The chinese pantheon (popular deities of chinese buddhism)

Wen Shu Shih-Li P'usa or Manjushri Bodhisattva

The Bodhisattva of Great Wisdom

"Manju" : marvelous, gentle
"shri" : combination of power, glory and merit
The name "Manjushri" means "gentle glory".

He is the embodiment of great wisdom (Sanskrit language: prajna).

He appears to those who meditate on him. He instructs them in the Dharma and stimulates them to develop wisdom. The image of Manjushri Bodhisattva is often seen in meditation halls, libraries and scripture study rooms in monasteries.

Depictions of Manjushri Bodhisattva

His right hand holds a flaming sword, which represents the sharpness of prajna that can cut through the growth of suffering and the net of wrong views. The flame lights up the darkness, just as the light of wisdom dispels the darkness of ignorance.

His left hand holds a magnificent blue lotus flower in full bloom, on which rests the Prajnaparamita Sutra (Great Wisdom Sutra). This sutra contains the essence of the great wisdom teachings of the Buddha. The lotus is the promise of the future for all beings who follow the Teachings.

He is often depicted as riding a golden-maned lion, which symbolizes the stern majesty of prajna. The lion is the king of the beasts and is fearless. Similarly, Manjusri Bodhisattva teaches the dharma without fear or favour, like the lion's roar.

Sometimes, the golden-maned lion is replaced by a green lion which symbolises the wild mind which can only be transformed by meditation.

The Worship of Manjushri Bodhisattva in China

There is a famous place in China which is the centre for the worship of Manjushri Bodhisattva - the Wutai Mountain in the province of Shanxi in China.

As written in a sutra, the Buddha predicted that after He passed away in Final Nirvana, Manjushri Bodhisattva would reside on a mountain name Wuting in a country in the east called "Great China", where he would teach the dharma. Hence, Chinese people regard that mountain, now called Wutai Mountain, as a sacred place for worshipping Manjushri Bodhisattva. Many temples dedicated to Manjushri Bodhisattva have been built there.

The Mantra of Manjusri Bodhisattva: a prayer for developing wisdom: Om Ah Ra Pa Tsa Na Dhi


Pu Hsien P'usa: Samantabhadra Bodhisattva

Samantabhadra or Universal Virtue is known to the Chinese as Pu Hsien and Fugen, to the Japanese. She is the personification of love, sacred activity, virtue, diligent training and patience. In the Chinese Pantheon she is seen in the triad with Kuan Shih Yin (Compassion) and Wen-Shu (Wisdom) as the Three Precious Bodhisattvas whose qualities make up the Buddha's Essence. In many Japanese and Chinese temples she is also found in the Trinity with Sakyamuni Buddha and Wen-Shu Pusa (Manjusri).

Imageries of Pu Hsien usually show her seated on a white elephant in various ways and holding a lotus flower or a scroll or book. The elephant, normally in a standing posture, may be crouching and may either have three heads or one head with six tusks.

Pu Hsien Fusa is well known for her limitless offerings to the Buddhas as well as her Ten Great Vows, which are directed towards benefiting sentient beings. They are:

1. To worship the Buddhas
2. To praise the Tathagatas.
3. To make offerings to all the Buddhas.
4. To confess past sins and to reform.
5. To rejoice in the virtues and happiness of others.
6. To request Buddha to preach the Law
7. To request Buddha to stay in the world.
8. To study the Dharma in order to teach it.
9. To benefit all sentient beings.
10. To transfer all merit and virtue to others.

Pu Hsien's sacred abode in China is in the Ngo-Mei mountain of the Szu-Chuan province.

In Japan her devotees for prosperity as well as longevity often worship her and there are some who also revere her as the divine patron in their meditational practices.

In the Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue (Pu Hsien Fusa) the Buddha lavished great praises on her and revealed that she was born in the Eastern Pure Wonder Land. Meditators who practise this meditation will generate great merits, which will free themselves from all kinds of hindrances as well as allowing them to see her excellent forms. The Buddha further gave a vivid description of her as follows:

"The Bodhisattva Universal Virtue is boundless in the size of her body, boundless in the sound of her voice, and boundless in the form of her image. Desiring to come to this world, she makes use of her divine transcendent powers and shrinks her stature to the size of a human being. She appears transformed as mounted on a great white elephant which has six tasks (representing the purity of the six senses). Under the legs of the elephant lotus flowers grow. The whiteness of the elephant is of the most brilliant of all shades of white which is so pure that even crystal and the Himalaya Mountains cannot compare with it!"

