Coverings

The word mi’zar can signify a pair of trunks. This meaning is specified by Lane, who says that mīzar and mi’zar are currently used in Egypt to designate "a pair of drawers."
    In Maliki law, it is stated that "No man shall enter the bathhouse without a mi’zar" (thus in the Epistle of Ibn Abi Zayd). In al-Nuwayri's Ultimate Ambition we find that al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah forbade anyone to enter the bathhouse without one, and this is reported by al-Maqrizi as well. And in Ibn Iyas, we read in a report of the year 824 AH/1421 CE that "When they went to wash the corpse of al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad, they could not find [in the sultan's domicile] the smallest ewer to douse his body with, and no towel to dry his beard until one of the washers of his corpse gave up his own handkerchief. And there was no mi’zar to shield his privates until they took one off a neighborhood mourner—a coarse black wrap of Upper Egyptian make. Praise to the One who glorifies and brings low!"
     Freytag defines mi’zara only as [the brief cloak called in Latin] a pallium, but it also designates a cloth that covers one's private parts and lower body. In his Travels, Ibn Battuta tells of "a beautiful shrine at Burj Bureh [modern Brijpur?] inhabited by a handsome, clean-living holy man called Muhammad the Naked, because he goes dressed in nothing but a waistcloth covering his navel, with the rest of his body exposed. This man is a pupil of the righteous saint Muhammad the Naked who dwelt in the Qurafa cemetery of Cairo—one of God's saints who went robed in nothing but a mi’zara [appearing as tannūra "kilt" in most manuscripts of the Travels], which is a waistwrap that hangs down from the midriff."
     Mi’zar can signify a cloak as well. In Ibn Iyas, we read in a report of the year 822/1419 that "the Sultan [al-Mu’ayyad] wore a white woolen tunic. On his head was a small turban with trailing fringes, and he draped a mi’zar of white wool over his shoulders in the Sufi fashion." And in [the tale of Muhammad ibn ‘Ali the Jeweler, a.k.a. "The Strange Caliph" from] A Thousand and One Nights: "He threw a black mi’zar over them, and from beneath it they began to watch."
     Among the garments of the monks of St. Anthony "on the slopes of Mt. Colzim," Vanslep describes the mezerre: "a great cloak of black material lined with white, sometimes called melótēs in Coptic, and sometimes bírros. It is like the cloaks of the Jesuits, only it has no collar, and except when traveling, they seldom wear it." [As mentioned above,] mi’zara is defined as pallium in Freytag's Lexicon, and Vansleb may had this form in mind when writing mezerre; similar though these words are, mi’zar is not at this time used to name that garment in Egypt.
     Lastly, the mi’zar can be a covering for the head. In his Travels, Ibn Battuta describes a particular form of mourning observed at Idhaj after the crown prince's death: "I happened that day upon a strange scene. The place was packed on every side with judges, orators, and nobles seated with bowed heads along the walls of the royal gallery, some of them weeping and others merely pretending to. Over their clothes, they wore rough, sacklike robes of raw cotton turned inside out, and every man's head was covered with rag or a black mi’zar. To those who kept this up for forty days, the sultan gifted a new set of clothes."
     It is in this sense that mi’zar entered Spanish as almaizar, defined by Covarrubias [the same] in his Treaury of the Castillian or Spanish Language as "a mantle-like veil or toque worn by Moorish women. It is made of fine silk, with colorful borders and fringes at either end." He continues: "Diego de Urrea says this garment is called in Arabic an izār, explaining al- as the definite article, and ma- as the marker of the instrumental noun: al + ma + izar = almaizar 'covering,' which the Moors wrap around their heads, leaving the fringes to hang down over their shoulders." Throughout early Spanish literature, almaizar and almaizal refer equally to head coverings for women and men.
     Mi’zar has also entered Italian: large panels of printed cloth with which women wrap their heads are called in Genoa mezzari. As for mi’zār (with long alif), that's one form I don't believe I've ever come across in Arabic.

From A Detailed Dictionary of Terms for Arab Dress (Amsterdam, 1845)
by Reinhart Dozy

Buddhist Nights

Once there was a young nobleman of uncommon beauty, who fashioned the image of a girl out of gold. He said to his mother and father: "I will marry a girl like this, if she can be found."

