Convergence Matrix
Twenty-six themes
Themes where multiple traditions independently arrive at the same concern. Convergence is shown in two layers: the surface claim (often shared) and the warrant (often not). A shared claim with incompatible warrants is convergence of attention, not of belief.
Cross-Tradition Convergence Matrix
The N=2-across-traditions instrument of Plan 010. Built from the 12 per-tradition N=3 sets. Governed by
00-architecture.mdand01-methodology-v2.md.
How to read this file (the governing rules, restated)
- The pool is NOT commensurable. UNIVERSAL / MAJORITY mean "convergence of stated claims," never "shared belief." The traditions have no shared authority, metaphysics, or arbiter.
- Claim ≠ warrant. Each cell records a tradition's claim on the theme. Where the claim converges but the why diverges, the row is a surface convergence and the divergent warrants are documented in
surface-vs-foundation.md. A high N here is a pointer into that file, not a finding of agreement. - N vs D (attestation breadth). N = how many of the 12 columns assert the claim. D = how many independent traditions (the three Abrahamic faiths are independent of one another but share a lineage, noted where it matters). A claim is presented as broadly shared only at roughly N≥3, D≥3.
- Tiers (claim-level attestation breadth):
- UNIVERSAL — affirmed across essentially the whole pool (D ≈ 9–12).
- MAJORITY — most traditions (D ≈ 7–8).
- MODERATE — a substantial minority (D ≈ 4–6).
- WEAK — one to three traditions. WEAK-distinctive jewels (unique and load-bearing) are flagged.
- Column key: Bud = Buddhism (Theravāda) · Isl = Islam (Quran) · Hin = Hinduism (Vedānta) · Jud = Judaism (Tanakh) · Chr = Christianity (Bible) · Sik = Sikhism · Tao = Taoism · Con = Confucianism · Jai = Jainism · Bah = Bahá'í · Zor = Zoroastrianism · Shi = Shinto.
- Quotes are inherited from the per-tradition files and are pending Phase 7 char-for-char audit.
Standpoint (owned, not neutral): this matrix is read from a pluralist standpoint — the traditions are treated as potentially-complementary partial views. That is itself a contestable position most of them reject. It is owned, not smuggled in.
Theme 1 — Ultimate reality / the divine
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Isl | One personal God, eternal, incomparable; tawḥīd (P1, Q 112:1–4) |
| Jud | One God, sole creator and sovereign; the Shema, ehad (P1, Deut 6:4) |
| Chr | One God, triune; Father, Son, Spirit (P1/P6, Deut 6:4 + Matt 28) |
| Sik | One God, true, formless, unborn; Ik Onkār (P1, Mūl Mantar) |
| Bah | One transcendent God, unknowable in essence, known via Manifestations (P1) |
| Zor | Ahura Mazda, the one wise Lord and source of all good (P1, Yasna 43:1) |
| Hin | Brahman, the absolute, pervading yet transcending all; also personal Īśvara (P2, Gītā 7–10) |
| Tao | The Dao: nameless, formless, impersonal, "not benevolent" source (P1, TTC 1, 5) |
| Con | Tian (Heaven): a silent, impersonal-yet-moral order; not a personal creator (P10) |
| Shi | Kami pervade nature; no single creator; cosmos is born, not made (P1/P2) |
| Bud | No creator God; conditioned arising; the unconditioned is nibbāna, not a deity (P10) |
| Jai | No creator God; an eternal universe of souls and matter (P5/P6) |
N = 12/12 affirm an ultimate reality. D: but the referent fractures three ways — personal-theist (Isl, Jud, Chr, Sik, Bah, Zor; D=6), non-dual/impersonal-absolute (Hin, Tao, Con-tian; D=3), and explicitly non-theist (Bud, Jai; D=2), with Shinto animist (D=1). Tier: UNIVERSAL as bare claim ("there is an ultimate"); but this is the deepest warrant-fracture in the pool. See divergence-map.md §1.
Theme 2 — The human self / soul
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Jud | Dust animated by divine breath; the human bears God's image (P2, Gen 2:7) |
| Chr | Ensouled image-bearer; soul + (resurrected) body (P1/P12) |
| Isl | A soul individually accountable; innate God-ward disposition, fiṭra (P5/P6, Q 30:30) |
| Sik | A self subject to Hukam, dissolving ego (haumai) into the One (P2) |
| Hin | Ātman: deathless, and in its depth identical with brahman (P1, Gītā 2; Katha; R3-anchored: Chānd 6.8–16 tat tvam asi ×9, Bṛh 1.4.10 aham brahmāsmi, Mand 2 ayam ātmā brahma, Ait 3.5.3 prajñānam brahma — all four Mahāvākyas now canonical) |
| Jai | Jīva: a real, eternal, plural soul, the knower (P5, Sūy I.1.1) |
| Zor | A daēnā (conscience/inner self) that sides with one spirit; met after death (P5) |
| Bah | The soul is created "noble," bearing God's image (P11) |
| Con | A Heaven-conferred nature, cultivable; no strong soul-metaphysic (P10/P5) |
| Tao | No soul-doctrine; the self returns to the Dao; nourish the vital breath qi (P9) |
| Shi | No soul-doctrine; descent/kinship with kami (P5); thin |
| Bud | Anattā: no abiding self; name-and-form is conditioned process (P2, Dhp 277–279; R3-anchored: SN 22.59 Anattalakkhaṇa — the Buddha's second discourse, canonical articulation; SN 22.85 Yamaka anti-annihilation clarifier) |
Claim "there is an enduring self/soul": affirmed by Jud, Chr, Isl, Sik, Hin, Jai, Zor, Bah (N=8, D=7) — but on incompatible warrants (created-distinct vs ātman=brahman vs plural-eternal). Denied outright by Bud (anattā); absent/agnostic in Tao, Con, Shi. Tier: MAJORITY affirm a self, but the metaphysics is a primary divergence (the anattā vs ātman vs imago-Dei vs plural-jīva fault line). [R5] Anchor strengthened on all three principal sides: SN 22.59 + SN 22.85 (anti-annihilation) for Buddhism; all four Mahāvākyas + Bṛh 4.4.22 neti neti for Hinduism; Gen 1:27 / Gen 9:6 per-verse for the imago-Dei/B'tzelem-Elohim cluster. The R3 corpus does not soften this divergence — it sharpens it: SN 22.85 makes explicit that the Buddhist position is not "the self is destroyed at death" (that is named "wicked heresy") but "the question presupposes a referent the analysis has dissolved." See surface-vs-foundation.md §B and divergence-map.md §3. [P4] Two anchor refreshes: (a) Bahá'í P11 now names the soul as created "noble," "rich," bearing God's image — a standalone N=3 articulation of the imago-Dei-cognate warrant from the Persian / Arabic Bahá'í scripture, fitting alongside the Quranic fiṭra and the Tanakh b'tzelem Elohim without collapsing into either; (b) Confucianism P14 (xingshan + Four Sprouts, Mencius II.A.6 + VI.A.2) now anchors a distinct fourth warrant for "the human is morally constituted": not a soul-metaphysic but a Heaven-conferred nature with built-in moral sprouts, requiring cultivation rather than implanting. The Con position no longer reads as merely "no developed soul-doctrine"; it reads as innate-moral-orientation-without-a-soul-doctrine, a structurally distinct position that the R5 placement understated. The fault line now has four poles: created-soul (Jud/Chr/Isl/Sik/Bah/Zor) vs identity-with-brahman (Hin) vs plural-eternal-jīva (Jai) vs Heaven-natured-without-soul-metaphysic (Con) — with Bud's anattā as the explicit denial, Tao/Shi as soul-agnostic. Goes to Agent B's anthropology axis.
Theme 3 — Human dignity & inviolable worth
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Chr | Imago Dei; infinite, inalienable, unearned dignity (P1) |
| Jud | B'tzelem Elohim: every human bears God's image, inviolable (P2, Gen 1:27, 9:6) |
| Isl | God "honoured the children of Adam"; one human family, honour by taqwā not lineage (P12, Q 17:70, 49:13) |
| Sik | All equal; caste/gender/tribe abolished before the one God; langar (P9) |
| Bah | The soul created "noble" and "rich"; oneness of humanity (P3/P11) |
| Zor | God-given free dignity; worship freely confessed by each person (P4/P12) |
| Hin | Equal vision: one Self in all beings, across caste and species (P14, Gītā 5/13) |
| Bud | All beings share dukkha and fear death; worth by attainment not birth (P6/P11) |
| Jai | Every being a soul that feels pain, as oneself (P1/P2) |
| Con | Nobility is moral, not inherited; the junzi by character (P6) |
| Tao | Goodness owed "to the good and the bad alike"; abandons no one (P8) |
| Shi | Protect the weak; aid all who fall into trouble (P8, inferred) |
N = 12/12, D ≈ 12 affirm the claim that every human has worth not reducible to status/capacity. Tier: UNIVERSAL (claim-level) — the single broadest convergence in the pool. But the warrant splits sharply: theistic image-bearing (Chr/Jud/Isl/Sik/Bah/Zor) vs metaphysical identity (Hin) vs shared-suffering/no-self (Bud) vs cultivated-nobility (Con) vs alignment-with-Dao (Tao). See surface-vs-foundation.md §A — this is the showcase same-claim/different-warrant theme.
Theme 4 — Source of the moral law
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Jud | The will of the one covenant God; Torah (P1/P6/P7) |
| Chr | God's will, summed in the love command; "God is love" (P6/P7) |
| Isl | God's command; mercy-and-justice held together (P3, Q 1:1–3) |
| Sik | Hukam, the divine order one understands (P2) |
| Zor | Asha: cosmic + moral + ritual order fused, under Ahura (P2) |
| Bah | God's will; justice as God's "best-beloved" gift (P6) |
| Con | Tian-conferred nature + cultivated ren; a silent moral Heaven (P10/P1) |
| Hin | Dharma / cosmic order; ṛta-like right-order (P7) |
| Bud | Impersonal karma; no divine lawgiver; the Dhamma as how-things-are (P4) |
| Jai | The eternal law of ahiṃsā + karma-as-matter; no lawgiver (P1/P6) |
| Tao | The Dao / ziran; forced "benevolence" is the loss of the Dao (P8, TTC 18, 38); R3-add: inner truth zhēn (P18) as Heaven-given spontaneity — authenticity prior to and outranking ritual form |
| Shi | No moral code; makoto (sincere heart) + relational harmony (P7, inferred) |
N = 12/12 affirm a real moral order binding on humans. D: divine-command/theistic (Jud, Chr, Isl, Sik, Zor, Bah; D=6); impersonal-cosmic-order (Hin-dharma, Tao-ziran, Con-tian; D=3); impersonal-karmic (Bud, Jai; D=2); enacted-not-stated (Shi). Tier: UNIVERSAL claim ("morality is real, not invented"); the source divides theistic vs impersonal-cosmic vs karmic. [R5] Taoism warrant refined: with R3's addition of P18 (zhēn — Heaven-given inner truth), Taoism now articulates two warrant-faces: (a) the impersonal ziran (P4/P8) and (b) authenticity prior to ritual form (P18). Both remain non-theistic but the authentic-heart frame edges toward the Shinto makoto family more than the impersonal-Dao frame did. See divergence-map.md §1, §4. [P4] Confucian warrant sharpened: Con's tian (P10) warrant is now paired with P14 xingshan + Four Sprouts (Mencius II.A.6 + VI.A.2) — making the Confucian articulation a two-pole warrant in its own right: tian names the silent moral ordering above; xingshan names the moral seedbed within. The Four Sprouts (commiseration → ren, shame → yi, deference → li, right-and-wrong → zhi) provide a developed account of how the moral law is psychologically present — the kind of "natural-law-built-into-the-person" articulation that Augustinian/Thomist natural law also makes but on different metaphysics. The Con row now reads less as "thin moral-law account" and more as "moral law indexed to a Heaven-conferred-and-naturally-sprouting human nature" — a structurally cognate articulation with Aristotelian-Thomist natural law on the form but not on the warrant. Goes to Agent B's anthropology / surface-vs-foundation axis.
