1.
Pali
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Pali is a Prakrit language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of much of the earliest extant literature of Buddhism as collected in the Pāli Canon or Tipiṭaka and is the language of Theravāda Buddhism. The word Pali is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon, Childers translates the word as series and states that the language bears the epithet in consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure. However, modern scholarship has regarded Pali as a mix of several Prakrit languages from around the 3rd century BCE, combined together and partially Sanskritized. The closest artifacts to Pali that have found in India are Edicts of Ashoka found at Gujarat, in the west of India. There is persistent confusion as to the relation of Pāḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha, Pali, as a Middle Indo-Aryan language, is different from Sanskrit more with regard to its dialectal base than the time of its origin. A number of its morphological and lexical features show that it is not a continuation of Ṛgvedic Vedic Sanskrit. Instead it descends from one or more dialects that were, despite many similarities, however, this view is not shared by all scholars. Some, like A. C. Woolner, believe that Pali is derived from Vedic Sanskrit, Paiśācī is a largely unattested literary language of classical India that is mentioned in Prakrit and Sanskrit grammars of antiquity. e. Evidence which lends support to this interpretation is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare, many Theravada sources refer to the Pali language as Magadhan or the language of Magadha. This identification first appears in the commentaries, and may have been an attempt by Buddhists to associate more closely with the Maurya Empire. The Buddha taught in Magadha, but the four most important places in his life are all outside of it and it is likely that he taught in several closely related dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan, which had a high degree of mutual intelligibility. There is no attested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan with all the features of Pali, Pali has some commonalities with both the western Ashokan Edicts at Girnar in Saurashtra, and the Central-Western Prakrit found in the eastern Hathigumpha inscription. In Sri Lanka, Pali is thought to have entered into a period of decline ending around the 4th or 5th century, the work of Buddhaghosa was largely responsible for its reemergence as an important scholarly language in Buddhist thought. Another scholar states that at time it was a refined. Modern scholarship has not arrived at a consensus on the issue, after the death of the Buddha, Pali may have evolved among Buddhists out of the language of the Buddha as a new artificial language. According to K. R. Norman, it is likely that the viharas in North India had separate collections of material, in the early period it is likely that no degree of translation was necessary in communicating this material to other areas. Around the time of Ashoka there had been more linguistic divergence, following this period, the language underwent a small degree of Sanskritisation
2.
Sanskrit
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Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
3.
Bengali language
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Bengali, also known by its endonym Bangla, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in South Asia. With over 210 million speakers, Bengali is the seventh most spoken language in the world. Dominant in the last group was Persian, which was also the source of some grammatical forms, more recent studies suggest that the use of native and foreign words has been increasing, mainly because of the preference of Bengali speakers for the colloquial style. Today, Bengali is the language spoken in Bangladesh and the second most spoken language in India. Both the national anthems of Bangladesh and India were composed in Bengali, in 1952, the Bengali Language Movement successfully pushed for the languages official status in the Dominion of Pakistan. In 1999, UNESCO recognized 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the movement in East Pakistan. Language is an important element of Bengali identity and binds together a diverse region. Sanskrit was spoken in Bengal since the first millennium BCE, during the Gupta Empire, Bengal was a hub of Sanskrit literature. The Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were spoken in Bengal in the first millennium when the region was a part of the Magadha Realm and these dialects were called Magadhi Prakrit. They eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi, Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what are called Apabhraṃśa languages at the end of the first millennium. Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali evolved circa 1000–1200 AD from Sanskrit, for example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around the 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. Proto-Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty, during the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterized by the elision of word-final অ ô, the spread of compound verbs and Arabic and Persian influences. Bengali was a court language of the Sultanate of Bengal. Muslim rulers promoted the development of Bengali as part of efforts to Islamize. Bengali became the most spoken language in the Sultanate. This period saw borrowing of Perso-Arabic terms into Bengali vocabulary, major texts of Middle Bengali include Chandidas Shreekrishna Kirtana. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the dialect spoken in the Nadia region, a west-central Bengali dialect. Bengali presents a case of diglossia, with the literary
4.
Burmese language
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The Burmese language is the official language of Myanmar. Although the Constitution of Myanmar officially recognizes the English name of the language as the Myanmar language, Burmese is a tonal, pitch-register, and syllable-timed language, largely monosyllabic and analytic, with a subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of the Sino-Tibetan language family, the Burmese alphabet is ultimately descended from a Brahmic script, either Kadamba or Pallava. Burmese belongs to the Southern Burmish branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non-Sinitic Sino-Tibetan languages. Burmese was the fifth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a system, after Chinese characters, the Pyu script, the Tibetan alphabet. However, several dialects substantially differ in Burmese with respect to vocabulary, lexical particles, the standard dialect of Burmese comes from the Irrawaddy River valley. Regional differences between speakers from Upper Burma, called anya tha အညာသား, and speakers from Lower Burma, called auk tha အောက်သား, occur in vocabulary choice, minor pronunciation differences do exist within the Irrawaddy River valley. For instance, for the term ဆွမ်း food offering, Lower Burmese speakers use instead of, the standard dialect is represented by the Yangon dialect because of the modern citys media influence and economic clout. In the past, the Mandalay dialect represented standard Burmese, moreover, with regard to kinship terminology, Upper Burmese speakers differentiate the maternal and paternal sides of a family whereas Lower Burmese speakers do not. Spoken Burmese is remarkably uniform among Burmese speakers, particularly living in the Irrawaddy valley. The figure would have much higher if non-Bamars were excluded. For the whole country, the rate was 49% for men and 5. 5% for women. The migration of Burmese speakers of Bamar descent to Lower Burma is relatively recent, as late as the mid-1700s, the Austroasiatic language Mon was the principal language of Lower Burma and the Mon people who inhabited it. After the Burmese-speaking Konbaung Dynastys victory over the Mon-speaking Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1757, by 1830, an estimated 90% of the population in the region identified themselves as Bamar due the influx from Upper Burma, assimilation, and intermarriage. In the British colonial era, British incentives, particularly geared toward rice production, as well as political instability in Upper Burma, more distinctive non-standard varieties emerge as one moves farther away from the Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of the country. These varieties include the Yaw, Palaw, Myeik, Tavoyan, despite substantial vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among most Burmese dialects. Dialects in Tanintharyi Region, including Palaw, Merguese and Tavoyan, are conservative in comparison to Standard Burmese. The Tavoyan and Intha dialects have preserved the /l/ medial, which is only found in Old Burmese inscriptions
5.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
6.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
7.
Japanese language
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Japanese is an East Asian language spoken by about 125 million speakers, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language. It is a member of the Japonic language family, whose relation to language groups, particularly to Korean. Little is known of the prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, during the Heian period, Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese saw changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language, the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region in the Early Modern Japanese period. Following the end in 1853 of Japans self-imposed isolation, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, English loanwords in particular have become frequent, and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person, Japanese equivalents of adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener. Japanese has no relationship with Chinese, but it makes extensive use of Chinese characters, or kanji, in its writing system. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system uses two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana. Latin script is used in a fashion, such as for imported acronyms. Very little is known about the Japanese of this period, Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language. Through the spread of Buddhism, the Chinese writing system was imported to Japan, the earliest texts found in Japan are written in Classical Chinese, but they may have been meant to be read as Japanese by the kanbun method. Some of these Chinese texts show the influences of Japanese grammar, in these hybrid texts, Chinese characters are also occasionally used phonetically to represent Japanese particles. The earliest text, the Kojiki, dates to the early 8th century, the end of Old Japanese coincides with the end of the Nara period in 794
8.
