Buddhists

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Buddhists number approximately 320 million people today, spread across every continent, yet they trace their origins to a single figure born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, sometime in the 6th or 5th century BCE. His name was Siddhartha Gautama, and the community that formed around his teachings would eventually shape the religious and cultural life of much of Asia. Who counts as a Buddhist? The answer turns out to be far more complicated than it first appears. Some Buddhists are ordained monks observing a strict monastic code. Others are lay householders who make offerings at temples on festival days. And a growing number are people who meditate daily, follow Buddhist ethical principles, and yet never participate in any formal ritual. The word "Buddhist" itself is remarkably young. Its earliest recorded usage in English dates to 1810. Before that coinage existed, the people who followed the Buddha's teachings called themselves by dozens of different names in dozens of different languages, and the question of who belonged to which community was shaped as much by politics and geography as by belief.

• 2. Names Across Cultures

  ›

  In early India, the people who followed the Buddha were not called Buddhists at all. They were called Sramanas, meaning ascetics, a label that emphasized their commitment to renunciation and ethical conduct. The term Shramaneras was used for novice monks. Among the clans of northeastern India, some followers were identified as Shakyas, after the clan into which the Buddha was born. As Buddhism traveled east along trade routes, each new culture shaped the terminology to fit its own tongue. In China, followers became known as Fo-zu, meaning Buddha followers, or sometimes Fanfo, meaning foreign Buddha. In Japan, the preferred term was Bukkyosha, practitioners of the Buddha's teachings. Tibetan and Himalayan communities settled on Chos-pa, those who follow the Dharma. In India itself, the Sanskrit term Bauddha survived as the most direct equivalent of the English word Buddhist. The English suffix "-ist" was grafted onto "Buddha" sometime before 1810, producing a tidy label that could be applied across all these traditions. That tidiness, however, masked enormous internal variety. A Theravada monk in Thailand and a Vajrayana practitioner in Bhutan share the label Buddhist, but their daily practices, their texts, and their ritual lives look quite different from each other.

• 3. Two Great Traditions

  ›

  Theravada Buddhism is predominant in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. Its practitioners follow the Pali Canon and the Vinaya, the monastic code that governs nearly every aspect of a monk's daily life. The Theravada monk is, in a sense, the most visible face of Buddhism in Southeast Asia. Kings and governments across the region historically patronized monasteries and presented themselves as defenders of the faith, weaving Buddhist identity into national identity itself. Mahayana Buddhism took a different path. Dominant in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, it embraces a diverse body of texts called the Mahayana sutras and centers on the ideal of the Bodhisattva, a being who vows to remain in the cycle of rebirth until all living beings are freed from suffering. Within the Mahayana world, a third tradition, Vajrayana, developed its own distinct character. Vajrayana practitioners engage in esoteric rituals and practices found mainly in Tibet, Bhutan, and Mongolia. In Tibet, Vajrayana became inseparable from cultural and political identity, a fusion of religion and governance that would eventually draw the world's attention during the 20th century. Each of these traditions produced its own literature in its own languages: Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and more.

• 4. Where Buddhists Live

  ›

  Thailand is home to the largest absolute number of Buddhists, estimated at 67 million. Myanmar follows with approximately 38 million, Sri Lanka with 15 million, and Vietnam with around 14 million. In East Asia, Japan has about 45 million followers, and South Korea accounts for roughly 11 million. China presents a particular challenge for census-takers. Religious syncretism in countries like China and Japan, where Buddhism blends with Confucianism, Daoism, and local folk traditions, makes it difficult to count those who actively practice Buddhism versus those who simply venerate the Buddha in some cultural sense. Earlier estimates had placed the global Buddhist population at around 500 million; more careful definitions pushed that figure down to approximately 320 million, or about 4.1% of the global population, as of 2020. Outside the Asian heartland, sizable Buddhist communities exist in India and the United States. In India, the communities are found mainly among the Bamar in Myanmar, the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, and various minority groups. In Nepal, the Buddhist Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley maintain practices that blend Buddhist and Hindu philosophies, rituals, and deities, and in many Hindu temples across Nepal, the Buddha is honored as an incarnation of the deity Vishnu.

• 5. A Community in Decline

  ›

  Between 2010 and 2020, Buddhists were the only major religious group that shrank in absolute size, according to the Pew Research Center. The global Buddhist population dropped from about 343 million to roughly 324 million during that decade, a decline of approximately 5%. The causes are structural. An aging population in East Asian countries means that older generations of practitioners are dying faster than younger ones are entering the faith. Low birth rates in the same region compound the effect. Rising irreligion in countries like Japan and China, where Buddhism was historically embedded in national life, is pulling more people away from any formal religious identity. The decline has no single cause and no simple remedy. Some analysts point to urbanization, which draws people away from the village temples and monastic communities where Buddhist practice was once integrated into daily life. Others note that the very success of Buddhist concepts like mindfulness in secular Western contexts may paradoxically undercut traditional institutional Buddhism, as people adopt meditation and ethical principles without ever joining a sangha or identifying as Buddhist. The Pew figures also suggest that while Buddhism is declining in its Asian heartland, it has gained cultural and intellectual influence in Western countries, driven in part by growing interest in meditation.

• 6. Persecution and Resilience

  ›

  In India, Buddhism declined sharply after the 12th century, partly because of invasions by Muslim rulers who destroyed major monasteries and universities, including Nalanda and Vikramashila, which had been centers of learning for centuries. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979 treated Buddhism as a symbol of the old social order to be dismantled. Monks were defrocked, temples were destroyed, religious practice was banned, and thousands of monks died. In Tibet, the Chinese invasion of 1950 led to the suppression of religious institutions, the imprisonment of monks, and the destruction of monasteries, triggering a large-scale diaspora of Tibetan Buddhists. That diaspora carried figures like the Dalai Lama and Chogyam Trungpa into exile, where they became central to the transmission of Buddhist teachings in Western cultural contexts. In the modern era, Buddhist minority communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and parts of Central Asia face discrimination and threats. Buddhist responses to persecution have characteristically emphasized nonviolence, resilience, and dialogue, drawing on core teachings of compassion and tolerance. The teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, who developed what became known as socially engaged Buddhism, represent one strand of that response: bringing Buddhist practice to bear on questions of justice, peace, and collective suffering.

• 7. Festivals and Sacred Time

  ›

  Vesak, also known as Buddha Day or Buddha Purnima, is the most widely observed Buddhist festival across all traditions. It falls on the full moon of the month of Vaisakha, in April or May, and commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and passing into Nirvana of Siddhartha Gautama. Theravada tradition marks additional occasions: Magha Puja on the full moon of Magha in February or March, recalling the spontaneous gathering of 1,250 arahants to hear the Buddha teach; and Asalha Puja in July, marking the first sermon at Deer Park in Sarnath, which tradition calls the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. Vassa, the Rains Retreat, is a three-month monastic withdrawal beginning in July during which monks remain in monasteries for meditation and study. In Mahayana tradition, Bodhi Day falls on the 8th of December, marking the Buddha's enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya. Japan observes Hana Matsuri, the Flower Festival, on the 8th of April, when images of the infant Buddha are bathed in sweet tea. In Tibet and the Himalayan regions, Losar, the Tibetan New Year, is celebrated in February or March with purification rituals, community dances, and family gatherings. Saga Dawa Duchen, on the full moon of the fourth Tibetan month, is considered the holiest month in the Tibetan calendar, a time for pilgrimage, mantra recitation, and acts of generosity.