Parinirvana
In Buddhism, the term parinirvana is used to refer to nirvana-after-death, which occurs upon the death of the body of someone who has attained nirvana during his or her lifetime. It implies a release from the karma and rebirth as well as the dissolution of the skandhas. In some Mahāyāna scriptures, notably the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, Parinirvāṇa is described as the realm of the eternal true Self of the Buddha. In the Buddhist view, when an ordinary person dies and their physical body disintegrates, the person's unresolved karma passes on to a new birth. However, when a person attains nirvana, they are liberated from karmic rebirth; when such a person dies, their physical body disintegrates and this is the end of the cycle of rebirth. Contemporary scholar Rupert Gethin explains: Eventually ‘the remainder of life’ will be exhausted and, like all beings, such a person must die, but unlike other beings, who have not experienced ‘nirvāṇa’, he or she will not be reborn into some new life, the physical and mental constituents of being will not come together in some new existence, there will be no new being or person.
Instead of being reborn, the person ‘parinirvāṇa-s’, meaning in this context that the five aggregates of physical and mental phenomena that constitute a being cease to occur. This is the condition of ‘nirvāṇa without remainder ’: nirvāṇa that comes from ending the occurrence of the aggregates of physical and mental phenomena that constitute a being. Modern Buddhist usage tends to restrict ‘nirvāṇa’ to the awakening experience and reserve ‘parinirvāṇa’ for the death experience. Accounts of the purported events surrounding the Buddha's own parinirvāṇa are found in a wide range of Buddhist canonical literature. In addition to the Pāli Mahāparinibbāna sutta and its Sanskrit parallels, the topic is treated in the Saṃyutta-nikāya and the several Sanskrit parallels, the Sanskrit-based Ekottara-āgama, other early sutras preserved in Chinese, as well as in most of the Vinayas preserved in Chinese of the early Buddhist schools such as the Sarvāstivādins and the Mahāsāṃghikas; the historical event of the Buddha's parinirvāṇa is described in a number of works, such as the Sanskrit Buddhacarita and the Avadāna-śataka, the Pāli Mahāvaṃsa.
According to Bareau, the oldest core components of all these accounts are just the account of the Buddha's parinirvāṇa itself at Kuśinagara and the funerary rites following his death. He deems all other extended details to be additions with little historical value; the parinirvana of the Buddha is described in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta. Because of its attention to detail, this Theravada sutta, though first committed to writing hundreds of years after his death, has been resorted to as the principal source of reference in most standard studies of the Buddha's life. In contrast to these works which deal with the Buddha's parinirvāṇa as a biographical event, the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra, which bears a similar name, was written hundreds of years later; the Nirvana Sutra does not give details of the historical event of the day of the parinirvāṇa itself, except the Buddha's illness and Cunda's meal offering, nor any of the other preceding or subsequent incidents, instead using the event as a convenient springboard for the expression of standard Mahayana ideals such as the tathagata-garbha / buddha-dhatu doctrine, the eternality of the Buddha, the soteriological fate of the icchantikas and so forth.
It has been suggested by Waddell that the site of the death and parinirvana of Gautama Buddha was in the region of Rampurva: "I believe that Kusīnagara, where the Buddha died may be found to the North of Bettiah, in the line of the Aśōka pillars which lead hither from Patna" in Bihar. It still awaits proper archaeological excavation. According to the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Buddha taught that parinirvāṇa is the realm of the Eternal, the Self, the Pure. Dr. Paul Williams states that it depicts the Buddha using the term "Self" in order to win over non-Buddhist ascetics. However, the Mahaparinirvana Sutra is a long and composite Mahayana scripture, the part of the sutra upon which Williams is basing his statement is a portion of the Nirvana Sutra of secondary Central Asian provenance - other parts of the sutra were written in India. Guang Xing speaks of how the Mahayanists of the Nirvana Sutra understand the mahaparinirvana to be the liberated Self of the eternal Buddha: One of the main themes of the MMPS is that the Buddha is eternal...
