|
Vessantara Jātaka
The ''Vessantara Jātaka'' is one of the most popular jātakas of Theravada Buddhism. The ''Vessantara Jātaka'' tells the story of one of Gautama Buddha's past lives, about a very compassionate and generous prince, Vessantara, who gives away everything he owns, including his children, thereby displaying the virtue of perfect generosity. It is also known as the Great Birth Sermon. The tale of Prince Vessantara is celebrated as an annual festival in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. Accounts The story has slight variations in other parts of Asia: in Tibet, the story is known as the ''Jīnaputra Arthasiddhi Sūtra'' and the prince known as Arthasiddhi; in China, it is known as ''Taizi Xudanuo Jing '' and the prince is known as Sudana (須大拏太子). He is known as Shudaina-taishi in Japan. When Gautama Buddha visited his father's kingdom for the first time after he achieved enlightenment, elders of the ruling dynasty did not pay him respect out of conceit, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Śakra (Buddhism)
Śakra (Sanskrit: शक्र Śakra; Pali: सक्क Sakka) is the ruler of the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven according to Buddhist cosmology. He is also referred to by the title "Śakra, Lord of the Devas" (Sanskrit: '; Pali: '). The name Śakra ("powerful") as an epithet of Indra is found in several verses of the Rigveda. In East Asian cultural traditions, Śakra is known as ''Dìshìtiān'' (帝釋天) or ''Shìtí Huányīn'' (釋提桓因) in Chinese, as ''Taishakuten'' (帝釈天) in Japanese, as ''Jeseokcheon'' (제석천) in Korean, and as ''Đế Thích Thiên'' (帝釋天) or ''Thích Đề Hoàn Nhân'' (釋提桓因) in Vietnamese. In Chinese Buddhism, Śakra is sometimes identified with the Taoist Jade Emperor (Yùhuáng Dàdì 玉皇大帝, often simplified to Yùhuáng 玉皇); both share a birthday on the ninth day of the first lunar month of the Chinese calendar (usually in February). The Trāyastriṃśa heaven in which Śakra rules is located on the top of Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Illinois University
Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois. It was founded as Northern Illinois State Normal School on May 22, 1895, by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as part of an expansion of the state's system for producing college-educated teachers. In addition to the main campus in DeKalb, it has satellite centers in Chicago, Naperville, Rockford, and Oregon, Illinois. The university is composed of seven degree-granting colleges and has a student body of approximately 16,000 with over 240,000 alumni. NIU is one of only two public universities in Illinois that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the highest levels of all sports, Division I. The university's athletic teams are known as the Huskies and compete in the Mid-American Conference (MAC). History Northern Illinois University was founded as part of the expansion of the normal school program established in 1857 in Normal, Illinois. In 1895, the state legisla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Thailand
Central Thailand (Central plain) or more specifically Siam (also known as Suvarnabhumi and Dvaravati) is one of the regions of Thailand, covering the broad alluvial plain of the Chao Phraya River. It is separated from northeast Thailand (Isan) by the Phetchabun mountain range. The Tenasserim Hills separate it from Myanmar to the west. In the north it is bounded by the Phi Pan Nam Range, one of the hilly systems of northern Thailand. The area was the heartland of the Ayutthaya Kingdom (at times referred to as Siam), and is still the dominant area of Thailand, containing as it does, the world's most primate city, Bangkok. Definition The grouping of Thai provinces into regions follow two major systems, in which Thailand is divided into either four or six regions. In the six-region system, commonly used in geographical studies, central Thailand extends from Sukhothai and Phitsanulok Provinces in the north to the provinces bordering the Gulf of Thailand in the south, excluding the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, John Wells explains, the English spellings of both Myanmar and Burma assume a non-rhotic variety of English, in which the letter r before a consonant or finally serves merely to indicate a long vowel: [ˈmjænmɑː, ˈbɜːmə]. So the pronunciation of the last syllable of Myanmar as [mɑːr] or of Burma as [bɜːrmə] by some speakers in the UK and most speakers in North America is in fact a spelling pronunciation based on a misunderstanding of non-rhotic spelling conventions. The final ''r'' in ''Myanmar'' was not intended for pronunciation and is there to ensure that the final a is pronounced with the broad a, broad ''ah'' () in "father". If the Burmese name my, မြန်မာ, label=none were spelled "Myanma" in English, this would