Romanization of Japanese
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The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is referred to in English as rōmaji. There are several different romanization systems, the three main ones are Hepburn romanization, Kunrei-shiki romanization, and Nihon-shiki romanization. Variants of the Hepburn system are the most widely used, Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Chinese and syllabic scripts which also ultimately derive from Chinese characters. It is also used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English on topics related to Japan, such as linguistics, literature, history, and culture. Rōmaji is the most common way to input Japanese into word processors and computers, all Japanese who have attended elementary school since World War II have been taught to read and write romanized Japanese. The word rōmaji literally means Roman letters, and in Japan it is often used to refer to the Latin alphabet itself than to any specific form of romanized Japanese. The earliest Japanese romanization system was based on the Portuguese orthography and it was developed around 1548 by a Japanese Catholic named Yajiro. Jesuit priests used the system in a series of printed Catholic books so that missionaries could preach and teach their converts without learning to read Japanese orthography. The most useful of these books for the study of early modern Japanese pronunciation and early attempts at romanization was the Nippo jisho, in general, the early Portuguese system was similar to Nihon-shiki in its treatment of vowels. The latter continued to be printed and read after the suppression of Christianity in Japan, the Hepburn system included representation of some sounds that have since changed. The Nihon-shiki romanization was an outgrowth of that movement, several Japanese texts were published entirely in rōmaji during this period, but it failed to catch on. Today, the use of Nihon-shiki for writing Japanese is advocated by the Oomoto sect, during the Allied occupation of Japan, the government of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers made it official policy to romanize Japanese. However, that failed and a more moderate attempt at Japanese script reform followed. Hepburn romanization generally follows English phonology with Romance vowels and it is an intuitive method of showing Anglophones the pronunciation of a word in Japanese. It was standardized in the USA as American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese, Hepburn is the most common romanization system in use today, especially in the English-speaking world. The Revised Hepburn system of romanization uses a macron to indicate long vowels. For example, the name じゅんいちろう, is written with the kana characters ju-n-i-chi-ro-u, without the apostrophe, it would not be possible to distinguish this correct reading from the incorrect ju-ni-chi-ro-u
9.
Khmer language
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Khmer /kmɛər/ or Cambodian is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. With approximately 16 million speakers, it is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language, Khmer has been influenced considerably by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious registers, through Hinduism and Buddhism. The vast majority of Khmer speakers speak Central Khmer, the dialect of the plain where the Khmer are most heavily concentrated. Within Cambodia, regional accents exist in remote areas but these are regarded as varieties of Central Khmer, outside of Cambodia, three distinct dialects are spoken by ethnic Khmers native to areas that were historically part of the Khmer Empire. The Northern Khmer dialect is spoken by over a million Khmers in the regions of Northeast Thailand and is treated by some linguists as a separate language. Khmer is primarily an analytic, isolating language, there are no inflections, conjugations or case endings. Instead, particles and auxiliary words are used to indicate grammatical relationships, general word order is subject–verb–object, and modifiers follow the word they modify. Classifiers appear after numbers when used to count nouns, though not always so consistently as in languages like Chinese, in spoken Khmer, topic-comment structure is common and the perceived social relation between participants determines which sets of vocabulary, such as pronouns and honorifics, are proper. Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Thai, Burmese, Lao, words are stressed on the final syllable, hence many words conform to the typical Mon–Khmer pattern of a stressed syllable preceded by a minor syllable. The language has been written in the Khmer script, an abugida descended from the Brahmi script via the southern Indian Pallava script, approximately 79% of Cambodians are able to read Khmer. Khmer is a member of the Austroasiatic language family, the family in an area that stretches from the Malay Peninsula through Southeast Asia to East India. Austroasiatic, which also includes Mon, Vietnamese and Munda, has been studied since 1856 and was first proposed as a family in 1907. Despite the amount of research, there is doubt about the internal relationship of the languages of Austroasiatic. Diffloth places Khmer in a branch of the Mon-Khmer languages. In these classification schemes Khmers closest genetic relatives are the Bahnaric and Pearic languages, more recent classifications doubt the validity of the Mon-Khmer sub-grouping and place the Khmer language as its own branch of Austroasiatic equidistant from the other 12 branches of the family. Khmer is spoken by some 13 million people in Cambodia, where it is the official language and it is also a second language for most of the minority groups and indigenous hill tribes there. Additionally there are a million speakers of Khmer native to southern Vietnam and 1.4 million in northeast Thailand, Khmer dialects, although mutually intelligible, are sometimes quite marked. The dialects form a continuum running roughly north to south, the following is a classification scheme showing the development of the modern Khmer dialects
10.
Korean language
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It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of the Peoples Republic of China. Approximately 80 million people worldwide speak Korean and this implies that Korean is not an isolate, but a member of a small family. There is still debate on whether Korean and Japanese are related with each other, the Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax. A relation of Korean with Japonic languages has been proposed by linguists like William George Aston, Chinese characters arrived in Korea together with Buddhism during the pre-Three Kingdoms period. Mainly privileged elites were educated to read and write in hanja, however, today, the hanja are largely unused in everyday life, but in South Korea they experience revivals on artistic works and are important in historic and/or linguistic studies of Korean. Since the Korean War, through 70 years of separation, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation, verb inflection, the Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North Korea and South Korea. In South Korea, the Korean language is referred to by names including hanguk-eo Korean language, hanguk-mal, Korean speech and uri-mal. In hanguk-eo and hanguk-mal, the first part of the word, hanguk, refers to the Korean nation while -eo and -mal mean language and speech, Korean is also simply referred to as guk-eo, literally national language. This name is based on the same Chinese characters meaning nation + language that are used in Taiwan and Japan to refer to their respective national languages. In North Korea and China, the language is most often called Chosŏn-mal, or more formally, the English word Korean is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to Western countries. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and Goryeo In, the majority of historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolians exhibition of gender agreement can be used to argue that a relationship with Altaic is unlikely. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list, a good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asa, meaning hemp. Also, the doublet wo meaning hemp is attested in Western Old Japanese and it is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Among ancient languages, various relatives of Korean have been proposed. Some classify the language of Jeju Island as a distinct modern Koreanic language, Other famous theories are the Dravido-Korean languages theory and the mostly unknown southern-theory which suggest an Austronesian relation. Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in countries including the Peoples Republic of China, the United States, Japan. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea
11.
Sinhalese language
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Sinhalese, known natively as Sinhala, is the native language of the Sinhalese people, who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, numbering about 16 million. Sinhalese is also spoken as a language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages, Sinhalese has its own writing system, the Sinhalese alphabet, which is one of the Brahmic scripts, a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script closely related to the Kadamba alphabet. Sinhalese is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, Sinhalese, along with Pali, played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature. The closest relative of Sinhalese is the language of the Maldives and Minicoy Island, Sinhala is a Sanskrit term, the corresponding Middle Indo-Aryan word is Sīhala. The name is a derivation from siṃha, the Sanskrit word for lion Siṃhāla is attested as a Sanskrit name of the island of in the Bhagavata Purana, the name is sometimes glossed as abode of lions, and attributed to a supposed former abundance of lions on the island. According to the chronicle Mahavamsa, written in Pali, Prince Vijaya, in the following centuries, there was substantial immigration from Eastern India which led to an admixture of features of Eastern Prakrits. An example of an Eastern feature is the ending -e for masculine nominative singular in Sinhalese Prakrit. There are several cases of vocabulary doublets, e. g. the words mässā and mäkkā, some of the differences can be explained by the substrate influence of the parent stock of the Vedda language. Sinhalese has many words that are found in Sinhalese, or shared between Sinhalese and Vedda and not etymologically derivable from Middle or Old Indo-Aryan. Common examples are kola for leaf in Sinhala and Vedda, dola for pig in Vedda, Other common words are rera for wild duck, and gala for stones. The author of the oldest Sinhalese grammar, Sidatsangarava, written in the 13th century CE, the grammar lists naramba and kolamba as belonging to an indigenous source. Kolamba is the source of the name of the commercial capital Colombo, however, formal Sinhalese is more similar to Pali and medieval Sinhalese. g. I do not know whether it is new, as a result of centuries of colonial rule, modern Sinhalese contains some Portuguese, Dutch and English loanwords. It is now spoken by a few families in Macau and in the Macanese diaspora, Sinhalese shares many features common to other Indo-European languages. For native speakers all dialects are mutually intelligible, and they might not even realise that the differences are significant, the language of the Vedda people resembles Sinhala to a great extent, although it has a large number of words which cannot be traced to another language. The Rodiya use another dialect of Sinhalese, Rodiya used to be a caste in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka no longer recognizes castes, in Sinhalese there is distinctive diglossia, as in many languages of South Asia
12.