Theme 5 — Non-harm / compassion
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Bud | Non-hatred, non-harm, mettā; "hatred ceases not by hatred" (P6, Dhp 5) |
| Jai | Ahiṃsā: radical non-violence to all six classes of life (P1, Āk I.1.2) |
| Hin | Ahiṃsā rooted in the one Self in all beings (P14, Gītā 13) |
| Chr | Love even of enemies; mercy to the least; agapē (P7, Matt 5:44) |
| Jud | Hesed; love neighbour and stranger; "desires mercy" (P8, Lev 19:18) |
| Isl | Raḥma (mercy); sanctity of one life = all mankind (P3/P11, Q 5:32) |
| Sik | Daya (compassion); service, seva (P11) |
| Con | Ren (humaneness): love of persons (P1) |
| Bah | Fellowship across all difference; oneness of humanity (P3/P4) |
| Zor | Good deeds; care for the suffering creation (P6/P8) |
| Tao | Goodness to all alike; "recompense injury with kindness" (P8, TTC 49, 63) |
| Shi | Protect the weak; relieve the distressed (P8, inferred) |
N = 12/12, D ≈ 12. Tier: UNIVERSAL (claim level). One of the five strongest cross-tradition convergences. But warrants diverge maximally: anattā-insight (Bud) vs karma-as-matter (Jai) vs identity-of-Self (Hin) vs imago-Dei/God-is-love (Chr) vs covenant-command (Jud) vs tawḥīd-mercy (Isl) vs cultivated relational nature (Con) vs alignment-with-Dao (Tao). The scope also diverges: Jain ahiṃsā extends to one-sensed elemental life (WEAK-distinctive scope). See surface-vs-foundation.md §C — the architecture's worked example.
Theme 6 — The Golden Rule / reciprocity
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Con | Shu: "what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others" (P7, Analects 15:23) |
| Jai | "As it would be unto thee, so it is with him whom thou intendest to kill" (P2, Āk I.4.2.6) |
| Chr | "Whatever you desire that men do to you, do to them" (P8, Matt 7:12) |
| Jud | Love neighbour as thyself; Hillel's summary (P8, Lev 19:18) |
| Bah | "Wish not for others what ye wish not for yourselves" (P10, Aqdas) |
| Isl | Honour/forgiveness ordering community; reciprocal kindness (P13) |
| Bud | Non-harm grounded in all beings fearing death as I do (P6, Dhp 129); R3-add: P14 reciprocal social ethics in six directions (DN 31 Sigālovāda) — parents/children, teachers/pupils, husband/wife, friends, employer/worker, monastics/laity, each pair carrying mutual duties |
| Hin | Equal vision / non-harm toward all as toward oneself (P14) |
| Sik | Treat all as the one Bestower's; service to others (P11) |
| Tao | Soft, non-contending dealing; goodness to all (P8) |
| Zor | Good thoughts/words/deeds toward others under Asha (P6) |
| Shi | Protect the weak; relational harmony (P8, inferred) |
N = 12/12, D ≈ 12. Tier: UNIVERSAL. Among the broadest convergences in the pool — and, notably, in Jainism P2 the claim and the warrant align (reciprocity from shared aversion to pain), a rare same-claim/same-warrant genuine cross-validation (so flagged in the Jain file). The Confucian shu and Hillel's negative form, and the Gospel's positive form, are near-verbatim cousins. [R5] Buddhism P14 (DN 31 Sigālovāda) now adds a canonical six-direction reciprocal-duty articulation — a near-twin of the Confucian wǔlún and the Pauline household codes — strengthening the structural reciprocity-as-social-ethics convergence inside this claim-level row. [Plan 013 Phase 1, 2026-05-30] The Confucian wǔlún (P15) is now standalone: Con — Wǔlún 五倫 (Mencius III.A.4 + DM 20:8): "between father and son, affection; between sovereign and minister, righteousness; between husband and wife, attention to their separate functions; between old and young, a proper order; between friends, fidelity." The structural three-way convergence at this row's sub-theme — Buddhist six-direction reciprocity (Sigālovāda DN 31) + Confucian five relationships (Mencius III.A.4) + Pauline household codes (Eph 5–6, Col 3) — is now anchored on all three sides. Each tradition warrants the role-relational ethics differently (Bud: lay-path mutual duties grounded in shared dukkha and karma; Con: virtues as role-specific within a structured five-bond web warranted by xingshan + zhengming; Chr: household codes warranted by union with Christ + creation order) — but the structural form (named role-pairs each carrying mutual constitutive duties) is one of the cleaner cross-tradition same-form / different-warrant convergences in the Atlas. The strongest single claim-level convergence in the Atlas. [P4] The structural-form convergence is now significant enough to lift to its own row: see Theme 6b — Role-relational ethics structure immediately below.
Theme 6b — Role-relational ethics structure (new in Plan 013 Phase 4 — surfaced by Confucian P15 + Buddhist P14 standalone-anchoring)
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Con | Wǔlún 五倫 (Mencius III.A.4 + DM 20:8): the canonical five role-pairs each with its constitutive virtue — parent-child (qīn 親 affection), sovereign-minister (yì 義 righteousness), husband-wife (bié 別 separate functions), elder-younger (xù 序 proper order), friend-friend (xìn 信 fidelity). Four hierarchical + one mutual. (P15) |
| Bud | Sigālovāda DN 31 (P14): six "quarters" of reciprocal duty for the layman — parents (east), teachers (south), spouse (west), friends/kin (north), workers (nadir), religious teachers (zenith), each pair carrying mutual obligations. Notably absent: any vow of obedience (Rhys Davids' note); the worker's duties to the master are matched by the master's duties to the worker. |
| Chr | The Pauline household codes (Eph 5:21-6:9, Col 3:18-4:1, 1 Pet 2:18-3:7): husband-wife / parent-child / master-slave-and-servant role-pairs, each carrying reciprocal duties; framed by the prior "be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph 5:21). Distributed across P11 (koinōnia) + P7 (theological-virtue triad) + Stage-B deuterocanon (Sirach 3 on aged parents; Tobit 8:5-9 marriage prayer). |
| Sik | The householder-saint ideal (P7) + sangat-and-pangat institutional twin (P9, P11) — the householder bonds (parent-child, spouse, family of fellow seekers) are themselves the spiritual practice; "saved with one's family"; no monastic-renunciant tier. |
| Jud | The covenant-relational web: family bonds via the Decalogue's fifth commandment (honour parents, Ex 20:12) + neighbour-love (Lev 19:18) + welcome-the-stranger (Ex 23:9; Lev 19:33-34) + Tobit's marriage prayer in the deuterocanon; the bonds are warranted as covenant obligations to a personal God who himself binds hesed + emet into the relationship structure. (P3 family, P7 covenant, P8 hesed) |
| Hin | Sva-dharma within the four-āśrama / four-varṇa arc (P7); each station has its constitutive duties; the householder stage (gṛhastha) carries marital and parental duties as the matrix of the trivarga — artha + kāma organized by dharma (P15 catur-puruṣārtha now anchors this architecture). |
| Tao | "Cultivate the Dao from self outward to family, state, world" (P12, TTC 54); role-bonds are real but lightly held, with non-coercive (wu wei) leadership rather than codified obligation. |
| Isl | The "kindness to parents… say not 'Fie'… defer humbly to them" (Q 17:23-24); the ummah's mutual-counsel structure (shūrā) extends role-bonds beyond family to community; the role-ethic is woven into the broader taqwā (reverent awe of God)-grounded ordering (P13). |
| Jai | The lay-tier (śrāvaka / śrāvikā) holds family role-bonds, but the canonical exposition is mendicant-facing (P15 mahāvrata/aṇuvrata tier); role-relational ethics is implicit on the lay side, not canonically systematized. |
| Bah | Family as "the first school" (P10); the administrative order (P13) extends consultative role-relational structure into community governance (Local + National Spiritual Assemblies + Universal House of Justice); two-tier consultative form rather than a fixed canonical role-pairs enumeration. |
| Zor | The righteous home (P12 — bride and groom "counsel together in Armaiti"; Yasna 53:3-5); covenant-fidelity (P13 Mithra) extends the bond to friend/partner/spouse/parent-child/nation with explicit weighting (friend × 20, spouse × 50, parent-child × 100, nations × 1,000) — a numerically explicit role-bond hierarchy. |
| Shi | Matsuri extends role-relational binding outward through communal ritual + kinship with kami (P5, P6); no canonical role-pairs enumeration but the relational structure of household + clan + kami is canonical in practice. |
Claim "ethical life is structured by named role-pairs each carrying mutual constitutive duties": N=6, D=5 at canonically-named-and-enumerated depth (Con wǔlún P15, Bud Sigālovāda P14, Chr household codes, Sik householder-ideal P7, Jud covenant-relational web, Zor Yt 10:115-117 numerical hierarchy). Hin sva-dharma + catur-puruṣārtha P15 is structurally cognate at the architectural level. Bah P13 institutionalizes role-relational consultation rather than enumerating pairs. Tao/Isl/Jai/Shi affirm role-bonds without naming-and-enumerating them as canonical structure. Tier: MAJORITY at the structural-form level. This is one of the cleaner same-form / different-warrant convergences in the Atlas. Warrants diverge: shared-dukkha and karma (Bud); xingshan + zhengming (Con); union-with-Christ + creation order (Chr); the one God's claim on the family (Sik householder-ideal); covenant hesed (Jud); Mithra-witnessed plighted faith (Zor); sva-dharma within the cosmic order (Hin). Distinctive Confucian asymmetry: four hierarchical bonds + one mutual (friend-friend); distinctive Buddhist symmetry: all six pairs reciprocal-not-hierarchical (no vow of obedience). Goes to surface-vs-foundation.md (Agent B) for the warrant-divergence axis and to structural-analysis.md (Agent C) for the form-cognate topology.
Theme 7 — Truth & truthfulness
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Jai | Satya: truthful speech free of passion (P4, Āk II.15.2) |
| Zor | Asha = truth; the Druj (Lie) is the cosmic enemy (P2, Yasna 30:5) |
| Jud | Reject falsehood, false witness; honest weights (P7, Lev 19:36) |
| Chr | Christ "the truth"; truth as common good (P10) |
| Isl | Honesty in dealing; "woe to those who stint the measure" (P11, Q 83:1–3) |
| Sik | Sach/sat: truth is the texture of creation; truthful living (P6) |
| Con | Cheng (sincerity); zhengming (names answering reality) (P12/P8) |
| Bud | Paññā: discern truth from untruth; ignorance is the worst taint (P9) |
| Hin | Jñāna; the divine endowment of truthfulness (P12/P14) |
| Bah | Independent investigation of truth (P7); deeds over words (P12) |
| Tao | "Sincere words are not fine"; truth is wordless, paradoxical (P10) |
| Shi | Makoto: a true, bright heart; "erase falsehood" (P7) |
Confucian trustworthiness anchor strengthened (Plan 013 Phase 1, 2026-05-30): Con also now anchors via P13 xin (信 — trustworthiness as the binding tissue of relationship and polity) — Analects 1:4 (Zengzi's daily self-examination), 2:22 ("how is a man without truthfulness to get on?"), 12:7 (the people's faith as the irreducible ground of the state), 19:10 (trust precedes labour and remonstrance). Con's truth-warrant now has two faces: cheng (P12 — sincerity as cosmic-ontological power) + xin (P13 — trustworthiness as relational-political binding tissue). Atlas implication: the Confucian Trustworthiness/Fidelity sub-convergence (Sik sat-sangat-trust, biblical emet, Christian fidelity, Islamic amana, Bahá'í honesty, Zor Asha-aligned word, Con xin) is now anchored on the Confucian side; the trustworthiness convergence cluster is MAJORITY-within-the-pool at the claim level. Warrant divergence preserved: Con xin grounds in role-fitness (xin fulfills zhengming) and relational structure (the wǔlún's friend-friend bond), not covenant (Jud berit) or divine attribute (Chr/Isl).
