With my friend Paul, I spend five days in Osaka, Japan. The trip provided much refreshment, and excitement, not to mention many challenges. It was my first visit to the country, and, I feel, it certainly won't be my last, as there are still many places left to see, and so many new things to learn.

 

We had several destinations highlighted on our itinerary, the foremost of which was Universal Studios. We spend an entire day there, going on rides and more often than not, queuing for them. The excruciating wait times were worth it, however, for such exhilarating fun, especially on the Hollywood Roller Coaster, my personal favorite. The next morning we followed up that successful endeavor with a trip to the Himeji Castle, a place which came highly recommended by my colleague, whose succinct description of the heritage site was, "awesome." Indeed, as a history buff, I enjoyed walking the storied grounds and climbing through the maze-like interior of the keep which was designed not so much to comfortably house the royal family as to confound the invading enemy. The castle is a must-visit. Other attractions of note include the Osaka Aquarium, and the Tennoji Zoo; both teemed with animals of every shape and size. We also at length ventured into several shopping districts inside of which were myriad stores, selling all sorts of fashion and gadgetry, countless restaurants and several gambling parlors - the Japanese, it seems, love their slot machines as much as the Hong Kong Chinese love their horse racing. Lest I forget, we frequented several video arcades to play the latest and greatest games; Paul played well, while I more often than not got 0wn3d. There is a lot to do in Japan.

 

Japanese culture, of which I've heard so much, really is distinct and separate from other Asian cultures. Their patterns of action and their peculiar artifacts certainly aren't the same as those which feature prominently in Hong Kong. For one thing, the MTR culture was more civilized and less stressful: people queued up for trains and let passengers alight first before permitting themselves to board; cellphones never rang and cabin cars were as quiet as bedrooms at midnight; and to imagine all of these people enforce their norms without public service announcements, without any coddling, conspicuous signs - that's amazing. What proved difficult was trying to find a garbage can. It was easier to find a vending machine, from which one could purchase a variety of drinks or cigarettes, than a bin in which to dispose of these delectable, perishable goods.

 

As for the general citizenry, they were most accommodating and hospitable, with several individuals going out of their way to help Paul and I find our way around the dense sprawl of the city. Language wasn't a concern despite our limited Japanese; amazingly enough, our comfort was their concern! I won't forget their selfless service, as one day, I hope, I'll be able to return the favor. That the girls were quite attractive and that I demonstrated a propensity to ask attractive girls for directions go without saying; however, I understand now that their sexiness and sophistication stem not from comely faces but coherent attire. Rather than adorn themselves like a typical Mong Kok girl in a ridiculous neon rainbow palette, with jeans or unseemly spandex underneath dresses, skirts or other tops better left to stand alone, Japanese girls opt for more somber, sensible colors - black and cream-colored - and what's more, they aren't afraid to whip out the tasteful pantyhose or to show some skin, even. We had plenty of time to ogle the ladies, and to their credit, freezing temperatures weren't enough to dissuade many of them from forsaking, icing their shorts, as we saw countless pairs being worn on the street. That's what I call fashion professionalism!

 

Overall, Japan is a marvelous little land full of the eccentric, as well as the endearing. It was a fascinating place to explore, and I'm thankful that it was done in the company of my friend , with whom candor was not at a premium. We both learned a lot and look forward to the next trip!

Angkor Wat or "Capital Temple" is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world. It was first a Hindu and later a Buddhist temple. It was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura, present-day Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum.

 

Breaking from the Shiva tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious center since its foundation. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early Dravidian architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.

 

The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (नगर). Wat is the Khmer word for "temple grounds" (Sanskrit: वाट vāṭa ""enclosure").

 

HISTORY

Angkor Wat lies 5.5 kilometres north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. It is in an area of Cambodia where there is an important group of ancient structures. It is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites.

 

According to one legend, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to act as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea.

 

According to the 13th century Chinese traveler Daguan Zhou, it was believed by some that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect. The initial design and construction of the temple took place in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113-C. 1150). Dedicated to Vishnu, it was built as the king's state temple and capital city. As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as "Varah Vishnu-lok" after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished.

 

In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon respectively) a few kilometers to the north.

 

In the late 13th century, Angkor Wat gradually moved from Hindu to Theravada Buddhist use, which continues to the present day. Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was somewhat neglected after the 16th century it was never completely abandoned, its preservation being due in part to the fact that its moat also provided some protection from encroachment by the jungle.

One of the first Western visitors to the temple was António da Madalena, a Portuguese monk who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of."

 

In the mid-19th century, the temple was visited by the French naturalist and explorer, Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote:

 

"One of these temples - a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo - might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged."

 

Mouhot, like other early Western visitors, found it difficult to believe that the Khmers could have built the temple, and mistakenly dated it to around the same era as Rome. The true history of Angkor Wat was pieced together only from stylistic and epigraphic evidence accumulated during the subsequent clearing and restoration work carried out across the whole Angkor site. There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement including cooking utensils, weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites. Instead there is the evidence of the monuments themselves.

 

Angkor Wat required considerable restoration in the 20th century, mainly the removal of accumulated earth and vegetation. Work was interrupted by the civil war and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period other than the theft and destruction of mostly post-Angkorian statues.The temple is a powerful symbol of Cambodia, and is a source of great national pride that has factored into Cambodia's diplomatic relations with France, the United States and its neighbor Thailand. A depiction of Angkor Wat has been a part of Cambodian national flags since the introduction of the first version circa 1863. From a larger historical and even transcultural perspective, however, the temple of Angkor Wat did not become a symbol of national pride sui generis but had been inscribed into a larger politico-cultural process of French-colonial heritage production in which the original temple site was presented in French colonial and universal exhibitions in Paris and Marseille between 1889 and 1937. Angkor Wat's aesthetics were also on display in the plaster cast museum of Louis Delaporte called musée Indo-chinois which existed in the Parisian Trocadero Palace from C. 1880 to the mid-1920s. The splendid artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins. This quickly led to Cambodia reclaiming lands in the northwestern corner of the country that had been under Siamese (Thai) control since 1351 AD (Manich Jumsai 2001), or by some accounts, 1431 AD. Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953 and has controlled Angkor Wat since that time.

 

ARCHITECTURE

SITE AND PLAN

Angkor Wat, located at 13°24′45″N 103°52′0″E, is a unique combination of the temple mountain, the standard design for the empire's state temples and the later plan of concentric galleries. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods: the central quincunx of towers symbolises the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. Access to the upper areas of the temple was progressively more exclusive, with the laity being admitted only to the lowest level. Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west rather than the east. This has led many (including Maurice Glaize and George Coedès) to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary temple.Further evidence for this view is provided by the bas-reliefs, which proceed in a counter-clockwise direction - prasavya in Hindu terminology - as this is the reverse of the normal order. Rituals take place in reverse order during Brahminic funeral services. The archaeologist Charles Higham also describes a container which may have been a funerary jar which was recovered from the central tower. It has been nominated by some as the greatest expenditure of energy on the disposal of a corpse. Freeman and Jacques, however, note that several other temples of Angkor depart from the typical eastern orientation, and suggest that Angkor Wat's alignment was due to its dedication to Vishnu, who was associated with the west.

 

A further interpretation of Angkor Wat has been proposed by Eleanor Mannikka. Drawing on the temple's alignment and dimensions, and on the content and arrangement of the bas-reliefs, she argues that the structure represents a claimed new era of peace under King Suryavarman II: "as the measurements of solar and lunar time cycles were built into the sacred space of Angkor Wat, this divine mandate to rule was anchored to consecrated chambers and corridors meant to perpetuate the king's power and to honor and placate the deities manifest in the heavens above." Mannikka's suggestions have been received with a mixture of interest and scepticism in academic circles. She distances herself from the speculations of others, such as Graham Hancock, that Angkor Wat is part of a representation of the constellation Draco.

 

STYLE

Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture - the Angkor Wat style - to which it has given its name. By the 12th century Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone (rather than brick or laterite) as the main building material. Most of the visible areas are of sandstone blocks, while laterite was used for the outer wall and for hidden structural parts. The binding agent used to join the blocks is yet to be identified, although natural resins or slaked lime has been suggested. The temple has drawn praise above all for the harmony of its design. According to Maurice Glaize, a mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, the temple "attains a classic perfection by the restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise arrangement of its proportions. It is a work of power, unity and style." Architecturally, the elements characteristic of the style include: the ogival, redented towers shaped like lotus buds; half-galleries to broaden passageways; axial galleries connecting enclosures; and the cruciform terraces which appear along the main axis of the temple. Typical decorative elements are devatas (or apsaras), bas-reliefs, and on pediments extensive garlands and narrative scenes. The statuary of Angkor Wat is considered conservative, being more static and less graceful than earlier work. Other elements of the design have been destroyed by looting and the passage of time, including gilded stucco on the towers, gilding on some figures on the bas-reliefs, and wooden ceiling panels and doors.

 

FEATURES

OUTER ENCLOSURE

The outer wall, 1024 by 802 m and 4.5 m high, is surrounded by a 30 m apron of open ground and a moat 190 m wide. Access to the temple is by an earth bank to the east and a sandstone causeway to the west; the latter, the main entrance, is a later addition, possibly replacing a wooden bridge. There are gopuras at each of the cardinal points; the western is by far the largest and has three ruined towers. Glaize notes that this gopura both hides and echoes the form of the temple proper. Under the southern tower is a statue of Vishnu, known as Ta Reach, which may originally have occupied the temple's central shrine.Galleries run between the towers and as far as two further entrances on either side of the gopura often referred to as "elephant gates", as they are large enough to admit those animals. These galleries have square pillars on the outer (west) side and a closed wall on the inner (east) side. The ceiling between the pillars is decorated with lotus rosettes; the west face of the wall with dancing figures; and the east face of the wall with balustered windows, dancing male figures on prancing animals, and devatas, including (south of the entrance) the only one in the temple to be showing her teeth. The outer wall encloses a space of 820,000 square metres, which besides the temple proper was originally occupied by the city and, to the north of the temple, the royal palace. Like all secular buildings of Angkor, these were built of perishable materials rather than of stone, so nothing remains of them except the outlines of some of the streets. Most of the area is now covered by forest. A 350 m causeway connects the western gopura to the temple proper, with naga balustrades and six sets of steps leading down to the city on either side. Each side also features a library with entrances at each cardinal point, in front of the third set of stairs from the entrance, and a pond between the library and the temple itself. The ponds are later additions to the design, as is the cruciform terrace guarded by lions connecting the causeway to the central structure.

 

CENTRAL STRUCTURE

The temple stands on a terrace raised higher than the city. It is made of three rectangular galleries rising to a central tower, each level higher than the last. Mannikka interprets these galleries as being dedicated to the king, Brahma, the moon, and Vishnu.

 

Each gallery has a gopura at each of the points, and the two inner galleries each have towers at their corners, forming a quincunx with the central tower. Because the temple faces west, the features are all set back towards the east, leaving more space to be filled in each enclosure and gallery on the west side; for the same reason the west-facing steps are shallower than those on the other sides.

 

The outer gallery measures 187 by 215 m, with pavilions rather than towers at the corners. The gallery is open to the outside of the temple, with columned half-galleries extending and buttressing the structure. Connecting the outer gallery to the second enclosure on the west side is a cruciform cloister called Preah Poan (the "Hall of a Thousand Gods"). Buddha images were left in the cloister by pilgrims over the centuries, although most have now been removed. This area has many inscriptions relating the good deeds of pilgrims, most written in Khmer but others in Burmese and Japanese. The four small courtyards marked out by the cloister may originally have been filled with water.

 

North and south of the cloister are libraries.

 

Beyond, the second and inner galleries are connected to each other and to two flanking libraries by another cruciform terrace, again a later addition. From the second level upwards, devatas abound on the walls, singly or in groups of up to four. The second-level enclosure is 100 by 115 m, and may originally have been flooded to represent the ocean around Mount Meru.

 

Three sets of steps on each side lead up to the corner towers and gopuras of the inner gallery. The very steep stairways represent the difficulty of ascending to the kingdom of the gods. This inner gallery, called the Bakan, is a 60 m square with axial galleries connecting each gopura with the central shrine, and subsidiary shrines located below the corner towers. The roofings of the galleries are decorated with the motif of the body of a snake ending in the heads of lions or garudas. Carved lintels and pediments decorate the entrances to the galleries and to the shrines. The tower above the central shrine rises 43 m to a height of 65 m above the ground; unlike those of previous temple mountains, the central tower is raised above the surrounding four. The shrine itself, originally occupied by a statue of Vishnu and open on each side, was walled in when the temple was converted to Theravada Buddhism, the new walls featuring standing Buddhas. In 1934, the conservator George Trouvé excavated the pit beneath the central shrine: filled with sand and water it had already been robbed of its treasure, but he did find a sacred foundation deposit of gold leaf two metres above ground level.

 

DECORATION

Integrated with the architecture of the building, and one of the causes for its fame is Angkor Wat's extensive decoration, which predominantly takes the form of bas-relief friezes. The inner walls of the outer gallery bear a series of large-scale scenes mainly depicting episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Higham has called these, "the greatest known linear arrangement of stone carving".

 

From the north-west corner anti-clockwise, the western gallery shows the Battle of Lanka (from the Ramayana, in which Rama defeats Ravana) and the Battle of Kurukshetra (from the Mahabharata, showing the mutual annihilation of the Kaurava and Pandava clans). On the southern gallery follow the only historical scene, a procession of Suryavarman II, then the 32 hells and 37 heavens of Hindu mythology.

 

On the eastern gallery is one of the most celebrated scenes, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, showing 92 asuras and 88 devas using the serpent Vasuki to churn the sea under Vishnu's direction (Mannikka counts only 91 asuras, and explains the asymmetrical numbers as representing the number of days from the winter solstice to the spring equinox, and from the equinox to the summer solstice). It is followed by Vishnu defeating asuras (a 16th-century addition). The northern gallery shows Krishna's victory over Bana (where according to Glaize, "The workmanship is at its worst"). and a battle between the Hindu gods and asuras. The north-west and south-west corner pavilions both feature much smaller-scale scenes, some unidentified but most from the Ramayana or the life of Krishna. Angkor Wat is decorated with depictions of apsaras and devata; there are more than 1,796 depictions of devata in the present research inventory. Angkor Wat architects employed small apsara images (30–40 cm) as decorative motifs on pillars and walls. They incorporated larger devata images (all full-body portraits measuring approximately 95–110 cm) more prominently at every level of the temple from the entry pavilion to the tops of the high towers. In 1927, Sappho Marchal published a study cataloging the remarkable diversity of their hair, headdresses, garments, stance, jewelry and decorative flowers, which Marchal concluded were based on actual practices of the Angkor period.

 

CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES

The stones, as smooth as polished marble, were laid without mortar with very tight joints that are sometimes hard to find. The blocks were held together by mortise and tenon joints in some cases, while in others they used dovetails and gravity. The blocks were presumably put in place by a combination of elephants, coir ropes, pulleys and bamboo scaffolding. Henri Mouhot noted that most of the blocks had holes 2.5 cm in diameter and 3 cm deep, with more holes on the larger blocks. Some scholars have suggested that these were used to join them together with iron rods, but others claim they were used to hold temporary pegs to help manoeuvre them into place. The monument was made out of millions of tonnes of sandstone and it has a greater volume as well as mass than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The Angkor Wat Temple consumes about 6 million to 10 million blocks of sandstone with an average weight of 1.5 tons each. In fact, the entire city of Angkor used up far greater amounts of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and occupied an area significantly greater than modern-day Paris. Moreover, unlike the Egyptian pyramids which use limestone quarried barely half a km away all the time, the entire city of Angkor was built with sandstone quarried 40 km (or more) away. This sandstone had to be transported from Mount Kulen, a quarry approximately 40 km to the northeast. The route has been suggested to span 35 kilometres along a canal towards Tonlé Sap lake, another 35 kilometres crossing the lake, and finally 15 kilometres upstream and against the current along Siem Reap River, making a total journey of 90 kilometres. However, Etsuo Uchida and Ichita Shimoda of Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan have discovered in 2012 a shorter 35-kilometre canal connecting Mount Kulen and Angkor Wat using satellite imagery. The two believe that the Khmer used this route instead.

 

Virtually all of its surfaces, columns, lintels even roofs are carved. There are miles of reliefs illustrating scenes from Indian literature including unicorns, griffins, winged dragons pulling chariots as well as warriors following an elephant-mounted leader and celestial dancing girls with elaborate hair styles. The gallery wall alone is decorated with almost 1000 square metres of bas reliefs. Holes on some of the Angkor walls indicate that they may have been decorated with bronze sheets. These were highly prized in ancient times and were a prime target for robbers. While excavating Khajuraho, Alex Evans, a stonemason and sculptor, recreated a stone sculpture under 1.2 m, this took about 60 days to carve. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also conducted experiments to quarry limestone which took 12 quarrymen 22 days to quarry about 400 tons of stone. The labor force to quarry, transport, carve and install so much sandstone must have run into the thousands including many highly skilled artisans. The skills required to carve these sculptures were developed hundreds of years earlier, as demonstrated by some artifacts that have been dated to the seventh century, before the Khmer came to power.

 

ANGKOR WAT TODAY

The Archaeological Survey of India carried out restoration work on the temple between 1986 and 1992. Since the 1990s, Angkor Wat has seen continued conservation efforts and a massive increase in tourism. The temple is part of the Angkor World Heritage Site, established in 1992, which has provided some funding and has encouraged the Cambodian government to protect the site. The German Apsara Conservation Project (GACP) is working to protect the devatas and other bas-reliefs which decorate the temple from damage. The organisation's survey found that around 20% of the devatas were in very poor condition, mainly because of natural erosion and deterioration of the stone but in part also due to earlier restoration efforts. Other work involves the repair of collapsed sections of the structure, and prevention of further collapse: the west facade of the upper level, for example, has been buttressed by scaffolding since 2002, while a Japanese team completed restoration of the north library of the outer enclosure in 2005. World Monuments Fund began conservation work on the Churning of the Sea of Milk Gallery in 2008 after several years of conditions studies. The project restored the traditional Khmer roofing system and removed cement used in earlier restoration attempts that had resulted in salts entering the structure behind the bas-relief, discoloring and damaging the sculpted surfaces. The main phase of work ended in 2012, and the final component will be the installation of finials on the roof of the gallery in 2013. Microbial biofilms have been found degrading sandstone at Angkor Wat, Preah Khan, and the Bayon and West Prasat in Angkor. The dehydration and radiation resistant filamentous cyanobacteria can produce organic acids that degrade the stone. A dark filamentous fungus was found in internal and external Preah Khan samples, while the alga Trentepohlia was found only in samples taken from external, pink-stained stone at Preah Khan. Angkor Wat has become a major tourist destination. In 2004 and 2005, government figures suggest that, respectively, 561.000 and 677.000 foreign visitors arrived in Siem Reap province, approximately 50% of all foreign tourists in Cambodia for both years. The site has been managed by the private SOKIMEX group since 1990, which rented it from the Cambodian government. The influx of tourists has so far caused relatively little damage, other than some graffiti; ropes and wooden steps have been introduced to protect the bas-reliefs and floors, respectively. Tourism has also provided some additional funds for maintenance - as of 2000 approximately 28% of ticket revenues across the whole Angkor site was spent on the temples - although most work is carried out by foreign government-sponsored teams rather than by the Cambodian authorities. Since Angkor Wat has seen significant growth in tourism throughout the years UNESCO and its International Co-ordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (ICC), in association with representatives from the Royal Government and APSARA, organized seminars to discuss the concept of "cultural tourism". Wanting to avoid commercial and mass tourism, the seminars emphasized the importance of providing high quality accommodation and services in order for the Cambodian government to benefit economically, while also incorporating the richness of Cambodian culture. In 2001, this incentive resulted in the concept of the "Angkor Tourist City" which would be developed with regard to traditional Khmer architecture, contain leisure and tourist facilities, and provide luxurious hotels capable of accommodating large amounts of tourists. The prospect of developing such large tourist accommodations has encountered concerns from both APSARA and the ICC, claiming that previous tourism developments in the area have neglected construction regulations and more of these projects have the potential to damage landscape features. Also, the large scale of these projects have begun to threaten the quality of the nearby town's water, sewage, and electricity systems. It has been noted that such high frequency of tourism and growing demand for quality accommodations in the area, such as the development of a large highway, has had a direct effect on the underground water table, subsequently straining the structural stability of the temples at Angkor Wat. Locals of Siem Reap have also voiced concern over the charming nature and atmosphere of their town being compromised in order to entertain tourism. Since this charming local atmosphere is the key component to projects like Angkor Tourist City, local officials continue to discuss how to successfully incorporate future tourism without sacrificing local values and culture. At the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2012, both parties have agreed Borobudur and Angkor Wat to become sister sites and the provinces will become sister provinces. Two Indonesian airlines are considering the opportunity to open a direct flight from Yogyakarta, Indonesia to Siem Reap.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Angkor Wat or "Capital Temple" is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world. It was first a Hindu and later a Buddhist temple. It was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura, present-day Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum.

 

Breaking from the Shiva tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious center since its foundation. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early Dravidian architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.

 

The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (नगर). Wat is the Khmer word for "temple grounds" (Sanskrit: वाट vāṭa ""enclosure").

 

HISTORY

Angkor Wat lies 5.5 kilometres north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. It is in an area of Cambodia where there is an important group of ancient structures. It is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites.

 

According to one legend, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to act as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea.

 

According to the 13th century Chinese traveler Daguan Zhou, it was believed by some that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect. The initial design and construction of the temple took place in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113-C. 1150). Dedicated to Vishnu, it was built as the king's state temple and capital city. As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as "Varah Vishnu-lok" after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished.

 

In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon respectively) a few kilometers to the north.

 

In the late 13th century, Angkor Wat gradually moved from Hindu to Theravada Buddhist use, which continues to the present day. Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was somewhat neglected after the 16th century it was never completely abandoned, its preservation being due in part to the fact that its moat also provided some protection from encroachment by the jungle.

One of the first Western visitors to the temple was António da Madalena, a Portuguese monk who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of."

 

In the mid-19th century, the temple was visited by the French naturalist and explorer, Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote:

 

"One of these temples - a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo - might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged."

 

Mouhot, like other early Western visitors, found it difficult to believe that the Khmers could have built the temple, and mistakenly dated it to around the same era as Rome. The true history of Angkor Wat was pieced together only from stylistic and epigraphic evidence accumulated during the subsequent clearing and restoration work carried out across the whole Angkor site. There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement including cooking utensils, weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites. Instead there is the evidence of the monuments themselves.

 

Angkor Wat required considerable restoration in the 20th century, mainly the removal of accumulated earth and vegetation. Work was interrupted by the civil war and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period other than the theft and destruction of mostly post-Angkorian statues.The temple is a powerful symbol of Cambodia, and is a source of great national pride that has factored into Cambodia's diplomatic relations with France, the United States and its neighbor Thailand. A depiction of Angkor Wat has been a part of Cambodian national flags since the introduction of the first version circa 1863. From a larger historical and even transcultural perspective, however, the temple of Angkor Wat did not become a symbol of national pride sui generis but had been inscribed into a larger politico-cultural process of French-colonial heritage production in which the original temple site was presented in French colonial and universal exhibitions in Paris and Marseille between 1889 and 1937. Angkor Wat's aesthetics were also on display in the plaster cast museum of Louis Delaporte called musée Indo-chinois which existed in the Parisian Trocadero Palace from C. 1880 to the mid-1920s. The splendid artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins. This quickly led to Cambodia reclaiming lands in the northwestern corner of the country that had been under Siamese (Thai) control since 1351 AD (Manich Jumsai 2001), or by some accounts, 1431 AD. Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953 and has controlled Angkor Wat since that time.

 

ARCHITECTURE

SITE AND PLAN

Angkor Wat, located at 13°24′45″N 103°52′0″E, is a unique combination of the temple mountain, the standard design for the empire's state temples and the later plan of concentric galleries. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods: the central quincunx of towers symbolises the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. Access to the upper areas of the temple was progressively more exclusive, with the laity being admitted only to the lowest level. Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west rather than the east. This has led many (including Maurice Glaize and George Coedès) to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary temple.Further evidence for this view is provided by the bas-reliefs, which proceed in a counter-clockwise direction - prasavya in Hindu terminology - as this is the reverse of the normal order. Rituals take place in reverse order during Brahminic funeral services. The archaeologist Charles Higham also describes a container which may have been a funerary jar which was recovered from the central tower. It has been nominated by some as the greatest expenditure of energy on the disposal of a corpse. Freeman and Jacques, however, note that several other temples of Angkor depart from the typical eastern orientation, and suggest that Angkor Wat's alignment was due to its dedication to Vishnu, who was associated with the west.