Thai language
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Thai, also known as Siamese or Central Thai, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people and the vast majority of Thai Chinese. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family, over half of the words in Thai are borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language, Thai also has a complex orthography and relational markers. Spoken Thai is mutually intelligible with Laotian, Thai is the official language of Thailand, natively spoken by over 20 million people. Standard Thai is based on the register of the classes of Bangkok. In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages, Isan, the language of the Isan region of Thailand, a collective term for the various Lao dialects spoken in Thailand that show some Siamese Thai influences, which is written with the Thai script. It is spoken by about 20 million people, Thais from both inside and outside the Isan region often simply call this variant Lao when speaking informally. Northern Thai, spoken by about 6 million in the independent kingdom of Lanna. Shares strong similarities with Lao to the point that in the past the Siamese Thais referred to it as Lao. Southern Thai, spoken by about 4.5 million Phu Thai, spoken by half a million around Nakhon Phanom Province. Phuan, spoken by 200,000 in central Thailand and Isan, Shan, spoken by about 100,000 in north-west Thailand along the border with the Shan States of Burma, and by 3.2 million in Burma. Lü, spoken by about 1,000,000 in northern Thailand, and 600,000 more in Sipsong Panna, Burma, nyaw language, spoken by 50,000 in Nakhon Phanom Province, Sakhon Nakhon Province, Udon Thani Province of Northeast Thailand. Song, spoken by about 30,000 in central and northern Thailand, Elegant or Formal Thai, official and written version, includes respectful terms of address, used in simplified form in newspapers. Rhetorical Thai, used for public speaking, religious Thai, used when discussing Buddhism or addressing monks. Royal Thai, influenced by Khmer, this is used when addressing members of the family or describing their activities. Most Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts, street and Elegant Thai are the basis of all conversations. Rhetorical, religious, and royal Thai are taught in schools as the national curriculum, many scholars believe that the Thai script is derived from the Khmer script, which is modeled after the Brahmic script from the Indic family. However, in appearance, Thai is closer to Thai Dam script, the language and its script are closely related to the Lao language and script
13.
Vietnamese language
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Vietnamese /ˌviɛtnəˈmiːz/ is an Austroasiatic language that originated in the north of modern-day Vietnam, where it is the national and official language. It is the language of the Vietnamese people, as well as a first or second language for the many ethnic minorities of Vietnam. As the result of Vietnamese emigration and cultural influence, Vietnamese speakers are found throughout the world, notably in East and Southeast Asia, North America, Australia, Vietnamese has also been officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic. It is part of the Austroasiatic language family of which it has by far the most speakers, Vietnamese vocabulary has borrowings from Chinese, and it formerly used a modified set of Chinese characters called chữ nôm given vernacular pronunciation. The Vietnamese alphabet in use today is a Latin alphabet with diacritics for tones. As the national language, Vietnamese is spoken throughout Vietnam by ethnic Vietnamese, Vietnamese is also the native language of the Gin minority group in southern Guangxi Province in China. A significant number of speakers also reside in neighboring Cambodia. In the United States, Vietnamese is the sixth most spoken language, with over 1.5 million speakers and it is the third most spoken language in Texas, fourth in Arkansas and Louisiana, and fifth in California. Vietnamese is the seventh most spoken language in Australia, in France, it is the most spoken Asian language and the eighth most spoken immigrant language at home. Vietnamese is the official and national language of Vietnam. It is the first language of the majority of the Vietnamese population, in the Czech Republic, Vietnamese has been recognized as one of 14 minority languages, on the basis of communities that have either traditionally or on a long-term basis resided in the country. This status grants Czech citizens from the Vietnamese community the right to use Vietnamese with public authorities, Vietnamese is increasingly being taught in schools and institutions outside of Vietnam. Since the 1980s, Vietnamese language schools have been established for youth in many Vietnamese-speaking communities around the world, furthermore, there has also been a number of Germans studying Vietnamese due to increased economic investment in Vietnam. Vietnamese is taught in schools in the form of immersion to a varying degree in Cambodia, Laos. Classes teach students subjects in Vietnamese and another language, furthermore, in Thailand, Vietnamese is one of the most popular foreign languages in schools and colleges. Vietnamese was identified more than 150 years ago as part of the Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family. Later, Muong was found to be closely related to Vietnamese than other Mon–Khmer languages. The term Vietic was proposed by Hayes, who proposed to redefine Viet–Muong as referring to a subbranch of Vietic containing only Vietnamese and Muong
14.
Theravada
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Theravāda is a branch of Buddhism that uses the Buddhas teaching preserved in the Pāli Canon as its doctrinal core. The Pali canon is the only complete Buddhist canon which survives in a classical Indic Language, Pali, another feature of Theravada is that it tends to be very conservative about matters of doctrine and monastic discipline. As a distinct sect, Theravada Buddhism developed in Sri Lanka, Theravada also includes a rich diversity of traditions and practices that have developed over its long history of interactions with varying cultures and religious communities. It is the dominant form of religion in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and is practiced by minority groups in Bangladesh, China, Nepal, and Vietnam. In addition, the diaspora of all of these groups as well as converts around the world practice Theravāda Buddhism, contemporary expressions include Buddhist modernism, the Vipassana movement and the Thai Forest Tradition. The name Theravāda comes from the ancestral Sthāvirīya, one of the early Buddhist schools, according to its own accounts, the Theravāda school is fundamentally derived from the Vibhajjavāda doctrine of analysis grouping, which was a division of the Sthāvirīya. Significantly, the Sthāviras in turn comprise three sub-nikāyas, the Jetavanīyas, the Abhayagirivāsins, and the Mahāvihāravāsins, according to Damien Keown, there is no historical evidence that the Theravāda school arose until around two centuries after the Great Schism which occurred at the Third Council. These teachings were known as the Vibhajjavada, emperor Ashoka is supposed to have assisted in purifying the sangha by expelling monks who failed to agree to the terms of Third Council. The elder monk Moggaliputta-Tissa was at the head of the Third council and compiled the Kathavatthu, later, the Vibhajjavādins in turn is said to have split into four groups, the Mahīśāsaka, Kāśyapīya, Dharmaguptaka, and the Tāmraparṇīya. The Theravāda is said to be descended from the Tāmraparṇīya sect, the most distinctive features of this phase and virtually the only contemporary historical material, are the numerous Brahmi inscriptions associated with these caves. They record gifts to the sangha, significantly by householders and chiefs rather than by kings, the Buddhist religion itself does not seem to have established undisputed authority until the reigns of Dutthagamani and Vattagamani. The first records of Buddha images come from the reign of king Vasabha, in the 7th century, the Chinese pilgrim monks Xuanzang and Yijing refer to the Buddhist schools in Sri Lanka as Shàngzuòbù, corresponding to the Sanskrit Sthavira nikāya and Pali Thera Nikāya. Yijing writes, In Sri Lanka the Sthavira school alone flourishes, the school has been using the name Theravāda for itself in a written form since at least the 4th century, about one thousand years after the Buddhas death, when the term appears in the Dīpavaṁsa. According to Buddhist scholar A. K. Warder, the Theravāda, spread rapidly south from Avanti into Maharashtra and Andhra and down to the Chola country, as well as Sri Lanka. According to Richard Gombrich this is the earliest record we have of Buddhist scriptures being committed to writing anywhere, the Theravada Pali texts which have survived are derived from the Mahavihara of Anuradhapura, the ancient Sri Lankan capital. Later developments included the formation and recording of the Theravada commentary literature, the Theravada tradition records that even during the early days of Mahinda, there was already a tradition of Indian commentaries on the scriptures. Of great importance to the tradition is the work of the great Theravada scholastic Buddhaghosa. Buddhaghosa wrote in Pali, and after him, most Sri Lankan Buddhist scholastics did as well and this allowed the Sri Lankan tradition to become more international through a lingua franca so as to converse with monks in India and later Southeast Asia
15.
