Historic Survey of the Spreading of Buddhism
With kind permission of www.buddhismus-schule.de
 
Throughout the last 2,500 years Buddhism spread from India across the various Asian countries. In India, though, it was destroyed by Islamic conquerors since the 11th century, later on in Tibet by the Chinese in the 20th century. It is remarkable, that Buddhism has been meeting with great approval, especially in the Western countries, since the 1960s.
 

There are no direct sources written by the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, who lived about a little more than 2,500 years ago. His disciples memorized his teachings and wrote them down after his death. Therefore, Buddhist historiography is based on both texts and oral transmission.
After his enlightenment, Buddha wandered across Northern India, teaching  for 45 years. In the first years, he mostly taught the basic contents of Theravada, which is aimed at personal liberation from suffering. Based on these, are the teachings of Mahayana (Great Way) with compassion and wisdom at their centre. Finally, Buddha also taught the Vajrayana (Diamondway), which directly points at recognizing Buddha nature.

Throughout the following centuries, Theravada Buddhism spread through India and later on, far across the country's borders to Iran and Central Asia. In the 1st  century A.D. more and more Mahayana teachings came to Northern India, where they flourished spiritually from the 5th to 8th century. At about the same time, the Buddhist teachings of Vajrayana became known in Tibet.
In the 11th and 12th century A.D., Buddhism in the Southeast Asian countries consolidated in the form of Theravada ("Southern Buddhism"), namely in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and Bali. In the regions North or East of India, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism (Northern Buddhism) spread. Those were China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, and beginning with the 15th/16th century also Mongolia.

The native land, though, lost Buddhism at that time. At about turn of the millennium, Islamic aggressors tried to bring India more and more under their control from the Northwest. In Kashmir Buddhism was completely destroyed about 1,100. Teachers and practitioners fled to the East into the plains of Central India or across the mountains to Tibet. Roughly 100 years later the conquerors finally ruled all India. In the final stages of the existence of Indian Buddhism, teachers tried everything to transfer the Dharma completely to those countries that had opened up to the teachings. Thus, in spite of the Islamic conquerors wreaking havoc, nothing was lost. The books that were burned, had already been translated into many languages and circulated across wide areas of Asia. In all countries, that took Buddhism in, it shaped culture for centuries, if not an entire millennium, up to our days (one exception is Indonesia, which also fell into the hands of Muslims in the 14th/15th century). Thus, Buddhism today unites an extraordinary rich spiritual life of two and a half millennia, from so different cultures as e.g. ancient India, Japan, Tibet, China, Sri Lanka, Thailand or Mongolia.

Buddhism was not spread via missionary work, but grew, where people were open to it. In fact, Buddha was born at the time of a definitely fruitful spiritual period of Indian culture, which called existing traditions into question, and tried and discussed new ways. After Buddha's death his disciples went on spreading his teachings. For centuries, the Indian monastic university of Nalanda became the spiritual centre of the new movement. Travelling merchants brought Buddhism to other countries, which in return invited scholars from India. Sometimes kings supported the new school of thought, like Ashoka in India, Trisong Detsen in Tibet or also the Chinese emperor. Another important factor for the spreading of Buddhism beyond India was the codification of Buddhist texts. Thus, they could build the foundation for the study of Buddhist philosophy and circulate widely.

In the 20th century, a new phase of Buddhist history started, which was intensified by the fact that the lamas were being driven out of Tibet. the meeting of the West with Buddhism. As early as in the 19th century and increasingly since the beginning of the 20th century, British, Russian, German and French scholars have been discussing Buddhist scriptures. Starting from academic interests, Europeans finally discovered Buddhism as a way of life. The first Buddhist communities in Europe arose. Together with the spiritual awakening of the Western world in the 1960s, an increasing search for meaning and orientation came to life, and the profound teachings of Buddhism were able to lend answers to many questions. Meanwhile, many thousands of people have become practitioners and joined Buddhist communities.
In Asia, on the other hand, Buddhist teachings are retreating almost everywhere, today. Tibetan culture was nearly completely destroyed due to the Chinese invasion in the 1950s and 1960s. Obviously, nowadays the greatest spiritual openness for Buddhism can mostly be found in the Western world. In the meantime, there even are Western people, who bring back Buddhism into Asian countries.