b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, Vietnam to the east, and the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. The capital and largest city is Phnom Penh. The sovereign state of Cambodia has a population of over 17 million. Buddhism is enshrined in the constitution as the official state religion, and is practised by more than 97% of the population. Cambodia's minority groups include Vietnamese, Chinese, Chams and 30 hill tribes. Cambodia has a tropical monsoon climate of two seasons, and the country is made up of a central floodplain around the Tonlé Sap lake and Mekong Delta, surrounded by mountainous regions. The capital and largest city is Phnom Penh, the political, economic and cultural centre of Cambodia. The kingdom is an elective co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea; it is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with India and Maldives. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and financial centre. Sri Lanka has a population of around 22 million (2020) and is a multinational state, home to diverse cultures, languages, and ethnicities. The Sinhalese are the majority of the nation's population. The Tamils, who are a large minority group, have also played an influential role in the island's history. Other long established groups include the Moors, the Burghers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laos
Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist state and the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. At the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula, Laos is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and southwest. Its capital and largest city is Vientiane. Present-day Laos traces its historic and cultural identity to Lan Xang, which existed from the 14th century to the 18th century as one of the largest kingdoms in Southeast Asia. Because of its central geographical location in Southeast Asia, the kingdom became a hub for overland trade and became wealthy economically and culturally. After a period of internal conflict, Lan Xang broke into three separate kingdoms: Luang Phrabang, Vientiane and Champasak. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bordered to the north by Myanmar and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the extremity of Myanmar. Thailand also shares maritime borders with Vietnam to the southeast, and Indonesia and India to the southwest. Bangkok is the nation's capital and largest city. Tai peoples migrated from southwestern China to mainland Southeast Asia from the 11th century. Indianised kingdoms such as the Mon, Khmer Empire and Malay states ruled the region, competing with Thai states such as the Kingdoms of Ngoenyang, Sukhothai, Lan Na and Ayutthaya, which also rivalled each other. European contact began in 1511 with a Portuguese diplomatic mission to Ayutthaya, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maha Kassapa
Maha and MAHA may refer to: * Maha (name), an Arabic feminine given name * ''Maha'' (film), a Tamil thriller film * MaHa, Nepali comedy duo, Madan Krishna Shrestha and Hari Bansha Acharya * Maha Music Festival, an annual music festival held on the riverfront in Omaha, Nebraska * Microangiopathic hemolytic anemia (MAHA), a microangiopathic subgroup of hemolytic anemia * Omaha (tribe), also known as Maha tribe * Mahas The Mahas are a sub-group of the Nubian people located in Sudan along the banks of the Nile. They are further split into the Mahas of the North and Mahas of the Center. Some Mahas villages are intermixed with remnants of the largely extinct Qamhat ..., a Nubian tribe of the Sudan * maha-, a prefix meaning "great" in Pali honorific titles such as Mahathera {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devadatta
Devadatta was by tradition a Buddhist monk, cousin and brother-in-law of Gautama Siddhārtha. The accounts of his life vary greatly, but he is generally seen as an evil and divisive figure in Buddhism, who led a breakaway group in the earliest days of the religion. Etymology The name ''Devadatta'' means ''god-given'' in Palī and Sanskrit. It is composed from the stem form of ''deva'' ("god") and the past participle ''datta'' of the verb ''da'' ("to give"), composed as a tatpuruṣa compound. In the ''Bhagavad Gītā'', the conch shell used by Arjuna on the battle-field of Kurukshetra was named ''Devadatta''. The name Devadatta is still used today. Scholarship Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya research According to Andrew Skilton, modern scholarship generally agrees that the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya is the oldest extant Buddhist Vinaya.Skilton, Andrew. ''A Concise History of Buddhism.'' 2004. p. 48 According to Reginald Ray, the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya mentions the fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
