King Asoka Research Articles

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THIRD BUDDHIST COUNCIL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THERAVĀDA ABHIDHAMMA

This research aims to examine the contribution of the third Buddhist council for the development of Theravāda Abhidhamma literature. This research is carried out with library approach by collecting data mainly from canonical texts as well as its commentaries. The recent works written by scholars such as books, journals, and articles are used to elaborate the explanation. Having examined the data collected from the sources, it is known that the third Buddhist councils (saṅgiti/saṅgāyanā) which held during the 3rd century B.C. under the patronage of King Asoka, contributed significant results for the development of Buddhist literature, particularly in the context of Abhidhamma literature. One of the key outcomes of the third Buddhist council was the completion of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, by adding Kathāvatthuppakaraṇa which was composed by Ven. Mogaliputtatissa Thera at the end of the meeting. As result of that, Abhidhamma Pitaka consists of seven books, including Kathāvatthuppakaraṇa. In conclusion, the third Buddhist council marked a crucial point in the development of Theravāda Abhidhamma.

Safety Assessment of Ancient Buildings under Adjacent Subway Blasting Construction Based on the Optimized Fuzzy Optimal Method

Fragile ancient buildings are recognized as an eloquent testimony to human civilization, and their safety should arouse more attention. According to the special case of adjacent blasting construction, the assessment model should be essentially built to assess the effect of tunnel blasting on the safety of the ancient buildings. To analyze the structural safety of ancient buildings under blasting vibration and to protect the precious ancient buildings, a risk assessment model of ancient buildings with 20 relevant assessment indexes was initiatively built in this study. To be specific, the relative factors of blasting, the factors of ancient buildings, and other factors (e.g., religion) were comprehensively considered in the model. Subsequently, the risk level and weight were calculated more systematically and quantitatively by adopting the optimized optimal comprehensive method integrating the G1 method and the entropy method. Lastly, the overall risk value was determined by applying the fuzzy gray method. Afterward, the value was adopted to assess the safety of the Asoka Temple, the only existing temple named after the Indian King Asoka in China, as an attempt to verify the feasibility of this model. Besides, the Asoka tunnel was around it. As demonstrated from the results, the age of the buildings maximally impacted the safety of ancient buildings, and the safety level of the Asoka Temple was “relatively safe.” The present study built an effective model to assess the safety of ancient buildings under adjacent subway blasting construction, which could help improve the efficiency and accuracy of assessments.

Soup, Harmony, and Disagreement

AbstractIs the ancient Confucian ideal of he 和, ‘harmony,’ a viable ideal in pluralistic societies composed of people and groups who subscribe to different ideals of the good and moral life? Is harmony compatible with accepting, even encouraging, difference and the freedom to think differently? I start with seminal characterizations of harmony in Confucian texts and then aim to chart ways harmony and freedom can be compatible and even mutually supportive while recognizing the constant possibility of conflict between them. I shall point out how the Confucian notion of harmony resonates with the Indian King Asoka's project of promoting religious pluralism. Along the way, I will make some comments of a ‘meta’ nature about the kind of interpretation I am offering of harmony in the Confucian texts and the use to which I am putting this interpretation by setting it in the context of societies that in important respects are quite different from the ones from which concepts of harmony originally emerged.

Facts and Fiction: The Myth of Suvaṇṇabhūmi Through the Thai and Burmese Looking Glass

AbstractMost scholars think that the generic name ‘Golden Land’ (Sanskrit, Suvarṇabhūmi; Pali, Suvaṇṇabhūmi) was first used by Indian traders as a vague designation for an extensive region beyond the subcontinent, presumably in Southeast Asia. Some Pali sources specifically link Suvaṇṇabhūmi with the introduction of Buddhism to the region. The locus classicus is the Sri Lankan Mahāvaṃsa chronicle (fifth century AD) which states that two monks, Soṇa and Uttara, were sent there for missionary activities in the time of King Asoka (third century BC). However, no Southeast Asian textual or epigraphic sources refer to this legend or to the Pali term Suvaṇṇabhūmi before the second millennium AD. Conversely, one may ask, what hard archaeological evidence is there for the advent of Buddhism in mainland Southeast Asia? This article re-examines the appropriation of the name Suvaṇṇabhūmi in Thailand and Burma for political and nationalist purposes and deconstructs the connotation of the term and what it has meant to whom, where, and when. It also carefully confronts the Buddhist literary evidence and earliest epigraphic and archaeological data, distinguishing material discoveries from legendary accounts, with special reference to the ancient Mon countries of Rāmaññadesa (lower Burma) and Dvāravatī(central Thailand).

