Monday, October 29, 2012

With no resources to protect it, Pakistan struggles with smuggled Buddhist relics

Pakistani officials look at Buddha statues confiscated by custom authorities in Karachi, Pakistan. Lacking the necessary cash and manpower, Pakistan is struggling to stem the flow of millions of dollars in ancient Buddhist artifacts that shadowy criminal gangs dig up from the country’s northwest and smuggle to collectors around the world. AP Photo/B.K. Shakil Adil. By: Sebastian Abbot and Zarar Khan, Associated Press ISLAMABAD (AP).-
2012, The Associated Press
Lacking the necessary cash and manpower, Pakistan is struggling to stem the flow of millions of dollars in ancient Buddhist artifacts that looters dig up in the country’s northwest and smuggle to collectors around the world.
The black market trade in smuggled antiquities is a global problem that some experts estimate is worth billions of dollars per year. The main targets are poor countries like Pakistan that possess a rich cultural heritage but don’t have the resources to protect it.
The illicit excavations rob Pakistan of an important potential source of tourism revenue, as valuable icons are spirited out of the country, and destroy any chance for archaeologists to document the history of the sites.
“We are facing a serious problem because Pakistan is a vast country, and we have very meager resources,” said Fazal Dad Kakar, head of the government’s department of archaeology and museums. “We have no manpower to watch the hundreds of Buddhist sites and monasteries in the country, most of which are located in isolated valleys.”
Many of the sites are in the Swat Valley, a verdant, mountainous area in the northwest that was once part of Gandhara, an important Buddhist kingdom that stretched across modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan more than 1,000 years ago.
Police seized a large container filled with nearly 400 artifacts in the southern port city of Karachi in July that were being trucked north to be smuggled out of the country. About 40 percent were found to be genuine, including nearly 100 Buddhist sculptures up to 1,800-years-old worth millions of dollars, said Qasim Ali Qasim, director of archaeology and museums in southern Sindh province.
There were effectively no restrictions on whisking Buddhist relics out of Pakistan’s northwest in the first few decades after the country achieved independence from Britain in 1947, said Malik Naveed, a former police chief of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the Swat Valley is located.
That changed in 1975 when the government passed a set of laws criminalizing the practice. But Kakar, the federal archaeology chief, said the laws are difficult to enforce given a lack of funds, and people who are caught rarely receive punishments severe enough to act as much of a deterrent.
Police arrested several people connected to the seizure in Karachi in July, but they have yet to be formally charged.
Two men who were arrested last October for excavating a statue of Buddha from a site in Swat were only fined about $50 each, far less than the maximum punishment of a year in prison and a fine of more than $800 they could have received, said Syed Naeen, a public prosecutor in the area.
A Manhattan art dealer, Subhash Kapoor, is under arrest in neighboring India for allegedly smuggling millions of dollars in antiquities out of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan that he sold to museums and private collectors from his gallery in New York and online, according to police investigators involved with the case.
Rather than dig up Buddhist relics, some Pakistanis have focused on making replicas, such as the ones seized in Karachi, that they often try to pass off as the real thing — although this practice is also illegal in the country. Many operate covertly around the ancient Buddhist site of Taxila, a short drive from the capital, Islamabad.
“I learned the practice from my fellow villagers in my childhood and can fake anything using cement, small stones, some colors and chemicals,” said Salahud Deen, who works out of his home in a village near Taxila.
The 30-year-old high school dropout was contacted by The Associated Press through the owner of a tea shop in the area and showed off a sample of his wares, including a small statue of the Buddha’s head. He said he recently received an order from a man in Sri Lanka to make a 3-foot tall “fasting Buddha” statue and expected to make a little more than $200 in the process.
Locals who deal in real Buddhist artifacts they have stolen from sites in the northwest likely make much more money, but it’s almost nothing compared to what people higher up the food chain earn. Looters receive on average less than 1 percent of the final sale price of an item, while middlemen and dealers get the other 99 percent, according to the former head of the U.N. Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, Sandro Calvani.
Kakar, the federal archaeology chief, tried to stop Christie’s auction house in New York from selling a “fasting Buddha” from the 3rd or 4th century last year as well as dozens of other Buddhist relics he claimed were smuggled out of Pakistan illegally.
Christie’s went ahead and sold the Buddha for nearly $4.5 million and has asked Pakistan to provide proof of its claims, the auction house said.
Kakar was more successful with two shipments of Buddhist artifacts from Dubai and Tokyo that were seized by U.S. customs authorities in 2005, he said. He was able to prove the sculptures came from Pakistan by analyzing the age and composition of the stone, and the U.S. returned them, said Kakar.
Neil Brodie, an expert on the illicit trade in antiquities at the University of Glasgow, said it was critical for authorities to put pressure on private collectors and museums whose demand for ancient relics is fueling the black market. Some museums, particularly in Italy and Britain, have become more diligent about avoiding antiquities with questionable histories, but those in the U.S. have much more work to do, he said. “You are losing the archaeological record on the ground by the destruction that is entailed by digging these relics out,” said Brodie.
___ Associated Press writers Sherin Zada in Mingora, Pakistan, Adil Jawad in Karachi, Pakistan, and Ashok Sharma in Chennai, India, contributed to this report
source :Buddhist art news