The Mahayanists assert the eternity of the Buddha in two ways in the MMPS. They state that the Buddha is the dharmakaya, hence eternal. Next, they reinterpret the liberation of the Buddha as mahaparinirvana possessing four attributes: eternity, happiness and purity. Only in Mahaparinirvana is this True Self held to be discernible and accessible. Kosho Yamamoto cites a passage in which the Buddha admonishes his monks not to dwell inordinately on the idea of the non-Self but to meditate on the Self. Yamamoto writes: Having dwelt upon the nature of nirvana, the Buddha now explains its positive aspect and says that nirvana has the four attributes of the Eternal, the Self, the Pure... the Buddha says: "O you bhiksus! Do not abide in the thought of the non-eternal, non-Self, the not-pure and have things as in the case of those people who take the stones, wooden pieces and gravel for the true gem... In every sit
Rock relief
A rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief sculpture carved on solid or "living rock" such as a cliff, rather than a detached piece of stone. They are a category of rock art, sometimes found as part of, or in conjunction with, rock-cut architecture. However, they tend to be omitted in most works on rock art, which concentrate on engravings and paintings by prehistoric peoples. A few such works exploit the natural contours of the rock and use them to define an image, but they do not amount to man-made reliefs. Rock reliefs have been made in many cultures throughout human history, were important in the art of the ancient Near East. Rock reliefs are fairly large, as they need to be in order to have an impact in the open air. Most of those discussed here have figures that are over life-size, in many the figures are multiples of life-size. Stylistically they relate to other types of sculpture from the culture and period concerned, except for Hittite and Persian examples they are discussed as part of that wider subject.
Reliefs on near-vertical surfaces are most common, but reliefs on horizontal surfaces are found. The term excludes relief carvings inside caves, whether natural or themselves man-made, which are found in Indian rock-cut architecture. Natural rock formations made into statues or other sculpture in the round, most famously at the Great Sphinx of Giza, are usually excluded. Reliefs on large boulders left in their natural location, like the Hittite İmamkullu relief, are to be included, but smaller boulders may be called stelae or carved orthostats. Many or most ancient reliefs were originally painted, over a layer of plaster; the first requirement for a rock relief is a suitable face of stone. Most of the ancient Near East was well supplied with mountains offering many cliff faces. An exception was the land of Sumer, where all stone had to be imported over considerable distances, so the art of Mesopotamia only features rock relief around the edges of the region; the Hittites and ancient Persians were the most prolific makers of rock reliefs in the Near East.
The form is ignored by others. In the many commemorative stelae of Nahr el-Kalb, 12 kilometres north of Beirut, successive imperial rulers have carved memorials and inscriptions; the Ancient Egyptian, Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian rulers include relief imagery in their monuments, while the Roman and Islamic rulers do not, nor more modern ones. Although prehistoric engraved petroglyphs are common in Egypt, in general the form is not a common one in Ancient Egyptian art, only possible in some parts of the country those away from the main centres of population, as Abu Simbel was. There are a group of figures surrounding an image of Mentuhotep II, who died in 2010 BC and was the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom. Before they were cut away and moved, the colossal figures outside the Abu Simbel temples were high reliefs. Other sculpture outside temples cut into the rock qualifies as rock reliefs; the reliefs at Nahr el-Kalb commemorate Rameses II, are at the furthest reach of his empire in modern Lebanon.
The Hittites were important producers of rock reliefs, which form a large part of the few artistic remains they have left. The Karabel relief of a king was seen by Herodotus, who mistakenly thought it showed the Egyptian Pharaoh Sesostris. This, like many Hittite reliefs, is near a road, but rather hard to see from the road. There are more than a dozen sites, most over 1000 metres in elevation, overlooking plains, near water; these were placed with an eye to the Hittite's relation to the landscape rather than as rulers' propaganda, signs of "landscape control", or border markers, as has been thought. They are at sites with a sacred significance both before and after the Hittite period, places where the divine world was considered as sometimes breaking through to the human one. At Yazılıkaya, just outside the capital of Hattusa, a series of reliefs of Hittite gods in procession decorate open-air "chambers" made by adding barriers among the natural rock formations; the site was a sanctuary, a burial site, for the commemoration of the ruling dynasty's ancestors.
