rope 'noose/snare/lasso' (Sanskrit: Pāśa) are traditionally paired as tools of subjugation.^[13]

Hinduism[edit]

In the Hinduism, an elephant goad is one of the eight auspicious objects known as Astamangala and certain other religions of the Indian subcontinent. A goad is also an attribute of many Hindu gods, including Ganesha.

Buddhism[edit]

Wallace and Goleman (2006: p. 79) discuss 'śamatha' (Sanskrit), mindfulness and introspection which they tie to metacognition:

Throughout Buddhist literature, the training in shamatha is often likened to training a wild elephant, and the two primary instruments for this are the tether of mindfulness and the goad of introspection.^[14]^[15]

Rowlands (2001: p. 124) in discussing consciousness and its self-conscious, self-reflexive quality of apperception states that:

The most significant aspect of consciousness, I shall try to show, is its structure, its hybrid character. Consciousness can be both act and object of experience. Using the somewhat metaphorical notion of directing, we might say that consciousness is not only the directing of awareness but can be that upon which awareness is directed. Consciousness is not only the act of conscious experience, it can be experience's object. [italics preserved from original]^[16]

In the above quotation the metaphor of 'directing' is employed. In 'directing' consciousness or the mind to introspectively apperceive the directive forded by the goad is key.

Tattvasamgraha Tantra[edit]

In the Tattvasamgraha tantra (c 7th century), one of the most important tantras of the Buddhist Yoga Tantra Class, the ankusha figures in the visualization of one of the retinue. This tantra explains the process of the visualization of the Vajradhatu Mandala, which is one of the most visually stylized of Buddhist mandalas. The Ankusha is the symbolic attribute for the visualization of the Bodhisattva Vajraraja, an emanation within the retinue of Vajradhatu. This visualization is treated in Tachikawa (c2000: p. 237).^[17]

Literature[edit]

In Rudyard Kipling's Second Jungle Book story "The King's Ankus", Mowgli finds the magnificently-jeweled elephant goad of the title in a hidden treasure chamber. Not realizing the value men place on jewels, he later casually discards it in the jungle, unwittingly leading to a chain of greed and murder amongst those who find it after him.

ncyclopedia

"Argent a chevron gules"

A chevron (also spelled cheveron, especially in older documents) is a V-shaped pattern. The word is usually used in reference to a kind of fret in architecture, or to a badge or insignia used in military or police uniforms to indicate rank or length of service, or in heraldry and the designs of flags (see flag terminology). The symbol is also used on highway signs to guide drivers around curves.

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Ancient history[edit]

The chevron occurs in early art including designs on pottery and rock carvings. Examples can be found approximately 1800 BC in archaeological recovery of pottery designs from the palace of Knossos on Crete in the modern day country of Greece.^[1]

Sparta (Lacedaemonia (Λακεδαιμονία)) used a capital lambda (Λ) on their shields.

Heraldry[edit]

A chevron is one of the ordinaries in heraldry, one of the simple geometrical figures which are the chief images in many coat of arms. It can be subject to a number of modifications. When the ends are cut off in a way that looks like the splintered ends of a broken piece of wood, with an irregular zig-zag pattern, it is called éclaté.^[2] When shown as a smaller size than standard, it is a diminutive called a chevronel.

Chevrons appeared early in the history of heraldry, especially in Normandy. In Scandinavia the chevron is known as sparre; an early example appears in the arms of Armand desmondly