Ask people to name the world's oldest printed book and the common reply is Gutenberg's Bible. Few venture that the answer is a revered Buddhist text called the Diamond Sutra, printed in 868 A.D. Or that by the time Gutenberg got ink on his fingers nearly 600 years later -- and his revolutionary technology helped usher in the Enlightenment -- this copy of the Diamond Sutra had been hidden for several centuries in a sacred cave on the edge of the Gobi Desert and would remain there for several more.
Its discovery is the result of a series of accidents and its significance realized belatedly. The book unwittingly came to light when a Chinese monk clearing sand from a Buddhist meditation cave in 1900 noticed a crack in a wall. It suggested the outline of a doorway. Plastered over and painted, the entrance had been deliberately concealed.
The monk, Abbot Wang Yuanlu, broke in and discovered a small chamber, about nine feet square and full from floor to ceiling with scrolls. They had been hidden and perfectly preserved in the dark, dry grotto for 1,000 years. Although he didn't know it, among the nearly 60,000 scrolls was the Diamond Sutra of 868 A.D., a woodblock printed scroll, more than 16 feet long, complete and dated, with an instruction that it be given away for free.
Ironically, this enduring scroll, with its illustrated frontispiece depicting the Buddha teaching his disciples, is about impermanence. The Diamond Sutra, for centuries a revered and popular scripture, distils Buddhism's central belief: that all is change.
Unable to interest authorities in his find, Abbot Wang was ordered to seal the chamber. But rumor of the discovery had reached the nearby oasis when Hungarian-British explorer Aurel Stein arrived in 1907.
Stein had heard of the Caves of Thousand Buddhas, a network of 500 sacred painted caves hand-carved into a cliff just outside Dunhuang in remote Gansu province. They were a reason he embarked on a dangerous and secret expedition that saw him travel overland from India, through Pakistan and Afghanistan and into western China.
He wanted to follow the route by which Buddhism migrated from its birthplace in the Himalayan foothills and into China. It traveled along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route that conveyed not just goods but ideas. And none was more influential than Buddhism.
Stein wanted to follow the footsteps of his "patron saint," a seventh-century Buddhist monk named Xuanzang, who made an epic journey from China to India and back in search of Buddhist scrolls. Over centuries, his exploits have morphed into myth, including in the cult television series "Monkey." But Xuanzang penned a true account of his journey, one scholars still consult, and which Stein carried in his saddle bags.
When he went in search of the caves' guardian, Stein learned that Wang too revered the ancient Chinese pilgrim. Nonetheless, the abbot was reluctant to open the cave to Stein. But he did allow Stein a furtive look at a few scrolls overnight. Stein's Chinese translator realized that some were versions of Buddhist texts translated by the scholar-pilgrim Xuanzang.
It was an astonishing -- and convenient -- coincidence. Surely from beyond the grave Xuanzang wanted the cave opened to a disciple from distant India? Stein dropped the "quasi divine hint." Within hours, Stein stood within the cave in astonishment. "Heaped up in layers, but without any order, there appeared in the dim light of the priest's little lamp a solid mass of manuscript bundles rising to a height of nearly ten feet," he later wrote.
Most of the scrolls were Chinese Buddhists texts, but there were also Tibetan Buddhist documents. Others were Nestorian and Manichaean texts, and there was even a fragment in Hebrew. The range of documents suggest that this Silk Road oasis was once a great cultural and religious crossroads.
Stein had little idea of what was in the 5,000 scrolls he bought from Wang for £130. He had no time to examine the documents properly, nor did he understand Chinese. And Stein's Chinese translator knew little about Buddhism. The fact that the Diamond Sutra was somewhere among the many bundles was simply an accident.
Stein, born 150 years ago this year, took the Diamond Sutra and the other scrolls to India and on to London, where they are now in the British Library. But the significance of the Diamond Sutra of 868 A.D. took years to sink in. When the usually meticulous Stein first referred to it in his book about his expedition, published 1911, he recorded its date wrong. Stein's great rival, Frenchman Paul Pelliot, appears to have spotted its significance when he studied the scroll a few years later. The Diamond Sutra was displayed in the British Library at one stage near a Gutenberg Bible -- with the latter labeled as the world's earliest printed book.
The Diamond Sutra, now recognized as one of the world's great literary jewels, has recently undergone conservation. Too fragile to go on permanent display, it can be viewed online in greater detail than peering through a dark display case would allow. And there it can be viewed for free -- just as initially intended.
4 Secrets of the Diamond Sutra
Derek Beres: The Mythology of Burning Man
Diamond Sutra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Buddha's diamond book is oldest print, the oldest literary record of human civilization on the earth is Vedas. The Vedas explore the scientific facts of the creation that the creation came into the existence with action and interactions, where every thing is changing, under temperature pressure gradient of the six seasons in cyclic manner.
