Buddhist Stupas in Asia

Buddhist Stupas in Asia PDF Author: Bill Wassman
Publisher: Lonely Planet
ISBN: 9781864501209
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Photographic study of the Buddhist stupas - domed edifices housing Buddhist or Jain relics. The stupa is the living embodiment of Buddhist teachings - 'a sermon in stone brick and mortar' - and is one of the oldest and most persistent religious symbols still in everyday use. The photos are accompanied by a narration that explains the symbolism, rituals and mystic power associated with these monuments, from their origins in India and their migration throughout Asia, covering 11 countries from Sri Lanka to Japan. Foreword by Robert A F Thurman, the first Westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama and president of Tibet House in New York. Includes full colour throughout, transparent overlays, glossary and index. Author has a master's degree in Asian art history and has contributed to more than 35 guidebooks and phrase books. Wassman has been photographing Asia since 1975 and has been awarded the PATA Gold Award for his work in Nepal.

Buddhist Stupas in Asia

Buddhist Stupas in Asia PDF Author: Bill Wassman
Publisher: Lonely Planet
ISBN: 9781864501209
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 173

Get Book Here

Book Description
Photographic study of the Buddhist stupas - domed edifices housing Buddhist or Jain relics. The stupa is the living embodiment of Buddhist teachings - 'a sermon in stone brick and mortar' - and is one of the oldest and most persistent religious symbols still in everyday use. The photos are accompanied by a narration that explains the symbolism, rituals and mystic power associated with these monuments, from their origins in India and their migration throughout Asia, covering 11 countries from Sri Lanka to Japan. Foreword by Robert A F Thurman, the first Westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama and president of Tibet House in New York. Includes full colour throughout, transparent overlays, glossary and index. Author has a master's degree in Asian art history and has contributed to more than 35 guidebooks and phrase books. Wassman has been photographing Asia since 1975 and has been awarded the PATA Gold Award for his work in Nepal.

Buddhist Stupas in South Asia

Buddhist Stupas in South Asia PDF Author: Jason Hawkes
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195698862
Category : Buddhist antiquities
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Bringing together the latest research on stupas in South Asia, this volume includes new conceptual paradigms as well as new approaches to monuments, sculpture, material culture, and textual interpretation. The collection utilizes archaeological, art historical and epigraphic evidence in broader cultural and historical frameworks to enrich our understanding, not only of stupa monuments but also ancient Buddhism and the wider history to which they pertain.

Stūpa and Its Technology

Stūpa and Its Technology PDF Author: Pema Dorjee
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN: 9788120813014
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Among all the religious monuments of the world, the stupa has the longest uninterrupted historical development. Though modelled after the Indian prototype, the stupa architecture was developed in all the countries where Buddhism had flourished. Over time, the structural shape of the stupa underwent significant modifications in India and the other Asian Buddhist countries.The present study shows how Tibet became a treasure house of Buddhist culture and literature--highlighting important texts dealing with stupa architecture. Various ritual activities associated with the construction of the stupa are described along with the eight fundamental types of Tibeto-Buddhist stupas and their main structural components. A survey of the stupas found in the upper Indus Valley in the Leh region of Ladakh shows their similarity to the Tibeto-Buddhist tradition. The value of the book is enhanced by an appendix with English translation of four important Tibetan texts preceded by transliteration.This monograph is the first in the new sub-series of the IGNCA on the Buddhist stupas, which would not be restricted to India alone. It is hoped that such studies will enable the art-historians and archaeologists to understand this important structural form in totality in relation to its wide geographical spread and the distinctive features of particular developments in different countries.

The Golden Lands

The Golden Lands PDF Author: Vikram Lall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789670138039
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description


The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia

The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia PDF Author: Donald K. Swearer
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438432526
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
An unparalleled portrait, Donald K. Swearer's Buddhist World of Southeast Asia has been a key source for all those interested in the Theravada homelands since the work's publication in 1995. Expanded and updated, the second edition offers this wide ranging account for readers at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Swearer shows Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia to be a dynamic, complex system of thought and practice embedded in the cultures, societies, and histories of Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka. The work focuses on three distinct yet interrelated aspects of this milieu. The first is the popular tradition of life models personified in myths and legends, rites of passage, festival celebrations, and ritual occasions. The second deals with Buddhism and the state, illustrating how King Asoka serves as the paradigmatic Buddhist monarch, discussing the relationship of cosmology and kingship, and detailing the rise of charismatic Buddhist political leaders in the postcolonial period. The third is the modern transformation of Buddhism: the changing roles of monks and laity, modern reform movements, the role of women, and Buddhism in the West.

