Today is Il Poya
 

Exposure to spiritual subtlety

Rupa Banduwardena

Il Poya is well known for the most significant events in the history of Buddhism. Sakyamuni Gautama Buddha who sat under the Bodhi tree determined to find the eternal truth, succeeded in his intellectual struggle with the enlightenment that dawned upon him.

The Buddha the world teacher is believed to have appeared in this world for the good of all mankind, for their happiness and emancipation from evil and sorrow. Thathagatha, the Perfect One proceeded to Saranath and preached his first sermon to the five ascetics. The first Vassana was observed at Isipathana in Benares.

Later Yasakula Putra and his 55 disciples listened to his discourses with utmost faith and attained Arahathship. The Buddha addressed the sixty Arahants thus “Charatha Bhikkawe Charikang.

Bahujana Hithaya, Bahujana Sukhaya, Lokanukampaya Aththaya Hithaya Sukhaya Devamanussanang” Buddha said go forth Bhikkus into the world taking the message to them, explain to them what I have explained, for the wellbeing of the majority, show them how one could be of service by going to meet those in distress and in pain out of compassion to all divine and human beings, indulge in this sasanic tour.

The message proclaimed was spread everywhere. It was on Il Full Moon Day that the 60 disciples were sent in different directions on this great mission of preaching his doctrine of Dhamma, the Buddha’s way of life, the code of conduct, taught in Buddhism based on Vinaya the discipline.

Having sent them on this great mission, the Buddha Himself set out for the city of Rajagaha where on his way he met the hermit monks, Uruwela Kashyapa, Nadi Kashyapa and Gaya Kashyapa the three brothers, with their retinue at Uruwela Grama.

It was on Il Full Moon Day that they had all been miraculously won over by the Buddha and also amazing Yama Maha Pelahera (Dual psychic power) too had been performed, helping the, to attain Arahantship, with his absolute knowledge of Dhamma. This celebrated religious event too occurred this full moon day.

Another major event of this Poya is the receipt of permission (Niyatha Vivarana) by Bosat Maitriya, to be the next Enlightened One. A wealthy Buddhist in Sankassapura known as Siriwardena had entered the order as Bhikku Ariya Maitriya leading a life of piety.

It is with utmost faith that he had offered his robes to Thathagatha on his arrival of Sankassapura from Thavathimsa after preaching Aditta Pariyaya Sutta to his mother. The Buddha with his divine vision and insight predicted that in Baranasi there will be a kingdom called Kethumathi and a king called Sanka whose advisor Subrahima and Brahmawathi will be his parents and that he will attain enlightenment under a Banyan tree. Hence Il Poya has a special significance regarding the emergence of the future Buddha giving the signal for the Buddhists to await the great occasion.

This day is also related to the attainment of Sothapanna by Rupasara Matha, the mother of Venerable Sariputta. It was really astonishing to hear of the attainment of Arahathship by all his brothers and sisters except the mother totally due to her being unaware of the Buddhist doctrine.

Venerable Sariputta who had perfect confidence in the Dhamma. learning that his life span is going to be over, sought the permission of the Buddha to visit his native place. Ven. Sariputta, an erudite scholar, foreseeing the good fate of the mother was determined to come to her rescue and put her on the correct path, which he did before his Parinibbana. Consequently she attained the state of Sovan purely due to his efforts.

Thus, the foremost disciple of the Buddha fulfilled his duty by her and finally he passed away. His Parinibbana too happened on this full moon day.

The Il Full moon day marks the end of the Vassana season. It is rather the climax of this season, the three months retreat the Bhikkus observe.

Those who observe Pasu Vas (the period after the observance of Pera Vas) the Vassana season is terminated by this full moon day. All these sacred religious events highlight the importance of this day to the Buddhist world. Thus it is with great reverence and piety that the Buddhists worldwide commemorate the Il Full moon poya day.

New Bamiyan Buddha statue found amid destruction

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan, Nov 6: “We got him!” screamed Afghan archaeologist Anwar Khan Fayez as he leapt from the pit beneath the towering sandstone cliffs, where the Bamiyan Buddhas once stood.

