Ancient Buddhist site found in India (Ambaran)

Wisdom Quarterly; Venus Upadhayaya (TheEpochTimes.com, March 19, 2013)

Chenab river runs alongside the Ambaran site (Venus Upadhayaya/Epoch Times Staff)

Ambaran masonry, the foundations of buildings (Venus Upadhayaya/Epoch Times Staff)

 

Sign at Ambaran archeological site

The Srinagar Circle of [the] Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) carried out excavations for two seasons between 1999 to 2001 and 2008 to 2010, making it one of the latest Buddhist sites discovered by the ASI.

 

During the excavation, Buddhist a monastic establishment from the period of 1st to 3rd century ACE was unearthed.

A reliquary mound (stupa, pagoda), votive mound, and walls of a monastery were exposed, all built with burnt brick masonry.

  

Among the important antiquities found at the site are a large number of decorative terracotta statuettes, semi-precious stone beads, leaves, and ornaments, terracotta skin-rubber, iron nails, and copper pieces.

 

The most significant Buddhist structure is a Dharma wheel (Dharmachakra) mound unearthed during the scientific clearance work at the site in 2008-10, which exposed the remains of a platform missing its super structure. The structure is the first to be found in Jammu and Kashmir state in the northernmost part of India. More

• Cambodia to conduct live fire drill next week
• UN, Cambodia seek solution to tribunal funding problems

Jesus Christ in Buddhist Kashmir

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

KASHMIR, India - What do Christianity, the Jewish Jesus (Issa), and Judeo-Christian myths have to do with Buddhism and ancient Indian lore? 

  

Virgin/Kwan Yin (Great-wall-hikers)

The remarkable similarities between Mahayana Buddhism (heavily influenced by India's Vedic Hinduism), evangelical Christianity (which took much from Mithraism and the Near East), and universalist Catholicism (which, like Mahayana, reveres the goddess Virg Yin as much or more than the founder) are not coincidental. The Greeks (Orthodox Eastern Church), Central Asians (Afghans, those from the 'istans, and from Iran to Kalmykia in Europe, and those in the Far East tell the same story of giants and other beings on the planet. The sacred texts and histories of these various, seemingly unrelated, traditions existed long before the Buddha or Jesus presented teachings that spread widely and had universal appeal. They hint back to a time when the planet was less diverse in its culture and spiritual expression. Sumerian, Egyptian, and Vedic histories reach far back into prehistory.