History of Buddhism

The Four Buddhist Councils were convened to codify Buddha's teachings. Because of differing opinions among the participants, different Buddhist traditions and tenet systems emerged from many of them.

The Tibetan monastic tradition of wearing yellow hats began with the revival of the monk ordination in the 11th century and was later adopted by the Gelug tradition as a symbol of renewed monastic purity.

At a time of massive political upheavals between warring republics and kingdoms, many, including the Buddha, joined the “shramanas” – wandering mendicant spiritual seekers. Buddhism became the fifth of the five shramana schools of the time.

The first women ordained as nuns were Buddha’s maternal aunt and 500 female followers. They were given additional vows to those given to the monks in order to avoid suspicion of this mixed-gender celibate order from society at that time.

The Theravada monastic ordinations reached Sri Lanka and Myanmar in the 3rd century BCE. Over the centuries, it was re-established in Sri Lanka from Myanmar after a short repression, was spread from Sri Lanka to Thailand, and then from Thailand to Cambodia and from Cambodia to...

Dzogchen is found earliest in the Nyingma and Bon traditions and later incorporated into some of the Kagyu traditions. Learn about its historical development in Tibet from the 8th century to the present.

During the later Abbasid period (840–1258 CE), Islam slowly spread to West and East Turkistan and took a strong foothold on the Indian subcontinent.

As of 1995, there were no books on Buddhism in the colloquial Mongolian language, hardly anyone who could make such translations and no money to print such books, even if they were made. Thus, young people and intellectuals were being drawn to Christianity, which they now...