Seven years after Taliban militants blew up the two 1,500-year-old statues in a fit of Islamist zealotry, a French-Afghan team in September uncovered a new, 19-metre (62-foot) “Sleeping Buddha” buried in the earth.

The news that a third Buddha escaped the Taliban’s wrath has caused excitement in this scenic valley, where the caverns that housed the ruined statues are an eerie reminder of Afghanistan’s past and present woes.

“It was a happy moment for all of us when the first signs appeared. Our years-long efforts had somehow paid off,” Fayez told AFP.

The team, led by France-based archaeologist Zemaryalai Tarzi, made the find while hunting for a lost 300-metre reclining Buddha mentioned in an account by seventh-century Chinese monk Xuan Zang.

The Afghan-born Tarzi began mapping the site nearly 30 years ago but decades of conflict and the rise of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime put the search on hold.

Then in March 2001 came the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, until then the world’s largest standing Buddha statues.

Hewn into the cliffs in the sixth century by Buddhist pilgrims on the famed Silk Route, the statues had survived attacks by several Muslim emperors down the ages, while even Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan had spared them.

But with the backing of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda movement, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar declared that they were idols that were against Islamic law.

Defying international appeals, the Taliban spent a month using first anti-aircraft guns and then dynamite to obliterate them.

Saddened but with renewed determination, Tarzi and his team returned soon after US-led forces and the Northern Alliance ousted the Taliban in late 2001 to renew their search for the giant missing Buddha.

“This is the most significant find” What they found instead, in September this year, were parts of a previously unknown, smaller Buddha figure, including a thumb, forefinger, palm, parts of its arm, body and the bed on which it lay.

“This is the most significant find since we started here,” Abdul Hameed Jalia, the director of monuments and historical sites for Bamiyan province, told AFP at the excavation site of the new 19-metre Buddha.

“At first they found part of the leg but they weren’t sure what it was,” said Jalia. “But when they found more, Mr Fayez screamed out of happiness and ran to our office to find Mr Tarzi.”

Fayez said the head and other parts were largely destroyed, ossibly by Arab invaders in the ninth century. “We have not found the whole statue. But we can tell from other parts that it appears to be 19-metres long,” Fayez said. The site has now been covered with earth to protect the Buddha from both the ravages of the harsh Afghan winter and from the attention of antiquities thieves.

Tarzi told AFP in an e-mail that he and a number of French colleagues aimed to return next summer to dig out the rest of the statue.

Meanwhile, there are fresh clues about the 300-metre Buddha, officials say.

What appear to be the remnants of a gate complex that may have led to the statue have been discovered under an apparently collapsed section of cliff between the two holes left by the Taliban.

“Mr Tarzi’s team has found signs that indicate that the big lying Buddha is there and has 70 percent hopes that they will find it,” said Najibullah Harar, head of Bamiyan’s information and culture department.

Amid hopes that they could one day be rebuilt, Afghan, Japanese and German teams are also stabilising the sites of the destroyed statues the bigger 55-metre figure known as Salsal and the 38-metre statue known as Shahmama. Boulder-sized chunks of the Buddhas still lie where they fell, each individually labelled. Ghostly outlines of the two figures are still etched in the rockface and twisted metal shell casings litter the ground.

Archaeologists’ efforts have been helped by the fact that Bamiyan inhabited by Shia Muslims from the Hazara ethnic minority that was once persecuted by the Taliban has been a relative oasis of calm.

But ongoing debate over whether to reconstruct the Buddhas reflects the uncertainties that haunt post-Taliban Afghanistan.

“It is the desire and the wish of the Bamiyan people to ee, if not both, then at least one rebuilt,” Habiba Sorabi, the sgovernor of Bamiyan province, told AFP in an interview at her office overlooking the statues.

Rebuilding the Buddhas could help foster a tourist industry in the desperately poor region, which lies 200 kilometres (124 miles) northwest of the relatively prosperous capital Kabul, she said.

UNESCO declared Bamiyan a World Heritage Site in 2003 and there have been discussions with international partners about using the process of anastylosis, by which ruined monuments are reassembled from old fragments and new materials.

“But unfortunately the central government does not want to work on it,” added Sorabi, who is the only female provincial governor in Afghanistan. “It is a shame.”

AFP