The temple you might be talking about is temple of
Emerald Buddha in side the Grand Palace Complex. It is
known as 'Wat Phra Kaeo' in Thai. The boundary wall
has illustration of Ramayana.
In fact, the present Chakri Dynasty, to which the
present King belongs, claim to be descendants of 'Lord
Ram'. So they are also called King Rama (X). Wat Phra
Kaeo was built by King Rama I. The present king is
known as King Rama IX. There is a place called
Ayuthaya, about 50km from Bangkok. Thais claim that,
that is the birth place of Lord Ram.
I had chance of visiting the grand palace and Wat Phra
Kaeo numerous times.
Ganesh
--- Dilip/Dil Deka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Barua,
> That is a good article.You had to do exhaustive
> research and it shows.
> Regarding Ramayana in the South Asian countries, the
> story has gone through so much of transformation
> that at times you have to wonder if it is the story
> from India or it is a local story.
> At least one Bangkok temple I visited had a story
> illustrated on the walls that was called Ramayana
> but it wasn't quite Ramayana.
> Dilip
>
>
> Barua25 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On request of some netters, I am posting the full
> article which aparaently is not available any more
> in the latest Assam Tribune Website:
>
>
> Christianity, The Bible and the Development of the
> Indian Languages:
>
> Rajen Barua
>
>
>
> We must admit, in spite of Bertrand Russells
> critical observation of disdain against religion,
> which I tend to agree in general, that religion is,
> after all, responsible for some of the good things
> of our civilization. Besides astronomy and
> mathematics, the two prominent areas where religion
> had contributed, I would add that religion has also
> contributed immensely, albeit as a side benefit, to
> the development and spread of languages in general
> in the world. We may even say that religion was also
> mainly responsible for the spread of culture itself.
> From earliest times, people travelled to far off
> places mainly for two basic reasons: for business
> and for belief. Starting from the Hindu Vedas down
> to the Bible and the Koran, religion had been making
> a great impact on language and culture. Buddha did
> not name any of his followers to take his place
> after his death. Instead, he left his disciples only
> with one basic axiom: In my absence, the Law
> (Dharma) will be your guiding light; follow the Law,
> be a light unto yourself, and travel and spread the
> Law in unknown lands.
>
>
>
> True to the Law, the Buddhist monks from India
> travelled far and wide to unknown countries to
> spread Buddhism. The same Silk Road, which brought
> Chinese silk and Chinese noodles to the West, also
> was used to carry Buddhist sutras from India into
> China. It was with a religious zeal that King Ashoka
> adopted Buddhism and not only sent Buddhist monks
> all over Asia and the West to spread the Law, but he
> built hundreds of stone pillars, in a land spreading
> from India to Afghanistan, where he wrote his royal
> decree in Brahmi script to spread the Law. Today, it
> is these written words of Ashoka in Brahmi script
> which throw the first light on writing in India. We
> read of many Buddhist monks from India who went,
> lived and died in China only with one goal in mind:
> to translate the Buddhist sutras into Chinese
> language for the purpose of spreading the Law. We
> read of the prolific Indian writer Kumarajiva, who
> travelled to China in 401 AD, lived there, learned
> Chinese and wrote a total of!
> about 47
> books on Buddhist sutras in Chinese. Jinagupta,
> another Indian monk, went to China in the sixth
> century AD, and translated about 37 original
> Sanskrit works into Chinese. His great knowledge was
> so admired by the emperor of the Tang dynasty who
> became his ardent disciple. Today, these Chinese
> books written by the Indian monks are considered
> jewels of Chinese Buddhism.
>
>
> In similar line, Hindu priests went to many
> countries in southeast Asia and established the
> basic structure of local languages based on Sanskrit
> and Pali. From Burma (Myanmar) to far off Korea,
> religion carried the Devanagri script based on which
> the local scripts were developed. Religion also
> carried the popular story of Rama to all these
> southeast Asian countries. With the development of
> written words, the Sanskrit Ramayana was translated
> in almost all these southeast Asian countries
> Ramakien (Thailand), Hikayet Seri Rama (Malayasia),
> Ravana Badham (Indonesia), Ramakavacha (Bali),
> Phra-Lak/Phra-Lam (Laos), Kakawn Ramayan (Java),
> Maradia Lawana (Philippnes), Yama Zatdaw (Burma),
> etc. Today, many of these countries have different
> religions. However, whether it is Islamic Indonesia
> or Christian Philippines, all these countries owe it
> to Hinduism and Buddhism for the development of
> their languages.