 

A further interpretation of Angkor Wat has been proposed by Eleanor Mannikka. Drawing on the temple's alignment and dimensions, and on the content and arrangement of the bas-reliefs, she argues that the structure represents a claimed new era of peace under King Suryavarman II: "as the measurements of solar and lunar time cycles were built into the sacred space of Angkor Wat, this divine mandate to rule was anchored to consecrated chambers and corridors meant to perpetuate the king's power and to honor and placate the deities manifest in the heavens above." Mannikka's suggestions have been received with a mixture of interest and scepticism in academic circles. She distances herself from the speculations of others, such as Graham Hancock, that Angkor Wat is part of a representation of the constellation Draco.

 

STYLE

Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture - the Angkor Wat style - to which it has given its name. By the 12th century Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone (rather than brick or laterite) as the main building material. Most of the visible areas are of sandstone blocks, while laterite was used for the outer wall and for hidden structural parts. The binding agent used to join the blocks is yet to be identified, although natural resins or slaked lime has been suggested. The temple has drawn praise above all for the harmony of its design. According to Maurice Glaize, a mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, the temple "attains a classic perfection by the restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise arrangement of its proportions. It is a work of power, unity and style." Architecturally, the elements characteristic of the style include: the ogival, redented towers shaped like lotus buds; half-galleries to broaden passageways; axial galleries connecting enclosures; and the cruciform terraces which appear along the main axis of the temple. Typical decorative elements are devatas (or apsaras), bas-reliefs, and on pediments extensive garlands and narrative scenes. The statuary of Angkor Wat is considered conservative, being more static and less graceful than earlier work. Other elements of the design have been destroyed by looting and the passage of time, including gilded stucco on the towers, gilding on some figures on the bas-reliefs, and wooden ceiling panels and doors.

 

FEATURES

OUTER ENCLOSURE

The outer wall, 1024 by 802 m and 4.5 m high, is surrounded by a 30 m apron of open ground and a moat 190 m wide. Access to the temple is by an earth bank to the east and a sandstone causeway to the west; the latter, the main entrance, is a later addition, possibly replacing a wooden bridge. There are gopuras at each of the cardinal points; the western is by far the largest and has three ruined towers. Glaize notes that this gopura both hides and echoes the form of the temple proper. Under the southern tower is a statue of Vishnu, known as Ta Reach, which may originally have occupied the temple's central shrine.Galleries run between the towers and as far as two further entrances on either side of the gopura often referred to as "elephant gates", as they are large enough to admit those animals. These galleries have square pillars on the outer (west) side and a closed wall on the inner (east) side. The ceiling between the pillars is decorated with lotus rosettes; the west face of the wall with dancing figures; and the east face of the wall with balustered windows, dancing male figures on prancing animals, and devatas, including (south of the entrance) the only one in the temple to be showing her teeth. The outer wall encloses a space of 820,000 square metres, which besides the temple proper was originally occupied by the city and, to the north of the temple, the royal palace. Like all secular buildings of Angkor, these were built of perishable materials rather than of stone, so nothing remains of them except the outlines of some of the streets. Most of the area is now covered by forest. A 350 m causeway connects the western gopura to the temple proper, with naga balustrades and six sets of steps leading down to the city on either side. Each side also features a library with entrances at each cardinal point, in front of the third set of stairs from the entrance, and a pond between the library and the temple itself. The ponds are later additions to the design, as is the cruciform terrace guarded by lions connecting the causeway to the central structure.

 

CENTRAL STRUCTURE

The temple stands on a terrace raised higher than the city. It is made of three rectangular galleries rising to a central tower, each level higher than the last. Mannikka interprets these galleries as being dedicated to the king, Brahma, the moon, and Vishnu.

 

Each gallery has a gopura at each of the points, and the two inner galleries each have towers at their corners, forming a quincunx with the central tower. Because the temple faces west, the features are all set back towards the east, leaving more space to be filled in each enclosure and gallery on the west side; for the same reason the west-facing steps are shallower than those on the other sides.

 

The outer gallery measures 187 by 215 m, with pavilions rather than towers at the corners. The gallery is open to the outside of the temple, with columned half-galleries extending and buttressing the structure. Connecting the outer gallery to the second enclosure on the west side is a cruciform cloister called Preah Poan (the "Hall of a Thousand Gods"). Buddha images were left in the cloister by pilgrims over the centuries, although most have now been removed. This area has many inscriptions relating the good deeds of pilgrims, most written in Khmer but others in Burmese and Japanese. The four small courtyards marked out by the cloister may originally have been filled with water.

 

North and south of the cloister are libraries.

 

Beyond, the second and inner galleries are connected to each other and to two flanking libraries by another cruciform terrace, again a later addition. From the second level upwards, devatas abound on the walls, singly or in groups of up to four. The second-level enclosure is 100 by 115 m, and may originally have been flooded to represent the ocean around Mount Meru.

 

Three sets of steps on each side lead up to the corner towers and gopuras of the inner gallery. The very steep stairways represent the difficulty of ascending to the kingdom of the gods. This inner gallery, called the Bakan, is a 60 m square with axial galleries connecting each gopura with the central shrine, and subsidiary shrines located below the corner towers. The roofings of the galleries are decorated with the motif of the body of a snake ending in the heads of lions or garudas. Carved lintels and pediments decorate the entrances to the galleries and to the shrines. The tower above the central shrine rises 43 m to a height of 65 m above the ground; unlike those of previous temple mountains, the central tower is raised above the surrounding four. The shrine itself, originally occupied by a statue of Vishnu and open on each side, was walled in when the temple was converted to Theravada Buddhism, the new walls featuring standing Buddhas. In 1934, the conservator George Trouvé excavated the pit beneath the central shrine: filled with sand and water it had already been robbed of its treasure, but he did find a sacred foundation deposit of gold leaf two metres above ground level.

 

DECORATION

Integrated with the architecture of the building, and one of the causes for its fame is Angkor Wat's extensive decoration, which predominantly takes the form of bas-relief friezes. The inner walls of the outer gallery bear a series of large-scale scenes mainly depicting episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Higham has called these, "the greatest known linear arrangement of stone carving".

 

From the north-west corner anti-clockwise, the western gallery shows the Battle of Lanka (from the Ramayana, in which Rama defeats Ravana) and the Battle of Kurukshetra (from the Mahabharata, showing the mutual annihilation of the Kaurava and Pandava clans). On the southern gallery follow the only historical scene, a procession of Suryavarman II, then the 32 hells and 37 heavens of Hindu mythology.

 

On the eastern gallery is one of the most celebrated scenes, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, showing 92 asuras and 88 devas using the serpent Vasuki to churn the sea under Vishnu's direction (Mannikka counts only 91 asuras, and explains the asymmetrical numbers as representing the number of days from the winter solstice to the spring equinox, and from the equinox to the summer solstice). It is followed by Vishnu defeating asuras (a 16th-century addition). The northern gallery shows Krishna's victory over Bana (where according to Glaize, "The workmanship is at its worst"). and a battle between the Hindu gods and asuras. The north-west and south-west corner pavilions both feature much smaller-scale scenes, some unidentified but most from the Ramayana or the life of Krishna. Angkor Wat is decorated with depictions of apsaras and devata; there are more than 1,796 depictions of devata in the present research inventory. Angkor Wat architects employed small apsara images (30–40 cm) as decorative motifs on pillars and walls. They incorporated larger devata images (all full-body portraits measuring approximately 95–110 cm) more prominently at every level of the temple from the entry pavilion to the tops of the high towers. In 1927, Sappho Marchal published a study cataloging the remarkable diversity of their hair, headdresses, garments, stance, jewelry and decorative flowers, which Marchal concluded were based on actual practices of the Angkor period.

 

CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES

The stones, as smooth as polished marble, were laid without mortar with very tight joints that are sometimes hard to find. The blocks were held together by mortise and tenon joints in some cases, while in others they used dovetails and gravity. The blocks were presumably put in place by a combination of elephants, coir ropes, pulleys and bamboo scaffolding. Henri Mouhot noted that most of the blocks had holes 2.5 cm in diameter and 3 cm deep, with more holes on the larger blocks. Some scholars have suggested that these were used to join them together with iron rods, but others claim they were used to hold temporary pegs to help manoeuvre them into place. The monument was made out of millions of tonnes of sandstone and it has a greater volume as well as mass than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The Angkor Wat Temple consumes about 6 million to 10 million blocks of sandstone with an average weight of 1.5 tons each. In fact, the entire city of Angkor used up far greater amounts of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and occupied an area significantly greater than modern-day Paris. Moreover, unlike the Egyptian pyramids which use limestone quarried barely half a km away all the time, the entire city of Angkor was built with sandstone quarried 40 km (or more) away. This sandstone had to be transported from Mount Kulen, a quarry approximately 40 km to the northeast. The route has been suggested to span 35 kilometres along a canal towards Tonlé Sap lake, another 35 kilometres crossing the lake, and finally 15 kilometres upstream and against the current along Siem Reap River, making a total journey of 90 kilometres. However, Etsuo Uchida and Ichita Shimoda of Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan have discovered in 2012 a shorter 35-kilometre canal connecting Mount Kulen and Angkor Wat using satellite imagery. The two believe that the Khmer used this route instead.

 

Virtually all of its surfaces, columns, lintels even roofs are carved. There are miles of reliefs illustrating scenes from Indian literature including unicorns, griffins, winged dragons pulling chariots as well as warriors following an elephant-mounted leader and celestial dancing girls with elaborate hair styles. The gallery wall alone is decorated with almost 1000 square metres of bas reliefs. Holes on some of the Angkor walls indicate that they may have been decorated with bronze sheets. These were highly prized in ancient times and were a prime target for robbers. While excavating Khajuraho, Alex Evans, a stonemason and sculptor, recreated a stone sculpture under 1.2 m, this took about 60 days to carve. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also conducted experiments to quarry limestone which took 12 quarrymen 22 days to quarry about 400 tons of stone. The labor force to quarry, transport, carve and install so much sandstone must have run into the thousands including many highly skilled artisans. The skills required to carve these sculptures were developed hundreds of years earlier, as demonstrated by some artifacts that have been dated to the seventh century, before the Khmer came to power.

 

ANGKOR WAT TODAY

The Archaeological Survey of India carried out restoration work on the temple between 1986 and 1992. Since the 1990s, Angkor Wat has seen continued conservation efforts and a massive increase in tourism. The temple is part of the Angkor World Heritage Site, established in 1992, which has provided some funding and has encouraged the Cambodian government to protect the site. The German Apsara Conservation Project (GACP) is working to protect the devatas and other bas-reliefs which decorate the temple from damage. The organisation's survey found that around 20% of the devatas were in very poor condition, mainly because of natural erosion and deterioration of the stone but in part also due to earlier restoration efforts. Other work involves the repair of collapsed sections of the structure, and prevention of further collapse: the west facade of the upper level, for example, has been buttressed by scaffolding since 2002, while a Japanese team completed restoration of the north library of the outer enclosure in 2005. World Monuments Fund began conservation work on the Churning of the Sea of Milk Gallery in 2008 after several years of conditions studies. The project restored the traditional Khmer roofing system and removed cement used in earlier restoration attempts that had resulted in salts entering the structure behind the bas-relief, discoloring and damaging the sculpted surfaces. The main phase of work ended in 2012, and the final component will be the installation of finials on the roof of the gallery in 2013. Microbial biofilms have been found degrading sandstone at Angkor Wat, Preah Khan, and the Bayon and West Prasat in Angkor. The dehydration and radiation resistant filamentous cyanobacteria can produce organic acids that degrade the stone. A dark filamentous fungus was found in internal and external Preah Khan samples, while the alga Trentepohlia was found only in samples taken from external, pink-stained stone at Preah Khan. Angkor Wat has become a major tourist destination. In 2004 and 2005, government figures suggest that, respectively, 561.000 and 677.000 foreign visitors arrived in Siem Reap province, approximately 50% of all foreign tourists in Cambodia for both years. The site has been managed by the private SOKIMEX group since 1990, which rented it from the Cambodian government. The influx of tourists has so far caused relatively little damage, other than some graffiti; ropes and wooden steps have been introduced to protect the bas-reliefs and floors, respectively. Tourism has also provided some additional funds for maintenance - as of 2000 approximately 28% of ticket revenues across the whole Angkor site was spent on the temples - although most work is carried out by foreign government-sponsored teams rather than by the Cambodian authorities. Since Angkor Wat has seen significant growth in tourism throughout the years UNESCO and its International Co-ordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (ICC), in association with representatives from the Royal Government and APSARA, organized seminars to discuss the concept of "cultural tourism". Wanting to avoid commercial and mass tourism, the seminars emphasized the importance of providing high quality accommodation and services in order for the Cambodian government to benefit economically, while also incorporating the richness of Cambodian culture. In 2001, this incentive resulted in the concept of the "Angkor Tourist City" which would be developed with regard to traditional Khmer architecture, contain leisure and tourist facilities, and provide luxurious hotels capable of accommodating large amounts of tourists. The prospect of developing such large tourist accommodations has encountered concerns from both APSARA and the ICC, claiming that previous tourism developments in the area have neglected construction regulations and more of these projects have the potential to damage landscape features. Also, the large scale of these projects have begun to threaten the quality of the nearby town's water, sewage, and electricity systems. It has been noted that such high frequency of tourism and growing demand for quality accommodations in the area, such as the development of a large highway, has had a direct effect on the underground water table, subsequently straining the structural stability of the temples at Angkor Wat. Locals of Siem Reap have also voiced concern over the charming nature and atmosphere of their town being compromised in order to entertain tourism. Since this charming local atmosphere is the key component to projects like Angkor Tourist City, local officials continue to discuss how to successfully incorporate future tourism without sacrificing local values and culture. At the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2012, both parties have agreed Borobudur and Angkor Wat to become sister sites and the provinces will become sister provinces. Two Indonesian airlines are considering the opportunity to open a direct flight from Yogyakarta, Indonesia to Siem Reap.

 

WIKIPEDIA

State employees along with Colorado National Guard Soldiers, Airmen, and their families march to fight hunger in our communities by carry rucksacks or backpacks full of non-perishable food and high demand personal products, such as toothpaste and shampoo, to a drop off point five miles away in Parker, Colorado, May 27, 2021.

Volunteer Trinley Gibson, 9, loads perishable items into a cooler at the Branch of Nashville emergency food assistance program at Antioch (Tenn.) United Methodist Church. The program received a “Sheltering in Love,” grant from the United Methodist Committee on Relief to assist vulnerable communities in the United States and around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo by Mike DuBose, UM News.

The first undercoat has been applied to the interior of the van and can be seen on the inside of the open doors.

PLEASE, no multi invitations, glitters or self promotion in your comments. My photos are FREE for anyone to use, just give me credit and it would be nice if you let me know, thanks - NONE OF MY PICTURES ARE HDR.

 

The present lighthouse has been in operation since 1884. This was the rear range light for the harbour, the front range light is no longer there. The lighthouse is white tapered wooden tower, with a red lantern. It was a guide for coastal steamers transporting non-perishable goods into the only protected harbour on the western side of Cape Breton Island. Over the years gypsum was shipped from here, there was also a lobster and salmon canning factory right next to the lighthouse.

 

Tower Height: 14.3meters (47ft)

 

Light Height: 13.4 meters (44ft) above water level

Ecclesden Manor, Angmering, West Sussex.

 

The annual garden party in aid of the RNLI was regularly held in the beautiful gardens around Ecclesden Manor.

 

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest of the lifeboat services operating around the coasts of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on some inland waterways.

 

Angelica is a genus of about 60 species of tall biennial and perennial herbs in the family Apiaceae, native to temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, reaching as far north as Iceland and Lapland. They grow to 1-3 metres tall, with large bipinnate leaves and large compound umbels of white or greenish-white flowers.

 

Although their flowers are pollinated by a great variety of insects (the generalist pollination syndrome), the floral scents are species-specific, and even specific to particular subspecies.

 

Angelica archangelica, commonly known as Garden Angelica, Holy Ghost, Wild Celery, and Norwegian angelica, is a biennial plant from the Apiaceae family, a subspecies of which is cultivated for its sweetly scented edible stems and roots. Like several other species in Apiaceae, its appearance is similar to several poisonous species (Conium, Heracleum, and others), and should not be consumed unless it has been identified with absolute certainty.

 

Angelica archangelica grows wild in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland, mostly in the northern parts of the countries. It is cultivated in France, mainly in the Marais Poitevin, a marsh region close to Niort in the départment Deux-Sèvres. It also grows in certain regions in Germany like the Harz mountains, and in certain regions of Romania, like the Rodna mountains.

 

From the 10th century on, angelica was cultivated as a vegetable and medicinal plant, and achieved popularity in Scandinavia in the 12th century and is still used today, especially in Sami culture. A flute-like instrument with a clarinet-like sound can be made of its hollow stem.

 

Linnaeus reported that Sami peoples used it in reindeer milk, as it is often used as a flavoring agent.

 

It is used to flavour liqueurs or aquavits (e.g. Chartreuse, Bénédictine, Vermouth and Dubonnet), omelettes and trout, and as jam. The long bright green stems are also candied and used as decoration.

 

Angelica is unique amongst the Umbelliferae for its pervading aromatic odour, a pleasant perfume entirely different from Fennel, Parsley, Anise, Caraway or Chervil. One old writer compares it to Musk, others liken it to Juniper. Even the roots are fragrant, and form one of the principal aromatics of European growth - the other parts of the plant have the same flavour, but their active principles are considered more perishable.

 

Angelica contains a variety of chemicals which have been shown to have medicinal properties, and the plant is used as a digestive aid.

 

The essential oil of the roots of Angelica archangelica contains β-terebangelene, C10H16, and other terpenes; the oil of the seeds also contains β-terebangelene, together with methylethylacetic acid and hydroxymyristic acid.[citation needed] The fruits are tiny mericarps and are used in the production of absinthe and other alcoholic drinks.

 

Seeds of a Persian spice plant known as Golpar (Heracleum persicum) are often labeled as "angelica seeds".

 

Archangelica comes from the Greek word "arkhangelos" due to the myth that it was the archangel Michael who told of its use as medicine.

 

In Finnish it is called väinönputki, in Kalaallisut kuanneq, in Sami fádnu, boska and rássi, in English garden angelica, in German arznei-engelwurz, in Dutch grote engelwortel, in Persian Sonbol-e Khatāyi سنبل خطایی, in Swedish kvanne, in Norwegian kvann, in Danish kvan, in Icelandic hvönn, and in Faroese it has the name hvonn.

With my friend Paul, I spend five days in Osaka, Japan. The trip provided much refreshment, and excitement, not to mention many challenges. It was my first visit to the country, and, I feel, it certainly won't be my last, as there are still many places left to see, and so many new things to learn.

 

We had several destinations highlighted on our itinerary, the foremost of which was Universal Studios. We spend an entire day there, going on rides and more often than not, queuing for them. The excruciating wait times were worth it, however, for such exhilarating fun, especially on the Hollywood Roller Coaster, my personal favorite. The next morning we followed up that successful endeavor with a trip to the Himeji Castle, a place which came highly recommended by my colleague, whose succinct description of the heritage site was, "awesome." Indeed, as a history buff, I enjoyed walking the storied grounds and climbing through the maze-like interior of the keep which was designed not so much to comfortably house the royal family as to confound the invading enemy. The castle is a must-visit. Other attractions of note include the Osaka Aquarium, and the Tennoji Zoo; both teemed with animals of every shape and size. We also at length ventured into several shopping districts inside of which were myriad stores, selling all sorts of fashion and gadgetry, countless restaurants and several gambling parlors - the Japanese, it seems, love their slot machines as much as the Hong Kong Chinese love their horse racing. Lest I forget, we frequented several video arcades to play the latest and greatest games; Paul played well, while I more often than not got 0wn3d. There is a lot to do in Japan.

 

Japanese culture, of which I've heard so much, really is distinct and separate from other Asian cultures. Their patterns of action and their peculiar artifacts certainly aren't the same as those which feature prominently in Hong Kong. For one thing, the MTR culture was more civilized and less stressful: people queued up for trains and let passengers alight first before permitting themselves to board; cellphones never rang and cabin cars were as quiet as bedrooms at midnight; and to imagine all of these people enforce their norms without public service announcements, without any coddling, conspicuous signs - that's amazing. What proved difficult was trying to find a garbage can. It was easier to find a vending machine, from which one could purchase a variety of drinks or cigarettes, than a bin in which to dispose of these delectable, perishable goods.

 

As for the general citizenry, they were most accommodating and hospitable, with several individuals going out of their way to help Paul and I find our way around the dense sprawl of the city. Language wasn't a concern despite our limited Japanese; amazingly enough, our comfort was their concern! I won't forget their selfless service, as one day, I hope, I'll be able to return the favor. That the girls were quite attractive and that I demonstrated a propensity to ask attractive girls for directions go without saying; however, I understand now that their sexiness and sophistication stem not from comely faces but coherent attire. Rather than adorn themselves like a typical Mong Kok girl in a ridiculous neon rainbow palette, with jeans or unseemly spandex underneath dresses, skirts or other tops better left to stand alone, Japanese girls opt for more somber, sensible colors - black and cream-colored - and what's more, they aren't afraid to whip out the tasteful pantyhose or to show some skin, even. We had plenty of time to ogle the ladies, and to their credit, freezing temperatures weren't enough to dissuade many of them from forsaking, icing their shorts, as we saw countless pairs being worn on the street. That's what I call fashion professionalism!

 

Overall, Japan is a marvelous little land full of the eccentric, as well as the endearing. It was a fascinating place to explore, and I'm thankful that it was done in the company of my friend , with whom candor was not at a premium. We both learned a lot and look forward to the next trip!

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

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

With my friend Paul, I spend five days in Osaka, Japan. The trip provided much refreshment, and excitement, not to mention many challenges. It was my first visit to the country, and, I feel, it certainly won't be my last, as there are still many places left to see, and so many new things to learn.

 

We had several destinations highlighted on our itinerary, the foremost of which was Universal Studios. We spend an entire day there, going on rides and more often than not, queuing for them. The excruciating wait times were worth it, however, for such exhilarating fun, especially on the Hollywood Roller Coaster, my personal favorite. The next morning we followed up that successful endeavor with a trip to the Himeji Castle, a place which came highly recommended by my colleague, whose succinct description of the heritage site was, "awesome." Indeed, as a history buff, I enjoyed walking the storied grounds and climbing through the maze-like interior of the keep which was designed not so much to comfortably house the royal family as to confound the invading enemy. The castle is a must-visit. Other attractions of note include the Osaka Aquarium, and the Tennoji Zoo; both teemed with animals of every shape and size. We also at length ventured into several shopping districts inside of which were myriad stores, selling all sorts of fashion and gadgetry, countless restaurants and several gambling parlors - the Japanese, it seems, love their slot machines as much as the Hong Kong Chinese love their horse racing. Lest I forget, we frequented several video arcades to play the latest and greatest games; Paul played well, while I more often than not got 0wn3d. There is a lot to do in Japan.

 

Japanese culture, of which I've heard so much, really is distinct and separate from other Asian cultures. Their patterns of action and their peculiar artifacts certainly aren't the same as those which feature prominently in Hong Kong. For one thing, the MTR culture was more civilized and less stressful: people queued up for trains and let passengers alight first before permitting themselves to board; cellphones never rang and cabin cars were as quiet as bedrooms at midnight; and to imagine all of these people enforce their norms without public service announcements, without any coddling, conspicuous signs - that's amazing. What proved difficult was trying to find a garbage can. It was easier to find a vending machine, from which one could purchase a variety of drinks or cigarettes, than a bin in which to dispose of these delectable, perishable goods.

 

As for the general citizenry, they were most accommodating and hospitable, with several individuals going out of their way to help Paul and I find our way around the dense sprawl of the city. Language wasn't a concern despite our limited Japanese; amazingly enough, our comfort was their concern! I won't forget their selfless service, as one day, I hope, I'll be able to return the favor. That the girls were quite attractive and that I demonstrated a propensity to ask attractive girls for directions go without saying; however, I understand now that their sexiness and sophistication stem not from comely faces but coherent attire. Rather than adorn themselves like a typical Mong Kok girl in a ridiculous neon rainbow palette, with jeans or unseemly spandex underneath dresses, skirts or other tops better left to stand alone, Japanese girls opt for more somber, sensible colors - black and cream-colored - and what's more, they aren't afraid to whip out the tasteful pantyhose or to show some skin, even. We had plenty of time to ogle the ladies, and to their credit, freezing temperatures weren't enough to dissuade many of them from forsaking, icing their shorts, as we saw countless pairs being worn on the street. That's what I call fashion professionalism!

 

Overall, Japan is a marvelous little land full of the eccentric, as well as the endearing. It was a fascinating place to explore, and I'm thankful that it was done in the company of my friend , with whom candor was not at a premium. We both learned a lot and look forward to the next trip!

Angkor Wat or "Capital Temple" is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world. It was first a Hindu and later a Buddhist temple. It was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura, present-day Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum.

