King Asoka’s Sarnath Capital

By Shravasti Dhammika | 5/19/2025

In 1904 the British engineer Fredrich Oertel was directed to do archaeological explorations at Sarnath, known in ancient times as Isipatana, the place where the Buddha first proclaimed the Dhamma to the world. Excavations had already been done there several times before but Oertel chose to dig at the side of a previously ignored high pile of bricks and rubble. Almost immediately he uncovered what he correctly guessed to be one of King Asoka’s pillars broken into three pieces. A bit more digging and clearing of earth revealed the face of a lion, then another, and soon four in all. Oertel had discovered the pillar King Asoka erected to commemorate the Buddha’s first sermon and the magnificent lion capital that had once crowned it.

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On the History of Vesak

By Shravasti Dhammika | 5/11/2025

Vesak is the most universally observed of all Buddhist celebrations or holidays. Traditionally it is believed that the Buddha was born, Awakened and passed into final nibbāna on the same day, the full moon of the second month of the ancient Indian month called Vesākha, which corresponds to the modern April-May. For at least the last 60 years, Vesākha has been widely pronounced as Vesak, the Sinhalese way of saying it. Why not the Thai (Waistkha), the Tibetan (Sa Ga Dawa), the Korean (Seokga Tansinil) or the Vietnamese (Phat Dan) forms? Or for that matter, why not the Pāḷi/Sanskrit Vesākha? Because in 1950 the inaugural meeting of the World Fellowship of Buddhists was held in, paid for and very much dominated by Ceylon, and so that country’s way of saying it became current.

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