Buddhist Kingdom Research Articles

Ladakh's Cultural and Traditional Adaptation to its High Latitude Harsh Climatic Environment and Challenges Ahead Due to it's Recent Life Style and Climatic Changes

Introduction Ladakh was once an independent Buddhist kingdom. A breakdown in relations with Tibet in the 17th century resulted in an attempted invasion by the Fifth Dalai Lama. With the help from Kashmiris restored Ladakhi rule later on but at a price ― the building of a mosque in Leh and the conversion of the Ladakhi king to Islam. Kashmir later went on to annex Ladakh, ending its independence and in the long run making it part of British India. The kingdom’s former land is now divided between India, Pakistan, and the Aksai Chin district of the People’s Republic of China. The present Ladakh is the largest district of state Jammu & Kashmir in India, covering more than half the area of the state. Nevertheless, Ladakh is also one of the least populated districts in India. It is renowned for its remote mountain beauty and Tibetan Buddhist culture; it is sometimes called “Little Tibet”. Ladakh comprises of two districts, namely Leh and Kargil. Of the two districts Leh is by far the larger one in terms of area, although there is not much difference in the population figures of the two districts. Leh has six blocks comprising of 112 revenue villages and its population as per the 2001 census was 117,637. The density of population is 8 people per square kilometer. It is one of the most remote and sparsely populated regions in India. The name ‘Ladakh’ has been derived fro a local word ‘Ladags’ meaning a land of high passes.

Archaeology of the Shan Plateau: the Bronze to Buddhist transition

The archaeology of the Shan Plateau highlights the role of local knowledge in the shifting religious and social frameworks of the first millennium CE. Artefacts from four river regions (Shweli, Myit Ngeh, Inle and Thanlwin) are compared to illustrate the complex networks that underpinned and prompted the transition from Bronze–Iron chiefdoms to Buddhist kingdoms. New data from discoveries of recent decades are used to widen discussion from sites to regional and trans-regional comparison and begin to bridge the traditional separation of prehistoric and Buddhist archaeology.

The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej

Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, the only king ever born in the United States, came to the throne of his country in 1946 and is now the world's longest-serving monarch. The King Never Smiles, the first independent biography of Thailand's monarch, tells the unexpected story of Bhumibol's life and sixty-year rule--how a Western-raised boy came to be seen by his people as a living Buddha, and how a king widely seen as beneficent and apolitical could in fact be so deeply political and autocratic. Paul Handley provides an extensively researched, factual account of the king's youth and personal development, ascent to the throne, skillful political maneuverings, and attempt to shape Thailand as a Buddhist kingdom. Handley takes full note of Bhumibol's achievements in art, in sports and jazz, and he credits the king's lifelong dedication to rural development and the livelihoods of his poorest subjects. But, looking beyond the widely accepted image of the king as egalitarian and virtuous, Handley portrays an anti-democratic monarch who, together with allies in big business and the corrupt Thai military, has protected a centuries-old, barely modified feudal dynasty. When at nineteen Bhumibol assumed the throne, the Thai monarchy had been stripped of power and prestige. Over the ensuing decades, Bhumibol became the paramount political actor in the kingdom, silencing critics while winning the hearts and minds of his people. The book details this process and depicts Thailand's unique constitutional monarch--his life, his thinking, and his ruling philosophy.

Bhutan: the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom

The origin and meaning of the modern name of this unique Buddhist Kingdom in the Himalayas – Bhutan – is cloudy, as many other things Bhutanese. The name Bhutan was used by early British travellers...

Orthopaedics in the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan.

Volunteering as the only orthopaedic surgeon in the small Asian country of Bhutan provided a fascinating introduction to international work. The orthopaedic work predominantly was trauma and osteomyelitis. Treatment of most problems was complicated by patient delays in obtaining medical care, usually related to transportation difficulties in a steep mountainous land with few roads. The complexities of enhancing orthopaedic care in developing countries include patient access to care, availability of adequate sterility for implantation of fixation devices, and determining in concert with the local government what is a sustainable level of care that can be taught to interested physicians in the country. Among the developing nations, Bhutan is one with a strong interest in the welfare of its people and has an economy that can afford to invest in healthcare. Despite these strengths, there remain interesting challenges for the orthopaedic volunteer. Exposure of the volunteer to the people and their culture enhanced the experience and provides a lure to continue volunteering.

The Inseparability of Area and Discipline in Southeast Asian Studies: A View from the United States

In this brief discussion of some trajectories of scholarship on Southeast Asia, I point to interrelationships of analytic models and regional features. The several major traditions of research on Southeast Asia have developed distinct models of the region, among others, Southeast Asia as Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms, as part of a Malayo-Polynesian ethnological space, and as part of the Muslim world. And yet, certain strong regional continuities have in turn shaped these models, among them (here I draw heavily from the works of O. Wolters, D. Lombard, and A. Reid), the relative equality of men and women, hierarchical reciprocity as an organizing principle of social life, and an opening up toward the outside world that lies at the core of Southeast Asian historical and cultural consciousness. Finally, I attempt to explain the specific analytical approach dominating United States study of the region, an approach that I label the historical anthropology of politics.

