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Nala Sopara (aka "Nallasopara" or "Sopara") is a town within the Mumbai Conurbation. The town lies in Palghar district of Maharashtra state in India. The population of the city is 184,664 during the 2001 census. Its railway station is on the Western Railway Zone, approximately 50 km from Mumbai Central station. It is governed by the Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC). A popular monthly magazine titled ''Environment Industry and Human'' is published from Nala Sopara. ==History== Proof of Ashokan inscriptions have been recovered from Sopara. Buddhist texts give details that it was a prominent Buddhist area. During an excavation, ruins of a Buddhist Stupa were found. From the center of the stupa, inside a brick built chamber, a large stone coffer was excavated, containing eight bronze images of Maitreya Buddha belonging to the 8th-9th century A.D. The coffer contained relic caskets, numerous gold flowers and fragments of a begging bowl. A silver coin of Gautamiputra Satakarni was also found from the mound. There were 14 major Ashokan edicts, and the fact that two of them were found at Sopara indicates that it was an important centre of Buddhist activity. The edicts can be found in the ancient history section of the Prince of Wales Museum. The fragment of the ninth rock edict is a massive octagonal block of stone covered with mauryan brahmi writing, roughly the size of a large television screen. It worked as a form of media and used to spread his messages. Emperor Ashoka ensured that rock hoardings propagating his dhamma were installed at strategic points in his empire, including a bilingual Greek and Aramic edict at Kandahar. The stones of his empire have survived the vagaries of history to this day. Sopara, situated in the Thane district of Mumbai, was the site of an ancient sea port and town. Given the heavy human traffic of a port town, it was an ideal spot to spread his word. According to historian Sadashiv Gorakshkar, "as a sequel to the third Buddhist council in the eighteenth year of Ashoka's reign in 256 B.C., it was decided to depute several theras (senior monks) as messengers to various parts of the country. One of the areas covered was Aparanta, where a yona dharmaraksita (Greek messenger) was sent to propagate the law. In spite of the various interpretations of Aparanta, it is now accepted that the entire region of Thekonkan, the area between the Sahyadri and the sea, was included in Aparanta, and Suparaka or Sopara was an important tirtha in Aparanta." But it has an eternal place in Ptolemy's ''Periphus Maris Erythraci,'' and in ancient Hindu, Jain and Buddhist literature. The Purnavandana contains a legend about Gautama's visit to Sopara at the instance of the merchant Purna. Additionally, Ashoka deliberately chose to send a yona dharmarakshita to Sopara because of its international milieu and the presence of Alexandrian Greeks, Romans, Parthians and Arabs. It was around Sopara that a major centre of Buddhist activity, something akin to a university, flourished at Kanheri almost until the advent of the arrival of the Portuguese in the 15th century. Sopara slipped into historical obscurity until the Easter season of 1882. During that April, Bhagwan Lal Indraji excavated the mound in Sopara, locally called Buruda Rajacha Killa or 'Fort of the Basket-making King'. He opened the centre of the stupa and discovered a stone coffer 13 feet below. This coffer, now on display at the Asiatic Society, had in the centre a copper casket containing, one within the other like Russian dolls, four other caskets of silver, stone, crystal and gold. The gold casket contained gold flowers and 13 bits of earthenware, which scholars feel could be shards from Buddha's begging bowl. Around the copper casket, keeping ancient watch were eight metal images of Buddhas. Although scholars place the date of the images and the casket between the 2nd and 8th century A.D., the rock edicts are hard proof of the Ashokan connection. The structure of the stupa is also traced back to the Ashokan era. The author of ''Jesus's Godama Sources'' claims that there is excellent proof to associate the name and location of the Biblical Ophir with the name and location of Sopara.〔The Inherent Scholarly Prejudices on the Relationship between Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity—or—Jesus’s Godama Sources and a Truer History of the Post-Axial Age Egyptian, Grecian, and Persian Empires, p. 97〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nala Sopara」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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