The 3 Kinds of Sublime Quintessence:


True Dhamma is the Cream Quintessence!
Have a nice & noble day!
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Friendship is the Greatest! Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ ]
http://What-Buddha-Said.net

Regarding the Best Way to Be:


The Blessed Buddha once said:
Sabbadānam dhammadānam jināti
sabbarasam dhammaraso jināti
sabbaratim dhammarati jināti
tanhakkhayo sabbadukkham jināti.
THE SUPREME GIFT
The gift of Dhamma surpasses all other gifts.
The taste of Truth excels every other taste.
The joy of Understanding exceeds any other joy.
The elimination of Craving overcomes, quenches &
triumphs over all pain, all sorrow, and all suffering ...
Dhammapada 354

Be understanding to your perceived enemies.
Be loyal to all your good friends.
Be strong enough to face the changing world each day.
Be weak enough to know you cannot do everything alone.
Be generous to those who need your help.
Be frugal with that you need yourself.
Be wise enough to know, that you do not know everything.
Be foolish enough to believe in the unknown miracle.
Be willing to share your joys, resources and riches.
Be willing to share and bear the sorrows of others.
Be a leader, when you see the path others may have missed.
Be a follower, when you are shrouded by the mists of uncertainty.
Be the first to congratulate an opponent, who succeeds.
Be the last to criticize a colleague, who fails.
Be sure where your next step will fall, so that you will not tumble.
Be sure of your final destination, in case you are going the wrong way.
Be loving to those, who love you, and also towards those who don't...
Be friendly to those, who do not love you since then they may change.
Above all: Be AWARE!
Be Good!
Have a nice & noble day!

signature.picBowing_Bhikkhu 
Friendship is the Greatest! Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ ]
http://What-Buddha-Said.net

BBC documentary on Near Death Experiences:



Rebirth from an Early Buddhist Perspective:

The Truth of Rebirth And Why it Matters for Buddhist Practice by Thanissaro Bhikkhu


REBIRTH VIDEOS:
Scientific Rebirth Research:
Near-Death Experiences on the Intensive Care Unit
Reincarnation research by Ian Stevenson Children's past life memories:
Scientific Evidence of Rebirth by Dr Jim Tucker:
The Cardiologist on the Near-Death Experience 1
The Cardiologist on the Near-Death Experience 2
Near-Death Website:
Have a nice & noble day!
 
Friendship is the Greatest! Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ ]
http://What-Buddha-Said.net

BBC documentary on Near Death Experiences:



Rebirth from an Early Buddhist Perspective:

The Truth of Rebirth And Why it Matters for Buddhist Practice by Thanissaro Bhikkhu


REBIRTH VIDEOS:
Scientific Rebirth Research:
Near-Death Experiences on the Intensive Care Unit
Reincarnation research by Ian Stevenson Children's past life memories:
Scientific Evidence of Rebirth by Dr Jim Tucker:
The Cardiologist on the Near-Death Experience 1
The Cardiologist on the Near-Death Experience 2
Near-Death Website:
Have a nice & noble day!
 
