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The Influence of Indian and Buddhist Elements in Medieval China: A Study of Buddha’s Birthday Celebrations In Luoyang during the Northern Wei dynasty
The Buddha’s birthday festival reached an unprecedented level of grandeur during the rule of Northern Wei when its capital was at Luoyang (495 to 534 CE). Buddhism was indigenous to neither the rulers nor the native Han Chinese. Yet, the Buddha’s birthday celebration on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month became a popular ritual in which the entire city participated. This paper studies a particular phenomenon in this public ritual, the use of carriages in image processions, tracing the heritage of these carriages back to the religion’s land of origin, India, and their literary sources. The intention of this paper is to study the reasons for such phenomenal success, in particular as they relate to the functional role of a religious festival and how the tenets of a religion can enable itself to be popular and sustainable. The Buddha’s birthday is a relevant case study because over 1,500 years later, countries such as Cambodia, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam continue to celebrate it as their public holiday.
印度ABC
《佛教瞑想論》第一講
拙書之論述聚焦於佛教的瞑想。記得那是很久以前、大學時代的事了，一位理科朋友對我說：「寺院嘛，還是靜坐比較好，對吧？」當時由於我對瞑想不甚了解而無法清楚答覆；現在，總算能夠給出一點像樣的回答了。 關於佛教的瞑想，在印度被稱為 samatha（漢譯為「止」）與 vipassanā（漢譯為「觀」），本書第一章概述 samatha 與 vipassanā，以及在個人實踐體驗與理解上闡述靜心的理由與具體內容等。
天竺佛國菩提伽耶的一顆明珠佛光山印度佛學院
