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hindustantimes.com

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, INDIA, August 19, 2007: The Kerala state government is considering setting up a university to train Hindu priests and others associated with conducting rituals in temples. This has been proposed by State Temple Affairs Minister, G. Sudhaskaran, to the Travancore Devasthanam Board. “It is high time to teach priests how to conduct rituals to the satisfaction of devotees. They don’t know the basics of the religion and what the rituals and mantras are all about. They have little knowledge of Sanskrit too,” the Minister said.

An autonomous body, the Travancore Devasthanam Board, runs around 1,200 temples in southern Kerala, including the famed hill shrine of Sabarimala. The board is currently under a probe panel, which is headed by a former Supreme Court judge, for alleged corruption and malpractices. The minister also said that the government could bring in legislation to set up the university in consultation with Hindu scholars.

(OCHS Note: A sad, but not unusual use of the word idol, when the author does not seem to want to denigrate the subject.)

Statesman News Service

JAGATSINGHPUR, Aug 17-Centuries old Buddhist and Jain idols, which have been worshipped in different Hindu temples in the Jagatsinghpur district, are in a now in a dilapidated state due to non-preservation and a lack of maintenance by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and department of culture.

This has been a matter of serious concern for researchers, historians and other people of the district.
Legend has it that this and other coastal districts, were at some point in time influenced by Buddhist and Jain culture. Recent excavations in the dMahanadi deltaic region have led to the discovery of Buddhist and Jain images and monasteries containing terracotta pottery. Interestingly, Buddhist and Jain idols are worshiped by the locals as ‘Hindu idols’ in more than 25 temples.

One veteran priest opined that after the decline of Buddhism in the 12 century AD, the reigning hindu kings of the Kingdom of Kalinga installed some of the Buddhist and Jain idols in Hindu temples.

The archaeological department has found a few temples in the district where Buddhist and Jain idols have been worshipped as Hindu idols.

The department of culture, however, has no data regarding the number of Buddhist and Jain temples said Mr Pitambar Swain, district culture officer. Consequently, the department has not taken any steps to preserve, repair and maintain them.

Professor Bholnath Rout said that Khabmakul under Balikuda block have Buddhist stupas and viharas in this region, but no steps have been taken for to exacvate them. He added that many temples are now in state of ruin due to lack of maintenance and repair.

The sanctum sanctorium is falling apart while the wooden pillars are being eaten away by termites.
Locals have also alleged that smugglers have stolen some of the rare images of Buddha. This has been possible due to a lack of security. Also, a cash crunch does not allow daily rituals to be performed regularly.

It maybe mentioned that the archaeological department has renovated temples in Sahada, Parbatipur and Kostimalikapur while no steps have taken by the department of culture.

news.bbc.co.uk

CAMBODIA, August 16, 2007: The great medieval temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia was once at the center of a sprawling urban settlement, according to a new, detailed map of the area. Using Nasa satellites, an international team have discovered at least 74 new temples and complex irrigation systems. The map, published in the journal PNAS, extends the known settlement by 1000 sq km, about the size of Los Angeles. Analysis also lends weight to the theory that Angkor’s residents were architects of the city’s demise.

“The large-scale city engineered its own downfall by disrupting its local environment by expanding continuously into the surrounding forests,” said Damian Evans of the University of Sydney and one of the authors of the paper and map. Working with researchers from Australia, Cambodia and France, the map was produced from ground surveys, airborne photography, and ground-sensing radar from Nasa’s AIRSAR flying laboratory. “The radar can sense differences in plant growth and moisture content that result from topographical variations of less than a meter,” Mr Evans said. The data allowed the researchers to peer through the vegetation that now shrouds the World Heritage site.

It suggests that the medieval settlement surrounding Angkor, the one-time capital of the Khmer empire which flourished between the ninth and 14th centuries, was at least three times larger than previously thought. The team believes it could have covered 3,000 sq km (1,150 sq miles), the largest pre-industrial complex of its kind. Its nearest rival is Tikal, a Mayan city in Guatemala, which covers between 100 and 150 sq km (40-60 sq miles). The detailed survey also allowed the researchers to map at least 74 new temples as well as more than 1,000 manmade ponds.

They also discovered that the city’s water supply probably relied on a single complex channel that extended 20 to 25km out from Angkor city. The researchers say that the system, until now thought to be purely decorative and ceremonial, was probably used to support farming, in particular intensive rice agriculture. In all, the newly mapped terrain could have supported half a million people, the researchers believe.

The new analysis of the irrigation system also sheds light on the civilization’s collapse in the 14th century. “We saw signs that embankments had been breached and of ad hoc repairs to bridges and dams, suggesting that the system became unmanageable over time,” Mr Evans told the AFP news agency. In addition, deforestation, over population, topsoil erosion could have contributed to the population’s sudden disappearance. “Angkor was extensive enough, and the agricultural exploitation intensive enough, to have created a number of very serious environmental problems,” he said.

www.timesonline.co.uk

BEIJING, CHINA, August 4, 2007: Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people. “The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1. The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing. It is the latest in a series of measures by the Communist authorities to tighten their grip over Tibet. Reincarnate lamas, known as tulkus, often lead religious communities and oversee the training of monks, giving them enormous influence over religious life in the Himalayan region. Anyone outside China is banned from taking part in the process of seeking and recognizing a living Buddha, effectively excluding the Dalai Lama, who traditionally can play an important role in giving recognition to candidate reincarnates.

For the first time China has given the Government the power to ensure that no new living Buddha can be identified, sounding a possible death knell to a mystical system that dates back at least as far as the 12th century. China already insists that only the Government can approve the appointments of Tibet’s two most important monks, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama’s announcement in May 1995 that a search inside Tibet — and with the cooperation of a prominent abbot — had identified the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, enraged Beijing. That prompted the Communist authorities to restart the search and to send a senior Politburo member to Lhasa to oversee the final choice. This resulted in top Communist officials presiding over a ceremony at the main Jokhang temple in Lhasa in which names of three boys inscribed on ivory sticks were placed inside a golden urn and a lot was then drawn to find the true reincarnation. The boy chosen by the Dalai Lama has disappeared. The abbot who worked with the Dalai Lama was jailed and has since vanished. Several sets of rules on seeking out “soul boys” were promulgated in 1995, but were effectively in abeyance and hundreds of living Buddhas are now believed to live inside and outside China.