The concept of a multi-coloured Buddhist flag was designed in 1880 by Henry Steyr Alcott – a retired American army colonel. He probably got the idea from the five-coloured’ Daoist flag –
Tag: Sri Lanka
The Abhidhamma Defined
‘Of all canons in different languages which Buddhists of different schools and of different eras made out of the legends, only one – the Theravada
When the Buddha Sneezed…
When monks or lay-people came to the Buddha with a dispute over the behaviour of the monks and nuns, the Buddha would quietly listen and
A Few Words on Loving Kindness…
Whilst visiting the Ganga Ramaya Temple in Beruwela, Sri Lanka in 1996, I saw Theravada Buddhist monks continuously exercising ‘metta’ (loving kindness) and ‘karuna’ (compassion). The surface and
Buddhism: Pali Bhavana and Chinese Ch’an
Chinese transliterations and translations are useful as the early Chinese scholars had to understand the Indian Pali and Sanskrit terms before they could be rendered effectively into the Chinese language. Obviously, some of the early transliteration of Indian Buddhist terms are purely ‘phonetic’ in nature and in themselves do not convey much meaning as ideograms. This represents an initial process of a slow, careful and gradual building-up of knowledge in China about a thoroughly ‘foreign’ Indian philosophy that had to develop an ‘interface’ with existing Chinese culture.
Bhikkhus and Politics
In ancient days, according to the records of history, the welfare of the nation and the welfare of the religion were regarded as synonymous terms by the laity as well as by the Sangha. The divorce of religion from the nation was an idea introduced into the minds of the Sinhalese by invaders from the West, who belonged to an alien faith. It was a convenient instrument of astute policy to enable them to keep the people in subjugation in order to rule the country as they pleased.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 