Buddhism in Nepal

• 1. Introduction

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  Buddhism in Nepal carries a weight that few places on earth can match: the founder of the faith, Prince Siddhartha, was born in Lumbini, in what is now the Rupandehi District. Yet today, roughly 8.2 percent of Nepal's population identifies as Buddhist, a figure that has been falling with each successive national census. How did the birthplace of the Buddha become a country where the religion he founded is the second-largest faith, practiced by only around 2.4 million people? The answers wind through two thousand years of royal politics, missionary journeys, forced exiles, and a quiet blending of traditions so thorough that Hindus and Buddhists have long shared the same temples and the same deities. What did it mean for Buddhism to survive, and sometimes thrive, within a kingdom that was officially Hindu? And who were the monks, princes, and pilgrims who carried it forward?

• 2. The Earliest Roots

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  Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire erected a pillar at Lumbini in the second century BCE, marking the birthplace of the Buddha for the world to see. After the Third Buddhist Council, he dispatched missionaries northward into Nepal. The Kiratas were the first people in the region to embrace the Buddha's teachings. The Licchavis followed, giving their name to a period now regarded as a high point of Buddhist art and institution-building.

  The Licchavi era, running roughly from 400 to 750 CE, left a remarkable physical record. A half-sunken Buddha at Pashupatinath, a sleeping Vishnu at Budhanilkantha, and the statue of Buddha at Changu Narayan all date to this time. Forty stone inscriptions made mention of Buddhism across the period; most focused on monasticism. The names of fifteen Buddhist monasteries from that era are known, though almost nothing survives about the daily routines inside them.

  Caitya worship became a central practice during these centuries. According to one of the earliest Licchavi inscriptions, the standard rite involved ritual circumambulation of the caitya, along with offerings of incense, colored powder, oil lamps, and ablutions. On grander occasions, an existing caitya might be resurfaced and covered in elaborate paintings. Sites such as Swayambhunath, Boudhanath, and the four Ashoka stupas of Patan anchored this tradition across the Kathmandu Valley. Beyond these landmarks stood another two hundred stone caityas from the Licchavi period alone.

• 3. Festival, Syncretism, and Texts

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  The cart festival of Avalokitesvara, known as Jana Baha Dyah Jatra and Bunga Dyah Jatra, most likely took root among the masses during the latter half of the seventh century. Hundreds or even thousands of people helped construct and haul a huge wheeled cart bearing the image of Avalokitesvara along a prescribed route for several days or weeks. The festival strengthened Buddhism's position relative to Hindu and Animist faiths in the Kathmandu Valley.

  King Manadeva, named in both the Mañjuśrī-mūla-kalpa text and Licchavi inscriptions as the King of Nepal Mandala, paid homage at both Hindu and Buddhist sites. Religious tolerance and syncretism were explicit values of the period. This mingling was not merely political. In Nepal's hill and mountain regions, Hinduism absorbed Buddhist principles so deeply that the two traditions came to share deities and temples. The Muktinath Temple is one surviving example, sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists.

  The sacred texts used in Mahayana Buddhism in Nepal were written mainly in the Ranjana alphabet, the script of the Newars, or in scripts such as Lantsa, which derived from Ranjana. Traditional Nepalese Buddhism recognizes nine texts known as the Nine Dharma Jewels, or Navagrantha. These include the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Gandavyuha Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, the Lanka-avatara Sutra, the Lalitavistara Sutra, and the Golden Light Sutra, among others. These nine works were considered the books of Buddhism par excellence within the tradition.

• 4. The Malla Era and Decelibacy

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  The Malla dynasty, which ran from roughly 1200 to 1769, produced what is often called the golden period of syncretism in Newar art. The Paubha, the Newar counterpart of the Tibetan Buddhist Thangka painting, flourished under Malla patronage. Artists and sculptors from Nepal, including Araniko, shaped the look of Tibetan Buddhist architecture during this era.

  A single legal decision during the reign of Jayasthiti Malla changed the course of Newar Buddhism permanently. The implementation of the Manawa dharmasastra banned celibate monks from practicing in Nepal. This effectively ended the monastic form of Buddhism in the Newar tradition and gave rise to a decelibate Newar Buddhism, in which the priestly functions passed to married householders. As a direct consequence, Theravada Buddhism was lost in Nepal entirely, not to return until the beginning of the twentieth century.

• 5. Exile, Intercession, and Revival

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  During the autocratic Rana regime, from 1846 to 1951, Theravada Buddhist monks were banished from Nepal on two separate occasions: in 1926 and again in 1944. Both banishments targeted the revival of Theravada Buddhism, which had begun in the 1920s. The regime treated the preaching of Buddhism as a threat to be suppressed.

  In 1946, a Sri Lankan goodwill mission arrived in Kathmandu and argued on behalf of the exiled monks. The delegation pressed the point that Nepal was the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, and that his followers deserved the right to practice their faith in the country where he was born. The ban was lifted. The monks returned and threw themselves into spreading the faith with renewed intensity. The rediscovery of Lumbini as a recognized site also took shape during this era, with contributions from General Khadga Sumsher Rana among others.

  The revival movement that Theravada Buddhists led from the 1920s onward gradually transformed the character of Buddhism in Nepal. Where the religion had long been tied to specific ethnic groups and caste communities, the revival pushed it beyond those boundaries. By the time Nepal became a secular state in 2006, three main schools were recognized: Tibetan Buddhism, Newar Buddhism, and Theravada Buddhism.

• 6. Communities and Decline

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  Buddhism in Nepal is not uniformly distributed. The thinly populated northern areas are predominantly Buddhist, home to Tibetan-related peoples including the Sherpa, Lopa, Manangi, Thakali, Lhomi, Dolpa, and Nyimba. Central Nepal holds larger Buddhist populations among groups such as the Tamang, Gurung, Magar, Newar, Yakkha, Jirel, Thami, Chhantyal, and Chepang. The Kirati peoples, particularly the Limbu and Rai, have also adopted Tibetan Buddhist practices from neighboring communities.

  The census figures tell a story of gradual erosion. In 2001-10.74 percent of Nepal's population identified as Buddhist. By 2011, that figure had dropped to 9.04 percent, a decline of 1.7 percentage points. The 2021 census recorded a further fall to 8.21 percent, or around 2,394,549 people. Between 2001 and 2011, every major ethnic group except the Sherpa, Bhote, and Thakali saw a drop in the share of Buddhist adherents. In the 2011 census, not a single member of the Chhantyal, Jirel, or Lepcha communities reported themselves as Buddhist. Among the Ghale group, first counted separately in 2011, more than half identified as Buddhist.

  The source notes that a surge of Christianity among Nepal's native population may help account for the continuing decline. The Thakali, who had historically retained Tibetan Buddhist practice while playing a prominent role in Nepali society, have also been moving toward Hinduism in recent years. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, then India's Law Minister, addressed the Fourth Conference of World Fellowships of Buddhists in Kathmandu on the 20th of November, 1956. In one of the last speeches of his life, he warned that if younger generations in Buddhist countries failed to appreciate teachings he considered superior to Communism, Buddhism was doomed and could not last beyond a generation or two.