Transcript

4.24.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today
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I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated April May
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twenty twenty five. As a reminder, Radio Eye is a
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reading service intended for people who are blind or have
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other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material.
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Please join me now for the first article, which is
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the second part of what Archaeologists are uncovering about the
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Buddha in his legendary Nepali hometown by Jeffrey Bartholett. The
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first part of our article explored the significance of Lumbini,
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the birthplace of the Buddha, as a pilgrimage site, and
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its archaeological importance. It discussed the rituals performed by monks,
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the ongoing archaeological efforts to uncover the historical Buddha, and
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the debates surrounding his existence and teachings. We learned that
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a procession of over two hundred Tibetan monks takes place
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at the site, performing rituals that include circumambulating a building
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and conducting a purification ceremony. Lumbini attracts both worshipers and
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archaeologists seeking evidence of the historical Buddha. With digs focused
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on his birthplace in the nearby ancient town of Khipilavastu,
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believed to be his childhood home. Scholars continued to debate
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the historical existence of Siddharta Gatima, with some claiming there
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is insufficient evidence to confirm his life, while others assert
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that archaeological findings support the idea of historical Buddha. The
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Buddha is perceived differently across cultures, with various interpretations of
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his life and teachings ranging from a historical figure to
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a magical being with supernatural abilities. We also learned about
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Emperor Ashaka, who played a crucial role in promoting Buddhism
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and pilgrimage sites including Lumbini, following his conversion after witnessing
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the horrors of war. And Part one also discussed how
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the rapid development of Lumbini for tourism has raised concerns
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about the conservation of archaeological sites, with calls for careful
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management to prevent deterioration. Finally, archaeologists have uncovered significant findings,
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including a palatial compound and an absidal temple, which suggests
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the historical significance of Kapiluvastu as a Buddhist pilgrimage destination.
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Here now is part two. It would make sense for
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this particular sacred space to center on a tree. Siddharta's mother,
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after all, is said to have given birth in a
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garden while holding on to a tree branch. Many scholars, however,
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reject the suggestion that the sixth century BC shrine is Buddhist.
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It was more likely just a yaksha, they argue, an
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animist tree shrine common to the region. Such scholars believe
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that a shaka arrived at the site, which was mentioned
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in scripture as the birthplace of the Buddha, and reappropriated
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the existing tree shrine as the dativity site. The site
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is very near to many tree sanctuaries found all over
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India long before Buddhism, says Oscar von Heineuber, an emeritus
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scholar of endology at the University of Freiburg in Germany
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and a former president of the International Association of Buddhist Studies.
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There is not the slightest trace of anything that connects
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the shrine to the Buddha, except that it's found in Lumbini.
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While von Heneuburg takes issue with the tree shrine evidence
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he does believe that a historical Buddha likely existed, he
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has separated out the scriptural descriptions of the Buddha's life
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that appear to him as the most credible that seem
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to contain the memory of a genuine person, as he
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puts it. For instance, since the story of his Siddharta's
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departure from his father's home is often animated by the supernatural,
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Siddharta slips out of the palace grounds on his faithful
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white horse Kantaka, and the gods silence the sound of
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its neighing so the prince can depart unnoticed. But an
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earlier scriptural version has Siddharta directly confronting his parents, who
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are terribly upset by his decision, though they wished otherwise
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and wept with tearful faces. The Buddha tells his followers
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in this account, he cut off his hair, put on
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a yellow robe, and went forth from the home life
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into homelessness. Von Hunuba takes this older version of Siddhartha's departure,
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involving an emotional conflict with his parents that might seem
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familiar to many even today, as more plausible and reliable.
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At Lumbini's thousand Buddha Temple, a massive four story Tibetan
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structure with thirty to forty foot ceilings. In the main hall,
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the Buddha's narrative is depicted on sixteen giant tapestries or tonkas.
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He was very good at everything, one young monk told me.
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As we viewed scenes from Siddhartha's youth in studies and sports,
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he was only number one. In one panel, Siddharta is
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shown on the evening he departs home to become an ascetic.
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He's in a colorful, multi story palace that vaguely resembles
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the grand monastery in which we are standing. But if
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archaeology and history tell us anything definite, it's that Siddharta
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would have grown up in simpler surroundings. Siddharta's father was
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not a king, scholars say, but the chosen or elected
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leader of a tribal republic. There were no homes of
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stone or cement, or even brick in this region when
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Siddharta was alive, he would have lived in a house
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made of wood or bamboo sticks, dried mud or wattle,
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with a thatched roof. His floors would likely have been
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plastered in cow dung. The monks seemed okay with that,
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noting that Siddharta's home would have still been a palace
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compared with the away others lived. One devotee compared it
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to a modern luxury eco lodge, made of natural materials
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and adorned with flowers. What some monks had a harder
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time accepting was the scientific denial of miracles. We respect science,
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but whatever science says is not necessarily one hundred percent correct,
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said Shoikya Ni'ema Rinpoch, the founder and abbot of the
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Thousand Buddha Temple. He was seated cross legged on a
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throne like couch in a reception room where visitors came
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and bowed to him. In many religions, they imagine miracles,
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he told me. The inclusion of these stories, the abbot elaborated,
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is beneficial for those who believe in them. Such beliefs
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can instill faith in the practices and thereby lead to
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what he calls the best miracles of all, fewer negative
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emotions and the ability to be more kind. For his part,
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the abbot believes in a world beyond what is scientifically proven.
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He told me. He's had different visions and has seen
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different forms of beings. When he saw one such being
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in Prague once, his hosts told him the city had ghosts.
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Scientists have made vital breakthroughs that have improved human lives,
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he acknowledged. But they've also made atom bombs and are
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building artificial intelligence they perhaps cannot control, and they don't
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know anything about the mind, he said. Buddhists who achieve
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deep meditative states, he suggested, no more, and their faith
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should not be disturbed. Other monks and nuns see more.
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Sanguine Ani choying Droma, who is known as the Singing
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Nun for vocal performances she gives around the world, told
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me she has a hard time believing that Siddharta was
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born from under Maya Devi's armpit. There's a rib cage there,
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after all, she said. I probed further, asking about the
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ostentatious ways the Buddha is presented in Lambini. In some texts,
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the Buddha warned his disciples against overly relying on his presence.
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One who sees me in body or hears me in
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voice will walk the wrong path. He counsels his followers
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in the Diamond sutra. An oft quoted ninth century Chinese aphorism,
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put it more severely, if you meet the Buddha on
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the road, kill him, meaning that no one should cling
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to a teacher or rely on a savior. Yet the
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main hall of the Tibetan monastery was decorated with hundreds
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of golden Buddha statues. Droma acknowledged the apparent contradiction, but
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she said that different skillful means are required for spreading
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the Buddha's teachings. Not everyone has the capacity to understand
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the essence of the teaching immediately. It has to come
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in stages. We try to create symbolic things that help
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people get the essence more easily. The Buddha's rejection of
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materialism is for people who are highly intellectual, she added,
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many other people need a symbolic support system. For practitioners
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at a more advanced stage, however, their journey toward enlightenment
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requires a questioning mind, Troma said, the Buddhas said, don't
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believe anything just because I'm saying it. Only believe something
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once you've done the research yourself. He never says I
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will liberate you. He only says I will show you
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the path. Archaeologists say the current excavation cites encompass only
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a small portion of what is buried around Lumbini. Magnetometry
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reveals large underground formations throughout the area, many under private lands,
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as recent Unesco representative to Nempali Michael Kroft puts it,
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you kick the dirt there and there's something under it.
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It's very, very rich from an archaeological perspective. One site
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that is certain not to be excavated by archaeologists anytime
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soon is a buried stupa at Ramagrama, about thirty miles
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from Limbini, which is reputed to hold sacred relics of
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the Buddha himself, perhaps bits of his bone, teeth or ashes.
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On a recent visit, the stupa, a large grassy mound
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topped by a century's old tree, was strewn with magnolia
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flowers and adorned with white Tibetan scarves called katas. Two
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young women were practicing their dance moves nearby, while a
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few peasant women herded goats. Ramagrama was once one of
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eight such stupas said to contain bodily remains of the Buddha,
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but according to legs a shaka had the other seven
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opened so he could remove and disperse relics to thousands
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of other stupas across his realm. This particular stupa, as
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reported by the Chinese pilgrim Faxian in the fifth century A,
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d was protected by a serpent king or dragon. Geophysical
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mapping has been done in a wide area around Rama Grama,
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showing vast complexes of monasteries and other Buddhist structures long buried.
