Topic: Dogether question

[Super Waffle]

Is there anywhere I can find a quick reference guide for what all of his little blinky Japanesey symbols mean?

[Dracula9]

They're actually Sanskrit, and I'm working on translating them now.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

They're actually Sanskrit, and I'm working on translating them now.

And add that to my list of things I love about this fandom.

[Dracula9]

Alrighty, I'm not by any means fluent in Saknskrit, but a lot of the writing consists of combining certain parts of each written letter/character, so it's a fairly simple premise to pick up and utilize.

The following is very likely not accurate completely (there are several that are dead obvious and those I'm confident about), for the above reason of being influent and only having spent just under two hours researching and comparing. If anyone knows a more fluent source of Sanskrit, or knows it themselves, please weigh in and correct the errors I know I had to have made.

I do not currently know exactly what the letters/characters mean once combined (i.e. if the yellow one actually means "fire" or something relating to the attack of Dogether's it corresponds to), and that's something that would take me longer to learn and figure out, more so since this analysis is very likely incorrect in multiple places.

BUT, it's a starting point at least, so there's that.



The symbol marked with a question mark I could not figure out. I spent probably close to an hour going over different combinations of characters that could line up to make that one, but none seemed to work. That's the only one I wasn't able to find any sort of match or similarity to--but I do think that the fact that it's shared between Dogether's green-symbol attack and his ring-of-symbols (the only character that is directly shared) means something. What, I don't know.

Sites I used for reference, if anyone cares to see the same processes I used for this:

http://www.visiblemantra.org/alphabet.html
http://www.sanskrit-sanscrito.com.ar/en/learning-sanskrit-writing-tables-1/421#IntroductionTables
http://www.visiblemantra.org/alphabet-stupa.html

Anyway, this isn't anything drastic that reveals some long-kept secret about Dogether or anything, but hey it's a groundwork at least. Maybe we can make a thing out of this little language hunt.

[X]

Sanskrit eh? One of the few languages that has not been fully translated yet. I've read that Sanskrit goes all the way back to the lost continent of Lemuria. Lemuria being older then Atlantis mind you.

[Jeepy]

Those symbols are Siddham characters. In Japanese Buddhism, Siddham script is used for writing mantras and copying sutras. Each seed syllable is also used to represent a Buddhist deity.

My guess is those characters bear no actual meaning, but used just for show. Not to mention that the characters that appear when Dogether dies from the PCE version and from PSP version are different.

You can try asking Jayarava (the administrator of Visible Mantra web site); he helped me with identifying Siddham characters from Highly Responsive to Prayers a few years back.

I asked him about Dogether's Siddham characters back then, and tried identifying those characters myself, but he didn't say much about it. I guess he's not interested in video games. lol

(Please note that I might've got some of the characters wrong.)



Edit:

Something else I remembered - Siddham script is also used in the arcade version of Shadow Dancer as a powerful spell, where an image of Buddha appears and purifies the screen of enemies; and it also appears in Shin Megami Tensei series in a form of insta-kill death spells (Ma)Mudo(on). Perhaps, Dogether is asking Buddhas to grant him powers to defeat the player?




Edit:

Also, I only noticed it now, but the formation of the characters Dogether makes before his last resort attack is very similar to the center of Garbhadhatu mandala:

[Dracula9]

Sanskrit eh? One of the few languages that has not been fully translated yet. I've read that Sanskrit goes all the way back to the lost continent of Lemuria. Lemuria being older then Atlantis mind you.

Lemuria has no current backing to have ever existed.

Are you just throwing mythological continent stuff out just for the sake of it? Get Mu and Ys involved while you're at it, they're about as relevant to this discussion as Lemuria and Atlantis are.

[X]

Lemuria has no current backing to have ever existed.

Are you just throwing mythological continent stuff out just for the sake of it? Get Mu and Ys involved while you're at it, they're about as relevant to this discussion as Lemuria and Atlantis are.

I meant no harm by my post Dracula9 so don't be an jerk please. If you want to be respected then you need to respect others in kind. None of us are doormats for anyone's amusement. With regards to your post, the Japanese feel that Mu (Lemuria)did in fact exist as there are the underwater ruins off the Japanese coast of Okanawa. You can read up on them, but only if you're open to new things. Right now it sound's like you are closed-minded and slightly arrogant, and yes I can feel it when reading your post.

