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Discovering BuddhismThe earliest and most important British witness to discovering Buddhism is B. H. Hodgson, who in 1821 was appointed by the East India Company Political Resident in Nepal. Continued From << Buddhist Aims, Philosophical and Religious Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 Feb 1800 – 23 May 1894) was an early naturalist and ethnologist working in British India and Nepal where he was an English civil servant with the East India Company. Hodgson soon heard that a number of books, supposed to contain the canonical laws of the Buddha, were piously preserved in the Buddhist monasteries of that country. The books were written in Sanskrit. Hodgson succeeded in obtaining a list of them through an old Buddhist priest of Pathan with whom he was acquainted, and by degrees he collected the books themselves. He found it easier to obtain them translated into the Tibetan language; for books are as plentiful in Tibet as in our own country, multiplied as they are by printing on wood, a process brought to Tibet by the Chinese, and which is now in general use there. The Sanskrit volumes, copies of which were handed over to Hodgson, had been, such was the tradition, imported into Ne paul in the second century of the Christian era, and were only understood by the priests. They had been brought from Magadha, the opposite side of the Ganges; and five or six centuries later, had passed from Nepal into Tibet, where they were translated at the time Tibet adopted the Buddhist faith. B. H. Hodgson was able to announce this great discovery to the learned societies in 1824 and 1825. But he did more than this: he offered the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal sixty Buddhist volumes in Sanskrit and two hundred and fifty in Tibetan. A few years later, he displayed the same liberality towards the Royal Asiatic Society of London and the Asiatic Society of Paris. He either gave them the manuscripts and printed matter he had collected, or had transcriptions made for them of the writings they desired. Thanks to him the Asiatic Society of Paris became the possessor-of eighty-eight Buddhist works in Sanskrit, which it would have been unable to procure had it not been for the generosity and kindly energy of the English Resident at Katmandu \ These labours and discoveries deserve the highest praise, and the name of B. H. Hodgson ought always to be remembered with gratitude. It is to him we owe the original Sanskrit writings, which have since been consulted and translated by illustrious philologists, and it is he who first discovered the existence of the Tibetan translations. Next >> Leaving The Royal Palace Discovering Buddhism Text adapted from 'The Buddha and His Religion' |
 The Buddhist Flag 
Buddhist Flag Meanings The Dharma Wheel 
In Buddhism-according to the Pali Canon, Vinayapitaka, Khandhaka,
Mahavagga, the number of spokes of the Dharmachakra represent
various meanings: Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo is a Japanese Buddhist
chant based upon the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren Daishonin (Feb 16, 1222 – Oct
13, 1282) a Buddhist monk who lived during the Kamakura period (1185–1333)
in Japan. Nichiren taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra, entitled Myōhō-Renge-Kyō in
Japanese, as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment and the chanting of
Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō as the essential practice of the teaching.
Various schools with diverging interpretations of Nichiren's teachings comprise
Nichiren Buddhism.  Thailand Travel Guide  |