How did Buddhism Spread from India to Southeast Asia | Flashback with Palki Sharma

[Music] it's around the fifth century BC we following the life of a young prince he was born in the Indian subcontinent in present day Nepal his life was very peculiar because he only knew luxury and wealth his parents shielded him from the bad side of life so he had no clue about old old age or diseases or even death but all that was about to change at the age of 29 our Prince took three Chariot rides outside his Palace the blinkers were off on the first ride he saw an old person on the second he saw a sick person and on the third he saw a corpse you can imagine what it was like the experience shook the Young Prince he abandoned his Palace renounced his wealth and decided to live the life of an atic not for long though he realized that extreme asceticism was pointless it just made his body weak so instead he chose meditation and that's when people started to take notice his teachings gained popularity his way of life attracted Kings and pretty soon a new religion took shape that of Buddhism and the Young Prince turned aesthetic well he died at the age of 80 history remembers him as Buddha in modern times Buddhism has struggled to take root in India it makes up just 0.7% of the Indian population but elsewhere it is thriving especially in Southeast Asia so how did Buddhism make its way there why did it succeed in Southeast Asia but not in India time for a [Music] flashback at first Buddhism was localized it was mostly followed in the gantic plains this is where Budd and his disciples preached but expansion was around the corner this was a time of religious churn in India the common people were fed up with brahminical dogmas even Kings wanted to break free so Buddhism became an alternative by the middle of the third Century BC it got State patronage the Moran King ashoke was in power he ruled over a massive territory in the north it touched the Himalayas in the South almost Sri Lanka so when asok converted to Buddhism it was a huge boost he sent missions to spread the religion one of them was to swarnabumi now there's a lot of confusion about it some say saromi refers to a place in the Malay Peninsula others say it was in Myanmar the second one Myanmar is considered more plausible asok sent Buddhist monks and scriptures to Myanmar gradually the people adopted it today almost 90% of myanmar's population follows Buddhism another asoken mission was to Sri Lanka and this one is more defined it was led by ashok's son Mahendra he and his colleagues were near the city of anuradapura in Sri Lanka there they met the Cales King King Tissa Mahendra delivered a Buddhist sermon to this King he was bow over he converted to Buddhism invited the asoken mission to his capital and gave them patronage thus Buddhism took root in Sri Lanka by the 2 Century BC most Cales had accepted it today More than 70% of the country is Buddhist back to India now when Ashok died his Empire crumbled Buddhism lost its top supporter so the expansion hit Paul but then came a new ruler king kanesh of the kosan dynasty again quite a large empire at covered parts of Central Asia Afghanistan and Northwest India king kanesh lived between the first and 2nd Century CE he supported a different School of Buddhism the Gandhara school it was a lot different from the gantic one you had more Persian and Greek influences in it and keshk took this Buddhism to Central Asia it flourished and evolved there you see Central Asia had a lot of traditions you had Shamanism Zoroastrianism Christianity all of it intermingled and evolved so did Buddhism from Central Asia Buddhism made a leap and a very important one to China it all started with a peculiar dream in the first century CE the Han Emperor saw a flying golden Dy he thought it was the bud so Chinese missions were sent to India they collected Buddhist texts and took them back to China these texts were stored in the Han capital and that's one way Buddhism came to China the other is the trade routs you may have heard of the Silk Road it was a cross-continental trade route of ancient times it connected Ur Asia to East Asia a lot of things passed through this road spices precious metals painting handicrafts but the most important was ideas and Buddhism was one such Silk Road idea Traders took it from Central Asia to China back then China's dominant religion was taism there was a lot of magic and fake science involved so Buddhism adapted to it early Chinese Buddhism also had a lot of magic many believed that Buddha was a Reincarnation of Lai the founder of taism now these beliefs were refined much later after the fifth century SE that's when the Dynasty took over in China here the story of one man stands out his name was Shuan Zang he was a Chinese scholar in the 7th Century se he learned about Buddhism from his older brother soon xan zang's interest was picked he tried to learn Buddhism in Sichuan just one problem though the Chinese scriptures were not reliable too many discrepancies too many translation errors and too many mistakes so Shuan Zang took a bold decision he decided to travel to India but he could not get a permit so he travel secretly first he entered Central Asia from there Kashmir and finally he sailed down to the gantic plains to the birthplace of Buddhism xuanzang visited all major Buddhist sites he also spent a lot of time in nalanda it was a major Buddhist Monastery in eastern India here he learned Sanskrit and Buddhist philosophy xuanzang spent almost 16 years in India his return Journey was funded by an Indian king he took back a lot of Buddhist texts and scriptures some accounts say 20 horses accompanied him so Buddhism was now established in China but it did not stop there from China it went to Vietnam and Korea from Korea it went to Japan of course this process took a lot of time around 1,000 years in all rulers played an important role in this transmission like in Korea in the 6th Century the Korean King sent a mission to Japan many gifts were part of this Mission among them was an image of Buddha and this is often cited as Japan's introduction to Buddhism but the influence hasn't lasted in China it has been disrupted by the Communists Korea is now two countries again one of them is communist and Japan is now largely atheist around 86% of their people do not believe in any God so Buddhism is not thriving in these countries but it is in Southeast Asia we look at Indonesia first an Indian monk took Buddhism there his name was Guna verman he was born in a kashmiri royal family at the age of 20 he left home to to become a monk first he traveled down south to Sri Lanka the island was already Buddhist by then so gav verman became an adviser to the Lankan King and with his help he set sail first to Sumatra and then to Java in Java his life was about to change in the 4th Century Java was ruled by Hindu king vadhaka Legend says that his mother once dreamt about a holy man arriving on a flying boat the next day gavan reached Java you can guess what happened next vakas mother embraced Buddhism she later convinced her son to do the same but over the centuries the religion has disappeared from Indonesia most of the country is now Muslim what was left of Buddhism merged with Hinduism Thailand had a different experience though it's one of the largest Buddhist countries in the world 95% of their people follow it but the origin story is confusing some Tha Scholars say King ashoke spread Buddhism to Thailand others say it came from Indonesia in the 8th century the SRI VI Empire was ruling over southeast Asia their rulers supported Buddhism so did The suan Empire of Cambodia so buddhism's expansion was not lenar it happened in different but often simultaneous ways Buddhism spread from India to Southeast Asia via Myanmar it also spread to Southeast Asia via Sri Lanka and also via China and Central Asia these different paths have led to different Traditions different schools of thought but the basic principles often remain the same the like the cycle of reincarnation or the pursuit suit of Salvation or Nirvana these things are still common today Buddhism is a globally revered religion it is known for ideas like peace and nonviolence but in the Indian subcontinent it's fading there's no consensus on why some historians say Buddhism was too tolerant so when Hinduism got revitalized it absorbed Buddhism others say the monks became corrupt they were loaded with donations and state gifts so the monasteries became detached from common people and the final blow came in the 12th and 13th century Muslim Invaders destroyed multiple Indian monasteries the Buddhist ones never recovered it's a story of both success and failure the success of spreading a religion to dozens of countries and the failure of its disappearance where it was [Music] born for

Channel: Firstpost

Views: 210,453

Keywords: firstpost, buddhism, spread of buddhism, india buddhism, buddhism significance, buddhism india, buddhism growing religion, religion buddhism, buddhism china, buddhism central asia, buddhism southeast asia, buddhism origin, origin of buddhism, history of buddhism, buddhism historical significance, buddhism history, hinduism, buddhism religion origin, buddhism evolving in india, buddhism evolving religion, buddhism origion from india, buddhism india to world

Id: wJKfuNf2Pk0

Length: 10min 18sec (618 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 16 2024