Udumbara
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Udumbara
''Ficus racemosa'', the cluster fig, red river fig or gular, is a species of plant in the family Moraceae. It is native to Australia and tropical Asia. It is a fast-growing plant with large, very rough leaves, usually attaining the size of a large shrub, although older specimens can grow quite large and gnarled. It is unusual in that its figs grow on or close to the tree trunk, termed cauliflory. The fruits are commonly eaten as a vegetable after the seeds have been discarded, and made into stir-fries and curries. The fruits are a favourite staple of the common Indian macaque. It serves as a food plant for the caterpillars of the two-brand crow butterfly (''Euploea sylvester'') of northern Australia. In Hinduism According to the Shatapatha Brahmana, the Audumbara tree was created from the force of Indra, the leader of the gods that came out of his flesh when he overindulged in soma: ''From his hair his thought flowed, and became millet; from his skin his honour flowed, and ...
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Shōbōgenzō
is the title most commonly used to refer to the collection of works written in Japan by the 13th century Buddhist monk and founder of the Sōtō Zen school, Eihei Dōgen. Several other works exist with the same title (see above), and it is sometimes called the ''Kana Shōbōgenzō'' in order to differentiate it from those. The term shōbōgenzō can also be used more generally as a synonym for Buddhism as viewed from the perspective of Mahayana Buddhism. Source of the title Shōbōgenzō as a general term In Mahayana Buddhism the term ''True Dharma Eye Treasury'' () refers generally to the Buddha Dharma, and in Zen Buddhism, it specifically refers to the realization of Buddha's awakening that is not contained in the written words of the sutras. In general Buddhist usage, the term "treasury of the Dharma" refers to the written words of the Buddha's teaching collected in the Sutras as the middle of the Three Treasures of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. In Zen, however, the rea ...
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Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as . Linnaeus was born in Råshult, the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published the first edition of his ' in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect an ...
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Ikshvaku Dynasty
The Solar dynasty (IAST: Suryavaṃśa or Ravivaṃśa in Sanskrit) or the Ikshvaku dynasty was founded by the legendary king Ikshvaku.Geography of Rigvedic India, M.L. Bhargava, Lucknow 1964, pp. 15-18, 46-49, 92-98, 100-/1, 136 The dynasty is also known as ("Solar dynasty" or "Descendants of the Sun") which means that this dynasty prays to the Sun as their God and their originator (the Gayatri Mantra is a prayer offered to the Sun God as the Sun is the main deity of the Solar Dynasty), and along with Lunar dynasty comprises one of the main lineages of the Kshatriya Varna. The first ''Tirthankara'' of Jainism, Rishabhdeva himself was King Ikshvaku. Further, 21 Tirthankaras of Jainism were born in this dynasty. According to Buddhist texts and tradition, Gautama Buddha descended from this dynasty. Many later kings of the Indian subcontinent claimed to be of Suryavamsha descent. The important personalities belonging to this royal house are Mandhatri, Muchukunda, Ambarisha, B ...
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Gautama Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, to royal parents of the Shakya clan, but renounced his home life to live as a wandering ascetic ( sa, śramaṇa). After leading a life of begging, asceticism, and meditation, he attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in what is now India. The Buddha thereafter wandered through the lower Indo-Gangetic Plain, teaching and building a monastic order. He taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, leading to Nirvana, that is, freedom from ignorance, craving, rebirth, and suffering. His teachings are summarized in the Noble Eightfold Path, a training of the mind that includes meditation and instruction in Buddhist ethics such as right effort, mindfulness, and '' jhana''. He di ...
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Flower Sermon
The Flower Sermon is a story of the origin of Zen Buddhism in which Gautama Buddha Dharma transmission, transmits direct ''Wisdom in Buddhism, prajñā'' (wisdom) to the disciple Mahakasyapa, Mahākāśyapa. In the original Chinese, the story is ''Niān huā wēi xiào'' (拈花微笑, literally "Pick up flower, subtle smile"). Content In the story, the Buddha gives a wordless sermon to his disciples (''Sangha (Buddhism), sangha'') by holding up a white flower. No one in the audience understands the Flower Sermon except Mahākāśyapa, who smiles. Within Zen, the Flower Sermon communicates the ineffable nature of ''tathātā'' (suchness) and Mahākāśyapa's smile signifies the direct Dharma transmission, transmission of wisdom without words. The Buddha affirmed this by saying: Carl Gustav Jung, Jung and Karl Kerényi, Kerényi demonstrate a possible commonality in intent between the Flower Sermon and the Eleusinian Mysteries: One day the Buddha silently held up a flower befor ...
