Albert Einstein, the great scientist of the atomic age, says: “The religion in the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.” And he further says, “If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.”
Bertrand Russell, one of the great minds of the 20th century, says: “Buddhism is a combination of both speculative and scientific philosophy. It advocates the scientific method and pursues that to a finality that may be called rationalistic….. It takes up where science cannot lead because of the limitations of the latter’s instruments. Its conquests are those of the mind:” He also writes: “There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is due to the poverty of our imagination.”
Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, says: “If I am to take the results of my philosophy as the standard of truth I should be obliged to concede to Buddhism the pre-eminence over the rest.”
Professor Carl Gustav Jung, the outstanding psychologist of Zurich, wrote: “As a student of comparative religion, I believe that Buddhism is the most perfect one the world has ever seen. The philosophy of the Buddha, the theory of evolution and the law of Kamma were far superior to any other creed.”
As Dr. Graham Howe, an eminent British psychiatrist, puts it: “To read a little Buddhism is to realize that the Buddhists knew, 2,500 years ago, far more about modern problems of psychology than they have been given credit for. They studied these problems long ago and found the answers also. We are now rediscovering the ancient wisdom of the East.”
H.G. Wells, a distinguished historian, says these words in praise of Buddhism: “Buddhism has done more for the advance of world civilization than any other influence in the chronicles of mankind.” He further says: “It is possible that in contact with Western science, and inspired by the spirit of history, the original teaching of Gotama, revived and purified, may yet play a large part in the direction of human destiny.”
The great poet, Sir Edwin Arnold, expressed this appreciation of Bud-dhism: “I have often said, and I shall say again and again, that between Buddhism and modern science there exists a close intellectual bond.”
Aldous Huxley writes: “Alone of all the great world religions Buddhism made its way without persecution, censorship or inquisition.”
According to Francis Story, a British exponent of Buddhism, “The doctrines of Buddha Dhamma stand today, as unaffected by the march of time and the expansion of knowledge as when they were first enunciated. No matter to what lengths increased scientific knowledge can extend man’s mental horizon, within the framework of the Dhamma there is room for the acceptance and assimilation of further discovery.”
The great Pali scholar Professor Rhys Davids spoke of his conviction in Buddhism in these words: “I have examined every one of the great religions of the world, and in none of them have I found anything to surpass the beauty and comprehensiveness of the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha. I am content to shape my life according to that path.”

Thai Perfumeries are comprised of several kinds of fragrant cosmetics. In the old days, ladies would wear perfume everyday while men would do in some special occasions. Thai Perfumeries could described into four categories as follows:
1. Water-based perfumeries: Nam-Ob Thai (eau de toilette ) and Nam- Proong (eau de cologne);
2. Oil-based perfumeries : Fragrant oils, Tani oil (thick body oil), and fragrant lip balm;
3. Powdered perfumeries: Fragrant talc, Sarapee talc (siamensis Kosterm), Poung talc, Kra-jae talc, powdered nutmeg, powdered Kamin (Curcuma domestica Valeton), and Juang;
4. Scent chewing herbs: Mak-Hom, Niam leaves, Ganploo (Syzygium aromaticum), and nutmeg.
These perfumeries may be applied together with each other, such as Kar-Jae talc is mixed with Nam- Ob Thai, or individually used such as scent talc for powdering.
Pang-Ram (Scented talc)
Pang-Ram is made of naturally white talcum powder. It is ground into fine particles and mixed with other fragrant herbs or perfumeries, i.e., kameyan, Magrood (lime)’s peel (Citrus hystrix), Chamod ched (Viverricula malaccensis), saffron, alum and red cane sugar.
Ladies would directly powder their skin with dry Pang-ram, or melt it with Nam-Ob Thai before applying it. The Pang-ram could reduce skin irritation caused by heat or pollens. Thai people use Pang-ram after taking bath.
