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 India
is the cultural unit now made up of the modern states of Pakistan,
India and Bangladesh. Hindus have long called India either Aryadesa
or Bhārata, still its official name. At the time of the Buddha,
it was called Jambudīpa, the Rose-Apple Land (A.I,35). He described
India fairly accurately as being 'broad in the north and narrow in
the south' (D.II,235) and as having high mountains on its northern
margin, i.e. the Himalayas (Vin.IV,197). He described India's general
environment like this: 'Few in number are the pleasant parks,
pleasant groves, pleasant stretches of land and lakes, while more
numerous are the steep rugged places, unfordable rivers, dense forest
thickets of scrub and thorns and inaccessible mountains' (A.I,35).
The Buddha lived all his life in that area of northern India then
called the Middle Land, the wide flat valley of the
Ganges and Yamunā Rivers. Buddhism flourished in India for about a
1000 years and then went into a long period of decline, finally dying
out in the 13th century. In the 1950's a movement began,
mainly amongst intellectuals and untouchables led by Bhimrao
Ambedkar, to revive Buddhism. Since then the Buddhist
population of India has grown from almost nothing to over 8 million. |
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