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Walking on foot brings you down to the very stark, naked core of existence. We travel too much in airplanes and cars. It’s an existential quality that we are losing. It’s almost like a credo of religion that we should walk.
There is, of course, something inherently romantic—if not heroic—about the extreme solitary explorer enveloped by nature. The very image of Herzog on foot recalls the iconic 19th-century paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, especially his Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, with its lone figure staring out at the wide vista above the clouds.
'Truth itself wanders through the forests,' Herzog writes near the end. Yet here he embroiders his memories for effect: The vast swath of geography between Munich and Paris is littered with industrial towns and cities.
Once he comes out on the other end, traversing the deforested Champs-Élysées (“We were close to what they call the breath of danger”), Herzog emerges victorious.
― Of Walking in Ice: (Munich-Paris, 23 November–14 December 1974)
by Werner Herzog
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_tomb#Resolving_differences
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archangel
en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_-_unknown_dr...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgyny
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 12.2.1
PURPORT
Satyam, truthfulness, is also diminishing, simply because people do not know what the truth is. Without knowing the Absolute Truth, one cannot clearly understand the real significance or purpose of life merely by amassing huge quantities of relative or hypothetical truths.
Kṣamā, tolerance or forgiveness, is diminishing as well, because there is no practical method by which people can purify themselves and thus become free of envy. Unless one is purified by chanting the holy names of the Lord in an authorized program of spiritual improvement, the mind will be overwhelmed by anger, envy and all sorts of small-mindedness. Thus dayā, mercy, is also decreasing. All living beings are eternally connected by their common participation in the divine existence of God. When this existential oneness is obscured through atheism and agnosticism, people are not inclined to be merciful to one another; they cannot recognize their self-interest in promoting the welfare of other living beings.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_cosmology
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Gu%C3%A9non#Hindu_doctrin...
famousdiamonds.tripod.com/taylor-burtondiamond5.jpg
Kali-yuga is sometimes thought to last 432,000 years, although other durations have been proposed. Kali-yuga began at midnight on 14 January 3102 B.C.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga
topdocumentaryfilms.com/art-deception/
In Kali-yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a man's good birth, proper behavior and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only on the basis of one's power.
Men and women will live together merely because of superficial attraction, and success in business will depend on deceit.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvFl4eaK0N0
picasaweb.google.com/100215145079270544507/GoldenCalfLuxu...
Womanliness and manliness will be judged according to one's expertise in sex, and a man will be known as a brāhmaṇa just by his wearing a thread.
A person's spiritual position will be ascertained merely according to external symbols, and on that same basis people will change from one spiritual order to the next. A person's propriety will be seriously questioned if he does not earn a good living. And one who is very clever at juggling words will be considered a learned scholar.
www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&tas...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology
A person will be judged unholy if he does not have money, and hypocrisy will be accepted as virtue. Marriage will be arranged simply by verbal agreement, and a person will think he is fit to appear in public if he has merely taken a bath.
A sacred place will be taken to consist of no more than a reservoir of water located at a distance, and beauty will be thought to depend on one's hairstyle. Filling the belly will become the goal of life, and one who is audacious will be accepted as truthful.
He who can maintain a family will be regarded as an expert man, and the principles of religion will be observed only for the sake of reputation.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPARaL3F498
As the earth thus becomes crowded with a corrupt population, whoever among any of the social classes shows himself to be the strongest will gain political power.
According to the Vedic scriptures, our current age, known as Kali-yuga, is one of spiritual darkness, violence and hypocrisy.
Humans begin to kill animals for food. They fall under the spell of intoxication. They lose all sexual restraint. Families break up. Women and children are abused and abandoned. Increasingly degraded generations, conceived accidentally in lust and growing up wild, swarm all over the world. Political leadership falls into the hands of unprincipled rogues, criminals and terrorists, who use their power to exploit the people. Entire populations are enslaved and put to death. The world teems with fanatics, extremists and spiritual artists, who win huge followings among a people completely dazed by hedonism, as well as by cultural and moral relativism. "Religion, truthfulness, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, physical strength and memory diminish with each passing day." (Srimad-Bhagavatam 12.2.1)
The Linga Purana (ch. 40) describes the human race in Kali-yuga as a vain and stupid people "spurred on by the lowest instincts." They prefer false ideas and do not hesitate to persecute sages. They are tormented by bodily desires.
The new leaders emerge from the laborer class and begin to persecute religious people, saints, teachers, intellectuals, and philosophers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita_trial_in_Russia
Civilization lacks any kind of divine guidance. The sacred books are no longer revered. False doctrines and misleading religions spread across the globe. Children are killed in the wombs of their mothers. Women who have relations with several men are numerous. Predatory animals are more violent. The number of cows diminishes.
The men of Kali-yuga seek only money. Only the richest have power. People without money are their slaves. The leaders of the state no longer protect the people, but plunder the citizenry through excessive taxation. Farmers abandon living close to nature. They become unskilled laborers in congested cities.
Many dress in rags, or are unemployed, and sleep on the streets.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope
Through the fault of the government, infant mortality rates are high. False gods are worshiped in false ashrams, in which pilgrimages, penances, charities and austerities are all concocted.
picasaweb.google.com/100215145079270544507/ByeByeTheCross...
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pit.dirty.ru/dirty/1/2012/08/21/34892-173541-5f2f3ee5103e...
In the Kali Yuga, food will lose its savor, women will become as men, love will be confused for desire and time will appear to speed up.
In the Kali age every one who has cars and elephants and steeds will be a Raja, and every one who is feeble will be a slave. Farming men will abandon agriculture and commerce, and gain a livelihood by servitude or the exercise of mechanical arts. Then will the clouds yield scanty rain: then will the corn be light in ear, and the grain will be poor, and of little sap: garments will be mostly made of the dying fibres and milk will come mostly from goats.
In the Kali Yuga every text will be scripture that people choose to think so and humans will be haunted on both sides - by the fist of despotic ideas and the rising ocean of ignorance. Endowed with little sense, men, subject to all the infirmities of mind, speech, and body, will daily make dreadful errors; and every thing that is calculated to afflict beings, vicious, impure, and wretched, will be generated in the Kali age until men and women will become as lizards are, skuttling and watchful for weakness, or as hunted birds, white and ever blinking. The world will become a hive, fuelled by nighmares.
But for the children and the insane there will be freedom, and those that learn the madness of play, at the end of time, will take their game to the Satya Yuga.
And those who love freedom will be amazed at how awake they can be.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_of_the_Temple
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectuals_and_Society
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatekeeper
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-establishment
However, by operating through the arts and media, the line between politics and culture is blurred, so that pigeonholing figures such as Banksy as either anti-establishment or counter-culture figures can be difficult. The tabloid newspapers such as The Sun, are less subtle, and commonly report on the sex-lives of the Royals simply because it sells papers, but in the process have been described as having anti-establishment views that have weakened traditional institutions. On the other hand, as time passes, anti-establishment figures sometimes end up becoming part of the Establishment, as Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones frontman, became a Knight in 2003, or when The Who frontman Roger Daltrey was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 in recognition of both his music and his work for charity.
Individuals who were anti-establishment often spoke of "fighting the man", "selling out to the Establishment", and "tearing down the Establishment." Many historical figures and groups innovated great changes to society by standing up to "the Establishment", including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. especially in 1968, Malcolm X, Malvina Reynolds, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Public Enemy, K-Rino, Immortal Technique, Anti-Flag, Rage Against the Machine, Terminator X, Gil-Scott Heron, dead prez, and Lupe Fiasco among others.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettrism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Lettrist
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterist_International
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationism_%28disambiguation%29
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Yuga
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operacija_Milosrdni_an%C4%91eo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_from_Kremna
Future Events
"Here in Kremna many a field will become a meadow, and many a home will be abandoned, but then those who have left will come back to heal themselves by breathing fresh air. In Serbia it will not be possible to distinguish a man from a woman. Everybody will dress the same. This calamity will come to us from abroad but it will stay with us the longest. A groom will take a bride, but nobody will know who is who. People will be lost and more and more senseless day by day. Men will be born not knowing who was their grandfather and great-grandfather. People will think that they know everything, but not a thing they will know.
The Serbs will separate from each other, and they will say, "I am not a Serb; I am not a Serb." The unholy one will infiltrate this nation and bed with Serbian sisters, mothers and wives. He will sire such children that among the Serbs, since the beginning of the world, these will be the worst of offspring. Only weaklings will be born, and nobody will be strong enough to give a birth to a real hero.
At one time we shall disappear from this land of ours. We shall go to the north, and then realizing our stupid deed we shall return. When we come back, we shall wise up and chase away the unholy one, not to see him, in God's name, ever again."
Drilling in the Earth
"People will drill wells in the ground and pump some kind of gold, which will produce light, speed, and power. The Earth will weep because of that. Man will not know that more energy and light exists on the surface of the Earth. Only after many years, people will discover this, and they were fools to be drilling holes in the ground."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_%28archangel%29
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Niu_IAPuyyo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalachakra#Controversy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims_in_Burma
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Homeward,_Angel
Look At Your Home, Angel
lyricstranslate.com/en/pogledaj-dom-svoj-andjele-look-you...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUaXdDesHvg&feature=player_em...
Look at your home, angel,
and remove the spider web from your eyes
you will see soul-stirring sights
you will see the unfortunate and sick
you will see distress, death and misery
Look at your flock, angel,
only crippled and beggars
blind men wandering in a crowd
everybody's spines broken
from you they expect salvation
Look at the rabble, angel,
their soul's been cursed
they put reins on everyone
built shrines for themselves
their hands are bloody
Raise your sword, angel
remember the crusades
remember the jugulated
when you stand in front of God
may peace reign in your soul
Answer the prayers, angel
may the fiends drop dead, so help me God,
so be an angel of revenge
let them feel on their own skin
what poverty, fear and pain mean
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Angel
A picture of the White Angel of Mileševa was sent as a message in the first satellite broadcast signal from Europe to America after the Cuban Missile Crisis, as a symbol of peace and civilization. Later, the same signal, containing the White Angel, was transmitted to space in an attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life forms.
www.kubon-sagner.de/opac.html?record=F026515
new.visitserbia.org/files.php?file=Beli_andjeo__White_ang...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_time
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_eschatology
biblehub.com/john/7-6.htm: Therefore Jesus told them, "My time is not yet here; for you any time will do.
biblehub.com/john/7-7.htm: The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil.
biblehub.com/john/7-8.htm: You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come."
biblehub.com/matthew/24-9.htm: "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison
www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society#Criticism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leszek_Ko%C5%82akowski
books.google.rs/books/about/Religion_if_there_is_no_God.h...
