History and background: Before Buddha was enlighted his family name was Gautama amd his name was Siddhartha, his mother died seven days after giving birth. When Gautama was 29 he had four visions of age, illness, death, and suffering. Later become unsatisfied with life he leaves his wife and his newly born son in quest for solutions for the deep problems of life. He turned to different teachings but he was once again unsatiesfied with what they had to ofter.(Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists) Gautama sat under a bo-tree by a river one day and the temptation to go home came to his mind, but he waited and as the day went on he mind became clearer and all doubts vanished. The whole day passed and by morning of the next day perfect peace came to him, and Gautama became Buddha, the enlighted. (http://www.mindbird.com/buddhism__an_introduction.htm) Southern Buddhism can be known as "Hinayana" meaning lesser vehicle or Theravada, Southern Buddhism got its name because it was primarily located in south Asia around India, Ski Lanka, Cambodia, and Thailand. Southern Buddhist tend to believe that the Buddha was a ordinary man who worked for his own salvation.(http://www.mindbird.com/buddhism__an_introduction.htm) Theravada doctrines speak of Buddha as mortal human who was gifted, so southern Buddhism follows dharma closer believeing Buddha was a man. Dharma was the writings of Buddha. (http://mb-soft.com/believe/txh/theravad.htm)
Relastionship with nature: The bo-tree was given it's name after buddha, it's name means the tree of wisdom. This shows a strong connection between southern buddhism and nature. Buddhists tend to medate around nature, the reason is to get deeper into their medation. Nature is found peaceful to many cultures and people, southern buddhism does find nature peaceful too. Southern Buddhism finds it basic and essentail to use nature to reach enlightenment.
Statues:
The Buddha Statue represents Siddhartha Guatama. He was the creator of the Buddhist faith. There are 4 different categories of Buddhist Statues.
Buddha, the highest ranking of enlightment that usually represents Guatama.
Bodhisative, represents the state in which you are almost at complete enlightment.
Vidyaraja, a group of Mantra Kings.
Deva, Hindu deities who became buddhist.
Most Buddha statues are single fat men. Everything about a Buddha statue has a representation. Buddha's eyes are half closed to represent a meditative and relaxed state of mind. Different gestures of the Buddha mean different things. Buddha has long arms for generosity and long ears for the ability to listen.
Symbols:
Eight spoked wheel, the bodhi tree, and empty throne, a begging bowl, a lion, triple gems, the deer, the stupas, the eight auspicious symbols, and the swastika are some of the many symbols of Southern Buddhism.
The Triple Gems are the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The Dharma represents his teachings and the Sangha represents the monks.
The Deer represents the first teaching of Lord Dharma.
There are 5 stupas... Earth, fire, water, space and air.
The 8 auspicious symbols are the conch shell, the lotus, the wheel, the umbrella, the endless knot, a pair of golden fishes, a banner representing victory and a treasure vase.
Swastika- represents the footprints of Buddha.
The Buddhist flag includes 5 colors that all mean something.
Blue- Love and peace.
Yellow- Emptiness.
Red- Accomplishment, wisdom, fortune, pride.
White- Purity and liberation.
Saffron- Wisdom.
Artforms: The orthodox form of Buddhism, is known as Southern Buddishm. To this day it is still practiced in the same places that it was started: Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Each of these places has different types of art forms. The Sri Lanka is known for its creations of Buddhist sculptures made of stone and and cast in Bronze alloy. In the neighboring country of Myanmar, it was strongly influenced by Indian Art of the Gupta and post-Gupta periods. Thailand was influenced by direct contact Indian traders and people expanding from the Mon empire. Again the Thailand was was inspired by the Gupta period as well.
