A Brief History of Buddhist Transnational Connections

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tan Lee Ooi
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Immigrant Communities ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
Rubber Plantations ◽  
Transnational Connections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese Buddhists ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism

This chapter elaborates on the historical connection between Malaya and the larger Buddhist world. Chinese Buddhism’s roots in Malaya started when the immigrant communities that arrived as laborers in tin mining and rubber plantations brought their religious beliefs. Burmese and Sinhalese brought the Theravada traditions that influenced Chinese Buddhists, while the Chinese inherited a loosely defined Mahayana Buddhism mixed with Chinese customs and popular religions. The idea of modern religion was brought by religious leaders of various traditions to revitalize Buddhism.

Was Gandhāra Art a Product of Mahāyāna Buddhism?

1964 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-119
Author(s):  
Y. Krishan
Keyword(s):  
Buddhist Art ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
The Buddha

I. The Gandhāra and Mathurā Schools of Art made a revolutionary contribution to the traditions and history of Buddhist art. Early Buddhist art was aniconic. At Bhārhut, Sānchi and Amaravātī before the 1st century a.d., the Buddha was represented only in symbols; a riderless horse, the tree or wheel, stūpa, and the rest indicated the great renunciation, enlightenment, preaching of the doctrine and the nirvāṇa. In Gandhāra and Mathurā art, however, the Buddha was represented in human form, and many sculptures representing bodhisattvas have been found in Gandhāra.

scholarly journals The Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā and the Sky as a Symbol of Mahāyāna Doctrines and Aspirations

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 849
Author(s):  
Jaehee Han
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
Textual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Comprehensive Introduction ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā is a Mahāyāna dharmaparyāya and is the eighth chapter of the great canonical collection of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Mahāsaṃnipāta. The text is lost in the original Indic, but survives in Chinese and Tibetan translations, with several passages of the Sanskrit version preserved as quotations in later commentaries. It has been regarded as an authoritative canonical source throughout the intellectual history of Mahāyāna Buddhism, but scant scholarly attention has been paid to this important text. Thus, this paper aims to provide a concise yet comprehensive introduction of the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā, including its textual history, its basic structure, and its reception in Indian, Tibetan, and East Asian Buddhist traditions. It also examines how the fundamental concepts of Mahāyāna Buddhism, such as emptiness, endlessness, and imperishability, are signified in the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā by the image of the sky (Skt. gagana), the central metaphor of the text.

God and the Green Divide

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda J. Baugh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Race Ethnicity

American environmentalism historically has been associated with the interests of white elites. Yet religious leaders in the twenty-first century have helped instill concern about the earth among groups diverse in religion, race, ethnicity, and class. How did that happen and what are the implications? Building on scholarship that provides theological and ethical resources to support the “greening” of religion, God and the Green Divide examines religious environmentalism as it actually happens in the daily lives of urban Americans. Baugh argues that the spread of religious environmentalism in the United States has relied not simply on the “ecological dimensions” of scriptures, theology, and religious traditions, but also on latent assumptions about race, ethnicity, and class. By carefully examining negotiations of racial and ethnic identities as central to the history of religious environmentalism, this work complicates assumptions that religious environmentalism is a direct expression of theology, ethics, or religious beliefs.

The Meanings of the Term Gotra and the Textual History of the Ratnagotravibhāga

1976 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Seyfort Ruegg
Keyword(s):  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Textual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
The Individual

The word gotra is frequently used in the literature of Mahāyāna Buddhism to denote categories of persons classified according to their psychological, intellectual, and spiritual types. The chief types usually mentioned in this kind of classification are the Auditors making up the śrāvaka-gotra, the Individual Buddhas making up the pratyehabuddha-gotra, and the Bodhisattvas making up the bodhisattva-gotra. In the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra these three types constitute altogether different gotras, which thus coincide with the three separate Vehicles (yāna) as recognized by the Yogācārin/Vijñaptimātratā, school. To these three some sources add the further category of the undetermined (aniyatagotra), which is made up of persons not yet definitively attached to one of the three preceding classes; and the non-gotra (agotra), that is the category made up of persons who cannot be assigned to any spiritual class. Each of the first three categories is thus comprised of persons capable of achieving a particular kind of maturity and spiritual perfection in accordance with their specific type or class, the Auditor then attaining the Awakening (bodhi) characteristic of the Śrāvaka and so on. Especially remarkable in this connexion, and somewhat anomalous as a gotra, is the non-gotra, i.e. that category of persons who seem to have been considered, at least by certain Yogācārin authorities, as spiritual ‘outcastes’ lacking the capacity for attaining spiritual perfection or Awakening of any kind; since they therefore achieve neither bodhi nor nirvāṇa, they represent the same type as the icchantikas to the extent that the latter also are considered to lack this capacity.

scholarly journals The religious prism of South East - Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 54-68
Author(s):  
KVVS Satyanarayana Satyanarayana
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Confucian Philosophy ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism

When two or more religious belief systems are combined into a new system, this is known as religious syncretism. It may also be defined as the incorporation of beliefs from unconnected traditions into a religious tradition. Polytheism and numerous religious affiliations, on the other hand, are seen as diametrically opposed to one another. These situations can arise for a variety of reasons, with the latter scenario occurring quite frequently in areas where multiple religious traditions coexist in close proximity to one another and are actively practised in the culture. It can also occur when a culture is conquered, with the conquerors bringing their religious beliefs with them but not succeeding in completely eradicating the old beliefs, and especially the old practises. Faiths' beliefs or histories may have syncretic components, however members of these so-labeled systems sometimes object to the label's use, particularly those who belong to "revealed" religious systems, such as Abrahamic religions, or any system that takes an exclusivist stance. Syncretism is viewed as a betrayal of the pure truth by some supporters of such beliefs. According to this logic, introducing a belief that is incompatible with the original religion corrupts it and renders it untrue altogether. Indeed, detractors of a certain syncretistic trend may occasionally use the term "syncretism" as a derogatory pejorative, meaning that individuals who attempt to adopt a new idea, belief, or practise into a religious system are really distorting the original faith by doing so. A fatal compromise of the integrity of the prevailing religion is, according to Keith Ferdinando, as a result of this development. Religions that are not exclusivist, on the other hand, are likely to feel free to absorb other traditions into their own systems of thought. Many traditional beliefs in East Asian civilizations have become entwined with Buddhism due to the assumption that Buddhism is compatible with local religions. The Three Teachings, or Triple Religion, which harmonizes Mahayana Buddhism with Confucian philosophy and elements of Taoism, and Shinbutsu-shg, which is a syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism, are two examples of notable concretizations of Buddhism with local beliefs. The Three Teachings, or Triple Religion, harmonizes Mahayana Buddhism with Confucian philosophy and elements of Taoism, and Shinbutsu-shg, which East Asian religious beliefs, practises, and identities (who, by any measure, constitute the majority of the world's Buddhists) frequently incorporate elements of other religious traditions, such as Confucianism, Chinese folk religion.

scholarly journals WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IS MAHĀYĀNA BUDDHISM? PROBLEMS OF DEFINITIONS AND CLASSIFICATIONS

Numen ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Silk
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
Alternative Employment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

AbstractThis study investigates some problems regarding the definition of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Tracing the history of the notion in modern scholarship, it pays particular attention to the question of the relation between Mahāyāna and so-called Hīnayāna or Sectarian Buddhism. Finding the commonly used methods of classification which rely on necessary and sufficient conditions to be inadequate to the task, it suggests the alternative employment of polythetic classification, a method which permits a constantly variable set of questions and data to be taken into account in the most flexible and accommodating manner.

MASJID BESAR RAJA HAJI ABDUL GHANI PULAU BURU KEPULAUAN RIAU

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurman Kholis
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Qualitative Research Methods ◽  
District Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese Buddhists ◽  
The Right ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Level Government

Abstract. Many Muslims in the Riau Islands do not know the history of the development of Islamic theory from the center of power to spread to various corners. This is as the existence of the Great Mosque of Raja Haji Abdul Ghani (MBRHAG) on Buru Island, Karimun. Thus, to uncover the existence of this mosque, qualitative research methods are used so that history, architecture, and socio-religious functions can be known. Based on the results of the study it was concluded that the establishment of MBRHAG was initiated by Raja Haji Abdul Ghani. He was the first Amir (sub-district level government) of the kingdom of Riau-Lingga on Buru Island, in the 19th century. The architecture is a Chinese. Therefore, on the right side of this mosque is around 200 m, there is also the Sam Po Teng Temple and the Tri Dharma Dewa Bumi. Thus, the close location of the mosque with Chinese and Confucian worship houses's shows a harmonious relationship between Malay Muslims and Chinese Buddhists. In fact, in the continuation of this relationship there was information that a Chinese Buddhist had joined a Muslim friend to fast for half a month of Ramadan.Keywords: Mosque, Malay Muslims, Chinese Buddhists/Confucians, Harmonious RelationsAbstrak. Umat Islam di Kepulauan Riau banyak yang tidak mengenal sejarah perkembangan ajaran Islam dari pusat kekuasaan hingga tersebar ke berbagai pelosok. Hal ini sebagaimana keberadaan Masjid Besar Raja Haji Abdul Ghani (MBRHAG) di Pulau Buru, Karimun. Dengan demikian, untuk mengungkapkan keberadaan masjid ini digunakan metode penelitian kualitatif  agar dapat diketahui sejarah, arsitektur, dan fungsi sosial keagamaannya.  Berdasarkan hasil penelitian diperoleh kesimpulan bahwa pendirian MBRHAG diprakarsai oleh Raja Haji Abdul Ghani. Ia adalah Amir (pemerintah setingkat kecamatan) pertama kerajaan Riau-Lingga di Pulau Buru, pada abad ke-19. Adapun arsitekturnya adalah seorang Tionghoa. Karena itu, di sebelah kanan masjid ini sekitar 200 m juga terdapat Kelenteng Sam Po Teng dan cetya Tri Dharma Dewa Bumi. Dengan demikian, dekatnya lokasi masjid dengan rumah ibadah umat Tionghoa dan Khonghucu ini menunjukkan hubungan yang harmonis antara muslim Melayu dengan Budhis Tionghoa. Bahkan, dalam kelangsungan hubungan ini terdapat informasi seorang Buddhis Tionghoa pernah ikut temannya yang beragama muslim untuk berpuasa selama setengah bulan Ramadhan.Kata Kunci: Masjid, Muslim Melayu, Buddhis/Khonghucu Tionghoa, Hubungan Harmonis

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