Walking on foot brings you down to the very stark, naked core of existence. We travel too much in airplanes and cars. It’s an existential quality that we are losing. It’s almost like a credo of religion that we should walk.
There is, of course, something inherently romantic—if not heroic—about the extreme solitary explorer enveloped by nature. The very image of Herzog on foot recalls the iconic 19th-century paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, especially his Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, with its lone figure staring out at the wide vista above the clouds.
'Truth itself wanders through the forests,' Herzog writes near the end. Yet here he embroiders his memories for effect: The vast swath of geography between Munich and Paris is littered with industrial towns and cities.
Once he comes out on the other end, traversing the deforested Champs-Élysées (“We were close to what they call the breath of danger”), Herzog emerges victorious.
― Of Walking in Ice: (Munich-Paris, 23 November–14 December 1974)
by Werner Herzog
a nervous chain-mailed elf priestess suffering an existential crisis and a career change (lean into it)
Existentialism
I'll try and give this one meaning:
And there he stood, the late afternoon's sun streaming down him, trying to make sense of these two weird people with bigger eyes and noses than his three years on Earth have ever before introduced him to ;-).
PS: Of course, as per most kids, he looked at Mau next to me, not at me and the camera.
I'm not sure if i've ever suffered an existential crisis on the level that this man is currently having to deal with. Sure, I've had some strange notions from time to time but this guy's desperation at his inability to tell his lovely lady that they aren't really lovers and are, in fact, just stencils is somewhat heartbreaking. Life can be tough, can't it?
It's a very different experience painting outside in winter compared to summer. It's freezing cold, wet and windy and you have to finish by 4pm as it's pitch black.
No sooner had we got our stencil up and begun applying the very expensive UV reactive white paint to the boards that the rain sweeps in and washes it all straight off. What fun.
Our idea was to paint the boards up so they'd look good in normal light but would really kick when you put UV light on them. Despite the inclement conditions we eventually prevailed. Albeit a day later than planned...
Cheers
id-iom
this is a view into my left eye. challenges in there if you can find - swell but a great photo.
The existential feeling of the eye with the counter angst of limited view make this a pro-nomer of eccentricity
It was hell to set this up with the doctor
this joins the set of body parts
On the horns of a dilemma... how apt. Two distinct courses of action with vastlly different outcomes- to change not just the present but to invent a different future...
020
FORTUNE Brainstorm Health 2022
Los Angeles, CA
Wednesday, May 11th, 2022
9:15 AM
EXISTENTIAL THREATS: PREPARING FOR THE NEXT GLOBAL HEALTH CRISIS
In a hyperconnected world rife with virulent pathogens, preparedness is our best defense. After Ebola roared through West Africa and the novel coronavirus brought the world to its knees, the most pressing question for the safety of the global population is this: What have we learned—and how can we better prepare for the next hyper-contagious disease?
Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor, Boston University School of Public Health
Dr. Angela Rasmussen, Virologist, Department of Vaccine and Infectious Disease, University of Saskatchewan
Moderator: Clifton Leaf, Former FORTUNE Editor-in-Chief and Founder, Fortune Brainstorm Health
Photograph by Stuart Isett/Fortune
Ann Cline
A Hut of One's Own
Life Outside The Circle of Architecture.
Herzog and De Meuron
NATURAL HISTORY
APRIL 13, 2023 WASHINGTON DC. WORLD BANK GROUP/ INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND 2023 SPRING MEETINGS.
Accelerating Development in an Age of Global Crisis
The existential threat of climate change, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, persistent high inflation and increased fragility have injected volatility and uncertainty into the global economy – a reality that may continue for a while. The panel of speakers explore central questions around what it will take to address some of the most critical issues of our time including climate change, food insecurity, pandemics, and increasing fragility and poverty.
Axel van Trotsenburg, Senior Managing Director, Development Policy and Partnerships, World Bank Group; Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations; José Antonio Ocampo, Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Colombia; Leila Benali, Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, Morocco; Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, Acting Director, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Daniel Zelikow, Chair of the Governing Board, Development Finance Institution, J.P. Morgan. Photo: World Bank / Riccardo Savi
Exhibition view "Francis Bacon and Existential Condition in Contemporary Art", CCC Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze
© photo Martino Margheri
Existential shots like these are too precious to allow to slip by. The background might not be perfect and the best tool to capture the moment may not be available, but it's times like these that I reach into my pocket for the smart phone and pray.
When Petey joined our family two years ago, he and Kobe became instant friends and have been nearly inseparable since. This image faithfully tells that story, all I had to do was push the button.
Finally, a nagging question comes to light: When will I learn to stop leaving folders on that seat, or is Kobe just a dog with a plan?
FLEX– The Florida Experimental Film/Video Festival– presents Spacey Space, a selection of some of their favorite entries from past festivals. The selection of these particular works was inspired by the theme of one of the festivals most popular programs of the 2009 competitive festival. While capturing the broad scope of work submitted each year to the festival, the individual works contained in this program all manage to share a common interest in exploring the notion of space–both inner and outer.
While some of these works implore us to pull from the void in order to recognize and remember that which appears lost–be it forgotten people, memories, ideas, yet others reveal what is already there, and unseen to the naked eye– electrons, devices of control and isolation, and ghosts. By exploring the expanses of inner and outer space, the phantom zones existing beside us and within us, these pieces demand of us a closer inspection of the unseen, the in between, and the forgotten.
Energie! by Thorsten Fleisch
(Germany, 2007, 6 minutes, DVD)
From a more technical point of view, the TV/video screen comes alive by a controlled beam of electron in the cathode ray tube. For Energie! and uncontrolled high voltage discharge of approximately 30,000 volts exposes photographic paper which is then arranged in time to create new visual systems of electron organization.
Thorsten Fleisch’s experimentation of materials in his work results in a heightened state of awareness of unseen elements and captured ephemera. He began experimenting with super 8 film in high school. He went on to study with Peter Kubelka at the Stadelschule in Frankfurt where he began working with 16mm film.
Day/Night (Devil’s Millhopper) by Andres Arocha
(USA, 2009, 5 minutes, 16mm)
Enter a space. A one hundred feet deep hole dwarfs invaders with visions of immeasurably tall trees in an almost pristine natural setting. How do you see it? Inspired by the grandeur of nature, Day/Night (Devil’s Millhopper) limits itself to this setting and explores it through different eyes.
Spaceghost by Laurie Jo Reynolds
(USA, 2007, 26 minutes, DVD)
Space Ghost compares the experiences of astronauts and prisoners, using popular depictions of space travel to illustrate the physical and existential aspects of incarceration: sensory deprivation, the perception of time as chaotic and indistinguishable, the displacement of losing face-to-face contact, and the sense of existing in a different but parallel universe with family and loved ones.
Laurie Jo Reynolds is an artist, educator, and activist. In addition to being an advocate for prisoners’ rights, she is also involved with creative collaborative projects for prisoners and ex-offenders. She teaches at Columbia College and Loyola University in Chicago
Rosewell by Bill Brown
(USA, 1994, 23 minutes, 16mm)
A space kid borrows dad’s UFO for a joyride, but winds up crashing near Roswell, New Mexico. An amnesiac filmmaker goes looking for answers.
Bill Brown makes movies about ghosts that masquerade as movies about landscapes– or maybe it’s the other way around. He studied filmmaking at Harvard University, and received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts.
All Through the Night by Michael Robinson
(USa, 2008, 4 minutes, DVD)
A charred visitation with an icy language of control; there is no room for love.
Since the year 2000, Michael Robinson has created a body of film, video and photography work exploring the poetics of loss and the dangers of mediated experience. Originally from upstate NY, he holds a BFA from Ithaca College, and a MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Phantogram by Kerry Laitala
(USA, 2008, 6 minutes, 16mm)
A communication between the maker, pure light, and the shadow?graphic spirits of cinema. A telegram from the dead using the medium of film. Slippery shimmers slide across the celluloid strip, to embed themselves on the consciousness of the viewers.
Kerry Laitala is an experimental filmmaker from San Francisco whose handcrafted films are masterful, tactile, manipulations of celluloid. She studied film and photography at Massachusetts College of Art, and has a masters degree from the San Francisco Art Institution.
It Will Die Out in the Mind by Deborah Stratman
(USA, 2006, 4 minutes, DVD)
A short meditation on the possibility of spiritual existence and the paranormal in our information age. Texts are lifted from Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker in which Stalker’s daughter redeems his otherwise doomed spiritual journey. She offers him something more expansive and less explicable than logic or technology as the conceptual pillar of the human spirit.
The title is taken from a passage about the time from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed:
Stavrogin: …in the Apocalypse the angel swears that there’ll be no more time.
Kirillov: I know. It’s quite true, it’s said very clearly ad exactly. When the whole of man has achieved happiness, there won’t be any time, because it won’t be needed. It’s perfectly true.
Stavrogin: Where will they put it then?
Kirillov: They won’t put it anywhere. Time isn’t a thing, it’s an idea. It’ll die out in the mind.
Deborah Stratman is a Chicago-based filmmaker who leaves town a lot. Her films blur the lines between experimental and documentary genres, and she frequently works in other media including photography, sound, drawing and architectural intervention. Deborah teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Cal Arts.
FLEX–the Florida Experimental Film/Video Festival–has sought to provide a year-round home for the exhibition of experimental cinema from around the world since 2004. Our hope is that this annual event can serve as an important venue for artists to share their work, while also allowing local audiences a unique opportunity to see significant works that do not have a regular home elsewhere in the State.
Started by experimental filmmaker and University of Florida professor Roger Beebe in Gainesville, Florida, FLEX has earned itself a reputation for quality programing and events. In addition to the alternating festivals, one competitive and the other invitational, FLEX regularly presents film-centric events. These other events, like gong shows featuring industrial and educational films, Cinema Under the Stars- 16mm movie classics screened outside, and Silent Films, Loud Music- local musicians score music to silent films, all serve to promote the communal experience of film viewing.
Between splitting her time mining the internet for the most gruesome pics for her psychology lab job and working at Gainesville’s finest independent video store, Alisson Bittiker, once the FLEX chair wrangler, is now the Managing Director of FLEX. Dreams, of constant stress, work, and no pay, really do come true. She studied photography and video at the University of Florida.
Through the glass.
Through the mask.
Through the monitor.
Through the screen.
How are we enjoying our human made environment?
Will we take responsibility this time?
Will we learn?
Are we truly...intelligent?
That remains to be seen, doesn't it...
From the series "TOTEM"
Andalusia (/ˌændəˈluːsiə, -ziə, -ʒə/; Spanish: Andalucía [andaluˈθi.a]) is an autonomous community in southern Spain. It is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities in the country. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The territory is divided into eight provinces: Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Seville. Its capital is the city of Seville (Spanish: Sevilla).
