Buddhism, An Overview

BUDDHISM: AN OVERVIEW 1087
recognition of one’s own complete inability to act ethically nal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 10, no.
that enables the compassion of Amida to transform one into 1: 67–89. See also Jan Nattier’s A Few Good Men: The Bodhi-
an ethical actor. According to Shinran’s thought, the devotee sattva Path according to the Inquiry of Ugra (Honolulu,
neither inspires nor invokes Amida’s compassion; rather, Hawai’i, 2003).
Amida is the sole agent in bringing about the ethical forma- KAREN DERRIS (2005)
tion of his devotees. Without Amida, Shinran estimated, he
was completely without options for leading an ethical life.
This emphasis on the power of a buddha to shape the BUDDHISM
ethical life of beings is not exclusive to Pure Land traditions. This entry consists of the following articles:
While not articulated with the same direct emphasis as with AN OVERVIEW
Shinran, there is, in the Theravādin traditions, for example, BUDDHISM IN INDIA
BUDDHISM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
the conception that the presence of a buddha—through BUDDHISM IN CENTRAL ASIA
physical proximity in his lifetime or through his relics after BUDDHISM IN MONGOLIA
his parinibbāna—can change people’s destinies. Hagio- BUDDHISM IN TIBET
graphical accounts of the buddha’s teaching career are filled BUDDHISM IN CHINA
BUDDHISM IN KOREA
with stories of the multitudes of people who quickly attained BUDDHISM IN JAPAN
arahatship upon receiving the Dharma from the Buddha. BUDDHISM IN THE WEST
In addition to these generalized patterns, narratives also
depict personalized encounters with the Buddha Gautama. BUDDHISM: AN OVERVIEW
The evocative story of Pattācāra, recorded in the Pali [This article attempts to identify certain of the elements and
Therı̄gı̄thā, describes how the Buddha’s intercession changes structures that have constituted the Buddhist tradition as it has
the ethical destiny of a woman whose grief at the loss of her evolved over the past twenty-five hundred years. It traces a com-
entire family renders her insane, wandering naked as an out- plex of social and ideological formations that have allowed it to
cast from society. The Buddha becomes literally her last ref- develop from a small religious community to a “universal” reli-
uge; he is the only one who clearly perceives her naked rav- gion associated with empire, to an important component in the
ings as an exposure of suffering. The encounter brings sanity, several cultures of Buddhist Asia, to a tradition faced with the
a new family in the saṅgha, and ultimately, enlightenment. problems raised by modernity and contact with the West.]
Attaining enlightenment is not the ultimate goal for Bud-
The concept of Buddhism was created about three cen-
dhist ethical life; rather, it is to continue to aid others, both
turies ago to identify what we now know to be a pan-Asian
through acts of heroic intervention and, like Pattācāra, by
religious tradition that dates back some twenty-five hundred
serving as an inspiring role model for others.
years. Although the concept, rather recent and European in
SEE ALSO Buddha; Buddhism, articles on Buddhism in origin, has gradually, if sometimes begrudgingly, received
Japan and Buddhism in Tibet; Buddhism, Schools of, arti- global acceptance, there is still no consensus about its defini-
cle on Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism; Celestial Bud- tion. We can, however, identify two complementary mean-
dhas and Bodhisattvas. ings that have consistently informed its use. First, it groups
together the thoughts, practices, institutions, and values that
BIBLIOGRAPHY over the centuries have—to use a phrase coined by the
For a translation and useful introduction to Santideva’s French Buddhologist Louis de La Vallée Poussin—
Bodhicaryāvatāra, see Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton, Bod- “condensed around the name of the Buddha.” The implicit
hicaryavatara (Oxford, 1995). An engaging introduction to conclusion of this usage is that Buddhism is, in short, what-
the Pure Land traditions of Shin Buddhism and Shinran’s ever Buddhist men and women have said, done, and held
teachings on issues of ethical agency can be found in Taitetsu dear. Second, the concept suggests some unifying character
Unno’s River of Fire, River of Water (New York, 1998).
or order in the overwhelming diversity encompassed by the
Among the many studies of the bodhisattva path, Paul Har-
first usage. The beginning of this ordering process has often
vey’s An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics (Cambridge, U.K.,
2000) provides a useful overview of ethical conceptions of been to consider Buddhism as an example of larger catego-
buddhas, bodhisattvas and the bodhisattva path. There are ries, and thus Buddhism has been variously labeled a religion,
several excellent introductions to Buddhism containing in- a philosophy, a civilization, or a culture. It must be admitted,
sightful chapters on conceptions and roles of buddhas and however, that no single ordering principle has been found
bodhisattvas in Buddhist traditions, such as Donald S. that takes full account of the data included within the first
Lopez’s The Story of Buddhism (San Francisco, 2000). For a meaning. This admission stands as a rebuke of the limita-
brief but helpful discussion of practices of self-immolation tions of our current understanding, and as a continuing chal-
practiced, see William R. Lafluer’s Buddhism (Upper Saddle lenge to go further in our descriptions and explanations.
River, N.J., 1988). For historical studies of early Mahāyāna
movements and bodhisattva practices see Paul Harrison, When the first meaning of Buddhism, which empha-
“Who Gets to Ride on the Great Vehicle? Self Image and sizes its encompassment of accumulated traditions, is placed
Identity among the Followers of the Early Mahāyāna,” Jour- in the foreground, the resulting conception is indeed com-
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

1088 BUDDHISM: AN OVERVIEW
prehensive. The further scholarship proceeds, the more com- Theravāda (Way of the Elders) and Sarvāstivāda (All Things
prehensive this conception becomes, because Buddhists have Are Real) schools, emphasized the no-soul idea and the reali-
done in the name of the Buddha almost everything that other ty of the constituents (dharmas) of the world. A middle
humans have done. Buddhists have, of course, been con- phase, represented by the Mādhyamika (Middle Way)
cerned with living religiously, some with the aim of salvation, school, introduced the idea of the ultimate emptiness
and they have created traditions of belief and practice that (śūnyatā) of all phenomena. A third period, represented by
help to realize these aspirations. But they have been con- the Vijñānavāda (Consciousness Only) school, was philo-
cerned with much more as well. Buddhists have built cities sophically idealistic in character. The limitations of this
sanctified by monuments dedicated to the Buddha and they philosophical division are severe in that it only touches cer-
have cultivated their crops using blessings that invoke his tain aspects of Buddhism and acknowledges no significant
name. They have written self-consciously Buddhist poems development after the fifth century CE.
and plays as well as highly technical works of grammar and Other scholars have elaborated a schema based on po-
logic that begin with invocations to the Buddha. They have lemical divisions within the Buddhist community. They
commended nonviolence, but they have also gone to war have focused attention on three great Buddhist “vehicles”
with the name of Buddha on their lips. They have valued cel- (yāna) that are characterized by different understandings of
ibacy, but have also written erotic manuals and rejoiced in the process and goal of salvation. The Hı̄nayāna, or Lesser
family life, all in the name of Buddha. Buddhists have creat- Vehicle, elaborated a gradual process of individual salvation,
ed subtle philosophical concepts, such as the absence of self and in that context distinguished among the attainment of
(anātman), which are contravened by other ideas and values an arhat, the attainment of a pratyekabuddha (one who
they have held. Like other human beings, Buddhists have achieves enlightenment on his own but does not become a
been inconsistent and even contradictory, and they have teacher), and the attainment of a fully enlightened Buddha
been both noble and base in what they have said and done. who teaches others the way to salvation. The Theravāda and
Although most scholars have at some level accepted this Sarvāstivāda schools mentioned above are two of the major
first conception of Buddhism as a diverse cumulative tradi- schools that are included under the Hı̄nayāna rubric. The
tion, few have been content to allow this encompassing no- term Hı̄nayāna was in its origins a pejorative name coined
tion to prevail. They have sought to discover what ideals and by the adherents of a new movement, self-designated as the
values have inspired Buddhists, or to formulate generaliza- Mahāyāna, or Great Vehicle, which generated new texts and
tions that will help us to see the behavior of individuals as teachings that were rejected by the Hı̄nayānists.
distinctively Buddhist. Some scholars have singled out a pat- Like the adherents of the Hı̄nayāna, the Mahāyānists
tern, an idea, or a cluster of ideas that they felt was important elaborated a gradual path of salvation lasting over many life-
enough to provide continuity through Buddhist history, or times, but their emphasis was different in two very important
at least sufficient to suggest a coherence to the variety. Im- and related respects. They held that an individual’s soterio-
portant candidates for this “key” to Buddhism are the pur- logical process could be aided and abetted by what some
ported teaching of the founder of Buddhism, Gautama, Mahāyāna schools came to designate as “other-power,” and
which provides an essence that has unfolded over the centu- they recognized, ultimately, only one soteriological goal—
ries; the monastic organization (sam: gha), whose historical the attainment of fully realized Buddhahood. The Vajrayāna
continuity provides a center of Buddhist practice and a social (Diamond Vehicle), which is also known as Mantrayāna (Sa-
basis for the persistence of Buddhist thought and values; the cred Sounds Vehicle), Esoteric Buddhism, or Tantric Bud-
closely related ideas of nonself and emptiness (anātman, dhism, accepted the basic approach and goal of the
śūnyatā), realized through insight, which are said to mold Mahāyāna, but felt that individual realization could be ac-
Buddhist behavior; and the goal of nirvān: a as the purpose complished more quickly, in some cases even in this present
of life. While such patterns and notions are very important life. The Vajrayānists described the practices that lead to this
for Buddhist sociology and soteriology, they also omit a great attainment in texts called tantras that were not accepted by
deal. Moreover, we can see that the element that is singled either the Hı̄nayāna or the Mahāyāna schools. Although this
out as important is often distictive to Buddhism only in com- Hı̄nayāna/Mahāyāna/Vajrayāna schema is probably the
parison with other religions or philosophies and cannot serve most common one used by scholars to divide Buddhism into
as a core that informs the entire corpus of Buddhist beliefs, more manageable segments, it too has serious drawbacks. It
rituals, and values. underestimates the significance of developments after the
first millennium of the common era and it tends to overem-
Scholars have also sought to identify the characteristic
phasize certain traits therein as extreme differences, beyond
order of Buddhism by dividing the cumulative tradition into
what is warranted by history.
more manageable parts, whether by chronology, by school,
or by country. Some scholars, following the Buddhist histori- Finally, scholars have recognized that Buddhism has al-
ans Bu ston (1290–1364) and Tāranātha (1574–1608), have ways been deeply shaped by its surrounding culture. The
divided Buddhism into three periods, mainly along philo- Buddhist tradition has been more accretive in its doctrine
sophical lines. A first phase, represented by the early and practice than the other great missionary religions, Chris-

