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Curated category

Schools of Buddhism

  • Nikaya BuddhismMasatoshi Nagatomi of Harvard University coined the phrase Nikaya Buddhism in the late twentieth century. He proposed this term as a non-derogatory…
  • East Asian BuddhismBuddhism entered China during the Han dynasty, a period when the empire expanded its influence into Central Asia. Trade networks along the Silk Road…
  • Buddhist modernismIn 1879, Edwin Arnold published The Light of Asia, a book that presented Buddhism as a sympathetic life story parallel to Christ.
  • Southern, Eastern and Northern BuddhismBuddhism began in ancient India during the 5th century BCE. Gautama Buddha taught there before his death. From that northeastern region of the Indian…
  • HinayanaThe Sanskrit word hīnayāna literally means "Small Vehicle" or "Lesser Vehicle". It combines the adjective hīna, meaning little, poor, inferior, abandoned…
  • Schools of BuddhismIn the decades following the reign of Emperor Ashoka, the unified Buddhist community fractured into two distinct groups.