The Lotus Sutra has done much to attract great numbers of female devotees for Pu Hsien P'usa as they are promised that they too could attain Buddhahood, which is described in detail in the 10th Chapter of the Sutra. In Chapter 28 Pu Hsien Pusa also made this promise to the Buddha:

"In the latter five hundred years of the corrupt and evil age, whoever receives and keeps this sutra I will guard and protect, eliminate the anxiety of feeling away, and give ease of mind. Wherever such a one walks or stands, reading and reciting this sutra, I will at once mount the six-tusked white elephant king and with a host of great bodhisattvas go to that place and, showing myself, will serve and protect (him) comforting his mind, also thereby serving the Law-Flower Sutra. Moreover I will give them dharanis, and obtaining these dharanis, no human or nonhuman beings can injure them, nor any woman beguile them"

Still further on, one hears the Buddha extolling Pu Hsien with this promise: I, by my supernatural power, will guard and protect those who are able to receive and keep the name of the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue"

Pu Hsien Fusa is not generally worshipped by the 'average Buddhists as temples dedicated to her are very scarce. However, those who would like to form a karmic link with this great Bodhisattva may do so in most of the Kuan Yin temples where her images can be found and one of the most popular prayers to recite to her is:

"NAMO TA HUNG PU HSIEN FUSN'

Like all other great Bodhisanvas she is able to grant those who have firm faith in her, all kinds of favours that they are seeking. Those who cultivate her dharma will enjoy a longer life?span and they will most certainly not fall into the three evil paths (animal, ghost and hell realms) in their future lifetimes. Moreover, they will be protected by Pu Hsien P'usa from the dangers of flood, fire, war and poisonous food, and they will be rewarded with position and abundant wealth. Many a childless couple have also been known to be blessed with children who are bright and healthy after praying to her and, most important of all, she is able to impart great wisdom, which will be the greatest help to any cultivator who seeks the Way. The festive day of this great Bodhisattva falls on the 21st day of the 2nd moon and it is a great day for us to bring her to our heart.

to be continued

Source:www.buddhanet.net

The History of Rocket Science

Early Fireworks and Weapons of War

Today's rockets are remarkable collections of human ingenuity that have their roots in the science and technology of the past. They are natural outgrowths of literally thousands of years of experimentation and research on rockets and rocket propulsion.
One of the first devices to successfully employ the principles essential to rocket flight was a wooden bird. The writings of Aulus Gellius, a Roman, tell a story of a Greek named Archytas who lived in the city of Tarentum, now a part of southern Italy. Somewhere around the year 400 B.C., Archytas mystified and amused the citizens of Tarentum by flying a pigeon made of wood. Escaping steam propelled the bird suspended on wires. The pigeon used the action-reaction principle, which was not stated as a scientific law until the 17th century.

About three hundred years after the pigeon, another Greek, Hero of Alexandria, invented a similar rocket-like device called an aeolipile. It, too, used steam as a propulsive gas.

Hero mounted a sphere on top of a water kettle. A fire below the kettle turned the water into steam, and the gas traveled through pipes to the sphere. Two L-shaped tubes on opposite sides of the sphere allowed the gas to escape, and in doing so gave a thrust to the sphere that caused it to rotate.


Just when the first true rockets appeared is unclear. Stories of early rocket-like devices appear sporadically through the historical records of various cultures. Perhaps the first true rockets were accidents. In the first century A.D., the Chinese reportedly had a simple form of gunpowder made from saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal dust. To create explosions during religious festivals, they filled bamboo tubes with a mixture and tossed them into fires. Perhaps some of those tubes failed to explode and instead skittered out of the fires, propelled by the gases and sparks produced by the burning gunpowder.

The Chinese began experimenting with the gunpowder filled tubes. At some point, they attached bamboo tubes to arrows and launched them with bows. Soon they discovered that these gunpowder tubes could launch themselves just by the power produced from the escaping gas. The true rocket was born.



The date reporting the first use of true rockets was in 1232. At this time, the Chinese and the Mongols were at war with each other. During the battle of Kai-Keng, the Chinese repelled the Mongol invaders by a barrage of "arrows of flying fire." These fire-arrows were a simple form of a solid-propellant rocket. A tube, capped at one end, contained gunpowder. The other end was left open and the tube was attached to a long stick. When the powder was ignited, the rapid burning of the powder produced fire, smoke, and gas that escaped out the open end and produced a thrust. The stick acted as a simple guidance system that kept the rocket headed in one general direction as it flew through the air. It is not clear how effective these arrows of flying fire were as weapons of destruction, but their psychological effects on the Mongols must have been formidable.



