Buddhism's biggest pyramid: Borobudur

(Ancient Architects) Ancient megastructure: The world's largest [excavated*] Buddhist temple: Borobudur Pyramid, Java, Indonesia, with its Unfinished Buddha.

• *The larger Buddhist temple complex, which is said to be at least one square mile large, is Mes Aynak, Afghanistan (ancient Gandhara). Afghanistan has the world's largest Buddha statues (the largest, a reclining figure, still hidden for its protection) because that's where the Buddha is from (Saka/Shakya/Scythia, not Nepal and not India, which did not even exist as a country or empire until centuries later when Buddhist Emperor Ashoka united disparate kingdoms and various janapadas or clan territories). It may well hold an even larger temple. Mes Aynak remains unexcavated and undiscovered due to American imperialism in its prolonged war of plunder followed by Chinese business interests attempting to raze the ancient archeological site for its store of rare earth minerals, gold, and copper.

Hidden vault found under Angkor Wat?

They Just Found a Hidden Vault Beneath Angkor Wat — And It Changes History Forever

Temple at the center of Angkor: Angkor Wat

(The Explorer) Oct. 24, 2025: How could one of the world’s most beautiful temples be hiding something so dark under it? Cambodia's Angkor Wat has been a sign of peace and perfection for hundreds of years, but new scans have just shown a secret vault that has been locked for 900 years. It isn't gold or wealth inside. It is something much scarier. Why stay put to see what it is? What's below Angkor Wat will make everyone question everything we thought we knew about history.

• (Epic Legacy of History) The Khmer Empire's Angkor Wat

The last Buddhist kingdom: Bhutan (video)

THIS IS LIFE IN BHUTAN: The most isolated country in the world?

(Lifeder En) June 10, 2023. This video embarks on a journey full of charm and mystery through Bhutan, a majestic kingdom located in the heart of the Himalayas. See its culture, preserved in its purest state due to its geographical isolation and its strong devotion to Buddhist traditions. Get to know what life in Bhutan is like, from the serenity of its ancient Vajrayana Buddhist monasteries to the joy of its colorful festivals. Discover the impressive fortresses called dzongs, silent witnesses of Bhutan's rich history. Understand the monarchy, which stepped aside for the sake of progress and modernity, an integral part of the country's history, ethnic groups, what the people are like, and much more. 

Own-created or licensed content. Other materials used: pastebin.com/L7EWuHRa

Nepal open for business, but few tourists (audio)

Alina Simone (PRI's The World, Dec. 11, 2015); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

Future Buddha in the Himalayas northern India's Ladakh near Nepal (Tamvir Singh Multani).

Trekking the Annapurna route near Jomsom. Trekkers are critical to Nepal's tourism industry, but travel warnings can boost cost of optional travel insurance (Alina Simone/PRI).

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In April, Nepal was struck by a massive earthquake followed by a devastating series of aftershocks. We all saw the news coverage: millions of people displaced, ancient [Buddhist and Hindu] temples reduced to rubble, avalanches, Himalayan landslides.

• Nepal struggles to escape dysfunction
• Rare elephant species found in war-torn So. Sudan, Africa

Aid poured into Nepal, more than U.S. $4 billion of it. But that news coverage proved to be a double-edged sword. All those images of destruction left the impression the entire country had been leveled, and led to a different kind of aftershock: the collapse of the tourist industry, which accounts for and estimated 4% of Nepal’s GDP.

 

UPDATE: Dream of developing Nepal hit by border blockade

The Economic Times (economictimes.indiatimes.com/news, Dec. 13, 2015)

Hundreds line up to buy gov't firewood, 11-16.

KATHMANDU: Nepalese PM K.P. Sharma Oli today said his "great dream" of developing the landlocked nation [of Nepal] has been obstructed by the blockade at the border trade points with India and the devastating April 29 temblor. "Though I had a great dream of developing the nation, [the] massive earthquake and border blockade have laid obstructions to the same," the 63-year-old premier said while receiving an annual progress report from academicians at his official residence in Baluwatar. More

• SLIDESHOW: More visuals and exclusive photos

Himalayan Buddhist temple.

Three months ago, [Alina Simone] was invited on a trip to Nepal, sponsored by the Nepalese government, a private tourism industry group, and Samarth, an NGO funded by the British government.

The goal was to show tourists that despite the earthquake and political protests, which erupted after the passage of a new constitution, Nepal was “open for business.”
 
[She] had never paid much attention to government travel advisories, but [she] decided to check what the U.S. State Department had to say. In October, it issued a “warning” for Nepal. Also on the warning list -- Iraq and Somalia.
 
“We want you to know the risks of traveling to these places and to strongly consider not going to them at all,” the State Department site said. Yikes. I began to wonder whether this trip was really such a great idea.
 
At the airport in Abu Dhabi, [she] wasn’t exactly reassured to learn [she] had been bumped from [her] flight because the plane was carrying extra fuel to Kathmandu [starved of fuel deliveries by neighboring India]. The protests at Nepal’s border with India, related to the new constitution [which Nepal says is none of India's business, but India has long meddled in and dominated the country's internal affairs], had led to a severe shortage.
 
But once [she] finally got to Kathmandu, life seemed remarkably normal. The earthquake damage was largely cleared away and fenced off. There were, of course, lots of empty spaces where centuries-old temples once stood.

And in historic Patan Durban Square, the sound of reconstruction was everywhere.
 

Earthquake-damaged buildings in historic city of Bhaktapur, Nepal (Alina Simone/PRI.org)

But [she] was also surprised to find plenty of temples left standing. Like everyone else, [she] had seen the footage of post-earthquake Kathmandu and assumed most of Nepal’s heritage sites were gone.
 
That’s exactly the impression tourism officials in Nepal were trying to change.
 
“It is not Nepal that has been affected; it is only 14 districts that have been hit hard,” said Sunil Sharma, of the Nepal Tourism Board. Nepal's 61 other districts suffered minimal or no damage.                                                                                                                                              
Samarth, the NGO that helped sponsor my trip, also commissioned an independent assessment of two of Nepal’s most popular trekking routes, Everest and Annapurna. They were pronounced safe, with some important caveats.

The thing is, trekkers are key to reviving Nepal’s tourism industry, but travel warnings boost the cost of travel insurance. And backpackers need that insurance if they’re trekking in remote areas, like our next stop, the town of Jomsom on the Annapurna circuit.
 
The landscape is spectacular at the foot of the Himalayas -- our trekking route threaded over wild mountain streams to Dhumba, a sacred Buddhist lake.
 
It’s far from the epicenter of the earthquake and the political struggles at the Indian border, but still, you won’t see many tourists here. Tripple Gurung, who owns a hotel called “Om’s Home,” told [her] bookings are down 50 percent. He’s not the only one here who depends on tourism.
 
“I’m running a hotel, but there are people who grow vegetables. They come here in the morning, so we buy the vegetables for our guests.”
 
The story was the same in Nepal’s second largest city, Pokhara: minimal earthquake damage, major tourism declines. And long lines of cars and mopeds were queuing up for rationed gas.
 
It’s easy for a tourists to insulate themselves from the day-to-day realities of life here... More + AUDIO

Anti-India sentiment grows amid Kashmir unrest

Policemen chase demonstrators during victory celebrations in Jammu 8/31/08. Hindus in Indian Kashmir called off their two-month protest after the government allowed them temporary use of land at the center of a religious dispute for an annual pilgrimage, officials said (Reuters/Amit Gupta).

Indian paramilitary frisks the bag of a woman during curfew in downtown Srinagar, India, 9/1/08. Authorities in Indian Kashmir relaxed a nine-day curfew allowing residents to buy food and other supplies as protests demanding an end to Indian rule continued in Muslim-majority areas of the state (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan).

Aijaz Hussain and Matthew Rosenberg (AP, 8/22/08)

SRINAGAR, India -- The crowd's hostility was unmistakable. Each time they passed Indian soldiers, thousands chanted the name of one of South Asia's most violent Islamic groups.

"India, your death will come. Lashkar will come," they chanted, harking back to the early 1990s when militants from groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba roamed this predominantly Muslim region's towns and villages and even Kashmir's peaceful separatists openly defied New Delhi.

