Tulku (novel)

Tulku is a children's historical novel by Peter Dickinson, published by Gollancz in 1979. Set in China and Tibet at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, it features a young teenage boy orphaned by the violence, who flees with others to a Buddhist monastery. Dickinson and Tulku won two major awards for British children's books, the Whitbread Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal. The Carnegie Medal from the Library Association then recognised the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject.

Dutton published a U.S. edition within the calendar year under its Unicorn imprint.

Plot summary

Thirteen-year-old Theodore lives in a remote region of China at his father's Mission. When the violence of the Boxer Rebellion finally reaches them, Theodore escapes alone from its destruction. He soon becomes one companion of a formidable Englishwoman, "painted, blasphemous, gun-toting Mrs Jones". She is an amateur botanist and a former actress with an entourage.

The party flees bandits into Tibet and take refuge at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Theodore is briefly seen to be the Tulku, a great lama reincarnated; then the recently conceived child of Mrs Jones and her Chinese lover is identified as the one. Theodore is exposed to the "magnetic, repugnant rituals of Buddhism" and develops as a "whole, willing Christian". Mrs Jones is recruited to remain on site and the boy finally returns to England with the fruit of her botanical expedition.

Tulku (film)

Tulku is a 2009 documentary film, written and directed by Gesar Mukpo. The film details the personal experiences of five young Western men who were identified in childhood as being tulkus, or reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist masters.

For over 700 years tulkus have been sought out as highly revered leaders and teachers of Tibetan Buddhism. Beginning in the 1970s, several tulkus have been identified as having incarnated in the West. These new, Western-born, very modern tulkus lead lives prone to culture clash and identity confusion.

Background

Gesar Mukpo, who wrote and directed Tulku, was born in 1973, the son of world-renowned Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his British wife Diana. At the age of three, Mukpo was identified by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche as the reincarnation of the late Shechen Kongtrul Rinpoche (the Jamgon Kongtrul of Shechen), one of his own father's teachers in Tibet. Three-year-old Gesar was then enthroned as a tulku in Berkeley, California.

In the film, Mukpo's British mother describes her scandalous marriage to a Tibetan monk, and her vision in a dream of a being who asked to be her son. When Gesar was born and was identified as a tulku, his father believed he could be a great teacher, but did not send him away to a monastery, believing it would separate him from his environment too much.

Door

A door is a moving structure used to block off, and allow access to, an entrance to or within an enclosed space, such as a building or vehicle. Similar exterior structures are called gates. Typically, doors have an interior side that faces the inside of a space and an exterior side that faces the outside of that space. While in some cases the interior side of a door may match its exterior side, in other cases there are sharp contrasts between the two sides, such as in the case of the vehicle door. Doors normally consist of a panel that swings on hinges or that slides or spins inside of a space.

When open, doors admit people, animals, ventilation or light. The door is used to control the physical atmosphere within a space by enclosing the air drafts, so that interiors may be more effectively heated or cooled. Doors are significant in preventing the spread of fire. They also act as a barrier to noise. Many doors are equipped with locking mechanisms to allow entrance to certain people and keep out others. As a form of courtesy and civility, people often knock before opening a door and entering a room.

Simeon Gottfried Albert Doorenbos

Simon Godfried Albert Doorenbos (7 October 1891, Barneveld – 1980) was a Dutch horticulturist best known for his work as Director of The Hague Parks Department from 1927 until his retirement in 1957, with a brief interruption during the Second World War when he was dismissed and evicted by the Nazis for refusing to remove trees and shrubs to facilitate the construction of a V1 flying bomb launch pad.

Doorenbos started his career as a nursery representative in 1915, visiting the UK and USA. His long career was distinguished by the raising of a number of important cultivars, including Symphoricarpos × doorenbosii, Betula utilis 'Doorenbos', and numerous Dahlias. Perhaps his most famous achievement was the hybrid elm cultivar 'Den Haag', indeed it has been postulated that he was the first to think of crossing elms to obtain varieties resistant to Dutch elm disease. Doorenbos was also responsible for the introduction of the Himalayan Elm Ulmus wallichiana to Europe, cuttings of which he obtained from the Arnold Arboretum in 1929; the species was later to play a major role in the Dutch elm breeding programme.

Temple

A temple (from the Latin word templum) is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities such as prayer and sacrifice. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out on the ground by the augur. Templa also became associated with the dwelling places of a god or gods. Despite the specific set of meanings associated with the religion of the ancient Rome, the word has now become quite widely used to describe a house of worship for any number of religions and is even used for time periods prior to the Romans.

Hindu temples

Hindu temples are called by many different names, varying on region and language, including mandir, mandira, ambalam, gudi, kavu, koil, kovil, déul, raul, devasthana and devalaya.

Hindu temples are large and magnificent with a rich history. There is evidence of use of sacred ground as far back as the Bronze Age and later the Indus Valley Civilization. However, it was not until Today, Hindu temples have been built in various countries around the world, including India, Nepal, Mauritius, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Great Britain, the United States, Australia, South Africa and Canada.

É (temple)

É (Cuneiform: 𒂍) is the Sumerian word or symbol for house or temple.

The Sumerian term É.GAL ("palace", literally "big house") denoted a city's main building. É.LUGAL ("king's house") was used synonymously. In the texts of Lagash, the É.GAL is the center of the ensi's administration of the city, and the site of the city archives. Sumerian É.GAL "palace" is the probable etymology of Semitic words for "palace, temple", such as Hebrew היכל heikhal, and Arabic هيكل haykal. It has thus been speculated that the word É originated from something akin to *hai or *ˀai, especially since the cuneiform sign È is used for /a/ in Eblaite.

The term temen appearing frequently after É in names of ziggurats is translated as "foundation pegs", apparently the first step in the construction process of a house; compare, for example, verses 551–561 of the account of the construction of E-ninnu:

Temen has been occasionally compared to Greek temenos "holy precinct", but since the latter has a well established Indo-European etymology (see temple), the comparison is either mistaken, or at best describes a case of popular etymology or convergence.

Temple in Jerusalem

The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ‎, Modern: Bet HaMikdash, Tiberian: Beṯ HamMiqdāš, Ashkenazi: Beis HaMikdosh; Arabic: بيت القدس‎: Beit al-Quds or بيت المقدس: Beit al-Maqdis ; Ge'ez: ቤተ መቅደስ: Betä Mäqdäs) was one of a series of structures which were located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. These successive temples stood at this location and functioned as a site of ancient Israelite and later Jewish worship.

Etymology

The Hebrew name given in the Hebrew Bible for the building complex is either Beit YHWH (House of Yahweh, or Jehovah), Beit HaElohim "House of God," or simply Beiti "my house", Beitekhah "your house" etc. The term hekhal "hall" or main building is often translated "temple" in older English Bibles. In rabbinical literature the temple is Beit HaMikdash, "The Sanctified House", and only the Temple in Jerusalem is referred to by this name.

First or Solomon's Temple

The Hebrew Bible says that the First Temple was built in 957 BCE by King Solomon . According to the Book of Deuteronomy, as the sole place of Israelite sacrifice (Deuteronomy 12:2-27), the Temple replaced the Tabernacle constructed in the Sinai Desert under the auspices of Moses, as well as local sanctuaries, and altars in the hills. This temple was sacked a few decades later by Shoshenq I, Pharaoh of Egypt.