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Persecution Of Buddhists
Many adherents of Buddhism have experienced religious persecution because of their adherence to the Buddhist practice, including unwarranted arrests, imprisonment, beating, torture, and/or execution. The term also may be used in reference to the confiscation or destruction of property, temples, monasteries, centers of learning, meditation centers, historical sites, or the incitement of hatred towards Buddhists. Pre-modern persecutions of Buddhism Sasanian Empire In the 3rd century, the Sasanian Empire overran Bactria, overthrowing Kushan Empire. Although strong supporters of Zoroastrianism, the Sasanians tolerated Buddhism and allowed the construction of more vihāras. It was during their rule that Lokottaravādins erected the two Buddhas of Bamiyan. During the second half of the third century, Kartir, the Zoroastrian ''mowbadān-mowbad'' of the Empire, dominated the state's official religious policy. He ordered the destruction of several Buddhist monasteries in Afghanist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divyavadana
The ''Divyāvadāna'' or Divine narratives is a Sanskrit anthology of Buddhist avadana tales, many originating in Mūlasarvāstivādin vinaya texts. It may be dated to 2nd century CE. The stories themselves are therefore quite ancient and may be among the first Buddhist texts ever committed to writing, but this particular collection of them is not attested prior to the seventeenth century. Typically, the stories involve the Buddha explaining to a group of disciples how a particular individual, through actions in a previous life, came to have a particular karmic result in the present. A predominant theme is the vast merit (') accrued from making offerings to enlightened beings or at stupa In Buddhism, a stupa (, ) is a domed hemispherical structure containing several types of sacred relics, including images, statues, metals, and '' śarīra''—the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns. It is used as a place of pilgrimage and m ...s and other holy sites related to the Buddha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huna People
Hunas or Huna (Middle Brahmi script: ''Hūṇā'') was the name given by the ancient Indians to a group of Central Asian tribes who, via the Khyber Pass, entered the Indian subcontinent at the end of the 5th or early 6th century. The Hunas occupied areas as far south as Eran and Kausambi, greatly weakening the Gupta Empire. The Hunas were ultimately defeated by a coalition of Indian princes that included an Indian king Yasodharman and the Gupta emperor, Narasimhagupta. They defeated a Huna army and their ruler Mihirakula in 528 CE and drove them out of India. The Guptas are thought to have played only a minor role in this campaign. The Hunas are thought to have included the Xionites, Xionite and/or Hephthalite, the Kidarites, the Alchon Huns (also known as the Alxon, Alakhana, Walxon etc.) and the Nezak Huns. Such names, along with that of the Hara Huna Kingdom, Harahunas (also known as the Halahunas or Harahuras) mentioned in Hindu texts, have sometimes been used for the Hunas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sangha
Sangha or saṃgha () is a term meaning "association", "assembly", "company" or "community". In a political context, it was historically used to denote a governing assembly in a republic or a kingdom, and for a long time, it has been used by religious associations, including Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. Given this history, some Buddhists have stated that the tradition of the ''sangha'' represents humanity's oldest surviving democratic institution. In Buddhism, ''sangha'' refers to the monastic communities of ''bhikkhu'' (monks) and '' bhikkhuni'' (nuns). These communities are traditionally referred to as the ''bhikkhu-sangha'' or the ''bhikkhuni-sangha''. As a separate category, those Buddhists who have attained any of the four stages of enlightenment, whether or not they are members of the monastic community, are referred to as the ''āryasaṅgha'' ("noble Sangha"). According to the Theravada school and Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, the term ''sangha'' does not refer to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yijing (monk)
Yijing (635–713CE), formerly romanized as or , born Zhang Wenming, was a Tang-era Chinese Buddhist monk and renowned travel writer. His account of his travels are an important source for the history of the medieval kingdoms along the sea route between China and India, especially Srivijaya in Indonesia. He also gave accounts of the Gupta Period. A student of the Buddhist university at Nālandā (now in Bihar, India), he was also responsible for the translation of many Buddhist texts from Sanskrit and Pali into Chinese. Journey Srivijaya and Nālandā Yijing was born . He became a monk at age 14 and was an admirer of Faxian, a famed monk who traveled to India in the 4th and 5th centuries CE. Provided funding by an otherwise unknown benefactor named Fong, he decided to visit the renowned Buddhist university of Nālandā, in Bihar, India, to further study Buddhism. Traveling by a boat out of Guangzhou, he arrived in Srivijaya (today's Palembang in Sumatra) after 22 da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xuanzang
Xuanzang (; ; 6 April 6025 February 664), born Chen Hui or Chen Yi (), also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Bhikkhu, Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of his journey to the Indian subcontinent in 629–645, his efforts to bring at least 657 Indian texts to China, and his translations of some of these texts. He was only able to translate 75 distinct sections of a total of 1335 chapters, but his translations included some of the most important Mahayana scriptures. Xuanzang was born on 6 April 602 in Chenliu, near present-day Luoyang, in Henan province of China. As a boy, he took to reading religious books, and studying the ideas therein with his father. Like his elder brother, he became a student of Buddhist studies at Jingtu monastery. Xuanzang was ordained as a ''śrāmaṇera'' (novice monk) at the age of thirteen. Due to the political a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faxian