tianity and Islam. It has shown an enduring tendency to BUDDHISM AS SECTARIAN RELIGION. Buddhism began
adapt to local forms; as a result we can speak of a transforma- around the fifth or fourth century BCE as a small community
tion of Buddhism in various cultures. The extent of this that developed at a certain distance, both self-perceived and
transformation can be seen in the difficulty that the first real, from other contemporary religious communities, as well
Western observers had in recognizing that the religion they as from the society, civilization, and culture with which it co-
observed in Japan was historically related to the religion existed. Thus, we have chosen to characterize the Buddhism
found in Sri Lanka. This cultural division of Buddhism into of this period as “sectarian.”
Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and so forth has
been most successfully applied to the more recent phases of It is quite probable that Buddhism remained basically
Buddhist history, especially to contemporary developments. a sectarian religion until the time of King Aśoka (third centu-
Its dangers are, of course, quite obvious: above all, it conceals ry BCE). Whether this was a period of approximately two
the Buddhist tradition’s capacity to transcend the boundaries hundred years, as some scholars, dating the death of the Bud-
of culture, politics, and nationality. dha around 486 BCE, maintain, or of approximately one hun-
dred years (accepting a death date around a century later) as
The general trends of scholarship on Buddhism in this others contend, it was by all accounts a crucial period in
century have been within such accepted divisions of the cu- which many elements and patterns were established that have
mulative tradition, with the result that our sense of Bud- remained fundamental to subsequent phases of Buddhist
dhism’s historical continuity has been greatly obscured. The- thought and life. Despite the importance of this early phase
odore Stcherbatsky, a Soviet Buddhologist, is in this regard of Buddhist history our knowledge about it remains sketchy
a representative example. He adopted Bu ston’s tripartite and uncertain. Three topics can suggest what we do know:
“philosophical” division of Buddhist history and, in his Con- the source of authority that the new Buddhist community
ception of Buddhist Nirvān: a (Leningrad, 1927), commented recognized, the pattern of development in its teaching and
on the transition between the first phase and the second ecclesiastical structures, and the attitude it took toward mat-
phase as follows: “the history of religions has scarcely wit- ters of political and social order. In discussing these three
nessed such a break between new and old within the pale of topics we shall identify some of the main scholarly opinions
what nevertheless continued to claim common descent from concerning them.
the same religious founder” (p. 36). Similar statements
pointing to radical discontinuity have been made from the One primary factor that both accounts for and expresses
perspective of the soteriological and cultural forms of Bud- Buddhism’s emergence as a new sectarian religion rather
dhism as well. than simply a new Hindu movement is the community’s rec-
The investigation of each segment of the Buddhist cu- ognition of the ascetic Gautama as the Buddha (“enlightened
mulative tradition is now generally done in isolation from one”) and of the words that he had reportedly uttered as a
other segments. This strategy has had remarkable success in new and ultimate source of sacred authority. The recognition
our discovery of the imprint of Buddhist thought and prac- of the Buddha’s authority was based on an acceptance of the
tice in areas far beyond the monasteries, beyond the level of actuality and relative uniqueness of his person and career,
elite groups. In small domains scholars have begun to see pat- and of his enlightenment experience in particular. It was
terns in the full extent of phenomena grouped under the based on the conviction that through his enlightenment he
name of Buddhism. At the same time, contemporary scholar- had gained insight into the dharma (the Truth). This includ-
ship often risks missing the forest for the trees. Our advances ed the aspect of truth that he had formulated more “philo-
in particular areas of research may be at the price of the schol- sophically” as, for example, in the teaching concerning the
ar’s unique vision of Buddhism as a pan-Asian tradition. dependent co-origination (pratı̄tya-samutpāda) of the various
elements that constitute reality, and also the aspect of truth
As is often the case in the study of religion, however, he had formulated more soteriologically, as summarized, for
the scale of investigation is decisive. This article will discuss example, in the classic delineation of the Four Noble Truths
Buddhism on a general level and will highlight continuities (that reality is permeated with suffering, that desire is the
rather than disjunctions within the tradition. These con- cause of suffering, that the cessation of suffering is a possibili-
tinuities cannot be found in any static essence or core thread- ty, and that there is a path that leads to a cessation of suffer-
ing its way through all of Buddhist history. They will be ing). Finally, the Buddha’s authority was based on the confi-
traced here by following certain elements that have been pre- dence that the teachings and actions that had flowed from
served in a changing series of structures, expanded to meet his enlightenment had been accurately transmitted by those
new needs, and brought into relation with new elements that who had heard and seen them.
are continuously being introduced. We will, in other words,
identify various elements and successive structures that have From certain stories preserved in the tradition it seems
constituted Buddhism as it developed from a small commu- that there were some challenges to the Buddha’s authority.
nity of mendicants and householders in northeastern India For example, there are numerous reports that even during his
into a great “universal” religion associated with empire, civi- own lifetime a more ascetically inclined cousin named Deva-
lization, and culture in various parts of Asia, and ultimately datta tried to take over leadership of the new movement.
with “modernity” and the West as well. Such challenges were successfully met by the Buddha and by

those who carried on the tradition. As a result, later contro- account. Early Buddhists were concerned to gain royal pa-
versies concerned not so much the authority of his teachings tronage and were often successful in their efforts; they appro-
and actions as their content and correct interpretation. priated royal symbolism in their depiction of the Buddha
and his career; they maintained their own explicitly anti-
There is less scholarly agreement concerning the more Brahmanic conception of kingship and social order, in the
specific content of the early Buddhist teaching and about the Aggañña Sutta, for example; and they encouraged a respect
closely related question of the structure of the early Buddhist for authority and moral decorum conducive to civil order
community. Three conflicting interpretations have been set and tranquillity. Thus, within the sectarian Buddhism of the
forth, each defended on the basis of detailed text-critical re- early period, there were a number of elements that prepared
search. Some scholars have maintained that early Buddhism the way for the “civilizational Buddhism” that began to
was a movement of philosophically oriented renouncers emerge during the reign of King Aśoka.
practicing a discipline of salvation that subsequently degen-
erated into a popular religion. A second group has contended BUDDHISM AS CIVILIZATIONAL RELIGION. Buddhism has
that Buddhism was originally a popular religious movement never lost the imprint of the sectarian pattern that character-
that took form around the Buddha and his religiously inspir- ized its earliest history, largely because the sectarian pattern
ing message, a movement that was subsequently co-opted by has been reasserted at various points in Buddhist history. But
a monastic elite that transformed it into a rather lifeless cleri- Buddhism did not remain a purely sectarian religion. With
cal scholasticism. A third group has argued that as far back the reign of King Aśoka, Buddhism entered a new phase of
as there is evidence, early Buddhist teaching combined philo- its history in which it became what we have chosen to call
sophical and popular elements, and that during the earliest a “civilizational religion,” that is, a religion that was associat-
period that we can penetrate, the Buddhist community in- ed with a sophisticated high culture and that transcended the
cluded both a significant monastic and a significant lay com- boundaries of local regions and politics. By the beginning of
ponent. This argument, which is most convincing, has in- the common era Buddhism’s civilizational character was well
cluded the suggestion that the philosophical/popular and established in various areas of India and beyond. By the mid-
monastic/lay dichotomies should actually be seen as comple- dle centuries of the first millennium CE, Buddhism as a civil-
ments rather than oppositions, even though the understand- izational religion had reached a high level of development
ings of the relative importance of these elements and their across Asia. However, the signs of the transition to a new
interrelationships have varied from the beginning of the stage had already begun to appear by the sixth and seventh
Buddhist movement. centuries CE.
By the time of the Second Buddhist Council, held in History and legend of the Aśokan impact. Aśoka (r.
the city of Vaiśālı̄ probably in the fourth century BCE, the circa 270–232 BCE) was the third ruler in a line of Mauryan
Buddhist community already encompassed two competing emperors who established the first pan-Indian empire
assemblies whose members espoused positions that corre- through military conquest. In one of the many inscriptions
spond to the modern scholarly group of those who associate that provide the best evidence regarding his attitudes and ac-
the “original” or “true” Buddhism with an elite monastic tra- tual policies, Aśoka renounced further violent conquest and
dition, and those who associate it with a more democratic made a commitment to the practice and propagation of
and populist tradition. A split occurred at or shortly after the dharma. In other inscriptions Aśoka informs his subjects
Second Council: those who adhered to the former position concerning the basic moral principles that form his vision of
came to be known in Sanskrit as Sthaviravādins (Pali, the dharma; he mentions related meditational practices that
Theravādins; the proponents of the Way of the Elders), while he commends to his subjects as well as festivals of dharma
those who adhered to the latter position came to be known that he sponsored. He also tells of sending special representa-
as the Mahāsām: ghikas (Members of the Great Assembly). tives to ensure that the dharma was appropriately practiced
and taught by the various religious communities within his
The third area of discussion about early Buddhism has realm.
focused on its sectarian character. While it is not disputed
that during the pre-Aśokan period the Buddhist community It would seem from Aśoka’s inscriptions that the dhar-
was a specifically religious community only tangentially in- ma that he officially affirmed and propagated was not identi-
volved with issues of political order and social organization, cal to the Buddhist dharma, although it was associated with
it is less clear whether this distance was a matter of principle it, especially insofar as Buddhist teaching impinged on the
or simply an accident of history. Some scholars have argued behavior of the laity. However, the inscriptions give clear evi-
that early Buddhists were so preoccupied with individual sal- dence that if Aśoka was not personally a Buddhist when he
vation, and the early monastic order so oriented toward “oth- made his first commitment to the dharma, he became so
erworldly” attainments, that early Buddhism’s sectarian soon thereafter. His edicts indicate that he sponsored Bud-
character was intrinsic, rather than simply circumstantial. dhist missions to various areas not only within his own em-
While individualistic and otherworldly strands played an im- pire, but in the Greek-ruled areas of the northwest and in
portant role in some segments of the early Buddhist commu- Sri Lanka to the south. They indicate that he maintained a
nity, there are balancing factors that must also be taken into special interest in the well-being and unity of the Buddhist

