Māyā, or Nature

“Nature” might have been a legitimate rendering of “Māyā” were it not for our habitual error in identifying Mother Nature (natura naturans) with her children, the World, ens naturata. (Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, “On Translation: Māyā, Deva, Tapas,” Isis, Vol. 19, No. 1 (April 1933), p. 75.)

Isis dévoilée. Frontispice du livre de Antonie van Leeuvenhoek, Anatomia seu interiora rerum, Leyde, 1687, in Pierre Hadot, Le Voile d'Isis. Essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de Nature, Paris, Gallimard, 2004