New year traditions
The most obvious celebration of Songkran is the throwing of water. People roam the streets with bowls of water, water guns or even a garden hose, and drench each other and passersby. This, however, is not the heart of this festival. Not many people, even the new generation of Thais, realize that Thai ancestors started this festival to teach their descendants some important things. This festival teaches people to come home to visit their parents, pay respect to them, and usually bring them a small gift. Mother and Father have given to their children so much, and this is the time that children show them that they recognize their parents’ favor. People also visit their older neighbors to keep the good relationships and to pay respect to the elders around the neighborhood. For these reasons Songkran days are also considered the family days and the elderly days.
People go to a wat to pray and give food to monks. They also clean Buddha images in temples with water and gentle Thai perfume (น้ำอบไทย), as it is believed that this will bring good luck and prosperity for the New Year. In many cities, such as Chiang Mai, the Buddha statues from all of the wats in the city are paraded through the streets so that people can wash them as they pass by. People carry handfuls of sand to their temple to in order to recompense the dirt that they carry away on their feet during the rest of the year. The sand is then piled into large, tiered piles and decorated with colorful flags. Later in the day, people also do community services. Going to wat and doing community service teach people to give, the most basic way to happiness in Buddhism.
Some people make New Year resolutions – to refrain from bad behaviour and to do more good things. Songkran is a time for cleaning and renewal. Many Thais take this opportunity to give their home a thorough cleaning.
The throwing water part was originated as a way to pay respect to people, by pouring a small amount of lustral water on other people’s hands as a sign of respect. The youths also do it in a more fun way. They splash others with water to relieve the heat, since April is the hottest month in Thailand (temperatures can rise to over 100°F or 40°C on some days). This has changed to water fights and splashing water to people on vehicles, a hallmark of Songkran as tourists know, as Thais assimilate more western cultures and technologies.
The use of plaster is also very common having originated in the plaster used by monks to mark blessings.
Nowadays, the emphasis is placed on fun and water-throwing rather than on the festival’s spiritual and religious aspects, which sometimes prompts complaints from traditionalists. In recent years there have been calls to moderate the festival as there are many road accidents and injuries attributed to some extreme behavior – water being thrown in the faces of travelling motorcyclists and elephant riding elders.

CEYLONESE BUDDHISM OUT OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD
Ceylonese Buddhism has been in close connection with Ceylonese nationalism throughout Ceylonese history. This connection was even stronger during the British colonial period. Under British rule, the monasteries lacked official status and were unable to defend their land or rights. One report claimed that 800,000 acres of temple property were confiscated. The colonial government and the Christian missionaries took the entire school system out of the hands of the Buddhists. The Buddhists became second-class citizens, while the Christians and the English-educated rose to the best positions in the colonial administration. Only Christian Sundays and feast days and the British national holidays were celebrated in this Buddhist country. There were various anti-colonialist uprisings and prominent Buddhist monks were condemned to death. Threats of religious, national and cultural effacement like these led to the Buddhist revival in Ceylon.
In 2382/1839,1 a parivena2, a Buddhist seminary or institution of higher learning, called the Parama-Dhammacetiya Parivena, was founded. Among the important Buddhist leaders produced by this parivena was H. Sri Sumangala Thera, In the years 2415/1872 and 2419/1876 two more parivenas were established, the Vidyodaya in Colombo and the Vidyalankara at Kelaniya near Colombo, which were raised to the status of universities in 2502/1959.
Then, the learned Buddhists led by Ven. H. Sri Sumangala Thera and Ven. M. Sri Gunฺananda Thera demonstrated their opposition to Western ideas, values and social practices by arranging public disputations with Christian missionaries. In these Buddhist-Christian controversies, the Buddhists considered the utter defeat of Christianity easy and certain, while the Christian missionaries could fairly estimate the difficulties of their position and day by day they had to commend themselves in prayer to God and confide in Him for wisdom and direction at every step.