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Religious considerations preclude any exploration of the Ramagrama stupa itself.
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According to tradition, even a Shaka the Great did not
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dare to open the sacred shrine. Kash prasad Achaya, a
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nepalicho leader of recent digs, points out digging into it
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now would be considered a violation of the site's sanctity.
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Robert Conningham of England's Durham University, co leader of the dig,
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is mindful of Buddhist sensitivities. He says he's fine with
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leaving the stupa undisturbed. There are some questions that cannot
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and probably should not be answered by science, He says.
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There must be some mystery that remains. Next part one
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of this intrepid team of bee lovers are doing everything
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they can to save rare native species from extinction. Iridescent
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sweat bees, hairy faced mining bees, tiny Perdita minima the
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size of a net. Thanks to swarms of apiery enthusiasts,
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native species are finally getting the buzz they deserve. By
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Susan Frankel. One summer day in twenty eighteen, Sam Drogi
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lowered his net and scooped up a few small bees
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buzzing around the blossoms of a chinkapin, a shrubby member
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of the chestnut tree family. Droghi, a wild life biologist,
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can recognize loads of bees with a quick look, but
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these were strangers to him. It wasn't until he studied
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them under a microscope that he realized what he'd found.
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Holy crap, he said to himself. That's an Adrina rennie,
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a bee that hadn't been sighted in nearly one hundred years.
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Droghi heads the United States Geological Survey Bee Lab in Boutsville, Maryland,
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which supports native bee research, inventory and monitoring projects. He
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never travels without a net, preferably the one he nicknamed Phalanthus,
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after a type of wasp that hunts bees. Opinionated, funny,
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and idiosyncratic. He often wears his long white hair and
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Viking braids. For years, he drove a car rigged out
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to look like a dragon. A bee hunter for almost
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three decades. He is always on the lookout for new
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or rare species. He was pleased when bees drilled nesting
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tunnels in the walls of his straw bale house. For
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most of us, the word bee conjures the beloved honey
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bee that was brought to America by early European colonists,
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but native bees are very different creatures. They don't congregate
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in hives or make honey. Aside from bumble bees, most
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native bees live solitary lives and nest underground or in
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tree trunks, logs, plants, rocks, or other structures. And while
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honey bees have become the mascot for popular campaigns to
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save the bees, they are the wrong poster child. As
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bee enthusiasts or people as some call themselves will tell you,
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honey bees are domesticated livestock like cattle or chickens. Though
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they've suffered diseases that have killed off colonies, they are
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in no way endangered. Native bees, on the other hand,
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have been found on this continent for tens of millions
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of years, co evolving with the native flora that need
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help to spread their pollen. That partnership birthed a dazzling
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diversity of creatures that come in as many sizes, shapes,
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and colors as the flowers they pollinate. Bumble bees, with
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their shaggy pelts, are perhaps the most familiar native bee,
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but there are brilliant blue Osmia bees, race car red
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Nomada bees, and iridescent gold green sweat bees, so called
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because they lick sweat. Carpenter bees can be bigger than
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a quarter, while some tiny Perdita bees are smaller than
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George Washington's nose on that quarter's face. Some native bees
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use long tongues to reach nectar in deep cupped flowers.
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Some have hooked hairs on their faces to accumulate pollen
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grains from floral tubes. Oil collecting bees have spongy hairs
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on their legs to sop up the flora oils they
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mix with pollen to provision their young in the nest.
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Squash bees go out early to catch squash blossoms when
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they open, while sweat bees in Texas forage at night
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to gather pollen from evening primroses. There are bees that
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clip circles from leaves to build their nest, and others
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that secrete a cellophane like resin to keep the nest
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cells water tight. There are bees that drill nests into
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sandstone or hollow reeds, or take over empty snail shells.