Mahayana
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Mahayana is one of two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice. The Buddhist tradition of Vajrayana is sometimes classified as a part of Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva who has accomplished this goal is called a samyaksaṃbuddha, or fully enlightened Buddha. A samyaksaṃbuddha can establish the Dharma and lead disciples to enlightenment, Mahayana Buddhists teach that enlightenment can be attained in a single lifetime, and this can be accomplished even by a layperson. The Mahāyāna tradition is the largest major tradition of Buddhism existing today, with 53. 2% of practitioners, major traditions of Mahāyāna Buddhism today include Chan Buddhism, Korean Seon, Japanese Zen, Pure Land Buddhism, and Nichiren Buddhism. It may also include the Vajrayana traditions of Tiantai, Tendai, Shingon Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism, according to Jan Nattier, the term Mahāyāna was originally an honorary synonym for Bodhisattvayāna — the vehicle of a bodhisattva seeking buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. The term Mahāyāna was therefore formed independently at a date as a synonym for the path. The earliest Mahāyāna texts often use the term Mahāyāna as a synonym for Bodhisattvayāna, the presumed dichotomy between Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna can be deceptive, as the two terms were not actually formed in relation to one another in the same era. Among the earliest and most important references to the term Mahāyāna are those that occur in the Lotus Sūtra dating between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE. Seishi Karashima has suggested that the term first used in an earlier Gandhāri Prakrit version of the Lotus Sūtra was not the term mahāyāna, the origins of Mahāyāna are still not completely understood. The earliest Western views of Mahāyāna assumed that it existed as a school in competition with the so-called Hīnayāna schools. The earliest textual evidence of Mahāyāna comes from sūtras originating around the beginning of the common era. There is also no evidence that Mahāyāna ever referred to a formal school or sect of Buddhism, but rather that it existed as a certain set of ideals. Membership in these nikāyas, or monastic sects, continues today with the Dharmaguptaka nikāya in East Asia, therefore, Mahāyāna was never a separate rival sect of the early schools. Paul Harrison clarifies that while monastic Mahāyānists belonged to a nikāya, from Chinese monks visiting India, we now know that both Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna monks in India often lived in the same monasteries side by side. Those who venerate the bodhisattvas and read the Mahayana sūtras are called the Mahāyānists, much of the early extant evidence for the origins of Mahāyāna comes from early Chinese translations of Mahāyāna texts. These Mahāyāna teachings were first propagated into China by Lokakṣema, the first translator of Mahāyāna sūtras into Chinese during the 2nd century CE. Guang Xing states, Several scholars have suggested that the Prajñāpāramitā probably developed among the Mahāsāṃghikas in southern India, in the Āndhra country, warder believes that the Mahāyāna originated in the south of India and almost certainly in the Āndhra country. They note that the ancient Buddhist sites in the lower Kṛṣṇa Valley, including Amaravati, Nāgārjunakoṇḍā and Jaggayyapeṭa can be traced to at least the third century BCE, akira Hirakawa notes the evidence suggests that many Early Mahayana scriptures originated in South India
16.
Valagamba of Anuradhapura
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Valagamba, also known as Vattagamani Abhaya and Valagambahu, was a king of the Anuradhapura Kingdom of Sri Lanka. Five months after becoming king, he was overthrown by a rebellion and an invasion from South India and he is also known for the construction of the Abhayagiri Dagaba. Valagamba was the son of King Saddha Tissa, the brother of Dutthagamani. His three elder brothers Thulatthana, Lanja Tissa and Khallata Naga ruled the country before him, a general of the army named Kammaharattaka killed Khallatanaga, the last of them and seized power. Valagamba in turn killed Kammaharattaka and took the throne himself in 103 BCE and he kept Mahaculika, the son of Khallatanaga, as his own son, and took Anuladevi, Mahaculikas mother, as his queen. He also had another queen named Somadevi, five months after his coronation as king, a Brahmin in Rohana named Tissa rebelled against him. At the same time, an army from South India led by seven Tamil leaders landed in Mahatittha. Tissa and the seven Tamil leaders all sent messages to Valagamba, Valagamba informed the Brahmin Tissa that the kingdom will be his and told him to defeat the invading army. Accepting this, Tissa tried to fight but was defeated by the Tamils, after this, the seven Tamil leaders waged war against Valagamba, and defeated him after a battle at Kolambalaka. While the king was fleeing in a chariot, a nirgrantha (Jain named Giri shouted that the king was fleeing, Valagamba resolved to build a temple there, and later built the Abhayagiriya after he regained the throne. When the pursuers were gaining on them, Queen Somadevi got down from the chariot to lighten it and give the king a chance to escape, the Pathra Dathu was also taken to India. The five Dravidians namely Pulahatta, Bahiya, Panya Mara, Pilaya Mara, Valagamba fled to Malayarata for safety and a monk named Kuppikkala Mahatissa helped him while he was in hiding. The king organized an army in order to attack Anuradhapura. However, a rift between him and his ministers resulted in leaving him and thus weakening the army. However, the sangha brought about a reconciliation and Valagamba resumed his preparations for attacking Anuradhapura. In c.89 BCE, Valagamba regained the throne after defeating Dathika, the last of the invading Tamil leaders and he sent for Somadevi and restored her as queen, and built a temple named Somarama in her honour. The king built Abhayagiri Dagaba and a stupa, which has a height of about 70 metres, the Abhayagiri temple became one of the three main Buddhist institutions in the country. He converted the caves he was hiding in to a temple and this temple is known as the Dambulla Rock Temple
17.
Sangha
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Sangha is a word in Pali and Sanskrit meaning association, assembly, company or community and most commonly refers in Buddhism to the monastic community of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis. These communities are referred to as the bhikkhu-sangha or bhikkhuni-sangha. As a separate category, those who have attained any of the four stages of enlightenment, according to the Theravada school, the term sangha does not refer to the community of sāvakas nor the community of Buddhists as a whole. In a glossary of Buddhist terms, Richard Robinson et al. define Sangha as, the two meanings overlap but are not necessarily identical. Some members of the ideal Sangha are not ordained, some monastics have yet to acquire the Dharma-eye, the Sangha is the third of the Three Jewels in Buddhism. Due to the temptations and vicissitudes of life in the world, monastic life is considered to provide the safest and most suitable environment for advancing toward enlightenment, in Buddhism, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha each are described as having certain characteristics. These characteristics are chanted either on a daily basis and/or on Uposatha days, the Sangha also fulfils the function of preserving the Buddha’s original teachings and of providing spiritual support for the Buddhist lay-community. The Sangha has historically assumed responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the doctrine as well as the translation and propagation of the teachings of the Buddha. Between midday and the day, a strict life of scripture study, chanting, meditation. Transgression of rules carries penalties ranging from confession to permanent expulsion from the Sangha, saichō, the founder of the Japanese school of Tendai, decided to reduce the number of rules down to about 60 based on the Bodhisattva Precepts. The Order of Interbeing, established in 1964 and associated with the Plum Village movement, has fourteen precepts observed by all monastics and they were written by Thích Nhất Hạnh. In practice, they often have a few personal possessions. Traditionally, Buddhist monks, nuns, and novices eschew ordinary clothes, originally the robes were sewn together from rags and stained with earth or other available dyes. A Buddhist monk is a bhikkhu in Pali, Sanskrit bhikṣu while a nun is a bhikkhuni, Sanskrit bhikṣuṇī. An emphasis on working for food is attributed to additional training guidelines laid down by a Chan Buddhist master, Baizhang Huaihai, notably the phrase, the idea that all Buddhists, especially Sangha members, practice vegetarianism is a Western misperception. In the Pali Canon the Buddha rejected a suggestion by Devadatta to impose vegetarianism on the Sangha, according to the Pali Texts, the Buddha ate meat as long as the animal was not killed specifically for him. Consequently, the Theravada tradition does not practice vegetarianism, although an individual may do so as his or her personal choice. On this question Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions vary depending on their interpretation of their scriptures, in some Mahayana sutras, meat eating is strongly discouraged and it is stated that the Buddha did not eat meat
18.
