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Showing posts from March, 2015

An Old City of Dhanyawaddy

AN OLD CITY OF DHANYAWADDY  By Tun Shwe Khine (M.A.)   Buddha preaching king Sanda/CandaSuriya while visit Rakhine with 500 disciples: 554 B.C. Some twenty one miles north of Mrauk-U and about six miles east of Kyauktaw is an old city of Dhanyawaddy. The earliest city in Rakhine, Dhanyawaddy is situated west of the ridge lying between the Kaladan and Lemro rivers, occupying the well-drained foothill area and backed by the ridge. Remains of the walls and moats of this city can still be seen on many sites. The remains of brick fortifications arc still seen along the ridge which protrudes into the city itself. The old city was of fairly large size, almost circular in shape, with the eastern wall made of brick at the base of the ridge. On the western side only a small portion of the outer wall remains because of the ravages of the Thare creek, a tributary of the Kaladan. The creek might once have formed the moat on the west side, while on the other three sides the moats had existed

Consonant Correspondences of Burmese, Rakhine an d Marma with Initial Implications for Historical Relationships

ABSTRACT This thesis provides a consonantal comparison of the Burmese, Rakhine and Marma languages of Myanmar and Bangladesh with primary focus on initial and medial consonants Its main purposes are to provide new data from the Rakhine and Marma languages of Bangladesh and to make some initial observations about the historical relationship between the three languages based on compiled consonant correspondences. Although much literature is available on the Burmese language as the primary representative of the Southern Burmish language, little information is available on Rakhine and Marma. This theis thus extends previous work on the family tree to these two close relatives. It compares new Rakhine and Marma wordlist data from Bangladesh to previously-collected Burmese and Rakhine data from Myanmar. It identifies cognate forms and regular sound correspondences, as well as exceptions, with reference to previsiously documented Burmese sound changes. Marma is more conservative than Burmese

Arakanese Buddhist Monks and the Therevada Buddhism in Nepal

Arakanese Buddhist Monks and the Therevada Buddhism in Nepal By Ashin Siri Okkantha The beginning of the 20th century was the black period in the religious history in Nepal. Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism prevailed in Nepal. There was no place for Theravada Buddhism in the early 20th century. According to the law of Nepal, the religious conversion was prohibited by the Royal Nepal Government. During the reign of Chandra Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (c. A.D 1901 – 29), the Prime Minister of Nepal, expelled the new Buddhist monks. They fled to India and came to see Theravda Buddhist monk in their lives. At that time, Venerable U Chandramuni (an Arakanese Buddhist monk) lived in Kushinagar, he provided and gave shelter to the Nepalese Buddhist in his monastery. And then he preached and taught Theravada Buddhism to them. Venerable Mahapragya was ordained at Kushinagar by Venerable U Chandramuni in 1928. Venerable Mahapragya was the first Napalese Theravada Buddhist monk (later on disrobed).

The Funeral of Buddhist Monk

The Funeral of Buddhist Monk by Ashin Siri Okkantha Temporary Temple  (Photo: က်ိန္းရိပ္ သဇင္) When a monk dies in the village, the villagers in the neighbourhood come to help and take part in the funeral ceremony. The dead body is not cremated on the same day. It is preserved with medicines first in a wood-made coffin, especially built for the purpose, for some months of about a year, keeping it visible to the public in a glass coffin where the dead body is shifted for cremation.   Singing the cradle-song (Photo: က်ိန္းရိပ္ သဇင္)   Before the ceremony is held, two or three pandals and more pandals built and then decorated with colourful flowers near the local monastery. The ceremony is generally held for three or seven days. The eldest monk or the eldest of his disciples start the ceremony by citing Metta Sutta and Asubha Bhavana. The dead body is replaced, as noted earlier, from a wooden coffin to a glass coffin before the ceremony. The young girls and boys give the

4,000 Fishermen Stranded On Indonesian Islands

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The number of foreign fishermen stranded on several remote eastern Indonesian islands has spiraled to 4,000, including some revealed in an Associated Press investigation to have been enslaved. Many are migrant workers abandoned by their boat captains after the government passed a moratorium on foreign fishing five months ago, according to the International Organization for Migration, which released the figure Friday. However, others have been trapped on the islands for years, after being dumped by fishing boats or escaping into the jungle. "This is the worst moment in our life right now," one former slave told the AP, which is not releasing the names of the men for their safety. "It is even worse than being in hell. We have to work every day to survive. ... There is no hope for us anymore." The AP reported earlier this week that slaves — some of them beaten and locked in cages — are forced