Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Incredible ancient Buddhist architecture

Monday, November 6, 2023

Incredible ancient Buddhist architecture

MSN.com; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Sanchi Buddhist stupa or reliquary dome temple complex, detailed below at Number 20.

Inside a hollow stupa, with its domed roof and various meditation chambers

Interior view of rock-hewn Buddhist temple

Sometimes a mainstream media story catches the eye, something like Stonehenge and more incredible ancient Buddhist feats of engineering (msn.com). A few clicks later, one realizes it's bait. There's little weight to it. It's fancy clickbait Bill Gates needs to build his fortune, maybe make his own island now that Melinda is gone. What the title clicked on didn't say was "Buddhist" feats but it was a Buddhist temple that lured the eye. Then clicking through one can't help but notice that most of the wonders are Buddhist creations. Even the things Buddhists didn't build (by lots of chiseling or by some advanced technology provided by devas from space) they seem to have influenced.

The most astounding archaeological discoveries in history (starsinsider.com)

These stylized Buddhist burial mound reliquaries (stupas) are found all over Asia.

Sanchi, India (sanchi.org)
Moai, Easter Island
Sacsayhuaman, Peru
Machu Picchu, Peru
Mesa Verde (Native American), Arizona, USA

How did ancient Afghan Buddhist create this?