Reading the account of such a controversy published in the Ceylon Times in 1873, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, an American Civil War officer, came to know of the Buddhist conditions in Ceylon. Then, in 2423/1880, he came to Ceylon to take part in the defence of Buddhism. He travelled around the country encouraging the people to revive their historic religion, reorganized the Buddhist educational system on modern principles and founded the Theosophical Society of Ceylon. Within a few years he opened three colleges and 200 schools, and exercised considerable influence over the younger generation. One of the young men who came under his influence was David Hewavitharne (mentioned earlier), who later became a great Buddhist leader called Anagarika Dharmapala, the founder of the Maha Bodhi Society (2434/1891) and the Buddhist revival movement in India. The movement initiated by Col. Olcott also adopted a Buddhist flag and succeeded in making the Vesak a public holiday once more.
Meanwhile, in the field of Buddhist studies, some of the British officials who served in the Civil Service of Ceylon, through their private study and research, developed an appreciation of the Buddhist culture
of Ceylon. Among these was Professor T.W. Rhys Davids who later founded the Pali Text Society in London in 2424/1881 and wrote, edited and translated voluminous Buddhist literary works. By rendering the Buddha’s teachings admirable in European eyes, he ‘gave confidence and pride to the peoples who had preserved them’.1 He has been one of the two Westerners especially revered in Ceylon, the other being Col. Olcott.
Among Ceylonese scholars, it should be noted that lay Buddhists have played no less important a part in Buddhist literary activities than the monks. One of the best known or, probably, the best known, should be Professor G.P. Malalasekera, the compiler of the Dictionary of Pali Proper Names (2480-2481/1937-38) and Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, the first fascicule of which was published in 2504/1961.
The Encyclopaedia is a work of international collaboration and several regional committees have been set up for the better coordination of the work, the largest of these being the Japanese committee. Smaller committees also function in China, Burma, Thailand, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. Some 2,000 pages of the Encyclopaedia have been published so far.
Among monk-scholars, the following names should be cited: Aggamahapanฺdฺita A.P. Buddhadatta, author of Concise Pali-English Dictionary, English-Pali Dictionary, New Pali Course, etc.; Dr. Vajirananaฺ Mahathera, writer of Buddhist Meditation; Ven. Narada Thera, an active Buddhist missionary and voluminous author; Ven. W. Rahula, author of What the Buddha Taught and History of Buddhism in Ceylon. Of no less importance and distinction than these scholars is Ven. Nyanatiloka, a German Buddhist monk of Island Hermitage in Ceylon who wrote Guide Through the Abhidhamma Pitฺaka, The Word of the Buddha, Buddhist Dictionary and other valuable works in German, English and Pali. Of his pupils, Ven. Nyanaponika, a German monk learned in the Abhidhamma, and Ven. Nanฺamoli, an English monk with voluminous translated Pali works, are among international. Buddhist scholars. In presenting Buddhist teaching and practice to the modern world, these scholars have been active in relating them to modern thought and much attention has been paid to the Abhidhamma and meditation.

In Germany, an early stimulation to the study of Buddhism was the works of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (2331-2403/ 1788-1860), whose thoughts were influenced to a great extent by the teachings of the Buddha. His great work, “World as Will and Idea,” served also to popularize a kind of Buddhism all over Europe. However, as his philosophy was pessimistic, his admiration for Buddhism as the key to all the problems of life and his acknowledgement of the agreement of his philosophy with the teachings of the Buddha have also given many Europeans a bad impression of Buddhism. In 2403/1860, Albert Weber, a German lndologist, translated the Dhammapada into German, thus giving it its first appearance in a modern Western language. Hermann Oldenberg, a Vedic scholar and a contemporary of Professor Rhys Davids, edited the publication of the Vinaya-Pitฺaka during the period from 1879 to 1883. Among his other works were “The Buddha”, the first Buddhist textbook in Europe based wholly on firsthand Pali sources; which was translated into English in 2425/1882, and many learned articles intended to show the relation between Pali literature and the Vedas.
