Buddhism

Overview

Buddhism grew out of the teaching of Siddhārtha Gautama, a wandering teacher in northeastern India whom his followers call the Buddha, "the awakened one". He lived some time between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. Buddhists hold that ordinary life is marked by suffering, that craving and ignorance drive it, and that it can end, in nirvāṇa, through a path of ethics, meditation and wisdom. Most also accept karma and rebirth. Buddhism does not centre on a creator god; Buddhists take refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, his teaching (Dharma) and the community (Saṅgha). Spreading across Asia, it took many forms, usually grouped as Theravāda in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia, Mahāyāna in East Asia, and Vajrayāna in Tibet and Mongolia. Since the late 19th century it has also found followers in the West.^{[2, 4, 8, 11–14]}

History

The Buddha and the first community c. 5th century BCE

Buddhist tradition tells of a prince of the Śākya clan, born at Lumbini in the Himalayan foothills, who gave up a comfortable home to seek an end to suffering. After years of austerities he is said to have awakened under a fig tree at Bodh Gayā, preached his first sermon in a deer park near Vārāṇasī, and taught for some 45 years before dying at Kuśinagara at about 80. Historians accept that such a teacher lived but disagree on when: older scholarship favoured c. 563–483 BCE, while many now place his death around 400 BCE. He was one of many śramaṇas, wandering ascetics who rejected Vedic ritual authority.^[15–18]

Councils, schools and Ashoka c. 400 – 1st century BCE

By tradition, the Buddha's senior disciples met soon after his death to recite his teaching, and a second council a century later dealt with disputes over monastic rules. The community gradually divided into many early schools, conventionally counted as eighteen. Ashoka, a Mauryan emperor of the 3rd century BCE, remorseful after a bloody war, promoted a moral code he called dhamma and favoured the saṅgha. Sri Lankan chronicles credit his son Mahinda with bringing Buddhism to the island, where, tradition says, monks first wrote down the Pali canon in the 1st century BCE.^[19–23]

The Great Vehicle and the road east c. 1st century BCE – 9th century CE

Around the turn of the Common Era new scriptures appeared in India that called their path the Mahāyāna, the "Great Vehicle", and urged followers to become bodhisattvas, who seek awakening for the sake of all beings. Thinkers such as Nāgārjuna gave these ideas philosophical form. By way of Central Asia, Buddhism reached China in the 1st or 2nd century CE, Korea in the 4th century and Japan in the 6th, where it adapted to local cultures and produced new schools such as Chan (Zen) and Pure Land. In India, monasteries such as Nālandā drew students from across Asia.^[24–28]

Tantra, Tibet and loss in India c. 7th – 13th century

In the later 1st millennium CE a third movement, the Vajrayāna or tantric Buddhism, took shape in India, offering a swifter path through ritual and mantra. Tibet took up Buddhism from the 7th and 8th centuries and later passed it to the Mongols. From about the 11th century Theravāda, based in Sri Lanka, became the main form in Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. In India Buddhism lost patronage and ground, and the sack of monasteries such as Nālandā by invading armies around 1200 hastened its end there; only small pockets survived.^[29–32]

Revival, upheaval and a global faith 19th century – today

Under colonial rule, Buddhists in Sri Lanka and elsewhere answered Christian missionaries with a revival, and in 1893 Asian teachers addressed Chicago's World's Parliament of Religions. In the 20th century communist regimes in Mongolia, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, North Korea, Chinese-ruled Tibet and, most brutally, Cambodia closed monasteries and persecuted monks; the 14th Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959, and Tibetan refugees and teachers carried their tradition to India, Europe and North America. In 1956 B. R. Ambedkar led a vast crowd of Dalits into Buddhism at Nagpur, starting a revival in the land of its birth.^[33–37]

