Aryan Books

Buddhist Heritage of Central Asia

By :- Lokesh Chandra

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Type: English

Pages: x + 132

Format: Hard Bound

ISBN-13: 978-81-7305-642-0

Edition: 1st

Publisher: ARYAN BOOKS INTERNATIONAL

Size: 22cm x 28cm

Product Year: 2020

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This book breaks new ground in the perception of Central Asian history by a comparison of the archaeological evidence with Tibetan and Chinese historiographic sources as well as Sanskrit texts which have rarely been used. It narrates Indian references to Central Asian peoples in the Rigveda, Brahmanas, Puranas, Palisuttas and Buddhist Sanskrit works. It was not merely the Silk Route, but primarily the Sutra Route. Sanskrit was the mind of this Route. It lived as long as Buddhism flourished. Jade and silk were the main trading items: the influence of sericulture on iconography has been discussed. Special relations of Khotan and Kashmir, their impact on the new technology of silk production and transmission of silk production from Khotan (Serindia of Procopius) to Byzantine clarify the word Serº, serikes>silk. The defence of settled kingdoms threatened by nomadic onslaughts gave rise to military cantonments, and the emergence of guardian deities named in the ancient annals which have provided the correct nomenclature of deities shown on the panels. The heavenly mandate of the only political Sutra, the Sutra of Golden Light, has been brought out for the first time. The primacy of the ‘sons of the soil’ (bhumiputra) in the Sa.nu legend has been explained in its precise political context. Hindu deities, the Rocana of Balawaste to RoshanaDaibutsu of Nara in Japan, Buddhist remains in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other modern countries of western Central Asia provide new breakthroughs. This work resurrects the resonances of culture, defence, sericulture, political doctrine of bhumiputra (alive to this day in Malaysia), painting, philosophy across the “deep sands” and thence to its flowering in the civilizations of China, Korea and Japan.

Preface

1. Central Asia as the Path of Sutras

2. Silk Route or Sutra Route

3. Sanskrit was the Mind of the Silk Route

4. Sanskrit on the Silk Route

5. Kashmir and Central Asia in the First Millennium

6. Qumtura Mural of Bodhisattva Siddhartha at School

7. Vajravarahi as the Protectress of Khotan

8. Mural of Hariti from Dandan-Uiliq

9. Dandan-Uiliq Panels for the Divine Protection of Khotan

10. Suvarna–bhasottama as the Security of Khotan

11. The Naya-Mandala in Khotan

12. Panel with a Horse and a Camel from Khotan

13. Bhumiputra and Khotan

14. Sanskrit Culture in Turkish

15. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan

16. Travels to Western Central Asia

17. Rocana of the Avatamsaka from Balawaste

18. Asoka and Khotan

19. Notes on the Buddhist Iconography of Central Asia

20. Chronological Footholds of Khotanese History

Index

Prof. Lokesh Chandra is currently the Director of the International Academy of Indian Culture which is a premier research institution for Asian cultures. He has been President of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research. He is a well-known historian and a renowned scholar of Tibetan, Mongolian and Sino-Japanese Buddhism. He has also served as a member of the Indian Parliament. In 2006 he was recognized with India’s Padma Bhushan award.

He is the son of the world-renowned scholar of Oriental Studies and Linguistics Prof. Raghu Vira. He was born in 1927, obtained his Master’s degree in 1947 from the Punjab University at Lahore, and followed it with a Doctorate in Literature and Philosophy from the State University of Utrecht (Netherlands) in 1950. Starting with an understanding of the most ancient of India’s spiritual expression enshrined in the Vedic tradition, he has moved on to the interlocution between India, Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, China, Korea, Japan, South East Asia, and the Indo-European languages. He has studied over twenty languages of the world. He has to his credit 607 works and text editions.

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