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Dōgen Zenji
Dōgen Zenji (道元禅師; 26 January 1200 – 22 September 1253), also known as Dōgen Kigen (道元希玄), Eihei Dōgen (永平道元), Kōso Jōyō Daishi (高祖承陽大師), or Busshō Dentō Kokushi (仏性伝東国師), was a Japanese Buddhist priest, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. Originally ordained as a monk in the Tendai School in Kyoto, he was ultimately dissatisfied with its teaching and traveled to China to seek out what he believed to be a more authentic Buddhism. He remained there for four years, finally training under Tiantong Rujing, an eminent teacher of the Caodong lineage of Chinese Chan. Upon his return to Japan, he began promoting the practice of zazen (sitting meditation) through literary works such as '' Fukanzazengi'' and ''Bendōwa''. He eventually broke relations completely with the powerful Tendai School, and, after several years of likely friction between himself and the establishment, left Ky ...
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Japanese Language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu, Austroasiatic, Koreanic, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), there was a massive influx of Sino-Japanese vocabulary into the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords. The basis of the standard dialect moved f ...
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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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Mahayana
''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing branches of Buddhism (the other being ''Theravāda'' and Vajrayana).Harvey (2013), p. 189. Mahāyāna accepts the main scriptures and teachings of early Buddhism but also recognizes various doctrines and texts that are not accepted by Theravada Buddhism as original. These include the Mahāyāna Sūtras and their emphasis on the ''bodhisattva'' path and ''Prajñāpāramitā''. ''Vajrayāna'' or Mantra traditions are a subset of Mahāyāna, which make use of numerous tantric methods considered to be faster and more powerful at achieving Buddhahood by Vajrayānists. "Mahāyāna" also refers to the path of the bodhisattva striving to become a fully awakened Buddha (''samyaksaṃbuddha'') for the benefit of all sentient beings, and is thus als ...
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Lotus Sutra
The ''Lotus Sūtra'' ( zh, 妙法蓮華經; sa, सद्धर्मपुण्डरीकसूत्रम्, translit=Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram, lit=Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma, italic=) is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras. It is the main scripture on which the Tiantai, Tendai, Cheontae, and Nichiren schools of Buddhism were established. It is also influential for other East Asian Buddhist schools, such as Zen. According to the British Buddhologist Paul Williams, "For many Buddhists in East Asia since early times, the ''Lotus Sūtra'' contains the final teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha—complete and sufficient for salvation." The American Buddhologist Donald S. Lopez Jr. writes that the ''Lotus Sūtra'' "is arguably the most famous of all Buddhist texts," presenting "a radical re-vision of both the Buddhist path and of the person of the Buddha." Two central teachings of the ''Lotus Sūtra'' have been very i ...
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Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia via the Silk Road. It is the world's fourth-largest religion, with over 520 million followers (Buddhists) who comprise seven percent of the global population. The Buddha taught the Middle Way, a path of spiritual development that avoids both extreme asceticism and hedonism. It aims at liberation from clinging and craving to things which are impermanent (), incapable of satisfying ('), and without a lasting essence (), ending the cycle of death and rebirth (). A summary of this path is expressed in the Noble Eightfold Path, a training of the mind with observance of Buddhist ethics and meditation. Other widely observed practices include: monasticism; " taking refuge" in the Buddha, the , and the ; ...
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Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient Brahmi script, ''Brāhmī'' script, used in the northern Indian subcontinent. It was developed and in regular use by the 7th century CE. The Devanagari script, composed of 47 primary characters, including 14 vowels and 33 consonants, is the fourth most widely List of writing systems by adoption, adopted writing system in the world, being used for over 120 languages.Devanagari (Nagari)
, Script Features and Description, SIL International (2013), United States
The orthography of this script reflects the pr ...
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