ABSTRACT
Like the designation ‘South Asia,’ the expression ‘Buddhist traditions of South Asia’ is similarly ambiguous. Buddhism has historical roots that can be traced to the sixth century bce and to the area near the present-day border between Nepal and northern India. Over many centuries during its formative period, it spread throughout India and into what are now Bangladesh and Myanmar to the northeast, Pakistan to the northwest, Tibet (and through it to Central and East Asia), and to Sri Lanka in the south. Today the Buddhist traditions found in the Southeast Asian nations of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos share many features with Buddhism as it has survived and revived in Sri Lanka, but in other parts of Southeast, Central, and East Asia the traditions are markedly different from surviving South Asian forms of Buddhism. Although you might expect the term ‘South Asian Buddhism’ to refer to a single regional variety of religion, there are significant differences among the Buddhism practiced today in the several contemporary nations of South Asia. Some of them retain clear historical links to India; others have stronger ties to Southeast and East Asia. In Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, the dominant Buddhist institutions are identified with Therava¯da (the Doctrine of the Elders); in Nepal, Tibet, most of the mountain area that separates South Asia from the main body of the Asian continent, and remaining parts of Southeast Asia, Buddhism has taken the Maha¯ya¯na (Great Vehicle) form.