sam: gha, that he was concerned to emphasize the importance would be put forward and that different religio-philosophical
of Buddhist texts that dealt with lay morality, and that he systems would be generated. This led to controversies within
undertook a royal pilgrimage to the sites associated with the the community, and these controversies led to the prolifera-
great events in the Buddha’s life. tion of Buddhist schools and subschools, probably in con-
junction with other more mundane disputes that we do not
Aśoka’s actual policies and actions represent only one have sufficient data to reconstruct. Some sources list a total
aspect of his impact in facilitating the transition of Bud- of eighteen schools without any consistency in names. The
dhism from a sectarian religion to a civilizational religion. institutional and ideological boundaries between groups and
The other aspect is evidenced in the legends of Aśoka that subgroups were probably very fluid.
appeared within the Buddhist community in the period fol-
lowing his death. These legends vary in character from one Developments in the areas of symbolism, architecture,
Buddhist tradition to another. For example, the Theravādins and ritual were also significant components in the transfor-
present an idealized portrait of Aśoka and depict him as a mation of Buddhism into a civilizational religion. Some
strong supporter of their own traditions. Another widely dis- changes were related to the support Buddhism received from
seminated Aśokan text, the Aśokāvadāna, composed in its royal and elite supporters. For example, royal and elite pa-
Northwest India probably in a Sarvāstivāda context, depicts tronage seems to have been crucial to the emergence of large
an equally imposing but more ambivalent figure, sometimes monastic establishments throughout India. Such support
cruel in behavior and ugly in appearance. But all of the vari- was also a central factor in the proliferation of stupas (Skt.,
ous Aśokan legends present in dramatic form an ideal of stūpas), memorial monuments replete with cosmological and
Buddhist kingship correlated with an imperial Buddhism associated royal symbolism that represented the Buddha and
that is truly civilizational in character. were, in most cases, believed to contain a portion of his relics.
These stūpas were an appropriate setting for the develop-
During the Aśokan and immediately post-Aśokan era ment of Buddhist art in which the Buddha was represented
there are at least three specific developments that sustained in aniconic forms such as a footprint, a Bodhi
the transformation of Buddhism into a civilizational religion. (“enlightenment”) Tree, a royal throne, the wheel of the
The first, a realignment in the structure of the religious com- dharma, and the like. Merit making and related rituals prolif-
munity, involved an innovation in the relationship and bal- erated and assumed new forms around these stupas. Pilgrim-
ance between the monastic order and its lay supporters. Prior ages to the sacred sites associated with the great events of the
to the time of Aśoka the monastic order was, from an organi- Buddha’s life became more popular. The veneration and
zational point of view, the focus of Buddhist community life; contemplation of stupas and other symbolic representations
the laity, however important its role may have been, lacked of the Buddha became increasingly widespread. Moreover,
any kind of independent institutional structure. As a result the notion of merit making itself was expanded so that it
of the Aśokan experience, including both historical events came to include not only merit making for oneself but the
and the idealized example he set as lay participant par excel- transfer of merit to deceased relatives and others was well.
lence in the affairs of the sam: gha, the Buddhist state came to
provide (sometimes as a hoped-for possibility, at other times Imperial Buddhism reasserted and transcended. De-
as a socioreligious reality) an independent institution that spite the importance of Aśoka to the history of Buddhism,
could serve as a lay counterpoint and counterbalance to the the imperial order that he established persisted only a short
order of monks. In addition, this realignment in the struc- time after his death. Within fifty years of his death (i. e., by
ture of the Buddhist community fostered the emergence of the year 186 BCE), the Buddhist-oriented Mauryan dynasty
an important crosscutting distinction between monks and collapsed and was replaced by the Śuṅga dynasty, more sup-
laypersons who were participants in the imperial- portive of Brahmanic Hindu traditions. The Buddhist texts
civilizational elite on the one hand, and ordinary monks and claim that the Śuṅgas undertook a persecution of Buddhism,
laypersons on the other. although the force of any such persecution is rendered dubi-
ous by the fact that Buddhism and Buddhist institutions
The transformation of Buddhism into a civilizational re- continued to flourish and develop within the territory ruled
ligion also involved doctrinal and scholastic factors. During by the Śuṅgas. Moreover, Buddhism emerged as a dominant
the Aśokan and post-Aśokan periods, factions within the religion in areas outside northeastern India where the Śuṅgas
monastic community began to formulate aspects of the were unable to maintain the authority and prestige that their
teachings more precisely, and to develop those teachings into Mauryan predecessors had enjoyed.
philosophies that attempted to explain all of reality in a co-
herent and logically defensible manner. As a result, the litera- During the three centuries from the second century BCE
ture in which the community preserved its memory of the through the first century CE Buddhism became a powerful
sermons of the Buddha (the sūtras) and of his instructions religious force in virtually all of India, from the southern tip
to the monastic order (Vinaya) came to be supplemented by of the peninsula to the Indo-Greek areas in the northwest,
new scholastic texts known as Abhidharma (“higher Dhar- and in Sri Lanka and Central Asia as well. New polities seek-
ma”). Given the philosophical ambiguities of the received ing to secure their control over culturally plural areas emulat-
traditions, it was inevitable that contradictory doctrines ed Aśoka’s example and adopted Buddhism as an imperial

religion. This happened in Sri Lanka, probably when contributed to their civilizational efficacy. During this period
Dut: t: hagāman: ı̄ brought about the unification of the island the older Buddhist schools (hereafter collectively called the
kingdom in the mid-second century BCE. It happened in cen- Hı̄nayāna) that had previously limited themselves to the oral
tral India when the rising Śātavāhana dynasty became a sup- transmission of tradition, and the newly emerging Mahāyāna
porter of the Buddhist cause. It happened to some extent in fraternities as well, began to commit their versions of the
northwestern India when certain Greek and invading Cen- Buddha’s teaching to writing. Some Buddhist groups began
tral Asian kings converted to Buddhism. And it happened to translate and write their most authoritative texts in San-
more fully in northwestern India during and after the reign skrit, which had become the preeminent civilizational lan-
of King Kanis: ka (first to second century CE), who ruled over guage in India.
a vast Kushan empire that extended from northern India The rapid development of Buddhism led to major
deep into Central Asia. By this time Buddhism had also changes in Buddhist ways of representing the Buddha and
begun to penetrate into trading centers in northern China relating to him ritually. Some Hı̄nayāna schools produced
and to spread along land and sea routes across Southeast Asia autonomous biographies of the Buddha. The most famous
to South China as well. of the biographies is the Buddhacarita (Acts of the Buddha),
A major aspect of the transformation of Buddhism into by Aśvaghos: a, written in refined Sanskrit in a classic literary
a fully civilizational religion was the differentiation that oc- form (kavya). The Hı̄nayāna schools provided the context
curred between Buddhism as a civilizational religion and for the production of anthropomorphic images of the Bud-
Buddhism as an imperial religion. During late Mauryan dha, which became a major focal point for sophisticated ar-
times the civilizational and imperial dimensions had not tistic expression on the one hand, and for veneration and de-
been clearly differentiated. However, by the beginning of the votion on the other. These schools also made a place within
common era Buddhism had become a civilizational religion the Buddhist system for a new and very important figure who
that transcended the various expressions of imperial Bud- became a focus for new forms of devotional practice and, in
dhism in particular geographical areas. As a direct correlate later phases of Buddhist history, new forms of religio-
of this development, an important distinction was generated political symbolism and activity as well. This new figure was
within the elite of the Buddhist community. By this period the future Buddha Maitreya (“the friendly one”), who was
this elite had come to include both a truly civilizational com- believed to be residing in the Tusita Heaven awaiting the ap-
ponent that maintained close international contacts and trav- propriate time to descend to earth. By the beginning of the
eled freely from one Buddhist empire to another and beyond, common era other buddhological trends were beginning to
as well as overlapping but distinguishable imperial compo- surface that were exclusively Mahāyāna in character. For ex-
nents that operated within the framework of each particular ample, sūtras were beginning to appear that focused atten-
empire. tion on a celestial Buddha named Amitābha (“infinite light”)
and portrayed practices of visualization that could lead to re-
At this time Buddhist texts and teachings were being ex- birth in the western paradise over which he presided.
tended in a variety of ways. In some schools, such as the Closely associated developments were taking place at
Theravāda and the Sarvāstivāda, canons of authoritative texts the level of cosmology and its application to religious prac-
were established, but even after this had occurred new ele- tice. In the Hı̄nayāna context the most important develop-
ments continued to be incorporated into the tradition ment was probably the rich portrayal of a set of six cosmolog-
through commentaries. In the case of the Sarvāstivādins, a ical gatis, or “destinies” (of gods, humans, animals, asuras or
huge collection of commentaries known as the Mahāvibhās: ā titans, hungry ghosts, and beings who are consigned to hell),
was compiled at a Buddhist council held by King Kanis: ka. which depicted, in vivid fashion, the workings of karman
In other schools the Pitakas themselves were still being en- (moral action and its effects). These texts, which were proba-
riched by the incorporation of a variety of new additions and bly used as the basis for sermons, strongly encouraged Bud-
embellishments. There also began to appear, on the fringes dhist morality and Buddhist merit-making activities. Other
of the established schools, a new kind of sūtra that signaled Hı̄nayāna works of the period suggested the presence of a
the rise of a new Buddhist orientation that came to be known vast expanse of worlds that coexist with our own. In the new
as the Mahāyāna. The earliest of these were the Mahāyāna context this notion of a plurality of worlds was
Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, which put forward the doctrine of moved into the foreground, the existence of Buddhas in at
śūnyatā (the ultimate “emptiness” of all phenomena) and least some of these other worlds was recognized, and the sig-
proclaimed the path of the bodhisattva (future Buddha) as nificance of these Buddhas for life in our own world was both
the path that all Buddhists should follow. Before the end of affirmed and described. Finally, there are indications that
the second century CE the great Buddhist philosopher during this period both Hı̄nayāna and Mahāyāna Buddhists
Nāgārjuna had given the perspective of these sūtras a system- increasingly employed exorcistic rituals that depended on the
atic expression and thereby established a basis for the first of magical power of various kinds of chants and spells (paritta
the major Mahāyāna schools, known as Mādhyamika. in Pali, dhāran: ı̄ in Sanskrit).
This extension of Buddhist traditions of texts and teach- Buddhism as Pan-Asian Civilization. From the sec-
ings was accompanied by two other developments that also ond to the ninth century, Buddhism enjoyed a period of im-

