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Śīladharma
Śīladharma was a ninth-century Buddhist monk and translator from the Kingdom of Khotan. Śīladharma was mainly active in the Western territories of Tang China where he stayed in Longxingsi monastery, now situated in Inner Mongolia. Śīladharma was familiar with multiple languages and worked to translate Buddhist texts from Sanskrit to Mandarin but also from Mandarin to Tibetan. One of the main sources of information regarding Śīladharma's life is the sixth-century text, the Memoirs of Eminent Monks by Hui Jiao which was a compilation of the lives of notable monks who were active in China. Other than detailing his Khotanese origins, it also detailed how while staying at Longxingsi, he translated two Buddhist sutras that had been brought to China from India by the monk Wu Kong. These have been identified as the ''Daśabhūmika Sūtra'' and the ''Pariṇāmacakrasūtra'' and the process of translation took approximately four years starting in 785 CE and ending in 789 CE. Śīl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Khotan
The Kingdom of Khotan was an ancient Buddhism, Buddhist Saka kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin (modern-day Xinjiang, China). The ancient capital was originally sited to the west of modern-day Hotan at Yotkan. From the Han dynasty until at least the Tang dynasty it was known in Chinese as Yutian. This Buddhism, largely Buddhist kingdom existed for over a thousand years until it was conquered by the Islam, Muslim Kara-Khanid Khanate in 1006, during the Turkic settlement of the Tarim Basin, Islamization and Turkicization of Xinjiang. Built on an oasis, Khotan's mulberry groves allowed the production and export of silk and carpets, in addition to the city's other major products such as its famous nephrite jade and pottery. Despite being a significant city on the Silk Road as well as a notable source of jade for ancient China, Khotan itself is relatively small – the circumference of the ancient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wukong (monk)
Wukong (; EFEO: Ou-k'ong; 730 to after 790 CE) was a Chinese Buddhist monk, translator, and writer during the medieval Tang dynasty. His earlier religious name was Fajie () (Sanskrit: Dharmadhātu = 'Realm of the Dharma’.) His family name was Ju ( and his personal name was Che Fengzhao. He was descended from the 拓跋 (Tuoba) clan of the Xianbei - the Northern Wei dynasty which ruled China from 365 to 534 CE. To Central Asia and India In 750 CE an embassy from the Kingdom of Jibin/Kāpīśi () in the north-east of modern Afghanistan, and adjoining Pakistan, arrived in the Chang'an asking for an alliance with China. Emperor Xuanzong (ruled 712 to 756) sent an official, Zhang Taoguang, with about forty men including Che Fengzhao (later Wukong) to go to Jibin and Wukong accompanied them from the capital, Chang'an, in 751. The party followed the route taken by a Chinese army under General Gao Xianzhi in 747 from Kashgar. The route, as described in the biography of Wukong, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tang China
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Historians generally regard the Tang as a high point in Chinese civilisation, and a Golden age (metaphor), golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Tang territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, rivalled that of the Han dynasty. The House of Li, Li family founded the dynasty after taking advantage of a period of Sui decline and precipitating their final collapse, in turn inaugurating a period of progress and stability in the first half of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty was formally interrupted during 690–705 when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Wu Zhou dynasty and becoming the only legitimate Chinese empress regnant. The An Lushan rebellion (755 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a small section of China's China–Russia border, border with Russia (Zabaykalsky Krai). Its capital is Hohhot; other major cities include Baotou, Chifeng, Tongliao, and Ordos City, Ordos. The autonomous region was established in 1947, incorporating the areas of the former Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China provinces of Suiyuan, Chahar Province, Chahar, Rehe Province, Rehe, Liaobei, and Xing'an Province, Xing'an, along with the northern parts of Gansu and Ningxia. Its area makes it the List of Chinese administrative divisions by area, third largest Chinese administrative subdivision, constituting approximately and 12% of China's total land area. Due to its long span from east to west, Inn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion, diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age#South