Underground churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia [reminiscent of a famous rock-hewn Afghan Buddhist stupa or sacred reliquary]
Tikal, Guatemala [from an advanced jungle empire, reminiscent of the massive Buddhist cities in Cambodia like Angkor and Seim Reap, said to have been named after Gautama Buddha, as detailed in the amazing How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America by American Rick Fields (shambhala.com), the mala being a reference to meditation beads]
Volcanoes in the distance, Buddhas in bells
Borobudur, Java, Indonesia [a pyramidal Buddhist temple, the largest excavated Buddhist temple in the world (with larger one yet to be excavated in Afghanistan or ancient Gandhara, where the Buddha was born and raised) once hidden under mud and layers of volcanic ash and jungle vegetation until 1835, because the local Muslims could not figure out how it was built and could not match it so they buried it in mud and forgot about it until a British surveyor realized no hill should be standing where it was; he dug and found Borobudur, yet we still do not know much about its construction or original purpose, with historians left to compare the thousands of carved bas reliefs depicting Buddhist and Hindu scenes for clues, coming to the conclusion that it must have taken 75 years to build with andesite (grey volcanic rocks) taken from adjacent quarries which were cut, transported, and laid without mortar.
Leshan Giant Buddha, China [built into the side of a mountain alongside a massive river with steps and means to enter like the Statue of Liberty]
What tools, lasers, and skill could build this?
Ellora Buddhist Caves, India [a sacred site home to Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temples carved from volcanic basalt stone, the archeological site is comprised of decorated caves like the grand Kailasa Temple which, at 104 feet (32m) high, the largest rock-cut monument in the world, built into the sloping basalt hill and featuring a three-story town with an octagonal stupa dome of mindboggling architectural detail: beams, bases, capitals, brackets, pilasters and carved bas reliefs in Aurangabad, India]
Shibam, Yemen [the first skyscraper multistory buildings -- resulting in Manhattan or Chicago-style skyline in the desert -- in the modern world, reminiscent of Tibetan Buddhism's Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet/China, a pueblo building built up with mud bricks into a massive mansion, cubicle by cubicle]
Mexico also has world's largest pyramid: Cholula
Teotihuacan, Mexico City, Mexico [a civilization that came into contact with Buddhism through Afghan and Chinese Buddhist missionaries as detailed in the American Edward P. Vining's Inglorious Columbus: Evidence that Hwui Shan and a party of Buddhist monks from Afghanistan Discovered America in the Fifth Century, A.D., revolutionizing Mexican and Mesoamerican culture, which included California, New Mexico, and the West Coast of what is now the U.S. and Mexico, which in ancient times was called Fu Sang], resting northeast of Mexico City, the archeological site of Teotihuacan, with some of the largest pyramid-like structures outside of Egypt that once formed a 22 mile-wide (35km) metropolis with a grid-like structure that aligned with key geographic, geodetic, and celestial points, including the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Al-Khazneh, Petra, Jordan [carved right into the side of a soft sandstone cliff, "The Treasury" is a rock-hewn stone monument as impressive as the characteristically Buddhist rock-hewn structures of Asia, which are carved into much more durable stone, particularly in Western China and Afghanistan]
Colosseum, Rome, Italy
It rises up out of the jungle, a carved fortress
Sigiriya, Buddhist Sri Lanka ["Lion Rock," an ancient fortress carved into a 656-feet (200m) vertical rock face near Dambulla, Ceylon, during the island's long history, when it served as a royal palace and Buddhist monastery, made up of a citadel, upper palace, lake (reservoir), gardens, fresco mirror wall, and carved lion-shaped gateway, with remarkable engineering at play at the base with canals, lakes, and water pumps providing year round water, demonstrating skill in urban planning and advanced technology for the time]
Aqueduct of Segovia, Spain
The Great Wall of Tartaria to keep China out
Great Wall of China, China [while this Buddhist country, officially atheist communists, now has over 1 billion uncounted Buddhists, making Buddhism the world's third largest religion, the Great Wall was built long before the Han Chinese claimed it, by some civilization with far superior skills, some suggesting the work of mythical Tartaria (Tartary) before the reset, with evidence for this being that it was built to keep the Chinese out not in, given that the parapets for deploying ammunition (arrows, molten metal, spears, hot water, and other dangerous projectiles) are pointed toward China, as protection for neighboring Tartaria, restored to include parapets on both sides to hide this fact]
Terracotta Army, Xi’an, China [one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries in history, Xi’an’s Terracotta Army is awe-inspiring and huge, comprised of around 8,000 pottery soldiers and archers, 130 chariots, and 520 horses, unearthed in three pits in an area spanning 215,278 square feet (20,000sqm), believed to be symbolic spirit guards to protect the body of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who died in 210 BC and whose tomb lies around a mile (1.6km) away, estimated to have taken 700,000 workers 40 years to build by hand with basic tools]
La Danta, El Mirador, Guatemala [in a land named after Gautama Buddha, as documented in How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (see above), El Mirador, like Egypt, has a similar (yet somehow more impressive) story because it is located in the Americas inside the Mirador-Rio Azul National Park, a pre-classic Mayan city completed at some point between 600 BC to AD 100, with its largest pyramid at La Danta]
Buddhist Sanchi, India
Sanchi Buddhist Stupa, India [(shown above) is one of the oldest stone structures in India, first built around 300 BC to house relics of the Buddha, once standing 54 feet (16m) high, reconstructed around 185 BC to double its original size with stone slabs re-used to create a flattened dome, atop which stand three structures symbolizing the Dharma (the Wheel of Universal Truth), currently standing at 71 feet (21.6m) high and among the carved gateways, staircases, and top-level platform there are intricate carvings and bas reliefs]
Parthenon, Athens, Greece [which as part of the ancient Greco (Hellenistic) culture was in contact with Buddhism through Bactria, a Greco-Buddhist culture in modern-day Central Asia, with Buddhist monastics traveling to ancient Greece, giving us the ancient Buddhist classic the Milinda Panha or "Questions of the Greek King Menander I" (100-200 BC), and influencing the original Buddhist architectural art and the first human depictions of the Buddha (a practice that ran contrary to the historical Buddha's instructions, where Indian Buddhists were meant not to depict him, but no such rule restrained his extended family in ancient Gandhara/Afghanistan and the Bactrian kingdom, which by syncretism gave us gorgeous Greco-Buddhist or Gandharan art.]
The miracle of Persepolis, Persia/Iran
Persepolis Gate of All Nations, Iran [the original Aryan Land, which according to British Buddhist translator Rhys Davids' Buddhist Birth-Stories; Jataka Tales with the Commentarial Intro Entitled Nidanakatha; The Story of the Lineage, has the Buddha claiming to be descended from the "solar race," Aryan or Iranian (Persian) on his mother's side, according to maverick Indian historian Dr. Ranajit Pal, Ph.D., with a shared history from this special part of the world, the Near East that gave rise to an inordinate number of seminal spiritual figures like the Buddha, Mithras (a pre-Christian messiah figure, possibly derived from the name Maitreya or "Friend," which comes from maitri), Zarathustra, and others (see Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander)]
Van Fortress, Turkey [Turkiye being Anatolia, part of the Near East, now most famous for Gobekli Tepe and similar but older nearby archeological sites now uncovered]
Chand Baori, Rajasthan, India [made famous in The Fall (2006 film) awe-inspiring for both in its appearance and construction, built by Islamic mathematicians and engineers in the 10th century to supply water to the Abhaneri village in eastern Rajasthan, with 3,500 steps descending some 64 feet (19.5m) into the earth and is one of the world’s largest and deepest step wells in the world, with symmetrical geometry that is incredible – especially when one considers it was built with simple tools, an ancient site that also features an enclosed rectangular courtyard with windows, a three-storied pavilion, pillar-supported galleries, and sculpture-clad balconies]
Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England, UK [which may seem impressive until one finds out it was assembled 50 years ago with modern equipment, though some might say restored from fallen stones, which can attribute their precise alignment to constant recalibration over the centuries, very suspect]
Pyramids of Giza, Egypt [which, while not as big as the Pyramid of Cholula in Mexico, is the most famous, or close to it; it seems the pyramid with the capstone always gets called the Great Pyramid while a picture of another nearby pyramid is shown]
The Great Bath is one example of IVC
Great Bath, Pakistan [Mohenjo-daro, Indus Valley Civilization (8000 BC-2000 BC) was a time of great design and remarkable engineering, and this is showcased in modern-day Pakistan’s Great Bath (though Pakistan is only a 50-year-old country, formerly a part of NW India, home of the ancient university of Taxila (Takkashila), where the Buddha and Ananda attended in a previous life, with famous stupas and bas relief carvings (archeological sites), plus this rectangular-shaped bath, likely used for special occasions and ceremonies with two wide staircases leading down to it, measuring 38 feet (11.8m) long, 22 feet (7m) wide and up to eight feet (2.43m) deep, built with baked bricks and natural tar material to keep it watertight, with an adjacent well providing water and an established drainage outlet, along with adjoining rooms likely used for changing]
Göbekli Tepe, Turkey [Anatolia]. More

North Asia although it has few trees and is often inundated in snow still manages to have stupas

Buddhas and devas have been on planet so long that, according to Hendon Harris (chinesediscoveramerica.com) this monolith is super-ancient crumbling stupa found in USA.