Buddhism Timeline

The Theravada school arrived in Sri Lanka sometime in the 3rd century BCE. Sri Lanka later became a base for its spread to Southeast Asia after the 5th century CE.

Image source: Theravada

From China, Buddhism was introduced into its neighbours Korea (4th century), Japan (6th–7th centuries), and Vietnam (c. 1st–2nd centuries), spreading Buddhist teachings across East Asia.

Image source: Buddhism in Vietnam

The Silk Road transmission of Buddhism to China is most commonly thought to have started in the late 2nd or the 1st century CE, though the literary sources are all open to question.

Image source: Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

The first documented translation efforts by foreign Buddhist monks in China were in the 2nd century CE, probably as a consequence of the expansion of the Kushan Empire into the Chinese territory of the Tarim Basin.

Image source: Chinese Buddhism

After the 5th century CE, Sri Lanka became a base for Theravada's later spread to Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and coastal Vietnam.

During the Indian period of Esoteric Buddhism (from the 8th century onwards), Buddhism spread from India to Tibet and Mongolia, establishing enduring Vajrayana traditions in these regions.

Image source: Tibetan Buddhism

Chan continued to grow in the Song dynasty (960–1279), and it was during this era that it strongly influenced Korean Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism.

Image source: Chan Buddhism

Theravada Buddhism became dominant in the Thai Sukhothai Kingdom during the reign of Ram Khamhaeng (1237/1247–1298), cementing its place in Thai culture.

Image source: Ram Khamhaeng Inscription

Theravada Buddhism was the dominant religion in Burma during the Mon Hanthawaddy kingdom (1287–1552), reinforcing the faith's centrality in Burmese society.

Image source: Hanthawaddy kingdom

Theravada Buddhism became dominant in the Khmer Empire during the 13th and 14th centuries, transforming the religious landscape of Cambodia.

Image source: Khmer Empire

The Islamic conquest of the Iranian Plateau in the 7th century, followed by Muslim conquests of Afghanistan and the establishment of the Ghaznavid kingdom with Islam as state religion in Central Asia between the 10th and 12th centuries, led to the decline and disappearance of Buddhism from most of these regions.

Image source: Muslim conquest of Persia

The Islamic invasions and conquest of India (10th to 12th century) further damaged and destroyed many Buddhist institutions, leading to its eventual near disappearance from India by the 1200s.

Image source: Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent

In Central Asia, Communist repression in Mongolia (between 1924 and 1990) had a strong negative impact on Buddhist institutions, though the situation has improved somewhat since the 80s and 90s.

Image source: Buddhism in Mongolia

Though Buddhist institutions were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), there has been a revival of the religion in China after 1977.

Image source: Cultural Revolution

The arrival of Communist repression to Tibet (1966–1980) had a strong negative impact on Buddhist institutions, though the situation has improved somewhat since the 80s and 90s.

Although early encounters included Francis Xavier and Ippolito Desideri with Buddhist cultures, it was not until the 19th century that Buddhism began to be studied by Western scholars.

The English words such as Buddhism, "Boudhist", "Bauddhist" and Buddhist were coined in the early 19th century in the West, shaping how the tradition came to be understood in Europe and America.

It was also during the 19th century that Asian Buddhist immigrants (mainly from China and Japan) began to arrive in Western countries such as the United States and Canada, bringing with them their Buddhist religion.

Image source: Buddhism in the United States

King Chulalongkorn (r. 1868–1910), following his father Mongkut (r. 1851–68), were responsible for modern reforms of Thai Buddhism, reshaping the sangha along modern lines.

Image source: Chulalongkorn

Early Buddhist modernist figures such as the American convert Henry Olcott (1832–1907) and Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933) reinterpreted and promoted Buddhism as a scientific and rational religion compatible with modern science.

Image source: Buddhist modernism

In 1881, Rhys Davids founded the Pali Text Society—an influential Western resource of Buddhist literature in the Pali language and one of the earliest publishers of a journal on Buddhist studies.

An important event in the introduction of Buddhism to the West was the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, which for the first time saw well-publicised speeches by major Buddhist leaders alongside other religious leaders.

Image source: Parliament of the World's Religions

During the Republican period (1912–49), a new movement called Humanistic Buddhism was developed by figures such as Taixu (1899–1947), emphasizing engagement with the modern world.

Image source: Humanistic Buddhism

The 20th century saw a prolific growth of new Buddhist institutions in Western countries, including the Buddhist Society, London (1924), Das Buddhistische Haus (1924) and Datsan Gunzechoinei in St Petersburg.

Image source: Buddhist Society

One notably covered case in media of various Western countries was that of Sogyal Rinpoche, which began in 1994 and ended with his retirement from his position as Rigpa's spiritual director in 2017.

Image source: Sogyal Rinpoche

Buddhism is practised by an estimated 324 million people in 2020, representing 4.1% of the world's total population. Buddhists are the only major religious group that declined in size between 2010 and 2020, dropping from about 343 million to 324 million people—a decrease of roughly 5%.