Andalusia is in the south of the Iberian peninsula, in south-western Europe, immediately south of the autonomous communities of Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha; west of the autonomous community of Murcia and the Mediterranean Sea; east of Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean; and north of the Mediterranean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar. Andalusia is the only European region with both Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines. The small British overseas territory of Gibraltar shares a three-quarter-mile land border with the Andalusian province of Cádiz at the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar.
The main mountain ranges of Andalusia are the Sierra Morena and the Baetic System, consisting of the Subbaetic and Penibaetic Mountains, separated by the Intrabaetic Basin. In the north, the Sierra Morena separates Andalusia from the plains of Extremadura and Castile–La Mancha on Spain's Meseta Central. To the south the geographic subregion of Upper Andalusia lies mostly within the Baetic System, while Lower Andalusia is in the Baetic Depression of the valley of the Guadalquivir.
The name "Andalusia" is derived from the Arabic word Al-Andalus (الأندلس) The toponym al-Andalus is first attested by inscriptions on coins minted in 716 by the new Muslim government of Iberia. These coins, called dinars, were inscribed in both Latin and Arabic. The etymology of the name "al-Andalus" has traditionally been derived from the name of the Vandals; however, a number of proposals since the 1980s have challenged this contention. Halm in 1989 derived the name from a Gothic term, *landahlauts, and in 2002, Bossong suggested its derivation from a pre-Roman substrate. The region's history and culture have been influenced by the native Iberians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Visigoths, Byzantines, Jews, Romani, Muslim Moors and the Castilian and other Christian North Iberian nationalities who reconquered and settled the area in the latter phases of the Reconquista.
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Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama,[note 3] Shakyamuni,[note 4] or simply the Buddha, was a sage[3] on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.[web 2] He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in eastern India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE.[4][note 5]
The word Buddha means "awakened one" or "the enlightened one". "Buddha" is also used as a title for the first awakened being in an era. In most Buddhist traditions, Siddhartha Gautama is regarded as the Supreme Buddha (Pali sammāsambuddha, Sanskrit samyaksaṃbuddha) of our age.[note 6] Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the Sramana (renunciation) movement[5] common in his region. He later taught throughout regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kośala.[4][6]
Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later.Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most accept that he lived, taught and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era in India during the reign of Bimbisara, the ruler of the Magadha empire, and died during the early years of the reign of Ajatshatru who was the successor of Bimbisara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain teacher.[7] Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, Buddha's lifetime coincided with the flourishing of other influential sramana schools of thoughts like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jain, and Ajñana. It was also the age of influential thinkers like Mahāvīra, Pūraṇa Kassapa , Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambalī, Pakudha Kaccāyana, and Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, whose viewpoints Buddha most certainly must have been acquainted with and influenced by.[8][9][note 7] There is also evidence to suggest that the two masters, Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta, were indeed historical figures and they most probably taught Buddha two different forms of meditative techniques.[10] While the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true,[11] most scholars do not consistently accept all of the details contained in traditional biographies.[12][13]
The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE.[1][14] More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988, the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death.[1][15][note 5] These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all historians.[20][21][note 9]
The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born into the Shakya clan, a community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the northeastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE.[23] It was either a small republic, in which case his father was an elected chieftain, or an oligarchy, in which case his father was an oligarch.[23] According to the Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born in Lumbini, nowadays in modern-day Nepal, and raised in Kapilavastu, which may either be in present day Tilaurakot, Nepal or Piprahwa, India.[note 1] He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, and died in Kushinagara.
No written records about Gautama have been found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One edict of Emperor Ashoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to the Buddha's birthplace in Lumbini. Another one of his edict mentions several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Mauryan era and which may be the precursors of the Pāli Canon.[34][note 11] The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, reported to have been found in or around Haḍḍa near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and now preserved in the British Library. They are written in the Kharoṣṭhī script and the Gāndhārī language on twenty-seven birch bark scrolls, and they date from the first century BCE to the third century CE.[web 10]The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā.[35] Of these, the Buddhacarita[36][37][38] is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa, and dating around the beginning of the 2nd century CE.[35] The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE.[39] The Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE.[39] The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra,[40] and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. Lastly, the Nidānakathā is from the Theravāda tradition in Sri Lanka and was composed in the 5th century CE by Buddhaghoṣa.[41]
From canonical sources, the Jātakas, the Mahapadana Sutta (DN 14), and the Achariyabhuta Sutta (MN 123) which include selective accounts that may be older, but are not full biographies. The Jātakas retell previous lives of Gautama as a bodhisattva, and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts.[42] The Mahāpadāna Sutta and Achariyabhuta Sutta both recount miraculous events surrounding Gautama's birth, such as the bodhisattva's descent from Tuṣita Heaven into his mother's womb.Traditional biographies of Gautama generally include numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events. The character of the Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt. lokottara) and perfected being who is unencumbered by the mundane world. In the Mahāvastu, over the course of many lives, Gautama is said to have developed supramundane abilities including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no need for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing, although engaging in such "in conformity with the world"; omniscience, and the ability to "suppress karma".[43][44][45] Nevertheless, some of the more ordinary details of his life have been gathered from these traditional sources. In modern times there has been an attempt to form a secular understanding of Siddhārtha Gautama's life by omitting the traditional supernatural elements of his early biographies.
Andrew Skilton writes that the Buddha was never historically regarded by Buddhist traditions as being merely human:[46]
It is important to stress that, despite modern Theravada teachings to the contrary (often a sop to skeptical Western pupils), he was never seen as being merely human. For instance, he is often described as having the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks or signs of a mahāpuruṣa, "superman"; the Buddha himself denied that he was either a man or a god; and in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta he states that he could live for an aeon were he asked to do so.
The ancient Indians were generally unconcerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which significant accounts exist.[47] British author Karen Armstrong writes that although there is very little information that can be considered historically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhārtha Gautama did exist as a historical figure.[48] Michael Carrithers goes a bit further by stating that the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.[11]The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, present-day Nepal, to be the birthplace of the Buddha.[49][note 1] He grew up in Kapilavastu.[note 1] The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown. It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, present-day India,[32] or Tilaurakot, present-day Nepal.[50] Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 15 miles apart from each other.[50]
Siddharta Gautama was born as a Kshatriya,[51][note 13] the son of Śuddhodana, "an elected chief of the Shakya clan",[4] whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime. Gautama was the family name. His mother, Queen Maha Maya (Māyādevī) and Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side,[53][54] and ten months later[55] Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree.
The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak.[56] Buddha's birth anniversary holiday is called "Buddha Purnima" in Nepal and India as Buddha is believed to have been born on a full moon day. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhattha), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king (chakravartin) or a great holy man.[57] By traditional account,[which?] this occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight Brahmin scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man.[57] Kaundinya (Pali: Kondañña), the youngest, and later to be the first arahant other than the Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha.[58]
While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch, the descendant of the Solar Dynasty of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars think that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy.
Early texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition.[59] The state of the Shakya clan was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either as an oligarchy, or as a form of republic.[60] The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the Shramana-type Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.[61]Siddhartha was brought up by his mother's younger sister, Maha Pajapati.[62] By tradition, he is said to have been destined by birth to the life of a prince, and had three palaces (for seasonal occupation) built for him. Although more recent scholarship doubts this status, his father, said to be King Śuddhodana, wishing for his son to be a great king, is said to have shielded him from religious teachings and from knowledge of human suffering.
When he reached the age of 16, his father reputedly arranged his marriage to a cousin of the same age named Yaśodharā (Pāli: Yasodharā). According to the traditional account,[which?] she gave birth to a son, named Rāhula. Siddhartha is said to have spent 29 years as a prince in Kapilavastu. Although his father ensured that Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need, Buddhist scriptures say that the future Buddha felt that material wealth was not life's ultimate goal.[62]According to the early Buddhist texts,[web 11] after realizing that meditative dhyana was the right path to awakening, but that extreme asceticism didn't work, Gautama discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Way[web 11]—a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, or the Noble Eightfold Path, as was identified and described by the Buddha in his first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta.[web 11] In a famous incident, after becoming starved and weakened, he is said to have accepted milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata.[web 12] Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a spirit that had granted her a wish.[web 12]
Following this incident, Gautama was famously seated under a pipal tree—now known as the Bodhi tree—in Bodh Gaya, India, when he vowed never to arise until he had found the truth.[70] Kaundinya and four other companions, believing that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, left. After a reputed 49 days of meditation, at the age of 35, he is said to have attained Enlightenment.[70][web 13] According to some traditions, this occurred in approximately the fifth lunar month, while, according to others, it was in the twelfth month. From that time, Gautama was known to his followers as the Buddha or "Awakened One" ("Buddha" is also sometimes translated as "The Enlightened One").
According to Buddhism, at the time of his awakening he realized complete insight into the cause of suffering, and the steps necessary to eliminate it. These discoveries became known as the "Four Noble Truths",[web 13] which are at the heart of Buddhist teaching. Through mastery of these truths, a state of supreme liberation, or Nirvana, is believed to be possible for any being. The Buddha described Nirvāna as the perfect peace of a mind that's free from ignorance, greed, hatred and other afflictive states,[web 13] or "defilements" (kilesas). Nirvana is also regarded as the "end of the world", in that no personal identity or boundaries of the mind remain. In such a state, a being is said to possess the Ten Characteristics, belonging to every Buddha.
According to a story in the Āyācana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya VI.1) — a scripture found in the Pāli and other canons — immediately after his awakening, the Buddha debated whether or not he should teach the Dharma to others. He was concerned that humans were so overpowered by ignorance, greed and hatred that they could never recognise the path, which is subtle, deep and hard to grasp. However, in the story, Brahmā Sahampati convinced him, arguing that at least some will understand it. The Buddha relented, and agreed to teach.After his awakening, the Buddha met Taphussa and Bhallika — two merchant brothers from the city of Balkh in what is currently Afghanistan — who became his first lay disciples. It is said that each was given hairs from his head, which are now claimed to be enshrined as relics in the Shwe Dagon Temple in Rangoon, Burma. The Buddha intended to visit Asita, and his former teachers, Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta, to explain his findings, but they had already died.
He then travelled to the Deer Park near Varanasi (Benares) in northern India, where he set in motion what Buddhists call the Wheel of Dharma by delivering his first sermon to the five companions with whom he had sought enlightenment. Together with him, they formed the first saṅgha: the company of Buddhist monks.
All five become arahants, and within the first two months, with the conversion of Yasa and fifty four of his friends, the number of such arahants is said to have grown to 60. The conversion of three brothers named Kassapa followed, with their reputed 200, 300 and 500 disciples, respectively. This swelled the sangha to more than 1,000.For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and southern Nepal, teaching a diverse range of people: from nobles to servants, murderers such as Angulimala, and cannibals such as Alavaka. Although the Buddha's language remains unknown, it's likely that he taught in one or more of a variety of closely related Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, of which Pali may be a standardization.