Abhidharma
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Abhidharma or Abhidhamma are ancient Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist sutras, according to schematic classifications. The Abhidhamma works do not contain systematic philosophical treatises, but summaries or abstract, according to Collett Cox, Abhidhamma started as an elaboration of the teachings of the suttas, but later developed independent doctrines. The literal translation of the term Abhidharma is unclear, compared to the colloquial sutras, Abhidharma texts are much more technical, analytic and systematic in content and style. They held that Abhidharma was taught by the Buddha to his most eminent disciples, Some in the West have considered the Abhidhamma to be the core of what is referred to as Buddhist Psychology. Other writers on the such as Nyanaponika Thera and Dan Lusthaus describe Abhidhamma as a Buddhist Phenomenology while Noa Ronkin. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes that the system of the Abhidhamma Pitaka is simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology, Abhidharma analysis also extended into the fields of ontology, epistemology and metaphysics. The prominent Western scholar of Abhidharma, Erich Frauwallner has said that these Buddhist systems are among the achievements of the classical period of Indian philosophy. In the commentaries of Theravada Buddhism it was held that the Abhidhamma was not an addition to the tradition. Optimistic devas created a beautiful jeweled chamber after spent 3rd week dispelling mistrust and his mind and body were so purified that six-coloured rays came out of his body — blue, yellow, red, white, orange and a mixture of these five. The mixed color represented all these noble qualities, later, he traveled to the Trāyastriṃśa and taught the Abhidhamma to the divine beings that dwelled there, including his deceased mother Māyā, who had re-arisen as a celestial being. The tradition holds that the Buddha gave daily summaries of the teachings given in the realm to the bhikkhu Sariputta. The Abhidhamma is thus presented as a pure and undiluted form of the teaching that was too difficult for most practitioners of the Buddhas time to grasp. Thus, there is a similarity between the traditions of the Adhidhamma and that of the Mahayana, which claimed to be too difficult for the people living in the Buddhas time. The Sarvastivadin Vaibhasikas held that the Buddha and his disciples taught the Abhidharma, only after his death was the Abhidharma compiled systematically by his elder disciples and was recited by Ananda at the first Buddhist council. Scholars generally believe that the Abhidharma emerged after the time of the Buddha, therefore, the seven Abhidhamma works are generally claimed by scholars not to represent the words of the Buddha himself, but those of disciples and scholars. Factors contributing to its development could have been the growth of monastic centers, the support for the Buddhist sangha. As the last major division of the canon, the Abhidhamma works have had a checkered history and they were not accepted as canonical by the Mahasanghika school and several other schools. Another school included most of the Khuddaka Nikaya within the Abhidhamma Pitaka, also, the Pali version of the Abhidhamma is a strictly Theravada collection, and has little in common with the Abhidhamma works recognized by other Buddhist schools
19.
Palm-leaf manuscript
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Palm-leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in South Asia and in Southeast Asia dating back to the 5th century BCE and their use began in South Asia, and spread elsewhere, as texts on dried and smoke treated palm leaves of Borassus species or the Ola leaf. One of the oldest surviving palm leaf manuscript is a Sanskrit Shaivism text from the 9th-century, discovered in Nepal, palm leaf manuscripts were written in ink on rectangular cut and cured palm leaf sheet. Each sheet typically had a hole through which a string could pass through, a palm leaf text thus created would typically last between a few decades and about 600 years before it decayed due to dampness, insect activity, mold and fragility. Thus the document had to be copied onto new sets of dried palm leaves, the oldest surviving palm leaf Indian manuscripts have been found in colder, drier climates such as in parts of Nepal, Tibet and central Asia, the source of 1st-millennium CE manuscripts. The individual sheets of palm leaves were called Patra or Parna in Sanskrit, the famous 5th-century CE Indian manuscript called the Bower Manuscript discovered in Chinese Turkestan, was written on birch-bark sheets shaped in the form of treated palm leaves. Hindu temples often served as centers where ancient manuscripts were used for learning. Archaeological and epigraphical evidence indicates existence of libraries called Sarasvati-bhandara, dated possibly to early 12th-century and employing librarians, palm leaf manuscripts were also preserved inside Jain temples and in Buddhist monasteries. With the spread of Indian culture to Southeast Asian countries like as Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines, one of the oldest surviving Sanskrit manuscripts on palm leaves is of the Parameshvaratantra, a Shaiva Siddhanta text of Hinduism. It is from the 9th-century, and dated to about 828 CE, the discovered palm-leaf collection also includes a few parts of another text, the Jñānārṇavamahātantra and currently held by the University of Cambridge. With the introduction of printing presses in the early 19th century, many governments are making efforts to preserve what is left of their palm leaf documents. Palm leaf manuscripts of Odisha include scriptures, pictures of Devadasi, some of the early discoveries of Odia palm leaf manuscripts include writings like Smaradipika, Ratimanjari, Pancasayaka and Anangaranga in both Odia and Sanskrit. State Museum of Odisha at Bhubaneswar houses 40,000 palm leaf manuscripts. Most of them are written in the Odia script, the oldest manuscript here belongs to the 14th century but the text can be dated to the 2nd century. In 1997 The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation recognised the Tamil Medical Manuscript Collection as part of the Memory of the World Register. A very good example of usage of palm leaf manuscripts to store the history is a Tamil grammar book named Tolkāppiyam which was written around 3rd century BCE. A global digitalization project led by the Tamil Heritage Foundation collects, in Indonesia the palm-leaf manuscript is called lontar. The Indonesian word is the form of Old Javanese rontal. It is composed of two Old Javanese words, namely ron leaf and tal Borassus flabellifer, palmyra palm, due to the shape of the palmyra palms leaves, which are spread like a fan, these trees are also known as fan trees
20.
Buton Rinchen Drub
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Butön Rinchen Drup, 11th Abbot of Shalu Monastery, was a fourteenth-century Sakya master and Tibetan Buddhist leader. Shalu was the first of the monasteries to be built by noble families of the Tsang dynasty during Tibets great revival of Buddhism. Butön was not merely a capable administrator but he is remembered to this day as a prodigious scholar. Buton was born in 1290, to an associated with a monastery named Sheme Gomne in the Tropu area of Tsang. Father was a prominent Nyingma Lama named Drakton Gyeltsen Pelzang and his mother, also a Nyingma master, was called Sonam Bum. Buton catalogued all of the Buddhist scriptures at Shalu, some 4,569 religious and philosophical works and formatted them in a logical and he wrote the famous book, the History of Buddhism in India and Tibet at Shalu which many Tibetan scholars utilize in their study today. After his death he strongly influenced the development of esoteric studies, the purpose of his works were not to cultivate paranormal magical abilities but to attain philosophical enlightenment, a belief that all earthly phenonoma are a state of the mind. Zhentong Drakpa Gyaltsen Tulku Dragpa Gyaltsen Chandra, Lokesh ed, the Collected Works of Bu-ston 26v. New Delhi, International Academy of Indian Culture,1971, Rinchen Namgyal, Dratshdpa, Van Der Bogaert, Hans A Handful of Flowers, A Brief Biography of Buton Rinchen Drub. Dharamsala, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives,1996, the life of Bu ston Rin po che, With the Tibetan text of the Bu ston rNam thar, Serie orientale Roma XXXIV. Roma, Instituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente,1966, “A letter to the editors of the Buddhist canon in fourteenth-century Tibet, the yig mkhan rnams la gdams pa of Bu ston Rin chen grub. The Treasury of Lives, Biographies of Himalayan Religious Masters
21.
