u/Cynical-Rambler — reddlx

One night near dawn, the Maharaja of the Kosala kingdom, dreamed of 16 different strange scenes. He woke up terrified and confused. Immediately, he called the Brahman priests to divine. The priest came up with three results: 1. Annihilation of the royal wealth. 2. Annihilation of the royal health. 3. The end of the king life. To avoid these annihilation, animal sacrifices can be perform.

Learning this, his wife told, go instead to the Brahman named Gautama. "Let him divine these strange dreams." The king then went to Jetavana where the Sramana Gautama, the Holy Buddha Parama Guru, preach most of his sermons.

The Maharaja described his dream one by one, and the Buddha told me, "this is nothing to do with your reign, these dreams foretold what will happen to different kingdoms in the new Buddhist era following Tathagata entering Nirvanna".

I don't want to write all sixteen, so here is a select few.

The first scene the king dreamed is of four bulls from four direction, rushing to fight in the center and do nothing. The Buddha forecasts of there will be times when black skies all over which seem to rain, don't rain and rain where it should not rain. Farmers got screwed by the weather as they can't plan anything.

The fifth scene the king dreamed of horse having two mouth. People bring it grass to eat, the horse eat from two mouths at once. The Buddha forecasts of there will be times of some kingdoms, where the rulers don't have understanding of karma, good or bad deeds, letting magistrates take all bribes from both the sides of civil suits.

The 10th scene the king dreamed is of a rice being cooked in a single pot but when taken out: one part is raw, one part is burned, one part is fine. The Buddha forecasts of there everybody in the state, from the rulers, officials, priests, city and rural folks, the sramana and the brahmans, and even the gods themselves, lack any sort of dharma or karma practice. Storms then blow and shake the palaces the gods.The gods became angry and erratic, pouring rains here, blocking rains there. In short, crazy weather.

https://preview.redd.it/qmq6sy76iizg1.jpg?width=2997&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8e5705879e4247322500677c6404c77bf84b90e

I just think of this story for whatever reason. Maybe because the Vesak day, was last week.

Typically, Yaksha stand on the entrance, but in this pagoda, who cared. With all the amounts of nagas, lions, garudas, devas, ancestral spirits, earth spirits, sky spirits,.. which decorated the place, the only being that can cause damage are the humans.

There is the whole charm to non-standardized artists making their own unique spins to their works. Right next to it is an over-thousand year old Hindu temple, dedicated to Shiva, with decorations of the stories of Vishnu, housing dozens of Buddhist statues along a Phallic symbol dedicated to the Trimuti, along with rooms dedicated to female and male ancestor and ascetic spirits. Housing next to the stone temple, is a shrine housing the local Iron-Fan (or Iron-Propeller) Ancestral Guardian and his wife. All these are on top of a mountain named after a king named after Surya.

That's bottom-up worship for you.

Inside this Vihara, there are long white Nagas that weren't painted or drawn. Look unfinished Asked the old men who take care of the place. They said "years ago, there is a pay dispute, and the painters just said screw it. No pay, no paint."