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Twenty percent of native bees are kleptoparasites, which lay their
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eggs in other bees nests, often leaving their young to
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feed on those other bees young. All told, there are
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an estimated thirty six hundred different species of bees in
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the United States, more than in any other country in
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the world. While commercial farms rent truckloads of honey bees
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each spring to pollinate commercial crops, native bees are the
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unsung heroes maintaining our food supply. They pollinate some seventy
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five percent of our plants, both cultivated and wild. Indeed,
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some plants, tomatoes, eggplants, kiwis, and blueberries can only be
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pollinated by native bees. These plants only release pollen when shaken.
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Certain native bees can buzz their muscles to vibrate the
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pollen loose something. Honey bees don't know how to do
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like pollinators in general, Though native bees are in decline, Pesticides, pathogens,
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and diseases are partly to blame, but the biggest cause
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is habitat loss, the steady displacement of plants and open
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spaces by housing developments and highways, cities and shopping malls,
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farms and flowerless lawns. We humans wouldn't starve if all
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native bees disappeared, but our diets would be a lot
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more boring and a lot less nutritious. We'd largely reduced
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to nuts, grains, and of course honey. Yet when it
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comes to understanding these crucial cogs of life, says Drogi,
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we are about one hundred years behind where we are
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on plants, butterflies and birds. That's in part because bees
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are hard to study. Even experts need microscopes and taxonomic
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guides to identify the tiny, often subtle features that distinguish species.
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Basic information about both species remains unknown, their lifestyle, their
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plant preferences, the places they're found, their historic distribution. Without
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that data, it's hard to know which ones are in
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trouble or what measures are needed to protect them. Drogi
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used to sign off his emails with the line how
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can you save the bees if you don't even know
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their names? Dash be Only around six hundred bee species
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have been formally assessed for their risk of extinction. As
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for the remaining three thousand, we truly don't know, says
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saf Killingsworth, a conservation biologist at the Xerxes Society for
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an Invertebrate Conservation. Many species haven't been seen in decades,
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and until recently, Killingsworth explains, there have been few efforts
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to systematically survey native bee populations. At the Xerxes Society,
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Killingsworth co leads a State of the Bees initiative, which
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involves combing through the digitized records of nearly two million
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bee specimens and collections around the United States and Mexico
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to help establish which species are at risk of extinction
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and where and why. Meanwhile, a small army of people
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are working to collect and identify native bees and track
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the plants the bees interact with. Some are trained scientists,
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others are ordinary citizens with the love of bees old
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timey natural history. Leif Richardson, another conservation biologist at the
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Zexes Society, says, in an era of molecular biology, and genomics.
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Beeple rely on old fashioned nets and specimen jars. It's
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not sexy science. All it provides is the most basic
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information what bees were on what flowers at a given
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location and point in time. But that knowledge is critical
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for parsing the status of native bees. When you combine
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millions of these records for thousands of species, you start
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to see coherent patterns in the data. Richardson says Drogie
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sixty seven is a key figure among Beeple. He's both
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deeply knowledgeable and uncommonly generous in sharing his expertise and
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the resources of his lab. He can talk high science
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with PhDs and wu non expert audiences with wisecracks about
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how bad asked bee looks. Over the years, he's inspired
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and trained scores of researchers working on behalf of native bees.
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He also maintains an email list with more than one
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thousand subscribers, which is where he announced that he had
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found rare Adrina Rennie bees. He urged readers to check
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chestnuts or chick chinkapins for the bee. To two friends
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who were particularly avid collectors, he wrote, get thee to
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a chestnut, Conserving bees starts with knowing what's there, and
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as the story of Andrina Rennie shows, that often depends
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on knowing where to look. When Tracy Zarrillo saw Drogi's
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message about the Andrenna Renni, she had a pretty good
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idea where she should search for it. Cyrillo is an
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entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven,
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which started efforts to breed blight resistant chestnut trees in
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nineteen third An invasive fungus known as chestnut blight, which
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famously struck billions of American chestnut trees in the first
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decades of the twentieth century, killed the trees trunks and branches,
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but not their roots, leaving the species in a biological limbo.