Among German Buddhists1 who worked hard for the cause of Buddhism, mention should be made of Dr. Paul Dahlke, a physician and a student of Theravada Buddhism. Besides publishing Buddhist journals and translating Buddhist texts, Paul Dahlke wrote authoritative books on Buddhism, most of which have been translated into English by an English monk, Bhikkhu Silacara. In 2467/1924, he founded in Frohnau, Berlin, a Buddhist House (Buddhistisches Haus), which later, after his death, was purchased by the German Dharmaduta Society of Colombo to house the Ceylon Mission. Another was the Venerable Nyanatiloka Mahathera, who became the first person from continental Europe to be ordained as a Bhikkhu and lived the life of a Buddhist monk in Ceylon for over 50 years before he died in 2500/1957 at the age of 79. Besides writing numerous books in German and in English, he founded in 2454/1911 the Island Hermitage on a lake at Dodanduwa in South Ceylon, which has served for a long time as a training centre for Western monks who studied and practised under his guidance. Another German Bhikkhu is his distinguished pupil, the Venerable Nyanaponika Mahathera, an able exponent of the Abhidhamma and competent translator of Pali texts, who is continuing the work of his teacher at the Island Hermitage and whose contribution to the spread of Buddhism is made known through the Buddhist Publication Society of Ceylon at Kandy. Today there are Buddhist Societies in many of the larger cities of Germany. In Hamburg, members of the Buddhist Society there, probably the biggest one in Germany, support the House of Stillness, an active Buddhist study and meditation centre outside the city.
Other European contributions
In Scandinavian countries there is a long tradition of Pali and Buddhist studies and the contribution made by Scandinavians in this field is second to none in its scholarly value. It was Vincent Fausboll, a Danish scholar, who edited the publication of the Dhammapada with a Latin translation in 2398/1855, making the first transliteration of a full Pali text in Roman characters in Europe. Fausboll’s greatest work was his edition of the Jatakas in seven volumes published between 2420/1877 and 2440/1897,1 a noteworthy contribution to the study of popular Buddhism and Indian Buddhist culture. Another Dane, V. Trenckner, published his edition of the Milindapanha in 2423/1880. Trenckner, assisted by a Swedish Pali scholar named Helmer Smith, initiated the great lexicographical work, Critical Pali Dictionary. Many parts of this dictionary have been published by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in Copenhagen since 2470/1927, and the work is still being continued under the editorship of Dines Anderson and Helmer Smith. Today there are some Buddhist societies, such as the Friends of Buddhism, working to encourage the study, the practice and the spread of Buddhism.
Earlier than the work by English scholars was the beginning of Pali studies by the French Orientalist Eugene Burnouf. In 2369/1826, E. Burnouf and Christian Lassen published their essay on Pali in French and became pioneers in the field of Pali studies in Europe. Burnouf’s “Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism”, published in 2387/1844, which threw light on the relation between the Pali and Sanskrit traditions, was the first history of Buddhism. The French tradition begun by Burnouf was continued by Sylvan Levi and later eminent scholars such as Paul Demiville and Louis Renou. Under the direction of S. Levi and J. Takakusu and the editorship of Paul Demiville, an encyclopaedic dictionary of Buddhism after the Chinese and Japanese sources called Hobogirin was started in 2472/1929.
There are still many other scholars of countries in Continental Europe who have made significant contributions to the progress of Buddhist studies. A Hungarian, Alexander Csoma de Koros (2327-2392/ 1784-1849), through his works in the field of Tibetan studies, was,regarded as the inaugurator of Buddhist studies in the West. Among his works was Tibetan-English Dictionary, published in 2377/1834. A Dutch scholar, H. Kern, made an edition of the Jatakamala in 2434/1891 and published his famous work, Manual of Indian Buddhism, in 2439/1896. The Belgian Indologist Louis de La Valle Poussin, a pupil of Sylvan Levi and H. Kern, edited a number of Sanskrit texts and organized in 2464/1921 the Society for Oriental Studies. Among Italian scholars G. Tucci was prominent for his edition of voluminous Mahayana texts. Among Russians the name of Th. Stcherbatsky stands foremost. Besides editing and translating many Sanskrit texts, Stcherbatsky wrote a number of learned treatises on Buddhism. Among these works, The Central Conception of
Buddhism, The Central Conception of Buddhist Nirvana, and the two-volume Buddhist Logic are probably the best known.