Those days seem more like the present than the past in Kashmir, where a dispute over 99 acres of land for a Hindu shrine has prompted protests by hundreds of thousands, reviving the separatist movement and threatening to further undermine the India-Pakistan peace process.

While the militants may still be underground, a new generation of Muslim Kashmiris has loudly taken up the separatists' old slogan of "azadi" — freedom — from Hindu-majority India, long viewed by many here as an occupying power.

The latest and largest protest came Friday as an estimated 200,000 people streamed into central Srinagar, shutting down this city once famed for its cool summer weather and sweeping Himalayan panoramas.

They chanted "Death to India!" and "We want freedom!" while soldiers and police kept their distance, hoping to avoid a repeat of clashes that have killed at least 34 people in recent weeks.

Such scenes have pierced the notion, widely held throughout India just months ago, that a semblance of normal life was returning to Kashmir after 19 years of rebellion. Militant attacks were down, separatist politicians appeared sidelined, and tourists were back lounging on houseboats on Srinagar's Dal Lake.

That is all gone now, pushed aside by the anger at Indian rule that many here say was subsumed but never extinguished.

"This is a freedom movement, a people's movement," said Salman Ahmed, a 27-year-old protester. "We are united to fight India until we get freedom."

Supporters of Pakistani largest Islamic group Jamaat-e-Islami take part in a rally to condemn alleged government atrocities in Indian-controlled Kashmir, 8-31-08 in Lahore, Pakistan. Hundreds of the supporters an Islamic group rallied in Lahore to express solidarity with Indian Kashmiri Muslims and against the target killing of the leaders of All Parties Hurriyat Conference in Indian controlled Kashmir (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary).

The timing could not be worse. Divided between India and Muslim Pakistan, Kashmir lies at the heart of their rivalry. The unrest is straining already tense relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors, who have fought two wars over Kashmir.

Statements from Islamabad supporting the protesters have prompted angry responses from New Delhi. They've also raised suspicions of a Pakistani hand in the unrest, reflecting India's belief that recent political turmoil in Pakistan is allowing hawkish elements there to renew the struggle against India after four years of peace talks.

Such fears are being stoked by repeated skirmishes along the heavily militarized frontier that divides Kashmir — each side blames the other — and the bombing of India's embassy in Afghanistan, an attack New Delhi charges was orchestrated by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Islamabad vehemently denies the allegations.

One top Indian security official, A.K. Mitra, chief of the paramilitary Border Security Force, recently told reporters that the ISI plans to use the unrest to sneak 800 Islamic militants into Kashmir.

But on the streets of Kashmir, it is India's continued claim to the region — and the presence of an estimated 500,000 Indian soldiers — that is seen as the problem.

"We are a separate people, we were never part of India," Shabir Hussain, a 30-year-old protester in Srinagar, said Friday.

It's a widely shared sentiment, and its roots can be traced to 1947, when Britain gave independence to its Indian colony by dividing it into largely Hindu India and overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan.

Kashmir, then technically a British protectorate and not a part of colonial India, was caught in the middle. Its Hindu king insisted he wanted to remain independent, dithering until tribal raiders attacked from Pakistan. When he asked New Delhi for help, there was a steep price: union with India.

War broke out between India and Pakistan, and the verdant Kashmir valley, the region's heart, ended up under Indian rule.

In the ensuing decades, separatist movements ebbed and flowed in Indian Kashmir, where the sight of soldiers on patrol became part of everyday life, fueling resentment.

Most of the separatist movements were peaceful until 1989, when Islamic insurgents took up arms hoping to win independence for India's part of Kashmir or see it merged with Pakistan. The rebellion has killed an estimated 68,000 people, most of them civilians.

Few Kashmiris blame the militants for the deaths. "The Indian army has unleashed a reign of terror in Kashmir," said Nissar Ahmed, a 35-year-old government worker. "This is a reaction and response to their atrocities."

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Demonstrators run towards police during a protest in Jammu 8/30/08. The protest was against the government's backing down from the transfer of forest land to a Hindu shrine trust (Reuters/Amit Gupta).