[Dracula9]

Lemuria and Mu are not the same continent.

Mu was first theorized by Augustus Le Plongeon, who claimed it to be in the Atlantic Ocean, and was later popularized by James Churchward who asserted it to be in the Pacific.

Lemuria is said to have been located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

The similar citation of the Pacific Ocean is about all the two have in common, besides the letters "m" and "u."

No known geological formation exists under the Indian or Pacific Oceans that can correspond in size to either of them; and no, the Yonaguni structure doesn't count even remotely in the favor of either continent, because a single series of ruins and structures cannot denote something so large as a continent.

Mu has been discredited many times over. The idea that some hyper-advanced civilization kickstarted everything has no known evidence, as the Americas and Old World developed independently because of oceanic separation. Urban societies have more evidence pointing to have started near the Levant region thousands of years ago and expanding slowly from there. Even Neolithic cities like Çatalhoyuk are easily attributed and more defended as having been the result of gradual evolution of human settlements and societies.

Lemuria was basically discredited in full when plate tectonics became understood. India was once connected with Madagascar in a single supercontinent called Gondwana, and it bore many geographical similarities to how Lemuria has been thought of. Gondwana did not sink, however, but split apart into the continents we see in the Southern Hemisphere. Lemuria also has some very loose ties to the concept of Kumari Kandam, which is another beast of inaccuracies and inconsistent theories entirely.

Bottom line is, most theories regarding the lost continents were thought up during periods of history in which the world wasn't quite all known yet, and theories would emerge trying to explain the unknown. There are even continents that were completely made-up out of an old belief that the world had to have an "equal balance" of continents (one such instance being a large expansion on the Antarctic continental shelf). One must consider the time periods in which these theories were penned, as our understanding of the world was not what it is now. One must also consider the knowledge that things so large as continents do not sink overnight--there is no known instance of this ever happening. Continents take very long times to sink, which automatically makes such things as sunken-land stories somewhat sketchy in nature.

This is not to say that I fully discredit the ideas; our knowledge of history is only what we can see, and we know that it isn't as verbatim fact as we'd like it to be. Maybe there was an Atlantis or Mu, or at the very least islands or smaller landmasses to inspire their stories, and maybe they did indeed sink overnight. But right now, with what research has been done using the knowledge and tools we have available to use in this day and age, there has so far been no conclusive evidence made known about any such continents having existed as they are written in history and legend. We have things like sonar scanners and the ability to photograph the oceans from orbit and see underwater formations and landmasses, things that people back then didn't have (again, to the best of our current knowledge).

I don't close myself off to the possibility; possibility always exists. But I cannot discredit or ignore the decades of research and exploration and theorizing done by more educated and intelligent individuals than myself, which so far leaves no credible room for any of the lost continents to have been real. Perhaps in the future we'll find out they did exist and our methodology of the present simply wasn't good enough, and perhaps we'll have conclusive proof they never existed at all. I cannot know these things for certain.

All I can do is go with the information and scientific evidence that has been presented so far, and that evidence pretty much disproves the lost continents' existence as they are written (I keep saying "as they're written," because there are smaller formations off of Greece that are being looked into). We thought Troy was a myth for the longest time, until it was found; and its ruins don't quite stack up to how it was described in the Iliad and the Odyssey, not even taking into consideration the thousands of years it's been falling apart. Mythology and legend often stretch the truth of the real sources of their inspiration, after all.

--------------------------

Maybe my first reply was harsh and a bit of overkill; I apologize for that. But consider where I'm coming from. I'd spent a few hours straight busting my ass trying to find the translations of the symbols, poring over the littlest of details in each real-world letter and character, comparing to very small pixelated versions and hoping they lined up right, and trying my best to ensure as accurate an attempt as I could manage; and then you come in out of absolutely nowhere bringing up completely unrelated topics to the thread's context. With the amount of work I'd exerted trying to contribute to this thread, that felt more than a little rude and I most definitely took some offense to it and lashed out. That post I apologize for.