Architecture: Very similar to the Artforms of Southern Buddhism, they based a majority of their architecture on Indian style. They had direct contact with the Indian traders, causing their style to be very similar to those of the Indians. This can be traced back to B.C. 255. Indian art and architecture was influenced by Asoka after he made a large extent through Asia and India. The stupa was the first main architecture created during this large extent. He created stone pillars sybolizing his creed. The most famous of these is at Sarnath. After Asoka died, his work was regained and recreated, doubling its size and adding a gate to it, created by the Sungas.(http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Culture/Archit/BudhArch.html)
Deities: In Buddhism The dieties help the practicioner partake in something, usually this can help meditation and many other things. These help focus, concentration, and meditation in Buddhism, In this case these are called yidams. Dieties also may function as a protector of dharma or an entire class of meaning or being. Dietie is originally a synonym for god but budhist do not refer to them as gods. Thier are many gods from the hindu religion that show up in buddhism, they are usually poytrayed in an act of humilation.
Holidays and Custom: Buddhist Birthday Celebration: This is the biggest celebration in buddhism history, it falls on the 8th day in the fourth month on the lunar calendar. After morning meditation everyone in the service has the oppurtunity to bath the baby buddha while chanting Shakamuni. This signifies honoring all children in the future of buddhism. This celebration ends with the lotus lantern lighting and chanting service. this is an old traditional buddhist customs. this is showing for their renewal to enlighten themselves, or to gain spirtual being, Buddha's Enlightenment Day: this celebrates the three days that Gautama sat under the bodhi tree in india and gained enlightenment, after the third day of unbroked sitting he opened his eyes and saw the world. He attained enlightenment, and began to teach other about his findings. thus this made him become the buddha. This sitting celebrates quietness and calmness. Buddhas Parinirvana's Day: This is the day dedicated to buddhas passing into the perfect nirvana. This is represented by the second full moon day. this day usually falls in March. Ullambana Day: This is the Buddhist holiday for the deceased, This day is to pray for the peace and happiness for all that came before us. Its the eighth full moon day of the lunar calendar. This also is simultaneous with The end of summer 3 month rain retreat.
General Rules: No Killing of any sentient being, nor the use of any animal products. oddly the dietary of all buddhist variations contain meat.
- Alcohol or any other intoxicants are forbidden because it might go against any moral teachings of the buddhism religions. Also intoxicants cloud the mind and may interfer with meditation or clear thinking.
- Onions, Garlic, Scallions, Chives, and Leeks are all forbidden. They are believed too power feelings of anger and passion in the mind. thier odors are believed to repel gods and attract hungry demons and ghosts.
Bibliographies:
Buddhist Holidays." Welcome to the Zen Buddhist Temples in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Toronto, New York City, and Mexico City. 자혜불교회 선련사. Buddha Customs and Holidays Association. Web. 28 Mar. 2011. http://www.zenbuddhisttemple.org/holidays.html.
Annotated Bibliographies:
"Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists" by Ananda Coommaraswamy and Sister Nivedita
The Myths of the Hindus and Buddhist is a helpful book it gives a background history of Buddha like his family, dates, and his overall story. The book has a table of contents and Buddha starts to be talked about on page 245. The book breaks down what Buddha went through to create buddhisum, also it gives the teachings of Buddha. I found the poems in the book very helpful.
The problem with this book is it's very indepth infomation that you need to pick and choose throught. It almost better to have backgroung knowlegde before reading this book. This book overall shouldn't be read unless you understand buddhism and are just looking for very indeph stories. This book has very little to offer for a first time learner, and i found myself not understanding it and just being lost.
The Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists was helpful for this website because it provided me with buddhism lititutre along with history and background of buddha's life and how he became enlighted. The problem was it didn't give any infomation on just southern buddhism or the doctrines. Overall, it's a hard read not for a first time learner.
"Introduction to buddhism" http://www.mindbird.com/maps_of_buddhism.htm
This website breaks down the different types of buddhisms, and talks abouts the differences between them, also locations that go with the different buddhisms. This website is a simple read and a simple website to move through and it has links to books that relate to a topic of your choice. If you know very little about buddhism his is the website you want to read over before going on to more complex websites.
I would evaluate this source with a very high grade, it was made to ease people into understanding buddhism and by doing that it answered many of my questions. It does focus on the history and background of the different buddhisms, so it is not a one stop shop for everything buddha. But the website is a great source to use.
I used the website's infomation all over this web page, by finding out infomation about different buddhisms i could add facts that people wouldn't know or understand. Since the website is a easy read, you can put all the infomation in your own words which is helpful. Overall, if you need southern buddhism infomation this is a great website.
