Santhāgāra
Santhagara is a Pali word derived from combination of Santha or Sanstha in Sanskrit (group) and Agara (house or assembly point) and was used for the general assembly hall of a particular kshatriya clan of ancient northern India where the old and younger of the same clan meets to decide on the general and state affairs. Santhagara was associated with republican states and its history traces back to 600 B.C. The republican states were known as or . Buddhist literatures show that Santhagara of republic states used to control foreign affairs, entertaining foreign Ambassadors and princes, and deciding on peace and war proposals. The history of democracy in India is believed to be starting from Santhagara and India derives its official name , the Republic of India, from the . Other evidences of this period identifies s or s as not completely democracies but sort of corporations and also not as republics but oligarchies, where power was exercised by groups of people. Origin of Santhag ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Malla (tribe)
Malla ( Prakrit: ; ; ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan tribe of north-eastern Indian subcontinent whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The population of Malla, the Mallakas, were divided into two branches, each organised into a (an aristocratic oligarchic republic), presently referred to as the Malla Republics, which were part of the larger Vajjika League. Location The Mallakas lived in the region now covered by the Kushinagar district in India, although their precise borders are yet to be determined. The Mallakas' neighbours to the east across the Sadānirā river were the Licchavikas, their neighbours to the west were the Sakyas, Koliyas, Moriyas, and Kauśalyas, the southern neighbours of the Mallakas were the Kālāmas and the Gaṅgā river, and the northern Mallaka borders were the Himālaya mountains. The territory of the Mallakas was a tract of land between the Vaidehas and the Kauśalyas. The territories of the two Malla republics were divided by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shakya
Shakya (Pali, Pāḷi: ; Sanskrit: ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan clan of the northeastern region of South Asia, whose existence is attested during the Iron Age in India, Iron Age. The Shakyas were organised into a Gaṇasaṅgha, (an Aristocracy, aristocratic Oligarchy, oligarchic republic), also known as the Shakya Republic. The Shakyas were on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain in the Greater Magadha cultural region. Location The Shakyas lived in the Terai – an area south of the foothills of the Himalayas and north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain with their neighbors to the west and south being the kingdom of Kosala, their neighbors to the east across the Rohni River being the related Koliya tribe, while on the northeast they bordered on the Malla (tribe), Mallakas of Kushinagar. To the north, the territory of the Shakyas stretched into the Himalayas until the forested regions of the mountains, which formed their northern border ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Licchavi (tribe)
The Licchavis of Vaishali ( Māgadhī Prakrit: ; Pāli: ; Sanskrit: ऋक्षवी ''Ṛkṣavī''; English: "Bear Clan") were an ancient Indo-Aryan tribe and dynasty of north-eastern Indian subcontinent whose existence is attested from the Iron Age to the Classical Age. The population of Licchavi, the Licchavikas, were organised into a (an aristocratic oligarchic republic), presently referred to as the Licchavi Republic, which was the leading state of the larger Vajjika League. Following their eventual subjugation in the Magadha-Vajji war, the Licchavis continued to reside in the region of Vaishali. The fourth century A.D. Gupta Emperor, Samudragupta was the son of a Licchavi princess and referred to himself as a ''Licchavi-Dauhitra''. Location The Licchavikas lived in the southwest part of the Vajjika League, which was itself bounded to the north, east, south, and west, respectively, by the Himālaya mountains, and the Mahānadī, Gaṅgā, and Sadānirā rive ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shit Stick
Shit stick means "a thin stake or stick used instead of toilet paper" for anal hygiene and was a historical item of material culture introduced through Chinese Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism. A well-known example is in a ''watō'' from the Chan/Zen ''gōng'àn''/''kōan'', in which a monk asked "what is buddha?" and Master Yunmen/Unmon answered "a dry shit stick" (''gānshǐjué''/''kanshiketsu'', /) . History People have used many different materials in the history of anal hygiene, including leaves, rags, paper, water, sponges, corncobs, and sticks. According to the historians of Chinese science Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen, In very ancient times, instruments of bamboo, possibly spatulas ( 'cèchóu''廁籌, 'cèbì''廁篦, or 'cèjiǎn''廁簡), may have been used with the assistance of water in cleaning the body after defecation. At other times and places, it seems that pieces of earthenware or pottery were so used. Undoubtedly one material which found employment in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Videha
Videha ( Prākrit: ; Pāli: ; Sanskrit: ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan tribe of north-eastern Indian subcontinent whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The population of Videha, the Vaidehas, were initially organised into a monarchy but later became a (an aristocratic republic), presently referred to as the Videha Republic, which was part of the larger Vajjika League. Location The borders of the Videha kingdom were the Sadānirā river in the west, the Kauśikī river in the east, the Gaṅgā river in the south, and the Himālaya mountains in the north. To the west of the Sadānirā river, the neighbour of the Vaidehas was the kingdom of Kosala. The Sadānirā and Kauśikī rivers remained the respective western and eastern boundaries of the later Videha republic, although its territory covered only the northern part of that of the former Videha kingdom, with the latter hence being called Mahā-Videha ("greater Videha"). The Videha republic was located along ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Koliya
Koliya (Pāli: ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan clan of north-eastern South Asia whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The Koliyas were organised into a (an aristocratic republic), presently referred to as the Koliya Republic. Location The territory of the Koliyas was a thin strip of land spanning from the river Sarayū to the Himālayan hills in the north. The Rohiṇī river was the western border of the Koliyas, with their neighbours to the north-west being the Sakyas. In the south-west, the river Anomā or Rāptī separated the Koliyas from the kingdom of Kosala, to the east their neighbours were the Moriyas, and to their north-east they bordered on the Mallakas of Kusinārā. The capital of the Koliyas was Devadaha, and one of their other settlements was Ramgram. Name The name of the tribe is uniformly attested under the Pāli form . The Koliyas originally obtained this name from the ( jujube) tree because they lived in a region where trees were a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mahāvastu