Buddhist Connections in the Indian Ocean: Changes in Monastic Mobility, 1000-1500

Since the nineteenth century, Buddhists residing in the present-day nations of Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka have thought of themselves as participants in a shared southern Asian Buddhist world characterized by a long and continuous history of integration across the Bay of Bengal region, dating at least to the third centurybcereign of the Indic King Asoka. Recently, scholars of Buddhism and historians of the region have begun to develop a more historically variegated account of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia, using epigraphic, art historical, and archaeological evidence, as well as new interpretations of Buddhist chronicle texts.1 This paper examines three historical episodes in the eleventh- to fifteenth-century history of Sri Lankan-Southeast Asian Buddhist connections attested by epigraphic and Buddhist chronicle accounts. These indicate changes in regional Buddhist monastic connectivity during the period 1000-1500, which were due to new patterns of mobility related to changing conditions of trade and to an altered political ecosystem in maritime southern Asia.

The sacred geography of Dawei: Buddhism in peninsular Myanmar (Burma)

The paper opens by recounting the beginnings of Buddhism in Dawei as preserved in local chronicles and sustained in stupas marking the episodes of the chronicle narrative. The chronicles start with a visit of the Buddha whose arrival triggers a series of events bringing together pre-existing tutelary figures, weiza, a hermit and offspring born of a golden fish, culminating in the establishment of the first Buddhist kingdom circa the eighth to tenth century CE. The enshrinement of sacred hairs gifted by the Buddha also includes patronage by a king of the ‘Suvaṇṇabhūmi’ lineage. Associated with the monks Sona and Uttara from Sri Lanka sent by King Asoka's son Mahinda, ‘Suvaṇṇabhūmi’ literally can refer to the archaeology of Thaton, a walled site in the present day Mon State, or, as is the case here, more widely to the missionary tradition associated with Asoka (Sao Saimong Mengrai 1976). The third story in the establishment of the Buddhist king at Thagara is the longest of the chronicle, the tale of a royal hunter who failed to capture a golden peacock for the queen. The hunter became a hermit living by a pond with a golden fish and as he urinated in the pond, two children were born from the fish. The boy becomes the first Buddhist king of Thagara, 11 km north of Dawei, where artefacts from survey and excavation confirm the chronology of the chronicle, with the closest archaeological parallels found not at the ancient sites of the Mon State but to the first millennium CE Buddhist ‘Pyu’ heritage of Upper Myanmar which is notably absent in the chronicle compilation.

PLANTS AND ETHNOVETERINARY PRACTICES IN SRI LANKA

Ethnoveterinary practices in Sri Lanka were in use from time immemorial. This system oftreatments rely on the herbal species available and their medicinal value. These traditionalpractices descended from generation to generation had become a culture in the socioeconomiclife of the people and the ones who practice these traditional systems of treatmentpossessed a high status in the society. The evidence of practising this system of treatmentsis not confined only to Sri Lanka. but to the whole of Asia and Africa. In Asia it isbelieved that this is one of the major branches of Ayurveda. In India. enthnoveterinarypractices using various plants were recorded during 1200 B.C. Even during King Asoka'speriod these herbal based treatments were used to treat animal. The Sri Lankancthnovctcrinary practices has its roots from India. According to the history. king Rawanahas a team of physicians to treat animals headed by Sushena. With Mahinda. a group ofAyurvedic scholars had also arrived and settled at Anuradhapura. In thc 3 century. kingDutugemunu has his physicians treated his Royal elephant. King Buddadasa (337 to 365A.D.) himself was a physician and treated animals. In addition to Ayurvcda. time to timeSiddha system and Unani systems were introduced to Sri Lanka by the Hindu Tamils andMuslims. respectively.Sri Lanka being an island and its strategic location. it is rich in florist biodiversity toaccommodate many species of plants both endemic and indigenous. These plants havebeen widely used in the Ethnoveterinary practices. Almost all the plant parts arc used intreatment and commonly called "pas panguva" including flower, fruit. leal'. whole plant.rhizome, root. bark. seed. stem and juice. The active ingredients are alkaloids.polyphenolic compounds, saponin. glucoside. essential oils. sterol. inorganic and organicsalts etc. These medicinal plants are used in the Ethnoveterinary practices as decoctions.infusions. powder. juice, poultice or paste. bolus etc. These preparations are used indrenching. force feeding. topical application. nasal application, vaginal application, analapplication. fumigation and hanging bouquet. Presently. many plant species of medicinalvalue and their populations are rapidly diminishing due to so called development and lackof awareness. On the other hand these traditional systems arc either not passed down tonext generation or the present generation is not interested. Therefore. they are suhjected toa natural death with time. Another aspect for the rapid disappearance of this traditionaltreatment system is the invasion hy the allopathic therapy.Effective action is needed to both conserve these traditional Ethnoveterinay systems andpropagate and conserve these medicinally important plants for the future.

Study on the glasswares discovered in the underground palace of the Da Bao En Temple in the North Song Dynasty (AD960-AD1127) in Nanjing, China

Built by the royal family in the Ming Dynasty, the Da Bao En Temple is known as the greatest temple in ancient Nanjing, whose predecessor is the Chang Gan Temple built in the Six Dynasties. Archaeological excavations of the Da Bao En Temple and the underground palace of Chang Gan Temple built in the North Song Dynasty (AD960-AD1127) have been appraised as one of the 10 greatest archaeological discoveries in 2010 in China. Many artefacts discovered in the underground palace have shown their important historical meanings and scientific values, such as the Qibao King Asoka Tower, golden and silver coffins, Buddhist relics, the silk textiles, glasses, and spices etc. In this paper, stereomicroscope, SEM-EDS and LA-ICP-AES are used to investigate chemical composition, microstructure and current preservation status for the unearthed glasswares. The results indicate that the glass bottle coded as TH1 and the glass calyx coded as TN5 are made of lead-silicate glass, while the chemical composition of the glass bottle coded as TN9 is quite distinct from that of native glasswares. All three articles have been weathered in some degrees. Given the shape, it is deduced that TH1 is a typical glassware used in burying Buddhist relics at that time, TN5 a domestic glassware with typical Sassanian style, and TN9 an imported Islamic glass, providing important information about culture exchanges between China and the foreign countries in the North Song Dynasty.

Buddhist Tolerance: An Effective Way to Perceive the Other in Vietnamese Buddhism

This essay uses the term tolerance conceptualized by UNESCO in the Declaration of Principles on Tolerance (1995) to analyze the Buddhist notion of tolerance and give some examples of Indian and Vietnamese Buddhism. In ancient India, Buddha had used Pali terms: Karuna, Dana, and Metta with the same meaning of tolerance. They were constructed systematically on the religious-philosophical and ethical foundations of Buddhism. Under King Asoka’s reign (3rd BC) Buddhist tolerance was successfully applied to unite a vast Indian empire (a multi-religious country) and control it in peace. Buddhism was introduced into Vietnam in different times and by different ways. Vietnam is also a multi-race and multi-religious country. However, the But-Buddhism and Phât-Buddhism of the Vietnamese were adapted and acculturated from Indian and Chinese Buddhism. Thanks to the spirit of tolerance, the Vietnamese have applied it well in resolving political, cultural, and religious problems not only in war time, but also in peace time. Now, in the global context, tolerance is considered the most suitable paradigm for perceiving each other by approaching the other without preconceptions and avoiding the dissolution of each other’s character and identity. Hence, tolerance is the key to coexistence through the recognition of difference and alterity.

The influence of Indian Buddhism on Bai identification and understanding of their origins as a people: a research note

Exactly when Buddhism spread to the Lake Erhai region continues to be a hotly debated issue among scholars. Upon examining currently available documents and artifacts, however, one starts to see evidence that Indian Buddhism spread to the Lake Erhai region of western Yunnan from the ‘Southern Branch of the Silk Road’ by about the middle of the seventh century ad.Indian Buddhism has had a profound impact on Bai history and culture, most notably in (1) the spread and assimilation of Acaya Buddhism into Bai culture, and (2) the Bai perception that they are the descendents of King Asoka, India's famous early promoter of Buddhism.

BUILDING THAI MODERNITY: The Maha Dhammakaya Cetiya

In the lead up to the completion and consecration of the Dhammakaya Cetiya near Bangkok in May 2000, English language publications from this Thai Buddhist sect's international division promoted it as a gesture for world peace: “In 2000 the world is going to calm down.” The claim speaks to the overriding concern of the twenty first century and links the futuristic, hi-tech building with a Buddhist tradition of stupa building dating back to the third century BC stupas of the King Asoka. Great Kings built great stupas for the benefit and protection of the state, here, the people of a modem democracy were building a stupa for the benefit and protection of the world at large. This paper reads the building as a strategic statement in the discourses of modern Thai identity in an age of Western dominated globalisation and intra-Asian cultural flows. It aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the enduring Asian problem of how to express its modernity while still retaining cultural integrity, when being modern is popularly assumed to be a matter of measuring up with the West.

