Buddhism In Pakistan
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Buddhism In Pakistan
Buddhism in Pakistan took root some 2,300 years ago under the Mauryan king Ashoka who sent missionaries to the Kashmira-Gandhara region of North West Pakistan extending into Afghanistan, following the Third Buddhist council in Pataliputra (modern India). Buddhism first reached what is now Pakistan during Ashoka’s reign when he sent a monk from Varanasi called Majjhantika to preach in Kashmir and Gandhara. The Major Rock Edicts of Ashoka inscribed on rock boulders in Mansehra and Shahbaz Garhi written in the Kharosthi script recording aspects of the emperor's ''dharma'' or righteous law represent some of the earliest evidence of deciphered writing in South Asia, dating to middle of the third century BCE. The Indo-Greek king Menander embraced Buddhism as attested in the Milinda Panha, which dates from sometime between 100 BC and 200 AD, following a dialogue with the monk Nāgasena in Sagala, present-day Sialkot. Mahayana Buddhism, one of the most prominent branches of Bu ...
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Menander I
Menander I Soter (, ; ), sometimes called Menander the Great, was an Indo-Greek king (reigned /155Bopearachchi (1998) and (1991), respectively. The first date is estimated by Osmund Bopearachchi and R. C. Senior, the other Boperachchi –130 BC) who administered a large territory in the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. Menander is noted for having become a patron of Greco-Buddhism and is regarded as the greatest and most well-known of the Indo-Greek kings. Menander might have initially been a prince or king of Bactria. After conquering the Punjab, as far as Taxila and Sagala, he established an empire which stretched from the Kabul River in the west to the Ravi River in the east, and from the Swat River valley in the north to Arachosia (the Helmand Province). The Greek geographer Strabo wrote that he "conquered more tribes than Alexander the Great." Ancient Indian writers indicate that he possibly launched unsuccessful expeditions ...
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Islamabad
Islamabad (; , ; ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Built as a planned city in the 1960s and established in 1967, it replaced Karachi as Pakistan's national capital. The Greek architect Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis developed Islamabad's master plan, in which he divided it into eight zones; the city comprises administrative, diplomatic enclave, residential areas, educational and industrial sectors, commercial areas, as well as rural and green areas administered by the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation with support from the Capital Development Authority. Islamabad is known for its parks and forests, including the Margalla Hills National Park and the Shakarparian. It is home to several landmarks, including the country's flagship Faisal Mosque, which is the world's sixth-largest mosq ...
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Punjab
Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. Pakistan's major cities in Punjab are Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, Sialkot, and Bahawalpur, while India’s are Ludhiana, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Patiala, Mohali, and Bathinda. Punjab grew out of the settlements along the five rivers, which served as an important route to the Near East as early as the ancient Indus Valley civilization, dating back to , followed by migrations of the Indo-Aryan peoples. Agriculture has been the chief economic feature of the Punjab and formed the foundation of Punjabi culture. The Punjab emerged as an important agricultural region, especially following the Green Revolution during the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, and has been described as the " breadbask ...
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Sindh
Sindh ( ; ; , ; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind (caliphal province), Sind or Scinde) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the Demographics of Pakistan, second-largest province by population after Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is bordered by the Pakistani provinces of Balochistan, Pakistan, Balochistan to the west and north-west and Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab to the north. It shares an India-Pakistan border, International border with the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan to the east; it is also bounded by the Arabian Sea to the south. Sindh's landscape consists mostly of alluvial plains flanking the Indus River, the Thar Desert of Sindh, Thar Desert in the eastern portion of the province along the India–Pakistan border, international border with India, and the Kirthar Mountains in the western portion of ...
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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 ...
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National Database And Registration Authority
The National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) () is an independent and autonomous agency under the control of the Interior Secretary of Pakistan that regulates Government database, Government Databases and statistically manages the sensitive registration database of all the Pakistani nationality law, National Citizens of Pakistan. Lieutenant General Muhammad Munir Afsar serves as Chairman of National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Pakistan. NADRA is also responsible to issuing the Computerized National Identity Card, Computerised National Identity Cards to the citizens of Pakistan, maintaining their sensitive informational upgraded in the government databases, and securing national identities of the citizens of Pakistan from being stolen and theft. It is one of the largesgovernment database institution employing more than 11,000 people in more than 800 domestic offices and five international offices. Codified by the Second Amendment to the Constitution of ...
