Medieval Buddhism
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Despite the tendency to study Buddhism regionally, there are many common themes which found expression across Asia as Buddhism spread both North and South.
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Books (3)
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Canonical Works (1)
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In this desert, there are no fruits, roots or any food or drink. There is no way to make a fire. There is only dust and scorching sand.
Readings (25)
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Buddhist literature offers us the only narratives from this period that feature to any great extent the nautical or maritime traveller as hero.
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As a sacred site for pilgrimage, Bodhgayā became even more prominent from the sixth and seventh centuries onward, when the rebuilding of the Mahābodhi Temple coincided with the installation of a Buddha statue with the earth-touching gesture, symbolic of the Buddha’s calling upon the earth to bear witness to his victory over evil. Miracles enshroud the creation of the image itself, and later it became a famous icon widely copied throughout the Buddhist world.
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I find it reasonable that a period that was characterized by both a low standard in Pāli and indeed Buddhist learning, and a desire to effect a revival of Buddhist thought and practice could provide a fertile context for the acceptance of a work like the Tuṇḍilovāda Sutta. As happened with “apocryphal” Buddhist literature in other contexts, “suspicions concerning the authenticity of a text (may have) paled as its value in explicating Buddhist doctrine and practice became recognized.”
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The Kumano shrines were among the most popular pilgrimage sites of medieval Japan, drawing devotees across geographic, sectarian, class, and gender barriers. Yet this pilgrimage, which is often seen as a paradigmatic and formative example of Japanese popular religion, was instituted by the country’s ruling elite as an elaborate ritual of state.
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Aśoka (c. 268-232 BCE) and Jayavarman VII (1182-1220?), two of the greatest rulers of India and Southeast Asia, were Buddhists by any definition. However, the puzzling problem is that their deaths were followed by an inexorable decay of their erstwhile great empires.
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… we might regard Big Hand as a student, perhaps a young monk struggling to become fluent
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The historical period of this area was the third century till 627-649, when Zhenla took over. Buddhism on this route was mahāsāmghika. Important was Avalokiteśvara, Nanhai Guanyin, who may have merged with Mazu along the southern Chinese coast.
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… scholarship has always interpreted the resurgence of Buddhist activity at Ajanta and neighboring sites as a regional phenomenon linked to the prestige of a dominating group and to internal political strives. Yet at a closer look, it appears that much like in earlier times, the life of these rock-cut sites in the fifth century continued to be closely related to a network of commercial activities
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… while Indians like Mahinda, Buddhaghosa, Dhammapala and Ramachandra Bharati, were able to have a profound influence on Sri Lankan Buddhism, Sri Lankans were able to have equally profound effects on Indian Buddhism
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Audio/Video (7)
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How the figure of the Bodhisattva and of the Wheel-Turning Monarch merged for political advantage when Buddhism left India.
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