History of Buddhism

The Flourishing of Dharma At the time when the Buddha himself was alive in India, the land of Tibet was mostly under water. Buddha prophesized that this water would drain and disappear, and then the land of Tibet would become solid ground on which his teachings would flourish....

Introduction Kalmykia is situated in the lower Volga-Don river basin, to the northwest of the Caspian Sea. There are 170,000 Kalmyks, and they constitute approximately half of the population of both the capital, Elista, which has a total population of 90,000, as well as the...

Introduction to Tuva From the sixteenth to the nineteenth of April 1990, together with Russian Buddhist scholar Andrey Terentyev, I visited the Tuva Autonomous Republic. Tuva is north of Western Mongolia, bordering the western Altai Region. It is at the southernmost reaches of...

[Clarification of His Holiness' answers by Dr. Berzin are included within square brackets.] Kalachakra in the Four Tibetan Traditions Dr. Berzin: As Kalachakra is found in all four Tibetan traditions and, in the West, Kalu Rinpoche has given the Kalachakra initiation several...

As Sogdia and Bactria were major areas to which the Arabs first spread Islam in Central Asia, let us look more closely at the religious background of their people. This will help us understand their initial response to the Muslim faith. Zoroastrian Relations with Buddhism The...

The Initial Choice of Buddhism The Uighurs used the same criterion for adapting foreign religions as did the Eastern Turks. They first chose Buddhism as their state religion when the Chinese Sui forces had helped them conquer Turfan in 605. They were apparently as impressed as...

Different Presentations of the Four Types of Seals The text continues now with the next point in the outline, the actual methods of mahamudra. Although mahamudra practice can be explained in many ways, it divides it into two: the sutra and tantra levels of mahamudra methods....

Session Four, Day Two: History of the Vinaya Lineages Bhikkhu Sujato, Abbot of the Santi Forest Monastery, Sydney, Australia “The Origin of the Three Existing Vinaya Lineages: Theravada, Dharmaguptaka, and Mulasarvastivada” Indian ordination lineages did not develop...

The Pre-Islamic Presence of Buddhism in North Africa and West Asia India and West Asia have a long history of land and sea trade between them. Commercial relations between India and Mesopotamia began as early as 3000 BCE and between India and Egypt, through the intermediary...

The Political and Religious Climate among the Tanguts With the establishment of the Khitan Liao Dynasty in Mongolia, Manchuria, and parts of northern Han China in 947, and the Northern Song reunification of the rest of Han China in 960, the Tanguts became pressed from both the...