 

Breaking from the Shiva tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious center since its foundation. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early Dravidian architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.

 

The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (नगर). Wat is the Khmer word for "temple grounds" (Sanskrit: वाट vāṭa ""enclosure").

 

HISTORY

Angkor Wat lies 5.5 kilometres north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. It is in an area of Cambodia where there is an important group of ancient structures. It is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites.

 

According to one legend, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to act as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea.

 

According to the 13th century Chinese traveler Daguan Zhou, it was believed by some that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect. The initial design and construction of the temple took place in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113-C. 1150). Dedicated to Vishnu, it was built as the king's state temple and capital city. As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as "Varah Vishnu-lok" after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished.

 

In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon respectively) a few kilometers to the north.

 

In the late 13th century, Angkor Wat gradually moved from Hindu to Theravada Buddhist use, which continues to the present day. Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was somewhat neglected after the 16th century it was never completely abandoned, its preservation being due in part to the fact that its moat also provided some protection from encroachment by the jungle.

One of the first Western visitors to the temple was António da Madalena, a Portuguese monk who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of."

 

In the mid-19th century, the temple was visited by the French naturalist and explorer, Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote:

 

"One of these temples - a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo - might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged."

 

Mouhot, like other early Western visitors, found it difficult to believe that the Khmers could have built the temple, and mistakenly dated it to around the same era as Rome. The true history of Angkor Wat was pieced together only from stylistic and epigraphic evidence accumulated during the subsequent clearing and restoration work carried out across the whole Angkor site. There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement including cooking utensils, weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites. Instead there is the evidence of the monuments themselves.

 

Angkor Wat required considerable restoration in the 20th century, mainly the removal of accumulated earth and vegetation. Work was interrupted by the civil war and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period other than the theft and destruction of mostly post-Angkorian statues.The temple is a powerful symbol of Cambodia, and is a source of great national pride that has factored into Cambodia's diplomatic relations with France, the United States and its neighbor Thailand. A depiction of Angkor Wat has been a part of Cambodian national flags since the introduction of the first version circa 1863. From a larger historical and even transcultural perspective, however, the temple of Angkor Wat did not become a symbol of national pride sui generis but had been inscribed into a larger politico-cultural process of French-colonial heritage production in which the original temple site was presented in French colonial and universal exhibitions in Paris and Marseille between 1889 and 1937. Angkor Wat's aesthetics were also on display in the plaster cast museum of Louis Delaporte called musée Indo-chinois which existed in the Parisian Trocadero Palace from C. 1880 to the mid-1920s. The splendid artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins. This quickly led to Cambodia reclaiming lands in the northwestern corner of the country that had been under Siamese (Thai) control since 1351 AD (Manich Jumsai 2001), or by some accounts, 1431 AD. Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953 and has controlled Angkor Wat since that time.

 

ARCHITECTURE

SITE AND PLAN

Angkor Wat, located at 13°24′45″N 103°52′0″E, is a unique combination of the temple mountain, the standard design for the empire's state temples and the later plan of concentric galleries. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods: the central quincunx of towers symbolises the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. Access to the upper areas of the temple was progressively more exclusive, with the laity being admitted only to the lowest level. Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west rather than the east. This has led many (including Maurice Glaize and George Coedès) to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary temple.Further evidence for this view is provided by the bas-reliefs, which proceed in a counter-clockwise direction - prasavya in Hindu terminology - as this is the reverse of the normal order. Rituals take place in reverse order during Brahminic funeral services. The archaeologist Charles Higham also describes a container which may have been a funerary jar which was recovered from the central tower. It has been nominated by some as the greatest expenditure of energy on the disposal of a corpse. Freeman and Jacques, however, note that several other temples of Angkor depart from the typical eastern orientation, and suggest that Angkor Wat's alignment was due to its dedication to Vishnu, who was associated with the west.

 

A further interpretation of Angkor Wat has been proposed by Eleanor Mannikka. Drawing on the temple's alignment and dimensions, and on the content and arrangement of the bas-reliefs, she argues that the structure represents a claimed new era of peace under King Suryavarman II: "as the measurements of solar and lunar time cycles were built into the sacred space of Angkor Wat, this divine mandate to rule was anchored to consecrated chambers and corridors meant to perpetuate the king's power and to honor and placate the deities manifest in the heavens above." Mannikka's suggestions have been received with a mixture of interest and scepticism in academic circles. She distances herself from the speculations of others, such as Graham Hancock, that Angkor Wat is part of a representation of the constellation Draco.

 

STYLE

Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture - the Angkor Wat style - to which it has given its name. By the 12th century Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone (rather than brick or laterite) as the main building material. Most of the visible areas are of sandstone blocks, while laterite was used for the outer wall and for hidden structural parts. The binding agent used to join the blocks is yet to be identified, although natural resins or slaked lime has been suggested. The temple has drawn praise above all for the harmony of its design. According to Maurice Glaize, a mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, the temple "attains a classic perfection by the restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise arrangement of its proportions. It is a work of power, unity and style." Architecturally, the elements characteristic of the style include: the ogival, redented towers shaped like lotus buds; half-galleries to broaden passageways; axial galleries connecting enclosures; and the cruciform terraces which appear along the main axis of the temple. Typical decorative elements are devatas (or apsaras), bas-reliefs, and on pediments extensive garlands and narrative scenes. The statuary of Angkor Wat is considered conservative, being more static and less graceful than earlier work. Other elements of the design have been destroyed by looting and the passage of time, including gilded stucco on the towers, gilding on some figures on the bas-reliefs, and wooden ceiling panels and doors.

 

FEATURES

OUTER ENCLOSURE

The outer wall, 1024 by 802 m and 4.5 m high, is surrounded by a 30 m apron of open ground and a moat 190 m wide. Access to the temple is by an earth bank to the east and a sandstone causeway to the west; the latter, the main entrance, is a later addition, possibly replacing a wooden bridge. There are gopuras at each of the cardinal points; the western is by far the largest and has three ruined towers. Glaize notes that this gopura both hides and echoes the form of the temple proper. Under the southern tower is a statue of Vishnu, known as Ta Reach, which may originally have occupied the temple's central shrine.Galleries run between the towers and as far as two further entrances on either side of the gopura often referred to as "elephant gates", as they are large enough to admit those animals. These galleries have square pillars on the outer (west) side and a closed wall on the inner (east) side. The ceiling between the pillars is decorated with lotus rosettes; the west face of the wall with dancing figures; and the east face of the wall with balustered windows, dancing male figures on prancing animals, and devatas, including (south of the entrance) the only one in the temple to be showing her teeth. The outer wall encloses a space of 820,000 square metres, which besides the temple proper was originally occupied by the city and, to the north of the temple, the royal palace. Like all secular buildings of Angkor, these were built of perishable materials rather than of stone, so nothing remains of them except the outlines of some of the streets. Most of the area is now covered by forest. A 350 m causeway connects the western gopura to the temple proper, with naga balustrades and six sets of steps leading down to the city on either side. Each side also features a library with entrances at each cardinal point, in front of the third set of stairs from the entrance, and a pond between the library and the temple itself. The ponds are later additions to the design, as is the cruciform terrace guarded by lions connecting the causeway to the central structure.

 

CENTRAL STRUCTURE

The temple stands on a terrace raised higher than the city. It is made of three rectangular galleries rising to a central tower, each level higher than the last. Mannikka interprets these galleries as being dedicated to the king, Brahma, the moon, and Vishnu.

 

Each gallery has a gopura at each of the points, and the two inner galleries each have towers at their corners, forming a quincunx with the central tower. Because the temple faces west, the features are all set back towards the east, leaving more space to be filled in each enclosure and gallery on the west side; for the same reason the west-facing steps are shallower than those on the other sides.

 

The outer gallery measures 187 by 215 m, with pavilions rather than towers at the corners. The gallery is open to the outside of the temple, with columned half-galleries extending and buttressing the structure. Connecting the outer gallery to the second enclosure on the west side is a cruciform cloister called Preah Poan (the "Hall of a Thousand Gods"). Buddha images were left in the cloister by pilgrims over the centuries, although most have now been removed. This area has many inscriptions relating the good deeds of pilgrims, most written in Khmer but others in Burmese and Japanese. The four small courtyards marked out by the cloister may originally have been filled with water.

 

North and south of the cloister are libraries.

 

Beyond, the second and inner galleries are connected to each other and to two flanking libraries by another cruciform terrace, again a later addition. From the second level upwards, devatas abound on the walls, singly or in groups of up to four. The second-level enclosure is 100 by 115 m, and may originally have been flooded to represent the ocean around Mount Meru.

 

Three sets of steps on each side lead up to the corner towers and gopuras of the inner gallery. The very steep stairways represent the difficulty of ascending to the kingdom of the gods. This inner gallery, called the Bakan, is a 60 m square with axial galleries connecting each gopura with the central shrine, and subsidiary shrines located below the corner towers. The roofings of the galleries are decorated with the motif of the body of a snake ending in the heads of lions or garudas. Carved lintels and pediments decorate the entrances to the galleries and to the shrines. The tower above the central shrine rises 43 m to a height of 65 m above the ground; unlike those of previous temple mountains, the central tower is raised above the surrounding four. The shrine itself, originally occupied by a statue of Vishnu and open on each side, was walled in when the temple was converted to Theravada Buddhism, the new walls featuring standing Buddhas. In 1934, the conservator George Trouvé excavated the pit beneath the central shrine: filled with sand and water it had already been robbed of its treasure, but he did find a sacred foundation deposit of gold leaf two metres above ground level.

 

DECORATION

Integrated with the architecture of the building, and one of the causes for its fame is Angkor Wat's extensive decoration, which predominantly takes the form of bas-relief friezes. The inner walls of the outer gallery bear a series of large-scale scenes mainly depicting episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Higham has called these, "the greatest known linear arrangement of stone carving".

 

From the north-west corner anti-clockwise, the western gallery shows the Battle of Lanka (from the Ramayana, in which Rama defeats Ravana) and the Battle of Kurukshetra (from the Mahabharata, showing the mutual annihilation of the Kaurava and Pandava clans). On the southern gallery follow the only historical scene, a procession of Suryavarman II, then the 32 hells and 37 heavens of Hindu mythology.

 

On the eastern gallery is one of the most celebrated scenes, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, showing 92 asuras and 88 devas using the serpent Vasuki to churn the sea under Vishnu's direction (Mannikka counts only 91 asuras, and explains the asymmetrical numbers as representing the number of days from the winter solstice to the spring equinox, and from the equinox to the summer solstice). It is followed by Vishnu defeating asuras (a 16th-century addition). The northern gallery shows Krishna's victory over Bana (where according to Glaize, "The workmanship is at its worst"). and a battle between the Hindu gods and asuras. The north-west and south-west corner pavilions both feature much smaller-scale scenes, some unidentified but most from the Ramayana or the life of Krishna. Angkor Wat is decorated with depictions of apsaras and devata; there are more than 1,796 depictions of devata in the present research inventory. Angkor Wat architects employed small apsara images (30–40 cm) as decorative motifs on pillars and walls. They incorporated larger devata images (all full-body portraits measuring approximately 95–110 cm) more prominently at every level of the temple from the entry pavilion to the tops of the high towers. In 1927, Sappho Marchal published a study cataloging the remarkable diversity of their hair, headdresses, garments, stance, jewelry and decorative flowers, which Marchal concluded were based on actual practices of the Angkor period.

 

CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES

The stones, as smooth as polished marble, were laid without mortar with very tight joints that are sometimes hard to find. The blocks were held together by mortise and tenon joints in some cases, while in others they used dovetails and gravity. The blocks were presumably put in place by a combination of elephants, coir ropes, pulleys and bamboo scaffolding. Henri Mouhot noted that most of the blocks had holes 2.5 cm in diameter and 3 cm deep, with more holes on the larger blocks. Some scholars have suggested that these were used to join them together with iron rods, but others claim they were used to hold temporary pegs to help manoeuvre them into place. The monument was made out of millions of tonnes of sandstone and it has a greater volume as well as mass than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The Angkor Wat Temple consumes about 6 million to 10 million blocks of sandstone with an average weight of 1.5 tons each. In fact, the entire city of Angkor used up far greater amounts of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and occupied an area significantly greater than modern-day Paris. Moreover, unlike the Egyptian pyramids which use limestone quarried barely half a km away all the time, the entire city of Angkor was built with sandstone quarried 40 km (or more) away. This sandstone had to be transported from Mount Kulen, a quarry approximately 40 km to the northeast. The route has been suggested to span 35 kilometres along a canal towards Tonlé Sap lake, another 35 kilometres crossing the lake, and finally 15 kilometres upstream and against the current along Siem Reap River, making a total journey of 90 kilometres. However, Etsuo Uchida and Ichita Shimoda of Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan have discovered in 2012 a shorter 35-kilometre canal connecting Mount Kulen and Angkor Wat using satellite imagery. The two believe that the Khmer used this route instead.

 

Virtually all of its surfaces, columns, lintels even roofs are carved. There are miles of reliefs illustrating scenes from Indian literature including unicorns, griffins, winged dragons pulling chariots as well as warriors following an elephant-mounted leader and celestial dancing girls with elaborate hair styles. The gallery wall alone is decorated with almost 1000 square metres of bas reliefs. Holes on some of the Angkor walls indicate that they may have been decorated with bronze sheets. These were highly prized in ancient times and were a prime target for robbers. While excavating Khajuraho, Alex Evans, a stonemason and sculptor, recreated a stone sculpture under 1.2 m, this took about 60 days to carve. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also conducted experiments to quarry limestone which took 12 quarrymen 22 days to quarry about 400 tons of stone. The labor force to quarry, transport, carve and install so much sandstone must have run into the thousands including many highly skilled artisans. The skills required to carve these sculptures were developed hundreds of years earlier, as demonstrated by some artifacts that have been dated to the seventh century, before the Khmer came to power.

 

ANGKOR WAT TODAY

The Archaeological Survey of India carried out restoration work on the temple between 1986 and 1992. Since the 1990s, Angkor Wat has seen continued conservation efforts and a massive increase in tourism. The temple is part of the Angkor World Heritage Site, established in 1992, which has provided some funding and has encouraged the Cambodian government to protect the site. The German Apsara Conservation Project (GACP) is working to protect the devatas and other bas-reliefs which decorate the temple from damage. The organisation's survey found that around 20% of the devatas were in very poor condition, mainly because of natural erosion and deterioration of the stone but in part also due to earlier restoration efforts. Other work involves the repair of collapsed sections of the structure, and prevention of further collapse: the west facade of the upper level, for example, has been buttressed by scaffolding since 2002, while a Japanese team completed restoration of the north library of the outer enclosure in 2005. World Monuments Fund began conservation work on the Churning of the Sea of Milk Gallery in 2008 after several years of conditions studies. The project restored the traditional Khmer roofing system and removed cement used in earlier restoration attempts that had resulted in salts entering the structure behind the bas-relief, discoloring and damaging the sculpted surfaces. The main phase of work ended in 2012, and the final component will be the installation of finials on the roof of the gallery in 2013. Microbial biofilms have been found degrading sandstone at Angkor Wat, Preah Khan, and the Bayon and West Prasat in Angkor. The dehydration and radiation resistant filamentous cyanobacteria can produce organic acids that degrade the stone. A dark filamentous fungus was found in internal and external Preah Khan samples, while the alga Trentepohlia was found only in samples taken from external, pink-stained stone at Preah Khan. Angkor Wat has become a major tourist destination. In 2004 and 2005, government figures suggest that, respectively, 561.000 and 677.000 foreign visitors arrived in Siem Reap province, approximately 50% of all foreign tourists in Cambodia for both years. The site has been managed by the private SOKIMEX group since 1990, which rented it from the Cambodian government. The influx of tourists has so far caused relatively little damage, other than some graffiti; ropes and wooden steps have been introduced to protect the bas-reliefs and floors, respectively. Tourism has also provided some additional funds for maintenance - as of 2000 approximately 28% of ticket revenues across the whole Angkor site was spent on the temples - although most work is carried out by foreign government-sponsored teams rather than by the Cambodian authorities. Since Angkor Wat has seen significant growth in tourism throughout the years UNESCO and its International Co-ordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (ICC), in association with representatives from the Royal Government and APSARA, organized seminars to discuss the concept of "cultural tourism". Wanting to avoid commercial and mass tourism, the seminars emphasized the importance of providing high quality accommodation and services in order for the Cambodian government to benefit economically, while also incorporating the richness of Cambodian culture. In 2001, this incentive resulted in the concept of the "Angkor Tourist City" which would be developed with regard to traditional Khmer architecture, contain leisure and tourist facilities, and provide luxurious hotels capable of accommodating large amounts of tourists. The prospect of developing such large tourist accommodations has encountered concerns from both APSARA and the ICC, claiming that previous tourism developments in the area have neglected construction regulations and more of these projects have the potential to damage landscape features. Also, the large scale of these projects have begun to threaten the quality of the nearby town's water, sewage, and electricity systems. It has been noted that such high frequency of tourism and growing demand for quality accommodations in the area, such as the development of a large highway, has had a direct effect on the underground water table, subsequently straining the structural stability of the temples at Angkor Wat. Locals of Siem Reap have also voiced concern over the charming nature and atmosphere of their town being compromised in order to entertain tourism. Since this charming local atmosphere is the key component to projects like Angkor Tourist City, local officials continue to discuss how to successfully incorporate future tourism without sacrificing local values and culture. At the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2012, both parties have agreed Borobudur and Angkor Wat to become sister sites and the provinces will become sister provinces. Two Indonesian airlines are considering the opportunity to open a direct flight from Yogyakarta, Indonesia to Siem Reap.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Dubai International Airport (IATA: DXB, ICAO: OMDB) (Arabic: مطار دبي الدولي) is the primary international airport serving Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the world's busiest airport by international passenger traffic. It is also the nineteenth-busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic, one of the busiest cargo airports in the world, the busiest airport for Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 movements, and the airport with the highest average number of passengers per flight. In 2017, DXB handled 88 million passengers and 2.65 million tonnes of cargo and registered 409,493 aircraft movements.

 

Dubai International Airport is situated in the Al Garhoud district, 2.5 nautical miles (4.6 km; 2.9 mi) east[2] of Dubai and spread over an area of 7,200 acres (2,900 ha) of land. Terminal 3 is the second-largest building in the world by floor space and the largest airport terminal in the world. In July 2019, Dubai International airport installed the largest solar energy system in the region's airports as part of Dubai's goal to reduce 30 percent of the city energy consumption by 2030.

 

Emirates Airline has its hub airport in Dubai International (DXB) and has their own terminal 3 with 3 concourses that they share with flydubai. The Emirates hub is the largest airline hub in the Middle East; Emirates handles 51% of all passenger traffic and accounts for approximately 42% of all aircraft movements at the airport. Dubai Airport is also the base for low-cost carrier flydubai which handles 13% of passenger traffic and 25% of aircraft movements at DXB. The airport has a total capacity of 90 million passengers annually. As of January 2016, there are over 7,700 weekly flights operated by 140 airlines to over 270 destinations across all inhabited continents. Over 63% of travelers using the airport in 2018 were connecting passengers.

 

In 2014 Dubai International indirectly supported over 400,000 jobs and contributed over US$26.7 billion to the economy, which represented around 27% of Dubai's GDP and 21% of the employment in Dubai.

 

HISTORY

The history of civil aviation in Dubai started in July 1937 when an air agreement was signed for a flying boat base for the aircraft of Imperial Airways with the rental of the base at about 440 rupees per month—this included the guards' wages The Empire Flying Boats also started operating once a week flying east to Karachi and west to Southampton, England. By February 1938, there were four flying boats a week.

 

In the 1940s, flying from Dubai was by flying boats operated by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), operating the Horseshoe route from Southern Africa via the Persian Gulf to Sydney.

 

CONSTRUCTION

Construction of the airport was ordered by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, in 1959. It officially opened in 1960 with its first airfield, at which time it was able to handle aircraft the size of a Douglas DC-3 on a 1,800-metre-long (5,900 ft) runway made of compacted sand. Three turning-areas, an apron and small terminal completed the airport that was constructed by Costain.

 

In May 1963, construction of a 9,200-foot (2,800 m) asphalt runway started. This new runway, alongside the original sand runway and taxiway opened in May 1965, together with several new extensions were added to the Terminal Building, hangars erected, Airport and Navigational aids were installed. The installation of the lighting system continued after the official opening and was completed in August of that year. During the second half of the 1960s several extensions, equipment upgrades like a VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) and an instrument landing system (ILS), as well as new buildings, were constructed. By 1969, the airport was served by 9 airlines serving some 20 destinations.

 

The inauguration was on 15 May 1966 and was marked by the visits of the first big jets of Middle East Airlines and Kuwait Airways Comets.

 

The advent of wide-body aircraft required further airport development in the 1970s, which had already been foreseen by the Ruler of Dubai, and plans for a new Terminal, runways, and taxiways capable of coping with international flights were drawn up. The construction of a new terminal building consisting of a three-storey building 110 m (360 ft) long and included an enclosed floor area of 13,400 m2 (144,000 sq ft). A new 28 m (92 ft) control tower was also constructed.

 

Expansion continued in the early 1970s including ILS Category II equipment, lengthening existing runway to 12,500 ft (3,810 m), installation of a non-directional beacon (NDB), diesel generators, taxiways, etc. This work made handling the Boeing 747 and Concorde possible. Several runway and apron extensions were carried out through the decade to meet growing demand.

 

1971 saw the new precision category 2 Approach and Runway Lighting System being commissioned. The construction of the Airport Fire Station and the installation of the generators were completed in December of that year and were fully operational in March 1972. The ruler also commissioned and inaugurated the Long-range Surveillance System on 19 June 1973.

 

With the expansion of the Airport Fire Services, it was necessary to find more suitable accommodation, and a hangar-style building was made available to them at the end of 1976. This was located midway between the runway ends to facilitate efficient operations. A new building was also constructed to house the Airport Maintenance Engineer, Electronics Engineering section, and Stores unit.

 

Expansion of the Airport Restaurant and Transit Lounge including the refurbishing of the upper level and the provision of a new kitchen was completed in December 1978.

 

The next phase of development was the second runway, which was completed three months ahead of schedule and opened in April 1984. This runway, located 360 m (1,180 ft) north of the existing runway and parallel to it and is equipped with the latest meteorological, airfield lighting and instrument landing systems to give the airport a Category II classification.

 

Also, several extensions and upgrades of terminal facilities and supporting systems were carried out. On 23 December 1980 the airport became an ordinary member of the Airports Council International (ACI).

 

During the 1980s, Dubai was a stopping point for airlines such as Air India, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, and others traveling between Asia and Europe that needed a refueling point in the Persian Gulf. This use was later made redundant with the availability of Russian airspace due to the breakup of the Soviet Union and the advent of longer-range aircraft introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s such as the Airbus A340, the Boeing 747-400 and the Boeing 777 series aircraft, which had the range to fly between Europe and Southeast Asia nonstop. British Airways flights from Islamabad to Manchester also stopped for short times during the 1980s.

 

EXPANSION

The opening of Terminal 2 in 1998 saw the first step of phase 1 of the new development master plan launched in 1997. As the second stage, Concourse 1 opened in April 2000 under the name of Sheikh Rashid Terminal. The concourse is 0.8 km (0.50 mi) in length and connects to the check-in area by a 0.3 km (0.19 mi) tunnel containing moving walkways (conveyor belt/travelators). It also contains a hotel, business center, health club, exchanges, dining and entertainment facilities, internet services, medical center, post office, and a prayer room. The next step was the reconfiguration of the runways, already part of phase 2, and aprons and taxiways were expanded and strengthened in 2003–2004. In addition, the Dubai Flower Centre opened in 2005 as part of the development. The airport saw the need for this as the city is a hub for import and export of flowers and the airport required a specialist facility since flowers need special conditions.

 

Construction of Terminal 3 began in 2004 as the next stage of phase 2 of the development, with an estimated cost of around $4.55 billion. Completion was originally planned for 2006 but was delayed by two years.

 

On 30 May 2008, a topping out ceremony was conducted. The terminal became operational on 14 October 2008, with Emirates Airline (EK2926) from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, being the first flight to arrive at the new terminal and EK843 to Doha, Qatar being the first departing flight. The terminal increased the airport's maximum passenger capacity annually by 47 million, bringing the total annual capacity up to 75 million passengers.

 

On 29 October 2010, the airport marked its 50th anniversary. The airport has seen over 402 million passengers at an average annual growth rate of 15.5% and handled over 3.87 million aircraft at an average annual growth rate of 12.4%.

 

With the arrival of the Airbus A380, the airport made modifications costing $230 million. These included the building of 29 gates capable of handling the large aircraft, five of which are in Terminal 3 and two are in Terminal 1. Other important projects at the airport include the next stage of phase 2 development, which includes the construction of Concourse 3. This will be a smaller version of Concourse 2, which is connected to Terminal 3.