The sangha traveled through the subcontinent, expounding the dharma. This continued throughout the year, except during the four months of the Vāsanā rainy season when ascetics of all religions rarely traveled. One reason was that it was more difficult to do so without causing harm to animal life. At this time of year, the sangha would retreat to monasteries, public parks or forests, where people would come to them.The first vassana was spent at Varanasi when the sangha was formed. After this, the Buddha kept a promise to travel to Rajagaha, capital of Magadha, to visit King Bimbisara. During this visit, Sariputta and Maudgalyayana were converted by Assaji, one of the first five disciples, after which they were to become the Buddha's two foremost followers. The Buddha spent the next three seasons at Veluvana Bamboo Grove monastery in Rajagaha, capital of Magadha.
Upon hearing of his son's awakening, Suddhodana sent, over a period, ten delegations to ask him to return to Kapilavastu. On the first nine occasions, the delegates failed to deliver the message, and instead joined the sangha to become arahants. The tenth delegation, led by Kaludayi, a childhood friend of Gautama's (who also became an arahant), however, delivered the message.
Now two years after his awakening, the Buddha agreed to return, and made a two-month journey by foot to Kapilavastu, teaching the dharma as he went. At his return, the royal palace prepared a midday meal, but the sangha was making an alms round in Kapilavastu. Hearing this, Suddhodana approached his son, the Buddha, saying:
"Ours is the warrior lineage of Mahamassata, and not a single warrior has gone seeking alms."
The Buddha is said to have replied:
"That is not the custom of your royal lineage. But it is the custom of my Buddha lineage. Several thousands of Buddhas have gone by seeking alms."
Buddhist texts say that Suddhodana invited the sangha into the palace for the meal, followed by a dharma talk. After this he is said to have become a sotapanna. During the visit, many members of the royal family joined the sangha. The Buddha's cousins Ananda and Anuruddha became two of his five chief disciples. At the age of seven, his son Rahula also joined, and became one of his ten chief disciples. His half-brother Nanda also joined and became an arahant.
Of the Buddha's disciples, Sariputta, Maudgalyayana, Mahakasyapa, Ananda and Anuruddha are believed to have been the five closest to him. His ten foremost disciples were reputedly completed by the quintet of Upali, Subhoti, Rahula, Mahakaccana and Punna.
In the fifth vassana, the Buddha was staying at Mahavana near Vesali when he heard news of the impending death of his father. He is said to have gone to Suddhodana and taught the dharma, after which his father became an arahant.
The king's death and cremation was to inspire the creation of an order of nuns. Buddhist texts record that the Buddha was reluctant to ordain women. His foster mother Maha Pajapati, for example, approached him, asking to join the sangha, but he refused. Maha Pajapati, however, was so intent on the path of awakening that she led a group of royal Sakyan and Koliyan ladies, which followed the sangha on a long journey to Rajagaha. In time, after Ananda championed their cause, the Buddha is said to have reconsidered and, five years after the formation of the sangha, agreed to the ordination of women as nuns. He reasoned that males and females had an equal capacity for awakening. But he gave women additional rules (Vinaya) to follow.Dhyana and insight[edit]
A core problem in the study of early Buddhism is the relation between dhyana and insight.[82][95][84] Schmithausen, in his often-cited article On some Aspects of Descriptions or Theories of 'Liberating Insight' and 'Enlightenment' in Early Buddhism notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36.[85][81][82]
Hot mineral water and vertigo. The kind of place where you can reflect on mortality while slowly poaching your thighs. Jen was luminous. I was trying not to slip and die in front of a busload of teenagers from Monterrey.
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India’s Foreign Policy
(Delhi University, 19 January 2009)
S.Menon
Prof. Deepak Paintal, Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi
Dr. S.K. Tandon, Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi
Thank you for asking me to speak to you today on India’s Foreign
Policy. It is an honour and intimidating to be asked back to one’s alma
mater. It has been thirty-nine years since I left Delhi University and it is
impressive that it looks much better than my memory of it.
I thought that I would try to discuss what foreign policy is, then speak
of independent India’s experience of conducting foreign policy, and finally
try to foresee what our foreign policy may look like in future. After that I
would be most interested in hearing your views and comments.
What is Foreign Policy?
The hardest question for a professional diplomat like me to answer is,
“What is it that you actually do?” The simple answer is that we implement
the country’s foreign policy. Which invariably invites the question, “What is
foreign policy?”
Perhaps the simplest definition of foreign policy is that it is the
attempt by a state to maximize its national interest in the external or
international environment. Even this simple definition suggests some of the
complexity of this attempt. The definition assumes a commonly agreed
2
definition of the national interest in the country. This is not always true.
Secondly, foreign policy is an ends and means problem, a problem of
achieving certain national goals with the limited means available. Unlike
domestic policy, the attempt to attain one’s goals has to be made in an
environment which is largely outside of one’s own control. Thirdly, and
again unlike domestic policy, this attempt is made in competition with other
states who are seeking the same goals for themselves, sometimes at your
expense. For instance, if any one state in the international system attains
absolute security for itself, there would be absolute insecurity for every
other state in the world. So merely maximizing one’s own interest
competitively will not suffice. One needs to include some measure of
cooperation, or at least of alliance building or working together. Of the two
basic goals of the state, security and prosperity, one, security, is often
presented as a zero sum game. The other, prosperity, requires states to
cooperate with each other. Both goals can therefore pull one’s foreign
policy in opposite directions.
And this competition and cooperation with other states to maximize
one’s own interests takes place in a perpetually changing external
environment and while the states themselves gain and lose relative and
absolute power. As they change, states change or modify their definitions
of national interest. Even the domestic mainsprings of external policy shift.
Some factors that one expects to remain constant undergo change. History
is redefined continuously by all political systems. And immutable facts of
geography are made less or more relevant by advances in technology and
ideology. This is why attempts to analyze foreign policy require the use of
dynamic concepts like the balance of power, game theory, and such like.
For a practitioner or diplomat, it is in the analysis and working of
these changes that the opportunities, threats and joys of diplomacy and
foreign policy lie. My generation has been fortunate in having lived through
the fastest ever period of change in India’s history. For a diplomat, it has
3
been an amazing transformation of India, its place in the world, and the
foreign policy that we can now aspire to practice.
Let us look at the Indian foreign policy experience.
The Beginnings
There have been diplomats and diplomacy since time immemorial. By
some accounts Hanuman was our first Ambassador to Sri Lanka and
Krishna one of our first known envoys. But foreign policy as it is now
understood is a function of the modern state system. One can therefore
legitimately speak of late medieval Indian foreign policy. But just when the
modern Westphalian state system, based on the nation state, came into
existence in the eighteenth century, India was losing the attributes of
sovereignty and her capacity for an independent foreign policy. So long as
India was not an independent actor on the world stage, imperial British
interests prevailed over Indian interests. When strong personalities like
Curzon tried to assert what they saw as Indian interests, as he did in 1904
by sending Younghusband on his Tibetan expedition, London rapidly reined
him in, forcing him to give up his gains in the Chumbi valley and Tibet in
order to preserve the overall British interest in keeping China on her side
against the Russians. So, while the Government of India had a Foreign and
Political Department from 1834 onwards, its primary functions were to deal
with the Indian princes, (as representative of the paramount power), and to
handle British-Indian commercial and mercantile interests in the Gulf and
the immediate neighborhood of India.
The unintended benefit from this absence of an indigenous foreign
policy tradition became apparent when the freedom movement began to
think of national issues. As early as 1927 it was possible for Jawaharlal
Nehru to start describing a purely Indian view of the world. In July 1938,
when it was highly unfashionable to do so, he was speaking of both
4
fascism and imperialism in the same breath, refusing to choose between
them, and to start saying what India’s foreign policy would be. By January
1947, these thoughts had coalesced in a letter to KPS Menon into a
doctrine, non-alignment, which seemed best designed to meet independent
India’s needs in the bipolar world she found herself in. Nehru said:
“Our general policy is to avoid entanglement in power politics and not
to join any group of powers as against any other group. The two
leading groups today are the Russian bloc and the Anglo-American
bloc. We must be friends to both and yet not join either. Both America
and Russia are extraordinarily suspicious of each other as well as of
other countries. This makes our path difficult and we may well be
suspected by each of leaning towards the other. This cannot be
helped.”
At Independence
When India became independent in 1947, our economy had not
grown for over fifty years, while population was growing at over 3% a year.
The average Indian could expect to live for 26 years, and only 14% of
Indians could read. What had once been one of the richest, most advanced
and industrialized nations in the world had been reduced by two centuries
of colonialism into one of the poorest and most backward countries, deindustrialized
and stagnant. From accounting along with China for twothirds
of world industrial production in 1750, by 1947 India’s share of world
industrial product was negligible.
It was therefore natural and clear that the primary purpose of
independent India’s foreign policy was to enable the domestic
transformation of India from a poor and backward society into one which
could offer its people their basic needs and an opportunity to achieve their
potential. And this had to be attempted in the Cold War world, divided
between two heavily armed and hostile camps, each led by a superpower,
5
and each saying that if you were not with them you were against them. It
took courage and vision to choose, as Nehru and the leadership did then,
not to join either camp and to opt for non-alignment, to retain the choice to
judge each issue on its merits and on how it affected India’s interests rather
than those of an alliance or its leaders. Having fought so hard for our
freedom, we were not ready to abdicate our independence of judgment to
others.
India’s immediate foreign policy objectives in 1947 were therefore a
peaceful environment, strategic space and autonomy, free of entanglement
in Cold War conflicts or alliances, while we concentrated on our domestic
tasks of integration and nation building. Non-alignment, as this policy came
to be called was the ability to judge issues on their merits and their effect
on India’s interests or, as our first Prime Minister Nehru used to say,
‘enlightened self-interest’. Indian nationalism has not been based on a
shared language or common religion or ethnic identity. As we sought to
build a plural, democratic, secular and tolerant society of our own, it was
natural that we would look for and promote the same values abroad.
Our foreign policy experience can probably be divided into three
broad roughly twenty year periods: 1950-1971, 1971-1991 and 1991
onwards till today.
1950-1971
Non-alignment as a policy was a practical and strategic choice, but
was soon put to the test by the alliances. It was denounced by John Foster
Dulles as immoral, and Stalin had strong words to say about it too. Our
neighbours were rapidly enrolled in the competing alliance systems – China
by the Soviet Union and Pakistan by the US.
