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Theragatha
The ''Theragatha'' (''Verses of the Elder Monks'') is a Buddhist text, a collection of short poems in Pali attributed to members of the early Buddhist sangha. It is classified as part of the Khuddaka Nikaya, the collection of minor books in the Sutta Pitaka. A similar text, the Therigatha, contains verses attributed to early Buddhist nuns. Etymology ''Theragatha'' is a Pali word, constructed from the words ''thera'' (elder, masculine) and ''gāthā'' (verse). Overview The Theragatha consists of 264 poems, organized into 21 chapters. Chapters are based on the number of verses in the poem, but beyond chapter 16 the chapter headings are only a rough guide. Various figures for the number of total verses in the collection are given- the oral tradition claimed 1360, 1294 are mentioned in summaries within the text, but a plain count of the verses gives a number of 1279. This may be because different versions of the Theragatha were combined to produce the current version of the te ...
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Buddhist Texts
Buddhist texts are those religious texts which belong to the Buddhist tradition. The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, found in Afghanistan and written in Gāndhārī, they date from the first century BCE to the third century CE. The first Buddhist texts were initially passed on orally by Buddhist monastics, but were later written down and composed as manuscripts in various Indo-Aryan languages (such as Pāli, Gāndhārī, and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit) and collected into various Buddhist Canons. These were then translated into other languages such as Buddhist Chinese (''fójiào hànyǔ'' 佛教漢語) and Classical Tibetan as Buddhism spread outside of India. Buddhist texts can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by West ...
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Access To Insight
Access to Insight is a Theravada Buddhist website providing access to many translated texts from the Tipitaka, and contemporary materials published by the Buddhist Publication Society and many teachers from the Thai Forest Tradition. History Access to Insight began in 1993 as a bulletin board system run by a volunteer with support from the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Originally, Access to Insight was one of several publishers of the results of the Dharma Net Dharma Book Transcription Project. As the internet grew in popularity compared to bulletin board services, ATI began to transition to a web-based format. In March 1995 the website became ATI's primary electronic presence; the BBS service was discontinued before the end of the year. In 1998, Access to Insight published a CD version of the website entitled ''A Handful of Leaves''. In the spring of 2005, the editor began The Dhamma Transcription Project, which formalizes transcription procedures that he had been fol ...
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Bhikkhu Sujato
Bhante Sujato, known as Ajahn Sujato or Bhikkhu Sujato (born Anthony Best), is an Australian Theravada Buddhist monk ordained into the Thai forest lineage of Ajahn Chah. Life Bhante Sujato identifies as an anarchist. A former musician with the post punk Alternative rock Australian band Martha's Vineyard, who had toured with, amongst others, Simply Red, INXS, Eurythmics, and proto-punk garage band The Saints before disbanding in 1990, Sujato became a monk in 1994 in the ascetic Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah, a religious order which encourages a life of contemplation and meditation. He took Upasampadā higher ordination in Thailand and lived there for years before returning to Australia. He spent several years at Bodhinyana Monastery in Western Australia before going on to found Santi Forest Monastery in 2003 where he served as the abbot. Following Bhante Sujato's wishes, Santi became a Bhikkhunī ( Buddhist nun's ) monastery Vihara in 2012, and he returned to live in Bodhin ...
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Pali Text Society
The Pali Text Society is a text publication society founded in 1881 by Thomas William Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pāli texts". Pāli is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism are preserved. The Pāli texts are the oldest collection of Buddhist scriptures preserved in the language in which they were written down. The society first compiled, edited, and published Latin script versions of a large corpus of Pāli literature, including the Pāli Canon, as well as commentarial, exegetical texts, and histories. It publishes translations of many Pāli texts. It also publishes ancillary works including dictionaries, concordances, books for students of Pāli and a journal. History Thomas William Rhys Davids was one of three British civil servants who were posted to Sri Lanka, in the 19th century, the others being George Turnour, and Robert Caesar Childers (1838–1876). At this time Buddhism in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was struggling un ...