The spark for the latest unrest was a plan to transfer land to the Amarnath shrine — a cave to which millions of Hindu pilgrims flock every year to see a phallic-shaped icicle revered as an incarnation of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration.

Authorities said bathrooms and shelters for the devotees were going to be built on the land. But Muslims alleged the land transfer would alter the religious balance in the region, comparing the move to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and prompting authorities to scrap the plan.

That, in turn, sparked protests in Jammu, the region's only Hindu-majority city, which were countered by more protests in Muslim-dominated areas such as Srinagar.

While Hindus are still protesting in Jammu, it is the Muslim demonstrations that have taken center stage, threatening India's grip on its only Muslim majority state.

"The peace process between India and Pakistan failed to change the ground situation in Kashmir," said Noor Mohammed Baba, a professor at the University of Kashmir.

"Now this festering wound is manifesting itself on the streets. This is a mass uprising and in many ways more serious and comprehensive than the early 1990s."

• Benazir Bhutto's widower proposed for Pakistan president

PHOTOS

Associated Press writers Aijaz Hussain reported this story from Srinagar and Matthew Rosenberg from New Delhi.

A Buddhist Who's Who

Buddhists Numbers Around the World
VipassanaFoundation.com

The number of Buddhists around the world is grossly underestimated. The statistics found in nearly all encyclopedias and almanacs place the number of Buddhists at approximately 500 million. This figure completely ignores over one billion Chinese people who live in the People's Republic of China.

China is officially communist (although many free market conditions are already in place) and does not keep records on religion statistics of adherents. Moreover, many Western reference sources refuse to accept that a person can belong to more than one religion. In Asia it is quite common for one person to have two, three, or more religions. In China, it is common for a family to have a shrine in their home with statues and icons from Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism.

Currently there are about 1.3 billion Chinese living in the People's Republic. Surveys (Gach-Alpha Books, U.S. State Dept. report on China, Global Center for the Study of Contemporary China, BBC News, China Daily, and a report by Christian missionaries in China) have found that about 8% to 91% identify with Buddhism as one of their religions.

If we use a percent near the upper end of this estimate, of about 80% it works out to about 1.1 billion Chinese Buddhists. To ignore over one billion people as if they do not count is a terrible miscount and very misleading in the reporting of adherents. The famous line says it best: “One billion Chinese cannot be wrong.” A Chinese Buddhist forum (bskk.com) currently has over 50,000 registered members and almost 2 million posts, which is about triple the amount of the largest English language Buddhist forum (which also has Chinese Buddhists participating in the discussions). But to be fair, a more conservative estimate is also shown... Read more

• See descriptions of such notables as:

Hotei -- (the chubby restaurant good luck charm) commonly confused with the historical "Buddha"
Medicine Buddha -- a being in heaven who heals
Amitabha Buddha -- a semi-legendary figure who presides over the Western Pure Land (Mahayana)
Kwan Yin -- the goddess of compassion, a divine feminine figure, a rebirth of the bodhisattva Avolikiteshvara, a monk from a previous aeon who chose to be reborn as a beautiful woman to convince a king to become a Buddhist
Maya Devi -- the historical Buddha's mother
Tara -- mother of liberation, a goddess in the Mahayana tradition and is especially venerated in vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhism

Sariputra -- the first chief male disciple of the Buddha, "foremost in wisdom"
Moggallana -- a chief disciple, with dark skin, "foremost in supernormal powers"
King Asoka -- reigned over a vast kingdom in present-day India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, who renounced violence after becoming a Buddhist
Sujata -- the woman who offered food to Siddhartha just before he became the Buddha
Maha Pajapati Gotami -- the Buddha's stepmother, the first Buddhist nun, and an arahant
Khema -- the beautiful and wise, a nun who became enlightened and "foremost in wisdom"
Dhammadinna -- an enlightened nun who surpassed her husband in spiritual progress, who while giving a Dharma talk was praised by the Buddha
Sanghamitta -- daughter of King Ashoka, a nun who spread the Sangha outside of India (to Sri Lanka)
Nagarjuna -- Indian philosopher and founder of the Middle Path school famous for later Buddhist works

