Remaking Buddhism for Medieval Nepal. The Fifteenth-Century Reformation of Newar Buddhism (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism)

摘要

Connections of Nepal to Buddhism go back to the time of the birth of the Buddha in Lurhbim, then in the aristocratic republic in North India ruled by the Sakya clan, but now in South Nepal and called Rummindel. The territory of the Buddha's preaching activities in the Gangetic basin is separated from Nepal proper, centred around Kathmandu valley, by Himalayan mountains which slowed down thernspreading of Buddhism into Nepal, but it was established there by the time the Emperor Asoka paid a visit to Lurhbim (249 ce) and commemorated it by erecting an inscribed stone column. He is said to have come also to Kathmandu and initiated the building of four stupas in the outskirts of Patan, still preserved, and possibly also of Bodhnath (while Svayarhbhunath is believed to be much older, with a pre-Buddhist layer). In Nigalisagar he enlarged a stupa for the previous Buddha Konakamana and commemorated it by an inscription (255 ce). A local raja, Devapala, won his daughter Carumati for wife; her name still lives in connection with a stupa and a monastery in Cabahil.