The ''Mahāvastu'' (Sanskrit for "Great Event" or "Great Story") is a canonical text of the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda school of Early Buddhism which was originally part of the school's Vinaya pitaka. The ''Mahāvastu'' is a composite multi-life hagiography of the Buddha Shakyamuni. Its numerous textual layers are held by scholars to have been compiled between the 2nd century BCE and 4th century CE. The ''Mahāvastu'' was first published in the West in an ''editio princeps'' by Émile Senart between 1882 and 1897.Tournier 2017 This edition is in a language which has been termed Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. Overview Content The text is a composite one which includes past life narratives, stories of previous Buddhas, stories of Gautama Buddha's final life, embedded early Buddhist sutras and two prologues ( nidānas).Tournier 2012 Over half of the text is composed of Jātaka and Avadāna tales, accounts of the earlier lives of the Buddha and other bodhisattvas. The ''M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jataka Tales
The ''Jātaka'' (Sanskrit for "Birth-Related" or "Birth Stories") are a voluminous body of literature native to the Indian subcontinent which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. Jataka stories were depicted on the railings and torans of the stupas. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is "one of the oldest classes of Buddhist literature."Skilling, Peter (2010). ''Buddhism and Buddhist Literature of South-East Asia,'' pp. 161–162. Some of these texts are also considered great works of literature in their own right.Shaw, Sarah (2006). ''The Jatakas: Birth Stories of Bodhisatta'', p. xxii. Penguin UK. The various Indian Buddhist schools had different collections of jātakas. The largest known collection is the '' Jātakatthavaṇṇanā'' of the Theravada school, as a textual division of the Pāli Canon, included in the '' Khuddaka Nikaya'' of the ''Sutta Pitaka''. In these stories, the future Buddha may appear as a king, an o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dvandva
A dvandva ('pair' in Sanskrit) is a linguistic compound in which multiple individual nouns are concatenated to form an agglomerated compound word in which the conjunction has been elided to form a new word with a distinct semantic field. For instance, the individual words 'brother' and 'sister' may in some languages be agglomerated to 'brothersister' to express "siblings". The grammatical number of such constructs is often plural or dual. The term dvandva was borrowed from Sanskrit, a language in which these compounds are common. Dvandvas also exist in Avestan, the Old Iranian language related to Sanskrit, as well as in numerous Indo-Aryan languages descended from the Prakrits. Several far-eastern languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Atong (a Tibeto-Burman language of India and Bangladesh) and Korean also have dvandvas. Dvandvas may also be found occasionally in European languages, but are relatively rare. Examples include: * Atong ''achu-ambi'' ("grandfather-grandmother" ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Quorum
A quorum is the minimum number of members of a group necessary to constitute the group at a meeting. In a deliberative assembly (a body that uses parliamentary procedure, such as a legislature), a quorum is necessary to conduct the business of that group. In contrast, a plenum is a meeting of the full (or rarely nearly full) body. A body, or a meeting or vote of it, is quorate if a quorum is present (or casts valid votes). The term ''quorum'' is from a Middle English wording of the commission formerly issued to justices of the peace, derived from Latin ''quorum'', "of whom", genitive plural of ''qui'', " who". As a result, ''quora'' as plural of ''quorum'' is not a grammatically well-formed Latin-language construction. In modern times a quorum might be defined as the minimum number of voters needed for a valid election. Quorums are often required by traditional handbooks of parliamentary procedure such as Robert's Rules of Order. However, quorums have been criticized by s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moriya (tribe)
Moriya (Pāli: ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan tribe of northeastern Indian subcontinent whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The Moriyas were organised into a (an aristocratic republic), presently referred to as the Moriya Republic. Location The Moriyas lived to the northeast of Kosala, from which they were separated by the Anomā or Rāptī river. The Moriyas' western neighbours were the Koliyas, while the Mallakas lived to their east, and the Sarayū river was their southern border. The capital of the Moriyas was Pipphalivana, which the 7th century CE Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang later referred to by the name of Nyagrodhavana. Name The Moriyas originally obtained their name from the Mora (peacock) because the peacock was their totem. History Like the other republican tribes neighbouring them, the Moriyas were an Indo-Aryan tribe in the eastern Gangetic plain in the Greater Magadha cultural region. After the death of the Buddha, the Moriyas claimed a share of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Whip (politics)
A whip is an official of a political party whose task is to ensure party discipline (that members of the party vote according to the party platform rather than their constituents, conscience vote, individual conscience or donors) in a legislature. Whips are the party's "enforcers". They work to ensure that their fellow political party legislators attend voting sessions and vote according to their party's official policy. Members who vote against party policy may "lose the whip", being expelled from the party. The term is said to be taken from the "wikt:whipper-in, whipper-in" during a hunt, who tries to prevent hounds from wandering away from a hunting pack. The term may more reasonably have been taken from the practice of "keeping discipline" in slaves by cracking a leather whip over their heads. Additionally, the term "whip" may mean the voting instructions issued to legislators, or the status of a certain legislator in their party's parliamentary grouping. Etymology ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |