Crisis of faith looms as Dharma goes on a red-tag sale
R Vaidyanathan
1221 words
29 January 2008
DNA - Daily News & Analysis
English
Copyright 2008. Diligent Media Corporation Ltd.
There's something unholy about the bid to get people to invest on religious lines
After investments in stock market based on Islamic values, investors would now be able to park money in stocks of companies that operate in accordance with the principles of religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, said a recent news item. "Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, and Dharma Investments, a leading private investment firm, pioneering the development of faith-based investment, have announced the launch of the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes," it said.
The new indexes measure the performance of companies selected according to the value systems and principles of Dharmic religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. The Dow Jones Dharma Index series includes the Dow Jones Dharma Global Index, as well as four country indexes for the US, the UK, Japan and India. The indexes are designed to underlie financial products such as exchange-traded funds and other investible products that enable investors to participate in the performance of companies which are compliant with Dharmic religious traditions.
"The Dow Jones Dharma Indexes are the first faith-based indexes created to measure Dharma compliant equities. As faith-based and socially responsible investing continues to grow worldwide, our goal is to provide the investment community with the most comprehensive benchmarks that comply with these principles," said Michael A Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes. "The launch of the new Dow Jones Dharma Indexes marks a major step in our effort to further expand our range of faith-based indexes."
"We are honoured to be serving a demand for faith-based investing," said Nitesh Gor, CEO of Dharma Investments. "India and Asia have made remarkable advances economically over the last few years and in parallel we believe that bringing our religious values onto the global stage offers sustainable solutions to the problems facing the world today. The principle of Dharma contains precepts relevant to good conduct, but also the implicit requirement of mindfulness about the sources of wealth - and therefore responsible investing," he added.
The index universe for the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes is defined as the top 5,000 components of the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Total Market Index as measured by float adjusted market capitalisation, and all components in the Dow Jones Wilshire India Index. To be included in the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes, stocks must pass a set of industry, environmental, corporate governance and qualitative screens for Dharmic compliance. Industry screens include unacceptable sectors and business practices.
Environmental screens take account of a company's impact or policies with respect to emissions, climate change and carbon footprint analysis, oil and chemical spills and waste management and recycling. Corporate governance screens comprise the handling of labour relations/ disputes/ discrimination allegations, human rights violations, working conditions/wages. Excluded from the index are companies from sectors that are deemed unacceptable due to the nature of their business activities and operations. Excluded are also companies that have exposure to unacceptable business practices. Some examples of unacceptable sectors are aerospace and defence, brewers, casinos and gaming, pharmaceuticals, tobacco. Some examples for unacceptable business practices are alcohol, adult entertainment, animal testing and genetic modification of agricultural products.
To ensure the quality of the indexes and the integrity of the underlying index methodology, three boards were established to define, build and implement the screening criteria: the Dow Jones Dharma Academic Advisory Committee, the Dow Jones Dharma Supervisory Board and the Dow Jones Dharma Religious Council.
The whole idea looks like a propaganda efforts for the first world in the new world order and it tells what should be appropriate for emerging markets like India. Why Dow Jones never thought of a "Christian" or Jewish index is a puzzle that does not require deep thinking. In the world of Dow, what is good for Christians is automatically good for the world. And of course, Christian sects are not "faith-based "but "rationality-based." Actually Dow should construct a Catholic index and then a Mormon index and a Pentecostal index and then a Baptist index and then a Seventh Day Adventist index and then an Assemble of God index and then a Methodist index and then think of Hindu Dharma.
For Wall Street - which represents the anti-thesis of Dharma - to be talking about a Dharma index is a bit surprising. But, the idea is to tell Hindus how to behave in the financial markets as per the white man's decision. It is in a sense semitising Hinduism.
The fact that non-Dharmic bodies such as Dow Jones in the US and a private profit-oriented company in the UK, both unconnected with lived experience in Dharma, are expected to control the technical aspects such as selection of categories for Index construction, assignment of weights to different categories and constructing the index for industries and enterprises on a proprietory basis is also a cause for great concern
Hinduism has several sampradayas and it talks about Yuga Dharma. It also talks about different stages of a man's existence namely Brahamacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sanyas and dharmic behavior is related to the stage of life. The index is a subtle mechanism to deny Hindus and India their rightful place in the emerging economic order. It is atrocious that the entire pharmaceutical industry is excluded as adharma. In that case, the index should exclude Hollywood, with its level of obscenity and for that matter all consumer industries, since Hindu Dharma is not for consumerism as practised in the West.
It is simply an appropriation of the Hindu concepts to put down the growth momentum of India. Already, we find that the white world has appropriated yoga - to the extent I am told I should give $5 if I inhale in California since it has been copyrighted and branded. For exhaling, of course, the fees would go to another agency. The entire Hindu soft power is getting appropriated by the white world - helped by some brown sepoys from India who know not what is happening. Whether it is yoga or meditation or vaastu or ayuerveda or vegetarianism or even reincarnation -everything is appropriated, given a price tag, branded and sold back to gullible Indians. If a white man says that smoking is bad, then it is scientific and if it is told by my grandfather, it's superstitious or irrational.
This colonial mindset is reinforced by this index, which has the audacity to suggest that aero-space and defence are excluded since they are not dharmic activities. If India is hit by a missile, will these Dow Jones peddlers of half truth come and help us? Have they heard about the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna's advice to Arjuna? Why can't they advice Pentagon that Defence is against the Bible?
It looks to me a tool to subordinate Hindu interests to that of preconceived notions of development and growth. It will a dangerous tool in the long term since Wall Street vultures are going to decide about what is dharmic for Hindus. It is a façade to impose WTO and other such agenda on the gullible Indians. Hence India and Hindus should categorically and unambigously and unequivocally reject such efforts to misuse Hinduism by Wall Street business interests.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai - a monk who packs a punch
Lifestyle - Hot
The monk who packs a punch
Wong Kim Hoh, IN CHIANG RAI
1541 words
27 January 2008
Straits Times
English
(c) 2008 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
In the seventh instalment of New Asian Heroes, an eight-part series on Asians who lead inspiring lives, meet Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai, a monk who rescues abandoned orphans and teaches them muay thai
HE CUTS an arresting figure: handsome despite his shaved head and eyebrows, sturdily built, heavily tattooed body cloaked in the heavy burgundy folds of a monk's robe.
A string of giant black prayer beads hang from his neck to his knees, while an ancient ankus (a hook used to handle elephants) and a Chinese horsewhip peep from a satchel he slings around his shoulders.
Before he became a monk, Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai, 45, was a lethal muay thai fighter who lost only three fights in a 15-year professional boxing career. He also studied law at Ramkhamkheng University in Bangkok, and was married to a petty trader who bore him two children.
But in 1980, he gave everything up, got ordained as a monk and founded the Monastery of The Golden Horse, nestled in the mist-shrouded hills north of Chiang Rai near the Thai-Myanmar border.
For the last 17 years, the charismatic man has devoted his life to spreading the Dharma. He's turned what was once dry, uninhabited forest land into a conservation with paddocks and pens for scores of Thai horses and magnificent fighting cocks.
It has also become a home for many young boys from various hill tribes who have been orphaned, abandoned or made homeless by ruthless drug guerillas who traffic heroin, opium and methamphetamines in the area, known to the outside world as The Golden Triangle.
In the monastery, these boys are ordained as novice monks and learn how to read and write. The abbott also teaches them Buddhist scriptures, horse-riding and muay thai.
In person, Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai exudes a beatific calm. Visitors and little monks nod respectfully as he walks the grounds of the temple; even mongrels trot obediently next to him, patiently sitting each time he stops walking.
On a big boulder where he once meditated for 15 days, he sits in the lotus position, fielding questions about his life through an interpreter.
His farmer parents had five children, none of whom survived, before he was born. Named Samer Jaipinta, he was a difficult baby in his first three months.
'Apparently, I wouldn't stop crying. My parents consulted an astrologer who said I was not a normal baby and that I needed an elephant and a horse to be my guardians,' he says.
They were too poor to buy the animals so his father drew them on the wall above the front door of their home. The baby - who was also given an ankus and a horsewhip he still carries today - stopped crying.
His folks later ran a business slaughtering chickens for the village, something that distressed the young boy.
'I would release them until my father sat me down and told me that he needed to do it. If not, the villagers would go hungry,' he says.
He was given a respite from the slaughtering when his father started breeding fighting cocks and he was tasked with entering them in fights.
'They always won, so I could make money, and not have to slaughter.'
He smiles when asked if cock fighting is a cruel sport. 'They're born warriors. They were born to fight and will fight regardless.
'Like these creatures, we all have to fight - for freedom, independence, to be who we want to be. They are the best boxing masters one could have. They have no tools, you learn a lot just by observing how they move.'
He took up muay thai when he was 13 and became very good at it. From age 14 till 29, he was known as Samerjai and took part in hundreds of muay thai matches at temple fairs and stadiums.
During this time, he also studied law at Ramkhamkheng University in Bangkok, got married and fathered two children who still come to see him occasionally.
His son, 21, is a soldier and national boxer. His daughter, 19, also a muay thai exponent, is an undergraduate at an agricultural university in Chiang Rai.
Although there were no major upheavals in his life, he was dogged by questions on human suffering.
'Maybe it's predestined that I study law so that I can compare the laws of man and the laws of karma,' he says.
A visit to the university's forensic department made him reflect on his life.
'If I had 40 years left, I'd spend 20 years sleeping and another 10 working, eating and socialising. If I'm lucky, I'd live out the rest of my life right. If not, my life would have been a total waste.'
At 29, he told his wife of eight years that he wanted to get ordained. He left for Chiang Rai, where he sat on a rock in the forest and meditated for 15 days. Bees came and covered his body.
'It's as though they were my teachers. Each time I couldn't focus, they would sting me.'
To show he had been reborn to devote his life to the Buddha, several monks spent four days and nights tattooing his body with scripture signifying that he'll never give up his vows.
He told his wife that he has found peace and detachment from earthly desires, and that both of them should start life anew.
Soon, news about him spread, and people came to listen to his teachings and seek solutions to their problems.
People who benefited from his advice came back with offerings. One gave him a horse, which he used to travel to neighbouring villages to build more temples and to visit the sick.
There are now more than 100 horses in the temple. He teaches his novice monks how to care for the animals and, in the process, imparts values such as responsibility and loyalty.
Yet other devotees offered money to build big temples.
'Monks have no need for money, we also cannot have debt,' he says.
He offered them alternatives: 'Why not support orphans and help them stand on their feet? Why not give to build schools so that they can have an education? Why not use it for salaries for teachers to teach these children?'
His work earned him the backing of the Thai army. It also won the approval of a revered chief monk in Bangkok who encouraged him to help the hill tribes. The war between various drug lords has left in its wake a host of problems such as drug addiction, kidnapping and prostitution.
On his horse, Kru Ba would - among other things - tell villagers to plant vegetables instead of drug crops and haul addicts back to his monastery to help them recover.
He has become an enemy of drug barons who have tried to kill him. He has defended himself against attackers with his muay thai skills and survived a serious poisoning attempt through meditation.
He believes he has been spared death because his work is not done yet. He shows me two bullet holes in the hut where he sleeps.
'They put the nozzles of their guns through the holes, but when they tried to pull the triggers, the guns jammed.'
Nowadays, he has the protection of the Thai army. 'They get very jittery when I meditate because I sometimes do it for six hours at a stretch,' he says with a laugh.
He's happiest when meditating. 'That's when I'm detached from everything and give energy back to nature. Nothing belongs to us, not even our bodies.'
He's been known to wake up his 20 or so charges - aged between four and 17 - before the crack of dawn, teaching them how to find peace and stillness within their psyches.
Asked whether he expects his charges to be fully ordained monks, the abbott says: 'It's their own karma. This temple is their university of life. I try to teach them to understand life, because if they do not understand it, they will experience suffering.'
Although he left the ring many years ago, Kru Ba still practises Thai boxing every day.
'Boxing for me is meditating. It helps me find peace and stillness. It's food for my mind, and when my mind is full, I feel free.
'If you feed your mind food, you get peace. But if you only feed your body food, you'll just get fat,' he says, letting out a loud chortle.
Many of the people who come to see him want to seek peace and happiness.
He smiles and says gently: 'Everybody wants to look for peace and happiness. Maybe they should first try to achieve some understanding.
'It's impossible for the whole world to understand one person. Why don't we try to understand the whole world instead, starting with ourselves?'
The monk who packs a punch
Wong Kim Hoh, IN CHIANG RAI
1541 words
27 January 2008
Straits Times
English
(c) 2008 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
In the seventh instalment of New Asian Heroes, an eight-part series on Asians who lead inspiring lives, meet Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai, a monk who rescues abandoned orphans and teaches them muay thai
HE CUTS an arresting figure: handsome despite his shaved head and eyebrows, sturdily built, heavily tattooed body cloaked in the heavy burgundy folds of a monk's robe.
A string of giant black prayer beads hang from his neck to his knees, while an ancient ankus (a hook used to handle elephants) and a Chinese horsewhip peep from a satchel he slings around his shoulders.
Before he became a monk, Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai, 45, was a lethal muay thai fighter who lost only three fights in a 15-year professional boxing career. He also studied law at Ramkhamkheng University in Bangkok, and was married to a petty trader who bore him two children.
But in 1980, he gave everything up, got ordained as a monk and founded the Monastery of The Golden Horse, nestled in the mist-shrouded hills north of Chiang Rai near the Thai-Myanmar border.
For the last 17 years, the charismatic man has devoted his life to spreading the Dharma. He's turned what was once dry, uninhabited forest land into a conservation with paddocks and pens for scores of Thai horses and magnificent fighting cocks.
It has also become a home for many young boys from various hill tribes who have been orphaned, abandoned or made homeless by ruthless drug guerillas who traffic heroin, opium and methamphetamines in the area, known to the outside world as The Golden Triangle.
In the monastery, these boys are ordained as novice monks and learn how to read and write. The abbott also teaches them Buddhist scriptures, horse-riding and muay thai.
In person, Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai exudes a beatific calm. Visitors and little monks nod respectfully as he walks the grounds of the temple; even mongrels trot obediently next to him, patiently sitting each time he stops walking.
On a big boulder where he once meditated for 15 days, he sits in the lotus position, fielding questions about his life through an interpreter.
His farmer parents had five children, none of whom survived, before he was born. Named Samer Jaipinta, he was a difficult baby in his first three months.
'Apparently, I wouldn't stop crying. My parents consulted an astrologer who said I was not a normal baby and that I needed an elephant and a horse to be my guardians,' he says.
They were too poor to buy the animals so his father drew them on the wall above the front door of their home. The baby - who was also given an ankus and a horsewhip he still carries today - stopped crying.
His folks later ran a business slaughtering chickens for the village, something that distressed the young boy.
'I would release them until my father sat me down and told me that he needed to do it. If not, the villagers would go hungry,' he says.
He was given a respite from the slaughtering when his father started breeding fighting cocks and he was tasked with entering them in fights.
'They always won, so I could make money, and not have to slaughter.'
He smiles when asked if cock fighting is a cruel sport. 'They're born warriors. They were born to fight and will fight regardless.
'Like these creatures, we all have to fight - for freedom, independence, to be who we want to be. They are the best boxing masters one could have. They have no tools, you learn a lot just by observing how they move.'
He took up muay thai when he was 13 and became very good at it. From age 14 till 29, he was known as Samerjai and took part in hundreds of muay thai matches at temple fairs and stadiums.
During this time, he also studied law at Ramkhamkheng University in Bangkok, got married and fathered two children who still come to see him occasionally.
His son, 21, is a soldier and national boxer. His daughter, 19, also a muay thai exponent, is an undergraduate at an agricultural university in Chiang Rai.
Although there were no major upheavals in his life, he was dogged by questions on human suffering.
'Maybe it's predestined that I study law so that I can compare the laws of man and the laws of karma,' he says.
A visit to the university's forensic department made him reflect on his life.
'If I had 40 years left, I'd spend 20 years sleeping and another 10 working, eating and socialising. If I'm lucky, I'd live out the rest of my life right. If not, my life would have been a total waste.'
At 29, he told his wife of eight years that he wanted to get ordained. He left for Chiang Rai, where he sat on a rock in the forest and meditated for 15 days. Bees came and covered his body.
'It's as though they were my teachers. Each time I couldn't focus, they would sting me.'
To show he had been reborn to devote his life to the Buddha, several monks spent four days and nights tattooing his body with scripture signifying that he'll never give up his vows.
He told his wife that he has found peace and detachment from earthly desires, and that both of them should start life anew.
Soon, news about him spread, and people came to listen to his teachings and seek solutions to their problems.
People who benefited from his advice came back with offerings. One gave him a horse, which he used to travel to neighbouring villages to build more temples and to visit the sick.
There are now more than 100 horses in the temple. He teaches his novice monks how to care for the animals and, in the process, imparts values such as responsibility and loyalty.
Yet other devotees offered money to build big temples.
'Monks have no need for money, we also cannot have debt,' he says.
He offered them alternatives: 'Why not support orphans and help them stand on their feet? Why not give to build schools so that they can have an education? Why not use it for salaries for teachers to teach these children?'
His work earned him the backing of the Thai army. It also won the approval of a revered chief monk in Bangkok who encouraged him to help the hill tribes. The war between various drug lords has left in its wake a host of problems such as drug addiction, kidnapping and prostitution.
On his horse, Kru Ba would - among other things - tell villagers to plant vegetables instead of drug crops and haul addicts back to his monastery to help them recover.
He has become an enemy of drug barons who have tried to kill him. He has defended himself against attackers with his muay thai skills and survived a serious poisoning attempt through meditation.
He believes he has been spared death because his work is not done yet. He shows me two bullet holes in the hut where he sleeps.
'They put the nozzles of their guns through the holes, but when they tried to pull the triggers, the guns jammed.'
Nowadays, he has the protection of the Thai army. 'They get very jittery when I meditate because I sometimes do it for six hours at a stretch,' he says with a laugh.
He's happiest when meditating. 'That's when I'm detached from everything and give energy back to nature. Nothing belongs to us, not even our bodies.'
He's been known to wake up his 20 or so charges - aged between four and 17 - before the crack of dawn, teaching them how to find peace and stillness within their psyches.
Asked whether he expects his charges to be fully ordained monks, the abbott says: 'It's their own karma. This temple is their university of life. I try to teach them to understand life, because if they do not understand it, they will experience suffering.'
Although he left the ring many years ago, Kru Ba still practises Thai boxing every day.
'Boxing for me is meditating. It helps me find peace and stillness. It's food for my mind, and when my mind is full, I feel free.
'If you feed your mind food, you get peace. But if you only feed your body food, you'll just get fat,' he says, letting out a loud chortle.
Many of the people who come to see him want to seek peace and happiness.
He smiles and says gently: 'Everybody wants to look for peace and happiness. Maybe they should first try to achieve some understanding.
'It's impossible for the whole world to understand one person. Why don't we try to understand the whole world instead, starting with ourselves?'
A Masterpiece - Angkor Wat
Leisure & Arts
Masterpiece: The Glory That Is Angkor Wat - Cambodia's most famous temple is a symbol of enduring power
By Leslie Hook
1221 words
26 January 2008
The Wall Street Journal
W14
English
(Copyright (c) 2008, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
[Anatomy of a classic]
Siem Reap, Cambodia -- This country's most famous temple may be 900 years old, but the message it sets out to convey is timeless: Angkor Wat is all about glory. The temple is one of hundreds built by Khmer kings to commemorate themselves and their empire, as well as to worship their gods. But Angkor Wat stands out from the rest -- in artistry, in scale and in popular imagery.
One of the largest religious structures in the world, and the only religious monument to appear on a national flag, Angkor Wat has become synonymous with Cambodia at its most powerful -- when it was the seat of the Khmer Empire, stretching from the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal. The monumental scale of the temple has the same effect on visitors today as when it was first built. Angkor Wat has but a single approach: a wide stone causeway more than a third of a mile long. The entry walkway crosses a moat 600 feet wide (my guide assures me it used to be filled with crocodiles) and ends at a wall and gates leading into the center of the compound. The central compound covers about 400 acres and once supported a town of about 100,000 people.
With one tower more than 130 feet high surrounded by four shorter towers, the center of the temple imitates the five peaks of Mount Mehru, the mythical mountain at the center of the Hindu universe. The temple walls (three concentric rectangles that demarcate the progressively higher levels of the temple), garden grounds and moat represent the soil and seas of the earth.
Reaching Mount Mehru is no easy chore: The temple's stone steps are dizzyingly steep -- more like a ladder than a staircase -- as a reminder of the effort it takes for humans to get closer to heaven. And, as if to drive home the point, the inner sanctuaries of the central tower were accessible only to the king and a select handful of priests.
When Angkor Wat was built, Cambodia was primarily Hindu and Khmer culture drew much of its inspiration from India. Most of the inscriptions at Angkor are in Sanskrit, and the nymph-like apsaras, or celestial dancers, that grace the walls derive from Hindu mythology. Later, however, the Khmer kings became interested in Buddhism, and Angkor Wat was converted into a Buddhist monastery between the 12th and 15th centuries. The central statue of the innermost sanctuary was removed and a Buddhist image erected in its place. For several centuries, the Khmer Empire practiced a syncretic faith that combined Buddhism and Hinduism.
In many ways Angkor Wat is so much larger than life that the details of the temple get overlooked amid the legends that surround it. It's easy to forget that it contains nearly 2,000 feet of the finest Khmer bas reliefs in the world. Its nearly 2,000 celestial apsaras represent the apogee of Cambodia's apsara-carving tradition and provide a detailed account of court dress and female fashions during the period of its creation. Traditional Cambodian dance to this day imitates the apsaras' poses and costumes.
One of the most intricate reliefs in the temple's first gallery depicts the Churning of the Sea of Milk, a key event in Hindu cosmology in which the world was created by an epic tug-of-war between gods and demons. Each side pulled on a giant five-headed snake wrapped around Mount Mehru, and the subsequent twisting of the mountain and churning of the seas gave birth to the apsaras that grace the walls of Angkor Wat, as well as an elixir of immortality over which the gods and demons later dueled. In this story, Mount Mehru is not only the center of the universe, but also the birthplace of the known world.
The Khmer Empire included modern-day Burma, Thailand and Vietnam, and it laid the foundations for Cambodian culture and art for centuries to come. In a sign of the temple's importance, the king's palace was most likely on its grounds, although nothing of it remains today. About one million men, women and children populated the Angkor area, according to an estimate by French archaeologist Bernard-Philippe Groslier, making it the largest settlement in the preindustrial world.
All this manpower was necessary to build the temples, which were painstakingly erected from giant sandstone monoliths hewed out of a quarry more than 37 miles away. Rather than having foundations that sink into the ground, most Angkorean temples are built on huge mounds of earth that give them their pyramid shape, the soil excavated from a moat or from one of the lakes. Some historians theorize that the blitz of building during the Khmer Empire could have been accomplished only through a labor requirement mandated for all citizens, or perhaps even through slavery.
The grandeur that marked the empire was not to last, however. The royal city of Angkor was repeatedly sacked by the Thai army during the 14th century, and in 1431 the capital was relocated farther away from Thailand. Angkor Wat itself -- by then a Buddhist temple -- continued to function, and for centuries it was home to a flourishing monastery that attracted pilgrims from as far away as Japan, even while the former capital city nearby was gradually overtaken by the jungle. Although the Buddhists removed most of the temple's original Hindu art, Angkor Wat's habitation and continuous maintenance helped it remain relatively intact while many other Angkorean temples now lie in ruins.
But Angkor Wat did not entirely escape the turbulence of Cambodia's recent history. The Western part of Cambodia in which Angkor Wat is located was a Khmer Rouge stronghold through the 1990s. Restoration work on the temples took a forced, decades-long hiatus during the wars that wracked Cambodia through the later half of the 20th century. The area was unsafe for tourists until about 10 years ago, when the Khmer Rouge signed a peace treaty that formally ended Cambodia's civil war. There was relatively little physical damage to the temple as a result of the wars, but they did irreparable damage by destroying almost all of the remaining written records pertaining to the Angkorean period. Khmer archaeology scholar Christophe Pottier of the French Research School of the Far East estimates that 95% of the relevant documents have been destroyed in the past three decades, an irreplaceable loss.
In the years since peace has come to Cambodia the opportunities for looting have also increased, and many of the finest sculptures have been spirited out of the country and sold to buyers abroad. Tourism also poses its own set of dangers, with some temples suffering from overexposure to footsteps or curious hands. But despite this -- even as the physical structures of the temples inevitably decay -- Angkor will continue to symbolize something greater than itself. The memory of the Khmer Empire, and with it Cambodia's full potential, is unlikely to fade anytime soon.
Masterpiece: The Glory That Is Angkor Wat - Cambodia's most famous temple is a symbol of enduring power
By Leslie Hook
1221 words
26 January 2008
The Wall Street Journal
W14
English
(Copyright (c) 2008, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
[Anatomy of a classic]
Siem Reap, Cambodia -- This country's most famous temple may be 900 years old, but the message it sets out to convey is timeless: Angkor Wat is all about glory. The temple is one of hundreds built by Khmer kings to commemorate themselves and their empire, as well as to worship their gods. But Angkor Wat stands out from the rest -- in artistry, in scale and in popular imagery.
One of the largest religious structures in the world, and the only religious monument to appear on a national flag, Angkor Wat has become synonymous with Cambodia at its most powerful -- when it was the seat of the Khmer Empire, stretching from the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal. The monumental scale of the temple has the same effect on visitors today as when it was first built. Angkor Wat has but a single approach: a wide stone causeway more than a third of a mile long. The entry walkway crosses a moat 600 feet wide (my guide assures me it used to be filled with crocodiles) and ends at a wall and gates leading into the center of the compound. The central compound covers about 400 acres and once supported a town of about 100,000 people.
With one tower more than 130 feet high surrounded by four shorter towers, the center of the temple imitates the five peaks of Mount Mehru, the mythical mountain at the center of the Hindu universe. The temple walls (three concentric rectangles that demarcate the progressively higher levels of the temple), garden grounds and moat represent the soil and seas of the earth.
Reaching Mount Mehru is no easy chore: The temple's stone steps are dizzyingly steep -- more like a ladder than a staircase -- as a reminder of the effort it takes for humans to get closer to heaven. And, as if to drive home the point, the inner sanctuaries of the central tower were accessible only to the king and a select handful of priests.
When Angkor Wat was built, Cambodia was primarily Hindu and Khmer culture drew much of its inspiration from India. Most of the inscriptions at Angkor are in Sanskrit, and the nymph-like apsaras, or celestial dancers, that grace the walls derive from Hindu mythology. Later, however, the Khmer kings became interested in Buddhism, and Angkor Wat was converted into a Buddhist monastery between the 12th and 15th centuries. The central statue of the innermost sanctuary was removed and a Buddhist image erected in its place. For several centuries, the Khmer Empire practiced a syncretic faith that combined Buddhism and Hinduism.
In many ways Angkor Wat is so much larger than life that the details of the temple get overlooked amid the legends that surround it. It's easy to forget that it contains nearly 2,000 feet of the finest Khmer bas reliefs in the world. Its nearly 2,000 celestial apsaras represent the apogee of Cambodia's apsara-carving tradition and provide a detailed account of court dress and female fashions during the period of its creation. Traditional Cambodian dance to this day imitates the apsaras' poses and costumes.
One of the most intricate reliefs in the temple's first gallery depicts the Churning of the Sea of Milk, a key event in Hindu cosmology in which the world was created by an epic tug-of-war between gods and demons. Each side pulled on a giant five-headed snake wrapped around Mount Mehru, and the subsequent twisting of the mountain and churning of the seas gave birth to the apsaras that grace the walls of Angkor Wat, as well as an elixir of immortality over which the gods and demons later dueled. In this story, Mount Mehru is not only the center of the universe, but also the birthplace of the known world.
The Khmer Empire included modern-day Burma, Thailand and Vietnam, and it laid the foundations for Cambodian culture and art for centuries to come. In a sign of the temple's importance, the king's palace was most likely on its grounds, although nothing of it remains today. About one million men, women and children populated the Angkor area, according to an estimate by French archaeologist Bernard-Philippe Groslier, making it the largest settlement in the preindustrial world.
All this manpower was necessary to build the temples, which were painstakingly erected from giant sandstone monoliths hewed out of a quarry more than 37 miles away. Rather than having foundations that sink into the ground, most Angkorean temples are built on huge mounds of earth that give them their pyramid shape, the soil excavated from a moat or from one of the lakes. Some historians theorize that the blitz of building during the Khmer Empire could have been accomplished only through a labor requirement mandated for all citizens, or perhaps even through slavery.
The grandeur that marked the empire was not to last, however. The royal city of Angkor was repeatedly sacked by the Thai army during the 14th century, and in 1431 the capital was relocated farther away from Thailand. Angkor Wat itself -- by then a Buddhist temple -- continued to function, and for centuries it was home to a flourishing monastery that attracted pilgrims from as far away as Japan, even while the former capital city nearby was gradually overtaken by the jungle. Although the Buddhists removed most of the temple's original Hindu art, Angkor Wat's habitation and continuous maintenance helped it remain relatively intact while many other Angkorean temples now lie in ruins.
But Angkor Wat did not entirely escape the turbulence of Cambodia's recent history. The Western part of Cambodia in which Angkor Wat is located was a Khmer Rouge stronghold through the 1990s. Restoration work on the temples took a forced, decades-long hiatus during the wars that wracked Cambodia through the later half of the 20th century. The area was unsafe for tourists until about 10 years ago, when the Khmer Rouge signed a peace treaty that formally ended Cambodia's civil war. There was relatively little physical damage to the temple as a result of the wars, but they did irreparable damage by destroying almost all of the remaining written records pertaining to the Angkorean period. Khmer archaeology scholar Christophe Pottier of the French Research School of the Far East estimates that 95% of the relevant documents have been destroyed in the past three decades, an irreplaceable loss.
In the years since peace has come to Cambodia the opportunities for looting have also increased, and many of the finest sculptures have been spirited out of the country and sold to buyers abroad. Tourism also poses its own set of dangers, with some temples suffering from overexposure to footsteps or curious hands. But despite this -- even as the physical structures of the temples inevitably decay -- Angkor will continue to symbolize something greater than itself. The memory of the Khmer Empire, and with it Cambodia's full potential, is unlikely to fade anytime soon.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Ajahn Brahms in Bangkok on 28 January 2008
OUTLOOK
Ajahn Brahm: On bliss and cooling the heart; Ajahn Brahm, author of the book Opening the Door of Your Heart (translated into Thai under the title Chuan Muan Chuen), is returning to Bangkok to give two English-language talks. He will speak on two topics: Bliss Upon Bliss Upon Bliss, on January 28; and Cooling the Heart to Stop Global Warming, on January 30.
217 words
23 January 2008
Bangkok Post
O2
English
(c) 2008
Currently the abbot of the Bodhinyana Monastery in Australia, Ajahn Brahm is a disciple of Ajahn Chah. He was ordained in 1974, and spent nine years training in Thailand. His teachings have resonated with people from all walks of life.
The talk on January 28 will be held from 7 to 8pm, with a meditation session beforehand from 6 to 6:30pm. The venue is the auditorium of the World Fellowship of Buddhists HQ, at the rear of Benjasiri Park, between Sukhumvit Road Soi 22 and 24 (there's a map at http://www.wfb-hq.org/ ). Call Kirana on 02-661-1289, or Soranan on 08-9788-9062 (after 5pm) for more information. The talk on January 30 will be held from 5 to 7pm at the Issara Place (next to Charn Issara Tower II), on the corner of Ekamai and New Phetchaburi Road. Call 02-308-2020 for more details.
Ajahn Brahm: On bliss and cooling the heart; Ajahn Brahm, author of the book Opening the Door of Your Heart (translated into Thai under the title Chuan Muan Chuen), is returning to Bangkok to give two English-language talks. He will speak on two topics: Bliss Upon Bliss Upon Bliss, on January 28; and Cooling the Heart to Stop Global Warming, on January 30.
217 words
23 January 2008
Bangkok Post
O2
English
(c) 2008
Currently the abbot of the Bodhinyana Monastery in Australia, Ajahn Brahm is a disciple of Ajahn Chah. He was ordained in 1974, and spent nine years training in Thailand. His teachings have resonated with people from all walks of life.
The talk on January 28 will be held from 7 to 8pm, with a meditation session beforehand from 6 to 6:30pm. The venue is the auditorium of the World Fellowship of Buddhists HQ, at the rear of Benjasiri Park, between Sukhumvit Road Soi 22 and 24 (there's a map at http://www.wfb-hq.org/ ). Call Kirana on 02-661-1289, or Soranan on 08-9788-9062 (after 5pm) for more information. The talk on January 30 will be held from 5 to 7pm at the Issara Place (next to Charn Issara Tower II), on the corner of Ekamai and New Phetchaburi Road. Call 02-308-2020 for more details.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
China's first Buddhist temple
China's first Buddhist temple to have an Indian structure
335 words
12 January 2008
Asian News International
English
© Copyright 2008. HT Media Limited. All rights reserved.
Report from Asian News International brought to you by HT Syndication.
New Delhi, Jan. 12 -- Abbot Shi Yinle, head of China's first Buddhist temple, is expecting completion of an Indian hall in April inside the 1,900-year-old temple.
The exotic structure in the White Horse Temple in Luoyang, same style as the Great Sanchi Stupa in India, is being financed by the Indian Government as part of a religious and cultural exchange agreement endorsed by the Prime Ministers of the two countries in 2005.
Abbot Yinle is proud that his temple was chosen to house the Indian hall, almost 20 centuries after the introduction of Buddhism to China from India.
"Our temple stands as testimony to the time-honoured friendship between China and India," he said.
The Indian hall covers 3,450 sq m and contains facilities for Buddhist lectures, prayers, exhibitions and conferences. All of the stone used to build the hall has been shipped from India.
A senior Indian engineer has been supervising the interior decoration, which started last September, the China Daily reported.
Two other Indian master craftsmen will soon come to supervise the final exquisite wall carvings, said Hu Xuanyan, an official with Luoyang's religious affairs bureau.
A 3.6-m high Buddha statue from India weighing 22 tons was placed in the hall last September, the largest Buddha statue the Indian government has given to China, local officials said.
The White Horse Temple is named after an ancient tale about a white horse that carried Buddhist scripture between India and Luoyang, then China's capital city.
In exchange for the Indian hall, the Chinese government financed the building of a Xuanzang Memorial Hall in Nalanda in Bihar in 2006.
Xuanzang was a Buddhist monk, a translator and an envoy of peace and Buddhism between China and India some 1,300 years ago.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from Asian News International.
335 words
12 January 2008
Asian News International
English
© Copyright 2008. HT Media Limited. All rights reserved.
Report from Asian News International brought to you by HT Syndication.
New Delhi, Jan. 12 -- Abbot Shi Yinle, head of China's first Buddhist temple, is expecting completion of an Indian hall in April inside the 1,900-year-old temple.
The exotic structure in the White Horse Temple in Luoyang, same style as the Great Sanchi Stupa in India, is being financed by the Indian Government as part of a religious and cultural exchange agreement endorsed by the Prime Ministers of the two countries in 2005.
Abbot Yinle is proud that his temple was chosen to house the Indian hall, almost 20 centuries after the introduction of Buddhism to China from India.
"Our temple stands as testimony to the time-honoured friendship between China and India," he said.
The Indian hall covers 3,450 sq m and contains facilities for Buddhist lectures, prayers, exhibitions and conferences. All of the stone used to build the hall has been shipped from India.
A senior Indian engineer has been supervising the interior decoration, which started last September, the China Daily reported.
Two other Indian master craftsmen will soon come to supervise the final exquisite wall carvings, said Hu Xuanyan, an official with Luoyang's religious affairs bureau.
A 3.6-m high Buddha statue from India weighing 22 tons was placed in the hall last September, the largest Buddha statue the Indian government has given to China, local officials said.
The White Horse Temple is named after an ancient tale about a white horse that carried Buddhist scripture between India and Luoyang, then China's capital city.
In exchange for the Indian hall, the Chinese government financed the building of a Xuanzang Memorial Hall in Nalanda in Bihar in 2006.
Xuanzang was a Buddhist monk, a translator and an envoy of peace and Buddhism between China and India some 1,300 years ago.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from Asian News International.
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