Arhat
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Theravada Buddhism defines arhat or arahant as one who is worthy or as a perfected person having attained nirvana. Other Buddhist traditions have used the term for people far advanced along the path of Enlightenment, the understanding of the concept has changed over the centuries, and varies between different schools of Buddhism and different regions. A range of views on the attainment of arhats existed in the early Buddhist schools, the Sarvāstivāda, Kāśyapīya, Mahāsāṃghika, Ekavyāvahārika, Lokottaravāda, Bahuśrutīya, Prajñaptivāda, and Caitika schools all regarded arhats as imperfect in their attainments compared to buddhas. Mahayana Buddhist teachings urge followers to take up the path of a bodhisattva, the arhats, or at least the senior arhats, came to be widely regarded as moving beyond the state of personal freedom to join the Bodhisattva enterprise in their own way. They can be seen as the Buddhist equivalents of the Christian saints, apostles or early disciples and leaders of the faith. The Sanskrit word arhat is a present participle coming from the verbal root √arh to deserve, cf. arha meriting, deserving, arhaṇa having a claim, being entitled, the word is used in the Ṛgveda with this sense of deserving. A common folk etymology derives the word from ari and hanta from the root √han to strike, to kill, professor Richard Gombrich has argued that the present participle is jarring and seems out of place when there is an adjective from the same root. Since Jains used two Prakrit forms of the word arahanta and arihanta, the etymology may well be the correct etymology. Gombrich argues that this stems from the metaphor as the Jain title jina conqueror, whence jaina related to the conqueror. The term arhat is often translated into English as arahat, the term arhat was translated into some East Asian languages phonetically as a transliterated term, exemplified in the Chinese āluóhàn, often shortened to simply luóhàn. This may appear in English as luohan or lohan, in Japanese the pronunciation of the same Chinese characters is rakan or arakan. The Tibetan term for arhat was translated by meaning from Sanskrit and this translation, dgra bcom pa, means one who has destroyed the foes of afflictions. Thus the Tibetan translators also understood the meaning of arhat to be ari-hanta, a range of views on the attainment of arhats existed in the early Buddhist schools. The Dharmaguptaka sect believed that the Buddha and those of the Two Vehicles, although they have one, the Mahīśāsaka and the Theravada regarded arhats and buddhas as being similar to one another. The 5th century Theravadin commentator Buddhaghosa regarded arhats as having completed the path to enlightenment, according to Bhikkhu Bodhi, the Pāli Canon portrays the Buddha declaring himself to be an arahant. The Mahayana discerned a hierarchy of attainments, with samyaksambuddhas at the top, mahāsattvas below that, pratyekabuddhas below that, but what was it that distinguished the bodhisattva from the sravaka, and ultimately the buddha from the arhat. The difference lay, more than anywhere else, in the orientation of the bodhisattva. In pre-Buddhist India, the arhat, denoting a saintly person in general, was closely associated with miraculous power
22.
Tripitaka Koreana
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The Tripitaka Koreana or Palman Daejanggyeong is a Korean collection of the Tripitaka, carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks in the 13th century. Each wood block measures 24 centimeters in height and 70 centimeters in length, the thickness of the blocks ranges from 2.6 to 4 centimeters and each weighs about three to four kilograms. The woodblocks are almost as tall as Mount Baekdu at 2.74 km when stacked, measure 60 km long when lined up, the woodblocks are in pristine condition without warping or deformation despite being created more than 750 years ago. The Tripitaka Koreana is stored in Haeinsa, a Buddhist temple in South Gyeongsang province, there is a movement by scholars to change the English name of the Tripitaka Koreana. The Tripitaka Koreana was designated a National Treasure of South Korea in 1962, the name Goryeo Tripitaka comes from Goryeo, the name of Korea from the 10th to the 14th centuries. Work on the first Tripitaka Koreana began in 1011 during the Goryeo–Khitan War and was completed in 1087, the act of carving the woodblocks was considered to be a way of bringing about a change in fortune by invoking the Buddhas help. The first Tripitaka Koreana contained around 6,000 volumes and this second version is usually what is meant by the Tripitaka Koreana. In 1398, it was moved to Haeinsa, where it has remained housed in four buildings, the production of the Tripitaka Koreana was an enormous national commitment of money and manpower, according to Robert Buswell, perhaps comparable to the US missions to the Moon in the 1960s. Thousands of scholars and craftsmen were employed in this massive project, the Tripitaka Koreana is the 32nd national treasure of Korea, and the Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon, the depository for the Tripitaka Koreana, has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The UNESCO committee describes the Tripitaka Koreana as one of the most important, not only is the work invaluable, it is also aesthetically valuable and shows a high quality of workmanship. The historical value of the Tripitaka Koreana comes from the fact that it is the most complete and accurate extant collection of Buddhist treatises, laws, and scriptures. The compilers of the Korean version incorporated older Northern Song Chinese, Khitan, and Goryeo versions, scholars can get an idea of the older Chinese and Khitan versions of the Tripitaka from the Korean version today. The quality of the blocks are attributed to the National Preceptor Sugi, the Buddhist monk in charge of the project. Because of the accuracy of the Tripitaka Koreana, the Japanese, Chinese, the Tripitaka Koreana was one of the most coveted items among Japanese Buddhists in the Edo period. Japan never managed to create a woodblock Tripitaka, and made constant requests and attempts to acquire the Tripitaka Koreana from Korea since 1388,45 complete printings of the Tripitaka Koreana were gifted to Japan since the Muromachi period. The Tripitaka Koreana was used as the basis for the modern Japanese Taishō Tripiṭaka, each block was made of birch wood from the southern islands of Korea and treated to prevent the decay of the wood. The blocks were soaked in sea water for three years, then cut and then boiled in salt water, next, the blocks were placed in the shade and exposed to the wind for three years, at which point they were finally ready to be carved. After each block was carved, it was covered in a lacquer to keep insects away
23.
Haeinsa
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Haeinsa is a head temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism in the Gaya Mountains, South Gyeongsang Province South Korea. Haeinsa is most notable for being the home of the Tripitaka Koreana, the whole of the Buddhist Scriptures carved onto 81,350 wooden printing blocks, Haeinsa is one of the Three Jewel Temples of Korea, and represents Dharma or the Buddha’s teachings. It is still an active Seon practice center in modern times, and was the temple of the influential Rev. Seongcheol. The temple was first built in 802, legend says that two Korean monks returned from China, Suneung and Ijeong, and healed King Aejangs wife of her illness. In gratitude of the Buddhas mercy, the king ordered the construction of the temple, the temple complex was renovated in the 10th century,1488,1622, and 1644. Huirang, the temple abbot enjoyed the patronage of Taejo of Goryeo during that king’s reign, Haeinsa was burned down in a fire in 1817 and was rebuilt in 1818. Another renovation in 1964 uncovered a royal robe of King Gwanghaegun, who was responsible for the 1622 renovation, the main hall, Daejeokkwangjeon, is unusual because it is dedicated to Vairocana where most other Korean temples house Shakyamuni in their main halls. The Temple of Haeinsa and the Depositories for the Tripitaka Koreana Woodblocks, were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995, the temple also holds several official treasures including a realistic wooden carving of a monk and interesting Buddhist paintings, stone pagodas, and lanterns. After independence, when the Korean War broke out, Haeinsa encountered a crisis, UN forces were ordered to bomb Haeinsa with four bombers. However, at that time Kim Young Hwan, Leader of Air Force pilots worried about the loss of Haeinsa Tripitaka Koreana, due to his lack of action, Haeinsa weathered the crisis and did not experience the bombing. Haeinsa gongdeokbi honors him with the grounds of Haeinsa. They are some of the largest wooden storage facilities in the world, remarkably, the halls were untouched during the Japanese invasion of Korea and were spared from the 1818 fire that burned most of the temple complex down. All told, the halls have survived seven serious fires. Janggyeong Panjeon complex is the oldest part of the temple and houses the 81,258 wooden printing blocks from the Tripitaka Koreana. Although the exact date of the hall that houses the Tripitaka Koreana is uncertain. The complex is made up of four arranged in a rectangle. The northern hall is called Beopbojeon and the hall is called Sudarajang. These two main halls are 60.44 meters in length,8.73 meters in width, both have fifteen rooms with two adjoining rooms
24.
