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Udyana
(also: ''Uḍḍiyāna'', ''Uḍḍāyāna'', ''Udyāna'' or 'Oḍḍiyāna'), a small region in early medieval India, is ascribed importance in the development and dissemination of Vajrayāna Buddhism.‘Uḍḍiyāna and Kashmir’, pp 265-269 ‘The Śaiva Exegesis of Kashmir’, in Mélanges tantriques à la mémoire d’Hélène Brunner. Tantric Studies in Memory of Hélène Brunner, Collection Indologie 106, EFEO, Institut français de Pondichéry (IFP), ed. Dominic Goodall and André Padoux, 2007.) Tibetan Buddhist traditions view it as a Beyul (Tibetan: སྦས་ཡུལ, Wylie: sbas-yul), a legendary heavenly place inaccessible to ordinary mortals. Padmasambhava, the eighth-century Buddhist master who was instrumental in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, was believed to have been born in Oddiyana. The Dzogchen Siddha Garab Dorje is likewise attributed to this region. It is ascribed importance in the development and dissemination of Vajrayāna Buddhism. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ; , ; abbr. KP or KPK), formerly known as the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Northern Pakistan, northwestern region of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the fourth largest province of Pakistan by land area and the third-largest province by population. It is bordered by Balochistan, Pakistan, Balochistan to the south; Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab, Islamabad Capital Territory, and Azad Kashmir to the east; and Gilgit-Baltistan to the north and northeast. It shares an Durand Line, international border with Afghanistan to the west. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has a varied geography of rugged mountain ranges, valleys, rolling foothills, and dense agricultural farms. While it is the third-largest Pakistani province in terms of both its population and Economy of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, its economy, it is geographically the smallest. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's share of Pakistan's GDP has historically com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swat Valley
Swat District (), also known as the Swat Valley, is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Known for its stunning natural beauty, the district is a popular tourist destination. With a population of 2,687,384 per the 2023 national census, Swat is the 15th-largest district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Swat District is centred on the Valley of Swat, usually referred to simply as Swat, which is a natural geographic region surrounding the Swat River. The valley was a major centre of early Buddhism of the ancient civilisation of Gandhara, mainly Gandharan Buddhism, with pockets of Buddhism persisting in the valley until the 16th century conquest of Swat by the Yousafzais, after which the area became largely Muslim, along with the Pashtunization of Swat and its neighbouring regions. In the early 19th century, Swat emerged as an independent state under Saidu Baba. State of Swat became a Princely state under British suzerainty as part of the British Raj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gandhara
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] |
Wang Ocheonchukguk Jeon
''Wang ocheonchukguk jeon''往 means ''go to''. 五 means ''five''. 天竺 means ''India'', originally come of Sindhu or Hindu. 國 means ''lands'' or ''countries''. 傳 means ''diary''. (; "An account of travel to the five Indian kingdoms") is a travelogue by Buddhist monk Hyecho from the Kingdom of Silla, who traveled from Korea to India, in the years 723 - 727/728 CE. Overview Written in Classical Chinese, the lingua franca of East Asia at the time, the work was long thought to be lost. However, a manuscript turned up among the Dunhuang manuscripts during the early 20th century. It was bought by French explorer and archaeologist Paul Pelliot in 1908, and is now owned by the National Library of France (). The manuscript scroll contains 5,893 classical Chinese characters in 227 lines. It originally consisted of three volumes, however volume one and later section of volume three are lost. It is 28.5 centimeters in width and 358.6 centimeters in length, is the first known over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hye Cho
Hyecho (; 704–787) was a Korean Buddhist monk from Silla, one of Korea's Three Kingdoms. He is primarily remembered for his account of his travels in medieval India, the . Life Hyecho studied esoteric Buddhism in Tang China, initially under Śubhakarasiṃha and then under the famous Indian monk Vajrabodhi who praised Hyecho as "one of six living persons who were well-trained in the five sections of the Buddhist canon." On the advice of his Indian teachers in China, he set out for India in 723 to acquaint himself with the language and culture of the land of the Buddha. Works During his journey of India, Hyecho wrote a travelogue in Chinese named the ''Memoir of a Pilgrimage to the Five Kingdoms of India'' (, ). The travelogue reveals that Hyecho, after arriving by sea in India headed to the Indian Kingdom of Magadha (present-day Bihar), then moved on to visit Kushinagar and Varanasi. However Hyecho's journey did not end there and he continued north, where he visited Lumb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faxian
