Myanmar, once known as Burma, has a unique culture that has fascinated outsiders for many years. It also has a long tradition of Buddhism , which is in part a legacy of the Pyu City-States. Maingmaw...
Myanmar, once known as Burma, is a Southeast Asian nation that is increasingly popular with foreign travelers due to its incredible history and traditions . The once important city-state of Binnaka...
India is a religiously diverse nation and has many important archaeological sites associated with Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Islam, to mention a few. When Buddhism was founded more than 2,500...
The Cintamani Stone, or Chintamani, long sought by treasure hunters, has captured the imagination of man through the ages as tales of this wish-fulfilling jewel have spread around the world. The...
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva, in its most general sense, refers to a person who is on his/her way to becoming a buddha. More specifically, bodhisattvas are savior-like beings who forsake their own...
Srivijaya (often referred to as the Srivijaya Empire ) was a thalassocracy (meaning a maritime /sea-based state) that flourished between the 7th and 13th centuries AD. This state was based on the...
Archaeologists in Kyoto , Japan believe that they have found the remains of an ancient pagoda. This five-story pagoda has been lost for centuries and it dates to the Heian period (794-1185). This...
In India, archaeologists and historians have been shocked by the sudden collapse of a restored 2200-year-old Buddhist stupa at a monastery in India. The monument half-collapsed after a prolonged...
Bhutan is a Himalayan kingdom with a rich history and a distinctive Buddhist culture . It has barely been impacted by modernity and globalization, and has managed to largely preserve its ancient...
The White Lotus Society / Sect (written in Chinese as 白莲教, and Romanized as ‘Bai Lian Jiao’) was a millenarian movement that existed in imperial China. As a religious movement, the teachings of the...
The oldest Buddhist scrolls ever discovered were made on birch bark and spent two millennia folded in clay pots, in a cave, situated along the northern border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and now...
The Tengu ( 天狗 ) are possibly the most recognizable of all the Japanese yokai , with their enormous black wings and faces of either a large crow or a red-faced, long-nosed, goblin . They are often...
Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha or “Enlightened One,” is probably one of the most influential individuals to come out of India through the incidental founding of Buddhism . Siddhartha...
Potala Palace, the iconic heart of Tibetan Buddhism, is the highest palace in the world. It once served as the winter palace of the Dalai Lama and was the Tibetan seat of government. The palace is...
Gandhara was an ancient kingdom located in what is the region that is today northwestern Pakistan and northeastern Afghanistan. The history Gandhara can be traced all the way back to the Vedic period...
Somapura Mahavihara is an 8th century Buddhist monastery and an important archaeological site located in Paharpur, Bangladesh. It is one of the five great mahaviharas, (meaning great vihara or large...
Any parent must agree that one of the greatest hardships experienced around the death of a family member is having to explain to children what happened and what happens next? Should you tell them the...
A ritual based religion, Shintoism is defined as "the way of the gods" in Japan, from the Chinese Shendao. It is the indigenous religion of the country, and survives today as the state religion,...
The Flaming Mountains of Turpan (also known as Turfan ) are located in the Tian Shan Mountain range in China’s Xinjiang province. These mountains lie to the east of the city of Turpan, which is...
A study on a Chinese Buddha statue carried out in the Netherlands revealed a startling discovery - the statue contains the mummified remains of a Buddhist monk. Irish Archaeology reports that the...
In January 2015 it was announced that the remains of a Buddhist monk in a meditative position, estimated to be around 200 years old, were discovered in Mongolia. The monk was found to be in a seated...
According to the Japanese State Broadcaster NHK, experts have made an astonishing discovery in a Buddhist statuette in Japan. Investigators, from the Nara National University examined the statuette...
Ninjas or shinobi ("to sneak”) have become kings of popular culture and their acrobatic trained-killer antics have been featured in hundreds of movies and television series. These deadly mercenary...
In what could be an enormously significant finding for Buddhists around the world, archaeologists in China have unearthed an ancient ceramic box containing cremated human remains, which carries an...