This website pretty much overlooks and analyzes everything about the famous Buddha Statue. It gives meanings, functions, different outforms of the Buddha Statues, etc. It gives the different types of Buddha statues and does not focus on any other statues. It gives related ads, articles and videos.
The source actually gave me a ton of knowledge. I didn't know anything about the Buddha Statue before. I thought that the Buddha Statue was supposed to represent the founder of Buddhism, which it does, but it also has different meanings to every statue. It represents different states of mind, as if each statues represents the highest to lowest rankings of enlightenment.
This source will help students become more educated on the topic. Not many people know that most Buddha Statues are different. Each statue has different gestures that seperates them from each other. Most Buddha statues are represented by a peaceful state of mind, but in different ways.
Buddhists, Hindus, and Skihs in America by:Gurinder Singh Mann, Paul David Numrich, and Raymond B. Williams
This book has 3 main parts to it. The first 3 chapters are about the topic of Buddhism. It is in great depth of how buddhism came to america, and how the founder of buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, came to find what he called "Nirvana". It compares Buddhism to the other religions in the world, and it talks about different people, in the United states and all over the world, became very interested in Buddhism. It also talks about the different ways that it adapted over the years and explored new places, and ideas throughout history.
This book is very informative and is a great book when you need something small to start out with in buddhism. The only thing that was unfortunate was that it did not talk a lot about Southern Buddhism. It talks about Buddhism as a whole and not so much about the specific types of Buddhism.
This book did a lot for me and was a very good source I believe for Buddhism. It helped me learn about who discovered it and what he did to get it started. It also helped me learn about how it started to become bigger and bigger and work its way through out the world, eventually landing in the United States. There in the states it competed with Christianity, Hinduism, and many other religions. This gave me a lot of different dates also helping me understand when things were going on and how long ago it actually started. Buddhism started around 500 B.C.E. and has been rolling ever since.
This website tells all about the types of art forms that are in Buddhism. It talks about Buddhism in India, along with the history of India, the history of buddhism art outside of india, and then finally it talks about our topic of Southern buddhism art forms. the art forms it talks about are spread throughout many different places where southern buddhism started Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Each place has a different output but they all go back and reference to the same similar beliefs from the Indians.
This source is very valuable, and has a lot of good information and details on a lot of different things. It talks a lot about how many of the art forms started, and where they got their beliefs from. Dates are a key thing when it comes to past moments in history, and they do a really good job in here saying the dates and referring to how long ago certain time periods were. It also gives good information as to where and which empires took control of many of these places and how these empires brought their beliefs into it.
This source applies to the usefulness of my part of the project because it killed two birds with one stone. The architecture and the art forms are very similar, because the art forms were just mere statues. They were statues of people who each of the empires believed in, and or possible ones of their leader themselves. It would also guide me through the different eras and when each of the empires brought their ideas from India to different places about Southern Buddhism. Each empire had a central belief which they demonstrated a different way. And this website shows that and shows each empires creativity.
Buddhist Dietary Customs. CloveGarden. Southern East Spiritual Teachings. Web. 28 Mar. 2011. <http://clovegarden.com/diet/buddha.html>.
This is a great website to find out about the diet of people who practice buddhisms. I found alot of valuable information and it seems to be accurate. Also The website was easy to navigate and find more information. All the information on this was about customs and diet of monks and buddhist followers. I now know more about the life of monks. It also had very good sectional organization. Overall this website was very useful and helped me create this website. This also showed me how peaceful and how much concentration goes into practicing buddhism. I reccomend this website to anybody looking for buddhist information.