Faxian (337–), formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as Fa-hien and Fa-hsien, was a Han Chinese, Chinese Chinese Buddhism, Buddhist bhikkhu, monk and translator who traveled on foot from Eastern Jin dynasty, 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 Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and Southeast Asia. The journey and return took from 399 to 412, with 10 years spent in India. Faxian's account of his Buddhist pilgrimage, 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swat River
The Swat River (, ) is a perennial river in the northern region of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. The river's source is in the high glacial valleys of the Hindu Kush mountains, where it then flows into the Kalam Valley before forming the spine of the wider Swat Valley. Name The word Swat comes from the Sanskrit name ''Suvāstu'' which may mean "clear blue water." Another theory derives the word Swat from the Sanskrit word ''shveta'' (), also used to describe the clear water of the Swat River. To the ancient Greeks, the river was known as the ''Soastus.'' The Chinese pilgrim Faxian referred to Swat as the ''Su-ho-to''. Course The Swat's source lies in the Hindu Kush mountains, from where it is fed by glacial waters throughout the year. From the high valleys of Swat Kohistan, the river begins at the confluence of the Usho, and Gabral rivers (also known as the Utrar River) at Kalam. From the confluence, the Swat river flows through the narrow gorges of the Kalam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital and List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the sixth most populous city of Pakistan, with a district population of over 4.7 million in the 2023 census. It is situated in the north-west of the country, lying in the Valley of Peshawar. Peshawar is primarily populated by Pashtuns, who comprise the second-largest ethnic group in the country. Situated in the Valley of Peshawar, a broad area situated east of the historic Khyber Pass, Peshawar's recorded history dates back to at least 539 BCE, making it one of the oldest cities in South Asia. The area encompassing modern-day Peshawar is mentioned in the Vedic scriptures; it was one of the principal cities of the Gandhara, ancient Gāndhāra. Peshawar served as the capital of the Kushan Empire during the rule of Kanishka and was home to the Kanishka Stupa, which was among the tallest buildings in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kashmir
Kashmir ( or ) is the Northwestern Indian subcontinent, northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term ''Kashmir'' denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. The term has since also come to encompass a larger area that includes the Indian-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract. Quote: "Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent. It is bounded by the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang to the northeast and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the east (both parts of China), by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south, by Pakistan to the west, and by Afghanistan to the northwest. The northern and western portions are administered by Pakistan a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexis Sanderson
Alexis G. J. S. Sanderson (born 1948) is an English indologist and Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College at the University of Oxford. Early life After taking undergraduate degrees in Classics and Sanskrit at Balliol College from 1968 to 1971, Alexis Sanderson spent six years in Kashmir studying with the scholar and Śaiva guru Swami Lakshman Joo. From 1971-1974 he was a Senior Scholar at Merton College, Oxford, and from 1974-1977 he held a Junior Research Fellowship at Brasenose College, Oxford. From 1977 to 1992 he was University Lecturer in Sanskrit and a Fellow of Wolfson College. Career In 1992 he was appointed to the Spalding Chair of Eastern Religions and Ethics and became a Fellow of All Souls. He retired in 2015. Sanderson is a scholar of Sanskrit and of Indian religions, especially of Shaivism and esoteric Śaiva Tantra, commonly (but not quite correctly) known as Kashmir Shaivism. He has written as an authority on this subject and many of his studies are publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prabodh Chandra Bagchi
Prabodh Chandra Bagchi () (18 November 1898 – 19 January 1956) was one of the most notable Sino-Indologists of the 20th century. He was the third Vice-Chancellor of Visva-Bharati University. Early life and education He was born on 18 November 1898, the eldest son of Shri Harinath Bagchi and Smt Tarangini Devi in present-day Bangladesh in Magura District. He lost his mother in early childhood. He completed his schooling in Srikole, Magura District in present Bangladesh. Bagchi was a brilliant student and a favorite of his teachers and Head Master who expected great things of him. In 1914, he appeared for the Matriculation examination. He graduated from Krishnagar Government College in 1918 with honors in Sanskrit. He stood first in his college and received the prestigious Mohini Mohan Roy award. Although he showed promise in Mathematics, he took Sanskrit, the classical language of India, because of his desire to study ancient Indian history. He joined Calcutta University for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