Following the battle of Kai-Keng, the Mongols produced rockets of their own and may have been responsible for the spread of rockets to Europe. All through the 13th to the 15th centuries there were reports of many rocket experiments. In England, a monk named Roger Bacon worked on improved forms of gunpowder that greatly increased the range of rockets. In France, Jean Froissart found that more accurate flights could be achieved by launching rockets through tubes. Froissart's idea was the forerunner of the modern bazooka. Joanes de Fontana of Italy designed a surface-running rocket-powered torpedo for setting enemy ships on fire.

By the 16th century rockets fell into a time of disuse as weapons of war, though they were still used for fireworks displays, and a German fireworks maker, Johann Schmidlap, invented the "step rocket," a multi-staged vehicle for lifting fireworks to higher altitudes. A large sky rocket (first stage) carried a smaller sky rocket (second stage). When the large rocket burned out, the smaller one continued to a higher altitude before showering the sky with glowing cinders. Schmidlap's idea is basic to all rockets today that go into outer space.

Nearly all uses up to this time were for warfare or fireworks, but there is an interesting old Chinese legend that reported the use of rockets as a means of transportation. With the help of many assistants, a lesser-known Chinese official named Wan-Hu assembled a rocket- powered flying chair. Attached to the chair were two large kites, and fixed to the kites were forty- seven fire-arrow rockets.



On the day of the flight, Wan-Hu sat himself on the chair and gave the command to light the rockets. Forty-seven rocket assistants, each armed with torches, rushed forward to light the fuses. In a moment, there was a tremendous roar accompanied by billowing clouds of smoke. When the smoke cleared, Wan-Hu and his flying chair were gone. No one knows for sure what happened to Wan-Hu, but it is probable that if the event really did take place, Wan-Hu and his chair were blown to pieces. Fire-arrows were as apt to explode as to fly.

Source:www.inventors.about.com

Colors in Traditional Chinese Culture

For more than 2000 years, the Chinese people have used brilliant colors. Today in modern China, red is a very popular color. However, contrary to popular belief, ancient peoples did not pay special attention to the color red.

Traditional Chinese physics taught that the five elements are water, fire, wood, metal and earth, in that order. They correspond to black, red, blue-green, white and yellow, respectively. Ancient Chinese people believed that the five elements made everything in nature. Five thousand years ago during the reign of Huang Di (known as the Yellow Emperor) people actually worshiped the color yellow. From that period forward, through the Shang, Tang, Zhou and Qin dynasties, China's emperors used the Theory of the Five Elements to select colors. Because people understood that "colors come naturally while black and white are first," they gradually established a relationship between colors and the principle of the five elements, which guided the natural movement of heaven and the heavenly Tao. People chose clothing, food, transportation and housing according to natural changes in the seasons--from spring to summer and autumn, and then to winter. Traditional Chinese views regard black, red, blue-green, white and yellow as standard colors

The I-Ching, or Book of Changes, regards black as Heaven's color. The saying "heaven and earth of mysterious black" was rooted in the observation that the northern sky was black for a long time. White represented gold and symbolized brightness, purity, and fulfillment. White also is the color of mourning.

The Chinese people, both ancient and modern, cherish the color red. Red is everywhere during Chinese New Year and other holidays and family gatherings for it symbolizes good fortune and joy.

Blue-green indicates spring when everything overflows with vigor and vitality. Yellow symbolizes the earth. The old saying, "Yellow generates Yin and Yang," meant that yellow is the center of everything. Color embodies an even richer culture in Chinese folk traditions. Yellow is the color for emperors. Yellow often decorates royal palaces, altars and temples. Yellow also represents being free from worldly cares. Therefore it is also a color respected in Buddhism. Chinese culture created a close and binding relationship between color and ceramics, murals, paintings, and poetry...even city planning. Many of the silk goods unearthed from ancient tombs have maintained their original colors of brown, red, black, purple, and yellow. Chinese pottery and lacquer ware uses rich color even more extensively. The formulation of richly colored glazes infuses these pieces with a brilliant and lustrous appearance. For ancient Chinese people, color feeds the spirit and expresses the depth of human experience.

Source:chinatownconnection.com