It was a private space for the dynasty and a small group of the elite, unlike the more public wayside reliefs. The usual form of these is to show royal males carrying weapons holding a spear, carrying a bow over their shoulder, with a sword at their belt, they have attributes associated with divinity, so are shown as "god-warriors". The Assyrians took the form from the Hittites; the Neo-Assyrians recorded in other places, including metal reliefs on the Balawat Gates showing them being made, the carving of rock reliefs, it has been suggested that the main intended audience was the gods, the reliefs and the inscriptions that accompany them being of the nature of a "business report" submitted by the ruler. A canal system built by the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib to supply water to Nineveh was marked by a number of reliefs showing the king with gods. Other reliefs at the Tigris tunnel, a cave in modern Turkey believed to be the source of the river Tigris, are "a
Buddhism
Buddhism is the world's fourth-largest religion with over 520 million followers, or over 7% of the global population, known as Buddhists. Buddhism encompasses a variety of traditions and spiritual practices based on original teachings attributed to the Buddha and resulting interpreted philosophies. Buddhism originated in ancient India as a Sramana tradition sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, spreading through much of Asia. Two major extant branches of Buddhism are recognized by scholars: Theravada and Mahayana. Most Buddhist traditions share the goal of overcoming suffering and the cycle of death and rebirth, either by the attainment of Nirvana or through the path of Buddhahood. Buddhist schools vary in their interpretation of the path to liberation, the relative importance and canonicity assigned to the various Buddhist texts, their specific teachings and practices. Observed practices include taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, observance of moral precepts, monasticism and the cultivation of the Paramitas.
Theravada Buddhism has a widespread following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia such as Myanmar and Thailand. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Nichiren Buddhism and Tiantai, is found throughout East Asia. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian adepts, may be viewed as a separate branch or as an aspect of Mahayana Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth-century India, is practiced in the countries of the Himalayan region and Kalmykia. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of the Buddha born Siddhārtha Gautama, known as the Tathāgata and Sakyamuni. Early texts have his personal name as "Gautama" or "Gotama" without any mention of "Siddhārtha," which appears to have been a kind of honorific title when it does appear; the details of Buddha's life are mentioned in many Early Buddhist Texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. The evidence of the early texts suggests that he was born as Siddhārtha Gautama in Lumbini and grew up in Kapilavasthu, a town in the plains region of the modern Nepal-India border, that he spent his life in what is now modern Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother was Queen Maya, he was born in Lumbini gardens. However, scholars such as Richard Gombrich consider this a dubious claim because a combination of evidence suggests he was born in the Shakyas community – one that gave him the title Shakyamuni, the Shakya community was governed by a small oligarchy or republic-like council where there were no ranks but where seniority mattered instead; some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, claims about the society he grew up in may have been invented and interpolated at a time into the Buddhist texts. According to the Buddhist sutras, Gautama was moved by the innate suffering of humanity and its endless repetition due to rebirth, he set out on a quest to end this repeated suffering. Early Buddhist canonical texts and early biographies of Gautama state that Gautama first studied under Vedic teachers, namely Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, learning meditation and ancient philosophies the concept of "nothingness, emptiness" from the former, "what is neither seen nor unseen" from the latter.
Finding these teachings to be insufficient to attain his goal, he turned to the practice of asceticism. This too fell short of attaining his goal, he turned to the practice of dhyana, which he had discovered in his youth, he famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in the Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He gained insight into the workings of karma and his former lives, attained enlightenment, certainty about the Middle Way as the right path of spiritual practice to end suffering from rebirths in Saṃsāra; as a enlightened Buddha, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his life teaching the Dharma he had discovered, died at the age of 80 in Kushinagar, India. Buddha's teachings were propagated by his followers, which in the last centuries of the 1st millennium BCE became over 18 Buddhist sub-schools of thought, each with its own basket of texts containing different interpretations and authentic teachings of the Buddha.
The Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism: we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, dukkha, "incapable of satisfying" and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the endless cycle of repeated rebirth and dying again, but there is a way to liberation from this endless cycle to the state of nirvana, namely following the Noble Eightfold Path. The truth of dukkha is the basic insight that life in this mundane world, with its clinging and craving to impermanent states and things is dukkha, unsatisfactory. Dukkha can be translated as "incapable of satisfying," "the unsatisfactory nature and the general insecurity of all conditioned phenomena". Dukkha is most translated as "suffering," but this is inaccurate, since it refers not to episodic suffering, but to the intrinsically unsat
Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha known as Siddhārtha Gautama in Sanskrit or Siddhattha Gotama in Pali, Shakyamuni Buddha, or the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was a monk, sage, philosopher and religious leader on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught in the northeastern part of ancient India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region, he taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala. Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism, he is believed by Buddhists to be an enlightened teacher who attained full Buddhahood and shared his insights to help sentient beings end rebirth and suffering. Accounts of his life and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarised after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later.
Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most people accept that the Buddha lived and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era during the reign of Bimbisara, the ruler of the Magadha empire, died during the early years of the reign of Ajatasatru, the successor of Bimbisara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara. While the general sequence of "birth, renunciation, search and liberation, death" is accepted, there is less consensus on the veracity of many details contained in traditional biographies; the times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as c. 563 BCE to 483 BCE. More his death is dated between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988, the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death; these alternative chronologies, have not been accepted by all historians.
The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born into the Shakya clan, a community, on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE. One of his usual names was "Sakamuni" or "Sakyamunī", it was either a small republic, or an oligarchy, his father was an elected chieftain, or oligarch. According to the Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born in Lumbini, now in modern-day Nepal, raised in the Shakya capital of Kapilvastu, which may have been either in what is present day Tilaurakot, Nepal or Piprahwa, India. According to Buddhist tradition, he obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, died in Kushinagar. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddha's lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential Śramaṇa schools of thought like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Ajñana. Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought. In this context, a śramaṇa refers to one who toils, or exerts themselves.
It was the age of influential thinkers like Mahavira, Pūraṇa Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambalī, Pakudha Kaccāyana, Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, as recorded in Samaññaphala Sutta, whose viewpoints the Buddha most must have been acquainted with. Indeed and Moggallāna, two of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, were the foremost disciples of Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, the sceptic. There is philological evidence to suggest that the two masters, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, were indeed historical figures and they most taught Buddha two different forms of meditative techniques. Thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time. In an era where holiness of person was judged by their level of asceticism, Buddha was a reformist within the śramaṇa movement, rather than a reactionary against Vedic Brahminism; the life of the Buddha coincided with the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley during the rule of Darius I from about 517/516 BCE. This Achaemenid occupation of the areas of Gandhara and Sindh, to last for about two centuries, was accompanied by the introduction of Achaemenid religions, reformed Mazdaism or early Zoroastrianism, to which Buddhism might have in part reacted.
In particular, the ideas of the Buddha may have consisted of a rejection of the "absolutist" or "perfectionist" ideas contained in these Achaemenid religions. No written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or from the one or two centuries thereafter. In the middle of the 3rd century BCE, several Edicts of Ashoka mention the Buddha, Ashoka's Rummindei Minor Pillar Edict commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to Lumbini as the Buddha's birthplace. Another one of his edicts mentions the titles of several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era; these texts may be the precursor of the Pāli Canon. "Sakamuni" in mentioned in the reliefs of Bharhut, dated to circa 100 BCE, in relation with his illumination and the Bodhi tree, with the inscription Bhagavato Sakamunino Bodho. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, repor
Mudra
A mudra is a symbolic or ritual gesture in Hinduism and Buddhism. While some mudras involve the entire body, most are performed with the fingers. A mudrā is a spiritual gesture and an energetic seal of authenticity employed in the iconography and spiritual practice of Indian religions. In hatha yoga, mudras are used in conjunction with pranayama while in a seated posture, to stimulate different parts of the body involved with breathing and to affect the flow of prana, boddhicitta, amrita or consciousness in the body. Unlike older tantric mudras, hatha yogic mudras are internal actions, involving the pelvic floor, throat, tongue, genitals and other parts of the body. Examples of this diversity of mudras are Mula Bandha, Viparita Karani, Khecarī mudrā, Vajroli mudra; these expanded in number from 3 in the Amritasiddhi, to 25 in the Gheranda Samhita, with a classical set of ten arising in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. The Chinese translation is yinxiang. Both these Chinese words appear as loanwords in Japanese and Korean.
Two other Chinese-based compounds, 印契 and 密印, are used. In Japanese, the former compound may be used with the order of the characters reversed. Mudra is used in the iconography of Hindu and Buddhist art of the Indian subcontinent and described in the scriptures, such as Nātyaśāstra, which lists 24 asaṁyuta and 13 saṁyuta mudras. Mudra positions are formed by both the hand and the fingers. Along with āsanas, they are employed statically in the meditation and dynamically in the Nāṭya practice of Hinduism. Hindu and Buddhist iconography share some mudras. In some regions, for example in Laos and Thailand, these are distinct but share related iconographic conventions. According to Jamgotn Kongtrul in his commentary on the Hevajra Tantra, the ornaments of wrathful deities and witches made of human bones are known as mudra "seals". In Indian classical dance, the term "Hasta Mudra" is used; the Natya Shastra describes 24 mudras, while the Abhinaya Darpana of Nandikeshvara gives 28. In all their forms of Indian classical dance, the mudras are similar, though the names and uses vary.