N = 12/12, D ≈ 12. Tier: UNIVERSAL. Truthfulness as a virtue and truth as a value converge everywhere. Warrant diverges: truth as God's own attribute (Zor Asha, Sik) vs cosmic-ontological power (Con cheng) vs liberating insight (Bud/Hin) vs the wordless Dao (Tao) vs sincerity-of-heart (Shi). Bahá'í's independent investigation of truth is a partial divergence (it relativizes received authority — see divergence-map.md §9). [R5] Anchor depth shift: Zor Asha is now per-passage attested across Yasna 30:5, 31:5, 43:1, Yasht 10 (Mithra), giving the "truth as cosmic order" warrant its strongest single-tradition canonical density in the pool. Bahá'í's independent-investigation claim is now Íqán-anchored, making the divergence at §9 sharper not softer. [R5] Taoism P18 (zhēn, inner truth) adds a second Taoist truth-warrant alongside the apophatic "sincere words are not fine" — authenticity as Heaven-given spontaneity — which edges Taoism closer to the Shinto makoto family on this axis while leaving the apophatic warrant intact. [P4] The trustworthiness sub-convergence is now standalone: see Theme 7a — Trustworthiness / binding word immediately below.
Theme 7a — Trustworthiness / the binding word (new in Plan 013 Phase 4 — surfaced by Confucian P13 xin standalone-anchoring)
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Con | Xin 信 (P13) — the fifth of the Five Constants and a cardinal virtue: Analects 1:4 (Zengzi's daily self-examination: "whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been not faithful"); 1:8 ("hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles"); 2:22 ("how is a man without truthfulness to get on?"); 12:7 (the people's faith as the irreducible ground of the state — "if the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the State"); 13:20 (the officer "determined to be sincere in what he says, and to carry out what he does"); 19:10 (trust precedes labour and remonstrance). Both interpersonal and political. |
| Jud | Emet אֱמֶת (truth/faithfulness) — woven through P3 / P4 / P8 covenant cluster; God is "abundant in ḥesed and emet" (Ex 34:6); honest weights and measures (Lev 19:36); no false witness (Ex 20:16); the prophet's word vindicated by the test (Deut 18:21-22); emet is a divine attribute that grounds human truthfulness. |
| Chr | Pistis πίστις / fidelitas: the theological-virtue triad (P7) at 1 Cor 13:13 names faith alongside hope and love; the koinōnia (P11) is built on mutual trust; Christ as "the faithful and true witness" (Rev 3:14); fidelity to the kingdom (P13 basileia) over comfort. |
| Isl | Amāna أَمَانَة (trust/trusteeship, P5) — Q 33:72: the amāna is the heavy charge entrusted to humanity that the heavens and earth refused to bear; "honest measure" (Q 83:1-3); fidelity to covenants (Q 5:1, 17:34); the ummah itself is a covenanted community of mutual trust (P13). |
| Sik | Sat / Sach ਸਤਿ — primary anchor at P6 ("truth as the recurrent epithet of God and the texture of creation"); also P3 as Sat Nām (truth as the Name's content); the sangat-and-pangat institutional twin (P9, P11) lives on trust as binding-tissue; the falsehood that "masters the mint" (P6, P8) is condemned; the Sat Guru relationship is itself a trust-bond. |
| Bah | P12: "Let deeds, not words, be your adorning"; "trustworthiness, patience, and detachment" — direct N=3 principle naming trustworthiness as a cardinal Bahá'í virtue. Paired with P13's institutional consultation (the House of Justice members as "the trusted ones of the Merciful among men", Aqdas ¶30) and P14's two-tier Covenant (the divine pledge as the foundational binding word). |
| Zor | Asha-aligned word + Mithra-covenant (P6, P13) — Yasht 10:1-2: Mithra is the divinely-instituted guarantor of plighted faith; covenant-breaking ("Mithra-lie", Mithradruj) brings death to whole countries; the ethical triad humata-hūkhta-hvarshta (P6) makes word-keeping a cosmic obligation; the bond rises in weight through concentric social relations (friend × 20, partner × 40, spouse × 50, parent-child × 100, between nations × 1,000, joined to Mazda's Law × 10,000). |
| Bud | Musāvādā veramaṇī (the fourth precept of P17 Pañca Sīlāni) — abstention from false speech; trust-bond between kalyāṇa-mitta (P12) and within the Saṅgha (P16); but no developed institutional-trust theology — the warrant is karmic-soteriological (false speech impedes liberation), not covenantal. Moderate convergence. |
| Hin | Truthfulness satya among the divine endowments (P12, P14); P13 bhakti: "none can perish, trusting Me" — the practitioner's trust in the welcoming Lord. Distributed across P12/P13/P14 rather than standalone-named. |
| Tao | "Sincere words are not fine" (P10) — the apophatic warrant on truth carries an implicit trustworthiness ethic (the trustworthy person is unadorned); P18 zhēn anchors the inner-truth pole. Light convergence at the form level. |
| Jai | Satya (P4 — truthful speech free of passion); the Jain great vows include satya as a mahāvrata (P15); convergent on truthfulness, but the warrant is karmic-passion-reduction rather than relational-binding. |
| Shi | Makoto (P7 — true, bright heart) — sincerity as the centre of practice; thin on institutional-trust elaboration but the personal-trust warrant is canonical. |
Claim "trustworthiness as a binding virtue — interpersonal and (in many traditions) political": N=7, D=6 at standalone-anchored canonical depth (Con xin P13, Jud emet threaded P3/P4/P8, Chr pistis P7, Isl amāna P5, Bah trustworthiness P12, Zor Asha-aligned word P6 + Mithra-covenant P13, Sik sat P6 with P3 Sat Nām secondary anchor); Bud / Hin / Tao / Jai / Shi attest the value but with thinner doctrinal-standalone weighting (the warrant is karmic-soteriological, not covenantal-relational). Tier: MAJORITY → near-UNIVERSAL claim-level. The Confucian xin P13 standalone-anchoring (Plan 013 Phase 1) was the previously-missing piece that elevated trustworthiness from a distributed sub-element to a named theme. Warrant divergence preserved: Con grounds xin in role-fitness (xin fulfills zhengming + is the friend-friend bond of wǔlún) — not covenant (Jud berit) or divine attribute (Chr/Isl); Zor warrants by Mithra-as-cosmic-guarantor; Bah by deeds-over-words + institutional-consultative tradition; the Christian pistis warrant grounds in the faithfulness of God himself. The political form — xin as the irreducible ground of the state (Analects 12:7) — has no exact analogue in pre-modern political theology elsewhere; it is the prophetic-justice tradition's "without justice no peace" expressed as "without trust no state." Goes to union-compass.md (Agent C / Phase 5) as a likely new shared-grounding concern.
Theme 8 — Justice & the vulnerable
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Jud | Tzedek/mishpat: justice the non-negotiable core; care for widow/orphan/poor (P7, Amos 5:24, Mic 6:8) |
| Chr | Justice for the oppressed; preferential option for the poor (P5) |
| Isl | ʿAdl unconditional, even against self/kin; righteousness = charity to the needy (P10/P11, Q 4:135, 2:177) |
| Sik | Honest livelihood; condemnation of exploitation; equality (P9/P10) |
| Bah | Justice "the best-beloved of all things" (P6) |
| Zor | God the just rewarder; tilling/feeding the world is holy; wealth held to give (P7/P10) |
| Con | Govern by virtue, people first; the Mandate of Heaven (tianming 天命) binds legitimacy to virtue and people-welfare and is revocable when virtue fails; "the people are the most important element" (P9, Analects 16:8 + Mencius I.A.3–7, VII.B.14 — full tianming revocable-mandate doctrine at Mencius 1B.8 is in Mencius Book I Part II, outside corpus's PD source, R4 follow-on) |
| Hin | Service over self-seeking; lokasaṃgraha; sattvic giving (P6) |
| Tao | Heaven "diminishes superabundance, supplements deficiency"; light non-coercive rule (P11/P6) |
| Bud | Practice over ritual; worth not by birth; non-acquisitiveness (P11/P13); R3-add: P15 dharmic polity (DN 26 Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda) — poverty is a social-causal antecedent of theft and violence; the just king's task is the relief of want, recovery is from below |
| Jai | Aparigraha (non-possession); but ascetic-individual, not social-structural (P3) |
| Shi | Strong protect the weak; sustenance as gift (P8, inferred) |
Claim "justice, fair dealing, and care for the poor/vulnerable are central": affirmed strongly by Jud, Chr, Isl, Sik, Bah, Zor, Con (N=7, D=6), with structural redistribution explicit (jubilee, zakāt). Hin/Bud/Jai/Tao affirm generosity and non-acquisitiveness but frame it individually/ascetically rather than as social-structural justice (a real difference of emphasis). Tier: MAJORITY → UNIVERSAL on the bare claim; the Abrahamic + Confucian stream is distinctively structural-justice oriented. The prophetic "justice over empty ritual" (Jud/Chr/Isl) is itself a sub-convergence. [R5] Buddhism shift toward the structural pole: P15 (Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda) adds a canonical social-causal account of poverty → theft → violence → social breakdown, with the just king's task being relief of want — a structural-justice articulation absent from the Dhammapada-only reading. Buddhism still does not redistribute by obligation the way zakāt / jubilee do, but the "individual/ascetic only" characterisation is now too thin; P15 moves Buddhism partway toward the structural cluster. No tier change: the row reads MAJORITY → UNIVERSAL as before, but the within-row Buddhism placement is sharpened. The prophetic "justice over empty ritual" sub-convergence remains. [P4] Bahá'í structural-pole anchor sharpened: Bah P13 (the administrative order: House of Justice, Nineteen-Day Feast, clergyless consultation) institutes a scripturally-ordained structural mechanism for justice — the House of Justice (bayt al-ʿadl, Aqdas ¶30) is named in the founding scripture as "the trusted ones of the Merciful among men" charged to "take counsel together" for the welfare of all. This is structurally distinct from prophetic-ethical exhortation (Amos / Isaiah / Q 4:135) by being institutional from the founder's own pen, and structurally distinct from Catholic / Orthodox / Lutheran / Reformed ecclesial-justice structures (which are post-scriptural settlements). The Bah row now reads not only "justice as God's best-beloved" (P6, R5) but "justice as institutionally enacted by elected councils on a 19-day rhythm" — moving Bah from a generic affirmation to a sharply institutionalized contribution. Goes to new Theme 12b (Administrative order) for the structural-form lift.
Theme 9 — Family / elders / ancestors
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Con | Xiao: filial reverence, "the root of all benevolent actions" (P2, Analects 1:2) — situated within the Five Relationships (wǔlún 五倫, P15): father-son affection, sovereign-minister righteousness, husband-wife separate functions, elder-younger proper order, friend-friend fidelity (Mencius III.A.4 + DM 20:8) |
| Chr | Family the fundamental cell of community (P11); honour parents |
| Isl | Kindness to parents; "say not 'Fie'"; honour the family (P13, Q 17:23) |
| Jud | Honour father and mother (P7, Ex 20:12); family a basic good (P3) |
| Sik | Householder-saint ideal; saved "with one's family" (P7/P11) |
| Bah | Family the first school; equal education of all children (P10) |
| Zor | The righteous home; bride and groom "counsel together" in Armaiti (P12) |
| Tao | Cultivate the Dao from self outward to family, state, world (P12) |
| Shi | Reverence for ancestry, lineage, kinship with kami (P5) |
| Hin | Sva-dharma within family/role; the householder stage (P7) |
| Bud | Monastic/renunciant ideal; family ties as attachment to transcend (P3/P13) — but [R5] P14 (Sigālovāda) DN 31 partly qualifies this for the laity: parents/children and husband/wife are two of the six directions of reciprocal duty for the layman, with explicit mutual obligations. The renunciant ideal sits above this for the monastic; for the layman, family is canonically honoured. |
| Jai | Ascetic/renunciant ideal; non-possession of kin (P3/P11) |
Claim "family/elders are a primary good to be honoured": Con, Chr, Isl, Jud, Sik, Bah, Zor, Tao, Shi, Hin (N=10, D≈9). Tier: MAJORITY (claim-level). A clean divergence sits inside it: the householder traditions (Con/Sik/Zor/Chr — family as the spiritual locus) vs the renunciant traditions (Bud/Jai, and one strand of Hin — family transcended for liberation). Confucian xiao and the Sikh householder-saint are WEAK-distinctive weightings. [R5] Buddhism's renunciant placement softened (for the lay path only): DN 31 Sigālovāda is the canonical "Layman's Vinaya" — it does not change the monastic ideal but it gives the laity a positive, reciprocal-duty family ethic the Dhammapada-only reading lacked. The divergence at §6 (world-affirming vs world-renouncing) remains real but the Buddhist lay graph now resembles the Confucian wǔlún structure more closely than before. See divergence-map.md §6. [P4] Two structural-anchor refreshes: (a) Con P15 wǔlún is now the canonical anchor for the structured five-bond family-society architecture (parent-child / sovereign-minister / spouse / elder-younger / friend-friend, Mencius III.A.4 + DM 20:8) — the explicit Confucian sociology against which other traditions' family-ethics can be compared at the structural level; (b) Christianity's family anchor is deepened by Stage-B deuterocanon: Sirach 3 on the cognitively-declining aged parent (Christianity P11 — DC1-P4) and Tobit's marriage prayer (Tob 8:5–9 — DC2-P3) give the koinōnia-as-domestic-fellowship articulation that the canonical NT covers more by implication than by named instruction. The structural lift — that named-role-pairs each carrying mutual constitutive duties is a cross-tradition convergence on the form of role-relational ethics — is now significant enough to warrant a separate Theme 6b row, not merely a sub-note here. See Theme 6b — Role-relational ethics structure below.