 

Also as part of the expansion, the airport is now able to handle at least 75 million (an increase of 19 million) passengers per annum with the opening of Concourse 3, which is part of Terminal 3. However, recent communications predict a further increase to 80 million passengers with additional reassessments of existing capacities. In 2009, Terminal 2 expanded its facilities to handle 5 million (an increase of 2 million) passengers annually, taking the airport's total capacity to 62 million passengers. Terminal 2 capacity was planned to be expanded to bring the total capacity of the airport from the initial 75 million passengers to 80 million passenger capacity by 2012.

 

The Cargo Mega Terminal, which will have the capacity to handle 3 million tonnes of cargo a year, is a major development; it is going to be built in the long term. The completion of the mega terminal will be no later than 2018. Terminal 2 will be completely redeveloped to match the status of the other two terminals. With all of these projects completed by 2013, the airport expects to be able to handle at least 75–80 million passengers and over 5 million tonnes of cargo.

 

The airport's landside facilities were modified to allow the construction of two stations for the Red Line of Dubai Metro. One station was built at Terminal 1 and the other at Terminal 3. The line began service on 9 September 2009, and opened in phases over the next year.[35] The second Metro line, the Green Line, runs near the Airport Free Zone and has served the airport's north-eastern area with the Terminal 2 starting in September 2011.

 

With phase 2 of DXB's expansion plan complete, the airport now has three terminals and three concourses, two cargo mega terminals, an airport free zone, an expo center with three large exhibition halls, a major aircraft maintenance hub and a flower center to handle perishable goods. A phase 3 which has been included in the master-plan involves the construction of a new Concourse 4.

 

The airport revealed its future plans in May 2011, which involve the construction of a new Concourse D for all airlines currently operating from concourse C. Concourse D is expected to bring the total capacity of the airport to over 90 million passengers and will open in early 2016. The plan also involves Emirates solely operating from Concourse C along with Concourse A and B.

 

In September 2012, Dubai Airports changed the names of concourses to make it easier for passengers to navigate the airport. Concourse 1, in which over 100 international airlines operate, became Concourse C. Concourse 2 became Concourse B and Concourse 3 became Concourse A. The gates in Terminal 2 were changed and are now numbered F1 to F6. The remaining alpha-numeric sequences are being reserved for future airport facilities that are part of the Dubai Airports' $7.8 billion expansion programme, including Concourse D.

 

Dubai's government announced the construction of a new airport in Jebel Ali, named Dubai World Central – Al Maktoum International Airport. It is expected to be the second-largest airport in the world by physical size, though not by passenger metrics. It opened 27 June 2010; however, construction is not expected to finish until 2027. The airport is expected to be able to accommodate up to 160 million passengers. There has been an official plan to build the Dubai Metro Purple Line to connect Al Maktoum International Airport to Dubai International Airport; construction was set to begin in 2012. The proposed 52 km (32 mi) Purple Line will link Dubai International Airport and Al Maktoum International Airport.

 

Concourse D opened on 24 February 2016 for all international airlines and moved out of the Terminal 1. Emirates now operates from Concourses A, B and C, all under Terminal 3. while FlyDubai operates from Terminal 2 (Concourse F).

 

AIR TRAFFIC

MAIN AIRLINES BASED AT DXB

Emirates Airline is the largest airline operating at the airport, with an all-wide-body fleet of over 200 Airbus and Boeing aircraft based at Dubai, providing scheduled services to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand. It operates out of Terminal 3, Concourses A, B and C.

Emirates SkyCargo, a subsidiary of Emirates, operates scheduled all-cargo services between Dubai and the rest of the world.

Flydubai, a low-cost airline planning to operate over 100 aircraft on scheduled passenger services to and from Dubai, to the Middle East, Africa, Europe and South Asia. It operates from Terminal 2 and, since December 2018, also from Terminal 3 for selected destinations.

 

Recreational flying to Dubai is catered for by the Dubai Aviation Club, which undertakes flying training for private pilots and provides facilities for private owners.

 

The Government of Dubai provides short and long range search and rescue services, police support, medical evacuation and general purpose flights for the airport and all VIP flights to the airport.

 

INFRASTRUCTURE

Dubai International Airport was conceptualized to function as Dubai's primary airport and the region's busiest for the foreseeable future without the need for relocation or the building of another airport when passenger figures increased. The area was chosen near to Dubai, to attract passengers from the city of Dubai, rather than travel to the busier Sharjah International Airport. The planned location originally was Jebel Ali.

 

The original master plan for the existing airport initially involved a dual-terminal and one runway configuration over two phases with provisions for another two passenger terminals in the near future. Phase 1 included the construction for the first passenger terminal, the first runway, 70 aircraft parking bays, support facilities and structures, including large maintenance hangar, the first fire station, workshops, and administrative offices, an airfreight complex, two cargo agents' buildings, in-flight catering kitchens and an 87 m (285 ft) control tower. Construction for the second phase would commence immediately after the completion of Phase 1 and include the second runway, 50 new aircraft parking bays in addition to the existing 70 bays, a second fire station and a third cargo agent building.

 

The third phase included the construction of a new terminal (now the parts of Terminal 1's main building and Concourse C) and an additional 60 parking bays, as well as a new aircraft maintenance facility. Then, in the early 2000s (decade) a new master plan was introduced which began the development of the current concourses and terminal infrastructure.

 

Paul Griffiths (Dubai Airports' CEO) in his interview to Vision magazine, cited plans to build infrastructure to support the expansion of Emirates and budget airline flydubai, and ascend the ranks of global aviation hubs.

 

CONTROL TOWER

The 87-metre-tall (285 ft) airport traffic control tower (ATCT) was constructed as part of phase two of the then-development plan.

 

TERMINALS

Dubai International Airport has three terminals. Terminal 1 has one concourse (concourse D), Terminal 2 is set apart from the other two main buildings and Terminal 3 is divided into Concourse A, B, and C. The cargo terminal is capable of handling 3 million tonnes of cargo annually and a general aviation terminal (GAT) is close by.

 

PASSENGER TERMINALS

Dubai Airport has three passenger terminals. Terminals 1 and 3 are directly connected with a common transit area, with airside passengers being able to move freely between the terminals without going through immigration, while Terminal 2 is on the opposite side of the airport. For transiting passengers, a shuttle service runs between the terminals, with a journey time of around 20 minutes from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 and 30 minutes to Terminal 3. Passengers in Terminal 3 who need to transfer between concourse A and the rest of the Terminal have to travel via an automated people mover. Also after early 2016 when the construction of Concourse D was done, there is now an automated people mover between concourse D and Terminal 1.

 

Situated beside Terminal 2 is the Executive Flights Terminal, which has its own check-in facilities for premium passengers and where transportation to aircraft in any of the other terminals is by personal buggy.

 

The three passenger terminals have a total handling capacity of around 80 million passengers a year.

 

Terminals 1 and 3 cater to international passengers, whilst Terminal 2 is for budget passengers and passengers flying to the subcontinent and Persian Gulf region; Terminals 1 and 3 handle 85% of the passenger traffic and the Executive Flights terminal is for the higher-end travelers and important guests.

 

TERMINAL 1

Terminal 1 has a capacity of 15 million passengers. It is used by over 100 airlines and is connected to Concourse D by an automated people mover. It is spread over an area of 520,000 m2 (5,600,000 sq ft) and offers 221 check-in counters.

 

The Terminal was originally built to handle 18 million passengers; however, with extreme congestion at the terminal, the airport was forced to expand the terminal to accommodate the opening of 28 remote gates. Over the years, more mobile gates were added to the airport bringing the total as of 2010 to 28.

 

In 2013, Dubai Airports announced a major renovation for Terminal 1 and Concourse C. The renovations include upgraded baggage systems, replacement of check-in desks and a more spacious departure hall. Arrivals will also see improvements to help reduce waiting times. The renovation was completed by the middle of 2015.

 

CONCOURSE D

Planning begun for further expansion of Dubai Airport, with the construction of Terminal 4, it was revealed on the day Emirates completed its phased operations at the new Terminal 3, on 14 November 2008. According to Dubai Airport officials, plans for Terminal 4 had begun and extensions would be made to Terminal 3. These are required to bring the capacity of the airport to 80–90 million passengers a year by 2015.

 

In May 2011, Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports revealed the Dubai Airport masterplan. It involves the construction of Concourse D (previously Terminal 4). With a capacity of 15 million, it would bring the total capacity of the airport to 90 million passengers by 2018—an increase of 15 million. It also will see Emirates take over the operation at Concourse C, along with concourse A and B which it will already be operating. All remaining airlines will shift to Concourse D, or move to Al Maktoum International Airport. The airport projects that international passenger and cargo traffic will increase at an average annual growth rate of 7.2% and 6.7%, respectively, and that by 2020 passenger numbers at Dubai International Airport will reach 98.5 million and cargo volumes will top 4.1 million tonnes.

 

Concourse D will have a capacity of 15 million passengers, include 17 gates and will be connected to Terminal 1 via an automated people mover. On 6 February 2016, members of the public were invited to trial the concourse in preparation for its opening. On Wednesday, 24 February 2016, Concourse D officially opened with the first British Airways flight arriving at gate D8.

Concourse D and Terminal 1 reopened on 24 June 2021 following a year's closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

TERMINAL 2

Terminal 2 built in 1998 has an area of 47,000 m2 (510,000 sq ft) and has a capacity of 10 million as of 2013, after several, decent reconstructions and a major expansion in 2012 which saw capacity double. It is used by over 50 airlines, mainly operating in the Persian Gulf region. Most flights operate to India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

 

In June 2009, Terminal 2 became the hub of Air India Express and flydubai, and the terminal houses the airline's corporate head office.

 

Terminal 2 has undergone a major refurbishment recently, extending check-in and boarding facilities, changing the interior and exterior décor, and offering more dining choices to passengers. Capacity was increased to allow for 10 million passengers, an increase of 5 million.

 

The terminal has now increased the number of facilities available to passengers. Check-in counters have increased to 37. The boarding area is more spacious, with more natural light. Also the new open boarding gates allow several flights to board simultaneously, improving passenger and aircraft movements. There are a total of 43 remote stands at the terminal. However, passengers cannot move between Terminal 2 to 1 or from 2 to 3 and vice versa inside the airport. They have to make use of Taxi service or public transport available outside.

 

The Dubai duty-free shopping area covers 2,400 m2 (26,000 sq ft) in departures and 540 m2 (5,800 sq ft) in arrivals. The 3,600-square-metre (39,000 sq ft) extension included a larger arrivals hall as well.

 

TERMINAL 3

The partly underground Terminal 3 was built at a cost of US$4.5 billion, exclusively for Emirates and has a capacity of 65 million passengers. The terminal has 20 Airbus A380 gates at Concourse A and 5 at Concourse B and 2 at Concourse C.[85] It was announced on 6 September 2012 that Terminal 3 would no longer be Emirates-exclusive, as Emirates and Qantas had set up an extensive code sharing agreement. Qantas would be the second and only one of two airlines to fly in and out of Terminal 3. This deal also allows Qantas to use the A380 dedicated concourse.

 

Upon completion, Terminal 3 was the largest building in the world by floor space, with over 1,713,000 m2 (18,440,000 sq ft) of space, capable of handling 60 million passengers in a year. A large part is located under the taxiway area and is directly connected to Concourse B: the departure and arrival halls in the new structure are 10 m (33 ft) beneath the airport's apron. Concourse A is connected to the terminal via a Terminal 3 APM.[87][88] It has been operational since 14 October 2008, and opened in four phases to avoid collapse of baggage handling and other IT systems.

 

The building includes a multi level underground structure, first and business class lounges, restaurants, 180 check-in counters and 2,600 car-parking spaces. The terminal offers more than double the previous retail area of concourse C, by adding about 4,800 m2 (52,000 sq ft) and Concourse B's 10,700 m2 (115,000 sq ft) of shopping facilities.

In arrivals, the terminal contains 72 immigration counters and 14 baggage carousels.[90][91] The baggage handling system—the largest system and also the deepest in the world—has a capacity to handle 8,000 bags per hour. The system includes 21 screening injection points, 49 make-up carousels, 90 km (56 mi) of conveyor belts capable of handling 15,000 items per hour at a speed of 27 km/h (17 mph) and 4,500 early baggage storage positions.

 

CONCOURSE A

Concourse A, part of Terminal 3, opened 2 January 2013,[93] has a capacity of 19 million passengers and is connected to the two major public levels of Terminal 3 via Terminal 3 APM in addition to the vehicular and baggage handling system utility tunnels for further transfer. The concourse opened on 2 January 2013 and was built at a cost of US$3.3 billion. The building, which follows the characteristic shape of Concourse B, 924 m (3,031 ft) long, 91 m (299 ft) wide and 40 m (130 ft) high in the centre from the apron level and accommodates 20 air bridge gates, of which all are capable of handling the Airbus A380-800. There are also 6 remote lounges for passengers departing on flights parked at 13 remote stands. The gates in concourse A are labelled A1–A24.

 

The concourse includes one 4-star hotel and one 5-star hotel, first- and business-class lounges, and duty-free areas. The total built-up area is 540,000 m2 (5,800,000 sq ft). The concourse allows for multi-level boarding and boasts the largest first and business class lounges in the world. Each lounge has its own dedicated floor offering direct aircraft access from the lounges. The total amount of retail space at the concourse is 11,000 m2 (120,000 sq ft), and there is also a total of 14 cafes and restaurants.

 

The total retail area in the concourse is approximately 11,000 m2 (120,000 sq ft).

 

CONCOURSE B

Concourse B is directly connected to terminal 3 and is dedicated exclusively to Emirates. The total built up area of the concourse itself is 675,000 m2 (7,270,000 sq ft). The concourse is 945 m (3,100 ft) long, 90.8 m (298 ft) wide (at midpoint) and 49.5 m (162 ft) high. The terminal has 10 floors (4 basements, a ground floor and 5 above floors). The building currently includes a multi-level structure for departures and arrivals and includes 32 gates, labelled B1–B32. The concourse has 26 air bridge gates and 5 boarding lounges for 14 remote stands that are for Airbus A340 and Boeing 777 aircraft only. For transit passengers the concourse has 3 transfer areas and 62 transfer desks.

 

The concourse also includes the Emirates first and Business class lounges, and the Marhaba lounge. The First class lounge has a capacity of 1,800 passengers and a total area of 12,600 m2 (136,000 sq ft). The Business class lounge has a capacity of 3,000 passengers and a total area of 13,500 m2 (145,000 sq ft). The Marhaba lounge, the smallest lounge at the concourse has a capacity of 300 passengers at a time.[

 

The total retail area at the concourse is 120,000 m2 (1,300,000 sq ft), which also includes 18 restaurants within the food court. There are also three hotels in the concourse; a 5-star hotel and a 4-star hotel.

 

There is a direct connection to Sheikh Rashid Terminal (Concourse C) located at the control tower structure through passenger walkways. There is also a 300-room hotel and health club including both five and four star rooms. Concourse B includes five aerobridges that are capable of handling the new Airbus A380. Emirates Airline continues to maintain a presence in Concourse C, operating 12 gates at the concourse as well as the Emirates First Class and Business Class Lounges.

 

CONCOURSE C

Concourse C, is a part of Terminal 3, was opened in 2000 and used to be the largest concourse at Dubai International Airport before Concourse B in Terminal 3 opened. It incorporates 50 gates, including 28 air bridges and 22 remote gates located at a lower level of the terminal. The gates are labelled C1–C50.

 

The concourse includes over 17 food and beverage cafes and restaurants, with the food court being located on the Departures Level. Also located in the concourse is a 5-star hotel and a 5,400 m2 (58,000 sq ft) duty-free shopping facility. Other facilities include prayer rooms and a medical centre. Concourse C became part of Terminal 3 in 2016 after concourse D opened.

Al Majlis VIP Pavilion and Dubai Executive Flight Terminal

 

The Al Majlis VIP pavilion was exclusively built for the Dubai Royal Air Wing and opened on 1 July 2008. The entire facility is a 3,400-square-metre (37,000 sq ft) terminal, and includes a Royal Majlis and an antenna farm. It also includes eight aircraft hangars with a total built up area of 69,598 m2 (749,150 sq ft) and maintenance hangars for Boeing 747s and Airbus A380s, and a 1,200-square-metre (13,000 sq ft) gatehouse for VIP service.[46] In 2010 there were 47,213 customers, 13,162 movements and in 2009, there were a total of 43,968 customers and 14,896 movements.

 

Executive Flight Services (EFS) caters to those passengers of high class or special importance that travel through Dubai International Airports. It is the largest dedicated business aviation terminal of its kind in the Middle East. It is located at the Dubai Airport Free Zone close to Dubai International's Terminal 2. It only caters to private flights exclusive to the terminal. Airlines operating from the terminal are expected to maintain a lounge. In 2010, EFS handled 7,889 aircraft movements and 25,177 passengers.

 

The centre itself is located close to Terminal 2, and includes a 5,500 m2 (59,000 sq ft) two-storey main building, a 3,700 m2 (40,000 sq ft) hangar, a 3,700 m2 (40,000 sq ft) ramp area for aircraft parking and a special VIP car park for long term parking. The centre also has its own immigration and customs sections, its own Dubai Duty Free outlet, a fully equipped business and conference centre, eight luxury private lounges and a limousine service between aircraft and the terminal. The ramp area of the terminal can accommodate up to 22 small-sized private jets, between 8 and 12 medium-sized jets or up to four large-sized jets such as a Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), the Boeing 727 or the Airbus A319. The facility makes EFC the largest dedicated business aviation terminal in the Middle East.

 

CARGO MEGA TERMINAL

The cargo village at Dubai International Airport is one of the world's largest and most central cargo hubs, with most of the cargo for Asia and Africa coming through the facility. Forecasts in 2004 for cargo growth predicted that additional major cargo handling facilities were needed to satisfy demands. Plans were put in place to construct the first stage of the cargo mega terminal, which by 2018 will have the ability to handle three million tons of freight. Phase 1 of the cargo mega terminal was completed by 2004 and the next phase of expansion was scheduled for completion in late 2007. Presently the airport has a cargo capacity of 2.5 million tonnes, and will be expanded to handle 3 million.

 

FLOWER CENTRE

Dubai Airport has constructed a flower centre to handle flower imports and exports, as Dubai is a major hub for the import and export of flowers, and the airport required a specialist facility since these products need special conditions. The flower centre's first phase was completed in 2004 at a cost of $50 million.

 

The centre when completed and functioning will have a floor area of approximately 100,000 m2 (1,100,000 sq ft) including different export chambers and offices. The handling capacity of the centre is expected to be more than 300,000 tonnes of product throughput per annum. The entire facility (with the exception of the offices) will be maintained at an ambient temperature of just 2 to 4 °C (36 to 39 °F).

 

RUNWAYS

Dubai Airport has two closely spaced parallel runways, 12R/30L is 4,447 m × 60 m (14,590 ft × 197 ft), 12L/30R is 4,000 m × 60 m (13,120 ft × 200 ft). The gap between the centrelines of the two runways is 385 m (1,263 ft). The runways are equipped with four sets of ILS to guide landing aircraft safely under very poor weather conditions. The runways were expanded to accommodate the Airbus A380 which came into service in 2007.[29] In 2009, it was announced that the airport installed a Category III landing system, allowing planes to land in low-visibility conditions, such as fog. This system was the first of its kind in the United Arab Emirates.

 

In 2013 Dubai Airports announced an 80-day runway refurbishment program which started on 1 May 2014 and was completed on 21 July 2014. The northern runway was resurfaced while lighting upgrades and additional taxiways were built on the southern runway to help boost its capacity. The southern runway was closed from 1 to 31 May 2014, while the northern runway was closed from 31 May to 20 July 2014. Due to extra congestion on one runway, all freighter, charter and general aviation flights were diverted to Al Maktoum International Airport. Flights at DXB were reduced by 26% and 14 airlines moved to Al Maktoum International Airport whilst the runways works were being done. Emirates cut 5,000 flights and grounded over 20 aircraft during the period.

 

Dubai Airports plans to close the southern runway (12R/30L) for complete resurfacing and replacement of the airfield lighting and supporting infrastructure. This will be done during a 45-day period from 16 April 2019 to 30 May 2019. This upgrade will boost safety, service and capacity levels at DXB. Airlines will be required to reduce flight operations at DXB due to single runway operations.

 

ACCOMODATING THE AIRBUS A380

With Dubai-based Emirates being one of the launch customers for the Airbus A380 and also the largest customer, Dubai Airport needed to expand its existing facilities to accommodate the very large aircraft. The Department of Civil Aviation spent $120 million in upgrading both of its terminals and airport infrastructure, including enlarged gate holdrooms, new finger piers, an enlarged runway, new airbridges and extended baggage belt carousels from the normal 70 to 90 m (230 to 300 ft). Dubai Airport also invested $3.5 billion into a new Concourse A, exclusively for handling Emirates A380s. With the changes made, the airport does not expect embarking and disembarking passengers and baggage from the A380 to take longer than it does for Boeing 747-400s, which carry fewer passengers. On 16 July 2008, Dubai Airport unveiled the first of two specially-built gates capable of handling the aircraft. Costing $10 million, the gates will enable passengers to get on the upper cabin of the new 555-seater aircraft directly from the gate hold rooms. The hold rooms themselves have been enlarged to cater for the larger number of passengers flying the A380s. In addition to the two gates at Terminal 1, five more A380-capable gates were opened at concourse B on 14 October 2008. Concourse A opened on 2 January 2013.

 

LABOR CONTROVERSY

Workers building a new terminal at Dubai International Airport went on a sympathy strike in March 2006. Another strike took place in October 2007. Four thousand strikers were arrested. Most of them were released some days later and those who were not local were then deported from Dubai.

 

WIKIPEDIA

With my friend Paul, I spend five days in Osaka, Japan. The trip provided much refreshment, and excitement, not to mention many challenges. It was my first visit to the country, and, I feel, it certainly won't be my last, as there are still many places left to see, and so many new things to learn.

 

We had several destinations highlighted on our itinerary, the foremost of which was Universal Studios. We spend an entire day there, going on rides and more often than not, queuing for them. The excruciating wait times were worth it, however, for such exhilarating fun, especially on the Hollywood Roller Coaster, my personal favorite. The next morning we followed up that successful endeavor with a trip to the Himeji Castle, a place which came highly recommended by my colleague, whose succinct description of the heritage site was, "awesome." Indeed, as a history buff, I enjoyed walking the storied grounds and climbing through the maze-like interior of the keep which was designed not so much to comfortably house the royal family as to confound the invading enemy. The castle is a must-visit. Other attractions of note include the Osaka Aquarium, and the Tennoji Zoo; both teemed with animals of every shape and size. We also at length ventured into several shopping districts inside of which were myriad stores, selling all sorts of fashion and gadgetry, countless restaurants and several gambling parlors - the Japanese, it seems, love their slot machines as much as the Hong Kong Chinese love their horse racing. Lest I forget, we frequented several video arcades to play the latest and greatest games; Paul played well, while I more often than not got 0wn3d. There is a lot to do in Japan.

 

Japanese culture, of which I've heard so much, really is distinct and separate from other Asian cultures. Their patterns of action and their peculiar artifacts certainly aren't the same as those which feature prominently in Hong Kong. For one thing, the MTR culture was more civilized and less stressful: people queued up for trains and let passengers alight first before permitting themselves to board; cellphones never rang and cabin cars were as quiet as bedrooms at midnight; and to imagine all of these people enforce their norms without public service announcements, without any coddling, conspicuous signs - that's amazing. What proved difficult was trying to find a garbage can. It was easier to find a vending machine, from which one could purchase a variety of drinks or cigarettes, than a bin in which to dispose of these delectable, perishable goods.

 

As for the general citizenry, they were most accommodating and hospitable, with several individuals going out of their way to help Paul and I find our way around the dense sprawl of the city. Language wasn't a concern despite our limited Japanese; amazingly enough, our comfort was their concern! I won't forget their selfless service, as one day, I hope, I'll be able to return the favor. That the girls were quite attractive and that I demonstrated a propensity to ask attractive girls for directions go without saying; however, I understand now that their sexiness and sophistication stem not from comely faces but coherent attire. Rather than adorn themselves like a typical Mong Kok girl in a ridiculous neon rainbow palette, with jeans or unseemly spandex underneath dresses, skirts or other tops better left to stand alone, Japanese girls opt for more somber, sensible colors - black and cream-colored - and what's more, they aren't afraid to whip out the tasteful pantyhose or to show some skin, even. We had plenty of time to ogle the ladies, and to their credit, freezing temperatures weren't enough to dissuade many of them from forsaking, icing their shorts, as we saw countless pairs being worn on the street. That's what I call fashion professionalism!

 

Overall, Japan is a marvelous little land full of the eccentric, as well as the endearing. It was a fascinating place to explore, and I'm thankful that it was done in the company of my friend , with whom candor was not at a premium. We both learned a lot and look forward to the next trip!

