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Tsunami carried bronze Buddha 1000 km across ocean (2005-Apr-18)
By Jan McGirk, The New Zealand Herald : In mid-December
a little bronze-eyed idol, like so many in rural Myanmar (Burma), was placed
in a little decorated kiosk, strapped to a crude bamboo raft and released
on to the Irrawaddy river to drift to propitious sites and cast away evil.
The 12.5 cm figure of a Buddhist sage floated down the delta and then,
a week or so later, the Boxing Day tsunami struck. Eight days on, 1000
km away, fishermen in Tamil Nadu, India, spotted the raft floating offshore,
its foil decorations glinting in the sunlight. Nine men set off in a boat
to investigate and brought back a crude bamboo raft, lashed together with
plastic clothesline and studded with silver-foil flowers. Its only passenger
was a tiny crosslegged metal figure sitting on a plate inside a wooden
hut. Three vases, a candle, some coins and a maroon monk's robe with the
word "Burma" stitched on the tag were stashed alongside it.
None of the villagers in Meyurkuppam, a small Tamil fishing hamlet in southern
India, could identify the foreign statue, but two Western aid workers suggested
that it looked like a Buddha. Actually, it was a chubby Jalagupta figurine,
held holy by Burmese Buddhists. Everything on board the raft was intact,
and its arrival coincided with another extraordinary event in Meyyurkuppam
- everyone in the village had survived the tsunami. Hence their
insistence on pampering what local Hindus have called "Buddha-Swami" under
their biggest banyan tree. Believers credit this floating statue with protecting
all 980 inhabitants of Meyyurkuppam. The first post-tsunami cult was thereby
created. One New Age priest reportedly claimed that its power against evil
kept a controversial nuclear reactor from leaking
radiation along their coastline, sparing tsunami survivors a slow death
from cancer. At least 30 technical personnel living close to the
Kalpakkam reactor perished in the tsunami, yet the facility stayed intact.
More than 16,000 Indians died or are still missing after the huge waves
reshaped the Bay of Bengal. No lives were lost in Meyyurkuppam. "It
is a miracle," said Kuppurswamy, the village headman. "We keep a
glass of water and a flower in front of the deity every day. We will worship
him like we worship our own gods. Our village has accepted it as its own."
Last week, as Buddhist images and relics in Burma,
Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and southern China were ritually
cleansed during the three-day Theravada New Year celebrations, the
tiny Buddhist sage of Meyurkuppam received ablutions, along with ceremonial
offerings of rice sweetmeats. Fairy lights were strung around the new icon.
"He will be kept here," said N. Padavattan, a local boatman. "We are very
happy with the arrival of this god."
"This is part of a wondrous cycle," said Phra Vivek, a Bangkok monk.
"Buddhism arrived in the river deltas of South-East Asia in the third century
when the Indian emperor Ashoka sent
missionaries to the Golden Land. Now the ocean has carried Buddhism back
to its source." K. Gurumurthy, from the Indo-Myanmar chamber of commerce,
was sent by the Burmese embassy in New Delhi in February to examine the
metal figurine, which was at first rumoured to be a valuable bronze dating
from the 17th century. He told reporters it had little intrinsic value,
but was a commonplace modern statuette, floated in their scores downstream
during the rainy season in the Irrawaddy delta. But never has one travelled
so far across the sea, and in India and Burma this little statue is considered
auspicious.
The villagers have now agreed to move their Buddha-Swami to a pagoda on
high ground, because post-tsunami regulations prohibit any construction
within 500 metres of the shoreline. Once the state government donates land
for a new temple, the building, funded by the Burmese generals, will get
under way. Meanwhile, the fishermen's families offer daily prayers to the
new Buddha-Swami.
1) Matthew
24
[24 : 14] "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world
as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
[24 : 35] "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass
away.
[24 : 36] "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of
heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
2) In Cambodian
Buddhist Prophecy
The
Buddhist year 2500 (A.D. 1957) is considered
to be the mid-way of the Buddhist era. [Kenneth T. So]
3) Extrait
de Comment reconstruire le Cambodge... et le Canada
- Amen!
André
"accueille" les sila le plus sérieusement du monde.
- Tu devrais
dire Ama! Ça veut dire Oui en pali. Ou mieux: Ama,
Bhanté! Oui, Seigneur!
- Ça
se ressemble, hein?
- Ben,
voyons! L'indo-européen! Le sanskrit!
- Mais
dis-moi! Il y a une prophétie chrétienne qui prédisait
la fin du monde. Est-ce qu'il existe une telle prophétie chez les
bouddhistes?
- Parfaitement!
Bouddha lui-même, selon des textes khmers, prédisait que sa
religion durera cinq mille ans. Après, sept soleils apparaîtront
un à un dans le ciel et la terre brûlera. Ce sera une nouvelle
ère géologique: chhess kalp
en cambodgien.
- Seigneur!
gémit André. Ça relève plus de l'astronomie
que de l'astrologie! Mais cinq mille ans, ça nous laisse encore
combien de temps?
- L'ère
bouddhique précède de 543 ans l'ère chrétienne.
Alors ça se passera en l'an 4457. Mais après ce cataclysme
viendra un autre Bouddha, le dernier, que les Khmers appellent Preah
Sé Ar Métri. Avec lui tous les êtres -remarque!
j'ai pas dit les humains- vivront heureux. [Pen Nearovi]
4) Fonte
de l'Arctique (2004-Nov-03, Reprise)
La glace est de plus en plus mince en Arctique. Un rapport dévoilé
par le Fonds mondial pour la nature montre qu'à moins d'une réduction
rapide des rejets de dioxyde de carbone, la glace de l'Arctique aura complètement
disparu en été d'ici la fin du siècle.
Cette fonte va provoquer une hausse du niveau des océans, affecter
l'habitat d'environ 17 millions de personnes et probablement entraîner
la disparition d'espèces de poissons et de mammifères comme
l'ours polaire. Le document réalisé par plus de 250 chercheurs
sera présenté la semaine prochaine à Reykjavik en
Islande, au Conseil arctique. Selon le Fonds mondial pour la nature, les
huit pays membres du Conseil, dont le Canada, sont responsables à
eux seuls d'environ 30% des émissions humaines de dioxyde de carbone.
[Radio-Canada.ca]
5) Les glaciers
himalayens, réservoirs de l'Asie, menacés d'assèchement
(2005-Mar-22, Extrait)
Si Edmund Hillary et le sherpa Tenzing Norgay tentaient aujourd'hui
d'escalader l'Everest, ils s'épargneraient 5 kilomètres d'ascension
sur le périlleux glacier Khumbu, qui a reculé d'autant depuis
leur exploit de 1953. Surnommé le "château
d'eau de l'Asie", le massif himalayen voit fondre ses glaciers,
sous l'effet du réchauffement. Le Fonds mondial pour la nature
(WWF), qui a rassemblé trois études portant sur l'Inde, le
Népal et la Chine, s'en alarme, dans un rapport rendu public le
15 mars. Les glaciers de l'Himalaya, qui couvrent 33 000 km2, alimentent
sept des principaux fleuves d'Asie : le Gange,
l'Indus, le Brahmapoutre,
la Salween, le Mékong,
le Yangzi (fleuve Bleu) et le Huang
He (fleuve Jaune). (...)
"Toutes les observations concordent",
confirme Yves Arnaud (IRD, laboratoire de glaciologie de Grenoble). Les
données topographiques et satellitaires qu'il a lui-même analysées
montrent une diminution de l'épaisseur des glaciers himalayens
variant de 0,2 m à 1 mètre depuis cinquante ans... [Le
Monde]
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