Buddhism Timeline

Foundation to the Common Era

563 BCE: Siddhārtha Gautama, Buddha-to-be, is born in Lumbini into a leading royal family in the republic of the Shakyas, which is now part of Nepal.

534 BCE: Prince Siddhartha goes outside the palace for the first time and sees The Four Sights: an old man, an ill man, a dead man, and a holy man. He is shocked by the first three—he did not know what age, disease, and death were—but is inspired by the holy man to give up his wealth. He leaves his house and lives with three ascetics. However, he wants more than to starve himself, so he becomes a religious teacher.

528 BCE: Siddhartha attains Enlightenment in Buddha Gaya (modern-day Bodhgaya), then travels to a deer park in Sarnath (near Varanasi), India, and begins expounding the Dharma.

528 BCE According to legend, Trapusha and Bhallika, two trader-brothers from Okkala (modern-day Yangon), offer the Gautama's first meal as the enlightened Buddha. The Buddha gives eight strands of his hair to the two brothers; the strands are brought back to Burma and enshrined in the Shwedagon Pagoda. Thus, according to myth, this is the year when the Shwedagon Pagoda was built.

c. 490–410 BCE: Life of the Buddha, according to recent research.[2]

c. 483 BCE: Gautama Buddha dies ('attains parinibbana') at Kusinara (now called Kushinagar), India. Three months following his death, the First Buddhist Council is convened.

383 BCE: The Second Buddhist Council is convened by King Kalasoka and held at Vaisali.

c. 250 BCE: Third Buddhist Council, convened by Ashoka the Great and chaired by Moggaliputta Tissa, compiles the Kathavatthu to refute the heretical views and theories held by some Buddhist sects. Ashoka issues a number of edicts (Edicts of Ashoka) about the kingdom in support of Buddhism.

c. 250 BCE: Emperor Ashoka the Great sends various Buddhist missionaries to faraway countries, as far as China and the Mon & Malay kingdoms in the east and the Hellenistic kingdoms in the west, in order to make Buddhism known to them.

c. 250 BCE: First fully developed examples of Kharoṣṭhī script date from this period (the Aśokan inscriptions at Shāhbāzgaṛhī and Mānsehrā, a northwestern Indian subcontinent).

200s BCE: Indian traders regularly visit ports in Arabia, explaining the prevalence of place names in the region with Indian or Buddhist origin; e.g., bahar (from the Sanskrit vihara, a Buddhist monastery). Ashokan emissary monks bring Buddhism to Suwannaphum, the location of which is disputed. The Dipavamsa and the Mon believe it was a Mon seafaring settlement in present-day Burma.

c. 220 BCE: Theravada Buddhism is officially introduced to Sri Lanka by the Venerable Mahinda, son of the emperor Ashoka of India during the reign of King Devanampiya Tissa.

185 BCE: Brahmin general Pusyamitra Sunga overthrows the Mauryan dynasty and establishes the Sunga dynasty, apparently starting a wave of persecution against Buddhism.

180 BCE: Greco-Bactrian King Demetrius invades India as far as Pataliputra and establishes the Indo-Greek kingdom (180–10 BCE), under which Buddhism flourishes.

c. 150 BCE: Indo-Greek king Menander I converts to Buddhism under the sage Nāgasena, according to the account of the Milinda Panha.

120 BCE: The Chinese Emperor Han Wudi (156–87 BCE) receives two golden statues of the Buddha, according to inscriptions in the Mogao Caves, Dunhuang.

1st century BCE: The Indo-Greek governor Theodorus enshrines relics of the Buddha, dedicating them to the deified "Lord Shakyamuni."

29 BCE: According to the Sinhalese chronicles, the Pali Canon is written down in the reign of King Vaṭṭagamiṇi (29–17 BCE)[1]

2 BCE: The Hou Hanshu records the visit in 2 BCE of Yuezhi envoys to the Chinese capital, who give oral teachings on Buddhist sutras

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Common Era

Common Era

* 65: Liu Ying's sponsorship of Buddhism is the first documented case of Buddhist practices in China.

* 67: Buddhism comes to China with the two monks Moton and Chufarlan.

* 68: Buddhism is officially established in China with the founding of the White Horse Temple.

* 78: Ban Chao, a Chinese General, subdues the Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan.

* 78–101: According to Mahayana tradition, the Fourth Buddhist council takes place under Kushana king Kanishka's reign, near Jalandar, India.

* 116 CE: The Kushans, under Kanishka, establish a kingdom centered on Kashgar, also taking control of Khotan and Yarkand—previously Chinese dependencies in the Tarim Basin, modern Xinjiang.

* 148: An Shigao, a Parthian prince and Buddhist monk, arrives in China and proceeds to make the first translations of Theravada texts into Chinese.

* 178: The Kushan monk Lokaksema travels to the Chinese capital of Loyang and becomes the first known translator of Mahayana texts into Chinese.

* 100s/200s: Indian and Central Asian Buddhists travel to Vietnam.

* 200s: Use of Kharoṣṭhī script in Gandhara stops.

* 200s & 300s: Kharoṣṭhī script is used in the southern Silk Road cities of Khotan and Niya.

* 296: The earliest surviving Chinese Buddhist scripture dates from this year (Zhu Fo Yao Ji Jing, discovered in Dalian, late 2005).