MAHAVATAR BABAJI CAVE

Mahāvatār Bābājī (literally; Great Avatar Dear Father) is the name given to an Indian saint and yogi by Lahiri Mahasaya and several of his disciples,[2] who reported meeting him between 1861 and 1935. Some of these meetings were described by Paramahansa Yogananda in his book Autobiography of a Yogi, including a first-hand report of Yogananda's own meeting with the yogi.[3]Another first hand account was given by Yukteswar Giri in his book The Holy Science.[4] According to Sri M's autobiography (Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master) Babaji, was Shiva. In the second last chapter of his book, he mentions Babaji changing his form to that of Shiva. All of these accounts, along with additional reported meetings, are described in various biographies.[5][6][7]According to Yogananda's autobiography, Babaji has resided for at least hundreds of years in the remote Himalayan regions of India, seen in person by only a small number of disciples and others.[3][8] The death less Master is more than 2000 years old. He belongs to a very powerful lineage of Siddha Boganthar and Rishi Agastya as his Gurus. He acquired this deathless, non perishable body through tough yogik kriyas.

Again, according to his autobiography, shortly before Yogananda left for America in 1920, Babaji came to his home in Calcutta, where the young monk sat deeply praying for divine assurance regarding the mission he was about to undertake. Babaji said to him: "Follow the behest of your guru and go to America. Fear not; you shall be protected. You are the one I have chosen to spread the message of Kriya Yoga in the West

There are very few accounts of Babaji's childhood. One source of information is the book Babaji and the 18 Siddha Kriya Yoga tradition by Marshal Govindan.[9]According to Govindan, Babaji was named Nagarajan (king of serpents) by his parents. [8] V.T. Neelakantan and S.A.A. Ramaiah founded on 17 October 1952, (they claim – at the request of Babaji) a new organization, "Kriya Babaji Sangah," dedicated to the teaching of Babaji's Kriya Yoga. They claim that in 1953 Mahavatar Babaji told them that he was born on 30 November 203 CE in a small coastal village now known as Parangipettai, Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, India.[10] Babaji's Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas Trust (Kriya Babaji Sangah) and their branch organizations claim his place and date of birth.[10] He was a disciple of Bogar and his birth name is Nagarajan.[9][10]

In Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, many references are made to Mahavatar Babaji, including from Lahirī and Sri Yukteshwar.[3] In his book The Second Coming of Christ, Yogananda states that Jesus Christ went to India and conferred with Mahavatar Babaji.[8] This would make Babaji at least 2000 years old.[11] According to Govindan's book, Babaji Nagaraj's father was the priest of the village's temple. Babaji revealed only those details which he believed to be formative as well as potentially instructive to his disciples. Govindan mentioned one incident like this: "One time Nagaraj's mother had got one rare jackfruit for a family feast and put it aside. Babaji was only 4 years old at that time. He found the jackfruit when his mother was not around and ate it all. When his mother came to know about it, she flew in blind rage and stuffed a cloth inside Babaji's mouth, nearly suffocating him, but he survived. Later on he thanked God for showing him that she was to be loved without attachment or illusion. His Love for his mother became unconditional and detached."[9]

When Nagaraj was about 5 years old, someone kidnapped him and sold him as a slave in Calcutta (now Kolkata). His new owner however was a kind man and he freed Nagaraj shortly thereafter. Nagaraj then joined a small group of wandering sannyāsin due to their radiant faces and love for God. During the next few years, he wandered from place to place, studying holy scriptures like the Vedas, Upanishad, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita.

According to Marshall Govindan's book, at the age of eleven, he made a difficult journey on foot and by boat with a group of ascetics to Kataragama, Sri Lanka. Nagaraj met Siddha Bhogarnathar and became his disciple. Nagaraj performed intensive yogic sadhana for a long time with him. Bhogarnathar inspired Nagaraj to seek his initiation into Kriya Kundalini Pranayam from Siddha Agastya. Babaji became a disciple of Siddha Agastya. Nagaraj was initiated into the secrets of Kriya Kundalini Pranayama or "Vasi Yogam". Babaji made a long pilgrimage to Badrinath and spent eighteen months practising yogic kriyataught to him by Siddha Agastya and Bhogarnathar. Babaji attained self-realization shortly thereafter.[9]

It is claimed that these revelations were made by Babaji himself to S.A.A. Ramaiah, a young graduate student in geology at the University of Madras and V.T. Neelakantan, a famous journalist, and close student of Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society and mentor of Krishnamurti. Babaji was said to have appeared to each of them independently and then brought them together to work for his Mission in 1942

By Kailash Mansarovar Foundation Swami Bikash Giri www.sumeruparvat.com , www.naturalitem.com

 

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

Today's adventure took us into California Caverns. This alcove was dug out just for the purpose of locals being able to store their perishable goods. That makes this a natural refrigerator.

 

Today is also Big Girl's birthday, but she refused to walk into the hole. Little Girl had no such hesitation.

 

WH - What's in Your Fridge?

With my friend Paul, I spend five days in Osaka, Japan. The trip provided much refreshment, and excitement, not to mention many challenges. It was my first visit to the country, and, I feel, it certainly won't be my last, as there are still many places left to see, and so many new things to learn.

 

We had several destinations highlighted on our itinerary, the foremost of which was Universal Studios. We spend an entire day there, going on rides and more often than not, queuing for them. The excruciating wait times were worth it, however, for such exhilarating fun, especially on the Hollywood Roller Coaster, my personal favorite. The next morning we followed up that successful endeavor with a trip to the Himeji Castle, a place which came highly recommended by my colleague, whose succinct description of the heritage site was, "awesome." Indeed, as a history buff, I enjoyed walking the storied grounds and climbing through the maze-like interior of the keep which was designed not so much to comfortably house the royal family as to confound the invading enemy. The castle is a must-visit. Other attractions of note include the Osaka Aquarium, and the Tennoji Zoo; both teemed with animals of every shape and size. We also at length ventured into several shopping districts inside of which were myriad stores, selling all sorts of fashion and gadgetry, countless restaurants and several gambling parlors - the Japanese, it seems, love their slot machines as much as the Hong Kong Chinese love their horse racing. Lest I forget, we frequented several video arcades to play the latest and greatest games; Paul played well, while I more often than not got 0wn3d. There is a lot to do in Japan.

 

Japanese culture, of which I've heard so much, really is distinct and separate from other Asian cultures. Their patterns of action and their peculiar artifacts certainly aren't the same as those which feature prominently in Hong Kong. For one thing, the MTR culture was more civilized and less stressful: people queued up for trains and let passengers alight first before permitting themselves to board; cellphones never rang and cabin cars were as quiet as bedrooms at midnight; and to imagine all of these people enforce their norms without public service announcements, without any coddling, conspicuous signs - that's amazing. What proved difficult was trying to find a garbage can. It was easier to find a vending machine, from which one could purchase a variety of drinks or cigarettes, than a bin in which to dispose of these delectable, perishable goods.

 

As for the general citizenry, they were most accommodating and hospitable, with several individuals going out of their way to help Paul and I find our way around the dense sprawl of the city. Language wasn't a concern despite our limited Japanese; amazingly enough, our comfort was their concern! I won't forget their selfless service, as one day, I hope, I'll be able to return the favor. That the girls were quite attractive and that I demonstrated a propensity to ask attractive girls for directions go without saying; however, I understand now that their sexiness and sophistication stem not from comely faces but coherent attire. Rather than adorn themselves like a typical Mong Kok girl in a ridiculous neon rainbow palette, with jeans or unseemly spandex underneath dresses, skirts or other tops better left to stand alone, Japanese girls opt for more somber, sensible colors - black and cream-colored - and what's more, they aren't afraid to whip out the tasteful pantyhose or to show some skin, even. We had plenty of time to ogle the ladies, and to their credit, freezing temperatures weren't enough to dissuade many of them from forsaking, icing their shorts, as we saw countless pairs being worn on the street. That's what I call fashion professionalism!

 

Overall, Japan is a marvelous little land full of the eccentric, as well as the endearing. It was a fascinating place to explore, and I'm thankful that it was done in the company of my friend , with whom candor was not at a premium. We both learned a lot and look forward to the next trip!

With my friend Paul, I spend five days in Osaka, Japan. The trip provided much refreshment, and excitement, not to mention many challenges. It was my first visit to the country, and, I feel, it certainly won't be my last, as there are still many places left to see, and so many new things to learn.

 

We had several destinations highlighted on our itinerary, the foremost of which was Universal Studios. We spend an entire day there, going on rides and more often than not, queuing for them. The excruciating wait times were worth it, however, for such exhilarating fun, especially on the Hollywood Roller Coaster, my personal favorite. The next morning we followed up that successful endeavor with a trip to the Himeji Castle, a place which came highly recommended by my colleague, whose succinct description of the heritage site was, "awesome." Indeed, as a history buff, I enjoyed walking the storied grounds and climbing through the maze-like interior of the keep which was designed not so much to comfortably house the royal family as to confound the invading enemy. The castle is a must-visit. Other attractions of note include the Osaka Aquarium, and the Tennoji Zoo; both teemed with animals of every shape and size. We also at length ventured into several shopping districts inside of which were myriad stores, selling all sorts of fashion and gadgetry, countless restaurants and several gambling parlors - the Japanese, it seems, love their slot machines as much as the Hong Kong Chinese love their horse racing. Lest I forget, we frequented several video arcades to play the latest and greatest games; Paul played well, while I more often than not got 0wn3d. There is a lot to do in Japan.

 

Japanese culture, of which I've heard so much, really is distinct and separate from other Asian cultures. Their patterns of action and their peculiar artifacts certainly aren't the same as those which feature prominently in Hong Kong. For one thing, the MTR culture was more civilized and less stressful: people queued up for trains and let passengers alight first before permitting themselves to board; cellphones never rang and cabin cars were as quiet as bedrooms at midnight; and to imagine all of these people enforce their norms without public service announcements, without any coddling, conspicuous signs - that's amazing. What proved difficult was trying to find a garbage can. It was easier to find a vending machine, from which one could purchase a variety of drinks or cigarettes, than a bin in which to dispose of these delectable, perishable goods.

 

As for the general citizenry, they were most accommodating and hospitable, with several individuals going out of their way to help Paul and I find our way around the dense sprawl of the city. Language wasn't a concern despite our limited Japanese; amazingly enough, our comfort was their concern! I won't forget their selfless service, as one day, I hope, I'll be able to return the favor. That the girls were quite attractive and that I demonstrated a propensity to ask attractive girls for directions go without saying; however, I understand now that their sexiness and sophistication stem not from comely faces but coherent attire. Rather than adorn themselves like a typical Mong Kok girl in a ridiculous neon rainbow palette, with jeans or unseemly spandex underneath dresses, skirts or other tops better left to stand alone, Japanese girls opt for more somber, sensible colors - black and cream-colored - and what's more, they aren't afraid to whip out the tasteful pantyhose or to show some skin, even. We had plenty of time to ogle the ladies, and to their credit, freezing temperatures weren't enough to dissuade many of them from forsaking, icing their shorts, as we saw countless pairs being worn on the street. That's what I call fashion professionalism!

 

Overall, Japan is a marvelous little land full of the eccentric, as well as the endearing. It was a fascinating place to explore, and I'm thankful that it was done in the company of my friend , with whom candor was not at a premium. We both learned a lot and look forward to the next trip!

With my friend Paul, I spend five days in Osaka, Japan. The trip provided much refreshment, and excitement, not to mention many challenges. It was my first visit to the country, and, I feel, it certainly won't be my last, as there are still many places left to see, and so many new things to learn.

 

We had several destinations highlighted on our itinerary, the foremost of which was Universal Studios. We spend an entire day there, going on rides and more often than not, queuing for them. The excruciating wait times were worth it, however, for such exhilarating fun, especially on the Hollywood Roller Coaster, my personal favorite. The next morning we followed up that successful endeavor with a trip to the Himeji Castle, a place which came highly recommended by my colleague, whose succinct description of the heritage site was, "awesome." Indeed, as a history buff, I enjoyed walking the storied grounds and climbing through the maze-like interior of the keep which was designed not so much to comfortably house the royal family as to confound the invading enemy. The castle is a must-visit. Other attractions of note include the Osaka Aquarium, and the Tennoji Zoo; both teemed with animals of every shape and size. We also at length ventured into several shopping districts inside of which were myriad stores, selling all sorts of fashion and gadgetry, countless restaurants and several gambling parlors - the Japanese, it seems, love their slot machines as much as the Hong Kong Chinese love their horse racing. Lest I forget, we frequented several video arcades to play the latest and greatest games; Paul played well, while I more often than not got 0wn3d. There is a lot to do in Japan.

 

Japanese culture, of which I've heard so much, really is distinct and separate from other Asian cultures. Their patterns of action and their peculiar artifacts certainly aren't the same as those which feature prominently in Hong Kong. For one thing, the MTR culture was more civilized and less stressful: people queued up for trains and let passengers alight first before permitting themselves to board; cellphones never rang and cabin cars were as quiet as bedrooms at midnight; and to imagine all of these people enforce their norms without public service announcements, without any coddling, conspicuous signs - that's amazing. What proved difficult was trying to find a garbage can. It was easier to find a vending machine, from which one could purchase a variety of drinks or cigarettes, than a bin in which to dispose of these delectable, perishable goods.

 

As for the general citizenry, they were most accommodating and hospitable, with several individuals going out of their way to help Paul and I find our way around the dense sprawl of the city. Language wasn't a concern despite our limited Japanese; amazingly enough, our comfort was their concern! I won't forget their selfless service, as one day, I hope, I'll be able to return the favor. That the girls were quite attractive and that I demonstrated a propensity to ask attractive girls for directions go without saying; however, I understand now that their sexiness and sophistication stem not from comely faces but coherent attire. Rather than adorn themselves like a typical Mong Kok girl in a ridiculous neon rainbow palette, with jeans or unseemly spandex underneath dresses, skirts or other tops better left to stand alone, Japanese girls opt for more somber, sensible colors - black and cream-colored - and what's more, they aren't afraid to whip out the tasteful pantyhose or to show some skin, even. We had plenty of time to ogle the ladies, and to their credit, freezing temperatures weren't enough to dissuade many of them from forsaking, icing their shorts, as we saw countless pairs being worn on the street. That's what I call fashion professionalism!

 

Overall, Japan is a marvelous little land full of the eccentric, as well as the endearing. It was a fascinating place to explore, and I'm thankful that it was done in the company of my friend , with whom candor was not at a premium. We both learned a lot and look forward to the next trip!

With my friend Paul, I spend five days in Osaka, Japan. The trip provided much refreshment, and excitement, not to mention many challenges. It was my first visit to the country, and, I feel, it certainly won't be my last, as there are still many places left to see, and so many new things to learn.

 

We had several destinations highlighted on our itinerary, the foremost of which was Universal Studios. We spend an entire day there, going on rides and more often than not, queuing for them. The excruciating wait times were worth it, however, for such exhilarating fun, especially on the Hollywood Roller Coaster, my personal favorite. The next morning we followed up that successful endeavor with a trip to the Himeji Castle, a place which came highly recommended by my colleague, whose succinct description of the heritage site was, "awesome." Indeed, as a history buff, I enjoyed walking the storied grounds and climbing through the maze-like interior of the keep which was designed not so much to comfortably house the royal family as to confound the invading enemy. The castle is a must-visit. Other attractions of note include the Osaka Aquarium, and the Tennoji Zoo; both teemed with animals of every shape and size. We also at length ventured into several shopping districts inside of which were myriad stores, selling all sorts of fashion and gadgetry, countless restaurants and several gambling parlors - the Japanese, it seems, love their slot machines as much as the Hong Kong Chinese love their horse racing. Lest I forget, we frequented several video arcades to play the latest and greatest games; Paul played well, while I more often than not got 0wn3d. There is a lot to do in Japan.

 

Japanese culture, of which I've heard so much, really is distinct and separate from other Asian cultures. Their patterns of action and their peculiar artifacts certainly aren't the same as those which feature prominently in Hong Kong. For one thing, the MTR culture was more civilized and less stressful: people queued up for trains and let passengers alight first before permitting themselves to board; cellphones never rang and cabin cars were as quiet as bedrooms at midnight; and to imagine all of these people enforce their norms without public service announcements, without any coddling, conspicuous signs - that's amazing. What proved difficult was trying to find a garbage can. It was easier to find a vending machine, from which one could purchase a variety of drinks or cigarettes, than a bin in which to dispose of these delectable, perishable goods.

 

As for the general citizenry, they were most accommodating and hospitable, with several individuals going out of their way to help Paul and I find our way around the dense sprawl of the city. Language wasn't a concern despite our limited Japanese; amazingly enough, our comfort was their concern! I won't forget their selfless service, as one day, I hope, I'll be able to return the favor. That the girls were quite attractive and that I demonstrated a propensity to ask attractive girls for directions go without saying; however, I understand now that their sexiness and sophistication stem not from comely faces but coherent attire. Rather than adorn themselves like a typical Mong Kok girl in a ridiculous neon rainbow palette, with jeans or unseemly spandex underneath dresses, skirts or other tops better left to stand alone, Japanese girls opt for more somber, sensible colors - black and cream-colored - and what's more, they aren't afraid to whip out the tasteful pantyhose or to show some skin, even. We had plenty of time to ogle the ladies, and to their credit, freezing temperatures weren't enough to dissuade many of them from forsaking, icing their shorts, as we saw countless pairs being worn on the street. That's what I call fashion professionalism!

 

Overall, Japan is a marvelous little land full of the eccentric, as well as the endearing. It was a fascinating place to explore, and I'm thankful that it was done in the company of my friend , with whom candor was not at a premium. We both learned a lot and look forward to the next trip!

Angkor Wat or "Capital Temple" is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world. It was first a Hindu and later a Buddhist temple. It was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura, present-day Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum.

 

Breaking from the Shiva tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious center since its foundation. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early Dravidian architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.

 

The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (नगर). Wat is the Khmer word for "temple grounds" (Sanskrit: वाट vāṭa ""enclosure").

 

HISTORY

Angkor Wat lies 5.5 kilometres north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. It is in an area of Cambodia where there is an important group of ancient structures. It is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites.

 

According to one legend, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to act as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea.

 

According to the 13th century Chinese traveler Daguan Zhou, it was believed by some that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect. The initial design and construction of the temple took place in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113-C. 1150). Dedicated to Vishnu, it was built as the king's state temple and capital city. As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as "Varah Vishnu-lok" after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished.

 

In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon respectively) a few kilometers to the north.

 

In the late 13th century, Angkor Wat gradually moved from Hindu to Theravada Buddhist use, which continues to the present day. Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was somewhat neglected after the 16th century it was never completely abandoned, its preservation being due in part to the fact that its moat also provided some protection from encroachment by the jungle.

One of the first Western visitors to the temple was António da Madalena, a Portuguese monk who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of."

 

In the mid-19th century, the temple was visited by the French naturalist and explorer, Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote:

 

"One of these temples - a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo - might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged."

 

Mouhot, like other early Western visitors, found it difficult to believe that the Khmers could have built the temple, and mistakenly dated it to around the same era as Rome. The true history of Angkor Wat was pieced together only from stylistic and epigraphic evidence accumulated during the subsequent clearing and restoration work carried out across the whole Angkor site. There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement including cooking utensils, weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites. Instead there is the evidence of the monuments themselves.

 

Angkor Wat required considerable restoration in the 20th century, mainly the removal of accumulated earth and vegetation. Work was interrupted by the civil war and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period other than the theft and destruction of mostly post-Angkorian statues.The temple is a powerful symbol of Cambodia, and is a source of great national pride that has factored into Cambodia's diplomatic relations with France, the United States and its neighbor Thailand. A depiction of Angkor Wat has been a part of Cambodian national flags since the introduction of the first version circa 1863. From a larger historical and even transcultural perspective, however, the temple of Angkor Wat did not become a symbol of national pride sui generis but had been inscribed into a larger politico-cultural process of French-colonial heritage production in which the original temple site was presented in French colonial and universal exhibitions in Paris and Marseille between 1889 and 1937. Angkor Wat's aesthetics were also on display in the plaster cast museum of Louis Delaporte called musée Indo-chinois which existed in the Parisian Trocadero Palace from C. 1880 to the mid-1920s. The splendid artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins. This quickly led to Cambodia reclaiming lands in the northwestern corner of the country that had been under Siamese (Thai) control since 1351 AD (Manich Jumsai 2001), or by some accounts, 1431 AD. Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953 and has controlled Angkor Wat since that time.

 

ARCHITECTURE

SITE AND PLAN

Angkor Wat, located at 13°24′45″N 103°52′0″E, is a unique combination of the temple mountain, the standard design for the empire's state temples and the later plan of concentric galleries. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods: the central quincunx of towers symbolises the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. Access to the upper areas of the temple was progressively more exclusive, with the laity being admitted only to the lowest level. Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west rather than the east. This has led many (including Maurice Glaize and George Coedès) to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary temple.Further evidence for this view is provided by the bas-reliefs, which proceed in a counter-clockwise direction - prasavya in Hindu terminology - as this is the reverse of the normal order. Rituals take place in reverse order during Brahminic funeral services. The archaeologist Charles Higham also describes a container which may have been a funerary jar which was recovered from the central tower. It has been nominated by some as the greatest expenditure of energy on the disposal of a corpse. Freeman and Jacques, however, note that several other temples of Angkor depart from the typical eastern orientation, and suggest that Angkor Wat's alignment was due to its dedication to Vishnu, who was associated with the west.

 

A further interpretation of Angkor Wat has been proposed by Eleanor Mannikka. Drawing on the temple's alignment and dimensions, and on the content and arrangement of the bas-reliefs, she argues that the structure represents a claimed new era of peace under King Suryavarman II: "as the measurements of solar and lunar time cycles were built into the sacred space of Angkor Wat, this divine mandate to rule was anchored to consecrated chambers and corridors meant to perpetuate the king's power and to honor and placate the deities manifest in the heavens above." Mannikka's suggestions have been received with a mixture of interest and scepticism in academic circles. She distances herself from the speculations of others, such as Graham Hancock, that Angkor Wat is part of a representation of the constellation Draco.

 

STYLE

Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture - the Angkor Wat style - to which it has given its name. By the 12th century Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone (rather than brick or laterite) as the main building material. Most of the visible areas are of sandstone blocks, while laterite was used for the outer wall and for hidden structural parts. The binding agent used to join the blocks is yet to be identified, although natural resins or slaked lime has been suggested. The temple has drawn praise above all for the harmony of its design. According to Maurice Glaize, a mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, the temple "attains a classic perfection by the restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise arrangement of its proportions. It is a work of power, unity and style." Architecturally, the elements characteristic of the style include: the ogival, redented towers shaped like lotus buds; half-galleries to broaden passageways; axial galleries connecting enclosures; and the cruciform terraces which appear along the main axis of the temple. Typical decorative elements are devatas (or apsaras), bas-reliefs, and on pediments extensive garlands and narrative scenes. The statuary of Angkor Wat is considered conservative, being more static and less graceful than earlier work. Other elements of the design have been destroyed by looting and the passage of time, including gilded stucco on the towers, gilding on some figures on the bas-reliefs, and wooden ceiling panels and doors.

 

FEATURES

OUTER ENCLOSURE

The outer wall, 1024 by 802 m and 4.5 m high, is surrounded by a 30 m apron of open ground and a moat 190 m wide. Access to the temple is by an earth bank to the east and a sandstone causeway to the west; the latter, the main entrance, is a later addition, possibly replacing a wooden bridge. There are gopuras at each of the cardinal points; the western is by far the largest and has three ruined towers. Glaize notes that this gopura both hides and echoes the form of the temple proper. Under the southern tower is a statue of Vishnu, known as Ta Reach, which may originally have occupied the temple's central shrine.Galleries run between the towers and as far as two further entrances on either side of the gopura often referred to as "elephant gates", as they are large enough to admit those animals. These galleries have square pillars on the outer (west) side and a closed wall on the inner (east) side. The ceiling between the pillars is decorated with lotus rosettes; the west face of the wall with dancing figures; and the east face of the wall with balustered windows, dancing male figures on prancing animals, and devatas, including (south of the entrance) the only one in the temple to be showing her teeth. The outer wall encloses a space of 820,000 square metres, which besides the temple proper was originally occupied by the city and, to the north of the temple, the royal palace. Like all secular buildings of Angkor, these were built of perishable materials rather than of stone, so nothing remains of them except the outlines of some of the streets. Most of the area is now covered by forest. A 350 m causeway connects the western gopura to the temple proper, with naga balustrades and six sets of steps leading down to the city on either side. Each side also features a library with entrances at each cardinal point, in front of the third set of stairs from the entrance, and a pond between the library and the temple itself. The ponds are later additions to the design, as is the cruciform terrace guarded by lions connecting the causeway to the central structure.