Southern Buddhism
History and background: Before Buddha was enlighted his family name was Gautama amd his name was Siddhartha, his mother died seven days after giving birth. When Gautama was 29 he had four visions of age, illness, death, and suffering. Later become unsatisfied with life he leaves his wife and his newly born son in quest for solutions for the deep problems of life. He turned to different teachings but he was once again unsatiesfied with what they had to ofter.(Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists) Gautama sat under a bo-tree by a river one day and the temptation to go home came to his mind, but he waited and as the day went on he mind became clearer and all doubts vanished. The whole day passed and by morning of the next day perfect peace came to him, and Gautama became Buddha, the enlighted. (http://www.mindbird.com/buddhism__an_introduction.htm) Southern Buddhism can be known as "Hinayana" meaning lesser vehicle or Theravada, Southern Buddhism got its name because it was primarily located in south Asia around India, Ski Lanka, Cambodia, and Thailand. Southern Buddhist tend to believe that the Buddha was a ordinary man who worked for his own salvation.(http://www.mindbird.com/buddhism__an_introduction.htm) Theravada doctrines speak of Buddha as mortal human who was gifted, so southern Buddhism follows dharma closer believeing Buddha was a man. Dharma was the writings of Buddha. (http://mb-soft.com/believe/txh/theravad.htm)
Relastionship with nature: The bo-tree was given it's name after buddha, it's name means the tree of wisdom. This shows a strong connection between southern buddhism and nature. Buddhists tend to medate around nature, the reason is to get deeper into their medation. Nature is found peaceful to many cultures and people, southern buddhism does find nature peaceful too. Southern Buddhism finds it basic and essentail to use nature to reach enlightenment.
(http://www.mindbird.com/buddhism__an_introduction.htm)To cease from all sin,
To get virtue,
To cleanse one's own heart-
This is the religion of the Buddhas.
(Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists)
-This quota by Buddha questions a lot of ideas that people do on a everyday basis http://www.charlesdittell.com/images/buddha2.jpg
Statues:
The Buddha Statue represents Siddhartha Guatama. He was the creator of the Buddhist faith. There are 4 different categories of Buddhist Statues.
- Buddha, the highest ranking of enlightment that usually represents Guatama.
- Bodhisative, represents the state in which you are almost at complete enlightment.
- Vidyaraja, a group of Mantra Kings.
- Deva, Hindu deities who became buddhist.
Most Buddha statues are single fat men. Everything about a Buddha statue has a representation. Buddha's eyes are half closed to represent a meditative and relaxed state of mind. Different gestures of the Buddha mean different things. Buddha has long arms for generosity and long ears for the ability to listen.Symbols:
Eight spoked wheel, the bodhi tree, and empty throne, a begging bowl, a lion, triple gems, the deer, the stupas, the eight auspicious symbols, and the swastika are some of the many symbols of Southern Buddhism.
- The Triple Gems are the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The Dharma represents his teachings and the Sangha represents the monks.
- The Deer represents the first teaching of Lord Dharma.
- There are 5 stupas... Earth, fire, water, space and air.
- The 8 auspicious symbols are the conch shell, the lotus, the wheel, the umbrella, the endless knot, a pair of golden fishes, a banner representing victory and a treasure vase.
- Swastika- represents the footprints of Buddha.
The Buddhist flag includes 5 colors that all mean something.Artforms: The orthodox form of Buddhism, is known as Southern Buddishm. To this day it is still practiced in the same places that it was started: Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Each of these places has different types of art forms. The Sri Lanka is known for its creations of Buddhist sculptures made of stone and and cast in Bronze alloy. In the neighboring country of Myanmar, it was strongly influenced by Indian Art of the Gupta and post-Gupta periods. Thailand was influenced by direct contact Indian traders and people expanding from the Mon empire. Again the Thailand was was inspired by the Gupta period as well.
Architecture: Very similar to the Artforms of Southern Buddhism, they based a majority of their architecture on Indian style. They had direct contact with the Indian traders, causing their style to be very similar to those of the Indians. This can be traced back to B.C. 255. Indian art and architecture was influenced by Asoka after he made a large extent through Asia and India. The stupa was the first main architecture created during this large extent. He created stone pillars sybolizing his creed. The most famous of these is at Sarnath. After Asoka died, his work was regained and recreated, doubling its size and adding a gate to it, created by the Sungas.(http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Culture/Archit/BudhArch.html)
Architecture
(http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Buddhist_Art#Southern_Buddhist_art) (Artforms and Architecture)
Deities: In Buddhism The dieties help the practicioner partake in something, usually this can help meditation and many other things. These help focus, concentration, and meditation in Buddhism, In this case these are called yidams. Dieties also may function as a protector of dharma or an entire class of meaning or being. Dietie is originally a synonym for god but budhist do not refer to them as gods. Thier are many gods from the hindu religion that show up in buddhism, they are usually poytrayed in an act of humilation.
