Seven Wonders of the Buddhist World (video)

Bettany Hughes (BBC.com) via Aristotle; Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Golden Buddha, Burma (smep-muc)

In this BBC documentary, historian Bettany Hughes travels to the seven wonders of the Buddhist world and offers a unique insight into one of the most ancient belief systems still practiced today.

Buddhism began 2,600 years ago when one man had an amazing internal revelation underneath a pipal tree in Bihar, India. Today it is practiced by over [1 billion uncounted Chinese Buddhists in communist China and more than] 350 million people worldwide, with numbers continuing to grow year on year.

In an attempt to gain a better understanding of the different beliefs and practices that form the core of the Buddhist philosophy and investigate how Buddhism started and where it traveled to, Hughes visits some of the most spectacular monuments built by Buddhists across the globe.

 

Big Buddha Daibutsu, Japan (cgnss13)

Her journey begins at the Mahabodhi Temple in India, where Prince Siddhartha gained enlightenment to become the Buddha; here Hughes examines the foundations of the teaching system -- the Three Jewels.

At Nepal's Boudhanath Stupa, she looks deeper into the concept of the Dharma -- the teaching of Buddha, and at the Temple of the Tooth in Sri Lanka, Hughes explores karma, the universal law that our intentional acts will come to fruition and ripen in the future.