{"id":15991,"date":"2023-10-18T04:56:08","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T23:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=15991"},"modified":"2025-04-03T21:37:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:07:32","slug":"chakmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/chakmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are Chakmas?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Chakmas<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Chakmas are one of the largest\u00a0ethnic groups native to the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT)\u00a0region of southeastern\u00a0Bangladesh.<\/li>\n<li>They have their own\u00a0age-old culture, language, and scripts.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>They\u00a0primarily live in the Chittagong Hills Tracts of\u00a0Bangladesh, the Chin and Arakan provinces of\u00a0Myanmar, in the\u00a0northeastern Indian states of\u00a0Mizoram,\u00a0Tripura, and\u00a0Arunachal Pradesh, and a few families in\u00a0West Bengal.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Population:\n<ul>\n<li>The Chakma population is estimated to be\u00a0around 550,000.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0majority (approximately\u00a0300,000 people)\u00a0are located in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of\u00a0Bangladesh.<\/li>\n<li>There are also about\u00a080,000 Chakmas\u00a0in Mizoram State.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Religion:\n<ul>\n<li>The majority of Chakmas\u00a0practice\u00a0Theravada Buddhism,\u00a0tinged\u00a0with aspects of\u00a0animism and Hinduism.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Every Chakma village has a\u00a0Buddhist temple (kaang), and the\u00a0Buddhist priests or monks\u00a0are called Bhikhus.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0Chakmas worship Hindu deities like Lakshmi, for example, is worshipped as the Goddess of the Harvest.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Society:\n<ul>\n<li>Chakmas are\u00a0divided into clans (gojas), which are further\u00a0subdivided into subclans (guttis).<\/li>\n<li>Members of\u00a0the same subclan are forbidden to marry each other.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Language: The Chakmas speak a\u00a0dialect of Bengali (Bangla) and\u00a0use the standard Bengali alphabet.<\/li>\n<li>Agricultural Practices:\n<ul>\n<li>They practice\u00a0shifting cultivation called JUM.<\/li>\n<li>They\u00a0grow paddy, maize, cotton, sesame, etc. in their JUM, along with vegetables and spices.<\/li>\n<li>They\u00a0also know the art of low-land cultivation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Key Facts about Theravada Buddhism:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Theravada, the &#8220;Doctrine of the Elders,&#8221; is the name for the school of Buddhism that\u00a0draws its scriptural inspiration from the Pali Canon, or Tipitaka, which scholars generally accept as the\u00a0oldest record of the Buddha&#8217;s teachings.<\/li>\n<li>It is\u00a0one of\u00a0the\u00a0two major branches of Buddhism, the\u00a0other being Mahayana Buddhism.<\/li>\n<li>Owing to its historical dominance in southern Asia (Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Burma), Theravada is\u00a0also identified as &#8220;Southern Buddhism,&#8221; in contrast to &#8220;Northern Buddhism,&#8221; which migrated northwards from India into Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea.<\/li>\n<li>Theravada is\u00a0sometimes identified as &#8220;Hinayana&#8221;\u00a0(the &#8220;Lesser Vehicle&#8221;), in contradistinction to &#8220;Mahayana&#8221; (the &#8220;Greater Vehicle&#8221;), which is usually a synonym for Tibetan Buddhism.<\/li>\n<li>It is the\u00a0dominant religion in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand and is practiced by minorities in India, Bangladesh, China, Nepal, and Vietnam.<\/li>\n<li>In contrast to Mahayana and Vajrayana, Therav\u0101da\u00a0tends to be conservative in matters of doctrine and monastic discipline.<\/li>\n<li>Beliefs:\n<ul>\n<li>Theravada Buddhism places a\u00a0strong emphasis on individual spiritual striving\u00a0and the\u00a0pursuit of personal enlightenment (nirvana).<\/li>\n<li>Monastic life, meditation, and moral conduct\u00a0are central to this path. The\u00a0monastic community as a whole is called the sangha.<\/li>\n<li>Like all Buddhist traditions, Theravada Buddhism\u00a0upholds the Four Noble Truths, which outline the nature of suffering (dukkha), its causes, its cessation, and the path to its cessation, which is the Eightfold Path.<\/li>\n<li>Meditation is a central practice in Theravada Buddhism. The cultivation of mindfulness (sati) and insight meditation (vipassana) are key elements of the path to enlightenment.<\/li>\n<li>Theravada Buddhists\u00a0believe in the law of karma, which means that one&#8217;s actions have consequences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What is the Buddhist Eightfold Path?<\/h3>\n<p>The eightfold path is Right Understanding, Right Intent, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/north-east-india\/tripura\/unconstitutional-action-tripura-high-court-chakma-organisations-boycotting-christian-converts-8987447\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Stop unconstitutional diktats or face action: Tripura High Court to Chakma organisations for boycotting Christian converts<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chakmas are one of the largest ethnic groups native to the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of southeastern Bangladesh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}