There are 24 in Kathakali and 20 in Odissi. These root mudras are combined in different ways, like one hand, two hands, arm movements and facial expressions. In Kathakali, which has the greatest number of combinations, the vocabulary adds up to c. 900. Sanyukta mudras use both hands and asanyukta mudras use one hand; the classical sources for the mudras in yoga are the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika states the importance of mudras in yoga practice: "Therefore the goddess sleeping at the entrance of Brahma's door should be aroused with all effort, by performing mudra thoroughly." In the 20th and 21st centuries, the yoga teacher Satyananda Saraswati, founder of the Bihar School of Yoga, continued to emphasize the importance of mudras in his instructional text Asana, Mudrā, Bandha. The yoga mudras are diverse in the parts of the body involved and in the procedures required, as in Mula Bandha, Viparita Karani, Khecarī mudrā, Vajroli mudra. Mula Bandha, the Root Lock, consists of pressing one heel into the anus in a cross-legged seated asana, contracting the perineum, forcing the prana to enter the central sushumna channel.
Mahamudra, the Great Seal has one heel pressed into the perineum. Viparita Karani, the Inverter, is a posture with the head down and the feet up, using gravity to retain the prana; the time spent in the posture is increased until it can be held for "three hours". The practice is claimed by the Dattatreyayogashastra to destroy all diseases and to banish grey hair and wrinkles. Khecarī mudrā, the Khechari Seal, consists of turning back the tongue "into the hollow of the skull", sealing in the bindu fluid so that it stops dripping down from the head and being lost when the yogi "embraces a passionate woman". To make the tongue long and flexible enough to be folded back in this way, the Khecharividya exhorts the yogi to make a cut a hair's breadth deep in the frenulum of the tongue once a week. Six months of this treatment destroys the frenulum. After six years of practice, which cannot be hurried, the tongue is said to become able to close the top end of the sushumna channel. Vajroli mudra, the Vajroli Seal, requires the yogi to preserve the semen, either by learning not to release it, or if released by drawing it up through the urethra from the vagina of "a woman devoted to the practice of yoga".
The Abhayamudra "gesture of fearlessness" represents protection, peace and the dispelling of fear. In Theravada Buddhism it is made while standing with the right arm bent and raised to shoulder hei
Ānanda
Ānanda was the primary attendant of the Buddha and one of his ten principal disciples. Among the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda stood out for having the best memory. Most of the texts of the early Buddhist Sutta-Piṭaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council. For that reason, he is known as the Treasurer of the Dhamma, with Dhamma referring to the Buddha's teaching. In Early Buddhist Texts, Ānanda was the first cousin of the Buddha. Although the early texts do not agree on many parts of Ānanda's early life, they do agree that Ānanda was ordained as a monk and that Puṇṇa Mantāniputta became his teacher. Twenty years in the Buddha's ministry, Ānanda became the attendant of the Buddha, when the Buddha selected him for this task. Ānanda performed his duties with great devotion and care, acted as an intermediary between the Buddha and the laypeople, as well as the saṅgha. He accompanied the Buddha for the rest of his life, acting not only as an assistant, but a secretary and a mouthpiece.
Scholars are skeptical about the historicity of many events in Ānanda's life the First Council, consensus about this has yet to be established. A traditional account can be drawn from early texts and post-canonical chronicles. Ānanda had an important role in establishing the order of bhikkhunīs, when he requested the Buddha on behalf of the latter's foster-mother Mahāpajāpati Gotamī to allow her to be ordained. Ānanda accompanied the Buddha in the last year of his life, therefore was witness to many tenets and principles that the Buddha conveyed before his death, including the well-known principle that the Buddhist community should take his teaching and discipline as their refuge, that he would not appoint a new leader. The final period of the Buddha's life shows that Ānanda was much attached to the Buddha's person, he saw the Buddha's passing with great sorrow. Shortly after the Buddha's death, the First Council was convened, Ānanda managed to attain enlightenment just before the council started, a requirement.