C.A.F. Rhys Davids -- born a Christian in England, decided to learn Pali and the teachings of the Buddha in an attempt to disprove Buddhism, dedicated her life to translating the discourses, second president of the Pali Text Society (wife of Thomas Rhys Davids, whose translations spread Buddhism to many western nations
Anagarika Dharmapala -- the translator for the first Theosophists, Madame Blavatsky and Col. Olcott; restored Mahabodhi temple complex which was left in ruins leading to a Buddhist resurgence (in 1900 there may have been 1,000 Western-born Buddhists at best, whereas today there are over 10 million
Dipa Ma -- taught vipassana from her small home in India, mastered the jhanas of Theravada meditation, and taught famous American Buddhist such as Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, and Jack Kornfield
Ajahn Chah -- famous Thai forest meditation teacher
Ayya Khema -- (pictured with Pema Chodron and Gesshin Myoko) born in Germany, she was one of the first Western-born women to receive full ordination as a Buddhist nun, thus reviving the Buddhist Order of nuns, wrote several bestselling books and opened monasteries in Australia, Sri Lanka, and Europe
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar -- father of the Indian Constitution and Dalit Buddhist Movement to end the caste system
S. N. Goenka -- perhaps the most famous lay Buddhist in modern times, founder of a worldwide vipassana retreat organization centered around a 10-day insight technique with courses on nearly every continent
Thich Nhat Hanh -- a socially-engaged, Vietnamese Zen monk, and peace activist who opened monasteries around the world
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana ("Bhante G") -- founder and abbot of the Bhavana Society in West Virginia, USA, who pushed for bhikkhuni reinstatement and who personally ordained many women
Ruth Denison -- studied in Burma in the 1960’s with Goenka's teacher, Sayagi U Ba Khin, and has been teaching since 1973, founder of Dhamma Dena in Joshua Tree, California and The Center for Buddhism in the West in Germany, who uses movement, music, rhythm, chanting, and sound as meditation supports
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso -- the world's most famous living Buddhist, exiled from Tibet to Dharamsala, India due to Chinese aggression, Nobel peace laureate, and chief advocate of Vajrayana Buddhist tradition
Bhikkhu Bodhi -- born Jeffrey Block in New York, perhaps the most signifcant living American translator today, editor and president of the Buddhist Publication Society, famous for his clarity, acumen, and scholarship
Bhikkhuni Dhammananda -- Thai woman who received full bhikkhuni (nun's) ordination, professor of Buddhist philosophy, and current abbess of the only temple in Thailand with fully ordained nuns
Ven. Karuna Dharma -- born in Wisconsin, USA, abbess of International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles, who runs a unique temple that has monastics from Theravada, Zen, Vajrayana, and Mahayana traditions, robed crusader in the ordination of at least 50 women as fully ordained nuns
Jan Willis -- born in Alabama, USA, one of the first Western-born scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism whose translations made scriptures available to Westerners, now a professor of religion at Wesleyan University
Bhikkhuni Kusuma -- who pioneered the re-establishment of the Theravada female Buddhist Order in Sri Lanka 1000 years after the Order died out
Maha Upasika Bongkot -- a lay woman with a very large retreat center in Shravasti, India, and another in Thailand, run by 8-precept, semi-monastic men and women who do socially engaged work and are vegetarian
Bhikkhu Buddharakkhita -- born in Uganda (East Africa), who studied with various masters in India, Burma, and the US and was ordained by the late Burmese monk Sayadaw U Silananda, founder of the first Buddhist Center in Uganda, Africa
Shravasti Dhammika -- born in Australia and ordained as a Theravada monk in India, writere who made books available to read completely online at no cost, such as Buddhism A to Z and books on pilgrimage to Buddhist sites, advocating a united "Buddhayana" school
Dr. Gotami (Prem Suskawat, M.D.) -- American born doctor showing how Buddhist teachings can be integrated with Western psychotherapy to treat social ills

Aung San Suu Kyi -- Burmese Democracy leader, unjustly continues to be kept under house arrest by totalitarian government, advocate of nonviolence, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1991)