mense creativity and influence. Prior to the beginning of the dha Gautama as an important figure, and to focus attention
sixth century, Buddhist fortunes were generally on the rise. on the single-world cosmology that posited the existence of
Buddhism flourished in Sri Lanka, India, and Central Asia. three realms—the realm beyond form associated with the
Through already familiar processes involving its introduction most exalted gods and the highest meditational states, the
along trade routes, its assimilation to indigenous beliefs and realm of form associated with slightly less exalted gods and
practices, and its adoption as an imperial religion, Buddhism meditational states, and the realm of desire constituted by
became firmly entrenched in both northern and southern the six gatis previously mentioned. This latter realm was es-
China and in many parts of Southeast Asia. After about 500 pecially prominent as the context presumed by pan-Buddhist
CE, these well-established dynamics of expansion continued teachings concerning karmic retribution and the value of giv-
to operate. Buddhism became the preeminent religion in a ing, particularly to the members of the monastic community.
newly unified Chinese empire, it continued its spread in
parts of Southeast Asia, and it was established in important Within the Mahāyāna tradition this period of Buddhist
new areas, first in Japan and then in Tibet. However, during efflorescence as a civilizational religion was characterized by
this latter period its successes were coupled with setbacks, a high level of creativity and by a variety of efforts toward
and by the middle of the ninth century the era of Buddhism systematization. In the earlier centuries the Mahāyānists pro-
as a pan-Asian civilization was rapidly drawing to a close. duced a rich and extensive collection of new sūtras, including
the Saddharmapun: d: arı̄ka Sūtra (Lotus of the true law), the
The geographical expansion of Buddhism was both a Mahāparinirvān: a Sūtra, the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, and the
cause and an effect of its civilizational character. But Bud- Avatamsaka Sūtra. With the passage of time, voluminous
dhism’s role as a pan-Asian civilization involved much more commentaries were written on many of these sūtras in India,
than a pan-Asian presence. Buddhist monasteries, often state Central Asia, and China. These sūtras and commentaries de-
supported and located near capitals of the various Buddhist veloped new teachings concerning the emptiness of the phe-
kingdoms, functioned in ways analogous to modern univer- nomenal world, the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-
sities. There was a constant circulation of Buddhist monks, vijñāna), and the “embryo of the Tathāgata” (tathāgata-
texts, and artistic forms across increasingly vast geographical garbha). These teachings were given scholastic forms in vari-
areas. Indian and Central Asian missionaries traveled to ous Mahāyāna groups such as the Mādhyamika and Yogācāra
China and with the help of Chinese Buddhists translated schools, which originated in India, and the Tiantai and
whole libraries of books into Chinese, which became a third Huayan schools, which originated in China. In addition,
major Buddhist sacred language alongside Pali and Sanskrit. these sūtras and commentaries recognized a vast pantheon
In the fifth century Buddhist nuns carried their ordination of Buddhas and bodhisattvas (future Buddhas) and acknowl-
lineage from Sri Lanka to China. Between 400 and 700 a edged the existence of a plurality, even an infinity, of worlds.
stream of Chinese pilgrims traveled to India via Central Asia Some went on to affirm the reality of an eternal, cosmic Bud-
and Southeast Asia in order to visit sacred sites and monaste- dha whom they took to be the ultimate source of these innu-
ries and to collect additional scriptures and commentaries. merable Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and worlds (and of all else
Some of these, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing, wrote as well). Some of these texts highlighted various kinds of so-
travel accounts that provide information concerning Bud- teriological help that particular Buddhas and bodhisattvas
dhist civilization in its fullest development. In the sixth cen- could provide to those who sought their aid. In addition to
tury Buddhism was formally introduced into Japan; in the Maitreya and Amitābha, mentioned above, other Buddhas
following century Buddhists from Central Asia, India, and and bodhisattvas who became particularly important include
China made their way into Tibet. Beginning in the eighth Bhais: ajyaguru (the Buddha of healing), Avalokiteśvara (the
and ninth centuries monks from Japan visited China in order bodhisattva exemplar of compassion), Mañjuśrı̄ (the bodhi-
to receive Buddhist training and acquire Buddhist texts. sattva patron of the wise), and Ks: itigarbha (the bodhisattva
These are only a few illustrations of the kind of travel and who specialized in assisting those who suffer in hell).
interaction that characterized this period.
By the second half of the first millennium CE a new
While Buddhism was reaching its apogee as a civiliza- strand of Buddhist tradition, the Vajrayāna, or Esoteric Ve-
tional religion, the teachings of the Hı̄nayāna tradition were hicle, began to come into the foreground in India. This new
further extended and refined. New commentaries were pro- vehicle accepted the basic orientation of the Mahāyāna, but
duced in both Sanskrit and in Pali. During the fifth century supplemented Mahāyāna insights with new and dramatic
these commentaries were supplemented by the appearance forms of practice, many of them esoteric in character. The
of two very important manuals, Vasubandhu’s appearance of this new Buddhist vehicle was closely associat-
Abhidharmakośa, composed in the Sarvāstivāda-Sautrāntika ed with the composition of new texts, including new sūtras
context in Northwest India, and Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhi- (e.g., the Mahāvairocana Sūtra), and the new ritual manuals
magga (Path of Purification), written in the Theravādin con- known as tantras. By the eighth and ninth centuries this new
text in Sri Lanka. Moreover, many Hı̄nayāna themes re- vehicle had spread through virtually the entire Buddhist
mained basic to the other Buddhist traditions with which it world and was preserved especially in Japan and in Tibet.
coexisted. Most Buddhists continued to recognize the Bud- But before the process of systematization of the Vajrayāna

could proceed very far the infrastructure that constituted monasteries and their residents. New developments arose
Buddhist civilization began to break down, thus at least par- within the Buddhist community as a result of these vicissi-
tially accounting for the very different form that this tradi- tudes, developments that eventually transformed Buddhism
tion took in Tibet and in Japan, where it became known as into a series of discrete cultural traditions.
Shingon. Some indication of these developments can be seen
During the period of its hegenomy as a pan-Asian civili- quite early, even as Buddhist civilization was at the peak of
zation, Buddhism retained a considerable degree of unity its brilliance. Events in Central Asia during the fifth and
across both the regional and text-oriented boundaries that sixth centuries were not favorable to the Buddhist kingdoms
delimited particular Buddhist traditions. In each cultural along the Silk Route that connected Northwest India and
area and in each of the three yānas there were ascetics and northern China. These kingdoms were invaded and in some
contemplatives who practiced Buddhist meditation; there cases conquered by different nomadic peoples such as the
were ecclesiastics and moralists whose primary concern was Huns, who also invaded India and the Roman empire. The
Buddhist discipline; there were monks and laypersons who Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who visited Sogdiana in 630, saw
were involved in Buddhist devotion; and there were those only ruins of Buddhist temples and former Buddhist
who took a special interest in Buddhist magic and exorcism. monasteries that had been given over to the Zoroastrians.
These diverse groups and individuals shared—and many re- The instability in the crucial linking area between India
alized that they shared—beliefs, attitudes, and practices with and China during the fifth and sixth centuries seems to have
like-minded Buddhists in distant areas and other yānas. been sufficient to weaken Buddhism’s civilizational struc-
Moreover, during the period of its ascendancy as a civil- ture. For the first time we see the emergence of new Buddhist
izational religion, Buddhism provided a successful standard schools in China that are distinctively Chinese. The appear-
of cultural unification such that other religious traditions, in- ance of synthetic Chinese schools like Tiantai and Huayan
cluding the Hindu in India, the Manichaean in Central Asia, suggests a continuation of the civilizational orientation.
the Daoist in China, the Shinto in Japan, and the Bon in These schools sought to reconcile the divergent views found
Tibet, responded to it with their own innovations shaped by in Buddhist literature through an extended elaboration of
Buddhist ideas and values. During this period, in other different levels of teaching. This is, of course, characteristic
words, Buddhism set the standards, religious, philosophical, of Buddhism as a civilizational religion, but the manner of
artistic, and so on, to which a whole range of other Asian tra- reconciliation reflects a style of harmonization that is distinc-
ditions were forced to respond. Buddhism also served as a tively Chinese.
civilizational religion by encompassing other elements— The increasing importance of Tantra in late Indian
logic, medicine, grammar, and technology, to name but a Buddhism and the success of the Pure Land (Jingtu) and
few—that made it attractive to individuals and groups, in- Chan (Zen) schools in China during the Sui and Tang peri-
cluding many rulers and members of various Asian aristocra- od (598–907) are further indications that the Buddhist tradi-
cies who had little or no interest in the spiritual aspect of tion was becoming more local in self-definition. Chinese
religion. Buddhism had a new independent spirit in contrast to the
BUDDHISM AS CULTURAL RELIGION. For more than a thou- earlier India-centered Buddhism. Moreover, the new move-
sand years, from the time of King Aśoka to about the ninth ments that emerged at that time seem to be the result of a
century, Buddhism exhibited a civilizational form that began long development that took place apart from the major cos-
as pan-Indian and ultimately became pan-Asian in character. mopolitan centers. Far more than in the past, expressions of
Like the sectarian pattern that preceded it, this civilizational Buddhism were being made at all levels of particular socie-
pattern left an indelible mark on all subsequent Buddhist de- ties, and there was a new concern for the interrelation of
velopments. Buddhism never completely lost either its con- those levels within each society.
cern for inclusiveness or its distinctively international flavor. During the last centuries of the first millennium CE,
But beginning in about the fifth century the civilizational Buddhist civilization developed a new, somewhat indepen-
structure suffered increasingly severe disruptions, and a new dent center in China that reached its peak during the Sui and
pattern began to emerge. All across Asia, Buddhism was Tang dynasties. Thus, when Buddhist texts and images were
gradually transformed, through a variety of historical pro- introduced into Japan during the sixth century they were
cesses, into what we have chosen to call “cultural religion.” presented and appropriated as part and parcel of Chinese cul-
The period of transition. Buddhist civilization, which ture. The new religion gained support from the prince re-
characteristically strove for both comprehensiveness and sys- gent, Shōtoku Taishi, who wanted to model his rule after
tematic order, was dependent on the security and material that of the Buddhist-oriented Sui dynasty. Chinese Buddhist
prosperity of a relatively small number of great monasteries schools such as Huayan (Jpn., Kegon) also prospered in the
and monastic universities that maintained contact with one Nara period in Japan (710–784) as Chinese cultural influ-
another and shared common interests and values. This insti- ence continued to flourish.
tutional base was, in fact, quite fragile, as was demonstrated The two centers of Buddhist civilization, China and
when historical events threatened the well-being of these India, also competed with each other, as can be seen in a situ-