Friendship is the Greatest! Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ ]
http://What-Buddha-Said.net

How to be a Real Buddhist through Observance?


Vap Poya day is the full-moon of October. This holy day celebrates the
end of the Bhikkhu's three months rains retreat and marks the Kathina
month of robes , where lay people donate a set of robes to the Sangha.
This also celebrates the day that Buddha began to teach the Abhidhamma!

The Buddha descending from the Tusita Level after having spent a rains
retreat there explaining the Abhidhamma to the assembled devas during
a single three months long speech! His biological mother Mahāmāyā, who
died 7 days after his birth, and was reborn there as a deva, was present.
He is followed down by the deva rulers Sakka and Mahā-Brahmā.

More about this Higher Abhidhamma Science:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/abhi/index.html

More about the Kathina Ceremony:
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Kathina_Ceremony.htm




The Kathina Ceremony of giving robes to the Māha-Sangha and receive blessing merit thereby!
On such Full-Moon Uposatha Poya Observance days:
Any Lay Buddhist simply joins the Three Refuges and undertakes the
Five Precepts like this: Newly bathed, shaved, white-clothed, with clean
bare feet, one kneels at a shrine with a Buddha-statue, and bows first
three times, so that feet, hands, elbows, knees & head touch the floor.
Then, with joined palms at the heart, one recites these memorized lines
in a loud, calm & steady voice:

As long as this life lasts:
I hereby take refuge in the Buddha.  
I hereby take refuge in the Dhamma.
I hereby take refuge in the Sangha.
I hereby seek shelter in the Buddha for the 2nd time.
I hereby seek shelter in the Dhamma for the 2nd time.
I hereby seek shelter in the Sangha for the 2nd time.
I hereby request protection from the Buddha for the 3rd time.
I hereby request protection from the Dhamma for the 3rd time.
I hereby request protection from the Sangha for the 3rd time.

I will hereby respect these Three Jewels the rest of my life!

I accept to respect & undertake these 5 training rules: 
I hereby accept the training rule of avoiding all Killing.
I hereby accept the training rule of avoiding all Stealing.
I hereby accept the training rule of avoiding all Sexual Abuse.
I hereby accept the training rule of avoiding all Dishonesty.
I hereby accept the training rule of avoiding all Alcohol & Drugs.

As long as this life lasts, I am thus protected by these 5 precepts...
Then, one keeps and protects these sacred vows better than one's
own eyes & children!, since they protect you & all other beings much
better than any army! They are the highest offer one can give in & to
this world! So is the start towards Nibbāna: the Deathless Element!
This is the Noble Way to Peace, to Freedom, to Ease, to Happiness,
initiated by Morality, developed further by Dhamma-Study and
fulfilled by training of Meditation...

Today indeed is Pooya or Uposatha or observance day, where any lay
Buddhist normally keeps even the Eight Precepts from sunrise until the
next dawn... If any wish an official recognition by the Bhikkhu-Sangha,
they may simply forward the lines starting with "I hereby ..." signed with
name, date, town & country to me or join here.  A public list of this new
quite rapidly growing global Saddhamma-Sangha is set up here!

The True Noble Community of Buddha's Disciples: Saddhamma Sangha:      
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/sangha/Saddhamma_Sangha.htm
Can quite advantageously be Joined Here:
May your journey hereby be light, swift and sweet. Never give up !!
Bhikkhu Samahita: what.buddha.said@gmail.com


For Details on The Origin of Uposatha Observance Days:     
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/uposatha.html
For the 2010 Calendar of Uposatha Observance Days:
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/various/Poya.Uposatha.Observance_days.2010.htm
Vap Poya Observance Day!
Have a nice & noble day!
signature.picBowing_Bhikkhu 
Friendship is the Greatest! Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ ]
http://What-Buddha-Said.net

The 7 Fruits of the 7 Links to Awakening!


The Blessed Buddha once said:Bhikkhus, when the 7 Links to Awakening have been developed, completed
and refined, the winning of the seven fruits is indeed to be expected.
What are the benefits of these 7 fruits?