Maîtres du sol et dieux du territoire au Ladakh

Masters of the land and gods of the territory in Ladakh Masters of the land and gods of the territory populate the landscape alongside people in Ladakh, a former Buddhist kingdom along the border with Tibet. Thanks to their ability to act on natural and atmospheric phenomena, they are preferred intermediaries, worshiped as much as feared. Material collected in settled fanning communities in the upper Indus valley serves to provide an account of the diversity of the cults observed for these entities by Tibetan groups. The significance of these cults varies as a function of the group's geographical location, history and way of life.

Sindhu Raja-legenden og buddhismen i Bhutan

The purpose of this article is to show how a old form of Buddhism integrated with the local cult in the remote country of Bhutan in the Himalaya. How the former gods and demons were not unly subdued, but also convinced to fight for the new belief. They were not destroyed but converted and at the same time degraded. In accordance with geomantism the monasteries are to be built where they have the greatest effect. The physical presence of the monasteries symbolizing the capture of the demoness, whose body constitutes the country. It is all described in the legend of King Sindhu Raja, whose conversion is connnected with his recovering from a dangerous illness. Padmasambhava, the great buddhist and tantric yogi from Tibet, is called to Bhutan to fight the demon who has stolen the life force of the King. As he succeeeds in the fight, the king and country is converted. The fight persists until this day in Bhutan's version of Vajrayana Buddhism, the hBrug-pa school, as the old gods and demons still have to be reminded to fight for buddhism. For this purpose they have tantric rituals connected with exorcism like in the case of the legend of Sindhu Raja, where the King's stolen soul was freed by means of meditation and magic by the great mahasiddha Padmasambhava. Thus the connection between myth and history shows us the function of the culture hero who created social order and organized the country as an independent Buddhist kingdom by means of the sindhu Raja-legend.

Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State. By Charles F. Keyes. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987. xvi, 252 pp. $32.50. - Government and Politics of Thailand. Edited by Somsakdi Xuto. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1987. xii, 243 pp. $42.50.

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: Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State . Charles F. Keyes.

: Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State . Charles F. Keyes.

Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State

Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State

Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State.

Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State.

Al-Sulṭānah fī Cirebon: Dirāsah Tārīkhīyah wa Thaqāfīyah

This article discusses the Sultanate of Cirebon from two perspectives. First, from its historical standpoints, including its rise, development and fall. Second, from its cultural point of views covering such aspects as architecture, literature, and performing arts, which have become local traditions until nowadays. Geographically, Cirebon is located in Northern part of law coast. Its strategic location, with a number of river mouths, plays an important role for the development of Cirebon to become a harbor city for regional and international sailing and trading nativities. The position of Cirebon as a harbor city has begun since Hindu and Buddhist Kingdom of Sundanese Pajajaran, as can be seen from local archives, such as babad and carita, as well as foreign historical records.DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v16i2.485

Dvāravatī in South-East Asian Cultural History

The Buddhist kingdom referred to by Hiuan-tsang under the name of T'o-lo-po-ti (Dvāravatī), as situated to the west of Iśanapura (Cambodia) in the middle of the 7th century a.d., was recognized by Professor Cœdès in 1928 as having been peopled by Môns and responsible for the earlier Buddhist remains that have come to light around the head of the Gulf of Siam. As recently as 1963 he had the satisfaction of seeing his identification confirmed by two silver medals, found at Nak'on Pathom. Each was inscribed in Sanskrit of the 7th century: “foundation of the king of Śrī Dvāravatī.”

Anuruddha and the Thaton Tradition

The Burmese chronicles are emphatic that it was from the Mon city of Thaton that King Anuruddha in a.d. 1057 obtained the Pāli canon. Yet students of Burmese history have been by no means insensitive to the difficulty of reconciling this with the exclusively Hindu character of the more or less contemporary archæological remains at Thaton. The late Prince Damrong even went so far as to suggest that P'rӑ Paṭhóm, in the neighbouring Buddhist kingdom of Dvaravatī, rather than Thaton in Burma, must have been the city that Anuruddha conquered, and from which he derived his Hīnayāna Buddhism. I now propose shortly to reconsider the archæological evidence, in the light of recent advances in our understanding of the mechanics of Indian cultural expansion and of a certain passage in one of the Mon chronicles to which attention has not hitherto been directed in this particular connection. I believe that this may help us to resolve the difficulty.