 

CENTRAL STRUCTURE

The temple stands on a terrace raised higher than the city. It is made of three rectangular galleries rising to a central tower, each level higher than the last. Mannikka interprets these galleries as being dedicated to the king, Brahma, the moon, and Vishnu.

 

Each gallery has a gopura at each of the points, and the two inner galleries each have towers at their corners, forming a quincunx with the central tower. Because the temple faces west, the features are all set back towards the east, leaving more space to be filled in each enclosure and gallery on the west side; for the same reason the west-facing steps are shallower than those on the other sides.

 

The outer gallery measures 187 by 215 m, with pavilions rather than towers at the corners. The gallery is open to the outside of the temple, with columned half-galleries extending and buttressing the structure. Connecting the outer gallery to the second enclosure on the west side is a cruciform cloister called Preah Poan (the "Hall of a Thousand Gods"). Buddha images were left in the cloister by pilgrims over the centuries, although most have now been removed. This area has many inscriptions relating the good deeds of pilgrims, most written in Khmer but others in Burmese and Japanese. The four small courtyards marked out by the cloister may originally have been filled with water.

 

North and south of the cloister are libraries.

 

Beyond, the second and inner galleries are connected to each other and to two flanking libraries by another cruciform terrace, again a later addition. From the second level upwards, devatas abound on the walls, singly or in groups of up to four. The second-level enclosure is 100 by 115 m, and may originally have been flooded to represent the ocean around Mount Meru.

 

Three sets of steps on each side lead up to the corner towers and gopuras of the inner gallery. The very steep stairways represent the difficulty of ascending to the kingdom of the gods. This inner gallery, called the Bakan, is a 60 m square with axial galleries connecting each gopura with the central shrine, and subsidiary shrines located below the corner towers. The roofings of the galleries are decorated with the motif of the body of a snake ending in the heads of lions or garudas. Carved lintels and pediments decorate the entrances to the galleries and to the shrines. The tower above the central shrine rises 43 m to a height of 65 m above the ground; unlike those of previous temple mountains, the central tower is raised above the surrounding four. The shrine itself, originally occupied by a statue of Vishnu and open on each side, was walled in when the temple was converted to Theravada Buddhism, the new walls featuring standing Buddhas. In 1934, the conservator George Trouvé excavated the pit beneath the central shrine: filled with sand and water it had already been robbed of its treasure, but he did find a sacred foundation deposit of gold leaf two metres above ground level.

 

DECORATION

Integrated with the architecture of the building, and one of the causes for its fame is Angkor Wat's extensive decoration, which predominantly takes the form of bas-relief friezes. The inner walls of the outer gallery bear a series of large-scale scenes mainly depicting episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Higham has called these, "the greatest known linear arrangement of stone carving".

 

From the north-west corner anti-clockwise, the western gallery shows the Battle of Lanka (from the Ramayana, in which Rama defeats Ravana) and the Battle of Kurukshetra (from the Mahabharata, showing the mutual annihilation of the Kaurava and Pandava clans). On the southern gallery follow the only historical scene, a procession of Suryavarman II, then the 32 hells and 37 heavens of Hindu mythology.

 

On the eastern gallery is one of the most celebrated scenes, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, showing 92 asuras and 88 devas using the serpent Vasuki to churn the sea under Vishnu's direction (Mannikka counts only 91 asuras, and explains the asymmetrical numbers as representing the number of days from the winter solstice to the spring equinox, and from the equinox to the summer solstice). It is followed by Vishnu defeating asuras (a 16th-century addition). The northern gallery shows Krishna's victory over Bana (where according to Glaize, "The workmanship is at its worst"). and a battle between the Hindu gods and asuras. The north-west and south-west corner pavilions both feature much smaller-scale scenes, some unidentified but most from the Ramayana or the life of Krishna. Angkor Wat is decorated with depictions of apsaras and devata; there are more than 1,796 depictions of devata in the present research inventory. Angkor Wat architects employed small apsara images (30–40 cm) as decorative motifs on pillars and walls. They incorporated larger devata images (all full-body portraits measuring approximately 95–110 cm) more prominently at every level of the temple from the entry pavilion to the tops of the high towers. In 1927, Sappho Marchal published a study cataloging the remarkable diversity of their hair, headdresses, garments, stance, jewelry and decorative flowers, which Marchal concluded were based on actual practices of the Angkor period.

 

CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES

The stones, as smooth as polished marble, were laid without mortar with very tight joints that are sometimes hard to find. The blocks were held together by mortise and tenon joints in some cases, while in others they used dovetails and gravity. The blocks were presumably put in place by a combination of elephants, coir ropes, pulleys and bamboo scaffolding. Henri Mouhot noted that most of the blocks had holes 2.5 cm in diameter and 3 cm deep, with more holes on the larger blocks. Some scholars have suggested that these were used to join them together with iron rods, but others claim they were used to hold temporary pegs to help manoeuvre them into place. The monument was made out of millions of tonnes of sandstone and it has a greater volume as well as mass than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The Angkor Wat Temple consumes about 6 million to 10 million blocks of sandstone with an average weight of 1.5 tons each. In fact, the entire city of Angkor used up far greater amounts of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and occupied an area significantly greater than modern-day Paris. Moreover, unlike the Egyptian pyramids which use limestone quarried barely half a km away all the time, the entire city of Angkor was built with sandstone quarried 40 km (or more) away. This sandstone had to be transported from Mount Kulen, a quarry approximately 40 km to the northeast. The route has been suggested to span 35 kilometres along a canal towards Tonlé Sap lake, another 35 kilometres crossing the lake, and finally 15 kilometres upstream and against the current along Siem Reap River, making a total journey of 90 kilometres. However, Etsuo Uchida and Ichita Shimoda of Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan have discovered in 2012 a shorter 35-kilometre canal connecting Mount Kulen and Angkor Wat using satellite imagery. The two believe that the Khmer used this route instead.

 

Virtually all of its surfaces, columns, lintels even roofs are carved. There are miles of reliefs illustrating scenes from Indian literature including unicorns, griffins, winged dragons pulling chariots as well as warriors following an elephant-mounted leader and celestial dancing girls with elaborate hair styles. The gallery wall alone is decorated with almost 1000 square metres of bas reliefs. Holes on some of the Angkor walls indicate that they may have been decorated with bronze sheets. These were highly prized in ancient times and were a prime target for robbers. While excavating Khajuraho, Alex Evans, a stonemason and sculptor, recreated a stone sculpture under 1.2 m, this took about 60 days to carve. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also conducted experiments to quarry limestone which took 12 quarrymen 22 days to quarry about 400 tons of stone. The labor force to quarry, transport, carve and install so much sandstone must have run into the thousands including many highly skilled artisans. The skills required to carve these sculptures were developed hundreds of years earlier, as demonstrated by some artifacts that have been dated to the seventh century, before the Khmer came to power.

 

ANGKOR WAT TODAY

The Archaeological Survey of India carried out restoration work on the temple between 1986 and 1992. Since the 1990s, Angkor Wat has seen continued conservation efforts and a massive increase in tourism. The temple is part of the Angkor World Heritage Site, established in 1992, which has provided some funding and has encouraged the Cambodian government to protect the site. The German Apsara Conservation Project (GACP) is working to protect the devatas and other bas-reliefs which decorate the temple from damage. The organisation's survey found that around 20% of the devatas were in very poor condition, mainly because of natural erosion and deterioration of the stone but in part also due to earlier restoration efforts. Other work involves the repair of collapsed sections of the structure, and prevention of further collapse: the west facade of the upper level, for example, has been buttressed by scaffolding since 2002, while a Japanese team completed restoration of the north library of the outer enclosure in 2005. World Monuments Fund began conservation work on the Churning of the Sea of Milk Gallery in 2008 after several years of conditions studies. The project restored the traditional Khmer roofing system and removed cement used in earlier restoration attempts that had resulted in salts entering the structure behind the bas-relief, discoloring and damaging the sculpted surfaces. The main phase of work ended in 2012, and the final component will be the installation of finials on the roof of the gallery in 2013. Microbial biofilms have been found degrading sandstone at Angkor Wat, Preah Khan, and the Bayon and West Prasat in Angkor. The dehydration and radiation resistant filamentous cyanobacteria can produce organic acids that degrade the stone. A dark filamentous fungus was found in internal and external Preah Khan samples, while the alga Trentepohlia was found only in samples taken from external, pink-stained stone at Preah Khan. Angkor Wat has become a major tourist destination. In 2004 and 2005, government figures suggest that, respectively, 561.000 and 677.000 foreign visitors arrived in Siem Reap province, approximately 50% of all foreign tourists in Cambodia for both years. The site has been managed by the private SOKIMEX group since 1990, which rented it from the Cambodian government. The influx of tourists has so far caused relatively little damage, other than some graffiti; ropes and wooden steps have been introduced to protect the bas-reliefs and floors, respectively. Tourism has also provided some additional funds for maintenance - as of 2000 approximately 28% of ticket revenues across the whole Angkor site was spent on the temples - although most work is carried out by foreign government-sponsored teams rather than by the Cambodian authorities. Since Angkor Wat has seen significant growth in tourism throughout the years UNESCO and its International Co-ordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (ICC), in association with representatives from the Royal Government and APSARA, organized seminars to discuss the concept of "cultural tourism". Wanting to avoid commercial and mass tourism, the seminars emphasized the importance of providing high quality accommodation and services in order for the Cambodian government to benefit economically, while also incorporating the richness of Cambodian culture. In 2001, this incentive resulted in the concept of the "Angkor Tourist City" which would be developed with regard to traditional Khmer architecture, contain leisure and tourist facilities, and provide luxurious hotels capable of accommodating large amounts of tourists. The prospect of developing such large tourist accommodations has encountered concerns from both APSARA and the ICC, claiming that previous tourism developments in the area have neglected construction regulations and more of these projects have the potential to damage landscape features. Also, the large scale of these projects have begun to threaten the quality of the nearby town's water, sewage, and electricity systems. It has been noted that such high frequency of tourism and growing demand for quality accommodations in the area, such as the development of a large highway, has had a direct effect on the underground water table, subsequently straining the structural stability of the temples at Angkor Wat. Locals of Siem Reap have also voiced concern over the charming nature and atmosphere of their town being compromised in order to entertain tourism. Since this charming local atmosphere is the key component to projects like Angkor Tourist City, local officials continue to discuss how to successfully incorporate future tourism without sacrificing local values and culture. At the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2012, both parties have agreed Borobudur and Angkor Wat to become sister sites and the provinces will become sister provinces. Two Indonesian airlines are considering the opportunity to open a direct flight from Yogyakarta, Indonesia to Siem Reap.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Union Pacific SD70M No. 4537 leads a ZDLGRP-18 (Delano-McFarland, California to Green River, Wyoming) perishables train through Echo, Utah on Oct. 19, 2018. The Z had five loads of fresh California produce and seven loads of fine California wines. That equates to 1621 gross tons and 1060 ft. of train. The first car was a bad order set-out the Z picked up along the way.

RD15926. A long way from its home territory in North Norfolk is this Great Western Railway 'Fruit D' four wheel van.

 

These vehicles were introduced in 1939 and have air vents to allow air to circulate within the vehicle and thus keep perishable produce fresh when en route from the farms and orchards in the countryside to markets in the cities.

 

I don't suppose the North Norfolk Railway carries much fresh fruit or any other perishable goods to market, but it's a useful van for conveying prams, pushchairs, buggies, bicycles and other bulky items that won't easily fit into the passenger carriages.

 

Sheringham Station, North Norfolk Railway, Friday, 25th August, 2017. Copyright © Ron Fisher.

Today, on my Day 18 of Shelter In Place and Governor Newsom's recommendation that people cover their nose & mouth in public, I started the day by driving to a medical facility in Rancho Mirage for an MRI. Most people wore masks...it was really eye opening to be out of the house. And I wore my mask into the bank! I took it off real fast. After the MRI I drove to a cannabis dispensary in Cathedral City, picked up a lot of cannabis and then went grocery shopping. I got most things on my list but yeast still can't be found. It's a brave new world out there. After shopping I came home, Took all the perishable food into the house and onto the island where Darek wiped it down with anti viral stuff while I thru my clothes into the washer and took a hot soapy shower.

 

Oh...and around 5 pm this evening we had a 4.? earthquake. Live goes on! Be safe friends & family!

Ground Beef 59 cents a Pound.

OM PARVAT

Om Parvat (also Adi Kailash, Little Kailash, Jonglingkong Peak,Baba Kailash, chhota Kailash)[3] is a mountain in the Himalayanmountain range, lying in the Darchula district of western Nepal and inPithoragarh District, Uttarakhand, India. It is considered sacred by Hindusand its snow deposition pattern resembles the sacred 'OM' (ॐ). Its appearance is distinctly similar to Mount Kailash in Tibet.[4] Near Om Parvat lie Parvati Lake and Jonglingkong Lake. Jonglingkong Lake is sacred, as Mansarovar, to the Hindus. Opposite to this peak is a mountain called Parwati Muhar. The Om Parvat is the fruit of discord between India and Nepal who do not reach agreement about the border line between the two countries. The Om Parvat is currently on the Indo-Nepalese border face "Om/ॐ" in India and the back of the mountain inNepal.

This peak was attempted for the first time by an Indo-British team including Martin Moran, T. Rankin, M. Singh, S. Ward, A. Williams and R. Ausden. The climbers promised not to ascend the final 10 metres (30 ft) out of respect for the peak's holy status. However, they were stopped around 200 m (660 ft) short of the summit by very loose snow and rock conditions.[4]

The first ascent of Adi Kailash came on October 8, 2004. The team comprised Tim Woodward, Jack Pearse, Andy Perkins (UK); Jason Hubert, Martin Welch, Diarmid Hearns, Amanda George (Scotland); and Paul Zuchowski (USA). They did not ascend the final few metres, again out of respect for the sacred nature of the summit.

Om Parvat can be viewed en route to the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra from the last camp below Lipu Lekh pass at Nabhidhang. Many trekkers to Adi Kailash often make a diversion to view Om Parvat. Om Parvat and Adi Kailash or Baba Kailash are not one and the same. Om Parvat is located near Nabhi Dhang (Nepal),The Chhota Kailash is located near Sinla pass, Near Brahma Parvat.

The best view of Om Parvat which "Om" drawn by the snow is the view from the district of Pithoragarh (Uttarakhand, India), which faces the mountain and hence to the "Om". By Kailash Mansarovar Foundation Swami Bikash Giri www.sumeruparvat.com , www.naturalitem.com

  

OM

Auṃ or Oṃ, Sanskrit: ॐ) is a sacred sound and a spiritual icon in Indian religions. It is also a mantra in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.

Om is part of the iconography found in ancient and medieval era manuscripts, temples, monasteries and spiritual retreats in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The symbol has a spiritual meaning in all Indian dharmas, but the meaning and connotations of Om vary between the diverse schools within and across the various traditions.

In Hinduism, Om is one of the most important spiritual symbols (pratima). It refers to Atman (soul, self within) andBrahman (ultimate reality, entirety of the universe, truth, divine, supreme spirit, cosmic principles, knowledge). The syllable is often found at the beginning and the end of chapters in the Vedas, the Upanishads, and other Hindu texts. It is a sacred spiritual incantation made before and during the recitation of spiritual texts, during puja and private prayers, in ceremonies of rites of passages (sanskara) such as weddings, and sometimes during meditative and spiritual activities such as Yoga.

Vedic literature

The syllable "Om" is described with various meanings in the Vedas and different early Upanishads.[19] The meanings include "the sacred sound, the Yes!, the Vedas, the Udgitha (song of the universe), the infinite, the all encompassing, the whole world, the truth, the ultimate reality, the finest essence, the cause of the Universe, the essence of life, theBrahman, the Atman, the vehicle of deepest knowledge, and Self-knowledge".

Vedas

The chapters in Vedas, and numerous hymns, chants and benedictions therein use the syllable Om. The Gayatri mantra from the Rig Veda, for example, begins with Om. The mantra is extracted from the 10th verse of Hymn 62 in Book III of the Rig Veda.These recitations continue to be in use, and major incantations and ceremonial functions begin and end with Om.

ॐ भूर्भुवस्व: |

तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यम् |

भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि |

धियो यो न: प्रचोदयात् ||

 

Om. Earth, atmosphere, heaven.

Let us think on that desirable splendour

of Savitr, the Inspirer. May he stimulate

us to insightful thoughts.

Om is a common symbol found in the ancient texts of Hinduism, such as in the first line of Rig veda (top), as well as a icon in temples and spiritual retreats.

The Chandogya Upanishad is one of the oldest Upanishads of Hinduism. It opens with the recommendation that "let a man meditate on Om". It calls the syllable Om as udgitha (उद्गीथ, song, chant), and asserts that the significance of the syllable is thus: the essence of all beings is earth, the essence of earth is water, the essence of water are the plants, the essence of plants is man, the essence of man is speech, the essence of speech is the Rig Veda, the essence of the Rig Veda is the Sama Veda, and the essence of Sama Veda is the udgitha (song, Om).

Rik (ऋच्, Ṛc) is speech, states the text, and Sāman (सामन्) is breath; they are pairs, and because they have love and desire for each other, speech and breath find themselves together and mate to produce song. The highest song is Om, asserts section 1.1 of Chandogya Upanishad. It is the symbol of awe, of reverence, of threefold knowledge because Adhvaryu invokes it, the Hotr recites it, and Udgatr sings it.

The second volume of the first chapter continues its discussion of syllable Om, explaining its use as a struggle between Devas (gods) and Asuras (demons). Max Muller states that this struggle between gods and demons is considered allegorical by ancient Indian scholars, as good and evil inclinations within man, respectively. The legend in section 1.2 of Chandogya Upanishad states that gods took the Udgitha (song of Om) unto themselves, thinking, "with this [song] we shall overcome the demons". The syllable Om is thus implied as that which inspires the good inclinations within each person.

Chandogya Upanishad's exposition of syllable Om in its opening chapter combines etymological speculations, symbolism, metric structure and philosophical themes. In the second chapter of the Chandogya Upanishad, the meaning and significance of Om evolves into a philosophical discourse, such as in section 2.10 where Om is linked to the Highest Self, and section 2.23 where the text asserts Om is the essence of three forms of knowledge, Om is Brahman and "Om is all this [observed world]".

Katha Upanishad

The Katha Upanishad is the legendary story of a little boy, Nachiketa – the son of sage Vajasravasa, who meetsYama – the Indian deity of death. Their conversation evolves to a discussion of the nature of man, knowledge,Atman (Soul, Self) and moksha (liberation). In section 1.2, Katha Upanishad characterizes Knowledge/Wisdom as the pursuit of good, and Ignorance/Delusion as the pursuit of pleasant, that the essence of Veda is make man liberated and free, look past what has happened and what has not happened, free from the past and the future, beyond good and evil, and one word for this essence is the word Om.

The word which all the Vedas proclaim,

That which is expressed in every Tapas (penance, austerity, meditation),

That for which they live the life of a Brahmacharin,

Understand that word in its essence: Om! that is the word.

Yes, this syllable is Brahman,

This syllable is the highest.

He who knows that syllable,

Whatever he desires, is his.

— Katha Upanishad,

Maitri Upanishad

The Maitrayaniya Upanishad in sixth Prapathakas (lesson) discusses the meaning and significance of Om. The text asserts that Om represents Brahman-Atman. The three roots of the syllable, states the Maitri Upanishad, are A + U + M. The sound is the body of Soul, and it repeatedly manifests in three: as gender-endowed body - feminine, masculine, neuter; as light-endowed body - Agni, Vayu and Aditya; as deity-endowed body - Brahma, Rudra and Vishnu; as mouth-endowed body - Garhapatya, Dakshinagni and Ahavaniya; as knowledge-endowed body - Rig, Saman and Yajur; as world-endowed body - Bhūr, Bhuvaḥ and Svaḥ; as time-endowed body - Past, Present and Future; as heat-endowed body - Breath, Fire and Sun; as growth-endowed body - Food, Water and Moon; as thought-endowed body - intellect, mind and pysche. Brahman exists in two forms - the material form, and the immaterial formless. The material form is changing, unreal. The immaterial formless isn't changing, real. The immortal formless is truth, the truth is the Brahman, the Brahman is the light, the light is the Sun which is the syllable Om as the Self.

The world is Om, its light is Sun, and the Sun is also the light of the syllable Om, asserts the Upanishad. Meditating on Om, is acknowledging and meditating on the Brahman-Atman (Soul, Self).

Mundaka Upanishad

The Mundaka Upanishad in the second Mundakam (part), suggests the means to knowing the Self and the Brahman to be meditation, self-reflection and introspection, that can be aided by the symbol Om.

That which is flaming, which is subtler than the subtle,

on which the worlds are set, and their inhabitants –

That is the indestructible Brahman. It is life, it is speech, it is mind. That is the real. It is immortal.

It is a mark to be penetrated. Penetrate It, my friend.

 

Taking as a bow the great weapon of the Upanishad,

one should put upon it an arrow sharpened by meditation,

Stretching it with a thought directed to the essence of That,

Penetrate that Imperishable as the mark, my friend.

 

Om is the bow, the arrow is the Soul, Brahman the mark,

By the undistracted man is It to be penetrated,

One should come to be in It,

as the arrow becomes one with the mark.

— Mundaka Upanishad, 2.2.2 - 2.2.4

Adi Shankara, in his review of the Mundaka Upanishad, states Om as a symbolism for Atman (soul, self).

Mandukya Upanishad

The Mandukya Upanishad opens by declaring, "Om!, this syllable is this whole world". Thereafter it presents various explanations and theories on what it means and signifies. This discussion is built on a structure of "four fourths" or "fourfold", derived from A + U + M + "silence" (or without an element).

Aum as all states of time

In verse 1, the Upanishad states that time is threefold: the past, the present and the future, that these three are "Aum". The four fourth of time is that which transcends time, that too is "Aum" expressed.

Aum as all states of Atman

In verse 2, states the Upanishad, everything is Brahman, but Brahman is Atman (the Soul, Self), and that the Atman is fourfold. Johnston summarizes these four states of Self, respectively, as seeking the physical, seeking inner thought, seeking the causes and spiritual consciousness, and the fourth state is realizing oneness with the Self, the Eternal.

Aum as all states of consciousness

In verses 3 to 6, the Mandukya Upanishad enumerates four states of consciousness: wakeful, dream, deep sleep and the state of ekatma (being one with Self, the oneness of Self). These four are A + U + M + "without an element" respectively.

Aum as all of knowledge

In verses 9 to 12, the Mandukya Upanishad enumerates fourfold etymological roots of the syllable "Aum". It states that the first element of "Aum" is A, which is from Apti (obtaining, reaching) or from Adimatva (being first). The second element is U, which is from Utkarsa (exaltation) or from Ubhayatva(intermediateness). The third element is M, from Miti (erecting, constructing) or from Mi Minati, or apīti (annihilation). The fourth is without an element, without development, beyond the expanse of universe. In this way, states the Upanishad, the syllable Om is indeed the Atman (the self).

Shvetashvatara Upanishad

The Shvetashvatara Upanishad, in verses 1.14 to 1.16, suggests meditating with the help of syllable Om, where one's perishable body is like one fuel-stick and the syllable Om is the second fuel-stick, which with discipline and diligent rubbing of the sticks unleashes the concealed fire of thought and awareness within. Such knowledge, asserts the Upanishad, is the goal of Upanishads. The text asserts that Om is a tool of meditation empowering one to know the God within oneself, to realize one's Atman (Soul, Self).

Epics

The Bhagavad Gita, in the Epic Mahabharata, mentions the meaning and significance of Om in several verses. For example, Fowler notes that verse 9.17 of the Bhagavad Gita synthesizes the competing dualistic and monist streams of thought in Hinduism, by using "Om which is the symbol for the indescribable, impersonal Brahman".

I am the Father of this world, Mother, Ordainer, Grandfather, the Thing to be known, the Purifier, the syllable Om, Rik, Saman and also Yajus.

— Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita 9.17,

The significance of the sacred syllable in the Hindu traditions, is similarly highlighted in various of its verses, such as verse 17.24 where the importance of Omduring prayers, charity and meditative practices is explained as follows,

Therefore, uttering Om, the acts of yajna (fire ritual), dāna (charity) and tapas (austerity) as enjoined in the scriptures, are always begun by those who study the Brahman.

— Bhagavad Gita

Yoga Sutra

The aphoristic verse 1.27 of Pantanjali's Yogasutra links Om to Yoga practice, as follows,

तस्य वाचकः प्रणवः ॥२७॥

His word is Om.

— Yogasutra 1.27,

Johnston states this verse highlights the importance of Om in the meditative practice of Yoga, where it symbolizes three worlds in the Soul; the three times – past, present and future eternity, the three divine powers – creation, preservation and transformation in one Being; and three essences in one Spirit – immortality, omniscience and joy. It is, asserts Johnston, a symbol for the perfected Spiritual Man (his emphasis). BY KAILASH MANSAROVAR FOUNDATION SWAMI BIKASH GIRI www.sumeruparvat.com , www.naturalitem.com

 

Angkor Wat or "Capital Temple" is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world. It was first a Hindu and later a Buddhist temple. It was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura, present-day Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum.