ation that developed in Tibet. Buddhism had been brought successful in establishing itself as the dominant religious tra-
to Tibet by King Sroṅ bstan sgam po (d. 650), who estab- dition. The religious creativity of these areas, once the pe-
lished the first stable state in the area. Buddhist texts were riphery of the Buddhist world, resulted in a Buddhist “axial
translated into Tibetan from both Sanskrit and Chinese. A age” that dramatically transformed the tradition as a whole.
later king, Khri sroṅ lde btsan (755–797), officially adopted
Buddhism as the state religion and determined to resolve the Monastic order, royal order, and popular Buddhism.
tension between Indian and Chinese influence. He spon- The transformation of Buddhism from a civilizational reli-
sored the famous Council of Lhasa, in which a Chinese party gion to a cultural religion depended on a fundamental re-
representing a Chan “sudden enlightenment” point of view alignment in the structure of the Buddhist community. As
debated an Indian group that advocated a more gradualist a civilizational religion, Buddhist community life had come
understanding of the Buddhist path. Both sides claimed vic- to include a largely monastic elite that traveled extensively,
tory, but the Indian tradition gained predominance and was multilingual, and operated at the civilizational level; an
eventually translations were permitted only from Sanskrit. imperial elite made up of monks and laypersons associated
more closely with royal courts and related aristocracies; and
During the ninth and tenth centuries the two Buddhist a less exalted company of ordinary monks and laypersons liv-
civilizational centers in India and China were themselves ing not only in urban areas but in the countryside as well.
subject to attack, both internally and externally. The combi- In Buddhism’s zenith as a civilizational religion the central
nation of Hindu resurgence and Muslim invasions led to the organizing relationship was that between the largely monas-
effective disappearance of the Buddhist community in India tic civilizational elite and the imperial elites, consisting of
by the thirteenth century. Repeated invasions by Uighurs kings, queens, and other high-placed members of the laity
and Turkic peoples, as well as official persecutions and the on the one hand, and the monks whom they supported on
revival of the Confucian tradition, resulted in a decisive the other. The ordinary members of the laity and the less ex-
weakening of institutional Buddhism in China. alted monks played a role, of course, but in most areas at
most periods of time they seem to have been somewhat dis-
The processes of acculturation that had first become evi- tanced from the mainstream of Buddhist community life.
dent in the sixth century in India and China repeated them- With the transformation of Buddhism into a cultural reli-
selves beginning in the tenth century in Japan, Korea, Tibet, gion, however, this situation was drastically altered.
Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia. In each of these areas distinct
cultural forms of Buddhism evolved. There was a reorganiza- One aspect of this transformation was major changes
tion of the Buddhist community with an increased emphasis that took place at three different levels: monastic, imperial,
on the bonds between elite and ordinary Buddhists in each and popular. The demise of the monastic network through
particular area. There was a renewed interest in efficacious which the civilizational aspect of Buddhism had been sup-
forms of Buddhist practice and the Buddhist schools that ported and maintained was decisive. To be sure, there were
preserved and encouraged such practice. Within each area elements of the monastic community that never lost their in-
there was a development of Buddhist symbols and rituals ternational vision, and travel and exchanges between specific
that became representative of distinct Buddhist cultures, par- cultural areas was never totally absent, particularly between
ticularly at the popular level. China and Japan, China and Tibet, and Sri Lanka and main-
land Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to
In Central Asia the Buddhist community had no success speak of a pan-Asian Buddhist elite after the ninth or tenth
in surviving the Muslim expansion. Buddhism had some century.
limited success in India during the last centuries of the first
millennium. It benefited from extensive royal and popular The pattern at the imperial level was altered by the loss
support in northeastern India under the Pāla dynasty from of monastic power and influence coupled with increased
the eighth to the twelfth century, but Hindu philosophy and state control in monastic affairs. During the period that Bud-
theistic (bhakti) movements were aggressive critics of Bud- dhism was an effective civilizational religion its great
dhism. Hardly any distinct Buddhist presence continued in monasteries functioned practically as “states within the
India after the last of the great monasteries were destroyed state.” Monasteries commanded extensive resources of land
by the Muslims. In China there was more success, although and labor and were often actively involved in commercial en-
the Confucian and Daoist traditions were powerful rivals. As terprises. This public splendor made the monasteries inviting
a result of persecutions in the ninth century, Buddhism lost targets, especially after their usefulness as civilizational cen-
its distinctively civilizational role, but it continued as a major ters had declined. If the monasteries were not simply de-
component of Chinese religion, becoming increasingly syn- stroyed, as they were in India and Central Asia, they were
thesized with other native traditions. In Sri Lanka, Southeast often deprived of their resources, as occurred at one time or
Asia (except for Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula, where another in virtually every Buddhist area. With the decline of
Buddhism suffered the same fate that it suffered in India), monastic influence at the imperial level, the control of the
Japan, Korea, and Tibet (from whence it eventually spread state over monastic affairs inevitably increased. In China and
to Mongolia), areas where Buddhism did not have to com- Japan, and to a lesser extent in Korea and Vietnam, state con-
pete with strongly organized indigenous traditions, it was trol became thoroughly bureaucratized. In Sri Lanka and the

Theravāda areas of Southeast Asia, state control was imple- the wealthy monasteries of the capital, to adopt a strictly dis-
mented more indirectly and with considerably less efficiency ciplined mode of life, and to devote themselves to study and/
by royal “purifications” of the sangha. Specific local condi- or meditation. In the twelfth century the Āraññikas led a
tions in Tibet led to a unique situation in which monastic major reform in Sri Lanka and in subsequent centuries they
and royal functions became so tightly interlocked that they extended their reform movement throughout the Theravāda
were often completely fused. world, which included not only Sri Lanka but also Burma,
Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. The Āraññikas in the
The demise of the international Buddhist elite and the Theravāda world, like the Chan and Zen practitioners in
weakening of the large and powerful establishments were East Asia, were closely affiliated with the elite segments of
counterbalanced by a strengthening of Buddhist life at the the various societies in which they were active. A similar kind
grass-roots level. Smaller, local institutions that for a long of emphasis was placed on discipline, study, and meditation
time had coexisted with the great monasteries took on new in Tibet, where the Vajrayāna tradition was established by
importance as focal points in Buddhist community life. For Atı̄śa, the monk who in the eleventh century inaugurated the
example, smaller so-called merit cloisters (kung-te yüan) sup- “second introduction” of Buddhism into the country. In the
ported by wealthy laymen were significant components in fifteenth century another infusion of discipline-oriented re-
the development and life of Chinese Buddhism. In Sri Lanka form was provided by reformers who established the Dge
and Southeast Asia the emergence of cultural Buddhism was lugs pa, the so-called Yellow Hats, which became the preemi-
closely associated with monks who were called gāmavāsins nent Tibetan (and Mongolian) school subsequently headed
(village dwellers) and who strengthened Buddhist influence by the well-known line of Dalai Lamas.
among the people in the major cities and in the more distant
provinces as well. In contrast to civilizational Buddhism, in Each expression of Buddhism as a cultural religion gen-
which the crucial structural alignment was that between the erated, as a kind of counterpoint to its more elitist, disci-
civilizational elite and the monks and laity at the imperial pline-oriented schools and movements, other schools and
level, the crucial structural alignment in cultural Buddhism movements that focused on more populist forms of devo-
was between the monks and laity of the imperial or state tional or Esoteric (Tantric) practice. In the East Asian
elites, who were located primarily in the capital cities, and Mahāyāna areas the most important development was the in-
the ordinary people who inhabited local monasteries and vil- creasing prominence of the Pure Land schools in the early
lages. centuries of the second millennium CE. The Chinese Pure
Land schools remained in close symbiosis with the practi-
The preeminence of practice. The era of comprehen- tioners of Chan and retained a relatively traditional mode of
sive Buddhist philosophizing and the formulation of original monastic practice. Their Japanese counterparts, however, be-
systems of thought came to an end, for the most part, with came more differentiated and considerably more innovative.
the demise of Buddhism as a civilizational religion. There During the Kamakura period (1185–1333) a number of
continued to be philosophical innovations, and some of the new, distinctively Japanese Pure Land and related schools
great systems that were already formulated were adjusted to were founded by charismatic leaders such as Hōnen, Shin-
meet new circumstances. However, the real creativity of ran, and Nichiren; these schools took on a distinctively Japa-
Buddhism as a cultural religion came to the fore in schools nese cast. For Nichiren, the Pure Land was Japan itself.
and movements that emphasized efficacious modes of Bud-
dhist practice. Although less important than Pure Land and related
kinds of devotion, Esoteric or Tantric modes of religion also
A major component in the development of various Bud- were a significant part of cultural Buddhism in East Asia. In
dhist cultures is the ascendancy of schools or movements that China the Esoteric elements were closely related to influences
combined a strong emphasis on the importance of discipline from the Vajrayāna tradition in Tibet as well as interactions
(particularly although not exclusively the monastic disci- with forms of indigenous Daoism. In Japan more sophisti-
pline) with an accompanying emphasis on meditation. In cated Esoteric elements persisted in the Tendai (Chin.,
China and Japan, Chan and Zen, with their emphasis on Tiantai) and Shingon schools, while more rustic and indige-
firm discipline and meditative practices such as “just sitting” nous elements were prominent in groups that were integrat-
and the contemplation of kung-an (Jpn., kōan; enigmatic ed into these schools, for example, the Shūgendō community
verses), are representative of this kind of Buddhist tradition. that was made up of mountain ascetics known as yamabushi.
These were the schools that became more prominent as
Mahāyāna Buddhism emerged as a cultural religion in East In Sri Lanka in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (the
Asia, and they continued to exert influence on the various period of Hōnen, Shinran, and Nichiren in Japan) devotion-
East Asian political and aesthetic elites from that time for- al religion also seems to have been influential in the Buddhist
ward. The Āraññikas, or “forest-dwelling monks,” represent- community, generating new genres of Buddhist literature
ed an analogous orientation and played a similar role in Sri that were written primarily in Sinhala rather than Pali. Al-
Lanka and subsequently in Southeast Asia. The Āraññikas though no specifically devotional “schools” were formed, a
appeared on the Sri Lankan scene in the ninth and tenth cen- whole new devotional component was incorporated into the
turies as a group of monks who had chosen to withdraw from Theravāda tradition and subsequently diffused to the