Buddhism: introducing the Buddhist experience

Boxes, Figures, and Maps Acknowledgments Pronunciation Guide Introduction 1. THE LIFE OF GAUTAMA BUDDHA The Early Life of Siddhartha Gautama The Great Renunciation The Awakening of the Buddha The Mission of the Buddha The Last Days of Gautama Buddha 2. THE TEACHINGS OF THE BUDDHA The Three Characteristics The Five Aggregates Dependent Arising Karma and Rebirth The Four Noble Truths The First Noble Truth: Life Is Duhkha The Second Noble Truth: The Cause of Duhkha The Third Noble Truth: The Cessation of Duhkha The Fourth Noble Truth: The Eightfold Path to the Cessation of Duhkha The Eightfold Path Nirvana 3. THE WAY OF THE ELDERS The Three Baskets The Sutra Pitaka The Vinaya Pitaka The Abhidharma Pitaka The Second and Third Councils King Asoka Theravada's Path of Purification Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE OF THAI BUDDHISM TODAY, METTANANDO BHIKKU 4. THE GREAT VEHICLE The Mahayana Sutras The Great Journey of the Bodhisattva Celestial Bodhisattvas and Buddhas 5. THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE OF BUDDHISM The Abhidharma Schools The Mahayana Schools Logic, Tantra, and the Extinction of Buddhism in India 6. THE TIBETAN EXPERIENCE OF BUDDHISM The First Dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet The Second Dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet The Geluk School and the Dalai Lama The Tantric Experience Schools of Tibetan Buddhism: Distinctive Practices Recent Events in Tibet THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE OF TIBETAN BUDDHISM TODAY, GESHE DAMDUL NAMGYAL 7. THE CHINESE EXPERIENCE OF BUDDHISM Translation and Inculturation New Translations and Scholarship Persecution and Reform The Chinese Schools I: Laying the Foundation of the Chinese Experience The Chinese Schools II: Defining the Chinese Experience Persecution and Decline Later Developments THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE OF CHINESE BUDDHISM TODAY, DEDONG WEI 8. THE KOREAN EXPERIENCE OF BUDDHISM The Advent of Buddhism during the Three Kingdoms Period Buddhism during the Unified Silla Dynasty: Innovation and Scholarship Buddhism during the Koryo Dynasty: Searching for Unity Repression during the Choson Dynasty The Japanese Occupation and Recent Developments THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE OF KOREAN BUDDHISM TODAY, JONGMYUNG KIM 9. THE JAPANESE EXPERIENCE OF BUDDHISM Prince Shotoku The Nara Period (710-784): The Six Schools The Heian Period (794-1185): The Tendai and Shingon Schools The Kamakura Period (1185-1333): Pure Land, Zen, and Nichiren The Muromachi Period (1338-1573): Zen and Japanese Culture The Tokugawa Period (1603-1868): Struggle and Reform The Meiji Period (1868-1912) and Recent Developments THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM TODAY, TOMONOBU SHINOZAKI O-bon Festival 10. MODERN BUDDHISM IN ASIA New Buddhist Movements in Asia Women's Experience of Buddhism in Modern Asia 11. BUDDHISM IN THE WEST Buddhism in Europe Buddhism in Canada Buddhism in Australia Western Buddhism and Globalization Buddhism in the United States The Experience of Buddhism in the United States THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE OF AMERICAN BUDDHISM TODAY, REV. HENG SURE

King Asoka and Buddhism. Historical and Literary Studies. Edited by Anuradha Seneviratna.

King Asoka and Buddhism. Historical and Literary Studies. Edited by Anuradha Seneviratna. Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy 1994. xi, 161 pp., with two maps. SL Rs 300, US$12.00.

The Dipavamsa and King Asoka

The Dipavamsa and King Asoka

The Structure of the Legend of King Asoka in the Rasavahini

The Structure of the Legend of King Asoka in the Rasavahini

A Buddhist Economic System—in Practice:

Abstract. Although there is little discussion of distributive justice in the Theravādā canon, the Buddhist State is advised to provide all people with a minimum income. Radiation theory sees the economy prospering through the virtuous actions of individuals following the moral law. Early Buddhist writings generally accept existing political and economic institutions, even while providing a democratic social ethos revolutionary for its time. King Asoka, greatest of all Indian emperors, pursued a highly activist fiscal policy even though he believed only meditation could help people to advance in moral living. But canonical beliefs about economic activity are much more ambiguous than economic literature often indicates. Hence today there are rightist and leftist Buddhists, differing in interpretation.