Holidays and Custom:
Buddhist Birthday Celebration: This is the biggest celebration in buddhism history, it falls on the 8th day in the fourth month on the lunar calendar. After morning meditation everyone in the service has the oppurtunity to bath the baby buddha while chanting Shakamuni. This signifies honoring all children in the future of buddhism. This celebration ends with the lotus lantern lighting and chanting service. this is an old traditional buddhist customs. this is showing for their renewal to enlighten themselves, or to gain spirtual being,
Buddha's Enlightenment Day: this celebrates the three days that Gautama sat under the bodhi tree in india and gained enlightenment, after the third day of unbroked sitting he opened his eyes and saw the world. He attained enlightenment, and began to teach other about his findings. thus this made him become the buddha. This sitting celebrates quietness and calmness.
Buddhas Parinirvana's Day: This is the day dedicated to buddhas passing into the perfect nirvana. This is represented by the second full moon day. this day usually falls in March.
Ullambana Day: This is the Buddhist holiday for the deceased, This day is to pray for the peace and happiness for all that came before us. Its the eighth full moon day of the lunar calendar. This also is simultaneous with The end of summer 3 month rain retreat.
General Rules: No Killing of any sentient being, nor the use of any animal products. oddly the dietary of all buddhist variations contain meat.
- Alcohol or any other intoxicants are forbidden because it might go against any moral teachings of the buddhism religions. Also intoxicants cloud the mind and may interfer with meditation or clear thinking.
- Onions, Garlic, Scallions, Chives, and Leeks are all forbidden. They are believed too power feelings of anger and passion in the mind. thier odors are believed to repel gods and attract hungry demons and ghosts.
Bibliographies:
Buddhist Holidays." Welcome to the Zen Buddhist Temples in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Toronto, New York City, and Mexico City. 자혜불교회 선련사. Buddha Customs and Holidays Association. Web. 28 Mar. 2011. http://www.zenbuddhisttemple.org/holidays.html.
"Buddhism: An Introduction." Mindbird Maps & Books: Exploring the World Around & Within. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. http://www.mindbird.com/buddhism__an_introduction.htm.
Nivedita, and Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy. Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists. Dehli: Low Price Publications, 1997. Print.
"Theravada Buddhism." Public Services - Social, Religious, Scientific, Products, Environment. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. http://mb-soft.com/believe/txh/theravad.htm.
Erickson, Jacki. "About Buddha Statues | EHow.com." EHow | How To Do Just About Everything! | How To Videos & Articles | EHow.com. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. <http://www.ehow.com/about_5086942_buddha-statues.html>.
Annotated Bibliographies:
"Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists" by Ananda Coommaraswamy and Sister Nivedita
The Myths of the Hindus and Buddhist is a helpful book it gives a background history of Buddha like his family, dates, and his overall story. The book has a table of contents and Buddha starts to be talked about on page 245. The book breaks down what Buddha went through to create buddhisum, also it gives the teachings of Buddha. I found the poems in the book very helpful.
The problem with this book is it's very indepth infomation that you need to pick and choose throught. It almost better to have backgroung knowlegde before reading this book. This book overall shouldn't be read unless you understand buddhism and are just looking for very indeph stories. This book has very little to offer for a first time learner, and i found myself not understanding it and just being lost.
The Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists was helpful for this website because it provided me with buddhism lititutre along with history and background of buddha's life and how he became enlighted. The problem was it didn't give any infomation on just southern buddhism or the doctrines. Overall, it's a hard read not for a first time learner.
"Introduction to buddhism" http://www.mindbird.com/maps_of_buddhism.htm
This website breaks down the different types of buddhisms, and talks abouts the differences between them, also locations that go with the different buddhisms. This website is a simple read and a simple website to move through and it has links to books that relate to a topic of your choice. If you know very little about buddhism his is the website you want to read over before going on to more complex websites.
