Ancient Buddhist scriptures in the Mekong Delta.VIETNAMESE TRANSLATE ENGLISH BY=VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUN=THICH CHAN TANH.

One thing of great interest to historians of Buddhism is that, on the map are densely engraved with diplomas of two types of ancient and intertwined antiquities: Pali and Sanskrit, the Indian Brahmi script.

Buddhist proverbs engraved on an ancient map.

Map of Tran Tran Phuoc collected in the mountains "Mysterious mountains" in the Long Xuyen quadrangle - the famous development site of many religions in the Southwest region. In folklore, it is called the Seven Mountains region: Tra Su Mountain, Ket Mountain, Doi Ba Om Mountain, Cam Mountain, Long Mountain, Tuong Mountain and Co To Mountain.

Not long ago, on the occasion of visiting the researcher Tran Huu Phuoc - former Deputy Standing Chairman of the Steering Committee for the construction of the revolutionary revolutionary historical site in the South, through the evaluation of civilization in the ancient map drawn on I am very pleased to have discovered an important cultural relic related to the introduction and propagation of Buddhist thought in the ancient Mekong Delta.

This map, Mr. Tran Huu Phuoc collected in the mountainous region "Mysterious mountain" in Long Xuyen quadrangle - a famous development area of ​​many religions in the Southwest region. In folklore, this is called the "Seven mountains": Tra Su mountain, Ket mountain, Doi Ba Om mountain, Cam mountain, Dai mountain, Tuong mountain and Co To mountain.

In this ancient map, there are many mysteries about historical science that need to be discovered by researchers, such as: This is a map of the ancient Indian subcontinent or of the kingdoms of Funan and Chan. Lap a ball echoes? Is the map drawn locally or by missionaries, monks, navigators, merchants from the country of Thien Truc or the Roman Far West to Southeast Asia along the sea trade route?

One thing of great interest to historians of Buddhism is that, on the map are densely engraved with diplomas of two types of ancient and intertwined antiquities: Pali and Sanskrit, the Indian Brahmi script.

In particular, two valuable quotes of Buddha Shakyamuni were highlighted in the first sermon to five disciples at Deer Park, after he became enlightened at the age of 35 years old. If dating according to "Burmese Buddha transmissions" is accepted by many countries, now time has passed 2,587 years. I would like to copy the two Buddhist sayings in this map to offer readers:

Ancient:

Spelling:

1. de dharmà hetu prabhavà tesam hetum Tathàgato avaca yesañca yo nirodho Evam vàdi Mahàmano.

2. Dukkham dukkhasamutpàdo dukkhasaca atikkamo airo atthamgikomaggo dukkho pasama gàmiko.

Translate:

Any dharma that arises from cause. Tathagata has theory of the cause of the Dharma. He also preached about cessation and the method to eliminate it. Venerable Mahayana preached like that.

Suffering, the source of suffering. Seeing suffering, suffering, the practitioner ends his suffering with the eightfold Path.

The above two proverbs are the historical Dharma of the Buddha opening the career of 45 years to propagate the Dharma. It establishes a theoretical view of human life and morality in forming the basis of Buddhist teachings. About Buddhist studies, this first article is called "Zhuan Falun" (Dhammacakka).

The core idea of ​​"Zhuan Falun" is the treatise on the theory of "Four Noble Truths", also known as "Four Noble Truths" or "Four Noble Truths", including 4 contents: "Suffering Truths" (explaining the suffering in the world), "The Noble Truth" (analysis of the causes of human suffering), "Removal of Suffering" (presenting the method of eliminating suffering) and "The Noble Truth" (guiding the path to resolution exit). This is the basic teaching, the source of Buddhism. So the wise Zen teachers have called Shakyamuni Buddha "Buddha" and the Four Noble Truths are "Dharma protection".

The quintessence value of the "Four Noble Truths" theory was thoroughly explained by the Buddha to his disciple in the Samyutta Nikaya Sutta. He said: “What do I preach to you? We talk about suffering, the causes of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to cessation of suffering. The things I preach are in your favor, because they lead you toward liberation. ” In the Dhammapada, the Buddha also clearly defined: “The most noble path is the Eightfold Path. The highest truth is the Four Noble Truths. "

Over thousands of years of history, the Buddha's proverbs have been universalized and spread widely in the treasure of Buddhist scriptures. It is also engraved on gold (India, Burma, Laos, Vietnam); on stone steles, statues and reliefs (Vietnam, Laos, and India); on burnt clay (Burma) stele.

Now one more significant finding. Mr. Trần Hữu Phước was the first person and the land of Seven Mountains was the first place that contributed to the Buddhist treasure a unique artifact - that was part of the Buddha's article "Zhuan Falun". carved on an old map of animal skin. According to some researchers, this could be a wild animal skin (deer, deer). This event has never been seen in our country or abroad.

Image of an antique map engraved on animal skin.

Comparing with the proverb written on Buddha's gold leaf unearthed in Go Xoai - Long An in March 1987, Tran Huu Phuoc's collected discourse on animal skin has some of the following differences:

- The inscription engraved on gold consists of 4 sentences, including 2 sentences that are Buddha language and the other 2 sentences are not Buddha language. The two civilized verses engraved on animal skins are Buddha's language in the scriptures.

- The civilization on gold is the standard way of writing in capital letters. The text on the skin is a regular, stylized vertical font.

- The writing on the skin is done according to the style of writing between the paragraph and the paragraph from one to two paragraphs instead of all three punctuation marks:, comma (;) and punctuation marks (. ). In particular, the writer also paid attention to the art of engraving. For each first word of the lower row is shifted to the left 15 glasses compared to the top row, forming an arc, giving the reader a feeling of two Buddhist sayings like the moon.

Through the examination of the civilization on this leather map, there are similarities with the ancient inscriptions engraved on the Brahmi inscriptions in Central and South India (such as Gujara, Rastrakuta ...), so I guess Civilization may be around the 7th and 8th century AD. END=NAM MO SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ).GOLDEN AMITABHA MONASTERY=VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUN=THICH CHAN TANH.AUSTRALIA,SYDNEY=2/6/2020.