Theravāda cultures in Southeast Asia. Similarly, there were, ited Buddhist cultural complexes that cut across political di-
as far as we know, no “schools” that were specifically Esoteric visions.
or Tantric in character. However, there is some evidence that
indicates that Esoteric elements played a very significant role Many of the sites that were the goals of major Buddhist
in each of the premodern Theravāda cultures. This kind of pilgrimages were mountain peaks or other places that had
influence seems to have been particularly strong in northern been sacred from before the introduction of Buddhism and
Burma, northern Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. continued to have sacred associations in other traditions that
coexisted with Buddhism. Through pilgrimage practices at
In Tibet and Mongolia, as one would expect given their these sites Buddhism assimilated various deities and practices
Vajrayāna ethos, the primary counterpoints to the more dis- associated with local religious traditions. At the same time,
cipline-oriented traditions were the schools, such as the of course, the Buddhist presence imbued those deities and
Rnying ma pa and Bka’ brgyud pa, that emphasized the per- practices with Buddhist connotations. In Japan, Buddhas
formance of Esoteric and Tantric rituals in order to achieve and bodhisattvas became virtually identified in many situa-
worldly benefits and to proceed along a “fast path” to salva- tions with indigenous kami (divine spirits). In China great
tion. However, just as in the other Buddhist cultures devo- bodhisattvas such as Ks: itigarbha, Mañjuśrı̄, and
tion was supplemented by recourse to Esoteric and Tantric Avalokiteśvara became denizens of sacred mountains that
techniques, so in Tibet and Mongolia Esoteric and Tantric were popular pilgrimage sites, and in those pilgrimage con-
techniques were supplemented by the practice of devotion. texts underwent a thoroughgoing process of sinicization.
Another important component of Buddhism as a cul- Stūpas, footprints, and other Buddhist objects of pilgrimage
tural religion was the mitigation, in some circles at least, of in Southeast Asia became, for many who venerated them,
traditional distinctions between monks and laity. This trend representations in which the Buddha was closely associated
was least evident in the more discipline-oriented contexts, with indigenous spirits (e.g., nats in Burma, phı̄ in Thailand,
but even here there was some movement in this direction. etc.) who served as the local guardians or protectors of Bud-
For example, in the Chan and Zen monasteries, monks, rath- dhist institutions.
er than being prohibited from engaging in productive work
as the Vinaya had stipulated, were actually required to work. Wherever Buddhism developed as a cultural religion it
In the Pure Land schools in Japan, and in some of the Esoter- penetrated not only the sacred topography of the area but
ic schools in Japan and Tibet, it became permissible and also the cycle of calendric rites. In China, for example, the
common for clergy to marry and have families. Also, certain annual cycle of Buddhist ritual activities included festivals
kinds of monastic/lay and purely lay associations played im- honoring various Buddhas and bodhisattvas, festivals dedicat-
portant roles in China and Japan. These included both ed to significant figures from Chinese Buddhist history, a
straightforward religious associations devoted to the various great vegetarian feast, and a very important “All Soul’s” festi-
Buddhist causes, and, particularly in China, a number of se- val in which the Chinese virtue of filial piety was expressed
cret societies and messianically oriented groups. Even in Sri through offerings intended to aid one’s ancestors. While
Lanka and Southeast Asia tendencies toward the laicization these rituals themselves involved much that was distinctively
of the monastic order can from time to time be observed, but Chinese, they were interspersed with other festivals, both
in these strongly Theravāda areas the process was always Confucian and Daoist, and were supplemented by other,
thwarted by royal intervention before the innovations could lesser rituals associated with daily life that involved an even
take root. greater integration with non-Buddhist elements. In Sri
Lanka the Buddhist ritual calendar included festivals honor-
The pervasiveness of ritual. Alongside the particular ing events of the Buddha’s life; a festival that celebrated the
schools and movements that characterized Buddhism as a coming of Mahinda, Aśoka’s missionary son, to establish
cultural religion there were also modes of Buddhist practice Buddhism in Sri Lanka; a festival in the capital honoring the
that, although influenced by those schools and movements, Buddha relic that served as the palladium of the kingdom;
were more pervasively involved in Buddhist cultures as such. and the monastic-centered kathin (Pali, kat:hina; giving of
Pilgrimage was in the forefront of these practices. robes) ceremony that marked the end of the rainy season.
Virtually every instance of Buddhism as a cultural reli- These Buddhist rituals were interspersed with non-Buddhist
gion had its own particular patterns of Buddhist pilgrimage. celebrations that were, in this case, largely Hindu. These
In many cases these pilgrimage patterns were a major factor large-scale rituals were supplemented by more episodic and
in maintaining the specificity of particular, often overlap- specialized rites that involved an even wider variety of indige-
ping, religious and cultural complexes. In some contexts nous elements such as offerings to local spirits. In the Tibet-
these pilgrimage patterns delimited Buddhist cultural com- an cultural area the Buddhist calendar encompassed great fes-
plexes that supported and were supported by particular polit- tivals sponsored by monasteries in which the introduction of
ical kingdoms. An example of this situation was the Sinhala Buddhism to Tibet was celebrated as the Buddhist defeat of
pattern, in which there were sixteen major sites systematically indigenous demons, as well as festivals honoring Buddhist
distributed throughout all of Sri Lanka. In other situations, deities (e.g., Tārā) and Tibetan Buddhist heroes (e.g., Pad-
for example in Southeastern Asia, these patterns often delim- masambhava). The Tibetan Buddhist calendar also included

other large- and small-scale rituals in which Buddhist and in- The modern encounter of cultures and civilizations has
digenous shamanistic elements were combined. not been monolithic. Three stages can be identified in Bud-
dhist Asia. The first was the arrival of missionaries with trad-
Buddhism in its various cultural expressions also be- ers in various parts of Asia. These missionaries came to con-
came associated with life cycle rites, especially those of the vert and instruct, and they brought printing presses and
male initiation into adulthood and those associated with schools as well as Bibles and catechisms. There was a mis-
death. The Buddhist involvement in male initiation rites was sionary onslaught on Asian religious traditions, including
limited primarily to Southeast Asia. In many Buddhist coun- Buddhism, in Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan.
tries children and young men were educated in the monaste- This onslaught was sometimes physically violent, as in the
ries, but only in Southeast Asia did temporary initiation into Portuguese destruction of Buddhist temples and relics in Sri
the order, either as a novice (as in Burma) or at a later age Lanka, but for the most part it was an ideological assault. A
as a full-fledged monk (as in central Thailand), become a cul- second stage was more strictly colonial, as some European
turally accepted necessity for the attainment of male adult- powers gained control over many different areas of the Bud-
hood. Buddhist involvement in funerary rituals was, on the dhist world. Some Buddhist countries, such as Sri Lanka,
other hand, a phenomenon that appeared again and again Burma, and the Indochinese states, were fully colonized
all across Asia. For example, in the Theravāda countries while others, such as Thailand, China, and Japan, were sub-
where Buddhism has been the dominant cultural religion jected to strong colonial influences. In virtually every situa-
elaborate cremations patterned after the ceremony reportedly tion (Tibet was a notable exception), the symbiotic relation-
performed for the Buddha himself have become the rule for ship between the political order and the monastic order was
members of the royal and monastic elites. Simpler ceremo- disrupted, with adverse effects for Buddhist institutions.
nies, based on the same basic model, were the norm for those
of lesser accomplishment or status. Even in cultures where The twentieth-century acceptance of Western political
Buddhism coexisted with other major religions on a more or and economic ideologies, whether democratic capitalism or
less equal basis, Buddhists have been the preferred officiants communism, represents a third stage. Buddhists in China,
in the funerary context. The prime example is China, where Mongolia, Tibet, and parts of Korea and Southeast Asia now
Buddhists developed elaborate masses for the dead that were live in communist societies, and the future of Buddhist com-
widely used throughout the whole of society. Originally in- munities in these areas looks bleak. Capitalism has been
troduced into China by the now defunct Zhenyan dominant in Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and parts of
(Vajrayāna) school, these masses for the dead were adapted Southeast Asia (Thailand being the prime example), and
to their new Chinese environment and became an integral greater possibilities for the Buddhist tradition are presumed
component of Chinese Buddhist culture. to exist in these areas. But capitalism, as well as communism,
has undercut the claim that Buddhist thought and values are
All across Asia Buddhism expressed itself as a cultural of central significance for contemporary life. Buddhist mon-
religion through different kinds of ritual at different levels uments and institutions are in many cases treated as museum
of society. It was through these ritual forms, more than in pieces, while Buddhist beliefs are often banished to the
any other way, that it became an integral component in the sphere of individual opinion. In many situations Buddhism
life of different Asian peoples, molding cultures in accor- is deplored as backward and superstitious, and is for that rea-
dance with its values and being itself molded in the process. son criticized or ignored. As Edward Conze noted in his A
Once Buddhism became established as a cultural religion, it Short History of Buddhism (London, 1980), “One may well
was these rituals that enabled it to maintain its position and doubt whether capitalism has been any more kind to Bud-
influence, and to do so century after century on into the dhism than communism” (p. 129).
modern era.
Despite the difficulties that Buddhists have faced, they
BUDDHISM IN THE MODERN WORLD. The beginnings of have responded creatively to the turmoil of recent history.
European mercantilism and imperialism in the sixteenth cen- They have engaged in many efforts to adapt to their chang-
tury initiated a chain of events that continue to stimulate and ing environment, just as they have done repeatedly in the
to threaten the Buddhist community in its parts and as a past. Thus far, however, they have drawn on their traditional
whole. Traditional social and economic patterns on which heritage for suitable models, and their varied responses can
the various Buddhist cultures depended were disrupted and thus be grouped as cultural, civilizational, and sectarian.
eventually displaced by new patterns. These new patterns in-
extricably linked individual Buddhist societies to a global Cultural responses. The initial responses to European
community and especially to the West. As a result, all of the civilization were cultural in character, and often reactionary.
profound transformations that have occurred in European Some Buddhist kingdoms, after an initial exposure to ele-
civilization in the last three centuries, the advent of rational- ments of European civilization, attempted to isolate them-
ism, scientific materialism, nationalism, relativism, technolo- selves as a way of preserving their cultural identity. This was
gy, democracy, and communism, have challenged Buddhists done in Japan, Korea, and Tibet, and was attempted in
in Asia just as they have challenged religious men and women China. In other cases, Buddhist revivals were inspired by the
in Europe and the Americas. missionary challenges. In Sri Lanka and China, Buddhist in-