 

Breaking from the Shiva tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious center since its foundation. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early Dravidian architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.

 

The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (नगर). Wat is the Khmer word for "temple grounds" (Sanskrit: वाट vāṭa ""enclosure").

 

HISTORY

Angkor Wat lies 5.5 kilometres north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. It is in an area of Cambodia where there is an important group of ancient structures. It is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites.

 

According to one legend, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to act as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea.

 

According to the 13th century Chinese traveler Daguan Zhou, it was believed by some that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect. The initial design and construction of the temple took place in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113-C. 1150). Dedicated to Vishnu, it was built as the king's state temple and capital city. As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as "Varah Vishnu-lok" after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished.

 

In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon respectively) a few kilometers to the north.

 

In the late 13th century, Angkor Wat gradually moved from Hindu to Theravada Buddhist use, which continues to the present day. Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was somewhat neglected after the 16th century it was never completely abandoned, its preservation being due in part to the fact that its moat also provided some protection from encroachment by the jungle.

One of the first Western visitors to the temple was António da Madalena, a Portuguese monk who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of."

 

In the mid-19th century, the temple was visited by the French naturalist and explorer, Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote:

 

"One of these temples - a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo - might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged."

 

Mouhot, like other early Western visitors, found it difficult to believe that the Khmers could have built the temple, and mistakenly dated it to around the same era as Rome. The true history of Angkor Wat was pieced together only from stylistic and epigraphic evidence accumulated during the subsequent clearing and restoration work carried out across the whole Angkor site. There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement including cooking utensils, weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites. Instead there is the evidence of the monuments themselves.

 

Angkor Wat required considerable restoration in the 20th century, mainly the removal of accumulated earth and vegetation. Work was interrupted by the civil war and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period other than the theft and destruction of mostly post-Angkorian statues.The temple is a powerful symbol of Cambodia, and is a source of great national pride that has factored into Cambodia's diplomatic relations with France, the United States and its neighbor Thailand. A depiction of Angkor Wat has been a part of Cambodian national flags since the introduction of the first version circa 1863. From a larger historical and even transcultural perspective, however, the temple of Angkor Wat did not become a symbol of national pride sui generis but had been inscribed into a larger politico-cultural process of French-colonial heritage production in which the original temple site was presented in French colonial and universal exhibitions in Paris and Marseille between 1889 and 1937. Angkor Wat's aesthetics were also on display in the plaster cast museum of Louis Delaporte called musée Indo-chinois which existed in the Parisian Trocadero Palace from C. 1880 to the mid-1920s. The splendid artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins. This quickly led to Cambodia reclaiming lands in the northwestern corner of the country that had been under Siamese (Thai) control since 1351 AD (Manich Jumsai 2001), or by some accounts, 1431 AD. Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953 and has controlled Angkor Wat since that time.

 

ARCHITECTURE

SITE AND PLAN

Angkor Wat, located at 13°24′45″N 103°52′0″E, is a unique combination of the temple mountain, the standard design for the empire's state temples and the later plan of concentric galleries. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods: the central quincunx of towers symbolises the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. Access to the upper areas of the temple was progressively more exclusive, with the laity being admitted only to the lowest level. Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west rather than the east. This has led many (including Maurice Glaize and George Coedès) to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary temple.Further evidence for this view is provided by the bas-reliefs, which proceed in a counter-clockwise direction - prasavya in Hindu terminology - as this is the reverse of the normal order. Rituals take place in reverse order during Brahminic funeral services. The archaeologist Charles Higham also describes a container which may have been a funerary jar which was recovered from the central tower. It has been nominated by some as the greatest expenditure of energy on the disposal of a corpse. Freeman and Jacques, however, note that several other temples of Angkor depart from the typical eastern orientation, and suggest that Angkor Wat's alignment was due to its dedication to Vishnu, who was associated with the west.

 

A further interpretation of Angkor Wat has been proposed by Eleanor Mannikka. Drawing on the temple's alignment and dimensions, and on the content and arrangement of the bas-reliefs, she argues that the structure represents a claimed new era of peace under King Suryavarman II: "as the measurements of solar and lunar time cycles were built into the sacred space of Angkor Wat, this divine mandate to rule was anchored to consecrated chambers and corridors meant to perpetuate the king's power and to honor and placate the deities manifest in the heavens above." Mannikka's suggestions have been received with a mixture of interest and scepticism in academic circles. She distances herself from the speculations of others, such as Graham Hancock, that Angkor Wat is part of a representation of the constellation Draco.

 

STYLE

Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture - the Angkor Wat style - to which it has given its name. By the 12th century Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone (rather than brick or laterite) as the main building material. Most of the visible areas are of sandstone blocks, while laterite was used for the outer wall and for hidden structural parts. The binding agent used to join the blocks is yet to be identified, although natural resins or slaked lime has been suggested. The temple has drawn praise above all for the harmony of its design. According to Maurice Glaize, a mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, the temple "attains a classic perfection by the restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise arrangement of its proportions. It is a work of power, unity and style." Architecturally, the elements characteristic of the style include: the ogival, redented towers shaped like lotus buds; half-galleries to broaden passageways; axial galleries connecting enclosures; and the cruciform terraces which appear along the main axis of the temple. Typical decorative elements are devatas (or apsaras), bas-reliefs, and on pediments extensive garlands and narrative scenes. The statuary of Angkor Wat is considered conservative, being more static and less graceful than earlier work. Other elements of the design have been destroyed by looting and the passage of time, including gilded stucco on the towers, gilding on some figures on the bas-reliefs, and wooden ceiling panels and doors.

 

FEATURES

OUTER ENCLOSURE

The outer wall, 1024 by 802 m and 4.5 m high, is surrounded by a 30 m apron of open ground and a moat 190 m wide. Access to the temple is by an earth bank to the east and a sandstone causeway to the west; the latter, the main entrance, is a later addition, possibly replacing a wooden bridge. There are gopuras at each of the cardinal points; the western is by far the largest and has three ruined towers. Glaize notes that this gopura both hides and echoes the form of the temple proper. Under the southern tower is a statue of Vishnu, known as Ta Reach, which may originally have occupied the temple's central shrine.Galleries run between the towers and as far as two further entrances on either side of the gopura often referred to as "elephant gates", as they are large enough to admit those animals. These galleries have square pillars on the outer (west) side and a closed wall on the inner (east) side. The ceiling between the pillars is decorated with lotus rosettes; the west face of the wall with dancing figures; and the east face of the wall with balustered windows, dancing male figures on prancing animals, and devatas, including (south of the entrance) the only one in the temple to be showing her teeth. The outer wall encloses a space of 820,000 square metres, which besides the temple proper was originally occupied by the city and, to the north of the temple, the royal palace. Like all secular buildings of Angkor, these were built of perishable materials rather than of stone, so nothing remains of them except the outlines of some of the streets. Most of the area is now covered by forest. A 350 m causeway connects the western gopura to the temple proper, with naga balustrades and six sets of steps leading down to the city on either side. Each side also features a library with entrances at each cardinal point, in front of the third set of stairs from the entrance, and a pond between the library and the temple itself. The ponds are later additions to the design, as is the cruciform terrace guarded by lions connecting the causeway to the central structure.

 

CENTRAL STRUCTURE

The temple stands on a terrace raised higher than the city. It is made of three rectangular galleries rising to a central tower, each level higher than the last. Mannikka interprets these galleries as being dedicated to the king, Brahma, the moon, and Vishnu.

 

Each gallery has a gopura at each of the points, and the two inner galleries each have towers at their corners, forming a quincunx with the central tower. Because the temple faces west, the features are all set back towards the east, leaving more space to be filled in each enclosure and gallery on the west side; for the same reason the west-facing steps are shallower than those on the other sides.

 

The outer gallery measures 187 by 215 m, with pavilions rather than towers at the corners. The gallery is open to the outside of the temple, with columned half-galleries extending and buttressing the structure. Connecting the outer gallery to the second enclosure on the west side is a cruciform cloister called Preah Poan (the "Hall of a Thousand Gods"). Buddha images were left in the cloister by pilgrims over the centuries, although most have now been removed. This area has many inscriptions relating the good deeds of pilgrims, most written in Khmer but others in Burmese and Japanese. The four small courtyards marked out by the cloister may originally have been filled with water.

 

North and south of the cloister are libraries.

 

Beyond, the second and inner galleries are connected to each other and to two flanking libraries by another cruciform terrace, again a later addition. From the second level upwards, devatas abound on the walls, singly or in groups of up to four. The second-level enclosure is 100 by 115 m, and may originally have been flooded to represent the ocean around Mount Meru.

 

Three sets of steps on each side lead up to the corner towers and gopuras of the inner gallery. The very steep stairways represent the difficulty of ascending to the kingdom of the gods. This inner gallery, called the Bakan, is a 60 m square with axial galleries connecting each gopura with the central shrine, and subsidiary shrines located below the corner towers. The roofings of the galleries are decorated with the motif of the body of a snake ending in the heads of lions or garudas. Carved lintels and pediments decorate the entrances to the galleries and to the shrines. The tower above the central shrine rises 43 m to a height of 65 m above the ground; unlike those of previous temple mountains, the central tower is raised above the surrounding four. The shrine itself, originally occupied by a statue of Vishnu and open on each side, was walled in when the temple was converted to Theravada Buddhism, the new walls featuring standing Buddhas. In 1934, the conservator George Trouvé excavated the pit beneath the central shrine: filled with sand and water it had already been robbed of its treasure, but he did find a sacred foundation deposit of gold leaf two metres above ground level.

 

DECORATION

Integrated with the architecture of the building, and one of the causes for its fame is Angkor Wat's extensive decoration, which predominantly takes the form of bas-relief friezes. The inner walls of the outer gallery bear a series of large-scale scenes mainly depicting episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Higham has called these, "the greatest known linear arrangement of stone carving".

 

From the north-west corner anti-clockwise, the western gallery shows the Battle of Lanka (from the Ramayana, in which Rama defeats Ravana) and the Battle of Kurukshetra (from the Mahabharata, showing the mutual annihilation of the Kaurava and Pandava clans). On the southern gallery follow the only historical scene, a procession of Suryavarman II, then the 32 hells and 37 heavens of Hindu mythology.

 

On the eastern gallery is one of the most celebrated scenes, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, showing 92 asuras and 88 devas using the serpent Vasuki to churn the sea under Vishnu's direction (Mannikka counts only 91 asuras, and explains the asymmetrical numbers as representing the number of days from the winter solstice to the spring equinox, and from the equinox to the summer solstice). It is followed by Vishnu defeating asuras (a 16th-century addition). The northern gallery shows Krishna's victory over Bana (where according to Glaize, "The workmanship is at its worst"). and a battle between the Hindu gods and asuras. The north-west and south-west corner pavilions both feature much smaller-scale scenes, some unidentified but most from the Ramayana or the life of Krishna. Angkor Wat is decorated with depictions of apsaras and devata; there are more than 1,796 depictions of devata in the present research inventory. Angkor Wat architects employed small apsara images (30–40 cm) as decorative motifs on pillars and walls. They incorporated larger devata images (all full-body portraits measuring approximately 95–110 cm) more prominently at every level of the temple from the entry pavilion to the tops of the high towers. In 1927, Sappho Marchal published a study cataloging the remarkable diversity of their hair, headdresses, garments, stance, jewelry and decorative flowers, which Marchal concluded were based on actual practices of the Angkor period.

 

CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES

The stones, as smooth as polished marble, were laid without mortar with very tight joints that are sometimes hard to find. The blocks were held together by mortise and tenon joints in some cases, while in others they used dovetails and gravity. The blocks were presumably put in place by a combination of elephants, coir ropes, pulleys and bamboo scaffolding. Henri Mouhot noted that most of the blocks had holes 2.5 cm in diameter and 3 cm deep, with more holes on the larger blocks. Some scholars have suggested that these were used to join them together with iron rods, but others claim they were used to hold temporary pegs to help manoeuvre them into place. The monument was made out of millions of tonnes of sandstone and it has a greater volume as well as mass than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The Angkor Wat Temple consumes about 6 million to 10 million blocks of sandstone with an average weight of 1.5 tons each. In fact, the entire city of Angkor used up far greater amounts of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and occupied an area significantly greater than modern-day Paris. Moreover, unlike the Egyptian pyramids which use limestone quarried barely half a km away all the time, the entire city of Angkor was built with sandstone quarried 40 km (or more) away. This sandstone had to be transported from Mount Kulen, a quarry approximately 40 km to the northeast. The route has been suggested to span 35 kilometres along a canal towards Tonlé Sap lake, another 35 kilometres crossing the lake, and finally 15 kilometres upstream and against the current along Siem Reap River, making a total journey of 90 kilometres. However, Etsuo Uchida and Ichita Shimoda of Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan have discovered in 2012 a shorter 35-kilometre canal connecting Mount Kulen and Angkor Wat using satellite imagery. The two believe that the Khmer used this route instead.

 

Virtually all of its surfaces, columns, lintels even roofs are carved. There are miles of reliefs illustrating scenes from Indian literature including unicorns, griffins, winged dragons pulling chariots as well as warriors following an elephant-mounted leader and celestial dancing girls with elaborate hair styles. The gallery wall alone is decorated with almost 1000 square metres of bas reliefs. Holes on some of the Angkor walls indicate that they may have been decorated with bronze sheets. These were highly prized in ancient times and were a prime target for robbers. While excavating Khajuraho, Alex Evans, a stonemason and sculptor, recreated a stone sculpture under 1.2 m, this took about 60 days to carve. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also conducted experiments to quarry limestone which took 12 quarrymen 22 days to quarry about 400 tons of stone. The labor force to quarry, transport, carve and install so much sandstone must have run into the thousands including many highly skilled artisans. The skills required to carve these sculptures were developed hundreds of years earlier, as demonstrated by some artifacts that have been dated to the seventh century, before the Khmer came to power.

 

ANGKOR WAT TODAY

The Archaeological Survey of India carried out restoration work on the temple between 1986 and 1992. Since the 1990s, Angkor Wat has seen continued conservation efforts and a massive increase in tourism. The temple is part of the Angkor World Heritage Site, established in 1992, which has provided some funding and has encouraged the Cambodian government to protect the site. The German Apsara Conservation Project (GACP) is working to protect the devatas and other bas-reliefs which decorate the temple from damage. The organisation's survey found that around 20% of the devatas were in very poor condition, mainly because of natural erosion and deterioration of the stone but in part also due to earlier restoration efforts. Other work involves the repair of collapsed sections of the structure, and prevention of further collapse: the west facade of the upper level, for example, has been buttressed by scaffolding since 2002, while a Japanese team completed restoration of the north library of the outer enclosure in 2005. World Monuments Fund began conservation work on the Churning of the Sea of Milk Gallery in 2008 after several years of conditions studies. The project restored the traditional Khmer roofing system and removed cement used in earlier restoration attempts that had resulted in salts entering the structure behind the bas-relief, discoloring and damaging the sculpted surfaces. The main phase of work ended in 2012, and the final component will be the installation of finials on the roof of the gallery in 2013. Microbial biofilms have been found degrading sandstone at Angkor Wat, Preah Khan, and the Bayon and West Prasat in Angkor. The dehydration and radiation resistant filamentous cyanobacteria can produce organic acids that degrade the stone. A dark filamentous fungus was found in internal and external Preah Khan samples, while the alga Trentepohlia was found only in samples taken from external, pink-stained stone at Preah Khan. Angkor Wat has become a major tourist destination. In 2004 and 2005, government figures suggest that, respectively, 561.000 and 677.000 foreign visitors arrived in Siem Reap province, approximately 50% of all foreign tourists in Cambodia for both years. The site has been managed by the private SOKIMEX group since 1990, which rented it from the Cambodian government. The influx of tourists has so far caused relatively little damage, other than some graffiti; ropes and wooden steps have been introduced to protect the bas-reliefs and floors, respectively. Tourism has also provided some additional funds for maintenance - as of 2000 approximately 28% of ticket revenues across the whole Angkor site was spent on the temples - although most work is carried out by foreign government-sponsored teams rather than by the Cambodian authorities. Since Angkor Wat has seen significant growth in tourism throughout the years UNESCO and its International Co-ordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (ICC), in association with representatives from the Royal Government and APSARA, organized seminars to discuss the concept of "cultural tourism". Wanting to avoid commercial and mass tourism, the seminars emphasized the importance of providing high quality accommodation and services in order for the Cambodian government to benefit economically, while also incorporating the richness of Cambodian culture. In 2001, this incentive resulted in the concept of the "Angkor Tourist City" which would be developed with regard to traditional Khmer architecture, contain leisure and tourist facilities, and provide luxurious hotels capable of accommodating large amounts of tourists. The prospect of developing such large tourist accommodations has encountered concerns from both APSARA and the ICC, claiming that previous tourism developments in the area have neglected construction regulations and more of these projects have the potential to damage landscape features. Also, the large scale of these projects have begun to threaten the quality of the nearby town's water, sewage, and electricity systems. It has been noted that such high frequency of tourism and growing demand for quality accommodations in the area, such as the development of a large highway, has had a direct effect on the underground water table, subsequently straining the structural stability of the temples at Angkor Wat. Locals of Siem Reap have also voiced concern over the charming nature and atmosphere of their town being compromised in order to entertain tourism. Since this charming local atmosphere is the key component to projects like Angkor Tourist City, local officials continue to discuss how to successfully incorporate future tourism without sacrificing local values and culture. At the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2012, both parties have agreed Borobudur and Angkor Wat to become sister sites and the provinces will become sister provinces. Two Indonesian airlines are considering the opportunity to open a direct flight from Yogyakarta, Indonesia to Siem Reap.

 

WIKIPEDIA

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

Historically, the use of khat was limited to the Horn of Africa and the nearby Arabian Peninsula (primarily Yemen). The reasons are not just cultural, but also practical, since the active substance in khat, cathinone, breaks down within 48 hours. The khat leaves must therefore be very fresh in order to get the desired stimulant effects. The advent of better transportation, however, with improved vehicles, roads and access to air transport has allowed khat to enter the world market.

 

Awaday is perhaps a good hour by road from Dire Dawa, a regional hub with an international airport. Along the road to Dire Dawa are small khat distribution centers such as the one pictured here. Once in the air, this perishable commodity makes its way to Yemen and England, where khat sales and use are legal. Khat is illegal, however, in the rest of Europe and in North America but manages to reach these markets via the UK.

 

On the road from Awaday to Dire Dawa, Ethiopia

 

Best viewed Original size.

 

One of Gresley's finest, A4 Pacific 60003 "Andrew K. McCosh", stands in Doncaster station with its up ECML train, suprisingly carrying Class C headlamps - 26/04/1962.

 

Class C is ostensibly "parcels, fish, livestock, mik, fruit or perishables - all XP stock" and yet there is very clearly passenger coaches behind the 4-6-2, and yet in neither this nor the following image is there much sign of passenger activity either on the platform or in the coaches. Anyone have an explanation? Judging by the shadows, we're looking at images made early-mid morning.

 

© picture courtesy of Peter Brumby; scanned by me from the original 120 format negative.

 

- - - - - -

The annual Easter service at Turtle Crossing Park is ending.

 

Pastor Calvin: "Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."*

 

Praise be to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who, through His resurrection, sealed His work on the cross so that we can put off the corruption and put on incorruption! He is risen!

 

All: He is risen INDEED!

 

Pastor Calvin: Audrey, dear sister, lead us in our closing song.

 

Audrey: Let's sing with joy!

 

All: 🎵I serve a risen Savior, He’s in the world today.

I know that He is living, Whatever men may say.

I see His hand of mercy; I hear His voice of cheer;

And just the time I need Him, He’s always near!🎶

 

🎵 He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.

He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart!

You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart. 🎶

 

🎵 In all the world around me I see His loving care,

And though my heart grows weary, I never will despair;

I know that He is leading, Through all the stormy blast;

The day of His appearing Will come at last. 🎶

 

🎵 Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian, Lift up your voice and sing,

Eternal hallelujahs To Jesus Christ the King!

The Hope of all who seek Him, The Help of all who find,

None other is so loving, So good and kind.🎶

 

Happy Easter to all from Paprihaven!! He lives and reigns!

________________________

*1 Corinthians 15:50-57

New Alresford or simply Alresford is a small town and civil parish in the City of Winchester district of Hampshire. It is 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) north-east of Winchester and 20 kilometres (12 mi) south-west of the town of Alton. In the 2001 census, Alresford had a population of 5,102.

 

New Alresford has shops, a tourist information centre, a central conservation area, two tea rooms and is a terminus as with Alton of the Watercress Line, a steam worked heritage railway at Alresford railway station.

 

The church in the centre of the backround is The church of St.John the Baptist which is Church of England and within the Diocese of Winchester and is part of the newly-formed Arle Valley Benefice. It has been the Parish Church of New Alresford since 1851.

 

New Alresford and Old Alresford are well known for their watercress production. In the foreground can be seen one of the watercress bed of Pinglestone Farm.

 

Watercress has always grown wild in the chalk streams and ditches in and around Alresford and was probably picked and eaten, by the local people, for centuries.

 

Watercress is far too perishable to be transported by horse and cart along poor roads and so it was not until the coming of the railway to Alresford in 1865 that it became a commercial proposition to transport the crop to London and the Midlands. Cress could be picked in the afternoon, transported by cart to Alresford Station in the evening and be on sale in Covent Garden, London in the early hours of the following morning.

 

The industry expanded over the next 60 years with the number of growers and acreage under cultivation increasing. In 1925 an agreed code of practice and more modern cultivation methods began to squeeze out the smaller growers. The code of practice was aimed mainly at removing possible sources of contamination and it was at this time that the main production moved from simply being grown in rivers and streams to the cress beds seen today with impermeable sides to prevent entry of river water. Bore holes provide chalk-filtered water from 40 feet below the surface at the rate of 2500 litres per hour at a constant temperature of 10° C (51° F) all year round,

 

keeping the watercress free from frost. On a cold winter's day steam can be seen floating over the beds resulting from the warmer spring water meeting the frosty air.

 

The water from the bore hole flows steadily from level to level through the beds regulated by sluices to maintain the correct depth of each bed. The cress can normally be purchased from an adjacent shed at any time as cress is a year round crop.

 

Hampshire is still the main producing area in the country and today the watercress is pre-packed on automated lines for supermarkets. Mechanical harvesters and rice planters now undertake what was previously a labour intensive task and in the days before rubber boots workers wore thigh length leather boots carefully dubbined against the damp. Even so they were not damp-proof and every morning men would wrap hessian strips around their feet and legs to absorb moisture and prevent chaffing.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Alresford

 

PLEASE, no multi invitations in your comments. DO NOT FEEL YOU HAVE TO COMMENT.Thanks.

 

Structure of the Pilasters borders the northwest side of the plaza. You can see two different construction periods in it. The lowest base is the oldest, and eight pilasters rest on its top. It was later covered over with large stones used as fill-in for the constructions of the following period. What you see today are the walls of a base whose top was reached over a stairway that overlooked the plaza. All that remains on top are the crumbled foundations of a home that may have been built with thatch and other perishable materials.

With my friend Paul, I spend five days in Osaka, Japan. The trip provided much refreshment, and excitement, not to mention many challenges. It was my first visit to the country, and, I feel, it certainly won't be my last, as there are still many places left to see, and so many new things to learn.

 

We had several destinations highlighted on our itinerary, the foremost of which was Universal Studios. We spend an entire day there, going on rides and more often than not, queuing for them. The excruciating wait times were worth it, however, for such exhilarating fun, especially on the Hollywood Roller Coaster, my personal favorite. The next morning we followed up that successful endeavor with a trip to the Himeji Castle, a place which came highly recommended by my colleague, whose succinct description of the heritage site was, "awesome." Indeed, as a history buff, I enjoyed walking the storied grounds and climbing through the maze-like interior of the keep which was designed not so much to comfortably house the royal family as to confound the invading enemy. The castle is a must-visit. Other attractions of note include the Osaka Aquarium, and the Tennoji Zoo; both teemed with animals of every shape and size. We also at length ventured into several shopping districts inside of which were myriad stores, selling all sorts of fashion and gadgetry, countless restaurants and several gambling parlors - the Japanese, it seems, love their slot machines as much as the Hong Kong Chinese love their horse racing. Lest I forget, we frequented several video arcades to play the latest and greatest games; Paul played well, while I more often than not got 0wn3d. There is a lot to do in Japan.

