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Fa-hsien
Faxian (337–), formerly romanized as Fa-hien and Fa-hsien, was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled on foot from Jin China to medieval India to acquire Buddhist scriptures. His birth name was Gong Sehi. Starting his journey about age 60, he traveled west along the overland Silk Road, visiting Buddhist sites in Central, South, and Southeast Asia. The journey and return took from 399 to 412, with 10 years spent in India. Faxian's account of his pilgrimage, the ''Foguoji'' or '' Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms'', is a notable independent record of early Buddhism in India. He returned to China with a large number of Sanskrit texts, whose translations greatly influenced East Asian Buddhism and provide a for many historical names, events, texts, and ideas therein. Biography Faxian was born in Shanxi in the 4th-century under the Later Zhao dynasty of the Sixteen Kingdoms period. His birth name was Gong Sehi. He later adopted the name Faxian, which literally me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silk Road
The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the Eastern world, Eastern and Western worlds. The name "Silk Road" was coined in the late 19th century, but some 20th- and 21st-century historians instead prefer the term Silk Routes, on the grounds that it more accurately describes the intricate web of land and sea routes connecting Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, South Asia, South, Southeast Asia, Southeast, and West Asia as well as East Africa and Southern Europe. The Silk Road derives its name from the highly lucrative trade of silk textiles that were History of Silk, primarily produced in China. The network began with the expansion of the Han dynasty (202 BCE220 CE) into Central Asia around 114 BCE, through the missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial env ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddhism
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or 5th century Before the Common Era, BCE. It is the Major religious groups, world's fourth-largest religion, with about 500 million followers, known as Buddhists, who comprise four percent of the global population. It arose in the eastern Gangetic plain as a movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia. Buddhism has subsequently played a major role in Asian culture and spirituality, eventually spreading to Western world, the West in the 20th century. According to tradition, the Buddha instructed his followers in a path of bhavana, development which leads to Enlightenment in Buddhism, awakening and moksha, full liberation from ''Duḥkha, dukkha'' (). He regarded this path as a Middle Way between extremes su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bodh Gaya
Bodh Gayā is a religious site and place of pilgrimage associated with the Mahabodhi Temple complex, situated in the Gaya district in the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Bihar. It is famous for being the place where Gautama Buddha is said to have attained Enlightenment (Buddhism), enlightenment (Pali: ) under what became known as the Bodhi Tree. Since antiquity, Bodh Gayā has remained the object of Buddhist pilgrimage sites, pilgrimage and veneration for Buddhism, Buddhists. In particular, Archaeology, archaeological finds, including sculptures, show that the site was in use by Buddhists since the Mauryan period. For Buddhists, Bodh Gayā is the most important of the four main pilgrimage sites related to the life of Gautama Buddha, the other three being Kushinagar, Lumbini, and Sarnath. In 2002, Mahabodhi Temple, located in Bodh Gayā, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History Bodh Gayā is considered the holiest site in Buddhism. Known as Uruvel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lumbini
Lumbinī (, "the lovely") is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Rupandehi District of Lumbini Province in Nepal. The Buddhist commentaries state that Maya Devi gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama in Lumbini around 624 BCE. Gautama is believed to have achieved Enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, India and became the Buddha who founded Buddhism. It is claimed that he died and passed into parinirvana at the age of 80 years, in c.544 BCE. Lumbini is one of the four most sacred pilgrimage sites pivotal in the life of the Buddha. Lumbini has several old temples, including the Mayadevi Temple, as well as several new temples built by Buddhist organisations from around the world. The majority of the temples have already been completed, with some still under construction. Many monuments, monasteries, stupas, a museum, and the Lumbini International Research Institute are located near the holy site. The Puskarini, or Holy Pond, is where Mayadevi, the Buddha's mother, is said to have take ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chandragupta II