Key moments

1. c. 528 BCEThe Buddha's awakening · Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India
2. c. 480 BCEThe First Buddhist Council · Rājagṛha, India
3. c. 260 BCEAshoka's edicts · Mauryan Empire, India
4. c. 450 CENālandā, the great monastery · Nālandā, Bihar, India
5. c. 527 CESilla accepts Buddhism · Gyeongju, Silla (Korea)
6. 845 CEThe Huichang suppression of Buddhism · Tang China
7. 1868 CEMeiji Japan separates kami from buddhas · Japan
8. 1893 CEParliament of the World's Religions · Chicago
9. 1945 CEPancasila: Indonesia's five principles · Jakarta, Indonesia
10. 1956 CEAmbedkar takes refuge in the Buddha · Nagpur, Maharashtra, India
11. 1979 CEInsight meditation goes global · Burma to Massachusetts

Beliefs

The Four Noble Truths · चत्वारि आर्यसत्यानि

catvāri āryasatyāni, "four truths of the noble ones"

By tradition taught in the Buddha's first sermon: life is marked by suffering or unsatisfactoriness (duḥkha); suffering arises from craving; it can cease; and a path leads to its cessation. That path is the Noble Eightfold Path, from right view to right concentration, grouped into three trainings: ethics, concentration and wisdom.^[38–39]

Not-self · अनात्मन्

anātman (Pali anattā)

Buddhists hold that a person is a changing bundle of physical and mental processes, the five aggregates (skandhas), with no permanent soul at the core. Impermanence, suffering and not-self are the three marks of conditioned existence, and clinging to a fixed "I" is a root of suffering.^[40–41]

Karma and rebirth · कर्म, संसार

karma, "action"; saṃsāra, "wandering"

Intentional actions shape what a being later experiences: good deeds bring pleasant results and harmful ones painful results, in this life or later ones. Beings are reborn again and again in saṃsāra, as gods, humans, animals or in lower realms. Buddhists understand this not as a soul moving between bodies but as a chain of causes driven by craving and ignorance.^[42–43]

Nirvāṇa · निर्वाण

nirvāṇa (Pali nibbāna), "blowing out"

The goal of the path: the extinguishing of greed, hatred and delusion, and with them of suffering and rebirth, as a flame goes out. Buddhists say the Buddha reached it at his awakening, aged 35, and entered final nirvāṇa at death. It is described not as a place but as the absence of suffering.^[44]

Bodhisattva and emptiness · बोधिसत्त्व, शून्यता

bodhisattva, "awakening being"; śūnyatā, "emptiness"

Mahāyāna Buddhists aim to become bodhisattvas, who vow to reach buddhahood in order to free all beings, practising perfections such as generosity and wisdom. Mahāyāna thinkers also teach that nothing has a fixed essence of its own. Theravāda keeps as its ideal the arhat, a disciple who has reached nirvāṇa.^[45–46]

Practice

Refuge and the precepts

A person becomes a Buddhist by taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Saṅgha. Lay followers commonly vow five precepts: not to kill, steal, commit sexual misconduct, lie, or take intoxicants. On observance days the devout may take on extra precepts, such as celibacy and not eating after midday.^[47–48]

Meditation · भावना

Meditation, called bhāvanā or "cultivation", is central to the path. Teachers distinguish calming practice (śamatha), which steadies the mind in concentration, from insight practice (vipaśyanā), which looks into impermanence, suffering and not-self. Methods range from mindfulness of breathing to Zen sitting and Tibetan visualisation.^[49]

Monks, nuns and giving · दान

Lay people support monks and nuns with food, robes and shelter; such giving (dāna) is held to earn merit that ripens in a better rebirth. Full ordination for women died out in Theravāda lands centuries ago; since 1998 some Sri Lankan women have received it again, against conservative opposition.^[50–51]

Devotion and pilgrimage · पूजा

Buddhists honour images of the Buddha with flowers, lamps and incense, chant texts, and walk around stūpas, domed monuments that hold relics. The places of the Buddha's birth, awakening, first sermon and death have drawn pilgrims since ancient times, as do relic shrines like Kandy's Temple of the Tooth in Sri Lanka.^[52–53]

Holy days

Vesak (Buddha Day)

Full moon of Vesākha (April–May)

For Theravāda Buddhists, the day of the Buddha's birth, awakening and death, held to have fallen on the same full moon. People visit temples, keep the precepts, hear sermons and give to the poor. In East Asia the Buddha's birthday is kept separately by bathing images of the infant Buddha.^[54–55]

