BEIJING (Reuters) - Two former Tibetan political prisoners who were part of a group known as the "singing nuns" have left the mountainous Chinese region and gone into exile in India, an advocacy group said on Wednesday.

Rigzin Choekyi, who served 12 years in prison and Lhundrub Zangmo, who served nine years, left overland and travelled through Nepal before reaching India, where Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, leads a government in exile.

"Both Rigzin Choekyi and Lhundrub Zangmo now wish to receive medical treatment due to concerns for their health following torture in prison," the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.

OTSU--Under fire for allowing a yakuza memorial rite at Enryakuji--the head temple of the Tendai sect of Buddhism--the temple's entire leadership has stepped down.

Chief representative and priest Gyoun Imadegawa and his six deputies all resigned Thursday to take responsibility for permitting a Yamaguchi-gumi memorial service to be held April 21 at the temple's Amidado Hall on Mount Hieizan.

About 90 people associated with the nation's largest crime syndicate attended, many of them bosses of its direct affiliates.

In answering this question, one can always argue that there is no way to verify the answer, since the Lord Buddha has long since passed away into Nirvana. However, passages in the Tripitaka, which is the largest body of religious teaching in the world, serve as a good reference in our quest.

In order to find out whether or not the Buddha discriminated against women, the Tripitaka is the only appropriate historical source for reference. Nevertheless, the method is not simple.

Phnom Penh - Some 300 Buddhist villagers, apparently angered by a rival faith within their community, have razed a partially built Christian church to the ground, near the Cambodian capital, says an official on Tuesday.

Ros Sithoeun, a representative of the area's Christian community, said that in a rare act of religious intolerance, the mob chanted "Destroy the church!" and "Long live Buddhism!" as it descended upon the unfinished Protestant Church on Friday in Boeng Krum Leu, 30km east of Phnom Penh.

Che Saren, the chief of Lvea Em district, said the Buddhists felt threatened by the visible presence of another faith.

KABUL (Kyodo) A joint Japan-Afghanistan team that is trying to preserve Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage has confirmed the existence of Buddhist ruins near Kabul.

The joint study was undertaken by an Afghan archaeological research institute and Japan's National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in an area near Lake Koul-e Heshmatkhan in southern Kabul.

They found the foundation of a Buddhist temple that was used to house the Buddha's ashes. It is located under a police station south of the lake.

Hundreds of monks and scholars are visiting the eastern city of Hangzhou, but Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has not been invited.

China regards the exiled Tibetan leader as a separatist.

In front of the shimmering gold pagoda of Wat Phnom, built on the grassy hill that lent the capital its name, Cambodians reach inside the metal and wire mesh cages, draw out sparrows, swallows, munias and weavers, often in pairs, then raise them in cupped palms to their lips. The devotees mumble a prayer and then set them free into the warm, still air.

The tradition, in which devotees seek blessings for this life and the next, could now prove to be a curse. Animal health experts warn that the practice of capturing wild birds, holding them in confined quarters and then turning them over to human hands could spread avian flu among birds, across species and on to people.

Rare manuscripts dubbed the "dead sea scrolls of Buddhism" have been carbon dated to the first and fifth centuries AD by Australian scientists, and could be the missing link in Buddhist history, a local scholar says.

Mark Allon, a University of Sydney research fellow, commissioned the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANTSO) to carry out tests on two international collections of birch bark scrolls.

Cracks have been found on the plaster surface of the central altar, known as shumidan, displaying nine ancient Buddhist images at the Kondo main hall of Horyuji temple in Ikarugacho, Nara Prefecture, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Monday.

The cracks are up to a few dozen centimeters long and on the altar's northeast corner they partially expose the earthen groundwork underneath.

As the image of Tamonten--one of the Four Heavenly Kings, which are designated national treasures--is displayed on the northeast corner, the cracks prompted the temple to move the image to its treasure house for safekeeping in autumn.

MATSUDO, Chiba -- The 71-year-old head priest of a Zen Buddhist temple here misappropriated at least 13 million yen that followers supplied for a new temple building, it has emerged.

Followers at Choyoji Temple, which belongs to the Soto Zen sect of Buddhism, have filed a criminal complaint against the priest, whose name has been withheld, and law enforcers are investigating his actions.

A new main building was constructed at the temple in 2001 and followers put in 42 million yen to pay for the work. However, suspicious arose about the way the money was being used and when followers investigated, they reportedly found that funds had been misappropriated.

Two rival factions of Tibetan Buddhism are fighting for control of the 75-acre site of the Rumtek monastery, a few miles outside Gangtok, capital of the Indian state of Sikkim. The rivalry is such that there have been violent brawls between the monks, accusations of graft and corruption and a travel ban placed on the protagonists by Indian authorities, who want to keep a lid on Tibetan passions. The result is that Indian security forces guard the monastery and the priesthood is split by a bitter legal battle.

TOKYO — A Buddhist priest dubbed the “marathon monk” has completed an ancient running ritual in the remote Japanese mountains that took seven years and covered a distance equivalent to a trip round the globe.

The 44-year-old monk, Genshin Fujinami, returned Thursday from his 24,800-mile spiritual journey in the Hiei mountains, a range of five peaks that rise above the ancient capital of Kyoto.

Dressed in his handmade sandals and robe, with a straw raincoat draped over his head, Fujinami was greeted at the end of his journey by a crowd of worshippers, who knelt to receive his blessings.

The Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, was at the centre of an unholy row last night after he participated in an exotic spiritual ceremony with a disputed living Buddha.

Bishop Chartres welcomed six other faith leaders to the celebration "of friendship and trust" at St Ethelburga's, a London church transformed into a peace centre since it was bombed by the IRA in 1993.

But the bishop, who was supposed to have taken a full part in the event, was forced to minimise his role amid the controversy.

The spirit of enlightenment had been seriously disturbed after senior Buddhists denounced the presence at the event of His Holiness Thaye Dorje. The 22-year-old's claim to be the 17th Karmapa, one of the most revered figures in Buddhism, is fiercely disputed.