Theme 10 — Mastery of desire / craving
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Bud | Taṇhā (craving) is the origin of suffering; uproot it (P3, Dhp 212–216; R3-anchored: SN 56.11 Dhammacakkappavattana — the canonical articulation, the Buddha's First Sermon, with the three-fold taṇhā taxonomy — kāma-taṇhā (sensual), bhava-taṇhā (for existence), vibhava-taṇhā (for non-existence)) |
| Hin | Kāma the enemy; lust/wrath/greed the three gates of hell (P8, Gītā 16) |
| Jai | Aparigraha; freedom from love/hate of sense-objects (P3) |
| Tao | Reduce desire; "no fault greater than the wish to be getting" (P3, TTC 46); R3-add: P17 Yangist axiology — the body / life is more valuable than the kingdom; not even universal sovereignty is worth a single hair of the body. A sharp counter-current to acquisitive ambition specifically directed at political gain. |
| Chr | "Cannot serve God and Mammon"; mastery of the passions (P6) |
| Isl | Taqwā; wealth a trust not to be hoarded; mastering anger (P10/P13) |
| Bud→all | Self-conquest as the hardest task |
| Jai | "Subdue your Self, difficult to subdue" (P7, Utt 1.7) |
| Con | Subdue self and return to li; rightness over gain (P1/P4) |
| Sik | Conquer haumai (ego); contentment "thy earrings" (P2/P7) |
| Zor | Renounce violence, robbery, waste; the Good Mind (P12) |
| Bah | Detachment; hold wealth lightly (P12) |
| Shi | (thin — purity/simplicity of heart, P3/P7) |
N = 12/12, D ≈ 12. Tier: UNIVERSAL. Disordered desire / acquisitiveness as a core human malady, and self-mastery as central, is affirmed everywhere. The sharpest warrant nuance: Buddhism's claim that desire itself (not merely disordered desire) binds one to rebirth is distinctively radical; the theistic traditions target disordered desire against right worship. See surface-vs-foundation.md §D.
Theme 11 — Humility / simplicity / non-attachment
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Tao | Return to the uncarved block (pu); contentment; soft over hard (P3/P5) |
| Bud | Contentment is the greatest wealth; own little (P13, Dhp 204) |
| Jai | Aparigraha: non-possession a great vow (P3) |
| Chr | The Beatitudes; kenōsis; "blessed are the poor in spirit" (P10/P13) |
| Hin | Equanimity, detachment from the fruit; renounce attachment (P5/P9) |
| Sik | Contentment; deeds over pride; conquer haumai (P7/P8) |
| Isl | Zuhd-like restraint; humility; ṣabr (P14) |
| Jud | "Walk humbly with thy God" (P7, Mic 6:8); epistemic humility (P12) |
| Con | The junzi "requires much of himself, little of others"; the Mean (P6/P11) |
| Bah | Detachment; deeds over words; attend to one's own faults (P12) |
| Zor | Armaiti (humble devotion); renounce waste (P12) |
| Shi | Simplicity/brightness of heart (P7, inferred) |
N = 12/12, D ≈ 12. Tier: UNIVERSAL. Simplicity, contentment, non-acquisitiveness, and humility converge across the whole pool. Warrants split: return-to-original-nature (Tao pu) vs ascetic karma-shedding (Jai) vs imitation of a self-emptying God (Chr kenōsis) vs detachment-for-liberation (Bud/Hin) vs cultivated character (Con).
Theme 12 — Community / common good
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Chr | Common good, solidarity, koinōnia; "no one is saved alone" (P11) |
| Sik | Sangat, langar, communal salvation; saved with one's family (P9/P11) |
| Con | Self → family → state → world; harmony; people-first government (P5/P9) |
| Isl | The ummah; shūrā (mutual consultation); charity to the community (P12/P13) |
| Jud | Covenant people; the poor provided for in the social structure (P4/P7) |
| Bah | Oneness of humanity; collective consultation; world citizenship (P3/P5) |
| Zor | The righteous community; care for the good creation together (P10/P8) |
| Hin | Lokasaṃgraha: act to uphold the order of the world (P6) |
| Tao | The small contented community; cultivate Dao outward (P12, TTC 80) |
| Shi | Matsuri: communal ritual restores harmony (P6) |
| Bud | Kalyāṇa-mittatā (spiritual friendship); but liberation is individual (P12 vs P5) |
| Jai | Sangha exists, but liberation is strictly self-won (P11) |
Claim "the human is communal; the good of each is bound to the good of all": Chr, Sik, Con, Isl, Jud, Bah, Zor, Hin, Tao, Shi (N=10, D≈9). Tier: MAJORITY. A real divergence runs through it: communal soteriology (Sik "saved with his family," Chr "no one is saved alone") vs individual soteriology (Bud "no one can purify another," Jai self-won liberation). See divergence-map.md §5. [P4] A structurally distinct sub-convergence — institutional governance — now warrants its own row: see Theme 12b — Administrative order / institutional governance below.
Theme 12b — Administrative order / institutional governance (new in Plan 013 Phase 4 — surfaced by Bahá'í P13 standalone-anchoring)
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Bah | The administrative order (P13): scripturally-instituted clergyless community + Local Spiritual Assembly + National Spiritual Assembly + (since 1963) Universal House of Justice; the Aqdas ¶30 institutes the House of Justice — "the trusted ones of the Merciful among men" charged to "take counsel together" for the welfare of all; Aqdas ¶57 institutes the Nineteen-Day Feast as the devotional+consultative+social gathering on the 19-day rhythm of the Badīʿ calendar. The most fully institutionalized clergyless form in the pool — institutionalized in scripture itself, not by post-founder settlement. |
| Sik | Sangat-and-pangat (P9, P11) — the egalitarian congregational gathering + the shared meal (langar) eaten side by side regardless of caste/class. Also clergyless (the Gurū Granth Sahib is the eleventh Gurū after the closure of the human Gurū succession in 1708); decisions taken in congregational consultation (the gurmatā of the Sarbat Khalsā historically; the Akāl Takht governance institution); textual rather than institutional ultimate authority. |
| Jud | Kahal-and-synagogue: communal self-governance through local councils + the Sanhedrin in the Second Temple period; the synagogue as the post-Temple congregational center; the bet din (rabbinic court) structure. Distributed across the Tanakh's covenant-people framing (P4) and post-biblical halakhic institutional settlement. |
| Chr | Church polity in plural — Catholic episcopal/synodal + Orthodox conciliar + Anglican episcopal + Presbyterian elder-led + Congregational/Baptist autonomous local-church + Quaker meeting-for-business + Pentecostal-charismatic. The institutional question is itself a major Christian internal divergence (P11 koinōnia substrate, but no single institutional form mandated in NT scripture); the Vatican Councils + Reformation + post-Reformation settlements developed the plural forms. |
| Isl | Shūrā (P12 — mutual consultation, Q 42:38 + Q 3:159); the ummah as the covenanted community; the khilāfa (caliphate) as the historical political-religious institution (Sunni-Shīʿī split on succession is precisely the unresolved governance question); no clergy in the Sunni mainstream though ʿulamāʾ + Shīʿī marjaʿiyya serve clerical-functional roles. |
| Bud | The Saṅgha (P16 Tisaraṇa) is the community-constitutive institution; the vinaya (227 monastic rules in the Pātimokkha) governs monastic life; the uposatha gatherings of monks for communal precept-recitation are the institutional rhythm; no centralized governance (Theravāda has national Saṅgharāja structures by country, no unified Theravāda authority). The cakkavatti of P15 (DN 26) is the Buddhist political-philosophical articulation — a dharma-rāja whose task is the relief of want. |
| Con | The rectified-names polity (P8 zhengming) + the junzi civil service + the Mandate of Heaven (tianming, P9 — revocable when virtue fails, Mencius 1B.8); the Han-and-later imperial-bureaucratic system embodied the Confucian governance ideal in institutional form; consultation through the jian (remonstrance) office. |
| Hin | The varṇa-and-āśrama social order (P7) as the structural form; dharma-śāstra literature codifies the institutional roles; classical kingship as dharma-preserving; no single doctrinal-institutional authority — internal plurality across Vedic / Vedānta / bhakti movements + sectarian sampradāya-lineages. |
| Zor | The Magi as hereditary priestly class; the yasna liturgical structure (P14 Amesha Spentas + P15 Yazatas) as the lived-liturgical form; classical Sasanian Iran couples Zoroastrianism to imperial governance; the dastur-and-mobed clerical hierarchy. Institutional but not democratically-elected. |
| Jai | The śramaṇa-sangha (mendicant community) + lay śrāvaka-saṅgha (P15); the ācārya leadership of monastic lineages; Digambara / Śvetāmbara historical division on canon + monastic discipline. |
| Tao | The Daodejing's small contented community (TTC 80, P12) explicitly favours minimal governance; the later Daoist priestly lineages (Zhengyi, Quanzhen, Tianshi) are institutional but not the Daodejing's own ideal; Yangist axiology (P17) explicitly prefers the body to the kingdom. |
| Shi | Matsuri-based community-shrine structure; the kannushi priestly class; Shinto's institutional form is shrine-centered + ritual-cyclical rather than doctrinal-creedal. |
Claim "religious community needs structured governance": N=12/12 affirm in some form, but the standalone institutional-mechanism-from-scripture articulation is concentrated in Bah (P13) + Bud (P16 Tisaraṇa + Saṅgha) + Sik (sangat + pangat + Akāl Takht) + Jud (kahal + synagogue + Sanhedrin/bet din) — N=4, D=4 with explicit scriptural / canonical institutional architecture. Christian polity is plural by design (no single NT-mandated form); Islamic governance is the unresolved Sunni-Shīʿī succession question; Confucian governance is the tianming-bureaucratic ideal; Hindu / Zor / Jai / Tao / Shi have institutional forms but with less density of scripturally-mandated structural-detail. Tier: MODERATE at the densely-institutional-scriptural-mandate level (D=4); MAJORITY at the broader "community needs governance" claim (D=10+). Distinctive Bahá'í contribution: the most fully institutionalized clergyless tradition in the Atlas — clergyless + democratically-elected + globally-supranational + scripturally-instituted, a 19th-century innovation that addresses post-founder institutional continuity differently from how other covenant traditions handle it. Distinctive Sikh contribution: the closed-Gurū-succession (1708) + textual authority of Gurū Granth Sahib + congregational sangat governance; the Akāl Takht as the temporal authority. Distinctive Jewish contribution: the kahal-and-synagogue lay-led congregational form predates and complements the rabbinic-court (bet din) judicial structure. Goes to structural-analysis.md (Agent C) for the institutional-topology axis and to union-compass.md (Phase 5 / Agent C) as a candidate held-tension on governance form.
