Symbolic history
When Gautama Buddha achieved enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, he came to Sarnath. There, he found his five disciples, Assaji, Mahānāman, Kondañña, Bhaddiya and Vappa, who had earlier abandoned him. He introduced his first teachings to them, thereby establishing the Dharmachakra. This is the motif taken up by Ashoka and portrayed on top of his pillars.
The 24 spokes represent the twelve causal links taught by the Buddha and paṭiccasamuppāda (Dependent Origination, Conditional Arising) in forward and then reverse order. [3] The first 12 spokes represent 12 stages of suffering. The next 12 spokes represent no cause no effect. So, due to awareness of the mind, the formation of mental conditioning stops. This process stops the process of birth and death, i.e. nibbāna. It also depicts the “wheel of time”. The twelve causal links, paired with their corresponding symbols, are:
- Avidyā ignorance
- Saṅkhāra conditioning of mind unknowingly
- Vijñāna not being conscious
- Nāmarūpa name and form (constituent elements of mental and physical existence)
- Ṣalāyatana six senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind)
- Sparśa contact
- Vedanā sensation
- Taṇhā thirst
- Upādāna grasping [4]
- Bhava coming to be
- Jāti birth
- Jarāmaraṇa old age [5] and death [6] – corpse being carried.
These 12 in forward and reverse represent a total 24 spokes representing the dharma. The Ashoka Chakra depicts the 24 principles that should be present in a human.
Ashoka, also known as Asoka or Aśoka, and popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was Emperor of Magadha from c. 268 BCE until his death in 232 BCE, and the third ruler from the Mauryan dynasty. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, stretching from present-day Afghanistan in the west to present-day Bangladesh in the east, with its capital at Pataliputra. A patron of Buddhism, he is credited with playing an important role in the spread of Buddhism across ancient Asia.
The bhavachakra or wheel of life is a visual teaching aid and meditation tool symbolically representing saṃsāra. It is found on the walls of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Indo-Tibetan region, to help both Buddhists and non Buddhists understand the core Buddhist teachings. The image consists of four concentric circles, held by Yama, the lord of Death, with an image of the Buddha pointing to the moon metaphorically representing the possibility for liberation from the suffering of reincarnation.
The State Emblem of India is the national emblem of the Republic of India and is used by the union government, many state governments, and other government agencies. The emblem is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Ashoka, an ancient sculpture dating back to 280 BCE during the Maurya Empire. The statue is a three dimensional emblem showing four lions. It became the emblem of the Dominion of India in December 1947, and later the emblem of the Republic of India. The State Emblem of India is an official seal of the Government of India. It is used as the national emblem of India and appears on official documents, currency and passports.
Sarnath is a town located 8 kilometres northeast of Varanasi, near the confluence of the Ganges and the Varuna rivers in Uttar Pradesh, India. According to the Lalitavistara sutra, the Gautama Buddha chose "Deer Park by the Hill of the Fallen Sages, outside of Varanasi" for the location of his first teachings of Buddhism, known as the Dhammacakkappavattana sutra, after he attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. It is one of eight most important pilgrimage sites for Buddhists, and has been nominated to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Buddhist symbolism is the use of symbols to represent certain aspects of the Buddha's Dharma (teaching). Early Buddhist symbols which remain important today include the Dharma wheel, the Indian lotus, the three jewels and the Bodhi tree.
The national flag of India, colloquially called Tiraṅgā, is a horizontal rectangular tricolour flag, the colours being of India saffron, white and India green; with the Ashoka Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel, in navy blue at its centre. It was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly held on 22 July 1947, and it became the official flag of the Union of India on 15 August 1947. The flag was subsequently retained as that of the Republic of India. In India, the term "tricolour" almost always refers to the Indian national flag.
The pillars of Ashoka are a series of monolithic columns dispersed throughout the Indian subcontinent, erected—or at least inscribed with edicts—by the 3rd Mauryan Emperor Ashoka the Great, who reigned from c. 268 to 232 BC. Ashoka used the expression Dhaṃma thaṃbhā, i.e. "pillars of the Dharma" to describe his own pillars. These pillars constitute important monuments of the architecture of India, most of them exhibiting the characteristic Mauryan polish. Twenty of the pillars erected by Ashoka still survive, including those with inscriptions of his edicts. Only a few with animal capitals survive of which seven complete specimens are known. Two pillars were relocated by Firuz Shah Tughlaq to Delhi. Several pillars were relocated later by Mughal Empire rulers, the animal capitals being removed. Averaging between 12 and 15 m in height, and weighing up to 50 tons each, the pillars were dragged, sometimes hundreds of miles, to where they were erected.