At this time, in another kingdom, there was a girl as beautiful as he, who fashioned the image of a man out of gold. She said to her mother and father: "I will marry a man like this, if he can be found." Both sets of parents made inquiries, and across the distance they contracted a marriage between the two, and solemnized their union as husband and wife.

It happened after this that, clutching a mirror, the king of the realm demanded of his ministers: "In all the world, is there a man whose face rivals mine?" They responded: "We who are your subjects have heard it said that there is another man in the kingdom whose beauty surpasses all others." At once the king dispatched a messenger in search of him.

On finding him, the messenger said to the young man: "The king desires the benefit of your wisdom." Straightaway the young man prepared his chariot, and had already set off for the palace when the thought hit him: "It is for my intelligence that the king summons me." To gather the teachings he thought he would need from his books, he therefore returned to his home, - where he found his wife in a state of abandon with a complete stranger. The emotional distress this caused in him had an altering effect on his face, producing an extraordinary physiognomic change for the worse that only worsened as time went on.

[Outside the palace,] the young man's reduced state did not escape the notice of the king's minister, who thought the rigors of the journey were what had thinned his face. And so he had a place set aside for him in a stable, - where, in the middle of the night, the young man spied the king's own consort entering the stable and joining one of the grooms in illicit union. His heart at once was lightened: "If this is how the wife of a king conducts herself?" he thought. "No wonder my wife does the same." At this, his worries evaporated and his face regained its former beauty.

The time came for his interview with the king, who asked: "Why have you lodged outside the palace for the past three days?" The young man responded: "After setting off with your messenger, I thought I had forgotten something, and went back along the road to my house in order to get it. There I found my wife in a state of abandon with a stranger. It pained me sharply, and in my extremes of pathos and rage, my face became altered. For three days I rested in a stable, O King, - where I saw your consort in illicit union with one of the grooms.

"If this is how your wife conducts herself," the young man continued, "then no wonder my own wife does the same. My worries have evaporated, and my face has regained its composure."

"If this is what my own wife is like," said the king, "then how much more so ordinary women!"

Thereupon, both men took off to the mountains together. They cut their beards and shaved their heads and became ascetic devotees. Adopting the view that the company of women makes sacred occupations and devotions impossible, their progress toward excellence was uninterrupted, and both men attained the way of the Pratyekabuddha.

From the Jia za pi yu jing (Ancient Book of Various Metaphors) attributed to Kang Senghui (d. ca. 280 CE), and included in the Taishō ed. of the Chinese Buddhist canon; French tr. by Édouard Chavannes, Cinq cents contes et apologues extraits du Tripiṭaka chinois (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1910-34), vol. 1, 374-6.

Leibniz on perception

One is obliged to confess that perception and what depends on it are inexplicable by mechanical reasons, i.e. in terms of forms and movements. Let's imagine a machine whose structure permits it to think and feel and have perceptions, and go on to enlarge it in our minds, maintaining its proportions, until one could go inside it as into a mill. This being posited, on a visit to its interior one would find nothing but parts pushing against one another, and nothing to explain how perception works. And so it is in the simple substance, and not the composite (i.e. the machine) that we must seek it out. Indeed, perceptions and their alterations are all we find in simple substances. In these alone consist all internal actions of simple substances.

Monadology §17

Jean Pépin on Sentence 16

hai noēseis ouk áneu phantasías
"This is Aristotle's celebrated thesis, more or less as formulated in On the Soul III.7 and again in the short treatise On Memory and Recollection. The passages in question are:
(1) oudépote noeî áneu phantásmatos hē psychē (On the Soul 431a)(2) Tà mèn oûn eídē tò noētikòn en toîs phantásmasi noeî (On the Soul 431b)
(3) noeîn ouk éstin áneu phantásmatos (On Memory 449b-50a)
One could of course mention other passages, among them On the Soul III.8: 'Speculative thought is necessarily applied to some mental image. For mental images are just like objects of sense, except that they are without matter' (432a). Noēmata are not the same as phantásmata, but they cannot exist without them."

"Of the above formulations, (1) and (3) make it clear that the phántasma is necessary for the intellect to function, but they do not say strictly whether it comes first. (2) on the other hand -- 'As for the forms, the intellectual faculty thinks of these in images' -- gives us to understand that phantásmata are not only necessary for operations of the intellect, but exist prior to them."

Commentary in Porphyre / Sentences, ed. by Luc Brisson
(Paris: Vrin, 2005), vol. 2, 447-8