Standing Buddha
The Standing Buddha of the Tokyo National Museum is an example of Greco-Buddhist statuary. Comparable ones can be found in the Guimet Museum in France, and in the National Museum, New Delhi besides various other museums of South Asia. The statue is dated by the museum to the 1st or 2nd century AD. Context Some of the standing Buddhas (such as the example pictured) were sculpted using the specific Greek technique of making the hands and sometimes the feet in marble to increase the realistic effect, and the rest of the body in another material. It is also defined as the "Great Standing Buddha" Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher especially considered Hellenistic free-standing Buddhas as "the most beautiful, and probably the most ancient of the Buddhas", assigning them to the 1st century BC, and making them the starting point of the anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha. Development From another direction, Chinese historical sources and mural paintings in the Tarim Basi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gandhara Buddha (tnm)
Gandhara () was an ancient Indo-Aryan people, Indo-Aryan civilization in present-day northwest Pakistan and northeast Afghanistan. The core of the region of Gandhara was the Peshawar valley, Peshawar (Pushkalawati) and Swat valleys extending as far east as the Pothohar Plateau in Punjab, though the cultural influence of Greater Gandhara extended westwards into the Kabul, Kabul valley in Afghanistan, and northwards up to the Karakoram range. The region was a central location for the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism, spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and East Asia with many Chinese Buddhism, Buddhist pilgrims visiting the region. Between the third century BCE and third century CE, Gandhari language, Gāndhārī, a Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language written in the Kharosthi script and linked with the modern Dardic languages, Dardic language family, acted as the lingua franca of the region and through Buddhism, the language spread as far as China based on Gandhār ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Emperor Wu Of Han
Emperor Wu of Han (156 – 29 March 87BC), born Liu Che and courtesy name Tong, was the seventh Emperor of China, emperor of the Han dynasty from 141 to 87 BC. His reign lasted 54 years – a record not broken until the reign of the Kangxi Emperor more than 1,800 years later – and remains the record for ethnic Han Chinese, Han emperors. His reign resulted in a vast expansion of geopolitical influence for the Sinosphere, Chinese civilization, and the development of a strong centralized state via governmental policies, economical reorganization and promotion of a hybrid legalism (Chinese philosophy), Legalist–Confucianism, Confucian doctrine. In the field of historical social and cultural studies, Emperor Wu is known for his religious innovations and patronage of the poetic and musical arts, including the development of the Music Bureau, Imperial Music Bureau into a prestigious entity. It was also during his reign that cultural contact with western Eurasia was greatly incre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gandhara 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 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 that are heavily ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Buddha Statues In India
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, to royal parents of the Shakya clan, but Great Renunciation, renounced his Householder (Buddhism), home life to live as a wandering ascetic. After leading a life of mendicancy, asceticism, and meditation, he attained Nirvana (Buddhism), nirvana at Bodh Gaya, Bodh Gayā in what is now India. The Buddha then wandered through the lower Indo-Gangetic Plain, teaching and building a Sangha, monastic order. Buddhist tradition holds he died in Kushinagar and reached ''parinirvana'' ("final release from conditioned existence"). According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, leading to Vimutti, freedom from Avidyā (Buddhism), ignora ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hou Hanshu
The ''Book of the Later Han'', also known as the ''History of the Later Han'' and by its Chinese name ''Hou Hanshu'' (), is one of the Twenty-Four Histories and covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, a period known as the Later or Eastern Han. The book was compiled by Fan Ye and others in the 5th century during the Liu Song dynasty, using a number of earlier histories and documents as sources. Background In 23 CE, Han dynasty official Wang Mang was overthrown by a peasants' revolt known as the Red Eyebrows. His fall separates the Early (or Western) Han dynasty from the Later (or Eastern) Han dynasty. As an orthodox history, the book is unusual in being completed over two hundred years after the fall of the dynasty. Fan Ye's primary source was the '' Dongguan Hanji'' (東觀漢記; "Han Records of the Eastern Lodge"), which was written during the Han dynasty itself. Contents References Citations Sources ; General * Chavannes, Édouard (1906). ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thailand
Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spans . Thailand Template:Borders of Thailand, is bordered to the northwest by Myanmar, to the northeast and east by Laos, to the southeast by Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the southwest by the Andaman Sea; it also shares maritime borders with Vietnam to the southeast and Indonesia and India to the southwest. Bangkok is the state capital and List of municipalities in Thailand#Largest cities by urban population, largest city. Tai peoples, Thai peoples migrated from southwestern China to mainland Southeast Asia from the 6th to 11th centuries. Greater India, Indianised kingdoms such as the Mon kingdoms, Mon, Khmer Empire, and Monarchies of Malaysia, Malay states ruled the region, competing with Thai states s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Emerald Buddha
The Emerald Buddha ( , or , ) is an image of the meditating Gautama Buddha seated in a Meditation attitude, meditative posture, made of a semi-precious green stone (jasper rather than emerald or jade), clothed in gold, and about tall. The image is considered the sacred Palladium (protective image), palladium of Thailand. It is housed in the ''Temple of the Emerald Buddha'' (Wat Phra Kaew) on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok. Origin myths Sinhalese origin according to the ''Jinakalamali'' The legend of the Emerald Buddha is related in number of sources such as ''Jinakalamali'', ''Amarakatabuddharupanidana'', and in particular ''Ratanabimbavamsa'' or ''The Chronicle of the Emerald Buddha'' written in Pali by Brahmarājaprajña in the 15th century (but the oldest extant manuscript dates only to 1788). The story is a mix of fact and fables with some variations to the story. According to the legend, the Emerald Buddha was created in 43 BCE by a sage named Nagasena in th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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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 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Indo-Greek
The Indo-Greek Kingdom, also known as the Yavana Kingdom, was a Hellenistic period, Hellenistic-era Ancient Greece, Greek kingdom covering various parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India. The term "Indo-Greek Kingdom" loosely describes a number of various Hellenistic states, ruling from regional capitals like Taxila, Sagala, Pushkalavati, and Bagram. Other centers are only hinted at; e.g. Ptolemy's ''Geographia (Ptolemy), Geographia'' and the nomenclature of later kings suggest that a certain Theophilos (king), Theophilus in the south of the Indo-Greek sphere of influence may also have had a royal seat there at one time. The kingdom was founded when the Graeco-Bactrian king Demetrius I of Bactria invaded India from Bactria in about 200 BC. The Greeks to the east of the Seleucid Empire were eventually divided to the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdoms in the North Western Indian Subcontinent. During the two cent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nagasena
Nāgasena was a Sarvāstivādan Buddhist sage who lived around 150 BC. His answers to questions about Buddhism posed by Menander I (Pali: ''Milinda''), the Indo-Greek king of northwestern India, are recorded in the '' Milindapañhā'' and the Sanskrit Nāgasenabhiksusūtra. According to Pali accounts, he was born into a Brahmin family in the Himalayas and was well-versed in the Vedas at an early age. However, he later converted to Buddhism. ''Milinda Pañha'' There is almost universal agreement that a core text was later expanded by numerous other authors, following a question and answer pattern established in the early books. The version extant today is very long, and has signs of inconsistent authorship in the later volumes. There is no agreed-upon point at which Nagasena's authorship may be said to end (and the work of other hands begins), nor has this been perceived as an inherently important distinction by monastic scholars. The text mentions that Nagasena learned the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tianzhu (India)
Tianzhu () is one of the historical ancient Chinese names for the Indian subcontinent. Tian (天) means heaven, and Zhu (竺) means bamboo in Chinese. Tianzhu was also referred to as ''Wutianzhu'' (, literal meaning is "Five Indias"), because there were five geographical regions on the Indian subcontinent known to the Chinese: Central, Eastern, Northern, Southern, and Western India. Etymology Originally pronounced as l̥induk or *qʰl'iːn tuɡ 天竺 in Old Chinese, it comes from the Chinese transliteration of unattested Old Persian diminutive *Hinduka-, which is from attested 𐏃𐎡𐎯𐎢𐏁 ''h-i-du-u-š'' (Hindu), which is itself derived from the Proto-Indo-Iranian *síndʰuš, the etymon also of Sanskrit ''Sindhu'', the native name of the Indus River. Persians travelling in northwest India (present-day Pakistani Sindh and Punjab) named the subcontinent after the river around the 6th century BC. ''Tianzhu'' is just one of several Chinese transliterations of S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |