The Depiction of Heaven and Hell in the Karmawibangga Reliefs of Borobudur Temple: An Overview of Character Education

Karmawibhangga comes from the words karma and wibhangga. If karma can literally be interpreted as actions that come from causes and cause effects, then wibhangga is a designation for one of the holy books in Buddhism (Buddhist scripture). Literally karma can be interpreted as actions that come from causes and cause effects. In Buddhism, karma is the basic doctrine formulated and taught by Siddhartha Gautama. According to this doctrine, every living being has karma, both generated by himself and inherited from his ancestors. It is this karma that has caused samsara and is a barrier to attaining heaven or nirvana. Births in heaven and in hell seem to be at the core and there is a belief that some kind of hell is known in written sources both inscriptions and ancient manuscripts in Java. The state of life in heaven is marked by the kalpawrksa tree flanked by kinaras.

Living Skillfully

This book attempts to articulate a contemporary philosophy of life drawing upon Buddhist resources from the Vimalakīrti Sūtra. Among the major themes in this Mahayana Buddhist scripture is the “skillful means” required to live a healthy and undeluded life. The book adopts that theme as a means of developing a practical approach to contemporary Buddhist life. Following many of the brilliant stories in the sutra, this book attempts to provide clear explanations for the primary Buddhist teachings and the relationships that bind them all together into an inspiring way of living. Among the questions addressed are: Who is the Buddha? How is a worldview of change and contingency applicable to current life? What does it mean to claim that there is no permanent self? What are the primary characteristics of an admirable Buddhist life? How is freedom conceived in Buddhism? And how do all of these themes help us address contemporary issues such as global warming, gender identities, political dichotomies, the global economy, and more? Although historical questions do arise in the book, its primary purpose is contemporary and practical, an effort to say clearly how this text helps us stake out a way of living for contemporary global citizens.

The Sutra of Druma, King of the Kinnara and the Buddhist Philosophy of Music

This chapter discusses a little-known Buddhist scripture, the Sutra of the Questions by Druma, King of the Kinnara (Daiju kinnara-ō shomon-gyō), translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva in the early fifth century. This sutra is unique in that it proposes a powerful, and sympathetic, philosophy of music rooted in the Mahayana doctrines of emptiness; it also offers a template for Buddhist rituals involving music and dance that have been performed in Japan since the eighth century as part of the Gagaku and Bugaku repertory.

Instantiation and individuation in Buddhist scripture translation

This paper analyses and compares the systemic functional features of the Sanskrit original text and the Chinese and English translations of the Buddhist scripture Heart Sutra, focusing on the ideational components that are manifest on the strata of discourse semantics and lexicogrammar. Results show that there are both expected equivalence and significant differences among the Sanskrit original text and the two translated texts. The accounts for the equivalence and differences are twofold (on two hierarchies): in terms of instantiation, the translators go along different re-instantiation routes in finding corresponding potentials between the source text and their respective target texts; in terms of individuation, the English and Chinese translators’ personal and social identity has an immediate influence on their respective reproductions of the text.

The Hanoi Reprint of the Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain (1772) and the Printing of Buddhist Works in Northern Vietnam at the End of the Eighteenth Century

The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain is a popular Buddhist narrative in prosimetric form that was transmitted to Vietnam from China and reprinted in Hanoi with imperial sanction in 1772. The historical background of the Hanoi reprint demonstrates that this text had much higher status in Vietnam than in China. In Vietnam it was regarded as an authoritative Buddhist scripture. The case of the reprint of the Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain reveals the role of Buddhist monasteries as centers of woodblock printing in Vietnam, which still remains understudied in current research. The growth of printing of Buddhist works, which enjoyed the support of the court and officials in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, testifies to the popularity of Buddhism among the ruling elite during the Later Lê dynasty, when Confucianism was proclaimed the official ideology of the state.

“Buddhism for Chinese Readers”: Zhi Qian’s Literary Refinements in the Foshuo pusa benye jing

The present article continues the modern scholarship on the transmission of Buddhism from India to China by focusing on one of the most influential figures among the early Chinese Buddhist translators, namely, Zhi Qian (支謙, ca. 193–252 CE). His translation style is characterized as “kaleidoscopic,” as Jan Nattier describes, due to the high degree of diversity and variability in his language and terminology. In this study, we explore Zhi Qian’s literary refinements from the lexical, stylistic, and conceptual points of view based on his Foshuo pusa benye jing (佛說菩薩本業經, T. 281) in close conjunction with three related sūtras, the Foshuo dousha jing (佛説兜沙經, T. 280), the Zhu pusa qiufo benye jing (諸菩薩求佛本業經, T. 282), and the Pusa shizhu xingdao pin (菩薩十住行道品, T. 283), all attributed to Lokakṣema. We specifically discuss how Zhi Qian produced such a polished and “sinicised” version with various modes of literary modifications (e.g., using wenyan elements, four-syllable prosodic pattern, diverse vocabulary, and indigenous Chinese concepts) within the context of his life and times. In this article, we also argue that his main aim in producing the Foshuo pusa benye jing was to provide a more classical, elegant, and readable Buddhist scripture to the Chinese readers, but that he had to sacrifice being able to faithfully reflect the language used in the original Indic texts.

Aristotle, Buddhist scripture and embryology in ancient Mexico: building inclusion by re-thinking what counts as the history of developmental biology

ABSTRACTIt has not gone unnoticed in recent times that historical writing about science is heavily Eurocentric. A striking example can be found in the history of developmental biology: textbooks and popular science writing frequently trace an intellectual thread from the Greek philosopher Aristotle through 19th century embryology to 20th century genetics. Few in our field are aware of the depth and breadth of early embryological thinking outside of Europe. Here, I provide a series of vignettes highlighting the rich history of embryological thinking in Asia and Latin America. My goal is to provide an entertaining, even provocative, synopsis of this important but under-studied topic. It is my hope that this work will spur others to carry out more thorough investigations, with the ultimate goal of building a more inclusive discipline.