* 300s: Two Chinese monks take scriptures to the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo and establish papermaking in Korea.

* 320-467: The University at Nalanda grows to support 3,000–10,000 monks.

* 399-414: Fa Xian travels from China to India, then returns to translate Buddhist works into Chinese.

* 400s: The kingdom of Funan (centered in modern Cambodia) begins to advocate Buddhism in a departure from Hinduism. Earliest evidence of Buddhism in Myanmar (Pali inscriptions). Earliest evidence of Buddhism in Indonesian (statues). Earliest reinterpretations of Pali texts. The stupa at Dambulla (Sri Lanka) is constructed.

* 402: At the request of Yao Xing, Kumarajiva travels to Changan and translates many Buddhist texts into Chinese.

* 403: In China, Hui Yuan argues that Buddhist monks should be exempt from bowing to the emperor.

* 405: Yao Xing honours Kumarajiva.

* 425: Buddhism reaches Sumatra.

* 464: Buddhabhadra reaches China to preach Buddhism.

* 495: The Shaolin temple is built in the name of Buddhabhadra, by edict of emperor Wei Xiao Wen.[4][5]

* 485: Five monks from Gandhara travel to the country of Fusang (Japan, or possibly the American continent), where they introduce Buddhism.

* 500s: Zen adherents enter Vietnam from China. Jataka stories are translated into Persian by order of the Zoroastrian king, Khosrau I of Persia.

* 527: Bodhidharma settles into the Shaolin monastery in Henan province of China.[6]

* 552: Buddhism is introduced to Japan via Baekje (Korea), according to Nihonshoki; some scholars place this event in 538.

* Early 600s: Jingwan begins carving sutras onto stone at Fangshan, Yuzhou, 75 km southwest of modern-day Beijing.

* 607: A Japanese imperial envoy is dispatched to Sui, China to obtain copies of sutras.

* 600s: Xuan Zang travels to India, noting the persecution of Buddhists by Sasanka (king of Gouda, a state in northwest Bengal) before returning to Chang An in China to translate Buddhist scriptures. End of sporadic Buddhist rule in the Sindh. King Songtsen Gampo of Tibet sends messengers to India to get Buddhist texts. Latest recorded use of the Kharoṣṭhī script amongst Buddhist communities around Kucha.

* 671: Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Yi Jing visits Palembang, capital of the partly Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, and reports over 1000 Buddhist monks in residence. Uisang returns to Korea after studying Chinese Huayan Buddhism and founds the Hwaeom school.

* 736: Huayan is transmitted to Japan via Korea, when Rōben invites the Korean Hwaeom monk Simsang to lecture, and formally founds Japan's Kegon tradition in the Tōdaiji temple.

* 743–754: The Chinese monk Jianzhen attempts to reach Japan eleven times, succeeding in 754 to establish the Japanese Ritsu school, which specialises in the vinaya (monastic rules).

* 700s: Buddhist Jataka stories are translated in to Syriac and Arabic as Kalilag and Damnag. An account of Buddha's life is translated into Greek by John of Damascus and widely circulated to Christians as the story of Barlaam and Josaphat. By the 1300s, this story of Josaphat becomes so popular that he is made a Catholic saint.

* 700s: Under the reign of King Trisong Deutsen, Padmasambhava travels from Afghanistan to establish tantric Buddhism in Tibet (later known as the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism), replacing Bonpo as the kingdom's main religion. Buddhism quickly spreads to Sikkim and Bhutan.

* c. 760: Construction is begun on Borobodur, the famous Indonesian Buddhist structure, probably as a non-Buddhist shrine. It is completed as a Buddhist monument in 830, after about 50 years of work.

* 804: Under the reign of Emperor Kammu of Japan, a fleet of four ships sets sail for mainland China. Of the two ships that arrive, one carries the monk Kūkai—recently ordained by the Japanese government as a Bhiksu—who absorbs Vajrayana teachings in Chang'an and returns to Japan to found the Japanese Shingon school. The other ship carries the monk Saichō, who returns to Japan to found the Japanese Tendai school, partly based upon the Chinese Tiantai tradition.

* 838–847: Ennin, a priest of the Tendai school, travels in China for nine years. He reaches both the famous Buddhist mountain of Wutaishan and the Chinese capital, Chang'an, keeping a detailed diary that is a primary source for this period of Chinese history, including the Buddhist persecution.

* 841–846: Emperor Wuzong of the Tang Dynasty (given name: Li Yan) reigns in China; he is one of three Chinese emperors to prohibit Buddhism. From 843-845, Wuzong carries out the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution, permanently weakening the institutional structure of Buddhism in China.

* 9th-century Tibet: Decline of Buddhism; persecution by King Langdarma.

* 900s: Buddhist temple construction commences at Bagan, Myanmar. In Tibet, a strong Buddhist revival is begun. The Caodong school of Zen is founded by Dongshan Liangjie and his disciples in southern China.

* 971: Chinese Song Dynasty commissions Chengdu woodcarvers to carve the entire Buddhist canon for printing. Work is completed in 983; 130,000 blocks are produced, in total.

* 991: A printed copy of the Song Dynasty Buddhist canon arrives in Korea, impressing the government.

* 1000s: Marpa, Konchog Gyalpo, Atisha, and others introduce the Sarma lineages into Tibet.

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