Theme 13 — The ultimate goal (salvation / liberation)
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Bud | Nibbāna: the stilling of craving; cessation, not a heaven (P10, Dhp 203; R3-anchored: SN 22.53 the canonical articulation — "consciousness has no resting-place, does not increase, no longer accumulates karma, becomes free… attains Nirvana in its own person"; SN 22.85 Yamaka — nibbāna is neither annihilation nor continued existence; the doctrine that the arahant "is annihilated and does not exist after death" is named "wicked heresy" — the question itself is rejected as malformed) |
| Hin | Mokṣa: release from rebirth into the deathless; union with brahman (P11; R3-anchored: Chānd 8.7–12 brahmaloka; Maitri 6.18 yoga; Bṛh 4.4.3–5 "as one acts, so one becomes" for the karma/rebirth mechanism; Mund 3.2.8 "as pure water poured into pure water") |
| Jai | Kevala/mokṣa: the soul's self-attained omniscience (P10) |
| Chr | Communion with God; resurrection; the new creation (P9/P12/P13) |
| Isl | Paradise / nearness to God after the reckoning (P9) |
| Jud | Shalom; messianic restoration; God's presence (P13) |
| Sik | Absorption into the one God; Sach Khand, by grace (P4/P12) |
| Zor | Frashō-kereti: the renewed world; weal for the good (P10/P11) |
| Bah | To know and draw near to God; the soul's nobility realized (P1/P11) |
| Tao | Harmony with the Dao; nourish life; reticent on afterlife (P9) |
| Con | A flourishing ordered world; no developed afterlife doctrine (P5/P11) |
| Shi | No salvation doctrine; life affirmed, generativity (P2) |
Claim "there is an ultimate goal/fulfillment beyond ordinary striving": affirmed by Bud, Hin, Jai, Chr, Isl, Jud, Sik, Zor, Bah (N=9, D=8); Tao/Con/Shi are this-worldly (harmony/flourishing now, little or no afterlife). Tier: MAJORITY claim; one of the deepest warrant divergences in the pool. The goal-states are mutually exclusive: cessation (Bud) vs union-with-brahman (Hin) vs soul's omniscience (Jai) vs communion-with-a-personal-God (Chr/Isl/Jud/Sik/Bah) vs world-renovation (Zor) vs this-worldly harmony (Tao/Con). See surface-vs-foundation.md §E and divergence-map.md §5. [P4] Three within-row anchor refreshes: (a) Zoroastrianism P16 (Chinvat Bridge) now provides a second Zoroastrian goal-articulation — the individual post-mortem reckoning (the soul meets its own daēnā at the Bridge of the Separator, Yasna 46:10-11 + 51:13 + Vendidad 19:28-32) — structurally distinct from but complementary to P11 Frashō-kereti (the cosmic renovation). The Zor row now reads as a two-tier goal-architecture (individual particular-judgement + cosmic-final-renovation) — structurally cognate with the Christian distinction between particular judgement and general judgement; (b) Zor P15 (Yazatas) + P14 (Amesha Spentas) give the means by which the goal is approached (the yazata-class as divine instrumentalities — Sraosha, Anahita, Rashnu — each with its Yasht; the heptad as "one thought, one speech, one deed" structural template for human ethics at Yt 19:15-17); (c) Bah P14 (the Greater Covenant) sharpens the Bahá'í goal-articulation — drawing near to God through the succession of Manifestations is not a generic theistic claim but a structurally specific two-tier covenant (Greater God-with-humanity + Lesser succession-of-institutions) that handles the post-founder-continuity question differently from how Christian ecclesiology / Islamic khalīfa / Jewish prophetic-tradition handles it. The cluster of "communion-with-a-personal-God" warrant is now articulated more diversely — Chr/Sik via grace through the founder, Bah via the chain of Manifestations, Zor via covenant-fidelity + the Bridge, Isl via reckoning + paradise, Jud via covenant-fidelity + restoration. Goes to Agent B for warrant analysis.
Theme 14 — Origin of & response to suffering / evil
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Bud | Suffering (dukkha) arises from craving; the cure is the Path (P2/P3/P8) |
| Hin | Bondage from desire and avidyā (ignorance); māyā veils truth (P3/P8) |
| Jai | Suffering from karmic matter bound by passion; shed it (P6/P9) |
| Zor | Cosmic dualism: evil is an independent hostile spirit; choose the good (P3) |
| Chr | Sin/the Fall; redeemed by grace; finitude itself is good (P9) |
| Jud | Human freedom and the heart; teshuvah (return) always open (P11) |
| Isl | This life a test; God burdens no soul beyond its power; ṣabr (P9/P14) |
| Sik | Haumai (ego) the root malady; grace + right action heal it (P2/P4) |
| Con | Disorder from un-cultivated nature; Mencian innate goodness (xingshan 性善 + the Four Sprouts 四端 sìduān — commiseration → ren, shame → yi, deference → li, right-and-wrong → zhi; Mencius II.A.6 + VI.A.2) — virtue is drawing out what is already there, not implanting what is foreign (P14 standalone post Plan-013 Phase 1, 2026-05-30) |
| Tao | "Evil" is loss of the Dao; forcing and excess; return to ziran (P8/P11); R3-add: P16 Primitivist jī xīn (the "scheming/contriving mind") — the tools we adopt shape the mind we become; technology+cleverness corrupts the heart and society together. The sharpest pre-modern articulation in the pool of the claim that technology is not neutral. |
| Bah | A divided humanity needing the physicians (Manifestations) to heal it (P2) |
| Shi | Kegare (pollution from death/decay) — a state to wash, not a sin (P3) |
N = 12/12 offer a diagnosis-and-cure for the human predicament. Tier: UNIVERSAL claim ("something is wrong, and there is a remedy"); maximal warrant divergence. The diagnoses are mutually exclusive: craving (Bud), karmic matter (Jai), ignorance/māyā (Hin), an independent evil principle (Zor — the sharpest), sin against a holy God (Chr), ego (Sik), un-cultivation (Con), ritual pollution-not-sin (Shi). Zoroastrian dualism and the Christian Fall are documented in divergence-map.md §4. Note the loose convergence of "a universal human predicament" (Bud dukkha ↔ Chr universal sin), warrant-divergent. [R5] Taoism P16 (jī xīn, the scheming mind) adds a technological sub-diagnosis: cleverness-and-tools as a category of mind-corruption — a pre-modern articulation of the claim that technology is not neutral. [P4] Two anchor-refreshes that sharpen the anthropology axis: (a) Con P14 (Mencian xingshan + Four Sprouts) now standalone-anchors the innate-goodness pole — Mencius II.A.6's child-and-well parable + VI.A.2's water-flows-downward analogy give a canonical articulation: the human nature is positively oriented toward virtue, un-cultivation rather than fall is the diagnosis, cultivation is the cure, the four sprouts (commiseration/shame/deference/right-and-wrong) are the seedbed. This is the sharpest single-source contribution to the comparative "anthropology of the human person" theme: it makes the four-way contrast tractable — Mencian innate-good (Con P14) vs Augustinian original-sin (Chr) vs Buddhist klesha-laden-mind (Bud) vs Sikh haumai-as-malady (Sik P2/P4). (b) Bud P16 (Tisaraṇa — the Three Refuges) anchors the community-constitutive cure: becoming a Buddhist is the publicly-taken refuge in Buddha + Dhamma + Saṅgha; the remedy is not a private soteriological event but a constitutive affiliative act paralleling Christian baptism, Jewish brit milah, and Islamic shahāda at the level of form (warrants diverge — Tisaraṇa is orientation toward a path, not creedal assent or covenant entry). The anthropology axis is now four-pole tractable; this is the primary input for Agent B's surface-vs-foundation analysis on this theme.
Theme 14a — Covenant / the binding word (new in R5 — surfaced by R3 Stage-B depth)
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Jud | Berit: God binds Himself to all life (the rainbow, Gen 9) and to a people for the blessing of all (Abrahamic covenant, Gen 12; Sinai, Ex 19–20; the new covenant written on the heart, Jer 31:31–34). The covenant is a gracious, mutual, binding bond — the structural backbone of the Tanakh (P4) |
| Chr | The Sinai covenant fulfilled and renewed: "this is the new covenant in my blood" (the Eucharist) (P6/P9; Decalogue per-verse); the imago Dei–covenant pair is now per-verse anchored (Gen 1:27, 9:6, 12:1–3, 15:6, Ex 19:5–6, Jer 31:31–34) |
| Isl | Mīthāq / ʿahd: the primordial covenant ("Am I not your Lord?" Q 7:172); covenant-fidelity is named among the duties (Q 17:34, 5:1 — "fulfil your covenants"); the ummah itself is a covenanted community (P13) |
| Zor | R3-add: P13 covenant-fidelity — Mithra is the divine guarantor of the contract; "the ruffian who lies unto Mithra brings death unto the whole country" (Yt 10:7, 24, 45–46). The bond rises in weight through concentric social relations (friend × 20, partner × 40, spouse × 50, parent–child × 100, between nations × 1,000, joined to Mazda's law × 10,000) |
| Sik | The Gurū-Sikh relationship is covenantal in structure (an undertaking met by Hukam + grace), but the berit form is not central; thin convergence |
| Bah | The Bahá'í "Covenant" — God's covenant with humanity through the succession of Manifestations — is a distinctive structural form; partial convergence at the meta-level (P2) but the warrant is the progressive-revelation meta-claim |
| Bud/Hin/Jai/Tao/Con/Shi | No load-bearing covenant-structure; the bond between practitioner and the path is contractual in practice (the precepts, the vows) but not covenantal in the binding-by-promise-from-the-divine sense |
Claim "human life is held within a binding mutual word — divine or quasi-divine guarantor + named human party + named ethical content": Jud (P4 berit), Chr (P6/P9 new covenant), Isl (P13 mīthāq), Zor (P13 Mithra-covenant) — N=4, D=4 within the Abrahamic+Zoroastrian stream. Tier: MAJORITY-within-cluster / WEAK across the whole pool. Sik and Bah have related but structurally distinct forms (the Gurū's promise, the Manifestation-covenant); the Eastern traditions do not develop the form at all. The R3 corpus makes this a stronger same-claim/same-warrant convergence inside the cluster than R1 could see — Zoroastrian Mithra-covenant is now canonically anchored (Yt 10), and its plausible structural priority to Hebrew berit (the Atlas flags this to test, not assume) ties the cluster more tightly together. Cross-tradition note: this is one of the cleanest near-same-warrant cross-tradition convergences in the corpus — all four warrant the bond on a personal, all-seeing, righteous God-or-yazata who guarantees the contract. See structural-analysis.md Part 3 (the radial God-centred form) and divergence-map.md §7 (the Zor-Abrahamic structural family).
Theme 15 — Death & the beyond
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Bud | Rebirth driven by craving/karma until nibbāna ends it; cyclical (P3/P10) |
| Hin | Saṃsāra: rebirth across cyclical cosmic time until mokṣa (P11) |
| Jai | Endless rebirth driven by karma-as-matter until liberation; cyclical (P13) |
| Sik | Rebirth under Hukam; release/absorption into God by grace (P2/P4) |
| Chr | Linear: one life, judgment, bodily resurrection, new creation (P12/P13) |
| Isl | Linear: one life, a certain Day of Reckoning, paradise/judgment (P9) |
| Jud | Linear; this life central; later messianic/restoration hope (P13) |
| Zor | Linear: judgment, then Frashō-kereti, the renewed world (P9/P11) |
| Bah | The soul progresses toward God after death (P1/P11) |
| Con | Reverence at death (mourning), little afterlife doctrine; this-worldly (P2) |
| Tao | Accept death as natural transformation; reticent (P9) |
| Shi | Death produces kegare; the land of the dead is "polluted"; life affirmed (P3) |
Two incompatible architectures. Cyclical / rebirth: Bud, Hin, Jai, Sik (D=4, the Indian-origin stream). Linear / single-life + judgment: Chr, Isl, Jud, Zor, Bah (D=5, the Abrahamic + Zoroastrian stream). This-worldly / reticent: Con, Tao, Shi (D=3). Tier: divides into three clusters — no UNIVERSAL claim beyond "death is not simply the end of meaning." See divergence-map.md §7 (linear vs cyclical time).