I would evaluate this source with a very high grade, it was made to ease people into understanding buddhism and by doing that it answered many of my questions. It does focus on the history and background of the different buddhisms, so it is not a one stop shop for everything buddha. But the website is a great source to use.
I used the website's infomation all over this web page, by finding out infomation about different buddhisms i could add facts that people wouldn't know or understand. Since the website is a easy read, you can put all the infomation in your own words which is helpful. Overall, if you need southern buddhism infomation this is a great website.
This website pretty much overlooks and analyzes everything about the famous Buddha Statue. It gives meanings, functions, different outforms of the Buddha Statues, etc. It gives the different types of Buddha statues and does not focus on any other statues. It gives related ads, articles and videos.
The source actually gave me a ton of knowledge. I didn't know anything about the Buddha Statue before. I thought that the Buddha Statue was supposed to represent the founder of Buddhism, which it does, but it also has different meanings to every statue. It represents different states of mind, as if each statues represents the highest to lowest rankings of enlightenment.
This source will help students become more educated on the topic. Not many people know that most Buddha Statues are different. Each statue has different gestures that seperates them from each other. Most Buddha statues are represented by a peaceful state of mind, but in different ways.
Buddhists, Hindus, and Skihs in America by:Gurinder Singh Mann, Paul David Numrich, and Raymond B. Williams
This book has 3 main parts to it. The first 3 chapters are about the topic of Buddhism. It is in great depth of how buddhism came to america, and how the founder of buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, came to find what he called "Nirvana". It compares Buddhism to the other religions in the world, and it talks about different people, in the United states and all over the world, became very interested in Buddhism. It also talks about the different ways that it adapted over the years and explored new places, and ideas throughout history.
This book is very informative and is a great book when you need something small to start out with in buddhism. The only thing that was unfortunate was that it did not talk a lot about Southern Buddhism. It talks about Buddhism as a whole and not so much about the specific types of Buddhism.
This book did a lot for me and was a very good source I believe for Buddhism. It helped me learn about who discovered it and what he did to get it started. It also helped me learn about how it started to become bigger and bigger and work its way through out the world, eventually landing in the United States. There in the states it competed with Christianity, Hinduism, and many other religions. This gave me a lot of different dates also helping me understand when things were going on and how long ago it actually started. Buddhism started around 500 B.C.E. and has been rolling ever since.
"Buddhism Art" http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Buddhist_Art#Southern_Buddhist_art
This website tells all about the types of art forms that are in Buddhism. It talks about Buddhism in India, along with the history of India, the history of buddhism art outside of india, and then finally it talks about our topic of Southern buddhism art forms. the art forms it talks about are spread throughout many different places where southern buddhism started Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Each place has a different output but they all go back and reference to the same similar beliefs from the Indians.
This source is very valuable, and has a lot of good information and details on a lot of different things. It talks a lot about how many of the art forms started, and where they got their beliefs from. Dates are a key thing when it comes to past moments in history, and they do a really good job in here saying the dates and referring to how long ago certain time periods were. It also gives good information as to where and which empires took control of many of these places and how these empires brought their beliefs into it.
This source applies to the usefulness of my part of the project because it killed two birds with one stone. The architecture and the art forms are very similar, because the art forms were just mere statues. They were statues of people who each of the empires believed in, and or possible ones of their leader themselves. It would also guide me through the different eras and when each of the empires brought their ideas from India to different places about Southern Buddhism. Each empire had a central belief which they demonstrated a different way. And this website shows that and shows each empires creativity.
Buddhist Dietary Customs. CloveGarden. Southern East Spiritual Teachings. Web. 28 Mar. 2011. <http://clovegarden.com/diet/buddha.html>.
This is a great website to find out about the diet of people who practice buddhisms. I found alot of valuable information and it seems to be accurate. Also The website was easy to navigate and find more information. All the information on this was about customs and diet of monks and buddhist followers. I now know more about the life of monks. It also had very good sectional organization. Overall this website was very useful and helped me create this website. This also showed me how peaceful and how much concentration goes into practicing buddhism. I reccomend this website to anybody looking for buddhist information.