BUDDHISM is a religion which had its origin in the teaching of Sakya Sinha. In the year 1881, the population of the world was estimated at 1,500,000,000, of whom 470,000,000 were sup posed to be Buddhists. Some circumstances, of which we are uninformed, must have prepared these regions for the reception of his ascetic doctrines. From its rise in the 6th century B.C., it gradually spread from the valley of the Ganges over the whole of India; it extended into Kabul, into Bamian in ancient Bactria, a district of Persia under Darius ; traces of it early appear through Mongolia and Tibet ; it was introduced into China by 500 Kashmirian missionaries in A.D. 65 ; through Hindustan it extended into the Pen insula and to Ceylon, into Nipal, Burma, Assam, Siam, Cochin China, the islands of Formosa and Japan ; and, except in India, where it arose, and in Kabul, Bactria, Bamian, and Kashmir, it still flourishes in the countries named, and in Sikkim, Ladakh, Zanskar, Dras, Suru, Purik, Spiti, Nubra, Bong, Janskar, Hanle, and Rupshu. Buddhism made a great start in the time of king Asoka, and religious Buddhist counsellors assembled at Patali putra with Asoka. After nine months' consulta tion, they sent out nine teachers, viz. one to Kashmir and Peshawur, a second to the country of the Narbada, a third to Mewar and Bundi, a fourth to Northern Sind, a fifth to the Mahratta country, a sixth to the Greek province of Kabul, Arachosia, a seventh to the country of the Hima laya, the eighth to Ava or Siam, that is, the `golden land,' the aurea regio or the aurea chersonesus, and the ninth to Lanka or Ceylon.
It is known that Buddhism was introduced at the court of Ming-ti, emperor of China, in A.D. 65 ; into Java in A.D. 24 to 57 ; into Kaoli (Corea) in ail 372; into Pe-tsi, in Corea, in 381; into Tibet, under Illa-ta To-ri, in A.D. 407 ; into Sin to or Sinra (in Cores), A.D. 528; in 552 into Japan ; and in 632, under Srong dbzam gampo, Buddhism was introduced into Tibet generally.
About 450 A.D., missionaries from Ceylon per manently established their religion in Burma. The Burmese, however, allege that just after the Patna. council, B.C. 207 and 244, missionaries came to Tha-ton, between the Sitoung and Salwin estu aries.
In Turkestan, Buddhism was still prevailing in A.D. 1419, in the cities of Turfan and Kamil, when Shah Rukh's ambassadors passed through ; and Tagalaq Timur was the first Mahomedan sovereign of Kashgar of the lineage of Chengiz. There are now many Buddhist priests at the capital of Khotan; but Mahomedanism had been extensively prevalent in East Turkestan for centuries prior to its conquest by the Chinese in A.D. 1757, and the
Buddhist priests and temples may have been since introduced.
In the first 500 years there were several assem blies of its eminent men, to discuss its condition and prospects. At the council held B.C. 543, when 500 of Buddha's disciples were assembled in a cave near Rajagriba, to gather together his say ings, they chanted the lessons of their master, in three great divisions—(1) the words of Buddha to his disciples; (2) his code of discipline; and (3) his system of doctrine. These became the three collections, Pitaka, or baskets of Buddha's teaching ; and Sangiti, the word for a Buddhist council, means literally a singing together.
Even before the decease of Sakya Sinha, how ever, schisms had arisen amongst his followers. Ananda had been with him from the first, and to him Buddha had referred his disciples as the depositary of what he himself had said. Never theless, so rapidly had the views of Buddha been departed from, that Ananda was excluded from the deliberations of the first Buddhist council as an unbeliever, and only re-admitted when he had submitted to their views (Bunsen, God in Kist. i. 341). A century afterwards, B.C. 443, 381? in the reign of Kala Varddhana, a second council of 700 was held at Vaisali, to settle disputes between the more and the less strict followers of Buddh ism ; it condemned a system of Ten Indulgences which had grown up, but it led to the separation of the Buddhists into two hostile parties, who afterwards split into 18 sects (Imp. Gaz. p. 248). Eighteen heresies are deplored in the Mahawanso, within two centuries of Sakya's death ; and four distinct sects, each rejoicing in the name of Buddh ists, are still to be traced amongst the remnants of his followers. Not reckoning the doctrines cherished among the Jaina of Gujerat and Raj putana, its mysteries, as administered by the Lamas of Tibet, are distinct from the metaphysical abstractions propounded by the monks of Nepal, or the philosophies of the Burmans. Its obser vances in Japan have undergone a still more striking alteration from their vicinity to the Sintu sect ; and in China they have been similarly modified in their contact with the rationalism of Lao-tsze, and the social demonology or spirit worship of the Confucians (Ten. Ceyl. p. 527).