Faxian (337–), formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as Fa-hien and Fa-hsien, was a Han Chinese, Chinese Chinese Buddhism, Buddhist bhikkhu, monk and translator who traveled on foot from Eastern Jin dynasty, Jin China to medieval India to acquire Buddhist scriptures. His birth name was Gong Sehi. Starting his journey about age 60, he traveled west along the overland Silk Road, visiting Buddhist sites in Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and Southeast Asia. The journey and return took from 399 to 412, with 10 years spent in India. Faxian's account of his Buddhist pilgrimage, pilgrimage, the ''Foguoji'' or ''Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms'', is a notable independent record of early Buddhism in India. He returned to China with a large number of Sanskrit texts, whose translations greatly influenced East Asian Buddhism and provide a for many historical names, events, texts, and ideas therein. Biography Faxian was born in Shanxi in the 4th-century under the Later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allahabad
Prayagraj (, ; ISO 15919, ISO: ), formerly and colloquially known as Allahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi, Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrative headquarters of the Prayagraj district, the most populous district in the state and 13th most populous district in India and the Prayagraj division. The city is the judicial capital of Uttar Pradesh with the Allahabad High Court being the highest judicial body in the state. Prayagraj is the List of cities in Uttar Pradesh by population, seventh most populous city in the state, list of North Indian cities by population, thirteenth in North India, Northern India and List of cities in India by population, thirty-sixth in India, with an estimated population of 1.53 million in the city. In 2011, it was ranked the world's 40th fastest-growing city. The city, in 2016, was also ranked the third most liveable Urba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mihirakula
Mihirakula (Gupta script: , ''Mi-hi-ra-ku-la'', Chinese: 摩酰逻矩罗 ''Mo-hi-lo-kiu-lo''), sometimes referred to as Mihiragula or Mahiragula, was the second and last Alchon Huns, Alchon Hun king of northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent between 502 and 530 CE. He was a son of and successor to Toramana of Huna people, Huna heritage. His father ruled the Indian part of the Hephthalite Empire. Mihirakula ruled from his capital of Sagala (modern-day Sialkot, Pakistan). In around 520 CE, the Chinese monk Song Yun met with Mihirakula. According to the 7th-century travelogue of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim and student Xuanzang, Mihirakula ruled several hundreds of years before his visit, was initially interested in Buddhism, and sought a Buddhist teacher from monasteries in his domain. They did not send him a learned Buddhist scholar. Feeling insulted, he became anti-Buddhist and destroyed the monasteries in his kingdom.Li Rongxi (1996), ''The Great Tang Dynasty Record of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indo-Gangetic Plain
The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the Northern Plain or North Indian River Plain, is a fertile plain spanning across the northern and north-eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. It encompasses North India, northern and East India, eastern India, eastern Pakistan, southern Nepal, and almost all of Bangladesh. It is named after the two major river systems that drain the region–Indus River, Indus and Ganges. It stretches from the Himalayas in the north to the northern edge of the Deccan plateau in the south, and extends from North East India in the east to the Iranian border in the west. The region is home to many major cities and nearly one-seventh of the world's population. As the region was formed by the deposits of the three major rivers–Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra, the plains consists of the world's largest expanse of uninterrupted alluvial soil, alluvium. Due to its rich water resources, it is one of the world's most densely populated and intensely farmed areas. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gandhara
Gandhara () was an ancient Indo-Aryan people, Indo-Aryan civilization in present-day northwest Pakistan and northeast Afghanistan. The core of the region of Gandhara was the Peshawar valley, Peshawar (Pushkalawati) and Swat valleys extending as far east as the Pothohar Plateau in Punjab, though the cultural influence of Greater Gandhara extended westwards into the Kabul, Kabul valley in Afghanistan, and northwards up to the Karakoram range. The region was a central location for the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism, spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and East Asia with many Chinese Buddhism, Buddhist pilgrims visiting the region. Between the third century BCE and third century CE, Gandhari language, Gāndhārī, a Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language written in the Kharosthi script and linked with the modern Dardic languages, Dardic language family, acted as the lingua franca of the region and through Buddhism, the language spread as far as China based on Gandhār ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sogdia
Sogdia () or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian peoples, Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemenid Empire, and listed on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great. Sogdiana was first conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, and then was annexed by the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great in 328 BC. It would continue to change hands under the Seleucid Empire, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, the Kushan Empire, the Sasanian Empire, the Hephthalite Empire, the Western Turkic Khaganate, and the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana. The Sogdian city-states, although never politically united, were centered on the city of Samarkand. Sogdian language, Sogdian, an Eastern Iranian language, is no longer spoken. However, a descendant of one of its dialects, Yaghnobi language, Yaghnobi, is still spoken by the Yaghnobis of Taji ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