The Buddha's Footprint

The Buddha's Footprint PDF Author: Johan Elverskog
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812251830
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
A corrective to the contemporary idea that Buddhism has always been an environmentally friendly religion In the current popular imagination, Buddhism is often understood to be a religion intrinsically concerned with the environment. The Dharma, the name given to Buddhist teachings by Buddhists, states that all things are interconnected. Therefore, Buddhists are perceived as extending compassion beyond people and animals to include plants and the earth itself out of a concern for the total living environment. In The Buddha's Footprint, Johan Elverskog contends that only by jettisoning this contemporary image of Buddhism as a purely ascetic and apolitical tradition of contemplation can we see the true nature of the Dharma. According to Elverskog, Buddhism is, in fact, an expansive religious and political system premised on generating wealth through the exploitation of natural resources. Elverskog surveys the expansion of Buddhism across Asia in the period between 500 BCE and 1500 CE, when Buddhist institutions were built from Iran and Azerbaijan in the west, to Kazakhstan and Siberia in the north, Japan in the east, and Sri Lanka and Indonesia in the south. He examines the prosperity theology at the heart of the Dharma that declared riches to be a sign of good karma and the means by which spritiual status could be elevated through donations bequeathed to Buddhist institutions. He demonstrates how this scriptural tradition propelled Buddhists to seek wealth and power across Asia and to exploit both the people and the environment. Elverskog shows the ways in which Buddhist expansion not only entailed the displacement of local gods and myths with those of the Dharma—as was the case with Christianity and Islam—but also involved fundamentally transforming earlier social and political structures and networks of economic exchange. The Buddha's Footprint argues that the institutionalization of the Dharma was intimately connected to agricultural expansion, resource extraction, deforestation, urbanization, and the monumentalization of Buddhism itself.

The Evolution of Indian Stupa Architecture in East Asia

The Evolution of Indian Stupa Architecture in East Asia PDF Author: Eric Stratton
Publisher: Vedams eBooks (P) Ltd
ISBN: 9788179360064
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Contents: I. Introduction. II. Symbolic analysis of religious architecture. III. Indianization in Southeast Asia: lineage one: 1. Religious foundations. 2. Architecture. 3. Java. 4. Cambodia. 5. Champa. IV. Burma : lineage two: 1. Thai Era. 2. The lineages of stupa forms. V. The philosophical Indianization of Northeast Asia : the third lineage: 1. China. 2. Korea. 3. Japan. 4. Tibet. 5. Mongolia. 6. The Tibetan stupa. Bibliography."This work seeks to explore the development of East Asian architecture based upon its borrowings from the Indian stupa. While most scholars agree that some features of East Asian religious architecture have been strongly influenced by the symbolic architecture of the stupa, this study specifically seeks to identify three distinct architectural "lineages" originating from India to East Asia. These lineages were inspired by the work of Liang Ssu-Ch?eng who first identified several "families" of pagoda structures in Mainland China in the early part of the 20 century. However, here we extend our search to all the nations that have employed the stupa architecture outside India (and Nepal). These other lineages have been identified through careful analysis in archaeological, anthropological, historical, and religious studies."The first of these lineages extends through Indo-China and Indonesia. The second lineage is mainly found extending through Burma. Both lineages, one and two, meet together in later Thai architecture. The third lineage extends across Central Asia to the shores and nations of Far East Asia, such as Japan, Korea and China. As all the lineages are demonstrated to be imbued and propagated by the scared and ancient symbolism of India, each chapter examines the history of Indian thought as it was introduced into a region and then discusses the features of the most well known structures of that region." (jacket)

Stupa and Swastika

Stupa and Swastika PDF Author: Mohan Pant
Publisher: NUS Press
ISBN: 9789971693725
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Stupa and Swastika examines urban structures in the city of Patan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley. The religious architecture and overall design of the city illustrate the connection between Buddhist symbolism and South Asian concepts of urban design in the Indus Valley, and suggest links with Southeast Asia. -- Back cover.

The Symbolism of the Stupa

The Symbolism of the Stupa PDF Author: Adrian Snodgrass
Publisher: SEAP Publications
ISBN: 9780877277002
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
A close analysis of the architecture of the stupa--a Buddhist symbolic form that is found throughout South, Southeast, and East Asia. The author, who trained as an architect, examines both the physical and metaphysical levels of these buildings, which derive their meaning and significance from Buddhist and Brahmanist influences.

Silk, Slaves, and Stupas

Silk, Slaves, and Stupas PDF Author: Susan Whitfield
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520957660
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
Following her bestselling Life Along the Silk Road, Susan Whitfield widens her exploration of the great cultural highway with a new captivating portrait focusing on material things. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas tells the stories of ten very different objects, considering their interaction with the peoples and cultures of the Silk Road—those who made them, carried them, received them, used them, sold them, worshipped them, and, in more recent times, bought them, conserved them, and curated them. From a delicate pair of earrings from a steppe tomb to a massive stupa deep in Central Asia, a hoard of Kushan coins stored in an Ethiopian monastery to a Hellenistic glass bowl from a southern Chinese tomb, and a fragment of Byzantine silk wrapping the bones of a French saint to a Bactrian ewer depicting episodes from the Trojan War, these objects show us something of the cultural diversity and interaction along these trading routes of Afro-Eurasia. Exploring the labor, tools, materials, and rituals behind these various objects, Whitfield infuses her narrative with delightful details as the objects journey through time, space, and meaning. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas is a lively, visual, and tangible way to understand the Silk Road and the cultural, economic, and technical changes of the late antique and medieval worlds.