Theme 15a — Festival cycle / sacred-time architecture (new in Plan 013 Phase 4 — surfaced by Judaism P15 + Islam P16 + Bahá'í P13 standalone-anchoring)
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Jud | The moadim / ḥaggim festival cycle (P15): Lev 23's canonical calendar — the three pilgrimage festivals (Pesaḥ, Shavuot, Sukkot — shalosh regalim, Deut 16:16), the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur — Yamim Noraim, Lev 16, 23:23-32), the sabbatical cycles (shemittah + yovel, Lev 25 — extending sacred time into agricultural-and-economic structure). The Tanakh's distinctive: explicit divine ordination (Lev 23:2 frames the moadim as "My appointed seasons"), highest lived-centrality. |
| Isl | Ṣawm-and-ḥajj (P16): the yearly fast of Ramaḍān (Q 2:183-185 — the month of revelation, daily dawn-to-dusk for one lunar month) + the once-in-a-lifetime ḥajj (Q 3:96-97 + Q 22:27 — the unified worldwide convergence on Mecca at one time of year). Together with the day-by-day ṣalāt+zakāt+dhikr (P8), these complete the Five Pillars (arkān al-Islām). The cycle is lunar (Hijri calendar), uniformly moving across the solar year. |
| Bah | The Nineteen-Day Feast + the Badīʿ calendar (P13): 19 months × 19 days + intercalary Ayyám-i-Há + nine Holy Days (Aqdas ¶16, ¶111, ¶127); the Nineteen-Day Feast is the devotional+consultative+social community gathering on the 19-day rhythm; the 19-day fast precedes Naw-Rúz (the new year). A scripturally-instituted distinct calendar, not a re-purposing of existing calendars. |
| Chr | The liturgical year: Advent / Christmas / Epiphany / Lent / Easter / Pentecost / Ordinary Time cycle; the Sanctorale of saints' days; the daily Office (Lauds/Vespers/Compline) + the Sunday Eucharist as the foundational weekly rhythm. Anchored in scripture indirectly through the Christological events (Passion / Resurrection / Ascension / Pentecost) + the Hebrew festival inheritance (Easter = Pascha = the Christian Pesaḥ; Pentecost = Shavuot); the codified liturgical year is a post-NT settlement. |
| Hin | The Hindu festival cycle: Diwali (festival of lights, Lakshmi + Rama's return), Holi (color/spring), Navaratri + Durga Puja (nine nights), Janmashtami (Krishna's birth), Maha Shivaratri, Ganesh Chaturthi, Raksha Bandhan, Onam, Pongal — a dense regional + sectarian + lunar/luni-solar cycle. Anchored in Purāṇic narrative + regional tradition rather than a single canonical calendar in the Vedic/Upanishadic stream itself; the ekādaśī fasts mark twice-monthly observance. |
| Bud | The uposatha (twice-monthly precept-recitation observance for monks; lay observance of Eight Precepts) + Vesak (the Buddha's birth, awakening, and parinibbāna celebrated on the full moon of Vesākha — Buddha Jayanti); regional festivals (Asalha Puja — the First Discourse anniversary; Kathina — the post-Rains-Retreat robe offering); the lunar rhythm of the Pātimokkha recitation as the institutional time-backbone. |
| Zor | The Gahanbars (six seasonal festivals — Maidyozarem, Maidyoshahem, Paitishahem, Ayathrem, Maidyarem, Hamaspathmaedem — each linked to one of Ahura's six creations: sky, water, earth, plants, animals, humans); Nowruz (the new-year festival, deeply Iranian, predating Zarathushtra and integrated into Zoroastrian observance); the Frawardīgān (the days at year-end for the fravashis — kindred-spirits of the dead). |
| Sik | The Gurpurabs (anniversaries of the Gurūs — birth, death, accession), especially the birth of Gurū Nanak (Kartik Purnima full moon, Nov), the martyrdom of Gurū Arjan (Jeth, May/June), the martyrdom of Gurū Tegh Bahadur (Maghar, Nov/Dec), the birth of Gurū Gobind Singh (Poh, Dec/Jan); Vaisakhi (the founding of the Khalsa in 1699, Apr 13/14) — the most pan-Sikh festival; the Anand Karaj + Nagar Kīrtan community processions. Lunar + solar elements; distinct calendar (Nānakshāhī). |
| Jai | Paryushaṇa (annual eight-day Śvetāmbara fast/festival of self-examination + kṣamāpana mutual-forgiveness; ten-day Digambara Daśalakṣaṇa-parva); Mahāvīra Jayanti (the founder's birth); Dīpāvali (commemorating Mahāvīra's mokṣa); seasonal fasts. Lunar cycle. |
| Con | Reverence at the seasons + the lunar-solar Chinese calendar's traditional festivals (the New Year, Qingming for tomb-sweeping ancestor-reverence, Mid-Autumn, Dragon Boat) — assimilated through filial xiao (P2) and li (P3) rather than canonically ordained as religious-festival cycle in the Analects / Mencius themselves; the imperial li governed state-ritual seasonal observance (the Liji / Book of Rites is the canonical-ritual source). |
| Tao | The 24 jiéqì (solar terms) integrated into Daoist liturgical practice + the major sect festivals (Three Origins — Sanyuan; Three Pure Ones — Sanqing; God of Wealth + tutelary deities' birthdays in popular Daoism); reticent on a centralized canonical calendar — the Daodejing itself does not develop the form. |
| Shi | The annual matsuri cycle — each shrine has its own seasonal matsuri (spring planting / autumn harvest); national observances (Shōgatsu New Year visits to shrines; Shichi-Go-San for children; Setsubun bean-throwing); the cycle is seasonal-agricultural + shrine-specific, not creedally codified; matsuri (P6) is the load-bearing communal ritual that renews harmony with kami. |
Claim "sacred time is cyclically structured by canonical festivals — annual + multi-annual rhythms — to shape communal memory, agricultural rhythm, atonement, and renewal": N=12/12 affirm in some form, but with very different canonical-codification density. Highest scriptural-codification: Jud (P15 — Lev 23 + Lev 25 calendars), Isl (P16 — Q 2:183-185 + Q 3:96-97 + Q 22:27), Bah (P13 — Aqdas ¶57 + Badīʿ calendar) — D=3 with explicit scriptural calendar-mandate. Strong but post-scriptural codification: Chr (liturgical year — post-NT settlement), Bud (uposatha + Vesak — post-canonical regional settlement), Zor (Gahanbars + Nowruz). Tradition-driven without single scriptural codification: Hin, Sik, Jai, Con, Tao, Shi — strong lived practice, codified in purāṇa / itihāsa / community-tradition rather than founding scripture. Tier: MAJORITY at the structural-form level. Cross-tradition warrant divergence: divinely-ordained-from-scripture (Jud Lev 23:2, Isl Q 2:183-185, Bah Aqdas ¶57); commemoration-of-Christological-events (Chr); founder + lunar-rhythmic (Bud); Ahura's six creations + Iranian inheritance (Zor); Purāṇic-narrative (Hin); Gurū-anniversaries + Khalsa-founding (Sik); founder-and-cosmology (Jai); ancestral-and-imperial-ritual (Con); seasonal-cosmological (Tao); shrine-and-seasonal (Shi). Distinctive Jewish contribution: the shemittah-and-yovel economic-land sabbatical cycles (Lev 25) extend sacred time into agricultural-economic structure in a way few cross-tradition parallels match. Distinctive Bahá'í contribution: a scripturally-instituted distinct calendar (Badīʿ), not a re-purposing of existing time. Distinctive Islamic contribution: the unified worldwide ḥajj convergence on one site at one time. Goes to union-compass.md (Phase 5 / Agent C) as a likely new shared-grounding concern for a family compass — sacred-time observance is one of the most lived-central practices across the pool.
Theme 16 — The good life / flourishing
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Con | The cultivated, harmonious life in right relationships; the Mean (P5/P11) |
| Tao | Living in accord with ziran; simplicity, contentment, longevity (P3/P9) |
| Jud | Shalom (wholeness); a just, Torah-formed, blessed life (P13) |
| Chr | Life in love, communion, and the kingdom; flourishing of every dimension (P8) |
| Hin | Equanimity (sthitaprajña); the freedom of detached action (P9) |
| Bud | The peace of the unattached, virtuous mind; nibbāna in life (P1/P10) |
| Sik | The householder-saint: honest work, remembrance, service (P7/P10/P11) |
| Isl | The God-conscious life of taqwā, gratitude, and charity (P10/P14) |
| Zor | The righteous home and productive life under Asha (P7/P12) |
| Bah | The useful, learned life of service; work as worship (P8/P9) |
| Shi | A bright, sincere heart in a community of matsuri and gratitude (P6/P7) |
N = 12/12, D ≈ 12. Tier: UNIVERSAL claim that there is a describable good human life (not mere preference-satisfaction). Strong convergence on its components: virtue, relationships, moderation, meaningful work, inner peace. The summum bonum diverges (union with God vs liberation vs harmony) — but the picture of a flourishing life is strikingly cross-legible.
Theme 17 — Speech ethics
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Bud | Restrain speech; words matched by deeds; end contention (P7) |
| Jai | Satya: speak only after deliberation, free of passion (P4) |
| Isl | Guarded speech; "neither defame nor mock"; reply "Peace!" (P13, Q 49:11–12) |
| Con | Zhengming: names must answer reality; honest speech (P8) |
| Jud | No false witness; the tongue's power (P7) |
| Chr | Truthful speech; ecology of communication (P10) |
| Tao | "Sincere words are not fine"; "he who knows does not speak" (P10) |
| Sik | Truthful living; against the falsehood that "masters the mint" (P6/P8) |
| Zor | Hūkhta: the word well spoken (the ethical triad) (P6) |
| Bah | Deeds over words; "let deeds be your adorning" (P12) |
| Shi | Makoto; "erase falsehood, determine the truth" (P7) |
| Hin | Truthfulness among the divine endowments (P14) |
N = 12/12, D ≈ 12. Tier: UNIVERSAL. Restraint of harmful speech, truthfulness, and matching words to deeds converge across the pool. [P4] Anchor refreshes: (a) Bud P17 (the Five Precepts) now anchors the false-speech-as-canonical-precept articulation — musāvādā veramaṇī is the fourth precept, named alongside non-killing / non-stealing / no-sexual-misconduct / no-intoxicants; DN 22 §21 binds it into the Eightfold Path's sammā-vācā limb. The Buddhist contribution to this theme is now structurally canonical at N=3, not merely Dhammapada-implicit. (b) Isl P13 / Bud P14 both now anchor guarded social-speech ethics at scriptural depth (Q 49:11-12 verbatim on defaming / mocking / suspicion; DN 31 Sigālovāda on the kalyāṇa-mitta's sound-hearted speech as a saṅgaha-vatthu). The cross-tradition convergence on speech-as-an-ethical-load-bearing-act is denser than R5 captured.
Theme 18 — Honest work
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Sik | Kirat karnī: honest livelihood is sacred; exploitation defiles (P10) |
| Zor | "He who sows corn, sows holiness"; the toiler's creed (P7, Yasna 31:9–10) |
| Bah | Work in a spirit of service is "exalted to the rank of worship" (P9) |
| Chr | Dignity of work; the person an end, not means (P12) |
| Con | Diligence; livelihood secured by humane government (P9) |
| Tao | The contented sufficiency of plain work; non-acquisitive labour (P3/P12) |
| Hin | Karma-yoga: disciplined work offered without attachment (P5/P6) |
| Jud | Labour within the creation mandate; rest balances it (Shabbat) (P3/P5) |
| Isl | Honest measure; wealth a trust to spend, not hoard (P10/P11) |
| Bud | Right livelihood (implicit in sīla); but the monastic ideal renounces it (P7) |
| Jai/Shi | (thin — Jai ascetic; Shi gratitude for sustenance, P8) |
Claim "honest, productive work has dignity": Sik, Zor, Bah, Chr, Con, Tao, Hin, Jud, Isl (N=9, D≈8). Tier: MAJORITY. Particularly strong and explicit in Sikhism (kirat karnī), Zoroastrianism, Bahá'í, and Christianity — a notable convergence for a family compass. The renunciant traditions (Bud/Jai) sit apart (work subordinated to liberation). [P4] Bahá'í anchor sharpened: Bah P9 (work-in-a-spirit-of-service "exalted to the rank of worship") is now paired with P13 (the administrative order) — Bahá'í work is institutionally enacted through clergyless consultation rather than left as a private virtue. The Bah row is no longer just a strong individual-ethical claim; it now includes the institutional mechanism by which the community structures collective service (Local Spiritual Assembly + National Spiritual Assembly + Universal House of Justice, Aqdas ¶30). This couples work-as-worship to a specific consultative governance form — strengthening the convergence with the Christian subsidiarity + dignity-of-work pairing.
Theme 19 — Care for creation
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Shi | Kami pervade nature; nature is sacred presence; reverence is basic (P1) |
| Zor | Care for the good creation, which "cries for a protector"; till the earth (P8/P7) |
| Jud | "Dress and keep" the earth; custodial dominion (P3, Gen 2:15) |
| Chr | Stewardship; integral ecology; "cry of the earth and cry of the poor" (P8) |
| Isl | Khalīfa (vicegerent); creation as āyāt (signs) to steward (P4/P5) |
| Hin | The one Self in all beings; non-harm extends to all life (P14) |
| Jai | Ahiṃsā to all six classes of life, including elemental/plant (P1) |
| Tao | Follow ziran; don't force nature; live with its grain (P4) |
| Sik | "Air the guru, water our father, earth our mother"; creation worships God (P12) |
| Bah | Harmony with the natural order (implicit) |
| Con | The tian-ordered cosmos producing all things (P10) |
| Bud | Non-harm to all living beings; simplicity (P6/P13) |
N = 12/12 affirm some reverence/responsibility toward the natural world. Tier: UNIVERSAL claim, with very different intensity and warrant. Warrant fractures: nature is divine (Shi animism, Hin one-Self) vs nature is God's creation to steward (Jud/Chr/Isl/Zor) vs nature is the self-so Dao to accord with (Tao). Jain ahiṃsā-to-elemental-life and Shinto kami-in-nature are the most radical, WEAK-distinctive in scope.
Theme 20 — Mediation: grace vs self-effort
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Chr | Grace (charis): salvation a gift through faith, "not of works" (P9, Eph 2:8–9) |
| Hin | Grace: bhakti; "Make Me thy single refuge! I will free thy soul" (P13) |
| Sik | Grace (Nadar / Gur Parsād), held in tension with karma (P4) |
| Isl | God's mercy (raḥma) forgives all sins; but each bears own burden (P3/P6) |
| Zor | God the rewarder; salvation open to whoever chooses Asha (P10) |
| Bah | Nearness to God via the Manifestations; God's loving-kindness (P1/P6) |
| Bud | Self-effort: "you yourself must make the effort"; "no one can purify another" (P5/P8) |
| Jai | Self-effort: liberation self-won; "no savior, no grace" (P11) |
| Con | Self-cultivation: nobility achieved, not conferred (P5/P6) |
| Tao | Alignment, not pardon: the guilty "cleansed by the Dao" = alignment, not grace (P8) |
| Jud | Covenant + repentance + God's hesed; mercy and responsibility (P8/P11) |
| Shi | Purification by ritual (misogi), not grace or merit; generative cleansing (P3/P4) |
The grace-vs-self-effort axis. Grace/other-power: Chr, Hin-bhakti, Sik, Isl, Zor, Bah (D=6). Self-effort/self-cultivation: Bud, Jai, Con (D=3). Neither (alignment/ritual): Tao, Shi. Mixed: Jud (covenant grace + responsibility), Sik (grace with karma). Tier: MODERATE on each pole; this is a primary cross-tradition fault line — and a striking internal convergence: Christian sola gratia, Hindu bhakti, and Pure Land "other-power" land on the same claim (final release is unearned divine favour) from utterly different metaphysics. See surface-vs-foundation.md §F and divergence-map.md §8.
Theme 21 — Epistemic humility / the limit of human knowing
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Tao | "To know that one does not know is the highest"; the Dao is nameless (P10) |
| Jud | "Lean not on thine own understanding"; Job humbled; Ecclesiastes' limit (P12) |
| Chr | Fear of the Lord begins wisdom (P3) |
| Hin | The Self "cannot be attained by argument"; knowing-by-unknowing (P12, Kena 2); R3-anchored: Bṛh 4.4.22 neti, neti — the canonical apophatic seal; the Chāndogya's 101-year Prajāpati–Indra teaching as the pedagogical model |
| Bud | Paññā over mere learning; reciting much without doing avails nothing (P9/P11) |
| Jai | Anekāntavāda / syādvāda: reality is many-sided; every claim qualified (P12) |
| Con | The junzi stands "in awe of the ordinances of Heaven" (P10) |
| Bah | Independent investigation, yet "empty thyself of all learning" before God (P7/P8) |
| Isl | God knows; the human is finite, dependent; taqwā (reverent awe) (P3/P10) |
| Sik | One becomes true not by thinking or acquisition but by Hukam (P2) |
| Zor | Wisdom sought with the Good Mind from Ahura (P2/P4) |
N = 12/12, D ≈ 12. Tier: UNIVERSAL. Reverence for the limit of human knowing — and resistance to glib certainty — converges remarkably broadly. Jain anekāntavāda (formal many-sidedness of truth) and Taoist apophasis ("he who knows does not speak") are WEAK-distinctive jewels here.
Theme 22 — Mediation of the ultimate / how the divine is reached or known (boundary theme)
| Tradition | Stance (cited anchor) |
|---|---|
| Chr | Through Christ, the incarnate Logos; the Word made flesh (P10) |
| Isl | Through the chain of prophets; the recited Quran; no incarnation (P2) |
| Jud | Through Torah, covenant, prophets; no incarnation (P1/P6) |
| Sik | Through the Gurū / the shabad (Word); God is unborn, no avatāra (P1/P3) |
| Hin | Through avatāra (divine descent) and many valid yogas (P13) |
| Bah | Through the succession of Manifestations of God (P1/P2) |
| Bud | No mediator; the Buddha "only points the way" (P8) |
| Jai | No mediator; the Jinas confer nothing on others (P11) |
| Zor | Through Zarathushtra's revelation; the Saoshyant to come (P11/P12) |
| Con | Through the sages and the cultivated tradition; tian does not speak (P10) |
| Tao | The Dao is reached by subtraction, not mediation; nameless (P1/P10) |
| Shi | Through matsuri (ritual) and relation to kami; no doctrine (P6) |
This is a boundary, not a convergence. Every tradition answers "how is the ultimate reached/known?" differently, and several answers are mutually exclusive by design: Christian incarnation vs explicit Islamic/Sikh rejection of it; Hindu avatāra vs Sikh "unborn"; the Bahá'í Manifestation-succession as a meta-claim other traditions reject. Tier: WEAK on every specific mode; this theme exists to mark the boundary. See divergence-map.md §2 and the Bahá'í meta-claim in structural-analysis.md.
Tier tally
| Tier | Themes |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSAL (claim-level, D≈9–12) | 1 Ultimate reality (bare claim) · 3 Human dignity · 4 Source of moral law (bare claim) · 5 Non-harm/compassion · 6 Golden Rule · 7 Truth · 10 Mastery of desire · 11 Humility/simplicity · 14 Predicament-and-remedy (bare claim) · 16 The good life · 17 Speech ethics · 19 Care for creation · 21 Epistemic humility |
| MAJORITY (D≈7–8) | 2 The self (a self affirmed) · 6b Role-relational ethics structure (new, P4, D=5) · 7a Trustworthiness / binding word (new, P4, D=6) · 8 Justice & the vulnerable · 9 Family/elders · 12 Community/common good · 13 The ultimate goal · 15a Festival cycle / sacred-time architecture (new, P4, D=7 with mixed scriptural / post-scriptural codification) · 18 Honest work |
| MODERATE (D≈4–6) | 20 Grace vs self-effort (each pole) · 15 Death & the beyond (each of the 3 clusters) · 14a Covenant (the Abrahamic+Zoroastrian stream; D=4) · 12b Administrative order / institutional governance (new, P4, D=4 at densely-scriptural-codification, D=10+ at broader claim) |
| WEAK (D≤3; jewels flagged) | 22 Mediation of the ultimate (boundary) · and the WEAK-distinctive jewels listed below |
Count after Plan 013 Phase 4: 13 UNIVERSAL · 9 MAJORITY · 4 MODERATE (poly-cluster) · 1 WEAK-boundary (themes 14a, 15, 20, and the new 12b are tiered per-cluster rather than as a single tier). No theme moved across the UNIVERSAL ↔ MAJORITY boundary in P4 (Gate-2 finding confirmed by full re-attestation); four new themes (6b, 7a, 12b, 15a) were added — three at MAJORITY, one at MODERATE. The 22-theme R5 baseline grows to 26 distinct numbered themes (27 rows counting 14a), with the new themes concentrated at the MAJORITY tier.
WEAK-distinctive jewels surfaced in this matrix (preserve, do not discard)
anattā (Bud) · anekāntavāda/syādvāda (Jai) · wu wei, ziran, the nameless Dao (Tao) · berit / Shabbat-jubilee (Jud) · the incarnation + kenōsis, "God IS love," bodily resurrection, charis (Chr) · tawḥīd, fiṭra/khalīfa/amāna, obligatory zakāt (Isl) · ātman=brahman, plural valid yogas (Hin) · plural eternal jīva, karma-as-matter, ahiṃsā-to-elemental-life (Jai) · Naam/simran, the householder-saint, langar, Hukam (Sik) · xiao, zhengming, cheng, tian, Plan 013 Phase 1-add: xingshan + Four Sprouts (P14 — positive-default anthropology), the Odes/li/music formation triad (P3 expansion), tianming (revocable mandate, P9 expansion), wǔlún (the structured five-bond role-relational web, P15) (Con) · cosmic dualism, Asha, Frashō-kereti/Saoshyant, daēnā, R5-add: Mithra-covenant (Yt 10) (Zor) · musubi (born-not-made cosmos), kegare (pollution ≠ sin), matsuri (Shi) · the Bahá'í oneness-of-religion meta-claim (a claim about the other inputs). R5-add (Buddhism): the six-directional reciprocal social ethics of DN 31 Sigālovāda — load-bearing for the lay path but distinctive in lacking any vow of obedience (Rhys Davids' note); and the social-causal account of poverty/crime in DN 26 Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda — the dharmic polity recovers from below, not by a savior-king. R5-add (Taoism): the scheming-mind (jī xīn) critique of technology (P16) — a pre-modern articulation of the claim that technology is not neutral; Yangist axiology (P17 — body/life over kingdom); zhēn (P18 — inner truth as Heaven-given spontaneity).
Plan 013 Phase 4 P4-add jewels (2026-05-30 retrofit):
- Bud: Tisaraṇa (P16 — the Three Refuges as the publicly-taken community-constitutive act, Dhp 190-192 + Khuddakapāṭha 1); Pañca Sīlāni (P17 — the universal lay ethical floor of five voluntarily-undertaken training-rules: non-killing / non-stealing / no-sexual-misconduct / no-false-speech / no-intoxicants, Dhp 129 + DN 22 §21 + DN 31 §7).
- Isl: al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā (P15 — the doctrinal structure of tawḥīd-as-known through structured invocation of God's names, Q 7:180 + Q 17:110 + Q 59:22-24); ummah wasaṭ (P17 — the positive identity-claim of the community-as-balanced-witness-to-mankind, Q 2:143); ṣawm-and-ḥajj (P16 — the worship-in-time + worship-in-place that complete the Five Pillars).
- Hin: catur-puruṣārtha (P15 — the four-aim architecture: dharma / artha / kāma / mokṣa, with the Vedāntic artha-near-absence as a distinctive theme: a tradition that names wealth-and-power as a legitimate aim and then largely refuses to develop it); pañca-kośa (P16 — the five-sheath layered Vedāntic anthropology peeling back to ātman-as-ānanda, Taittirīya Brahmānanda Vallī).
- Jud: moadim / ḥaggim (P15 — the festival cycle: three pilgrimage festivals + High Holy Days + shemittah + yovel, Lev 23 + Lev 25 — extending sacred time into agricultural-economic structure).
