The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (233 page)

 
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Arakan
.

Jap. for
arhat
.

 
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(
c.
1420–94).
Jewish communal leader in Spain. He was the author of
Akedat Yizhak
(Binding of
Isaac
; see
‘AKEDA
), a philosophical and
allegorical
commentary on the
Pentateuch
. In his philosophy, he was critical of
Maimonides
’ rationalism and was influential on such thinkers as Isaac
Abrabanel
.

 
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Aramaic
.

A Semitic language written generally in
Hebrew
script. Ancient (from 700 BCE) inscriptions have been found as far afield as Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and the Caucasus. In the later period of the second
Temple
, the
Pentateuch
was translated into Aramaic (these translations are known as
targumim
(
targums
)).

 
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(Skt., ‘that which pertains to the forest’). In Hinduism, the genre of texts within the
Vedic
corpus developed as an adjunct to the
Br
hma
as
. They are explanatory and speculative in nature, intending to give the secret aspects of rituals obtainable only by the advanced student instructed in the seclusion of the forest. They are generally listed as being four in number: the
Aitareya
,
Kaus
taki
,
Taittir
ya
, and
Jaimin
ya
ra
yakas
.