 

Japanese culture, of which I've heard so much, really is distinct and separate from other Asian cultures. Their patterns of action and their peculiar artifacts certainly aren't the same as those which feature prominently in Hong Kong. For one thing, the MTR culture was more civilized and less stressful: people queued up for trains and let passengers alight first before permitting themselves to board; cellphones never rang and cabin cars were as quiet as bedrooms at midnight; and to imagine all of these people enforce their norms without public service announcements, without any coddling, conspicuous signs - that's amazing. What proved difficult was trying to find a garbage can. It was easier to find a vending machine, from which one could purchase a variety of drinks or cigarettes, than a bin in which to dispose of these delectable, perishable goods.

 

As for the general citizenry, they were most accommodating and hospitable, with several individuals going out of their way to help Paul and I find our way around the dense sprawl of the city. Language wasn't a concern despite our limited Japanese; amazingly enough, our comfort was their concern! I won't forget their selfless service, as one day, I hope, I'll be able to return the favor. That the girls were quite attractive and that I demonstrated a propensity to ask attractive girls for directions go without saying; however, I understand now that their sexiness and sophistication stem not from comely faces but coherent attire. Rather than adorn themselves like a typical Mong Kok girl in a ridiculous neon rainbow palette, with jeans or unseemly spandex underneath dresses, skirts or other tops better left to stand alone, Japanese girls opt for more somber, sensible colors - black and cream-colored - and what's more, they aren't afraid to whip out the tasteful pantyhose or to show some skin, even. We had plenty of time to ogle the ladies, and to their credit, freezing temperatures weren't enough to dissuade many of them from forsaking, icing their shorts, as we saw countless pairs being worn on the street. That's what I call fashion professionalism!

 

Overall, Japan is a marvelous little land full of the eccentric, as well as the endearing. It was a fascinating place to explore, and I'm thankful that it was done in the company of my friend , with whom candor was not at a premium. We both learned a lot and look forward to the next trip!

MAHAVATAR BABAJI CAVE

Mahāvatār Bābājī (literally; Great Avatar Dear Father) is the name given to an Indian saint and yogi by Lahiri Mahasaya and several of his disciples,[2] who reported meeting him between 1861 and 1935. Some of these meetings were described by Paramahansa Yogananda in his book Autobiography of a Yogi, including a first-hand report of Yogananda's own meeting with the yogi.[3]Another first hand account was given by Yukteswar Giri in his book The Holy Science.[4] According to Sri M's autobiography (Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master) Babaji, was Shiva. In the second last chapter of his book, he mentions Babaji changing his form to that of Shiva. All of these accounts, along with additional reported meetings, are described in various biographies.[5][6][7]According to Yogananda's autobiography, Babaji has resided for at least hundreds of years in the remote Himalayan regions of India, seen in person by only a small number of disciples and others.[3][8] The death less Master is more than 2000 years old. He belongs to a very powerful lineage of Siddha Boganthar and Rishi Agastya as his Gurus. He acquired this deathless, non perishable body through tough yogik kriyas.

Again, according to his autobiography, shortly before Yogananda left for America in 1920, Babaji came to his home in Calcutta, where the young monk sat deeply praying for divine assurance regarding the mission he was about to undertake. Babaji said to him: "Follow the behest of your guru and go to America. Fear not; you shall be protected. You are the one I have chosen to spread the message of Kriya Yoga in the West

There are very few accounts of Babaji's childhood. One source of information is the book Babaji and the 18 Siddha Kriya Yoga tradition by Marshal Govindan.[9]According to Govindan, Babaji was named Nagarajan (king of serpents) by his parents. [8] V.T. Neelakantan and S.A.A. Ramaiah founded on 17 October 1952, (they claim – at the request of Babaji) a new organization, "Kriya Babaji Sangah," dedicated to the teaching of Babaji's Kriya Yoga. They claim that in 1953 Mahavatar Babaji told them that he was born on 30 November 203 CE in a small coastal village now known as Parangipettai, Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, India.[10] Babaji's Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas Trust (Kriya Babaji Sangah) and their branch organizations claim his place and date of birth.[10] He was a disciple of Bogar and his birth name is Nagarajan.[9][10]

In Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, many references are made to Mahavatar Babaji, including from Lahirī and Sri Yukteshwar.[3] In his book The Second Coming of Christ, Yogananda states that Jesus Christ went to India and conferred with Mahavatar Babaji.[8] This would make Babaji at least 2000 years old.[11] According to Govindan's book, Babaji Nagaraj's father was the priest of the village's temple. Babaji revealed only those details which he believed to be formative as well as potentially instructive to his disciples. Govindan mentioned one incident like this: "One time Nagaraj's mother had got one rare jackfruit for a family feast and put it aside. Babaji was only 4 years old at that time. He found the jackfruit when his mother was not around and ate it all. When his mother came to know about it, she flew in blind rage and stuffed a cloth inside Babaji's mouth, nearly suffocating him, but he survived. Later on he thanked God for showing him that she was to be loved without attachment or illusion. His Love for his mother became unconditional and detached."[9]

When Nagaraj was about 5 years old, someone kidnapped him and sold him as a slave in Calcutta (now Kolkata). His new owner however was a kind man and he freed Nagaraj shortly thereafter. Nagaraj then joined a small group of wandering sannyāsin due to their radiant faces and love for God. During the next few years, he wandered from place to place, studying holy scriptures like the Vedas, Upanishad, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita.

According to Marshall Govindan's book, at the age of eleven, he made a difficult journey on foot and by boat with a group of ascetics to Kataragama, Sri Lanka. Nagaraj met Siddha Bhogarnathar and became his disciple. Nagaraj performed intensive yogic sadhana for a long time with him. Bhogarnathar inspired Nagaraj to seek his initiation into Kriya Kundalini Pranayam from Siddha Agastya. Babaji became a disciple of Siddha Agastya. Nagaraj was initiated into the secrets of Kriya Kundalini Pranayama or "Vasi Yogam". Babaji made a long pilgrimage to Badrinath and spent eighteen months practising yogic kriyataught to him by Siddha Agastya and Bhogarnathar. Babaji attained self-realization shortly thereafter.[9]

It is claimed that these revelations were made by Babaji himself to S.A.A. Ramaiah, a young graduate student in geology at the University of Madras and V.T. Neelakantan, a famous journalist, and close student of Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society and mentor of Krishnamurti. Babaji was said to have appeared to each of them independently and then brought them together to work for his Mission in 1942

By Kailash Mansarovar Foundation Swami Bikash Giri www.sumeruparvat.com , www.naturalitem.com

 

It was a week before Thanksgiving, and the parking lot was full. Shoppers came in minivans and pick-up trucks, station wagons and rented vans. They were pastors, teachers, counselors, cooks, drivers. Everyone was feeling a bit overwhelmed, but they were determined to hand out or cook up meals for dozens of hungry people.

  

The scene plays out every year as Thanksgiving approaches at supermarkets across America - and at the Food Bank.

   

The holidays are when the human scale of what we do becomes crystal clear. Spending just a few minutes at our warehouse loading docks is a crash course in the scale of the community's response to hunger.

   

A station wagon, groaning with the weight of a ton of food, heads off to a church pantry for distribution. A driver pulls up in a semi truck with a fresh produce from Central Valley farmers. Another driver behind him waits to take food drive barrels away to be filled at a small business.

   

The food you drop into barrels at stores and offices across the county is sorted and packaged by volunteers, and then taken away by these small agencies, 40 pounds at a time. You can help by dropping healthy, non-perishable food in any barrel you come across, as holiday distribution begins again Thursday.

Descent of the Ganges is a monument at Mamallapuram, on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, in the Kancheepuram district of the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Measuring 29×13 m, it is a giant open-air rock relief carved on two monolithic rock boulders. The legend depicted in the bas-relief is the story of the descent of the sacred river Ganges to earth from the heavens led by Bhagiratha. The waters of the Ganges are believed to possess supernatural powers. The descent of the Ganges and Arjuna's Penance are portrayed in stone at the Pallava heritage site. The relief is more of a canvas of Indian rock cut sculpture at its best not seen anywhere in India. It is one of the Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram that were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984.

 

GEOGRAPHY

The Arjuna bas-relief is in the centre of Mahabalipuram, facing the sea at a short distance from the shores of the Coramandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal where the Shore Temple is situated. It is accessible from Chennai city over a 58 km paved road to its west and 32 km from Chengalpet.

 

HISTORY

The relief was created to celebrate the victory of Hinduism over Buddhism. The place, now known as Mahabalipuram, was earlier known by the epithet given to the king Narasimhavarman I (630–668 AD) of the Pallava Dynasty (who ruled from 4th to 9th centuries) as Mamallan, the "great wrestler" or "great warrior". His father was king Mahendravarman I who converted from Jainism to Hinduism. The architectural creations at Mamallapuram, mostly attributed to Mamalla in the 7th century, adopted stone as the medium for sculpting in situ rock faces, which till then was done with some perishable material like wood or loose stones. It is part of 16 World Heritage Cultural Sites in India, and as a protected monument, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Chennai Circle is entrusted with its upkeep in all aspects. The open air bas-reliefs (including the Descent of the Ganges (Mahabalipuram) are one of the four categories under which UNESCO identified the site as a World Heritage Site and inscribed it in 1984 under the title Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram. This bas-relief in rock is reported as a "sublime" early sculpture of the 7th century; even in the subsequent dynasty of the Chola's adopted the shrine-sculpting technique in the temples they built in the late 9th century. This architectural legacy of the Pallava dynasty is continued by the descendants of sculptors of that period, who are now integrated into the present town’s culture.The unique bas-relief faces east. It was created with great skill and imagination on two large boulders of pink granite in the open air giving the whole a natural effect. The boulders measure 15 by 30 metres . Many of the figures carved are in life size. The natural cleft, a very large perpendicular fissure, is skilfully sculptured. It is in between the two boulders and is integral to the mythical narratives carved on the entire relief. A water tank was once located at the top of the rock to release water denoting the Ganges River. It cascaded over the cleft and the relief to give the impression of the Ganga descending from the head tied matts of Shiva. This scene was created during festive occasions and the presence of a brick masonry cistern at the top of the cleft to release water attests to its location at site. The bas-relief is an ensemble of over a hundred figures (146 is also mentioned) of gods, people, half-humans and animals and is best explained by an expert at site.

 

ARCHITECTURE

The sculptures carved in the natural fissure that divides the cliff not only depict a cosmic event of Ganges descending to earth (a popular narration and depiction in the iconography of Shiva) at the command of Shiva but also shows the event being watched by scores of gods, goddesses, mythical figurines of Kinnara, Gandharva, Apsara, Gana, Nagas, and also wild and domestic animals, all admiringly looking up at the scene. This relief is often given the hyperbole adjectives as "world renowned" and “unique artistic achievement”. The total number of carvings are probably about 146. The carvings of elephants on the open air bas-relief is almost of life size and is reported as the best animal carving in India. Another humorous scene is the carvings of monkeys copying the yogic scenes of the sages. Shiva is shown next to the Kinnaras who are depicted in large numbers in the upper portion of the bas-relief; they are anthropomorphic forms of half human half bird, a popular Indian art form in ancient times representing the Indic ethos of the world as one creation. The male Kinnara is holding a musical instrument (type unknown) while the female Kinnara is holding a cymbal. Shiva is carved in front of the river (to the right of the cleft) in a standing posture with Bhagiratha, the sage, standing on one leg offering him prayers to check the force of the Ganga as she descends to earth. Shiva is also shown with a weapon which is interpreted as Pashupati, which he gave to Arjuna. The ganas shown in the carvings represent the people who have spent their entire lives in dedication to Shiva, and are blessed with the boon to remain close to Shiva for all time to come. Carvings of the divine nagas shown swimming in the river, as Ganga descends from the heavens, are also in anthropomorphic form of a serpent and human, which has been a traditional style from ancient times in Indic art. They are believed to denote fertility and protective forces of nature. They are seen not only in the middle of the panel facing the cleft, which represents the river, but also at the top of the panel at the entry of water over the channel, marking the prevalence of naga worship in Hindu religious beliefs.It is also said that the bas-relief in one unity is the early Indic artist's concept of "sublime continuity in all living things." The elephants shown in reliefs are unique in the fact that the detailing includes the baby elephants behind the life size elephants. Another interesting depiction is of a deer scratching its nose. The elephants represent a herd moving towards the river to drink water. The male elephant carving precedes that of its female partner. Three baby elephants with the male elephant and two babies with the female elephant are also carved in the panel.

 

Sun, on the left and Moon on the right side are also depicted on top part of the panel. A kim-purusha, meaning dwarf with elongated ears and wearing a cap on his head and beating a drum is also seen in the panel.

 

In the upper part of the panel, Himalayas are shown which corroborates the theory of the panel representing the descent of the Ganges. Wild lions are also shown with large mane and also rams which are interpreted as representing the Himalayan habitat. On the left side of the upper panel, carvings of divinities and celestial couples moving towards the river are seen. A few animals, lions and monkeys are also carved in this part. Two pairs of kinnaras and three pairs of celestial couples are shown flying in the air approaching the river (cleft). Hunters and hunting scenes are part of this part of the panel; a hunter with a bow, two hunters hiding under trees to hunt, a lion about to attack two hunters are some of the parts of forest scenes carved on the panel. Another scene below is of few monkeys, and carving of a lion in his den with few deer in front of it. Carvings of hunters carrying a pitcher and another carrying the hunted animals are also seen.

 

Another prominent scene is that of a temple to the right of the cleft at the lower end of the panel. This temple is simple and small and has Vishnu as the deity carved within it. The temple roof is patterned on the style of Draupadi Ratha with a square curvilinear dome type of tower. However, the top is flat and is fitted with a stupi, with a kudu in the centre. Corners are decorated with flower designs. The cornices are also seen with kudus carved with human faces inside. In the floor above the cornice, lion motifs are carved. A square supports the domed roof. A sage is seen sitting in front of the temple giving sermons to his students. In the seat below this scene, a lion in his den and below this a pair of deer are carved. A tortoise is shown next to the temple indicative of water in the near vicinity.

 

INTERPRETATIONS

In one interpretation, a figure in the bas-relief, who is standing on one leg, is said to be Arjuna performing an austerity Tapas to receive a boon from Shiva as an aid in fighting the Mahabharata war. The story of the penance is narrated in the epic Mahabharata under the subtitle the Kiratarjuniya. The boon, which Arjuna is said to have received, was called Pasupata, Shiva's most powerful weapon. According to the myth narrated on this event, asuras (demons) sent a boar to kill Arjuna. Then Shiva appeared on the scene to protect Arjuna assuming the form of kirata (hunter). Both Arjuna and Shiva shot arrows at the boar and the boar was killed; both claimed credit for killing it and a fight ensued between the two in which Shiva won. He then revealed his true self to Arjuna and blessed him and gave him the weapon for which Arjuna is shown performing the penance.

 

The bas-relief is carved on two large boulders with a cleft. Above the cleft was a collecting pool, and at one time, water may have flowed along the cleft. Figures in the cleft in the rock are covered with nagas (serpent deities), in anjali posture. The river is said to represent Ganga or the River Ganges emerging from Shiva's head. This provides the basis for an alternative interpretation of the mural. Rather than Arjuna, the figure performing austerities is said to be Bhagiratha. Bhagiratha is said to have performed austerities so that Ganga might descend to earth and wash over the ashes of his relatives, releasing them from their sins. To break Ganga's fall from heaven to earth, she falls onto Shiva's hair, and is divided into many streams by his tresses; this miraculous event is shown in the form of sculptures on the boulders being watched by the animals and human beings.

 

Another interpretation for the yogi doing penance on one leg is that it is a depiction of Bhagiratha doing severe penance to bring down Ganges to earth to usher prosperity and happiness to the people. The nagas carved in the cleft represent fecundity and wealth. Shiva and other gods are shown blessing the saint. The scene is further accentuated with carvings of kings, sages, artists and animals.

 

One more interpretation of the myth seen in another part of the panel is that of a cat standing on one leg (apparently as an austerity), and perhaps an iconic figure in the bas-relief. It is interpreted as relating to the Panchatantra story of an ascetic. It denotes the hare luring a bird to come close so that she could she catch and devour it. The artist has brought out the expression on cat’s face, its motives clearly.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Descent of the Ganges is a monument at Mahabalipuram, on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, in the Kancheepuram district of the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Measuring 29 m × 13 m, it is a giant open-air relief carved of two monolithic rock boulders. The legend depicted in the bas-relief is the story of the descent of the sacred river Ganges to earth from the heavens led by Bhagiratha. The waters of the Ganges are believed to possess supernatural powers. The descent of the Ganges and Arjuna's Penance are portrayed in stone at the Pallava heritage site. The bas-relief is more of a canvas of Indian rock cut sculpture at its best not seen anywhere in India. It is one of the Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram that were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984.

 

GEOGRAPHY

The Arjuna bas-relief is in the centre of Mahabalipuram, facing the sea at a short distance from the shores of the Coramandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal where the Shore Temple is situated. It is accessible from Chennai city over a 58 km paved road to its west and 32 km from Chengalpet.

 

HISTORY

The Mamallapuram art, as it is known among archaeologists, is a creation on the occasion of a celebration of the victory of Hinduism over Buddhism. The place, now known as Mahabalipuram, was earlier known by the epithet given to the king Narasimhavarman I (630–668 AD) of the Pallava Dynasty (who ruled from 4th to 9th centuries),) as Mamallan, the "great wrestler" or "great warrior". His father was king Mahendravarman I who converted from Jainism to Hinduism. The architectural creations at Mamallapuram, mostly attributed to Mamalla in the 7th century, adopted stone as the medium for sculpting in situ rock faces, which till then was done with some perishable material like wood or loose stones. It is part of 16 World Heritage Cultural Sites in India, and as a protected monument, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Chennai Circle is entrusted with its upkeep in all aspects. The open air bas-reliefs (including the Descent of the Ganges (Mahabalipuram) are one of the four categories under which UNESCO identified the site as a World Heritage Site and inscribed it in 1984 under the title Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram. This bas-relief in rock is reported as a "sublime" early sculpture of the 7th century; even in the subsequent dynasty of the Chola's adopted the shrine-sculpting technique in the temples they built in the late 9th century. This architectural legacy of the Pallava dynasty is continued by the descendants of sculptors of that period, who are now integrated into the present town’s culture.

 

LAYOUT

The unique bas-relief faces east. It was created with great skill and imagination on two large boulders of pink granite in the open air giving the whole a natural effect. The boulders measure 15 by 30 metres. Many of the figures carved are in life size. The natural cleft, a very large perpendicular fissure, is skilfully sculptured. It is in between the two boulders and is integral to the mythical narratives carved on the entire relief. A water tank was once located at the top of the rock to release water denoting the Ganges River. It cascaded over the cleft and the relief to give the impression of the Ganga descending from the head tied matts of Shiva. This scene was created during festive occasions and the presence of a brick masonry cistern at the top of the cleft to release water attests to its location at site. The bas-relief is an ensemble of over a hundred figures (146 is also mentioned) of gods, people, half-humans and animals and is best explained by an expert at site.

 

ARCHITECTURE

The sculptures carved in the natural fissure that divides the cliff not only depict a cosmic event of Ganges descending to earth (a popular narration and depiction in the iconography of Shiva) at the command of Shiva but also shows the event being watched by scores of gods, goddesses, mythical figurines of Kinnara, Gandharva, Apsara, Gana, Nagas, and also wild and domestic animals, all admiringly looking up at the scene. This relief is often given the hyperbole adjectives as "world renowned" and “unique artistic achievement”. The total number of carvings are probably about 146. The carvings of elephants on the open air bas-relief is almost of life size and is reported as the best animal carving in India. Another humorous scene is the carvings of monkeys copying the yogic scenes of the sages. Shiva is shown next to the Kinnaras who are depicted in large numbers in the upper portion of the bas-relief; they are anthropomorphic forms of half human half bird, a popular Indian art form in ancient times representing the Indic ethos of the world as one creation. The male Kinnara is holding a musical instrument (type unknown) while the female Kinnara is holding a cymbal. Shiva is carved in front of the river (to the right of the cleft) in a standing posture with Bhagiratha, the sage, standing on one leg offering him prayers to check the force of the Ganga as she descends to earth. Shiva is also shown with a weapon which is interpreted as Pashupati, which he gave to Arjuna. The ganas shown in the carvings represent the people who have spent their entire lives in dedication to Shiva, and are blessed with the boon to remain close to Shiva for all time to come. Carvings of the divine nagas shown swimming in the river, as Ganga descends from the heavens, are also in anthropomorphic form of a serpent and human, which has been a traditional style from ancient times in Indic art. They are believed to denote fertility and protective forces of nature. They are seen not only in the middle of the panel facing the cleft, which represents the river, but also at the top of the panel at the entry of water over the channel, marking the prevalence of naga worship in Hindu religious beliefs.

Detailing of sculptures showing the Vishni temple to the right of the cleft

 

It is also said that the bas-relief in one unity is the early Indic artist's concept of "sublime continuity in all living things." The elephants shown in reliefs are unique in the fact that the detailing includes the baby elephants behind the life size elephants. Another interesting depiction is of a deer scratching its nose. The elephants represent a herd moving towards the river to drink water. The male elephant carving precedes that of its female partner. Three baby elephants with the male elephant and two babies with the female elephant are also carved in the panel.

 

Sun, on the left and Moon on the right side are also depicted on top part of the panel. A kim-purusha, meaning dwarf with elongated ears and wearing a cap on his head and beating a drum is also seen in the panel.

 

In the upper part of the panel, Himalayas are shown which corroborates the theory of the panel representing the descent of the Ganges. Wild lions are also shown with large mane and also rams which are interpreted as representing the Himalayan habitat. On the left side of the upper panel, carvings of divinities and celestial couples moving towards the river are seen. A few animals, lions and monkeys are also carved in this part. Two pairs of kinnaras and three pairs of celestial couples are shown flying in the air approaching the river (cleft). Hunters and hunting scenes are part of this part of the panel; a hunter with a bow, two hunters hiding under trees to hunt, a lion about to attack two hunters are some of the parts of forest scenes carved on the panel. Another scene below is of few monkeys, and carving of a lion in his den with few deer in front of it. Carvings of hunters carrying a pitcher and another carrying the hunted animals are also seen.

 

Another prominent scene is that of a temple to the right of the cleft at the lower end of the panel. This temple is simple and small and has Vishnu as the deity carved within it. The temple roof is patterned on the style of Draupadi Ratha with a square curvilinear dome type of tower. However, the top is flat and is fitted with a stupi, with a kudu in the centre. Corners are decorated with flower designs. The cornices are also seen with kudus carved with human faces inside. In the floor above the cornice, lion motifs are carved. A square supports the domed roof. A sage is seen sitting in front of the temple giving sermons to his students. In the seat below this scene, a lion in his den and below this a pair of deer are carved. A tortoise is shown next to the temple indicative of water in the near vicinity.

 

INTERPRETATIONS

In one interpretation, a figure in the bas-relief, who is standing on one leg, is said to be Arjuna performing an austerity Tapas to receive a boon from Shiva as an aid in fighting the Mahabharata war. The story of the penance is narrated in the epic Mahabharata under the subtitle the Kiratarjuniya. The boon, which Arjuna is said to have received, was called Pasupata, Shiva's most powerful weapon. According to the myth narrated on this event, asuras (demons) sent a boar to kill Arjuna. Then Shiva appeared on the scene to protect Arjuna assuming the form of kirata (hunter). Both Arjuna and Shiva shot arrows at the boar and the boar was killed; both claimed credit for killing it and a fight ensued between the two in which Shiva won. He then revealed his true self to Arjuna and blessed him and gave him the weapon for which Arjuna is shown performing the penance.

 

The bas-relief is carved on two large boulders with a cleft. Above the cleft was a collecting pool, and at one time, water may have flowed along the cleft. Figures in the cleft in the rock are covered with nagas (serpent deities), in anjali posture. The river is said to represent Ganga or the River Ganges emerging from Shiva's head. This provides the basis for an alternative interpretation of the mural. Rather than Arjuna, the figure performing austerities is said to be Bhagiratha. Bhagiratha is said to have performed austerities so that Ganga might descend to earth and wash over the ashes of his relatives, releasing them from their sins. To break Ganga's fall from heaven to earth, she falls onto Shiva's hair, and is divided into many streams by his tresses; this miraculous event is shown in the form of sculptures on the boulders being watched by the animals and human beings.

 

Another interpretation for the yogi doing penance on one leg is that it is a depiction of Bhagiratha doing severe penance to bring down Ganges to earth to usher prosperity and happiness to the people. The nagas carved in the cleft represent fecundity and wealth. Shiva and other gods are shown blessing the saint. The scene is further accentuated with carvings of kings, sages, artists and animals.

 

One more interpretation of the myth seen in another part of the panel is that of a cat standing on one leg (apparently as an austerity), and perhaps an iconic figure in the bas-relief. It is interpreted as relating to the Panchatantra story of an ascetic. It denotes the hare luring a bird to come close so that she could she catch and devour it. The artist has brought out the expression on cat’s face, its motives clearly.

 

WIKIPEDIA