The life on the earth is just like bubble, which appears with birth and disappears with death. Our solar system is a small part of unfathomed cosmos. The same is the indestructible creator of the creation. It has been explored in the Book.
1. Quest of Creation Higgs; God particle & Vedas ISBN 978-3-659-22041-8 9
2. Indus_Vedic Genetics Indus Vedic Civilization ISBN 978—659-22809-4
Published by Lap Lambert Academic Publishing Germany, Author Chandra Prakash Trivedi
The Vedas are at least 18000 years old prior to the ice age on the earth'
The Buddha's concepts are inspired by the Vedic Science, Indus Vedic Genetics explore it.
Look, I don't normally hassle Buddhists. But this claim is ridiculous, and I don't tolerate that.
Wikipedia cites sources dating the oldest Vedas to ca. 1200 to 1500 BC; perhaps 3,500 years ago, not 18,000. They couldn't have been written before 1800 BC because their language, Vedic Sanskrit, didn't EXIST yet.
"The Vedas explore the scientific facts of the creation"
Well, so does the Bible. And like the Bible, I'm sure the Vedas say some things that align fairly well with modern science. But this is just luck; hindsight lets you cherry-pick the claims that match reality while ignoring the ones that don't.
If the Vedas really do contain scientific knowledge and not just lucky guesses, they should be predictive. You should be able to find a Vedic explanation for some phenomenon science has not yet explained and *predict* what science will eventually conclude.
Example: it's claimed that the Vedas describe scientific evolution (because the avatars appeared in the same order as we think life evolved, from fish to reptiles to mammals). But if that's true, why didn't Buddhists publish "On the Origin of Species" a thousand years before Darwin came up with it?
p.s. On the lighter side, there aren't six seasons, There are four, as Vivaldi documented. :-)
"No bodhisattva who is a real bodhisattva cherishes the idea of an ego entity, a personality, or a seperate individuality".
But as far as the oldest book goes.....I believe the I Ching is considered to be almost five thousand years old.
Isn't it sweet the way people over estimate the age of religious texts? Not as bad as Chandraprakash, but still...
That's not a very accurate translation of the Sūtra by the way. I hope it's not a quote.
a few pages into the book is a huge black and white image of the title page wood block picture...
My local copy shop sez with a little cleaning up, an excellent 20 x 30 inch art project is just waiting
to be started= sort of a paint by number oriental coloring of a Pure Land Buddha block print...
the actual book is a San Francisco translation to English of the original Chinese book with a few Sanskrit common words thrown in where they did not translate well, 260 pages of text...
Compared to the TV Pauli cannon's Dhammapada of 1370 pages of text, it has similar covering of the teachings of Buddha, it assumes you have a teacher to help if you get lost, or are in a study group...
There are many AH-HA moments, and that is a good thing... IMHO.
The Waste Land Aim of Life ISBN 978-3-659-24321
Vedic Geeta ‘The Secret of Eternal Life ISBN 978-3-659-20814-0
8. Quest of Creation Higgs; God particle & Vedas ISBN 978-3-659-22041-8
9. Indus_Vedic Genetics ISBN 978—659-22809-4
God, or the Source of All, from time immemorial has revealed Himself/Itself to all beings in accordance to their natural capacities. No kingdom of life or human culture has been "forgotten," or left out of the process of this progressive revelation of love and truth.
1: the service and worship of God or the supernatural
2: commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
3: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
4: archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
5: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
Within above definitions, Buddhism can be called a religion. Often however, "service and worship of God" is mentioned, and Buddhism does not include belief in a creator-God.
Buddhism can be called a philosophy in a practical sense of the word. However, the Buddha repeatedly emphasized that his teachings were not intended as a doctrine, but should be considered as guidelines along the path of spiritual development, based on his own experience.
One could even call Buddhism a system of psychology as well. The main object of interest in Buddhism is how we can observe, analyses and change our own mind. Therefore, Buddhism is philosophy, religion, psychology, or science.
You are right about the Muslim Taliban Terrorist they will wipe out Buddhism in Pakistan by forces and oppression.
http://idp.bl.uk/database/oo_scroll_h.a4d?uid=-14229190876;recnum=18824;index=1
http://idp.bl.uk/database/oo_loader.a4d?pm=Or.8210/P.2
Buddhism is a great religion with appealing philosophy on life. As Christian, I believe Buddhism can easily coexist and complimentary to Christianity.
The formless creator God is principle of creation and life, there is no separate God or Soul, The Creator God has nothing to do with your actions or deeds in life. Buddha has enlightened himself, and we have to enlightened ourselves. A individual has to face consequences of his deeds at its own under the cycle of rebirth and death. Our immortal words and actions are our identity, and immortal DNA is the instrument for rebirth. Which is universally present in the living-beings. Hence Buddha has denied the separate existence of God or Soul.
And we believe in the concept of rebirth, that is multiple lifetimes.