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They were not extinct, but were mostly unable to rebound
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or reproduce. For nearly a century, researchers have been working
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to breed chestnut trees that can withstand the blight. One
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of those experimental orchards lay a scant seven miles from
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Zerrillo's office. She sent an assistant over to look for
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Anddrenna Rennie bees Lo and behold, there was a thriving
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population there. She told me well thriving might be a stretch.
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Her first check in the summer of summer twenty nineteen
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netted only three Andrenna Rennie off the dangling catkins of
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yellow chestnut flowers. In twenty twenty one, Cyrillo did a
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more systematic survey of the orchard and collected thirty nine
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Andrena Renni, as well as four dozen other bee species.
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The next year, she broadened her search and found Andrenna
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Rennie at two other research orchards in two different counties.
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Some people have adored bugs since childhood, not Cyrillo. She
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fell into entomology when she took what she imagined would
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be a short term job as a research assistant at
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the Connecticut Agriculture Experiment Station. An early project had her
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raising maggots on green peppers. It really turned me off
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peppers for a few years, she said. In two thousand
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and nine, the research station put her on a study
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investigating beneficial pollinators. Her boss suggested she take a course
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on bee identification with Drogi. I was just blown away
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by his excitement, she recalled. Became my biggest cheerleader besides
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my mom. Cyrillo, who was then in her forties, went
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on to earn a master's degree in biology, focusing her
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thesis on wild bee communities in Connecticut. Zyrillo has a
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low key, cheerful manner and hair dyed the orange gold
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of a bumblebee. She has been running the entomology lab
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since her boss's retirement in twenty twenty two. The shelves
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of her office are stacked with white pizza box like
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containers storing bees she's collected. Some are from a place
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called Robin's Swamp, a one time cornfield that is being
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restored as a pollinator meadow. In twenty twenty one, the
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plot was filled with an array of native plants, including
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common milkweed, bee, balm, ironwood, blue verveine, and monkey flower. Already,
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Zirillo has observed that some very important species, including two
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declining species of bumblebees, have found the meadow. Once the
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right plants are there, it seems the bees just show up.
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When I visited Zerrillo at her lab last spring, she
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was putting the finishing touches on an overall inventory of
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Connecticut's bees. Many other states are doing similar projects. The
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last full inventory was conducted in nineteen sixteen by Henry
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Lorenz Virek, a famed entomologist whose career was cut short
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when he was struck by a car while collecting insects
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beside a road in Ohio. As it happens, Vierek was
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also the first person to describe and Renna renni in
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nineteen o seven. He named it after James A. G. Wrenn,
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who caught the specimen against which all others are compared
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in nineteen o two. Updating Virek's inventory was a monumental task.
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Zerrillo and colleagues combed through falling apart nineteenth century be
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guides looking for mentions of species in Connecticut, a process
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complicated by frequent name changes as taxonomists lumped together or
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split species. They scoured some forty thousand records of bee
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specimens in collections and more than eighteen thousand verified sightings
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on the community science site. Eye naturalist Zyrillo did her
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own targeted field searches for certain uncommon bees. All in all,
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she and her colleagues determined that Connecticut is or has
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been home to three hundred and eighty five bee species,
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including a dozen never before reported in the state. The
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inventory included forty three species that hadn't been reported since
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two thousand. The biggest problem for bees in Connecticut is
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habitat loss. Cyrilla said, places that bees rely on to
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collect pollen and build nests are being chipped away from
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all sides, from development from browsing deer, from invasive plants.
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One of the missing bees is Bombus a fenus, better
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known as the rusty patched bumble bee. Historically, it buzzed
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across the eastern United States, expanding south into Georgia and
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as far west as the Dakotas and into parts of Canada.
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Now there are scattered populations in half as many places.
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The last one found in Connecticut was a female collected
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at a picuron fruit farm in Guildford in June nineteen
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ninety seven. The cause of the bee's sharp decline isn't
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fully known, but experts think it's due to an interaction
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between a pathogen introduced by European bumble bees and exposure
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to pesticides. The bee was added to the Federal Endangered
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Species list in twenty seventeen. As of this writing, there
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are nine bees on the list, including seven from Hawaii
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and a Western native Franklin's bumblebee. Many more are on
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various state endangered species lists. This concludes readings from the
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Smithsonian Magazine for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore.
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Thank you for listening, and have a great day.