including headings Siddartha Gautama, Four Truths, Eightfold Path, The spread of Buddhism, Mahayana and Theravada, Buddhism in east Asia, ...
including headings Stupas and temples, The pagoda, Excavated interiors, Ajanta, Ellora and Elephanta, ...
Buddhism is the first of the world religions to expand from its place of origin. It does so by two distinct routes. Theravada Buddhism is carried eastwards into southeast Asia, in an...
The most formative event in Sri Lanka's long history is the arrival of Buddhism in the 3rd century BC. This island is the furthest outpost and the most lasting achievement of the missionary efforts of the emperor Asoka....
The Soga, a minor branch of the imperial family, do much to further the cause of Buddhism. Soga Iname becomes minister to the crown in536. In 538 a present arrives for the emperor from the Korean state of Paekche. It is...
One of Japan's most famous monuments is a vast bronze sculpture at Kamakura. Known as Daibutsu, and cast in 1252, it depicts Buddha. But this figure seated in peaceful meditation is not the historical Gautama Buddha. He...
With the arrival of Buddhism in China, and subsequently Japan, the Indian architectural tradition undergoes another transformation. In the 2nd century Kanishka, a ruler in northwest India, builds a stupa in the form of a...
The most significant architectural feature of southeast Asia is the Buddhist stupa, known in India from the 1st century BC but no doubt dating from earlier. An architectural descendant of the burial mound, the stupa is a...
The story of Tibet moves in the 7th centuryfrom colourful legend into the realm of history. The change is the result of two new arrivals - writing and Buddhism. As with the earlier example of Ulfilas and Gothic,...
In no religion have monks played such a central part as in Buddhism. Leading his followers into holiness a generation after Mahavira, Buddha also organizes them into communities. But his own glimpse of the divine truth s...
Monks and pilgrims play an important part in the practice of Buddhism. Both are attracted to caves in remote places. And the profusion of popular stories in Mahayana Buddhism (on topics such as the adventures of Buddha i...
The cave discovered in 1899 at Dunhuang contains many Buddhist paintings on silk. The larger ones (mostly showing Buddha seated in paradise with attendant figures) are designed for hanging out on poles on special occasio...
Buddhism moves out of India and into Afghanistan (where the two great rock-carved Buddhas of Bamiyan, from the 6th century, reveal the influence of Gandhara until destroyed by the Taliban in 2001). It then continues east...
The invention of printing is a striking achievement of Buddhists in east Asia. Korea takes the lead. The world's earliest known printed document is a sutra printed on a single sheet of paper in Korea in750. This...
It has often been pointed out that from about 600 BC there is a surge of religious innovation in different parts of the world. The earliest example is in Persia, where Zoroaster reforms the polytheistic Indo-Iranian reli...