They are, either:1: One attains final knowledge early in this very life. Or:
2: One attains final knowledge at the moment of death. Or:
Having destroyed the five lower chains and spontaneously re-arisen;
3: One attains Nibbāna in the first half of the life as a divine brahma. Or:
4: One attains Nibbāna in the second half of the life in these pure abodes. Or:
5: One attains Nibbāna as a Noble non-returner without effort. Or:
6: One attains Nibbāna as a Noble non-returner with some effort. Or:
7: One is bound upstream, surely heading towards the highest Akanittha realm.
When, bhikkhus, these Seven Links to Awakening have been thoroughly developed
and cultivated exactly in this way, these seven fruits & benefits may be expected....
Source (edited extract):
The Grouped Sayings of the Buddha. Samyutta Nikāya.
Book [V:69-70] section 46: The Links.
The 7 Fruits!
Have a nice & noble day!
signature.picBowing_Bhikkhu 
Friendship is the Greatest! Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ ]
http://What-Buddha-Said.net

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The Effects caused by Action (Kamma) is delayed as a Sown Seed!



Description: D:\Mydocs\My Web Sites\What_Buddha_Said\Pics\sown.seed.jpg


The Blessed Buddha once explained:

Regarding the effects of actions, Ananda, as to the person here who avoids all killing of
any living being, who avoids all stealing of what is not given, who avoids any misconduct in
sensual pleasures, who avoids all false speech, divisive speech, aggressive speech, and all
idle & empty gossip, who is neither envious, nor jealous, is good-willed, and who is of right
view, yet who at the breakup of the body, after death, is reborn in a state of deprivation,
a dreadful destination, in the painful purgatory, or even in the hells: Either earlier - prior
to this - such one also did evil actions to be felt as painful, or later - after this - such one
did evil actions to be felt as pain, or at moment of death such one entered into & maintained
wrong views! Because of one or more of these, right after death, such one is reborn in a bad
state of deprivation, a dreadful destination, in the painful purgatory, or even in the hells.
But since such one also - here & now - has been one who avoids all killing of any living being,
who avoids taking anything what is not given, who avoids all misconduct in sensual pleasures,
who avoids all false speech, divisive speech, aggressive speech, & all idle & empty gossip,
who is neither envious, nor jealous, who is of good will, & who holds right views, such one
will experience the pleasant results of that good behaviour, either here and now, or in the
next rebirth, or in some subsequent later existence...
Comments: Behaviour (kamma) is almost always mixed: Sometimes good, sometimes bad!
The later effects are therefore similarly mixed: Sometimes pleasure, sometimes pain...
Good begets good and dilutes & delays evil. Evil begets evil and dilutes & delays good!
A figure illustrating the delayed, overlapping & interfering result of mixed kamma:Description: D:\Mydocs\My Web Sites\What_Buddha_Said\Pics\Vipaka.jpg
For details on the mechanics of Kamma = Intentional Action see:http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Kamma_is_intention.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/IV/Intention_is_Kamma.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/Unintentional_Action.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Buddha_on_Kamma.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Kamma_and_Fruit.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Kamma_is_improvable.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Inevitable_Consequences.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Good_Action_dilutes_Evil_Kamma.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Kamma_leading_to_short_&_long_life.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Kamma_leading_to_Health_&_Sickness.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Kamma_leading_to_Low_or_High_Birth.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Kamma_leading_to_Wealth_or_Poverty.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Kamma_leading_to_Beauty_&_Ugliness.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Effect_of_Action_(kamma)_is_Delayed.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Kamma_leading_to_Power_or_Disrespect.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Evil_Kamma_enhances_other_Evil_Kamma.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Good_Action_enhances_other_Good_Kamma.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Kamma_leading_to_Stupidity_or_Intelligence.htm
Source:
The Moderate speeches of the Buddha: The great speech on Action. MN 136
http://www.pariyatti.com/book.cgi?prod_id=25072X Full Text:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn136.html
Description: D:\Mydocs\My Web Sites\What_Buddha_Said\Pics\walking.Buddha.jpg
Delayed Effects of Mixed Kamma!
Have a nice & noble day!
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Friendship is the Greatest! Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ ]
http://What-Buddha-Said.net