Buddhism

Buddhism bo͝od´ĭzəm [key], religion and philosophy founded in India c.525 BC by Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha. There are over 300 million Buddhists worldwide. One of the great world religions, it is divided into two main schools: the Theravada or Hinayana in Sri Lanka and SE Asia, and the Mahayana in China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. A third school, the Vajrayana, has a long tradition in Tibet and Japan. Buddhism has largely disappeared from its country of origin, India, except for the presence there of many refugees from the Tibet region of China and a small number of converts from the lower castes of Hinduism.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Basic Beliefs and Practices
• Early Buddhism
• The Rise of Mahayana Buddhism
• The Spread of Buddhism
• Bibliography

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