“The Seeming Anomaly of Buddhist Negation”: American Encounters with Buddhist Distinctiveness, 1858–1877

In a lecture in Horticultural Hall in Boston on Sunday 3 March 1872 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the social reformer and religious radical, praised “The Character of the Buddha.” He ended his very sympathetic portrait by alluding to King Asoka's discovery of the tomb of the Buddha. Those who opened the tomb, so the story goes, found the lamps that had been lighted two hundred years earlier still burning and the flowers that had been offered in homage still fresh and fragrant. Higginson saw a parallel to his own age: “More than two thousand years have now passed, and we are opening this tomb again; the lights still burn, the flowers are still fresh, the perfume of that noble life, yet remains immortal.” In some ways, Higginson's comment seems appropriate: literate Americans of his generation were learning more and more about Buddhism and its founder; and, although most interpreters during the 1860s and 1870s struggled with its distinctiveness, some found Buddha's life and teachings praiseworthy. Yet Americans had begun to pry open “the tomb of the Buddha” decades earlier, and not everyone was as blinded by the sudden illumination or as overcome by the sweet fragrance as Higginson.

The Legend of King Aśoka. A Study and Translation of the "Aśokāvadāna"

An English translation of the Asokavadana text, the Sanskrit version of the legend of King Asoka. King Asoka had been studied in the West primarily from his edicts and rock inscriptions in many parts of the Indian subcontinent.

Monuments of King Asoka

Monuments of King Asoka

On the Period of Life-time of Sakyamuni

The life-time of Sakyamuni (SM) is usually calculated backward from the date of King Asoka's coronation, which has recently been determined, as I submitted, as 268 B. C. And the period from the Nirvana (Nv. death) of SM to the Asoka's coronation is to be pursued by the traditions, which are divided into two. I. The southern tradition (the trad. of Theravada of Ceylon, or of the Pali Buddhism) says that Asoka's coronation took place 218 years after SM's Nv., and that SM's Nv. falls on the year around 480 B. C. II. The northern trad. (the trad. of the mainland of India, westnorth-India, Tibet and of China, and of the sects of Sarvastivadin, of northern Theravada and Mahasamghika, and of Mahayana) says that the reign (not the coronation) of Asoka comes between more than 100 years and not more than 200 years after SM's Nv. Accordingly, as for the year of SM's Nv., there is a difference of, roughly speaking, 100 years between the southern and the northern trads.Among those scholars who follow the northern trad., Prof. H. Ui regarded that Asoka's coronation had taken place 116 years after SM's Nv., and accordingly he concluded that SM's Nv. had occurred in 386 B. C. (he admitted that Asoka's coronation had taken place in 271 B. C.) Since then, some of the scholars of Japan followed his theory, and I also did until a few years ago. But now I have reconsidered the matter.Prof. Ui interpreted“116 years after SM's Nv.”in Chinese Shih-papu-lun and Pu-chih-i-lun, as the year of coronation of King Asoka, but this must be corrected. If one consider the meaning of the Title of those texts (Skt. Samayabhedavyuhacakra), one must interpret the sentence otherwise: i. e.“116 years after the Nv.”meant the year when the first schism of Buddhism occurred.Now, here is another problem to be considered: If the Ist schism had occurred during the reign of Asoka, the King would have spoken somewhat about the schism, an awful event to the King as well as to the Buddhism, in his many edicts, inscribed during the period from the 10th to the 27th year of his coronation. But, nothing was inscribed about the Ist schism in those edicts. Therefore, the schism must have occurred at a certain time between the 28th year (241 B. C.) and the end of his reign (232 B. C.). And, if the schism occurred 116 years after SM's Nv., the coronation of Asoka should have taken place in the year of 90 years after SM's Nv. Then it contradicts most of the traditions which tell that Asoka's reign started more than 100 years after SM's Nv. Thus, I suspect if the document itself be trustworthy.“116 years”must be the miss copy of“160 years”, judging from the records of Yuan Ed. and Ming Ed. of Pu-chih-i-lun and also of Tib. Bhavya's Ist tradition mentions“160 years”after the SM's Nv.In conclusion, I propose that SM's Nv. must be placed between 401 (241+160) and 392 (232+160) B. C., in other words, I take c. 400 B. C. as the year of SM's Nv. According to most of the traditions, SM died aged 80. My conclusion is that SM's life-time was c. 480-400 B. C., and his active life was the latter half of 5ct. B. C. This chronicle shows that SM's Nv. was about 80 years later than that of the southern trad. and about 20 years earlier than that of Prof. Ui's.