tellectuals responded to the efforts of Christian missionaries nal approach to the problem of human suffering. Some mod-
to criticize Buddhism with their own spirited apologetics. ernists have sought to relate Buddhist thought to Western
These intellectuals readily adopted the methods and instru- philosophical perspectives and also to scientific patterns.
ments of the Christian missionary, the printing press and the Many Buddhist reformers have stressed the relevance of Bud-
school, as well as his militancy, to promote the Buddhist dhist teachings to social and ethical issues.
cause. Some processes that began in the period of Buddhist
Civilizational responses. The encounter between Eu-
culture, especially the mitigation of distinctions between
ropean civilization and Buddhist cultures encouraged a new
monks and laity, were also stimulated by these innovations.
awareness among Buddhists of their common heritage. New
Modern technology, such as improved modes of transporta-
contacts among Buddhists began on a significant scale, and,
tion, also made it easier for more people to engage in tradi-
as a result, there was also a renewed sense of Buddhism as
tional practices like pilgrimage.
a civilizational religion.
The Buddhist revivals often were inspired by cultural
This sense that Buddhism could again be a civilizational
loyalism. To choose Buddhism as one’s religious identity in
standard that could encompass the conflicting ideologies
the face of the Christian challenge also meant that one was
present in modern Asia and the world had great appeal to
choosing to be Sinhala, Thai, or Chinese. It was an emphatic
the new urban elites. In many countries Buddhist apologists
denial that things Chinese, for example, were inferior, even
maintained that Buddhism could be the basis for a truly
if this was suggested by the power and prestige of Christiani-
democratic or socialist society and, as a nontheistic religion,
ty and European civilization.
could be the basis for world peace and unity. Sōka Gakkai
The association between Buddhism and cultural loyal- (Value Creation Society), a Japanese “new religion” stem-
ism has been strongest in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Bud- ming from the Nichiren tradition, for example, presents an
dhists, both laity and monks, were actively involved in the understanding of Buddhism as the “Third Civilization,”
local independence movements. In these contexts Buddhism which can overcome the opposition of idealism and material-
has been given a sharply defined nationalistic character by ism in thought and, when applied to the economy, can bring
drawing on both the heritage of indigenous Buddhist culture about a synthesis of capitalism and socialism.
and the example of Aśoka’s imperial religion. Buddhism has
New missionary efforts to Asian countries such as India,
been used as an instrument for national integration in post-
Indonesia, and Nepal, where Buddhist influence had waned,
colonial politics and elements of Buddhism have been appro-
and to the West have been encouraged by this view of Bud-
priated by emerging civic religions in Sri Lanka, Burma, and
dhism as “the supreme civilization” and the antidote to the
Thailand.
spiritual malaise generated by European civilization.
The colonial disestablishment of Buddhism in Sri Lanka
Sectarian developments. New sectarian developments
and Southeast Asia, and its analogues in Qing-dynasty China
in the modern period have resulted from the expansion of
and Meiji Japan, altered again the lay-monk relationship and
Buddhism, through missionary work, and from Buddhist
encouraged the emergence of an active lay leadership.
losses that have occurred through the encounter with Euro-
Monasteries, deprived of government maintenance and gen-
pean civilization. These developments are evidence that the
erally without sufficient resources of their own, found it nec-
idea of a new Buddhist civilization remains, as yet, more an
essary to cultivate the support of local patrons. A larger num-
aspiration than a reality.
ber of people from various economic and social levels thus
became actively involved in religious affairs focusing on the Sectarian developments resulting from expansion can be
monasteries. This, of course, often led to controversy, with seen in the establishment of Buddhism in the West, which
further segmentation of the monastic communities resulting. has been accomplished at a certain distance from the main-
It also created an environment in which laity and monks stream communities, whether among immigrant groups or
could come together in new kinds of associations, much as among intellectuals and spiritual seekers disaffected by West-
had happened in the development of Buddhist cultures. ern cultures and religious traditions. Another sectarian devel-
Some of the strikingly successful “new religions” of Japan opment resulting from expansion is the neo-Buddhist move-
and Korea, such as Reiyūkai (Association of the Friends of ment among harijans, or scheduled castes, in India, led by
the Spirit) and Won Buddhism, are products of this envi- B. R. Ambedkar.
ronment.
A resurgence of sectarian patterns, resulting from Bud-
The disestablishment of Buddhism also encouraged the dhist losses, can be seen in totalitarian communist areas.
development of an active lay leadership among the new These developments tend to be pragmatic and defensive in
urban elites who were most influenced by European civiliza- character. Buddhists have attempted to isolate their commu-
tion. These elites introduced “reformed” interpretations of nity from the mainstream of communist society and thus
elements of the Buddhist tradition in order to bring those avoid criticism and attack, but these efforts have rarely been
elements into harmony with the expectations of European successful. Sectarian isolation, however, has often been en-
civilization. Modern reformers’ interpretations of the Bud- forced by new communist governments as a way of weaken-
dha’s biography have emphasized his humanity and his ratio- ing and discrediting Buddhist influence. Through a combi-