- Chr: the Pater Noster (P15 — Jesus' own prayer-pattern with mutual-forgiveness self-binding clause, Matt 6:9-13 + Luke 11:1-4); the trinitarian substrate of P10 (Father-Son-Spirit grammar — distinguishing Christianity from strict-unitarian monotheism); the nine Fruits of the Spirit as Pauline character-grammar (Gal 5:22-23).
- Sik: the Five Thieves + Five Khands (P13 — the inner-enemies-and-ladder-of-ascent structure); Nirbhau / Akāl / Sarbloh (P13 — the fearless-God register grounding dharma-yudh righteous-war-as-last-resort, a sharpest warrant-divergence from non-resistance + ahimsa absolutism).
- Jai: ratnatraya (P14 — the Three Jewels: right faith + right knowledge + right conduct + austerity as the integrative path-formula); the mahāvrata / aṇuvrata two-tier ethics (P15 — the same five vows at monastic-absolute and lay-calibrated intensities).
- Bah: the administrative order (P13 — bayt al-ʿadl House of Justice + Nineteen-Day Feast + clergyless democratically-elected governance — the most fully institutionalized clergyless tradition); the two-tier Covenant (P14 — Greater God-with-humanity + Lesser succession-of-institutions — the 19th-c innovation addressing post-founder institutional continuity).
- Zor: the Amesha Spentas heptad (P14 — Vohu Manah / Asha Vahishta / Khshathra Vairya / Spenta Armaiti / Haurvatat / Ameretat / Spenta Mainyu — "of one thought, one speech, one deed" structural template for human ethics, Yt 19:15-17); the Yazatas class (P15 — named divine instrumentalities including Sraosha / Anahita / Rashnu); the Chinvat Bridge + daēnā-encounter (P16 — the soul meets its own self at the Bridge of the Separator, uniquely structured: the moral self is within the judged rather than against it).
Plan 013 v1.4 prose-discipline confirmation (2026-05-30): the Phase-4 retrofit additions throughout this file follow the cross-lingual discipline established in Plan 013 v1.4 — native terms (Sanskrit, Pāli, Chinese hanzi + pinyin, Hebrew, Arabic, Avestan, Persian, Japanese, Punjabi/Gurmukhi transliterations in italics) appear in principle citations, the WEAK-distinctive jewels glossary, and direct quotations from per-tradition scripture; synthesis prose explains in English with explicit anchor-references back to per-tradition principles-distillation.md files (e.g., "the Confucian wǔlún — see Confucianism P15" rather than ad-hoc Chinese tokens). Stray foreign tokens without glossary or principle anchor are avoided. The "Lost in the Mix" comprehension-degradation concern (Plan 013 v1.4 rationale) is honored: untranslatable depth is preserved in citation and glossary; cross-tradition comparison reads in English.
References
00-architecture.md— governing rules (non-commensurability, N/D, claim-vs-warrant, WEAK split, owned standpoint)surface-vs-foundation.md— the same-claim/different-warrant findings (key deliverable)divergence-map.md— genuine disagreements that do not converge even at claim levelstructural-analysis.md— cross-tradition hubs vs isolated conceptsgate-2-consistency-check.md— Plan 013 Phase 3 Gate-2 PASS baseline (the 179-N=3 corpus this Phase-4 re-attestation built on)- Plan 013 — structural-completeness retrofit plan governing this re-attestation pass
- The 12 per-tradition
principles-distillation.mdfiles (the inputs)
Revision history
Changes since first attestation (R5, 2026-05-29)
The corpus is substantially deeper since the first matrix pass. Six new N=3 principles were added across the traditions in R3 Stage-B (Buddhism P14 reciprocal six-direction social ethics from DN 31 Sigālovāda; Buddhism P15 dharmic polity from DN 26 Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda; Taoism P16 Primitivist jī xīn / scheming-mind critique; Taoism P17 Yangist life-over-kingdom; Taoism P18 inner truth zhēn; Zoroastrianism P13 covenant-fidelity from Yasht 10 Mithra). Hinduism now covers all 13 principal Upanishads, with all four classical Mahāvākyas canonically anchored. Christianity and Judaism gained per-verse Decalogue / Shema / Sermon-on-the-Mount / prophetic-ethical anchors plus deuterocanon. Islam gained per-ayah depth across al-Fātiḥa / Throne Verse / Q 2:177 birr / al-Raḥmān / all of Juzʾ ʿAmma / Q 4:36 / Q 17:23–39 / Q 49:11–13. Buddhism's anattā (SN 22.59) and taṇhā (SN 56.11 Dhammacakka) are now canonically anchored to the first two suttas of the corpus; SN 22.85 Yamaka now anchors the anti-annihilation clarifier. Bahá'í P2 is now Íqán-anchored.
Summary of R5 movement:
- 6 new themes / sub-themes evaluated and placed: Theme 14a (Covenant — new row, MAJORITY); Theme 8a (Reciprocal social ethics — Buddhism P14 now folds into Theme 6 with structural note); Theme 12a (Just polity / political order — Buddhism P15 strengthens Theme 8); Taoism's P16/P17/P18 reweight Themes 4 (moral law), 7 (truth), 10 (mastery of desire); Zoroastrianism P13 lifts Theme 7 (truthfulness) and creates Theme 14a (covenant).
- 3 rows where N/D moved (marked [R5] below): Theme 2 (the self) — D unchanged but warrant-anchor strengthened on all sides; Theme 4 (moral law) — Taoism's zhēn shifts the Taoist warrant; Theme 7 (truth) — Zoroastrian Asha and Bahá'í independent-investigation both now per-passage anchored.
- 1 new theme added: Theme 14a — Covenant / binding word (Judaism berit + Christianity new covenant + Islam mīthāq + Zoroastrian Mithra-covenant — all now textually attested, N=4, D=4 within the Abrahamic-Zoroastrian stream, MAJORITY-within-cluster / WEAK across the pool).
- No theme tier moved UNIVERSAL ↔ MAJORITY. The deeper corpus strengthened every existing tier read rather than reshuffling it.
- Genuinely new finding: the R3 anchors make a previously-noted pattern crisp: the apophatic / "beyond-predication" structure of talk-about-the-goal (Buddhist nibbāna not-this-not-that via SN 22.85, Hindu neti neti via Bṛh 4.4.22, Christian/Jewish negative theology, Taoist nameless Dao, Bahá'í Íqán "in the valley of His knowledge every mystic wandereth astray") is a structural cross-tradition convergence that the bare claim ("there is an ultimate goal") obscures. See
surface-vs-foundation.md§E (sharpened).
Changes since R5 — Plan 013 Phase 4 full re-attestation (2026-05-30)
Built on the Gate-2 PASS baseline: the post-Phase-3 N=3 corpus is now 179 principles across 12 traditions. Principles were added or freshly standalone — concentrated where canonical structures were previously missing as named units. The matrix has been walked end-to-end against this deeper corpus. Summary:
- 9 rows refreshed for attestation-breadth changes, all marked [P4] in-row below: Theme 2 (the self — Bahá'í noble-soul P11 + Confucian xingshan P14 newly anchored); Theme 4 (moral law — Confucian xingshan P14 + Mencian Four Sprouts strengthen the cultivated-nature warrant); Theme 6 (Golden Rule / reciprocity — Confucian wǔlún P15 + Buddhist Sigālovāda P14 now standalone-anchored on both sides); Theme 8 (justice — Bahá'í governance P13 + Buddhist cakkavatti P15 strengthen the structural pole); Theme 9 (family — Confucian wǔlún P15 + Buddhist Sigālovāda P14 + Sirach 3 on aged-parent care + Tobit marriage prayer); Theme 13 (the ultimate goal — Bahá'í Greater Covenant + Zoroastrian Chinvat P16 + Yazatas P15 anchor the soul's path); Theme 14 (predicament — Confucian xingshan P14 now standalone for innate-goodness pole; Buddhist Tisaraṇa P16 anchors the community-constitutive remedy); Theme 17 (speech ethics — Buddhist Five Precepts P17 anchor false-speech-as-precept); Theme 18 (honest work — Bahá'í work-as-worship now anchored with its institutional structure P13).
- 4 new themes added:
- Theme 6b — Role-relational ethics structure (Confucian wǔlún P15 + Buddhist Sigālovāda P14 + Christian koinōnia + household-codes + Sikh householder ideal P7 + Jewish hesed-covenant relations) — N=6, D=5; MAJORITY. Structural-form convergence under Theme 6's reciprocity claim, lifted standalone because the named-role-pairs-with-mutual-constitutive-duties form is now canonically attested on multiple sides.
- Theme 7a — Trustworthiness / binding word (Confucian xin P13 + Jewish emet + Christian pistis / fidelity + Islamic amana P5 + Sikh sat + Bahá'í honesty P12 + Zoroastrian Asha-aligned word P6/P13) — N=7, D=6; MAJORITY → near-UNIVERSAL claim-level. Now standalone-anchored on the Confucian side via P13 xin, which was the missing piece for elevating trustworthiness from a distributed sub-element to a named theme.
- Theme 12b — Administrative order / institutional governance (Bahá'í House of Justice P13 + Sikh sangat-and-pangat P9/P11 + Jewish kahal + Christian church polity + Islamic shūrā + Quaker meeting structure) — N=5, D=4; MODERATE. Newly tractable because Bahá'í P13 anchors the most fully institutionalized clergyless form in the pool.
- Theme 15a — Festival cycle / sacred-time architecture (Jewish moadim P15 + Christian liturgical year + Islamic Ramaḍān + ḥajj P16 + Hindu festival cycle + Bahá'í Nineteen-Day Feast P13 + Buddhist uposatha + Vesak + Zoroastrian Gahanbars + Shinto matsuri) — N=8, D=7; MAJORITY. Newly standalone because Judaism P15 + Islam P16 + Bahá'í P13 each canonically attest the form in scripturally-ordained terms.
- 2 existing themes structurally elevated (cross-tradition note refresh but tier unchanged): Theme 19 (the ratnatraya Jain P14 + Buddhist Three Trainings + Christian faith-hope-love at 1 Cor 13:13 (Christianity P7) now read as a same-structural-form-different-substance integrative-triad family — flagged for Agent C's structural-analysis pass); Theme 22 (Hindu P13 bhakti-as-grace + Christian charis + Sikh Nadar + Bahá'í Manifestation-mediation now read as the same surface-convergence on grace-vs-self-effort that R5 first flagged, but with deeper warrant articulation on each side).
- 0 themes moved UNIVERSAL ↔ MAJORITY. The Gate-2 finding holds: the deeper corpus strengthens every existing tier read rather than reshuffling it. The new themes (6b, 7a, 12b, 15a) sit at MAJORITY / MODERATE — none crossed into UNIVERSAL.
- Total themes: was 22 (R5) + 1 sub-theme (14a) = 23; now 26 (R5's 22 + 14a covenant + 4 new = 27 rows counting 14a; 26 distinct numbered themes).
- Genuinely new findings for downstream agents:
- Agent B (surface-vs-foundation + divergence-map) should pick up: (a) the anthropology-of-the-human-person axis (Mencian xingshan P14 vs Augustinian original sin vs Buddhist klesha-laden mind vs Sikh haumai) is now sharply tractable — Confucianism P14 is the missing canonical anchor for the innate-goodness pole; (b) the structural-justice-vs-individual-asceticism axis under Theme 8 is sharpened by Buddhist P15 (the dharmic polity is structurally-just in this life) and Bahá'í P9/P13 (the wealth-extremes-abolition + institutionalized governance pair).
- Agent C (structural-analysis) should pick up: (a) the virtue-list / canonical-structure parallel — Five Constants / Eightfold Path / Five Pillars (Islam P16 adds ṣawm+ḥajj) / Five Great Vows (Jain P15 mendicant-lay tier) / Three Pillars / nine Fruits of the Spirit / Beatitudes / ratnatraya — is a same-structural-form-different-substance finding ready to lift; (b) the integrative-triad family (Jain ratnatraya P14 + Buddhist sīla/samādhi/paññā + Christian faith/hope/love + Sikh sat-santokh-pyār); (c) the two-tier-vs-one-tier ethics axis (Jain mahāvrata/aṇuvrata P15 + Buddhist upāsaka/bhikṣu + Christian counsels-vs-commandments vs Sikh single-tier-householder ideal).