6
Our attempt was to enlarge the area of peace, of those states willing
to coexist peacefully despite ideological and other differences, enabling us
to concentrate on our own development. Hence the very early summoning
of the Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi in March 1947, our
activism at the Bandung Afro-Asian conference, our reliance on the UN,
and the institutionalization of the Non-Aligned movement in the sixties.
Throughout this early period, our means were limited, our goals were
primarily domestic, and our aspirations were local. The foreign policy
challenges that we faced, such as having a border with China for the first
time in our history after China moved into Tibet, could not be addressed
with any tools other than diplomacy because of the simple fact that we had
no others. Our primary focus was domestic, and at no stage in this period
did we spend more than 3% of our GDP on defence. It was this desire to
escape external distractions that accounts for some of the tactical choices
in handling issues like the India-China boundary, resulting in the short but
sharp and salutary conflict of 1962.
Our preoccupations were with the consequences of Partition and the
uniquely complicated birth of the independent Indian state. The J&K issue
itself, which was with us from the birth of the Republic of India, was one
consequence of that birth. One of our first tasks was also to compress into
a few years what history takes centuries to do for most other states –
agreeing and settling boundaries with our neighbours. In a major diplomatic
achievement, we agreed all our land boundaries except those with China
(and between Pakistan and our state of J&K) within thirty years. We have
also agreed all our maritime boundaries except for those with Pakistan in
Sir Creek and Bangladesh.
1971-1991
7
By the early seventies, the steady development of India, (which even
at 3.5% p.a. was faster than that achieved by Britain for most of her
industrial revolution), had created capacities and relative strengths that
were dramatically revealed in the 1971 war. The liberation of Bangladesh
was equally a liberation for India. For the first time in centuries, India had
on her own and without relying on external imperial power crafted a political
outcome in our neighborhood, despite the opposition of a superpower and
a large and militarized neighbor. That we could do so was also tribute to
Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s political skills and willingness to take risks. The
diplomatic task was primarily to hold the ring internationally by winning over
public opinion for a just cause and averting actions by others which would
prevent us from assisting the birth of Bangladesh.
Soon thereafter, in 1974 India tested a nuclear explosive device, in
what was described as a peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE). The world led
by the Nuclear Weapon States reacted by forming a nuclear cartel, the
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and by cutting off nuclear cooperation with
India unless she agreed to forego a nuclear weapons programme and put
all her nuclear facilities under international safeguards to guarantee that
commitment. As the nuclear weapon states were not willing to do the same
themselves, we refused to do so, suffering the consequences of technology
denial regimes for our growth and development. But at that stage we
lacked the relative power or capability to do more than to suffer in silence
while keeping our options open. (This in itself was more than most other
states managed).
1991-2009
The true realization of our foreign policy potential had to wait for the
end of the bipolar world in 1989 and our economic reform policies, opening
up the Indian economy to the world. Historically speaking, India has been
most prosperous and stable when she has been most connected with the
rest of the world.
8
In many ways, the period after 1991 has been the most favorable to
our quest to develop India. The post Cold War external environment of a
globalizing world, without rival political alliances, gave India the opportunity
to improve relations with all the major powers. The risk of a direct conflict
between two or more major powers had also diminished due to the
interdependence created by globalization. And the strength of capital and
trade flows was directly beneficial to emerging economies like India, China
and others. We saw the evolving situation as one in which there is an
opportunity for India. The consistent objective of our foreign policy was and
remains poverty eradication and rapid and inclusive economic
development. If we are to eradicate mass poverty by 2020, we need to
keep growing our economy at 8-10% each year. This requires a peaceful
and supportive global environment in general and a peaceful periphery in
particular. The period since 1991 has therefore seen a much more active
Indian engagement with the neighbours, whether through repeated
attempts by successive governments to improve relations with Pakistan, or
the border related CBMs with China, or free trade agreements with
neighbours starting with Sri Lanka in 1998, or the Ganga Waters Treaty
with Bangladesh.
The period since 1991 has been a period of remarkable change in the
scale of our ambitions, and in our capacity to seek to achieve them. The
international situation made possible the rapid development of our
relationships with each of the major powers. Equally important was
another necessary condition which gave India space to work in: India’s
rapid economic and social transformation. As a result of twenty five years
of 6% growth and our reforms since 1991, India is today in a position to
engage with the world in an unprecedented manner. Our engagement with
the global economy is growing rapidly, with trade in goods and services
now exceeding US$ 330 billion. Our needs from the world have changed,
as has our capability. India can do and consider things that we could not do
or consider twenty years ago. This is reflected in how India perceives its
9
own future, its ties with its neighbourhood and its approach to the larger
international order.
The contrast between the world’s reaction to the 1974 and 1998
nuclear tests is instructive. And finally in 2008 we were able not only to
break out of our nuclear isolation but to rewrite the rules in our favour by
working with others to enable the NSG decision permitting international civil
nuclear cooperation with India.
Today’s World
Today, however, it seems that we may be on the cusp of another
change in the nature of the world situation. Looking at the world from India,
it often seems that we are witness to the collapse of the Westphalian state
system and a redistribution in the global balance of power leading to the
rise of major new powers and forces. The twin processes of the world
economic crisis and economic inter-dependence have resulted in a
situation where Cold War concepts like containment have very little
relevance and where no power is insulated from global developments. The
interdependence brought about by globalization imposes limits beyond
which tensions among the major powers are unlikely to escalate. But
equally, no one power can hope to solve issues by itself, no matter how
powerful it is. What seems likely, and is in fact happening in Iraq,
Afghanistan and elsewhere, is that major powers come together to form
coalitions to deal with issues where they have a convergence of interests,
despite differences on other issues or in broader approach. In other words,
what we see is the emergence of a global order marked by the
preponderance of several major powers, with minimal likelihood of direct
conflict amongst these powers, but where both cooperation and
competition among them are intense. The result is a de-hyphenation of
relationships with each other, of each major power engaging with and
competing with all the others, in a situation that might perhaps be described
as “general un-alignment”.
10
Paradoxically, some of the same forces of globalization – the
evolution of technology, the mobility of capital and so on – which have led
to the decline or collapse of the Westphalian state order are also the
source of our greatest dangers. Our major threats today are from non-state
actors, from trans-boundary effects of the collapse of the state system, or,
at least, of its inadequacy.(Paradoxically, the doctrine of absolute
sovereignty created by the strong European states and rulers in earlier
centuries is now the last defence of the weak against the strong.)
Looking ahead, the real factors of risk that threaten systemic stability
come from larger, global issues like terrorism, energy security and
environmental and climate change. With globalization and the spread of
technology, threats have also globalised and now span borders. These are
issues that will impact directly on India’s ability to grow and expand our
strategic autonomy. It is also obvious that no single country can deal with
these issues alone. They require global solutions.
International Terrorism
Among these global threats, international terrorism remains a major
threat to peace and stability. We in India have directly suffered the
consequences of the linkages and relationships among terrorist
organizations, support structures and funding mechanisms, centered upon
our immediate neighborhood, and transcending national borders. Any
compromise with such forces, howsoever pragmatic or opportune it might
appear momentarily, only encourages the forces responsible for terrorism.
Large areas abutting India to the west have seen the collapse of state
structures and the absence of governance or the writ of the state, with the
emergence of multiple centres of power. The results, in the form of
terrorism, extremism and radicalism are felt by us all in India.
11
Energy Security
As for energy security, this is one issue which combines an ethical
challenge to all societies with an opportunity to provide for the energy so
necessary for development. For India, clean, convenient and affordable
energy is a critical necessity if we are to improve the lives of our people.
Today, India’s per-capita energy consumption is less than a third of the
global average. (Our per capita consumption is only 500 kgoe compared to
a global average of nearly 1800 kgoe). For India a rapid increase in energy
use per capita is imperative to realize our national development goals.
Global warming and climate change require all societies to work
together. While the major responsibility for the accumulation of green
house gasses in the atmosphere lies with the developed countries, its
adverse affects are felt most severely by developing countries like India.
When we speak of ‘shared responsibility’, it must include the international
community’s shared responsibility to ensure the right to development of the
developing countries. Development is the best form of adaptation to climate
change.
What we seek is equitable burden-sharing. We have made it clear
that India will not exceed the average of per capita GHG emissions by the
industrialized countries, as we continue to pursue the growth and
development that our people need.
Also, the transfer and access to clean technologies by developing
countries, as global public goods on the lines of what was done for
retrovirals to fight AIDS, is essential to effectively limit future GHG
emissions. The IPR regime should include collaborative R&D and the
sharing of the resulting IPRs.
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The Future
I have tried to show you how great the change and flux in India’s
foreign policy has been within my own lifetime. In 1948, waving expansively
at a map of the world, Nehru exclaimed to a young Indian Foreign Service
officer, “We will have forty missions around the world!”. Today we have one
hundred and sixteen Embassies abroad.
If our foreign policy experience teaches us one thing it is that change
is inevitable and rapid. There is hardly an international boundary between
two states that is where it was two hundred years ago. The speed of the
rise of China and India in the last quarter of the twentieth century is proof of
the rapidity of change. Since the balance of power is relative, small shifts
have exaggerated effects on the international system.
India’s foreign policy today no longer deals only with existential
threats to our security or with subsistence issues. Today our future will be
determined by how effectively we adapt to change, and how we deal with
cross-cutting global issues, with questions of energy security, water, low
carbon growth, technology issues and so on. An open rule-based trading
system is in our interest now that we have sizeable equities in international
trade. We have moved from statements alone to working for and crafting
desirable outcomes.
After several centuries, once again the state is not the sole or
necessarily the predominant actor in the international system. In some
cases, like technology, for instance, it is businesses and individuals who
now determine the future, and it is these units that a successful foreign
policy must now increasingly deal with.
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If we are to deal with this new world and new issues, it is essential
that we begin to develop our own culture and tradition of strategic thought.
So long as India’s situation and needs are unique, it becomes essential that
we develop our own strategic culture, vocabulary and doctrine. Fortunately
for us, there is no isolationist streak in our strategic thought so far. As I
have said before, India’s best periods in history have been when we were
most connected to the world. Ironically, the greater our capabilities, the
more we need the world and are integrated into it. So if anything, the joys
and challenges of Indian foreign policy will only grow with time.
Thank you,
--------
LONG SON PAGODA
Long Sơn Pagoda (Vietnamese: Chùa Long Sơn) is a Buddhist temple in the city of Nha Trang on South Central Coast of Vietnam. It is regarded as one of the main sites in the city, along with Hai Duc Temple.
HISTORY
Long Son Pagoda was previously known as Đăng Long Tự and it is located at 22 October 23 Street. It is located in the ward of Phương Sơn, and sits at the foot of Trại Thủy mountain, in city of Nha Trang, just 400 m west of the railway station.