>
>
>
> It was with the same religious zeal that we saw a
> new revolution of travel activities from the West to
> spread the words of Jesus Christ in the eighteenth
> century. Along with the British East India Company,
> came the Christian missionaries to India to spread
> the words of Christ. They came from different parts
> of the Christian West including America. Some
> important assumptions of the missionaries had been
> that non-Christian peoples must be approached in
> their own language; the missionaries must be
> persevering to acquaint themselves with the mind and
> customs of the people among whom they dwell; and in
> a country like India, where the vast majority of the
> inhabitants are illiterate, the spread of
> Christianity can be achieved only by oral
> proclamation. These basic principles led to the
> Christian missionaries not only to learning the
> local languages but also to writing the languages in
> Roman script or vernacular so that they can read it
> to the people.
> If we have to name a single person who is
> responsible for the total revival of Indian
> languages in writing, we must name Dr William Carey.
> Carey was born in England in 1761. It is his love of
> Jesus for which he arrived in India in 1793 and
> started the Baptist Mission in Serampore, a former
> Danish colony, near Kolkata. Carey died in Serampore
> in 1834. Along with Carey, several other
> missionaries joined the Mission from England, other
> parts of Europe and America. Over the years, their
> love for the people and Jesus prompted them to learn
> several Indian languages besides enabling them to
> translate the Bible into many languages of India.
>
>
>
> The missionaries acted with diligence and love. They
> soon realized that while Sanskrit is the mother
> language, the Indian vernaculars were yet to be
> fully developed as vehicles of learning. But Carey
> and his team had ambitious plans. As a first step,
> Carey not only learned Sanskrit, but also translated
> the Bible (New Testament) into Sanskrit in 1808. He
> hoped that after the translation of the Bible into
> Sanskrit, the work could now be extended to all the
> languages. >From Serampore, they travelled all over
> India. Eventually, Carey was instrumental in
> translating the Bible into Marathi, Hindi, Oriya,
> Punjabi, Assamese, and Gujarati. Carey also learned
> Telugu and Kannada to bring out the translations of
> the Bible in these languages. Later on, work on
> Pashto and Khasi were undertaken. On a rough
> estimate, we may say that Carey either worked or
> influenced heavily the translation of the Bible into
> as many as 35 languages.
>
>
>
> It, however, remained a great question whether these
> translations actually helped the spread of
> Christianity at all. Because there was also another
> school of thought that the translations were not
> only imperfect but distributing the translated
> copies of the Bible among the Hindus and Muslims
> often actually stopped the Hindus from wanting to
> know more about Jesus because they did not find
> anything therein that would make them to give up
> their religion in preference to Christianity. In
> fact, they found that the stories of Ramayana and
> the Mahabharata were much more exciting and romantic
> compared to the story of Jesus Christ. As such, they
> were not very successful in converting the Hindus
> and Muslims to the Christian faith in large numbers.
> In fact, Careys personal score on this count is
> next to nothing! That did not deter him an iota from
> finding other avenues of service to His Lord and to
> the people he came to serve.
>
>
>
> However, in the process, the missionaries achieved
> something in Indian regional languages, which was
> not achieved before. Their efforts have started the
> important process of modern prose writing in the
> vernacular languages. Although prose writing was not
> uncommon in the vernacular languages, till then the
> traditional practice of saying profound things was
> through the medium of poetry. It is Carey, more than
> any other European scholar-missionary, who really
> showed to the natives of India that prose could be
> an effective medium. They chose the medium of prose
> for his translation much against the traditional
> practice of saying profound things through the
> medium of poetry. It was the necessity to preach the
> goodness of Jesus Christ to all, not just the
> educated or upper classes that made him to choose
> the medium of prose for the translation of the
> Bible.
=== message truncated ===>
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