Hapcheon County
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Hapcheon County is a county in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. Famous people born in the county include former South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan, located in northwestern Gyeongsangnam-do, the county is surrounded by Changnyeong as well as Euiryeong to the Southeast, Geochang as well as Sancheong-gun to the West. High and precipitous hills are situated and the eastern part is flatter by the flowing streams of the Nakdong River. Haeinsa is a temple located in Hapcheon county. Mt. Namsan Jeilbong is known for its trails. Its address is Chiin-li, Gaya-myun, Hapcheon, Gyeongnam, paprika is a popular agriculture good cultivated on the highlands of Mt. Gaya during the summer season. It is hence called Gaya paprika and this paprika is often exported to Japan. Hapcheon has its own spectacular places distinctively different from other regions, one of the best is the Imagination theme park which is however. In the park, people can play a game under an imaginative war state. Hapcheon lake is also a tourist spot bordering Sancheong county and it is an artificial lake generated by the comprehensive development plan of Nakdong River in 1988. It also meets Hwangmae mountain which is possible to climb and from the peak, paragliding is also possible in Hapcheon, however it should be noted that there were people killed during the county paragliding championship in 2007. As Hapcheon-gun is landlocked, the climate is quite extreme, average annual temperature is 13. 0°C with the lowest temperature of -16. 9°C and the highest of 39. 2°C. The rainfall is approximately 1275. 6mm which is low compared to other Korean regions. The rainfall is heaviest in the summer, bergen County, New Jersey, United States Mitoyo, Kagawa, Japan Jangsu, North Jeolla, South Korea Xinchang, China Geography of South Korea Haeinsa County government website
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Vinaya
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The Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the sangha or monastic community of Buddhism based on the canonical texts called the Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Gautama Buddha can be divided into two categories, Dharma doctrine and Vinaya discipline. Extant vinaya texts include those of the Theravada, the Kāśyapīya, the Mahāsāṃghika, the Mahīśāsaka, the Dharmaguptaka, the Sarvāstivāda, at the heart of the Vinaya is a set of rules known as Patimokkha in Pāli and Prātimokṣa in Sanskrit. The Vinaya was orally passed down from the Buddha to his disciples, eventually, numerous different Vinayas arose in Buddhism, based upon geographical or cultural differences and the different schools of Buddhism that developed. Three of these are still in use, Theravadin, Mulasarvastivadin and Dharmaguptakin, the Vinayas are the same in substance and have only minor differences. The Prātimokṣa is traditionally a section of the Vinaya, the Theravada Vinaya is preserved in the Pāli Canon in the Vinaya Piṭaka. The Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya is preserved in both the Tibetan Buddhist canon in the Kangyur, in a Chinese edition, and in an incomplete Sanskrit manuscript. As the nuns died out in all areas of the Theravada school, traditionally womens roles as renunciates were limited to taking eight or ten Precepts. Such women appears as maechi in Thai Buddhism, dasa sil mata in Sri Lanka, thilashin in Burma, some schools in Japan technically follow this, but many monks there are married, which can be considered a violation of the rules. Other Japanese monks follow the Bodhisattva Precepts only, which was excerpted from the Mahāyāna version of Brahmajālasutra, and the Bodhisattva Precepts contains two parts of precepts, for lay and clergy. According to Chinese Buddhist tradition, one who wants to observe the Bodhisattva Precepts for clergy, must observe the Ten Precepts and High Ordination first. Tibetan Buddhists in Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, Nepal, Ladakh and other follow the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya. In addition to these rules, there are many supplementary ones. The Buddha constantly reminds his hearers that it is the spirit of the rules that counts, on the other hand, the rules themselves are designed to assure a satisfying life, and provide a perfect springboard for the higher attainments. Monastics are instructed by the Buddha to live as islands unto themselves, in this sense, living life as the vinaya prescribes it is, as one scholar puts it, more than merely a means to an end, it is very nearly the end in itself. Surrounding the rules is a range of texts, some of these explain the origins of the rules - it is possible to trace the development of the rules from responses to specific situations or actions to a general codification. There are also a number of texts that are more general statements about Buddhist doctrine, or that give biographical details of some of the great disciples. Other sections detail how the rules are to be applied, how breaches are to be dealt with and it is thought that originally there were no rules and the Buddha and his disciples just lived in harmony when they were together
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Buddhism
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Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas 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. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
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Dharmachakra
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The dharmachakra is one of the Ashtamangala of Indian religions such as Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. It has represented the Buddhist dharma, Gautama Buddhas teaching of the path to Nirvana and it is also connected to the Noble Eightfold Path. The Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, which has a meaning of to hold, maintain, keep, and takes a meaning of what is established or firm, and hence law. It is derived from the Vedic Sanskrit n-stem dharman- with the bearer, supporter in the historical Vedic religion conceived of as an aspect of Ṛta. The wheel is also the main attribute of Vishnu, the Vedic god of preservation, madhavan and Parpola note Chakra sign appears frequently in Indus Valley civilization inscriptions, on several seals. Notably, a sequence of four signs on the Dholavira signboard, common Dharmachakra symbols consist of either 8 or 24 spokes. Unicode Symbol, ☸ According to the Puranas of Hinduism, only 24 Rishis or Sages managed the power of the Gayatri Mantra. The 24 letters of the Gayatri Mantra depict those 24 Rishis and this is a quote from the Mundaka Upanishad, the concluding part of the sacred Hindu Vedas. The one who does not follow the wheel thus revolving, leads a sinful, vain life, the Dharmachakra is one of the ashtamangala of Buddhism. It is one of the oldest known Buddhist symbols found in Indian art, the Buddha is said to have set the dhammacakka in motion when he delivered his first sermon, which is described in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. The wheel itself depicts ideas about the cycle of saṃsāra and furthermore the Noble Eightfold Path, Buddhism adopted the wheel as the main symbol of the chakravartin wheel-turner, the ideal king or universal monarch, symbolising the ability to cut through all obstacles and illusions. According to Harrison, the symbolism of the wheel of the law, the image, having been found in antiquity is referred to as Rimbo is an accepted symbol used in Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, along with the Swastika. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, first Vice President of India has stated that the Ashoka Chakra of India represents the Dharmachakra, in Jainism, the Dharmachakra is worshipped as a symbol of the dharma. Other cakras appear in other Indian traditions, e. g. Vishnus Sudarśanacakra, the former Flag of Sikkim featured a version of the dharmachakra. Thai people also use a flag with a red dhammacakka as their Buddhist flag. The emblem of Mongolia includes a dharmachakra together with some other Buddhist attributes such as the padma, cintamani, a blue khata, the dharmachakra is also the insignia for Buddhist chaplains in the United States Armed Forces. In non-Buddhist cultural contexts, an eight-spoked dharmachakra resembles a traditional ships wheel, as a nautical emblem, this image is a common sailor tattoo. In the Unicode computer standard, the dharmachakra is called the Wheel of Dharma, Buddhism for the West, Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, a comprehensive review of Buddhist history, philosophy, and teachings from the time of the Buddha to the present day
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History of Buddhism
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This makes it one of the oldest religions practiced today. The religion evolved as it spread from the region of the Indian subcontinent through Central, East. At one time or another, it influenced most of the Asian continent, siddhārtha Gautama was the historical founder of Buddhism. He was born a Kshatriya warrior prince in Lumbini, Shakya Republic, the dates of his birth and death are still a point of controversy but most scholars suggested that the Buddha died within approximately a few decades on either side of 400 B. C. His particular family of Sakya Kshatriyas may have made claims of belonging to a Brahmin lineage, as indicated by the family name Gautama, 19th-century scholars, such as Eitel, connected it to the Brahmin Rishi Gautama. While some Buddhist texts, use the epthet, Angirasa, which refers to the Brahmin Sage Angirasa, siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment sitting under a peepal tree, now known as the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India. Gautama, from then on, was known as The Enlightened One, Buddha found patronage in the ruler of Magadha, emperor Bimbisāra. The emperor accepted Buddhism as his faith and allowed the establishment of many Buddhist vihāras. This eventually led to the renaming of the region as Bihār. At the Deer Park near Vārāṇasī in northern India, Buddha set in motion Wheel of Dharma by delivering his first sermon to a group of five companions with whom he had previously sought enlightenment. Together with the Buddha they formed the first Saṅgha According to the scriptures, later, after an initial reluctance, fully ordained Buddhist nuns are called bhikkhunis. Mahapajapati Gotami, the aunt and foster mother of Buddha, was the first bhikkhuni, for the remaining years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain of Northeastern India and other regions. Buddha attained parinirvāṇa in the jungles of Kuśināra. Just before Buddha died, he told his followers that thereafter the Dharma would be their leader. The early arhants considered Gautamas words the source of Dharma and Vinaya. Nonetheless, no ungarnished collection of his sayings has survived, the versions of the canon preserved in Pāli, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan are sectarian variants of a corpus that grew and crystallized during three centuries of oral transmission. Early Buddhism remained centered on the Ganges valley, spreading gradually from its ancient heartland, the canonical sources record two councils, where the monastic Sangha established the textual collections based on the Buddhas teachings and settled certain disciplinary problems within the community. The objective of the council was to all of Buddhas teachings into the doctrinal teachings and Abhidhamma