He had a historical role during the council as the living memory of the Buddha, reciting many of the Buddha's discourses and checking them for accuracy. During the same council, however, he was chastised by Mahākassapa and the rest of the saṅgha for allowing women to be ordained and failing to understand or respect the Buddha at several crucial moments. Ānanda continued to teach until the end of his life, passing on his spiritual heritage to his pupils Sāṇavāsī and Majjhantika, among others, who assumed leading roles in the Second and Third Councils. Ānanda died 20 years after the Buddha, stūpas were erected at the river where he died. Ānanda was one of the most loved figures in Buddhism. He was known for his memory and compassion, was praised by the Buddha for these matters, he functioned as a foil to the Buddha, however, in that he still had worldly attachments and was not yet enlightened, as opposed to the Buddha. In the Sanskrit textual traditions, Ānanda is considered the patriarch of the Dhamma, who stood in a spiritual lineage, receiving the teaching from Mahākassapa and passing them on to his own pupils.
Ānanda has been honored by bhikkhunīs since early medieval times for his merits in establishing the nun's order. In recent times, the composer Richard Wagner and Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore were inspired by stories about Ānanda in their work; the word ānanda means ` bliss, joy' in Sanskrit. Pāli commentaries explain. Texts from the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition, state that since Ānanda was born on the day of the Buddha's enlightenment, there was great rejoicing in the city—hence the name. According to the texts, in a previous life, Ānanda made an aspiration to become a Buddha's attendant, he made this aspiration in the time of a previous Buddha called Padumuttara, many eons before the present age. He aspired to be like him in a future life. After having done many good deeds, he made his resolution known to the Padumuttara Buddha, who confirmed that his wish will come true in a future life. After having been born and reborn throughout many lifetimes, doing many good deeds, he was born as Ānanda in the time of the current Buddha Gotama.
Ānanda was born in the same time period as the Buddha, which scholars place at 5th–4th centuries BCE. Tradition says that Ānanda was the first cousin of the Buddha, his father being the brother of Suddhodana, the Buddha's father. In the Pāli and Mūlasarvāstivāda textual traditions, his father was Amitodana, but the Mahāvastu states that his father was Śuklodana—both are brothers of Suddhodana; the Mahāvastu mentions that Ānanda's mother's name was Mṛgī. The Pāli tradition has it that Ānanda was born on the same day as Prince Siddhatta, but texts from the Mūlasarvāstivāda and subsequent Mahāyāna traditions state Ānanda was born at the same time the Buddha attained enlightenment, was therefore much younger than the Buddha; the latter tradition is corroborated by several instances in the Early Buddhist Texts, in which Ānanda appears younger than the Buddha, such as the passage in which the Buddha explained to Ānanda how old age was affecting him in bo
Harry Charles Purvis Bell
Harry Charles Purvis Bell, CCS, more known as HCP Bell, was a British civil servant and the first Commissioner of Archaeology in Ceylon. Born in British India in 1851, he was sent to England for his education. Without going to university, Bell came to Ceylon as a civil officer in the Ceylon Civil Service and went on to serve as a customs officer, he thereafter served as a District Judge. Appointed an official archaeologist, in July 1890 the Governor of Ceylon, Sir Arthur Gordon, appointed Bell as the first Archaeological Commissioner and Head of the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon, he carried out many excavations in Ceylon for the Archaeological Survey during an appointment running from 1890 to 1912. After retirement, he investigated the archaeology and epigraphy of the Maldives, where he had been earlier in his life, and studied the linguistics of the Maldivian language. Bell had developed a good friendship with the king of the Maldives, who put his own royal schooner Fath-ul-Majid at his disposition to carry out archaeological research in certain atolls south of Malé.
Bell, Harry Charles Purvis. The Máldive Islands: An Account of the Physical Features, History, Inhabitants and Trade. F. Luker, acting government printer, Ceylon; the Maldive Islands. Report on a Visit to Málé, Colombo, 1921. Bell, Harry Charles Purvis. Anuradhpura and the North-Central Province...: Progress Report. Government Printer, South Africa. Bell, Harry Charles Purvis; the Máldive Islands: Monograph on the History and Epigraphy. Novelty Printers Publ. ISBN 978-99915-3-051-2. Bell, Harry Charles Purvis. Excerpta Máldiviana. Asian Educational Services. ISBN 978-81-206-1221-1. Judiciary of the Maldives Bell, Bethia Nancy. H. C. P. Bell: Archaeologist of Ceylon and the Maldives. Archetype Pubs. ISBN 978-1-873132-45-6. Romero Frías, Xavier; the Maldive Islanders: A Study of the Popular Culture of an Ancient Ocean Kingdom. Nova Ethnographia Indica. ISBN 978-84-7254-801-5
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