United States or Portugal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
These nine works are all extant in Sanskrit and are known in Nepal as the nine Dharmas, the word Dharma being an abbreviation for Dharmaparyâya, revolution or exposition of the law, a term frequently used in the works themselves to describe a comprehensive discourse delivered by the Buddha.
Besides making so powerful a conquest at the southern capital, this sect was the one which centuries afterward built the first Buddhist temple in Yedo. Being ordinary human mortals, however, both monk and layman occasionally illustrated the difference between profession and practice. Dai-ryo Takashi of the Shin-gon sect, is the school which studies the nature of Dharmas or things.
In Nepal the nine Dharmas receive superstitious homage rather than intelligent study, but in Tibet and the Far East the Prajñâ-pâramitâ, the Lotus and the sutras about Amitâbha are in daily use for public worship and private reading.
There, O Mudgala, are established separately myriads of beautiful, shining, and resplendent worlds bestowing every object of desire, owned by those celestial beings, the gods, the Sadhyas, and the Vaiswas, the great sages, Yamas, and the Dharmas, and the Gandharvas and the Apsaras. And there is that monarch of mountains the golden Meru extending over a space of thirty-three thousand Yojanas.
And many of the foremost of celestials and Gandharvas, headed by Narada and many celestial Rishis and Siddhas headed by Brihaspati, and the fathers of the universe, those foremost ones, they that are regarded as gods of the gods, and the Yamas and the Dharmas, all went there.
Besides the nine Dharmas, numerous other sûtras exist in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan and the languages of Central Asia. Few have been edited or translated and even when something is known of their character detailed information as to their contents is usually wanting. Among the better known are the following.
These latter are "conscious cessation of existence," "unconscious cessation of existence," and "space." The Reverend Shuzan Emura, of the Shin-shu sect of Japan, after specifying these seventy-five Dharmas, or things compounded and things immaterial, says: "The former include all things that proceed from a cause.
There, O Mudgala, are established separately myriads of beautiful, shining, and resplendent worlds bestowing every object of desire, owned by those celestial beings, the gods, the Sadhyas, and the Vaiswas, the great sages, Yamas, and the Dharmas, and the Gandharvas and the Apsaras. And there is that monarch of mountains the golden Meru extending over a space of thirty-three thousand Yojanas.
The more learned Gubhârjus receive the title of Vajrâcârya and have the sole right of officiating at marriages and funerals. There is little learning. The oldest scriptures in use are the so-called nine Dharmas.
Word Of The Day