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Caption -- Borobudur: hardly Chinese The author is former foreign secretary of India sibalkanwal@gmail.com The West has built a lot of myths about China which others, including in India, have accepted without challenge. That China was for centuries the dominant power in Asia and is now on the way to recovering that lost status is one such myth. This historical distortion is serving to legitimize China's hegemonic ambitions, as if China has the right to recover its natural position in Asia and any resistance amounts to denying the Chinese their due. This explains why even when China is aggressive...

The mayor of Lancaster says a Chinese company wants to build a 10-story-tall statue of the Buddha in the Southern California desert community. Mayor R. Rex Parris told the Antelope Valley Press that the company — which he won't name — is willing to spend $31 million to build the statue and a cultural center. He says the company contacted city officials about two months ag

The deadly tsunami could have uncovered the remains of an ancient port city off the coast in southern India. Archaeologists say they have discovered some stone remains from the coast close to India's famous beachfront Mahabalipuram temple in Tamil Nadu state following the 26 December tsunami. They believe that the "structures" could be the remains of an ancient and once-flourishing port city in the area housing the famous 1200-year-old rock-hewn temple. Three pieces of remains, which include a granite lion, were found buried in the sand after the coastline receded in the area after the tsunami struck. Undersea remains "They...

Buried relics uncovered at Angkor Wat. Japanese archaeologists have made a rare underground find of relics at the temples of the Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia. The archaeology team comes from from Sophia University, a Jesuit school in Tokyo. It dug up 103 pieces of Buddhist statues in mid-March, at Banteay Kdei temple, one of the dozens of temples built near the northern Cambodian town of Siem Reap between the 9th and 14th centuries. The pieces likely date back to the Angkorian period from the reign of Jayavarman VII, who ruled at the end of the 12th century. Cambodian...

For archaeologists and historians interested in the ancient politics, religion and language of the Indian subcontinent, two UCLA professors and their student researchers have creatively pinpointed sites that are likely to yield valuable transcriptions of the proclamations of Ashoka, the Buddhist king of northern India's Mauryan Dynasty who ruled from 304 B.C. to 232 B.C. In a study published this week in Current Science, archaeologist Monica Smith and geographer Thomas Gillespie identified 121 possible locations of what are known as Ashoka's "edicts." First they isolated shared features of 29 known locations of Ashokan edicts, which were found carved into natural...

In the southeastern Chinese city of Quanzhou, a well-known Buddhist monk named Fu Hou has been mummified and encased in gold leaf. According to The Associated Press, it's "a practice reserved for holy men in some areas with strong Buddhist traditions" and was done to honor Fu Hou's dedication to the religion. Li Ren, the Chongfu Temple's abbot, said that after the 94-year-old's death in 2012, "the monk's body was washed, treated by two mummification experts, and sealed inside a large pottery jar in a sitting position," according to the wire service. Video published by The Daily Telegraph showed the...

Directly after the Paris attacks, the usual suspects posted a famous quotation from the Dhammapada: In this world Hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, Ancient and inexhaustible. This is a legitimate quote -- or as legitimate as any quote from the Buddha. (Although it's kind of a horrible translation. What the Pali verse really says is more like "hate can't be dispelled with more hate, it can only be dispelled by ceasing to hate.") It's usually quoted, however, by man-bun Buddhists who think of Buddhism as Upper West Side liberal pacifism with incense...

A New Zealander and two Burmese men have been found guilty of insulting religion in Myanmar over a poster promoting a drinks event depicting Buddha with headphones. Philip Blackwood, who managed the VGastro Bar in Yangon, was arrested in December along with bar owner Tun Thurein and colleague Htut Ko Ko Lwin. They have each been sentenced to two and a half years in jail. Burmese law makes it illegal to insult or damage any religion. The poster, which was posted on Facebook and showed Buddha surrounded by psychedelic colours, sparked an angry response online.

Viking treasure hoard yields astounding finds 06/24/2002 STOCKHOLM: Four years ago, a farmer digging in his fields in Sweden's Baltic island of Gotland came across a Viking coin. He called a friend from the local museum, and together they soon uncovered another 150 Viking relics. But the crops growing in the fields hindered their work and they gave up. The following summer, with crops that year infected by lice, they resumed their search - and on July 16, 1999, came across the biggest Viking-period treasure hoard so far discovered. It had been lying there for about 1,100 years. The Spillings...

Excerpt - TOKYO (AFP) - A part of a Buddhism sutra was found inside one of the two giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, providing a hint for unveiling the mystery surrounding the creation of the statues, a Japanese news agency has reported. The fragment of the scripture was believed to be the original Sanscrit document, written with the letters often used in the sixth and seventh century, according to a Kyodo news dispatch from Kabul. A German team of researchers from the International Council on Monuments and Sites found the sutra in July inside the rubble of the remains of the...