Long Son Pagoda was erected on another hill in 1886 under the abbotship of Thích Ngộ Chí (1856–1935), who hailed from the district of Vinh Xuong in Khánh Hòa Province. Before joining the sangha, he was a participant in anti-French resistance forces that attempted to regain Vietnamese independence.
In 1900, after a large cyclone, the temple was destroyed and had to be moved from the hill to its current location. In 1936, the Buddhist Studies Association made the temple the headquarters of the Buddhist Association in Khánh Hòa Province. In 1940, the temple was renovated and expanded under the leadership of Thích Tôn Thất Quyền and a lay Buddhist by the named of Võ Đình Thụy. In 1968, the temple was heavily damaged during the Vietnam War, in particular the tiled roof. In 1971, Thích Thiện Bình organised for the capital works program to restore the temple, which was around 60% complete in accordance with the plans of the architect Võ Đình Diệp when it was interrupted by the Fall of Saigon and the communist victory over South Vietnam.
Since its construction, the temple has had a stable leadership, with only three abbots in over 120 years: Thích Ngộ Chí (1886–1935), Thích Chánh Hóa (1936–1957) and Thích Chí Tín (1957–).
From the Long Son Pagoda, there is a large road leading up to Hai Duc Pagoda along the crest of the hill, where there is a large white concrete statue of Gautama Buddha. The statue was built on the site of the original temple and the statue was cast in 1964 before being installed the following year, under the auspices of Thích Đức Minh, who was the Head of the Buddhist Association of Khánh Hòa Province. The sculpture of the statue was by Kim Điền. From the ground up, the statues is 24 m, and from the base of the statue, it is 21 m. The figure of the Buddha is 14 m while the lotus blossom comprises 7 m. Around the statue are statues of seven arahants. In front of the statue are a pair of dragons, which are 7.20 m long. The statue is visible from afar as one enters the city, from either the national highway or by train.
The temple grounds also includes a garden.
The entrance and roofs are decorated with dragon mosaics which are built from glass and ceramic tiles. The main ceremonial hall is adorned with modern interpretations of classical motifs. The nasal hairs of the dragons are wrapped around the pillars on either side of the main altar.
The main statue in 152 stone steps up from the entrance of the pagoda, and is often used as a vantage point to look over the city of Nha Trang.
_____________________________________
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni, or simply the Buddha, was a sage on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in northeastern India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE.
The word Buddha means "awakened one" or "the enlightened one". "Buddha" is also used as a title for the first awakened being in a Yuga era. In most Buddhist traditions, Siddhartha Gautama is regarded as the Supreme Buddha (Pali sammāsambuddha, Sanskrit samyaksaṃbuddha) of the present age. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region. He later taught throughout regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala.
Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later.
CONTENTS
HISTORICAL SIDDHARTA GAUTAMA
Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most accept that he lived, taught and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era during the reign of Bimbisara, the ruler of the Magadha empire, and died during the early years of the reign of Ajasattu, who was the successor of Bimbisara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddha's lifetime coincided with the flourishing of other influential śramaṇa schools of thoughts like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism, and Ajñana. It was also the age of influential thinkers like Mahavira, Pūraṇa Kassapa , Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambalī, Pakudha Kaccāyana, and Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, whose viewpoints the Buddha most certainly must have been acquainted with and influenced by. Indeed, Sariputta and Moggallāna, two of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, were formerly the foremost disciples of Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, the skeptic. There is also evidence to suggest that the two masters, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, were indeed historical figures and they most probably taught Buddha two different forms of meditative techniques. While the general sequence of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" is widely accepted, there is less consensus on the veracity of many details contained in traditional biographies.
The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988, the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all historians.
The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born into the Shakya clan, a community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the northeastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE. It was either a small republic, in which case his father was an elected chieftain, or an oligarchy, in which case his father was an oligarch. According to the Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born in Lumbini, nowadays in modern-day Nepal, and raised in the Shakya capital of Kapilavastu, which may have been in either present day Tilaurakot, Nepal or Piprahwa, India. He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, and died in Kushinagar.
No written records about Gautama have been found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to the Buddha's birthplace in Lumbini. Another one of his edicts mentions several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era and which may be the precursors of the Pāli Canon. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, reported to have been found in or around Haḍḍa near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and now preserved in the British Library. 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.
TRADITIONAL BIOGRAPHIES
BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES
The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa, and dating around the beginning of the 2nd 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. The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra, and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. The Nidānakathā is from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka and was composed in the 5th century by Buddhaghoṣa.
From canonical sources, the Jataka tales, the Mahapadana Sutta (DN 14), and the Achariyabhuta Sutta (MN 123) which include selective accounts that may be older, but are not full biographies. The Jātakas retell previous lives of Gautama as a bodhisattva, and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts. The Mahāpadāna Sutta and Achariyabhuta Sutta both recount miraculous events surrounding Gautama's birth, such as the bodhisattva's descent from the Tuṣita Heaven into his mother's womb.
NATURE OF TRADITIONAL DEPICTIONS
In the earliest Buddhists texts, the nikāyas and āgamas, the Buddha is not depicted as possessing omniscience (sabbaññu) nor is he depicted as being an eternal transcendent (lokottara) being. According to Bhikkhu Analayo, ideas of the Buddha's omniscience (along with an increasing tendency to deify him and his biography) are found only later, in the Mahayana sutras and later Pali commentaries or texts such as the Mahāvastu. In the Sandaka Sutta, the Buddha's disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing while in the Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta the Buddha himself states that he has never made a claim to being omniscient, instead he claimed to have the "higher knowledges" (abhijñā). The earliest biographical material from the Pali Nikayas focuses on the Buddha's life as a śramaṇa, his search for enlightenment under various teachers such as Alara Kalama and his forty five year career as a teacher.
Traditional biographies of Gautama generally include numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events. The character of the Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt. lokottara) and perfected being who is unencumbered by the mundane world. In the Mahāvastu, over the course of many lives, Gautama is said to have developed supra-mundane abilities including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no need for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing, although engaging in such "in conformity with the world"; omniscience, and the ability to "suppress karma". Nevertheless, some of the more ordinary details of his life have been gathered from these traditional sources. In modern times there has been an attempt to form a secular understanding of Siddhārtha Gautama's life by omitting the traditional supernatural elements of his early biographies.
Andrew Skilton writes that the Buddha was never historically regarded by Buddhist traditions as being merely human:
It is important to stress that, despite modern Theravada teachings to the contrary (often a sop to skeptical Western pupils), he was never seen as being merely human. For instance, he is often described as having the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks or signs of a mahāpuruṣa, "superman"; the Buddha himself denied that he was either a man or a god; and in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta he states that he could live for an aeon were he asked to do so.The ancient Indians were generally unconcerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which significant accounts exist. British author Karen Armstrong writes that although there is very little information that can be considered historically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhārtha Gautama did exist as a historical figure. Michael Carrithers goes a bit further by stating that the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.
BIOGRAPHY
CONCEPTION AND BIRTH
The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, in present-day Nepal to be the birthplace of the Buddha. He grew up in Kapilavastu. The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown. It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, present-day India, or Tilaurakot, present-day Nepal. Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 15 miles apart from each other.
Gautama was born as a Kshatriya, the son of Śuddhodana, "an elected chief of the Shakya clan", whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime. Gautama was the family name. His mother, Maya (Māyādevī), Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side, and ten months later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree.
The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak. Buddha's Birthday is called Buddha Purnima in Nepal and India as he is believed to have been born on a full moon day. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhattha), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king (chakravartin) or a great sadhu. By traditional account, this occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight Brahmin scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. Kondañña, the youngest, and later to be the first arhat other than the Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha.
While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch, the descendant of the Suryavansha (Solar dynasty) of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars think that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy.
Early texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition. The state of the Shakya clan was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either as an oligarchy, or as a form of republic. The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the śramanic Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.
EARLY LIFE AND MARRIAGE
Siddhartha was brought up by his mother's younger sister, Maha Pajapati. By tradition, he is said to have been destined by birth to the life of a prince, and had three palaces (for seasonal occupation) built for him. Although more recent scholarship doubts this status, his father, said to be King Śuddhodana, wishing for his son to be a great king, is said to have shielded him from religious teachings and from knowledge of human suffering.
When he reached the age of 16, his father reputedly arranged his marriage to a cousin of the same age named Yaśodharā (Pāli: Yasodharā). According to the traditional account, she gave birth to a son, named Rāhula. Siddhartha is said to have spent 29 years as a prince in Kapilavastu. Although his father ensured that Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need, Buddhist scriptures say that the future Buddha felt that material wealth was not life's ultimate goal.
RENUNCIATION AND ASCETIC LIFE
At the age of 29, the popular biography continues, Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. Despite his father's efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhartha was said to have seen an old man. When his charioteer Channa explained to him that all people grew old, the prince went on further trips beyond the palace. On these he encountered a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These depressed him, and he initially strove to overcome aging, sickness, and death by living the life of an ascetic.
Accompanied by Channa and riding his horse Kanthaka, Gautama quit his palace for the life of a mendicant. It's said that, "the horse's hooves were muffled by the gods" to prevent guards from knowing of his departure.
Gautama initially went to Rajagaha and began his ascetic life by begging for alms in the street. After King Bimbisara's men recognised Siddhartha and the king learned of his quest, Bimbisara offered Siddhartha the throne. Siddhartha rejected the offer, but promised to visit his kingdom of Magadha first, upon attaining enlightenment.
He left Rajagaha and practised under two hermit teachers of yogic meditation. After mastering the teachings of Alara Kalama (Skr. Ārāḍa Kālāma), he was asked by Kalama to succeed him. However, Gautama felt unsatisfied by the practice, and moved on to become a student of yoga with Udaka Ramaputta (Skr. Udraka Rāmaputra). With him he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness, and was again asked to succeed his teacher. But, once more, he was not satisfied, and again moved on.
Siddhartha and a group of five companions led by Kaundinya are then said to have set out to take their austerities even further. They tried to find enlightenment through deprivation of worldly goods, including food, practising self-mortification. After nearly starving himself to death by restricting his food intake to around a leaf or nut per day, he collapsed in a river while bathing and almost drowned. Siddhartha was rescued by a village girl named Sujata and she gave him some payasam (a pudding made from milk and jaggery) after which Siddhartha got back some energy. Siddhartha began to reconsider his path. Then, he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season's ploughing. He attained a concentrated and focused state that was blissful and refreshing, the jhāna.
AWAKENING
According to the early Buddhist texts, after realizing that meditative dhyana was the right path to awakening, but that extreme asceticism didn't work, Gautama discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Way - a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, or the Noble Eightfold Path, as was identified and described by the Buddha in his first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. In a famous incident, after becoming starved and weakened, he is said to have accepted milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata. Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a spirit that had granted her a wish.
