History of Buddhism

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...

The life of the historical Buddha emerges in several layers from the classical Buddhist literature. The earliest version does not appear in any one text, but can only be pieced together from incidents recorded in the Pali sutta (Skt. sutra) and vinaya literature of the...

Long before the Arabs brought Islam to Central Asia in the mid-seventh century CE, Buddhism had flourished there for hundreds of years. It was particularly prominent along the Silk Route, which carried trade between India and Han China, and led from both to Byzantium and to...

Introduction The terms Hinayana (Theg-dman) and Mahayana (Theg-chen), meaning modest or “lesser” vehicle and vast or “greater” vehicle, first appeared in The Sutras on Far-reaching Discriminating Awareness (Sher-phyin-gyi mdo, Skt. Prajnaparamita Sutras; The Perfection of...

This evening, we’re going to talk about Buddhist sexual ethics. As with any Buddhist teaching, we need to see how it fits into the basic structure of Buddhism, which is the four noble truths. Very briefly, Buddha spoke about true sufferings that we are all experiencing – this...

There is a long history of Muslims being regarded by the Christian West as the forces of the devil. This began at the end of the eleventh century CE with the Crusades to take the Holy Lands from the Muslims. It continued with the fall of ­­the center of Eastern Orth­odox...

Chapter from Berzin, Alexander. "The Historical Interaction between the Buddhist and Islamic Cultures before the Mongol Empire" from the previous Berzin Archives website