Chandragupta II (r.c. 375–415), also known by his title Vikramaditya, as well as Chandragupta Vikramaditya, was an emperor of the Gupta Empire. Modern scholars generally identify him with King Chandra of the Iron pillar of Delhi, Delhi iron pillar inscription. Special:Diff/1281091362 He continued the Samudragupta#Military campaigns & territorial expansion, expansionist policy of his father Samudragupta through military conquests and marital alliances. Historical evidence attests to his remarkable victories, which include the defeat of the Sasanian Empire, Sassanids, the Gupta–Saka Wars, conquest of the Western Kshatrapas and the vassalization of the Hephthalites, Hunas. Under the reign of Chandragupta II, the Gupta Empire reached its zenith, directly controlling a vast territory which stretched from the Oxus River in the west to the Bengal region in the east, and from the foothills of the Himalayas in the north to the Narmada River in the south. Chandragupta II expanded hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pataliputra
Pataliputra (IAST: ), adjacent to modern-day Patna, Bihar, was a city in ancient India, originally built by Magadha ruler Ajatashatru in 490 BCE, as a small fort () near the Ganges river.. Udayin laid the foundation of the city of Pataliputra at the confluence of two rivers, the Son and the Ganges. He shifted his capital from Rajgriha to Pataliputra due to the latter's central location in the empire. It became the capital of major powers in ancient India, such as the Shishunaga Empire (–345 BCE), Nanda Empire (), the Maurya Empire (–180 BCE), and the Pala Empire (–1200 CE). During the Maurya period (see below), it became one of the largest cities in the world. As per the Greek diplomat, traveler and historian Megasthenes, during the Mauryan Empire (–180 BCE) it was among the first cities in the world to have a highly efficient form of local self government. The location of the site was first identified in modern times in 1892 by Laurence Waddell, published a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhangye
Zhangye ( zh, s=张掖, t=張掖, p=Zhāngyè), Postal Map Romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as Changyeh and also formerly known as Kanchow, is a prefecture-level city in central Gansu provinces of China, Province in the China, People's Republic of China. It borders Inner Mongolia on the north and Qinghai on the south. Its central district (PRC), district is Ganzhou District, Ganzhou, formerly a city of the Western Xia and one of the most important outposts of western China. Name Although Zhangye is the oldest recorded name, the city was also formerly also known as Ganzhou, named after the sweet waters ( zh, c=甘泉 , p=Gānquán) of its oasis. An alternative theory states that "Gan" was from the Ganjun Hill ( zh, labels=no, s=绀峻山) near the city. The name of Gansu, province came from a contraction of Ganzhou and Suzhou (modern Jiuquan). The name appears in Marco Polo's ''Il Milione, Travels'' under the name Campichu. Zhangye Commandery (China), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Later Qin Dynasty
Qin, known in historiography as the Later Qin ( zh, s=后秦, t=後秦, p=Hòuqín; 384–417) or Yao Qin (), was a dynastic state of China ruled by the Yao clan of Qiang ethnicity during the Sixteen Kingdoms period in northern China. As the only Qiang-led state among the Sixteen Kingdoms, it was most known for its propagation of Buddhism under its second ruler, Yao Xing, who sponsored the Madhyamakin monk, Kumārajīva to translate Sanskrit Buddhist text into Chinese. All rulers of the Later Qin declared themselves emperors, but for a substantial part of Yao Xing's reign, he used the title Heavenly King. Historiographers gave the state the prefix of "Later" to distinguish it with the Former Qin and Western Qin as it was founded during the Former Qin's collapse after the Battle of Fei River and went on to conquer the Former Qin's power base in the Guanzhong. With Chang'an as its capital, the Later Qin also controlled Henan and vassalised the Western Qin, the four Liangs (Later L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chang'an
Chang'an (; zh, t=長安, s=长安, p=Cháng'ān, first=t) is the traditional name of the city now named Xi'an and was the capital of several Chinese dynasties, ranging from 202 BCE to 907 CE. The site has been inhabited since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in what is now the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin Shi Huang of the Qin dynasty, China's first emperor, held his imperial court and constructed his massive mausoleum guarded by the Terracotta Army. From its capital at Xianyang, the Qin dynasty ruled a larger area than either of the preceding dynasties. The imperial city of Chang'an during the Han dynasty was located northwest of today's Xi'an. During the Tang dynasty, the area that came to be known as Chang'an included the area inside the Ming Xi'an fortification, plus some small areas to its east and west, and a substantial part of its southern suburbs. Thus, Tang Chang'an was eight t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