The Ashtamangala is the sacred set of Eight Auspicious Signs featured in a number of Indian religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. The symbols or "symbolic attributes" are yidam and teaching tools. Not only do these attributes point to qualities of enlightened mindstream, but they are the investiture that ornaments these enlightened "qualities". Many cultural enumerations and variations of the Ashtamangala are extant.
The Free Software Foundation of India (FSFI) is the Indian sister organisation to the US-based Free Software Foundation. It was founded in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) in 2001 as a non-profit Company. The FSFI advocates to promote the use and development of free software in India. This includes educating people about free software, including how it can help the economy of a developing country like India. FSF India regards non-free software as not a solution, but a problem to be solved. Free software is sometimes locally called swatantra software in India.
A chakravarti is an ideal universal ruler, in the history, and religion of India. The concept is present in Indian subcontinent cultural traditions, narrative myths and lore. There are three types of chakravarti: chakravala chakravarti, an emperor who rules over all four of the continents ; dvipa chakravarti, a ruler who governs only one of those continents; and pradesha chakravarti, a monarch who leads the people of only a part of a continent, the equivalent of a local king. Dvipa chakravarti is particularly one who rules the entire Indian subcontinent. The first references to a Chakravala Chakravartin appear in monuments from the time of the early Maurya Empire, in the 4th to 3rd century BCE, in reference to Chandragupta Maurya and his grandson Emperor Ashoka.
The dharmachakra or wheel of dharma is a symbol used in the Dharmic religions. It has a widespread use in Buddhism. In Hinduism, the symbol is particularly used in places that underwent religious transformation. The symbol also finds its usage in modern India.
Jarāmaraṇa is Sanskrit and Pāli for "old age" and "death". In Buddhism, jaramarana is associated with the inevitable decay and death-related suffering of all beings prior to their rebirth within saṃsāra.
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Sarnath Museum is the oldest site museum of the Archaeological Survey of India. It houses the findings and excavations at the archaeological site of Sarnath, by the Archaeological Survey of India. Sarnath is located near Varanasi, in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The museum has 6,832 sculptures and artefacts.
Shanti Stupa is a Buddhist white-domed Stupa (chorten) on a hilltop in Chanspa, Leh district, Ladakh, in north India. It was built in 1991 by Japanese Buddhist monk Gyomyo Nakamura. The Shanti Stupa holds the relics of the Buddha at its base, enshrined by the 14th Dalai Lama. The Stupa has become a tourist attraction not only due to its religious significance but also due to its location which provides panoramic views of the surrounding landscape.
The Lion Capital of Ashoka is the capital, or head, of a column erected by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in Sarnath, India, c. 250 BCE. Its crowning features are four life-sized lions set back to back on a drum-shaped abacus. The side of the abacus is adorned with wheels in relief, and interspersing them, four animals, a lion, an elephant, a bull, and a galloping horse follow each other from right to left. A bell-shaped lotus forms the lowest member of the capital, and the whole 2.1 metres (7 ft) tall, carved out of a single block of sandstone and highly polished, was secured to its monolithic column by a metal dowel. Erected after Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism, it commemorated the site of Gautama Buddha's first sermon some two centuries before.
The Falun (法輪) symbol pictured is used as an emblem by the Falun Gong spiritual group. The term translates literally as "law wheel." Other representations of the Falun are utilized in other Buddhist traditions. In Buddhism, the Dharmachakra represents the completeness of the doctrine. To "turn the wheel of dharma" means to preach the Buddhist doctrine, and is the title of Falun Gong's main text.
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Badruddin Faiz Tyabji (1907–1995) was a senior Indian Civil Service officer, who served as vice-chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University, from 1962 to 1965. While serving as a diplomat in 1948, he had undertaken the task of starting the Embassy of India, Brussels. He also served as Indian ambassador in Jakarta, Tehran, Bonn and Tokyo.
The Buddha Preaching his First Sermon is a stone sculpture of the 5th-century CE showing Gautama Buddha in the "teaching posture" or dharmachakra pravartana mudrā. The relief is 5' 3" tall, and was excavated at Sarnath, India by F. O. Oertel during the 1904–1905 excavation season of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI); it was found in an area to the south of the Dhamek Stupa.
