Buddhism History - Ancient Times to Now

Buddhism history is, like all history, just a story.

It tells about Siddharta Gotama, a young farmer from north-east India who in the 5th century BC became a muni, a sage.

His devotees regarded the muni Siddharta Gotama as a reincarnated Buddha, an enlightened being. In the following centuries his message spread all over Asia.

That's the whole story, isn't it? Let's see.

The Beginning in India

Buddhism history starts with stories about Siddharta Gotama, a farmer who became a monk and Buddha.

He lived most probably in 5th century BCE in norther-eastern India. He was not Indo-Aryan but an ethnic Shakya. 

History of Buddha

• Who were the tribes that lived in India long before Gotama was born?
  Where did they come from?


• Who were the Indo-Aryan tribesmen, who invaded most of northern India only 700 years before Gotama lived in the region?

The longer history reaches back, the more imagination is necessary to make a good story out of the few facts available.

• This is very true for the early history of ancient India from about 60,000 years onwards.


• The story about the last 4000 years of ancient India history includes challenging findings about the Indo-Aryan roots of today's Indian elite and middle classes.


• To make the oldest stories more reliable, references, sources and some discussions about the ancient history of India are gathered in a brief overview of all the Indian stories.


• The history of Buddha doesn't suffer from a lack of sources but from too many contradictory legends, that each express the truth about their respective Buddhist faction.




 

Buddhist belief

Religion for the World

Historical storytelling is always risky for it needs the teller to sort out information and to limit his imagination.

Fortunately the outcome doesn't need to be consistent, it just needs to be a good story.

That's especially true for the brief history of Buddhism.

It's all about the transformation of an obscure 6th century BCE story from the foothills of the Himalayas into the blueprint of a world religion.

At the beginning of the Common Era (CE) Buddhism had become the dominant intellectual and cultural focus of philosophy and religion in Asia.

Countless Buddhist missionaries went abroad and Buddhist scholars from everywhere came to India to study.

But slowly the center of Buddhist culture shifted from North India to South Asia and China.
 

Dialogue of Civilisations

Buddhist monks in China transcribed and translated thousands of Buddhist scriptures.

They often used Taoist terms and patterns and used "channa" (chan) for the sanskrit term "dhyanna".

Many of the ancient documents of Buddhism survived only in their Chinese transcription.

But government suppression in the 9th century nearly ended Buddhism China history .

But Chan was revived in the 10th century (Buddhism China) and only focused on meditation.

Zen saying

When Japanese monks came to study Buddhism in China in the 13th century, they pronounced the characters for 'Chan' as 'Zen'.

Later Zen Buddhism was practised by Japan's ruling class, but was soon forgotten.

In the early 18th century it was rediscovered in Japan, defined as "national heritage" and survived as a sterile monastic cult until today.

From the mid-20th century Japanese masters introduced Zen in Western countries.

Organized Zen today all over the world is an imitation of Japanese culture, rituals and behaviour, the most rigid form of spirituality in Buddhism history.

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