Following this incident, Gautama was famously seated under a pipal tree - now known as the Bodhi tree - in Bodh Gaya, India, when he vowed never to arise until he had found the truth. Kaundinya and four other companions, believing that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, left. After a reputed 49 days of meditation, at the age of 35, he is said to have attained Enlightenment. According to some traditions, this occurred in approximately the fifth lunar month, while, according to others, it was in the twelfth month. From that time, Gautama was known to his followers as the Buddha or "Awakened One" ("Buddha" is also sometimes translated as "The Enlightened One").
According to Buddhism, at the time of his awakening he realized complete insight into the cause of suffering, and the steps necessary to eliminate it. These discoveries became known as the "Four Noble Truths", which are at the heart of Buddhist teaching. Through mastery of these truths, a state of supreme liberation, or Nirvana, is believed to be possible for any being. The Buddha described Nirvāna as the perfect peace of a mind that's free from ignorance, greed, hatred and other afflictive states, or "defilements" (kilesas). Nirvana is also regarded as the "end of the world", in that no personal identity or boundaries of the mind remain. In such a state, a being is said to possess the Ten Characteristics, belonging to every Buddha.
According to a story in the Āyācana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya VI.1) - a scripture found in the Pāli and other canons - immediately after his awakening, the Buddha debated whether or not he should teach the Dharma to others. He was concerned that humans were so overpowered by ignorance, greed and hatred that they could never recognise the path, which is subtle, deep and hard to grasp. However, in the story, Brahmā Sahampati convinced him, arguing that at least some will understand it. The Buddha relented, and agreed to teach.
FORMATION OF THE SANGHA
After his awakening, the Buddha met Taphussa and Bhallika — two merchant brothers from the city of Balkh in what is currently Afghanistan - who became his first lay disciples. It is said that each was given hairs from his head, which are now claimed to be enshrined as relics in the Shwe Dagon Temple in Rangoon, Burma. The Buddha intended to visit Asita, and his former teachers, Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta, to explain his findings, but they had already died.
He then travelled to the Deer Park near Varanasi (Benares) in northern India, where he set in motion what Buddhists call the Wheel of Dharma by delivering his first sermon to the five companions with whom he had sought enlightenment. Together with him, they formed the first saṅgha: the company of Buddhist monks.
All five become arahants, and within the first two months, with the conversion of Yasa and fifty four of his friends, the number of such arahants is said to have grown to 60. The conversion of three brothers named Kassapa followed, with their reputed 200, 300 and 500 disciples, respectively. This swelled the sangha to more than 1,000.
TRAVELS AND TEACHING
For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and southern Nepal, teaching a diverse range of people: from nobles to servants, murderers such as Angulimala, and cannibals such as Alavaka. Although the Buddha's language remains unknown, it's likely that he taught in one or more of a variety of closely related Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, of which Pali may be a standardization.
The sangha traveled through the subcontinent, expounding the dharma. This continued throughout the year, except during the four months of the Vāsanā rainy season when ascetics of all religions rarely traveled. One reason was that it was more difficult to do so without causing harm to animal life. At this time of year, the sangha would retreat to monasteries, public parks or forests, where people would come to them.
The first vassana was spent at Varanasi when the sangha was formed. After this, the Buddha kept a promise to travel to Rajagaha, capital of Magadha, to visit King Bimbisara. During this visit, Sariputta and Maudgalyayana were converted by Assaji, one of the first five disciples, after which they were to become the Buddha's two foremost followers. The Buddha spent the next three seasons at Veluvana Bamboo Grove monastery in Rajagaha, capital of Magadha.
Upon hearing of his son's awakening, Suddhodana sent, over a period, ten delegations to ask him to return to Kapilavastu. On the first nine occasions, the delegates failed to deliver the message, and instead joined the sangha to become arahants. The tenth delegation, led by Kaludayi, a childhood friend of Gautama's (who also became an arahant), however, delivered the message.
Now two years after his awakening, the Buddha agreed to return, and made a two-month journey by foot to Kapilavastu, teaching the dharma as he went. At his return, the royal palace prepared a midday meal, but the sangha was making an alms round in Kapilavastu. Hearing this, Suddhodana approached his son, the Buddha, saying:
"Ours is the warrior lineage of Mahamassata, and not a single warrior has gone seeking alms."
The Buddha is said to have replied:
"That is not the custom of your royal lineage. But it is the custom of my Buddha lineage. Several thousands of Buddhas have gone by seeking alms."
Buddhist texts say that Suddhodana invited the sangha into the palace for the meal, followed by a dharma talk. After this he is said to have become a sotapanna. During the visit, many members of the royal family joined the sangha. The Buddha's cousins Ananda and Anuruddha became two of his five chief disciples. At the age of seven, his son Rahula also joined, and became one of his ten chief disciples. His half-brother Nanda also joined and became an arahant.
Of the Buddha's disciples, Sariputta, Maudgalyayana, Mahakasyapa, Ananda and Anuruddha are believed to have been the five closest to him. His ten foremost disciples were reputedly completed by the quintet of Upali, Subhoti, Rahula, Mahakaccana and Punna.
In the fifth vassana, the Buddha was staying at Mahavana near Vesali when he heard news of the impending death of his father. He is said to have gone to Suddhodana and taught the dharma, after which his father became an arahant.The king's death and cremation was to inspire the creation of an order of nuns. Buddhist texts record that the Buddha was reluctant to ordain women. His foster mother Maha Pajapati, for example, approached him, asking to join the sangha, but he refused. Maha Pajapati, however, was so intent on the path of awakening that she led a group of royal Sakyan and Koliyan ladies, which followed the sangha on a long journey to Rajagaha. In time, after Ananda championed their cause, the Buddha is said to have reconsidered and, five years after the formation of the sangha, agreed to the ordination of women as nuns. He reasoned that males and females had an equal capacity for awakening. But he gave women additional rules (Vinaya) to follow.
MAHAPARINIRVANA
According to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pali canon, at the age of 80, the Buddha announced that he would soon reach Parinirvana, or the final deathless state, and abandon his earthly body. After this, the Buddha ate his last meal, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his passing and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha. Mettanando and Von Hinüber argue that the Buddha died of mesenteric infarction, a symptom of old age, rather than food poisoning. The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms; the Theravada tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the Mahayana tradition believes that the Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom. These may reflect the different traditional views on Buddhist vegetarianism and the precepts for monks and nuns.
Waley suggests that Theravadin's would take suukaramaddava (the contents of the Buddha's last meal), which can translate as pig-soft, to mean soft flesh of a pig. However, he also states that pig-soft could mean "pig's soft-food", that is, after Neumann, a soft food favoured by pigs, assumed to be a truffle. He argues (also after Neumann) that as Pali Buddhism was developed in an area remote to the Buddha's death, the existence of other plants with suukara- (pig) as part of their names and that "(p)lant names tend to be local and dialectical" could easily indicate that suukaramaddava was a type of plant whose local name was unknown to those in the Pali regions. Specifically, local writers knew more about their flora than Theravadin commentator Buddhaghosa who lived hundreds of years and kilometres remote in time and space from the events described. Unaware of an alternate meaning and with no Theravadin prohibition against eating animal flesh, Theravadins would not have questioned the Buddha eating meat and interpreted the term accordingly.
Ananda protested the Buddha's decision to enter Parinirvana in the abandoned jungles of Kuśināra (present-day Kushinagar, India) of the Malla kingdom. The Buddha, however, is said to have reminded Ananda how Kushinara was a land once ruled by a righteous wheel-turning king that resounded with joy:
44. Kusavati, Ananda, resounded unceasingly day and night with ten sounds - the trumpeting of elephants, the neighing of horses, the rattling of chariots, the beating of drums and tabours, music and song, cheers, the clapping of hands, and cries of "Eat, drink, and be merry!"
The Buddha then asked all the attendant Bhikkhus to clarify any doubts or questions they had. They had none. According to Buddhist scriptures, he then finally entered Parinirvana. The Buddha's final words are reported to have been: "All composite things (Saṅkhāra) are perishable. Strive for your own liberation with diligence" (Pali: 'vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā'). His body was cremated and the relics were placed in monuments or stupas, some of which are believed to have survived until the present. For example, The Temple of the Tooth or "Dalada Maligawa" in Sri Lanka is the place where what some believe to be the relic of the right tooth of Buddha is kept at present.
According to the Pāli historical chronicles of Sri Lanka, the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, the coronation of Emperor Aśoka (Pāli: Asoka) is 218 years after the death of the Buddha. According to two textual records in Chinese (十八部論 and 部執異論), the coronation of Emperor Aśoka is 116 years after the death of the Buddha. Therefore, the time of Buddha's passing is either 486 BCE according to Theravāda record or 383 BCE according to Mahayana record. However, the actual date traditionally accepted as the date of the Buddha's death in Theravāda countries is 544 or 545 BCE, because the reign of Emperor Aśoka was traditionally reckoned to be about 60 years earlier than current estimates. In Burmese Buddhist tradition, the date of the Buddha's death is 13 May 544 BCE. whereas in Thai tradition it is 11 March 545 BCE.
At his death, the Buddha is famously believed to have told his disciples to follow no leader. Mahakasyapa was chosen by the sangha to be the chairman of the First Buddhist Council, with the two chief disciples Maudgalyayana and Sariputta having died before the Buddha.
While in the Buddha's days he was addressed by the very respected titles Buddha, Shākyamuni, Shākyasimha, Bhante and Bho, he was known after his parinirvana as Arihant, Bhagavā/Bhagavat/Bhagwān, Mahāvira, Jina/Jinendra, Sāstr, Sugata, and most popularly in scriptures as Tathāgata.
BUDDHA AND VEDAS
Buddha's teachings deny the authority of the Vedas and consequently [at least atheistic] Buddhism is generally viewed as a nāstika school (heterodox, literally "It is not so") from the perspective of orthodox Hinduism.
RELICS
After his death, Buddha's cremation relics were divided amongst 8 royal families and his disciples; centuries later they would be enshrined by King Ashoka into 84,000 stupas. Many supernatural legends surround the history of alleged relics as they accompanied the spread of Buddhism and gave legitimacy to rulers.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
An extensive and colorful physical description of the Buddha has been laid down in scriptures. A kshatriya by birth, he had military training in his upbringing, and by Shakyan tradition was required to pass tests to demonstrate his worthiness as a warrior in order to marry. He had a strong enough body to be noticed by one of the kings and was asked to join his army as a general. He is also believed by Buddhists to have "the 32 Signs of the Great Man".