The mummy may have once been a respected Buddhist monk who, after death, was worshipped as an enlightened being, one who helped the living end their cycle of suffering and death, said Vincent van Vilsteren, an archaeology curator at the Drents Museum in the Netherlands, where the mummy (from inside the Buddha statue) was on exhibit last year. The secret hidden in the gold-painted statue was first discovered when preservationists began restoring the statue many years ago. But the human remains weren't studied in detail until researchers took scans and samples of tissue from the mummy late last year.

One of the secular left’s latest windmills at which to tilt is America’s fanciful “rape culture.” There is a universal ethos of violence against women, as they imagine it, that stems from a millennia-old global patriarchy chiefly derived from religion in general and Judeo-Christianity in particular (another of their pet nemeses). Paradoxically, these “progressive” Don Quixotes actually believe in said “rape culture,” something that, outside of Islam, does not exist, while they disbelieve in their Creator, Christ Jesus, who both did and does exist. Exhibit A, of course, is the now-debunked UVA fraternity gang-rape hoax concocted in the disturbed minds...

An atheist invited to give the opening prayer at a Lake Worth, Florida, City Commission meeting recently called on the “wisdom of Satan” and declared “if almighty Thor is with us, who can ever be against us,” a perversion of a New Testament verse. It was not altogether surprising as people with nontraditional beliefs increasingly are demanding their place in the public square. But in this case, a number of city commissioners expressed their opinion of the “invocation” – without saying a word. They got up and walked out. See the incident:“Free speech works both ways,” Mayor Pam Triolo told...

It's a sad day in Tennessee as Buddha, the obese cat who became an internet sensation thanks to his workout sessions on a underwater treadmill, has died. The six-year-old cat, who weighed 31.4lb when he was rescued at the start of August, had made good progress with his diet and exercise plan. But when a congestive heart defect was diagnosed last month, the cat was forced to stop exercising and instead moved to a foster home with a strict eating plan. He died last night.

Scientists excavating within the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Maya Devi Temple in Lumbini, Nepal, have unearthed a timber structure that they date to the sixth century BCE. It is situated within and underlies a temple that is considered sacred to many as the birthplace of Siddhārtha Gautama, or Buddha. Until now, there has been no archaeological evidence supporting a date any earlier than the third century BCE for Buddha's life. Some historians have suggested the death of Buddha took place sometime in the late 4th century or early 3rd century BCE, although there are a number of traditions...

A Buddhist monk has filed a lawsuit against five people she alleges illegally distributed a video of her having a sexual encounter with another monk. Maya Men says in her lawsuit filed last week in Middlesex Superior Court that the five defendants violated her right to privacy and her constitutional rights. She also says their actions intentionally inflicted emotional distress. The Sun of Lowell (http://bit.ly/17NhkJB ) reports that, according to the lawsuit, Men "has been held up to her relevant community as an individual who should be shunned and scorned, called a thief, and referred to by a plethora of...

An Iranian newspaper is reporting that government authorities are confiscating Buddha statues from shops in Tehran to stop the promotion of Buddhism in the country. … Iran has long fought against items, such as Barbie dolls and Simpsons cartoon characters, to defuse Western influence, but this appears to be the first time that Iranian authorities are showing an opposition to symbols from the East. …

It sounds like a mash-up of Indiana Jones' plots, but German researchers say a heavy Buddha statue brought to Europe by the Nazis was carved from a meteorite that likely fell 10,000 years ago along the Siberia-Mongolia border.

Published: July 20, 2012 at 5:54 PM BODH GAYA, India, July 20 (UPI) -- The 2,500-year-old tree under which Gautama Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment is alive and healthy, Indian scientists said Thursday. The Bodhi tree, a large Sacred Fig (Ficus religiosa,) is in Bodh Gaya in India's eastern state of Bihar, about 60 miles from the state capital of Patna. "The Bodhi tree is fully healthy," Subhash Nautiyal of the Forest Research Institute in India's northern state of Uttarakhand said. Nautiyal and colleagues examined the tree after removing the cement slabs around its base, China's Xinhua News...

Zen master tells curious to embrace a new faithRIDGEWOOD - The two-hour lecture at the Old Paramus Church Education Center began with several minutes of silent meditation.  And for many who attended, participating in meditation was a first step in understanding the basic teachings of Buddhism and Eastern philosophy.  "All attempts at mutual education are important to help us grow," said Robert Kennedy, the noted Jesuit priest and Zen master. "It widens our vision."Kennedy Roshi, as he is known to Buddhists, was the key speaker at Saturday's event, which was attended by more than 100 people of varied faiths. It...