Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Merchants found the moral and ethical teachings of Buddhism to be an appealing alternative to previous religions. As a result, merchants supported Buddhist monasteries along the Silk Roads. In return, the Buddhists gave the merchants somewhere to sojourn. Merchants then spread Buddhism to foreign encounters as they travelled. [24]
Buddhism was present in this region from about the second century BCE. [86] Initially, the Dharmaguptaka school was the most successful in their efforts to spread Buddhism in Central Asia. [87] The Kingdom of Khotan was one of the earliest Buddhist kingdoms in the area and helped transmit Buddhism from India to China. [88]
During the 2nd century CE, Kanishka, one of the most powerful rulers of the Kushan Empire, embarked on a series of military campaigns to expand his empire's borders.By invading Central Asia, Kanishka sought to secure Kushan dominance over the Silk Road, bolster the empire's economy, and facilitate the spread of culture and religion, particularly Buddhism, into the region.
Buddhism (/ ˈ b ʊ d ɪ z əm / BUUD-ih-zəm, US also / ˈ b uː d-/ BOOD-), [1] [2] [3] also known as Buddha Dharma, and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion [a] and philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or 5th century BCE. [7]
One result of the spread of Buddhism along the Silk Road was displacement and conflict. The Greek Seleucids were exiled to Iran and Central Asia because of a new Iranian dynasty called the Parthians at the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, and as a result the Parthians became the new middle men for trade in a period when the Romans were major ...
It spread even beyond the Indian subcontinent to Central Asia and China. The Buddha's period saw not only urbanisation, but also the beginnings of centralised states. [7] The successful expansion of Buddhism depended on the growing economy of the time, together with an increase in the number of centralised political organisations capable of ...
Atiśa lived during the 11th century and was one of the major figures in the spread of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Asia and inspired Buddhist thought from Tibet to Sumatra. In the Edicts of Ashoka, Ashoka mentions the Hellenistic kings of the period as a recipient of his Buddhist proselytism. [ 123 ]
Mahayana Buddhism was spread from the Gangetic plains in India into Gandhara and then Central Asia during the Mauryan Era, where it became the most prevalent branch of Buddhism in Central Asia. Mahayana Buddhism was later transmitted through the Silk Road into the Han dynasty during the Kushan era under the reign of Emperor Kanishka.