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Gautama Buddha
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Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha, or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was an ascetic and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the part of ancient India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region and he later taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala. Gautama is the figure in Buddhism. He is recognized by Buddhists as a teacher who attained full Buddhahood. Accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death, 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 facts of the Buddhas life. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddhas lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential schools of thought like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism. Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought, thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time. The times of Gautamas birth and death are uncertain, most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet accepted by all historians. It was either a republic, or an oligarchy, and his father was an elected chieftain. He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, no written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, 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 and they are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE. The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different and these include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, a poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE, the Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE
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Dharma
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Dharma is a key concept with multiple meanings in the Indian religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. There is no single word translation for dharma in western languages, in Buddhism dharma means cosmic law and order, but is also applied to the teachings of the Buddha. In Buddhist philosophy, dhamma/dharma is also the term for phenomena, Dharma in Jainism refers to the teachings of tirthankara and the body of doctrine pertaining to the purification and moral transformation of human beings. For Sikhs, the word means the path of righteousness. The Classical Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, the word dharma was already in use in the historical Vedic religion, and its meaning and conceptual scope has evolved over several millennia. The antonym of dharma is adharma, the Classical Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, which means to hold, maintain, keep, and takes a meaning of what is established or firm, and hence law. It is derived from an older Vedic Sanskrit n-stem dharman-, with a meaning of bearer, supporter. In the Rigveda, the word appears as an n-stem, dhárman-, figuratively, it means sustainer and supporter. It is semantically similar to the Greek Ethos, in Classical Sanskrit, the noun becomes thematic, dharma-. The word dharma derives from Proto-Indo-European root *dʰer-, which in Sanskrit is reflected as class-1 root √dhṛ, etymologically it is related to Avestan √dar-, Latin firmus, Lithuanian derė́ti, Lithuanian dermė and darna and Old Church Slavonic drъžati. Classical Sanskrit word dharmas would formally match with Latin o-stem firmus from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer-mo-s holding, were it not for its development from earlier Rigvedic n-stem. In Classical Sanskrit, and in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Atharvaveda, in Pāli, it is rendered dhamma. In some contemporary Indian languages and dialects it occurs as dharm. Dharma is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion and it has multiple meanings in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is difficult to provide a concise definition for dharma, as the word has a long and varied history and straddles a complex set of meanings. There is no equivalent single word translation for dharma in western languages, there have been numerous, conflicting attempts to translate ancient Sanskrit literature with the word dharma into German, English and French. The concept, claims Paul Horsch, has caused difficulties for modern commentators and translators. Dharma root is dhri, which means ‘to support, hold and it is the thing that regulates the course of change by not participating in change, but that principle which remains constant
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Four Noble Truths
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The Four Noble Truths are the truths of the Noble Ones, the truths or realities which are understood by the worthy ones who have attained Nirvana. The truths are dukkha, the arising of dukkha, the cessation of dukkha, the four truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in samsara, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha. But there is a way to real happiness and to end this cycle. The meaning of the truths is as follows, Dukkha, incapable of satisfying, Life in this mundane world, with its craving and clinging to impermanent states and things, is dukkha, unsatisfactory and painful, Samudaya, the origination or arising of dukkha. Dukkha, and repeated life in this world, arises with taṇhā, thirst, craving for and clinging to impermanent states. This craving and clinging produces karma which leads to renewed becoming, keeping us trapped in rebirth and renewed dissatisfaction, Nirodha, the four truths provide a conceptual framework for introducing and explaining Buddhist thought, which has to be personally understood or experienced. The formulation of the four truths, and their importance, developed over time, in the sutras, the four truths have both a symbolic and a propositional function. They represent the awakening and liberation of the Buddha, but also the possibility of liberation for all sentient beings, the four truths are of central importance in the Theravada tradition, which holds to the idea that insight into the four truths is liberating in itself. They are less prominent in the Mahayana traditions, which emphasize insight into sunyata, the four truths are best known from their presentation in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which contains two sets of the four truths, while various other sets can be found in the Pali Canon. According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha first taught the four noble truths in the very first teaching he gave after attaining enlightenment, as recorded in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. According to Norman, the Pali canon contains various shortened forms of the four truths, the mnemonic set, the earliest form of the mnemonic set was dukkham samudayo nirodho magga, without the reference to sacca or arya, which were later added to the formula. This full set contains grammatical errors, but were considered correct by the Pali tradition, as opposite to sukha, pleasure, it is better translated as pain. S. Cousins notes that the four truths are not restricted to the form where dukkha is the subject. Other forms take the world, the arising of the world or the āsavas, according to Cousins, the well-known form is simply shorthand for all of the forms. The world refers to the saṅkhāras, that is, all compounded things, the Pali terms ariya sacca are commonly translated as noble truths. This translation is a convention started by the earliest translators of Buddhist texts into English, Norman, this is just one of several possible translations. According to Paul Williams, here is no reason why the Pali expression ariyasaccani should be translated as noble truths
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Impermanence
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Impermanence, also called Anicca or Anitya, is one of the essential doctrines and a part of three marks of existence in Buddhism. The doctrine asserts that all of conditioned existence, without exception, is transient, evanescent, inconstant, all temporal things, whether material or mental, are compounded objects in a continuous change of condition, subject to decline and destruction. The concept of impermanence is also found in schools of Hinduism and Jainism. Anicca or impermanence is understood in Buddhism as the first of three marks of existence, the two being dukkha and anatta. All physical and mental events, states Buddhism, come into being, human life embodies this flux in the aging process, the cycle of repeated birth and death, nothing lasts, and everything decays. This is applicable to all beings and their environs, including beings who have reincarnated in deva and this is in contrast to nirvana, the reality that is Nicca, or knows no change, decay or death. Impermanence is intimately associated with the doctrine of anatta, according to which things have no essence, permanent self, the Buddha taught that because no physical or mental object is permanent, desires for or attachments to either causes suffering. Understanding Anicca and Anatta are steps in the Buddhist’s spiritual progress toward enlightenment, the Pali word anicca is a compound word consisting of a meaning non-, and nicca meaning constant, continuous, permanent. While the word Nicca refers to the concept of continuity and permanence, Anicca refers to its exact opposite, the term appears in the Rigveda, and is synonymous with Anitya. The term appears extensively in the Pali canon, Impermanence is one of trilakshana of existence. Everything, whether physical or mental, is a formation, has a dependent origination and is impermanent and this impermanence is a source of Dukkha. This is in contrast to nirvana, the reality that is Nicca, or knows no change, decay or death. The term Anitya, in the sense of impermanence of objects and life, appears in verse 1.2.10 of the Katha Upanishad, one of the Principal Upanishads of Hinduism. It asserts that everything in the world is impermanent, but impermanent nature of things is an opportunity to obtain what is permanent as the Hindu scripture presents its doctrine about Atman, the term Anitya also appears in the Bhagavad Gita in a similar context. Even in the details of their respective impermanence theories, state Frank Hoffman and Deegalle Mahinda, Buddhist, the Nicca in Buddhism is anatta, the Nitya in Hinduism is atman. The five aggregates, monks, are anicca, impermanent, and what is the all that is impermanent. The eye is impermanent, visual objects, whatever is felt as pleasant or unpleasant or neither-unpleasant-nor-pleasant, born of eye-contact is impermanent. All formations are impermanent Akio Jissojis Buddhist auteur film Mujo owes its title to the doctrine of Impermanence