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Turkestan
Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan ( fa, ترکستان, Torkestân, lit=Land of the Turks), is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang. Overview Known as Turan to the Persians, western Turkestan has also been known historically as Sogdia, "Ma wara'u'n-nahr" (by its Arab conquerors), and Transoxiana by western travelers. The latter two names refer to its position beyond the River Oxus when approached from the south, emphasizing Turkestan's long-standing relationship with Iran, the Persian Empires, and the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. Oghuz Turks (also known as Turkmens), Kyrgyzs, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Khazars, Uyghurs and Hazaras are some of the Turkic inhabitants of the region who, as history progressed, have spread further into Eurasia forming such Turkic nations as Turkey, and subnational regions like Tatarstan in Russia and Crimea in Ukraine. Tajiks and Russians form sizable non-Turkic minorities. It is subdivided into A ...
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Sarvastivadin
The ''Sarvāstivāda'' (Sanskrit and Pali: 𑀲𑀩𑁆𑀩𑀢𑁆𑀣𑀺𑀯𑀸𑀤, ) was one of the early Buddhist schools established around the reign of Ashoka (3rd century BCE).Westerhoff, The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy in the First Millennium CE, 2018, p. 60. It was particularly known as an Abhidharma tradition, with a unique set of seven Abhidharma works.Westerhoff, 2018, p. 61. The Sarvāstivādins were one of the most influential Buddhist monastic groups, flourishing throughout North India (especially Kashmir) and Central Asia until the 7th century. The orthodox Kashmiri branch of the school composed the large and encyclopedic Mahavibhasa, ''Mahāvibhāṣa'' ''Śāstra'' around the time of the reign of Kanishka (c. 127–150 CE). Because of this, orthodox Sarvāstivādins who upheld the doctrines in the ''Mahāvibhāṣa'' were called ''Vaibhāṣikas.'' According to the Theravada, Theravādin ''Dipavamsa'', the Sarvastivada emerged from the older M ...
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Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig Veda, a colle ...
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Mara (demon)
Mara ( sa, मार, '; si, මාරයා; or ; ja, 魔羅, Mara; also マーラ, ''Māra'' or 天魔, ''Tenma''; Tibetan Wylie: ''bdud''; km, មារ; my, မာရ်နတ်; th, มาร, Vietnamese: ma rà), in Buddhism, is a malignant celestial king who tempted Prince Siddhartha (Gautama Buddha) by trying to seduce him with the vision of beautiful women who, in various legends, are often said to be Mara's daughters. In Buddhist cosmology, Mara is associated with death, rebirth and desire. Nyanaponika Thera has described Mara as "the personification of the forces antagonistic to enlightenment." Etymology The word ''Māra'' comes from the Sanskrit form of the verbal root ''mṛ''. It takes a present indicative form ''mṛyate'' and a causative form ''mārayati'' (with strengthening of the root vowel from ṛ to ār). ''Māra'' is a verbal noun from the causative root and means 'causing death' or 'killing'. It is related to other words for death from the same ...
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Milindapanha
The ''Milinda Pañha'' () is a Buddhist text which dates from sometime between 100 BC and 200 AD. It purports to record a dialogue between the Indian Buddhist sage Nāgasena, and the 2nd century BC Indo-Greek king Menander I (Pali: ''Milinda'') of Bactria, in Sagala, present-day Sialkot. The ''Milinda Pañha'' is regarded as canonical in Burmese Buddhism, included as part of the book of '' Khuddaka Nikaya''. An abridged version is included as part of Chinese Mahayana translations of the canon. The ''Milinda Pañha'' is not regarded as canonical by Thai or Sri Lankan Buddhism, however, despite the surviving Theravāda text being in Sinhalese script. The Chinese text titled the Monk Nāgasena Sutra corresponds to the first three chapters of the Milindapanha. It was translated sometime during the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420). History It is generally accepted by scholars that the work is composite, with additions made over some time. In support of this, it is noted that ...
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Pali Language
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism.Stargardt, Janice. ''Tracing Thoughts Through Things: The Oldest Pali Texts and the Early Buddhist Archaeology of India and Burma.'', Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2000, page 25. Early in the language's history, it was written in the Brahmi script. Origin and development Etymology The word 'Pali' is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. The word seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. K. R. Norman suggests that its emergence was based on a misunderstanding of the compound , with being interpreted as the name of a particular ...
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