Uposatha · उपोसथ

New and full moon, often also the quarter moons

Observance days fixed by the moon. Monks gather to recite their monastic rules, while devout laypeople visit the monastery for worship and teaching and may take extra precepts for the day.^[56]

Ullambana (Obon) · 盂蘭盆

7th lunar month (Aug–Sept); Obon in summer in Japan

East Asian festival for the dead, based on the story of the monk Maudgalyāyana, who freed his mother from torment by making offerings to monks. Families make offerings for their ancestors; in Japan they welcome ancestral spirits home and visit graves.^[57]

People

Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha · सिद्धार्थ गौतम

founder · 5th century BCE (debated)

Also called Śākyamuni, "sage of the Śākyas". Buddhists regard him as the buddha of this age, with other buddhas before him and Maitreya still to come. The earliest Indian art evoked him through signs such as footprints or an empty seat; images in human form appeared around the 1st century CE.^[58–59]

Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī · महाप्रजापती गौतमी

saint · 5th century BCE (by tradition)

The Buddha's aunt and foster mother, remembered as the first Buddhist nun. Tradition says that after three refusals she shaved her head and walked to Vaiśālī with 500 Śākya women; when Ānanda pleaded for them, the Buddha admitted women to the order under eight special rules.^[60]

Ashoka · अशोक

ruler · 3rd century BCE

Mauryan emperor whose own inscriptions record his remorse after conquering Kalinga. He promoted an ethic of non-violence, truthfulness and respect for all sects, and marked the Buddha's birthplace with a pillar. Later Buddhist legend made him the model of the righteous king.^[61]

Nāgārjuna · नागार्जुन

scholar · c. 150–250 CE

South Indian philosopher and founder of the Madhyamaka, or "Middle Way", school. His Root Verses on the Middle Way argue that all things are empty of independent existence. Mahāyāna traditions in Tibet and East Asia honour him as one of their greatest teachers.^[62]

B. R. Ambedkar · भीमराव रामजी आंबेडकर

other · 1891–1956

Indian jurist born into the Dalit Mahar caste, who led the drafting of India's constitution. Seeing Buddhism as a path out of caste, he converted at Nagpur on 14 October 1956 with hundreds of thousands of followers and died seven weeks later. Millions of Dalits have since followed him.^[63]

Scripture

Tipiṭaka (Pali canon)

written down 1st c. BCE (tradition)

The "Three Baskets" of the Theravāda: the Vinaya (monastic discipline), the Suttas (the Buddha's discourses) and the Abhidhamma (systematic doctrine). These Pali texts are among the earliest Buddhist sources, and Theravāda Buddhists regard them as the most authoritative.^[64]

Dhammapada

A collection of 423 short verses in 26 chapters, part of the Khuddaka Nikāya of the Pali canon. Its sayings on the mind, conduct and the path make it one of the best loved of all Buddhist texts.^[65]

Buddhacarita

1st–2nd century CE

"Acts of the Buddha", an epic poem in ornate Sanskrit by Aśvaghoṣa, telling the Buddha's life from birth to the sharing of his relics. Of its 28 cantos, 14 survive in Sanskrit; the rest are known from Tibetan and Chinese translations.^[66]

Lotus Sūtra

c. 1st–2nd century CE

One of the most popular Mahāyāna scriptures. It teaches that the Buddha's many paths are really one vehicle and that all beings can become buddhas, and it deeply shaped East Asian Buddhism, especially the Tiantai (Tendai) and Nichiren schools.^[67]

Places

Lumbini

NPL · UNESCO World Heritage, 1997

The Buddha's birthplace by tradition, in southern Nepal. A pillar raised by Ashoka in 249 BCE bears an inscription naming the spot. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.^[68]

Mahābodhi Temple, Bodh Gayā

IND · UNESCO World Heritage, 2002

Where Buddhists believe the Buddha awoke, in Bihar, India. A Bodhi tree held to descend from the original grows beside the temple. The complex is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most important Buddhist pilgrimage place.^[69]

Sarnath

IND · UNESCO World Heritage, 2026

The deer park near Vārāṇasī where, by tradition, the Buddha gave his first sermon. Its ruins include the Dhamek stūpa and an Ashokan pillar whose lion capital became India's national emblem. UNESCO inscribed the site in 2026.^[70]

Kuśinagara (Kushinagar)

IND

The town in Uttar Pradesh where, Buddhists believe, the Buddha died and entered final nirvāṇa. With Lumbini, Bodh Gayā and Sarnath it is one of the four chief places of Buddhist pilgrimage.^[71]

Where it spread

Art & objects

Public-domain objects from museum collections. Select one to see it at the museum.