nation of criticism of Buddhist teaching by communist lative tradition. Our concept must remain open-ended to
ideology and the radical disestablishment of Buddhist allow for future transformations of the Buddhist tradition for
monasteries, communist governments have been able to di- as long as men and women associate their lives with the name
vest Buddhist leaders and institutions of their cultural power of Buddha.
and influence very quickly. This has occurred in the Soviet
Union, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam, and with special SEE ALSO Ālaya-vijñāna; Ambedkar, B. R; Amitābha; Arhat;
ferocity in Cambodia (Kampuchea) and Tibet. Aśoka; Atı̄śa; Avalokiteśvara; Bhais: ajyaguru; Bodhisattva
Path; Buddha; Buddhaghosa; Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, ar-
The Tibetan experience provides a tragic example of a ticle on Celestial Buddhas and Bodhisattvas; Buddhism,
new sectarian development in Buddhism. Buddhist institu- Schools of, article on Mahāyāna Philosophical Schools of
tions and leaders have been subject to a brutal attack as part Buddhism; Buddhist Books and Texts; Buddhist Ethics;
of the effort to incorporate Tibet into the People’s Republic Buddhist Meditation; Buddhist Philosophy; Buddhist Reli-
of China. This has often taken the form of sinicization, with gious Year; Cakravartin; Chan; Chinese Religion, overview
Buddhism being attacked because of its central place in tradi- article; Confucianism; Cosmology, article on Buddhist Cos-
tional Tibetan culture. Following the Chinese invasion of mology; Councils, article on Buddhist Councils; Dalai
1959, thousands of Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, fled Lama; Dge lugs pa; Dharma, article on Buddhist Dharma
the country. They have established refugee communities in and Dharmas; Dut: t: hagāman: ı̄; Eightfold Path; Faxian; Folk
North America, Europe, and India, where they are trying to Religion, article on Folk Buddhism; Four Noble Truths;
preserve the heritage of Tibetan Buddhist culture. Hōnen; Huayan; Iconography, article on Buddhist Iconog-
raphy; Indian Religions, overview article; Islam, article on
Finally, the growth of millenarian movements among Islam in Central Asia; Japanese Religions, overview article;
Buddhists in the modern period, especially in Burma, Thai- Jingtu; Jōdo Shinshū; Jōdoshū; Kamalaśı̄la; Karman, article
land, and Vietnam, may be described as sectarian develop- on Buddhist Concepts; Kingship, article on Kingship in
ments resulting from Buddhist losses. Like so much else of East Asia; Korean Religion; Ks: itigarbha; Language, article
Buddhism in the modern period, Buddhist millenarian on Buddhist Views of Language; Mādhyamika;
movements were transitory responses to crises of power and Mahāsām: ghika; Mahāsiddhas; Maitreya; Mañjuśrı̄; Merit,
interpretation within the Buddhist community. article on Buddhist Concepts; Millenarianism, article on
Chinese Millenarian Movements; Missions, article on Bud-
CONCLUSION. Buddhism as a whole has not yet developed dhist Missions; Monasticism, article on Buddhist Monasti-
a distinctive character in the modern period. On the con- cism; Mongol Religions; Mountains; Nāgārjuna; Nats; New
trary, there is a great deal of continuity between the historical Religious Movements, article on New Religious Movements
development of Buddhism and the current responses and in- in Japan; Nichiren; Nichirenshū; Nirvān: a; Padmasambhava;
novations. Thus the sectarian, civilizational, and cultural pat- Pilgrimage, article on Buddhist Pilgrimage in South and
terns continue to exert a predominant influence in the evolu- Southeast Asia; Pratı̄tya-samutpāda; Priesthood, article on
tion of Buddhist tradition. Buddhist Priesthood; Pūjā, article on Buddhist Pūjā; Pure
and Impure Lands; Reiyūkai Kyōdan; Sam: gha, overview ar-
At the same time, we can see that Buddhism, like other
ticle and articles on Sam: gha and Society; Sarvāstivāda;
world religions, participates in a modern religious situation
Sautrāntika; Shingonshū; Shinran; Shōtoku Taishi;
that is, in many respects, radically new. Buddhism has thus Shūgendō; Sōka Gakkai; Soteriology; Soul, article on Bud-
come to share certain modern elements with other contem- dhist Concepts; Southeast Asian Religions, article on Main-
porary religions. We can see such elements in the search for land Cultures; Stupa Worship; Śūnyam and Śūnyatā; Tārā;
new modes of religious symbolism, as is found in the writings Tathāgata; Tathāgata-garbha; Temple, articles on Buddhist
of the Thai monk Buddhadasa and the Japanese Kyoto Temple Compounds; Tendaishū; Theravāda; Tiantai; Tibet-
school of Buddhist philosophy. We can also see these com- an Religions, overview article; Turkic Religions; Vasuband-
mon elements in the preoccupation with the human world hu; Vinaya; Worship and Devotional Life, articles on Bud-
and this-worldly soteriology that is emerging in many Bud- dhist Devotional Life; Xuanzang; Yijing; Yogācāra; Zen;
dhist contexts. A modern Sinhala Buddhist, D. Wijewar- Zhenyan.
dena, expressed this attitude in a polemical tract, The Revolt
in the Temple (Colombo, 1953), by saying that Buddhists
BIBLIOGRAPHY
must pursue “not a will-o’-the-wisp Nirvana secluded in the “A Brief History of Buddhist Studies in Europe and America” is
cells of their monasteries, but a Nirvana attained here and provided by J. W. de Jong in two successive issues of Eastern
now by a life of self-forgetful activity . . . [so that] they Buddhist, n. s. 7 (May and October 1974): 55–106 and 49–
would live in closer touch with humanity, would better un- 82, which he has brought up to date in his “Recent Buddhist
derstand and sympathize with human difficulties” (p. 586). Studies in Europe and America 1973–1983,” which ap-
peared in the same journal, vol. 17 (Spring 1984): 79–107.
This diversity, representing both tradition and present One of the few books that treats a significant theme within
situation, reminds those of us who would study and under- this fascinating scholarly tradition is G. R. Welbon’s The
stand Buddhism and Buddhists that, in the end, the decisive Buddhist Nirvān: a and its Western Interpreters (Chicago,
meaning of our concept of Buddhism must be that of cumu- 1968).

BUDDHISM: BUDDHISM IN INDIA 1101
Among the book-length introductory surveys of Buddhism, the lation (Tokyo and Rutland, Vt., 1969); and Kenneth Chen’s
second edition of Richard H. Robinson and Willard L. John- The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism (Princeton, 1973).
son’s The Buddhist Religion (Encino, Calif., 1977) is, overall,
Studies of particular Buddhist cultures are legion. Some valuable
the most satisfactory. The only modern attempt to present
studies focus on Buddhism in the context of the whole range
a full-scale historical survey by a single author is to be found
of religions that were present in a particular area. Good ex-
in the Buddhism sections of Charles Eliot’s three-volume
amples are Giuseppe Tucci’s The Religions of Tibet, translated
work Hinduism and Buddhism, 3d ed. (London, 1957), taken
by Geoffrey Samuel (Berkeley, 1980), and Joseph M. Kita-
together with his Japanese Buddhism (1935; reprint, New
gawa’s Religion in Japanese History (New York, 1966). Other
York, 1959). Although these books are seriously dated (they
treatments of particular Buddhist cultures trace the Buddhist
were first published in 1921 and 1935, respectively), they
tradition in question from its introduction into the area
still provide a valuable resource. Five other important works
through the period of acculturation and, in some cases, on
that attempt cross-cultural presentations of a particular as-
into modern times. Two examples are Religion and Legitima-
pect of Buddhism are Junjirō Takakusu’s The Essentials of
tion of Power in Sri Lanka, edited by Bardwell L. Smith
Buddhist Philosophy, 3d ed., edited by Wing-tsit Chan and
(Chambersburg, Pa., 1978), and Kenneth Chen’s compre-
Charles A. Moore (Honolulu, 1956); Paul Mus’s wide-
hensive Buddhism in China (Princeton, 1964). Finally, some
ranging Barabud: ur: Esquisse d’une histoire du bouddhisme
interpretations of particular Buddhist cultures focus more
fondée sur la critique archéologique des textes, 2 vols. (Hanoi,
narrowly on a specific period or theme. See, for example, Lal
1935); Robert Bleichsteiner’s Die gelbe Kirche (Vienna,
Mani Joshi’s Studies in the Buddhistic Culture of India (Delhi,
1937), which was translated into French and published as
1967), which deals primarily with Buddhist culture in
L’église jaune (Paris, 1937); W. Randolph Kloetzli’s Buddhist
Northeast India during the seventh and eighth centuries;
Cosmology (Delhi, 1983); and David L. Snellgrove’s edited
Daniel Overmyer’s Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in
collection The Image of the Buddha (London, 1978).
Late Traditional China (Cambridge, Mass., 1976); and Wil-
Many of the most important studies of the early, sectarian phase liam R. La Fleur’s The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the
of Buddhism in India extend their discussions to the later Literary Arts in Medieval Japan (Berkeley, 1983).
phases of Indian Buddhism as well. This is true, for example, There is also a myriad of books and articles that consider the de-
of Sukumar Dutt’s Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India velopment of Buddhism in the modern period. The most ad-
(London, 1962) and of Edward Conze’s Buddhist Thought in equate overview of developments through the early 1970s is
India (Ann Arbor, 1967). For those interested in Buddhist provided in Buddhism in the Modern World, edited by Hein-
doctrines, Conze’s book may be supplemented by David J. rich Dumoulin and John Maraldo (New York, 1976). In ad-
Kalupahana’s Causality: The Central Philosophy of Buddhism dition, there are two excellent trilogies on particular tradi-
(Honolulu, 1975), which focuses on sectarian Buddhism, tions. The first, by Holmes Welch, includes The Practice of
and Fredrick J. Streng’s Emptiness: A Study in Religious Mean- Chinese Buddhism, 1900–1950 (1967), The Buddhist Revival
ing (New York, 1967), which examines the work of the fa- in China (1968), and Buddhism under Mao (1972), all pub-
mous early Mahāyāna philosopher Nāgārjuna. lished by the Harvard University Press. The second, by Stan-
ley J. Tambiah, includes Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in
A historical account that is focused more exclusively on the sectari-
North-East Thailand (1970), World Conqueror and World Re-
an period and the transition to civilizational Buddhism is
nouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against
provided by Étienne Lamotte in his authoritative Histoire du
a Historical Background (1976), and The Buddhist Saints of
bouddhisme indien: Des origines á l’ère Saka (Louvain, 1958).
the Forest and the Cult of Amulets (1984), all published by the
A somewhat different perspective on the same process of de-
Cambridge University Press.
velopment is accessible in three closely related works that can
profitably be read in series: Frank E. Reynolds’s title essay in For those interested in pursuing the study of Buddhism in a cross-
The Two Wheels of Dhamma, edited by Frank E. Reynolds cultural, thematic manner, Frank E. Reynolds’s Guide to the
and Bardwell L. Smith, “AAR Studies in Religion,” no. 3 Buddhist Religion (Boston, 1981), done with the assistance
(Chambersburg, Pa., 1972); John C. Holt’s Discipline: The of John Holt and John Strong, is a useful resource. It pro-
Canonical Buddhism of the Vinayapit: aka (Delhi, 1981); and vides 350 pages of annotated bibliography of English,
John Strong’s The Legend of King Aśoka: A Study and Trans- French, and German materials (plus a preface and 65 pages
lation of the Aśokāvadāna (Princeton, 1983). of index) organized in terms of eleven themes, including
“Historical Development,” “Religious Thought,” “Authori-
Good books that treat Buddhism as an international civilization tative Texts,” “Popular Beliefs and Literature,” “Social, Polit-
are hard to come by. Three that provide some assistance to ical and Economic Aspects,” “The Arts,” “Religious Practices
those interested in the topic are Trevor O. Ling’s The Bud- and Rituals,” and “Soteriological Experience and Processes:
dha: Buddhist Civilization in India and Ceylon (London, Path and Goal.”
1973); Erik Zürcher’s The Buddhist Conquest of China: The
Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China, FRANK E. REYNOLDS (1987)
2 vols. (Leiden; 1959); and René Grousset’s In the Footsteps CHARLES HALLISEY (1987)
of the Buddha, translated by J. A. Underwood (New York,
1971). Works that focus on the process of acculturation of
Buddhism in various contexts include Hajime Nakamura’s
Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, the revised English trans- BUDDHISM: BUDDHISM IN INDIA
lation of which was edited by Philip P. Wiener (Honolulu, A contemporary visitor to the South Asian subcontinent
1964); Alicia Matsunaga’s The Buddhist Philosophy of Assimi- would find Buddhism flourishing only outside the mainland,

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BUDDHISM: AN OVERVIEW 1087

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

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