Plants
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
Plants are living organisms which grow in the earth and have the ability to convert sunlight into the energy they need for growth. Buddhism considers plants to be one-facultied (ekindriya) life forms (Vin.III,155). The traditional way of classifying plants in ancient India was as medical herbs (osadhī), forest-type trees (vanaspati), fruit or flower-producing trees (rukkha), shrubs (gumba), grasses (tiṇa), plants with tendrils (patāna) and vines (vallī). The Buddha classified them according to whether they are propagated by roots, stems, joints, cuttings or seeds (D.I,5). While killing a plant would not be breaking the first Precept, the Buddha encouraged his disciples to have a respect for all life including plants and not to unnecessarily damage or destroy plants, their foliage or their seeds (D.I,5). See Flowers and Trees.
A Problem of the Sentience of Plants in Earliest Buddhism, L. Schmitthausen,1991.