Asia, Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a lingua franca, link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting effect on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Indo-Aryan languages# ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretches from Yunnan in the southwest to Xinjiang in the northwest and Heilongjiang in the northeast. Its spread is generally attributed to the greater ease of travel and communication in the North China Plain compared to the more mountainous south, combined with the relatively recent spread of Mandarin to frontier areas. Many varieties of Mandarin, such as Southwestern Mandarin, those of the Southwest (including Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese) and the Lower Yangtze Mandarin, Lower Yangtze, are not mutually intelligible with the Beijing dialect (or are only partially intelligible). Nevertheless, Mandarin as a group is often placed first in lists of languages by number of native speakers (with nearly one billion). Because Mandarin originated in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tibetic Languages
The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descending from Old Tibetan.Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. According to Nicolas Tournadre, there are 50 Tibetic languages, which branch into more than 200 dialects, which could be grouped into eight dialect continua. These Tibetic languages are spoken in Tibet, Ladakh, Baltistan, Aksai Chin, Nepal, and in India in Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Classical Tibetan is the major literary language, particularly for its use in Tibetan Buddhist scriptures and literature. Tibetan languages are spoken by some 6 million people, not all of whom are Tibetan.preprint With the worldwide spread of Tibetan Buddhism, the Tibetan language has also spread into the western world and can be found in many Buddhist publications and prayer materials, while western s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memoirs Of Eminent Monks
The ''Memoirs of Eminent Monks'' (), also known as the Biographies of Eminent Monks, is a compilation of biographies of monks in China by Hui Jiao 慧皎 of Jiaxiang Temple in Kuaiji Mountain, Zhejiang from the introduction of Buddhism to China up to the Liang Dynasty. Hui Jiao explains himself that the title is supposed to draw a contrast with monks who are famous but not eminent - an allusion to the lost work of his contemporary Baochang, ''Míngsēng zhuàn'' 名僧傳 (= Biographies of Famous Monks). The manuscript is 14 scrolls in length with the preface given in Scroll 14. It contains 257 major biographies, arranged in ten categories: (1) translators of scripture/ sutras 譯經 (yijing), (2) expounders of righteousness 義解 (yijie), (3) monks of miraculous spirit 神異 (shenyi), (4) practitioners of meditation 習禪 (xichan), (5) experts in the vinaya 明律 (minglu), (6) those who give up their bodies 遺身 (yishen), (7) chanters of scripture/ sutras 誦經 (songjin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and Borders of China, borders fourteen countries by land across an area of nearly , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by land area. The country is divided into 33 Province-level divisions of China, province-level divisions: 22 provinces of China, provinces, 5 autonomous regions of China, autonomous regions, 4 direct-administered municipalities of China, municipalities, and 2 semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the country's capital, while Shanghai is List of cities in China by population, its most populous city by urban area and largest financial center. Considered one of six ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ten Stages Sutra
The ''Ten Stages Sutra'' (Sanskrit: ''Daśabhūmika Sūtra''; ; ) also known as the Daśabhūmika Sūtra, is an early, influential Mahayana Buddhist scripture. The sutra also appears as the 26th chapter of the '' ''. Modern Buddhist studies scholars generally hold that these Mahayana sūtras first began to appear between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE. They continued being composed, compiled and edited until the decline of Buddhism in India. Contents In the ''Daśabhūmika Sūtra'', the Buddha describes ten stages of development that a bodhisattva must progress through in order to accomplish full Enlightenment and Buddhahood, as well as the subject of Buddha-nature and the awakening of the aspiration for Enlightenment. Commentary There is a commentary which survives in Chinese called the '' Daśabhūmikavibhāṣā'', it is attributed to Nagarjuna. Another commentary on the ''Daśabhūmika Sūtra'', the ''Dasabhūmikabhāsya'', was written by Vasubandhu in Sanskrit ... [...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] |