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Muslim Conquests In The Indian Subcontinent
The Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent mainly took place between the 13th and the 18th centuries, establishing the Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent, Indo-Muslim period. Early Muslim conquests, Earlier Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent include the invasions which started in the Northwest India (pre-1947), northwestern Indian subcontinent (modern-day Pakistan), especially the Umayyad campaigns in India, Umayyad campaigns during the 8th century. Mahmud of Ghazni, sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire, preserved an ideological link to the suzerainty of the Abbasid caliph, Abbasid Caliphate and invaded vast parts of Punjab and Gujarat during the 11th century. After the capture of Siege of Lahore (1186), Lahore and the end of the Ghaznavids, the Ghurid ruler Muhammad of Ghor laid the foundation of Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent, Muslim rule in India in 1192. In 1202, Bakhtiyar Khalji led the Muslim conquest of Bengal, marking the easternmost expansion of ...
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Alchon Huns
The Alchon Huns, ( Bactrian: ''Alkhon(n)o'' or ''Alkhan(n)o'') also known as the Alkhan, Alchono, Alxon, Alkhon, Alakhana, and Walxon, were a nomadic people who established states in Central Asia and South Asia during the 4th and 6th centuries CE. They were first mentioned as being located in Paropamisus, and later expanded south-east, into the Punjab and Central India, as far as Eran and Kausambi. The Alchon invasion of the Indian subcontinent eradicated the Kidarite Huns who had preceded them by about a century, and contributed to the fall of the Gupta Empire, in a sense bringing an end to Classical India. The invasion of India by the Huna peoples follows invasions of the subcontinent in the preceding centuries by the Yavana ( Indo-Greeks), the Saka ( Indo-Scythians), the Pahlava ( Indo-Parthians), and the Kushana (Yuezhi). The Alchon Empire was the second of four major Huna states established in Central and South Asia. The Alchon were preceded by the Kidarites and succ ...
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Greco-Buddhist Art
The Greco-Buddhist art or Gandhara art is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between Ancient Greek art and Buddhism. It had mainly evolved in the ancient region of Gandhara, located in the northwestern fringe of the Indian subcontinent. The series of interactions leading to Gandhara art occurred over time, beginning with Alexander the Great's brief incursion into the area, followed by the Maurya Empire, Mauryan Emperor Ashoka converting the region to Buddhism. Buddhism became the prominent religion in the Indo-Greek Kingdoms. However, Greco-Buddhist art truly flowered and spread under the Kushan Empire, when the first surviving devotional images of the Buddha were created during the 1st-3rd centuries CE. Gandhara art reached its zenith from the 3rd-5th century CE, when most surviving motifs and artworks were produced. Gandhara art is characterized by Buddhist subject matter, sometimes adapting Greco-Roman elements, rendered in a style and forms th ...
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Mahayana
Mahāyāna ( ; , , ; ) is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, Buddhist texts#Mahāyāna texts, texts, Buddhist philosophy, philosophies, and practices developed in ancient India ( onwards). It is considered one of the three main existing branches of Buddhism, the others being Theravāda and Vajrayāna.Harvey (2013), p. 189. Mahāyāna accepts the main scriptures and teachings of Early Buddhist schools, early Buddhism but also recognizes various doctrines and texts that are not accepted by Theravada Buddhism as original. These include the Mahāyāna sūtras and their emphasis on the ''bodhisattva'' path and Prajnaparamita, ''Prajñāpāramitā''. Vajrayāna or Mantra traditions are a subset of Mahāyāna which makes use of numerous Tantra, tantric methods Vajrayānists consider to help achieve Buddhahood. Mahāyāna also refers to the path of the bodhisattva striving to become a fully awakened Buddha for the benefit of all sentience, sentient beings, and is thus also ...
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Sialkot
Sialkot (Punjabi language, Punjabi, ) is a city located in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the capital of the Sialkot District and the List of most populous cities in Pakistan, 12th most populous city in Pakistan. The boundaries of Sialkot are joined by Jammu in the north east, the districts of Narowal District, Narowal in the southeast, Gujranwala District, Gujranwala in the southwest and Gujrat District, Gujrat in the northwest. Sialkot is known as the city of Muhammad Iqbal, Allama Iqbal. Sialkot is believed to be the successor city of Sagala, the capital of the Madra Kingdom, Madra kingdom which was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 326 BCE. It was made capital of the Indo-Greek kingdom by Menander I in the 2nd century BCE — a time during which the city greatly prospered as a major center for trade and Buddhist thought. In the 6th century CE, it again become capital of the Taank Kingdom, which ruled Punjab for the next two centuries. Sialkot continued to be a major political ce ...
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