Cambodian Buddhism
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Buddhism in Cambodia.
The Angkorian Empire was a center of Hindu/Mahayana Buddhism in the Middle Ages, but during the early modern period, it largely came under Siamese influence, shifting Cambodian Buddhism towards Thai-style Theravāda, which it still resembles today.
During the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979), Buddhism in Cambodia was almost entirely destroyed, but today it is slowly growing back thanks to its deep roots and distant seeds.
Rows of white-clad laypeople offer several large trays of food to a row of young monks in front of a golden Buddha statue. Pchum Ben (ភ្ជុំបិណ្ឌ, the "Rice-ball Gathering") is an annual, Cambodian holiday occuring at the end of the vassa in which food is ritually offered to the ancestors by dedicating the merit of a meal such as this one.
Table of Contents
Books (3)
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300 pages
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172 pages[recommended but under copyright]
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Readings (20)
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Despite the decimation of traditional culture during the Khmer Rouge period (1975–1979), Dharma songs remain an integral facet of Buddhist life among Khmers in Cambodia and in diaspora.
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This article reexamines the iconography of three tenth-century towers located in eastern Cambodia at Phnom Trap, arguing that the figures depicted on the inner brick reliefs are Buddhist, not Vaiṣṇava or Śaiva as previously described in early surveys. By establishing the Buddhist orientation of this site, the author attempts to demonstrate that forms of Buddhism in tenth-century Cambodia were more widespread than previously acknowledged.
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A short, political history of the Saṅgha in contemporary Cambodia.
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This critique, most commonly expressed as criticism of “rich” temples and monks, juxtaposes an idealised Buddhist monastery against the increasing influence of political groups and [wealthy] individuals within local wats.
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Cambodia is strewn with places of national, local or, most frequently, village importance, considered as potent places, that is to say, places that are said to have agency and a positive or negative power of interaction with human beings. This paper emphasises the constituent principles of potency using case studies based on ethnographic research conducted between 2007 and 2015 in Pursat province, western Cambodia.
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An overview of the Pāḷi texts composed in medieval to early modern Cambodia: biographies, Dhamma/Vinaya treatises, Jātakas, and devotional texts.
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Who can be held accountable for violence if everyone is, at once, perpetrator and victim? Given this mode of being-in-the-world, how do people find resilience in the face of past trauma?
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body unfolds a set of correspondences between his/her 32 bodily formations, the 32 consonants of the Pāli syllabary giving origin to those bodily formations, the 32 contemplative mūlakammaṭṭhāna and the 32 marks of a Buddha’s body. The key factor linking those correspondences is mūla-kammaṭṭhāna
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The Theravada modification is a hundred years prior to the conventional 16th century estimation and is not associated with renewed use of Angkor. Instead it relates to the Ayutthayan occupation of Angkor in the 1430s and 40s during a major period of climatic instability.
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the inscriptions of the past refer often to a corpus of women as “nuns”. What are we to make of this?
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The new digital resource will not only help preserve a priceless record of Cambodian society and history, but it will also provide modern readers access to a trove of Cambodian Buddhist literature, and bring the texts to the world by making new translations possible.
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Dhammakāya texts in Cambodia and northern Thailand are a genre of Pāli text that list and explain the physical and metaphysical characteristics of the Buddha. These texts are frequently chanted to consecrate Buddha images.
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A brief overview of the history and present of Buddhism in Cambodia along with a few thoughts on where monasticism in the country is headed.
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“We’re on the way to enlightenment”, he said. “And on this way, what should we do?”
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Audio/Video (7)
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🥇 Best of
On the pyre the fire burns bright
Setting alight this searing pain
With only my fate to blame
For the fierce flame that brands me. -
This podcast discusses how Sri Lanka and India have been helping restart the Cambodian monastic education system and the challenges that have arisen in setting up these “study abroad” programs.
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42 min -
In this brief talk given at Songdhammakalyani Monastery, Bhikkhuni Dhammananda discusses the devout women (dongchees) who reside in Buddhist hermitages near pagodas and the role they play in passing on their religion.
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4 min
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