This one, not so much. You made assumptions as to my knowledge on the subjects and made declarations and accusations based on those assumptions, and I am letting you have it in (Kumari) tandem. Mythologies and legends and ancient stories and all the things that go along with them are a particular area of history that I have been fascinated by and have read and researched thoroughly since I was a child. For you to assume that I was dismissing you based on close-mindedness is an insult, as well as being a very presumptuous error on your part.

No, I dismissed you one, because a distant connection between Sanskrit and Lemuria and the lost continents themselves have absolutely nothing to do with the actual topic of this thread (deciphering Dogether's symbols), and two because you presented your information in a manner that very heavily lends credence to the idea that you don't know the history of the subject as well as you act like you do. This could be an error in judgment on my part, but so far you've not given me any reason to think otherwise.

If you're going to call me close-minded, educate yourself on the history of what you're citing first, and don't assume that my skepticism is outright dismissal and patronize me based on that assumption.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

*D9 succumbs to the dark side at long last and argues exactly the way I would*

Additional food for thought: Plato admitted that his example of Atlantis was a hypothetical. He admitted he made it up to illustrate an argument about utopian societies, so scientists who have search for THAT lost continent have been wasting their time very accidentally. Plato's story is believed to have been based on the Akrotiri civilisation, which was unbelievably advanced for the time in which they lived (including possessing hot and cold running water, by some accounts).

It's very possible that Mu and Lemuria have similar basis in fact, but the real versions will be much smaller and much more mundane than the legends suggest. Gondwana is a PERFECT example of this.

Also, how did we get here from a topic about a minor boss in Rondo of Blood?

You're strange people, Dungeonites.

[Dracula9]

I've succumbed to nothing, brother. I just don't go all-out all the time since most of the time on the Internet that doesn't do any good.

Besides, you've not seen conversations I've had outside of the Dungeon and how I structure those. Me dropping facts, evidence, and covering discrepancies isn't really a new thing.

Also, how did we get here from a topic about a minor boss in Rondo of Blood?

This is what I've been buggered about.

[Super Waffle]

This thread I made just for some basic background research on a Maria fanfic I might write got really weird.

[X]

Maybe my first reply was harsh and a bit of overkill; I apologize for that. But consider where I'm coming from. I'd spent a few hours straight busting my ass trying to find the translations of the symbols, poring over the littlest of details in each real-world letter and character, comparing to very small pixelated versions and hoping they lined up right, and trying my best to ensure as accurate an attempt as I could manage; and then you come in out of absolutely nowhere bringing up completely unrelated topics to the thread's context. With the amount of work I'd exerted trying to contribute to this thread, that felt more than a little rude and I most definitely took some offense to it and lashed out. That post I apologize for.

No problem dude. But even a person under a lot of stress can make the conscious decision to be polite or not. And I was in no way discrediting your work. That is a conclusion you reached on your own. But you didn't think on this, you chose to 'lose it' so to speak. That is never the best way to go about things as it makes you look bad in front of others and lose credibility at the same time. If you're the type who gets touchy every time something like this happens then you won't last long in society. I personally don't believe you're a bad person, but you should try and rein in yourself a bit. It wouldn't hurt and you'd get better results.

This thread I made just for some basic background research on a Maria fanfic I might write got really weird.

It did, didn't it    Sorry Super Waffle.

[Dracula9]

X, I've made my apology on prior mistakes. Kindly refrain from further patronization and talking-down as that's only going to agitate me anew. I am who I am and I do not need to be scolded by you as though you are some wizened old master and I am a clean-slate infant unaware of everything around him.

I respect the additional fifteen years of existence you have on me, but do me the courtesy of allowing me to figure things out on my own. Regardless of your intentions, talking to me in that manner will only ever come across as haughty and self-superior, and feels as though you are actively discrediting who I am because it's not "your" way. Whether you mean well or not, your "advice" is neither requested nor welcomed. If I want it, I will ask for it, so do not actively push it on me simply because you feel compelled to. I am of enough rational mind to know when to ask for help and when not to. Now is such a time of the latter.

I will ask nicely. Please stop. It makes it very hard to remain anything but frustrated with you.

[X]

If that's your wish, then certainly. I will respect it.