The Brahmin Sonadanda described him as "handsome, good-looking, and pleasing to the eye, with a most beautiful complexion. He has a godlike form and countenance, he is by no means unattractive." (D, I:115)
"It is wonderful, truly marvellous, how serene is the good Gotama's appearance, how clear and radiant his complexion, just as the golden jujube in autumn is clear and radiant, just as a palm-tree fruit just loosened from the stalk is clear and radiant, just as an adornment of red gold wrought in a crucible by a skilled goldsmith, deftly beaten and laid on a yellow-cloth shines, blazes and glitters, even so, the good Gotama's senses are calmed, his complexion is clear and radiant." (A, I:181)
A disciple named Vakkali, who later became an arahant, was so obsessed by the Buddha's physical presence that the Buddha is said to have felt impelled to tell him to desist, and to have reminded him that he should know the Buddha through the Dhamma and not through physical appearances.
Although there are no extant representations of the Buddha in human form until around the 1st century CE (see Buddhist art), descriptions of the physical characteristics of fully enlightened buddhas are attributed to the Buddha in the Digha Nikaya's Lakkhaṇa Sutta (D, I:142). In addition, the Buddha's physical appearance is described by Yasodhara to their son Rahula upon the Buddha's first post-Enlightenment return to his former princely palace in the non-canonical Pali devotional hymn, Narasīha Gāthā ("The Lion of Men").
Among the 32 main characteristics it is mentioned that Buddha has blue eyes.
NINE VIRTUES
Recollection of nine virtues attributed to the Buddha is a common Buddhist meditation and devotional practice called Buddhānusmṛti. The nine virtues are also among the 40 Buddhist meditation subjects. The nine virtues of the Buddha appear throughout the Tipitaka, and include:
- Buddho – Awakened
- Sammasambuddho – Perfectly self-awakened
- Vijja-carana-sampano – Endowed with higher knowledge and ideal conduct.
- Sugato – Well-gone or Well-spoken.
- Lokavidu – Wise in the knowledge of the many worlds.
- Anuttaro Purisa-damma-sarathi – Unexcelled trainer of untrained people.
- Satthadeva-Manussanam – Teacher of gods and humans.
- Bhagavathi – The Blessed one
- Araham – Worthy of homage. An Arahant is "one with taints destroyed, who has lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached the true goal, destroyed the fetters of being, and is completely liberated through final knowledge."
TEACHINGS
TRACING THE OLDEST TEACHINGS
Information of the oldest teachings may be obtained by analysis of the oldest texts. One method to obtain information on the oldest core of Buddhism is to compare the oldest extant versions of the Theravadin Pali Canon and other texts. The reliability of these sources, and the possibility to draw out a core of oldest teachings, is a matter of dispute. According to Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies.
According to Schmithausen, three positions held by scholars of Buddhism can be distinguished:
"Stress on the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity of at least a considerable part of the Nikayic materials;"
"Scepticism with regard to the possibility of retrieving the doctrine of earliest Buddhism;"
"Cautious optimism in this respect."
DHYANA AND INSIGHT
A core problem in the study of early Buddhism is the relation between dhyana and insight. Schmithausen, in his often-cited article On some Aspects of Descriptions or Theories of 'Liberating Insight' and 'Enlightenment' in Early Buddhism notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36
CORE TEACHINGS
According to Tilmann Vetter, the core of earliest Buddhism is the practice of dhyāna. Bronkhorst agrees that dhyana was a Buddhist invention, whereas Norman notes that "the Buddha's way to release [...] was by means of meditative practices." Discriminating insight into transiency as a separate path to liberation was a later development.
According to the Mahāsaccakasutta, from the fourth jhana the Buddha gained bodhi. Yet, it is not clear what he was awakened to. "Liberating insight" is a later addition to this text, and reflects a later development and understanding in early Buddhism. The mentioning of the four truths as constituting "liberating insight" introduces a logical problem, since the four truths depict a linear path of practice, the knowledge of which is in itself not depicted as being liberating:
[T]hey do not teach that one is released by knowing the four noble truths, but by practicing the fourth noble truth, the eightfold path, which culminates in right samadhi.
Although "Nibbāna" (Sanskrit: Nirvāna) is the common term for the desired goal of this practice, many other terms can be found throughout the Nikayas, which are not specified.
According to Vetter, the description of the Buddhist path may initially have been as simple as the term "the middle way". In time, this short description was elaborated, resulting in the description of the eightfold path.
According to both Bronkhorst and Anderson, the four truths became a substitution for prajna, or "liberating insight", in the suttas in those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the four jhanas. According to Bronkhorst, the four truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of "liberating insight". Gotama's teachings may have been personal, "adjusted to the need of each person."
The three marks of existence may reflect Upanishadic or other influences. K.R. Norman supposes that these terms were already in use at the Buddha's time, and were familiar to his listeners.
The Brahma-vihara was in origin probably a brahmanic term; but its usage may have been common to the Sramana traditions.
LATER DEVELOPMENTS
In time, "liberating insight" became an essential feature of the Buddhist tradition. The following teachings, which are commonly seen as essential to Buddhism, are later formulations which form part of the explanatory framework of this "liberating insight":
- The Four Noble Truths: that suffering is an ingrained part of existence; that the origin of suffering is craving for sensuality, acquisition of identity, and fear of annihilation; that suffering can be ended; and that following the Noble Eightfold Path is the means to accomplish this;
- The Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration;
- Dependent origination: the mind creates suffering as a natural product of a complex process.
OTHER RELIGIONS
Some Hindus regard Gautama as the 9th avatar of Vishnu. The Buddha is also regarded as a prophet by the Ahmadiyya Muslims and a Manifestation of God in the Bahá'í Faith. Some early Chinese Taoist-Buddhists thought the Buddha to be a reincarnation of Lao Tzu.
The Christian Saint Josaphat is based on the Buddha. The name comes from the Sanskrit Bodhisattva via Arabic Būdhasaf and Georgian Iodasaph. The only story in which St. Josaphat appears, Barlaam and Josaphat, is based on the life of the Buddha. Josaphat was included in earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology (feast day 27 November) — though not in the Roman Missal — and in the Eastern Orthodox Church liturgical calendar (26 August).
Disciples of the Cao Đài religion worship the Buddha as a major religious teacher. His image can be found in both their Holy See and on the home altar. He is revealed during communication with Divine Beings as son of their Supreme Being (God the Father) together with other major religious teachers and founders like Jesus, Laozi, and Confucius.
In the ancient Gnostic sect of Manichaeism the Buddha is listed among the prophets who preached the word of God before Mani.
WIKIPEDIA
The question remains unchanged no matter how many conquests are implemented. Even if at some point “man” manages to beat the odds he has put on himself and the existence of finite. “The deadly tedium of immortality” in a constant attempt to achieve the sterile. We pass to the “trans” state and we enjoy, though complaining, the hyper-realistic with the secret desire of eternal youth. We suck the beast which was created by the Divine element as full image and likeness. The thermodynamic cage in an already alleged entropic balance. The planet is ours! That is what the hypocritical honesty of the motivated Ego requires. An endless wind blowing towards a hypothetical “dusk” and opposite the fluttering, towards an unexpected “dawn”. Building consisting of foundational stereoscopic structures adjacent strongly in a shimmering sphere yet seemingly exist in a harmony. It is the view of the transient, the ephemeral, through the eyes of the anhydrous inevitable. I wonder what is the purpose of all this? It makes sense to seek a “reasonable” and an enlarged subjectivity that encapsulate the desired laconic? Is a form of awareness feasible, in which the distant perspective would fit in the “individual” ? Maybe, but remains a challenge set in the background of the need to overcome or at least control the brittleness of this equilibrium, that only the mantle of the present, of the every present, translates into unbreakable pseudo-continuum.
Tacheles - How long is now
Spudnik 7 Saturday, April 03, 2010
'How long is now' runs the giant mural on the side of Tacheles. Whether it’s a question or an existential sigh, it perfectly sums up the uncertain past, present and future of one of Berlin’s most remarkable initiatives.
Possessed by squatters and artists in the aftermath of the tumbling of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, this iconic shell of a building now houses exhibitions, performances, a cinema, and three bars one of which, Café Zapata, houses a fire-breathing dragon which frightens the shite out of unsuspecting visitors. A few beers, and you won’t notice anymore.
Tacheles means to speak directly and honestly in Yiddish, (as if there was any other way for Germans to speak), and it is so named as the building’s in the former Jewish quarter of Berlin, and in defiance of the East German propensity to repress freedom of expression (and everything else for that matter).
The building opened in 1909 as the Friedrichstraßenpassage, a giant shopping complex, one of the first of its kind, so named because it linked Oranienburgerstraße with Friedrichstraße behind it. It promptly went bankrupt, and was later reopened as department store. That too didn’t last, and it was taken over by the AEG electric company to showcase their new contraptions and fancy technology.
It was under their watch the building became the first to broadcast a live sporting event to the world, with the transmission of the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
The Nazis later took over as they were prone to doing at the time, and the building became the central office of the SS. They horded French prisoners of war in the attic during the war when the building was badly damaged what with bombs falling on it and the like. Most of it was totally destroyed.
What was left didn’t fare much better after the war either I’m afraid. Russian soldiers used statues in the entrance for target practice, and they didn’t exactly wear slippers when they were stomping about.
Those headless statues are still there today and can be seen on the way to the hinterhof behind, where artists and sculptors now proudly display their engaging creations, iron horses, iron eagles, spiky things, high things, mad things.
Inside the walls are smothered from top to bottom in colourful street art which very much reclaims the notion of freedom of expression. Some of the imagery is just mad, better than the shit you’ll find in museums and better than some of the exhibitions which are always on show here. Bring a can of spray paint, have a go yourself – there’s enough space for all and always room for improvement.
Needless to say the building, while structurally sound, is still in pretty bad shape, despite all the licks of paint, but this only adds to its charm. Don’t be put off by the dark corridors or the smell of piss on the stairs and the foyer, or even the rats which scurry around the hinterhof at twilight – it only adds to the authentic experience.
Tacheles’ future is still uncertin, sitting as it does on real estate worth some €250 million beside Berlin’s tourist and financial centres. Legal battles pitting squatters and artists against developers and the city are part and parcel of its existence.
Guests are invited to sign a petition to help preserve its future as a creative space. (Anything to stop it from being turned into yet more apartments.) I guess if enough people get involved, we won't have to wonder "how long is now?" anymore.
on $ale, act now and receive second painting ('optimal existential experience ) for free! Limited time offer.
“In my mid 30’s I was feeling existential angst. I had 2 young kids, was happily married with a great career…but there was something missing. I searched for truth and the one constant theme I found was meditation. I came across Vipassana and the practice was so utterly simple, so profound and complete, t
hat I fell in love with it."