Pensive BodhisattvaGandhara, 2nd-3rd centuryBodhisattva AvalokiteshvaraCambodia, Angkor period, late 12th–early 13th centuryMaitreya BuddhaChina, Tang dynasty (618–906), dated 705Stupa ReliquaryGandhara, Kushan period, about 2nd centuryBuddhist God MahakalaTibet, 15th centuryPage from a Buddhist ManuscriptWestern Tibet, 13th/14th centuryBodhisattvaChina, Tang dynasty (618–906), c. 725/50Buddha HeadGandhara, 3rd centuryBuddhist Deity Vajrasattva with Bell (Ghanta) and Thunderbolt (Vajra)Tibet, 18th centuryNehan: Death of the BuddhaJapan, late 17th/early 18th centuryBuddha Calling on Earth to WitnessNortheastern India, Bihar, Tetravan, Pala Period (750-1197), 800sBuddha of the Future (Miroku Bosatsu)Japan, Asuka period (538–710), late 600sTantric Buddha Vairochana as VajrasattvaCentral Tibet, c. 1150–1200Votive Stupa with Four BuddhasIndia, Bihar, Pala period, 10th–11th century

Numbers

Buddhists worldwide

c. 324–531 million (2020 estimates)^[9]

Pew counts c. 324 million people who identify as Buddhist (4.1% of humanity); the World Christian Database, counting more broadly, c. 531 million. Many East Asians mix Buddhist practice with other traditions.

National censuses

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census of Population and Housing 2021, 'Religious affiliation in Australia' (Table 4), CC BY 4.0. Source: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, Census of India 2011, Table C-01 Population by religious community and its appendix, under the Government Open Data License – India. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0 Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0342-01 Religion by visible minority and generation status: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations with parts, released 2022-10-26. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. Source: Stats NZ, 2018 Census, licensed by Stats NZ for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

How we know

Dating the Buddha

No record from the Buddha's lifetime survives, and his teachings were passed on orally for centuries. Sri Lankan chronicles put his death in 544/543 BCE; once Ashoka's reign was fixed, scholars corrected this "long chronology" to about 486–483 BCE, while texts from mainland India imply a date about a century later. A 1988 symposium led by Heinz Bechert left the question open, and many scholars now favour about 400 BCE. Ashoka's 3rd-century BCE inscriptions are the earliest datable evidence for Buddhism.^[72–73]

Common misconceptions

Glossary

Buddha · बुद्ध

"Awakened one": one who has found the path to nirvāṇa and teaches it; above all, the title of Siddhārtha Gautama.^[77]

Dharma · धर्म

The Buddha's teaching and the truth it describes (Pali dhamma).^[78]

Saṅgha · संघ

The Buddhist community; in the narrow sense, the order of monks and nuns.^[79]

Arhat · अर्हत्

"Worthy one" (Pali arahant): a disciple who has reached nirvāṇa and will not be reborn.^[80]

Stūpa · स्तूप

A domed monument holding relics of the Buddha or a saint, walked around in devotion; in East Asia it took the form of the pagoda.^[81]

Sūtra · सूत्र

A discourse presented as the word of the Buddha (Pali sutta).^[82]

Vinaya · विनय

The monastic discipline: the code of rules for monks and nuns, forming one of the three "baskets" of the canon.^[83]

Śramaṇa · श्रमण

A wandering ascetic of ancient India outside the Vedic priesthood; the Buddha and the Jain teacher Mahāvīra were both śramaṇas.^[84]

Merit · पुण्य

Puṇya (Pali puñña): the good karmic fruit of wholesome acts such as giving to monks, keeping the precepts and meditating.^[85]