Buddhism by country, Many Buddhist Countries in the World, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The percentage of cultural/nominal adherents of combined Buddhism with its related religions (according to the highest estimates).[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Estimates of the Buddhist population vary significantly depending on the way Buddhist adherence is defined. The most widely accepted estimates range from 350 million to 550 million practicing Buddhists,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] making Buddhism the fourth-largest religion after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. According to other estimates the Buddhist population exceeds 1 billion.[17][18][19] Contents [hide] 1 Methology 2 By Country 3 Top 20 countries 4 See also 5 External links 6 References Methology[edit] Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are one, a painting in the litang style portraying three men laughing by a river stream, 12th century, Song Dynasty. Estimating the number of Buddhists in the world, or in many countries, is difficult due to definitional issues as well as practical problems of enumeration. To begin with, the religious beliefs, practices, and identities of East Asians (who comprise the majority of the worlds Buddhists by any measure) often blend Buddhism with other traditions including Confucianism, the Chinese folk religion, Daoism, Shinto, and Korean shamanism.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26] Some followers of Buddhism do not belong to structured congregations, or observe a definite ritual of adherence such as taking Refuge, making it difficult to accurately estimate the number of practitioners. An additional challenge is the hostility of several national governments (often Communist ones such as China, North Korea, and Vietnam) to religion generally or to Buddhism specifically. Government policies in these countries may encourage the under-reporting or non-reporting of religious adherence, resulting in official totals that may drastically underestimate the number of religious practitioners in these countries.[7][27][28] By major branches, the numbers are as follows: (1) Mahayana Buddhism, including East Asian Buddhism, with no fewer than practicing 500 million adherents (who have registered to state-sponsored Buddhist institutions), and possibly several times that many (again, depending on definitional issues). This is the predominant form of Buddhism practiced in China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam.[29] (2) Theravada Buddhism, with no fewer than 125 million adherents. This is the predominant form of Buddhism practiced in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Burma. (3) Vajrayana Buddhism, with approximately 20 million adherents. This form predominates in the greater Tibetan and Mongolian regions, as well as in the Himalayas. Besides the independent countries of Mongolia and Bhutan, and various territories within what is now western China, Vajrayana is traditional to certain regions of Russia (e.g. Kalmykia, Buryatia), India (e.g. Ladakh, Sikkim), and Nepal (e.g. Khumbu). Vajrayana, also known as Tantric Buddhism, is often conflated with Tibetan Buddhism, but this is imprecise, as Shingon and other forms of East Asian Buddhism also practice vajrayana. At least 7 countries (Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Bhutan, and Mongolia) have unambiguous Buddhist majorities. Depending on how one calculates Chinese and other East Asian adherents, this figure might expand to include several more countries. In addition, Buddhism is the state religion of Cambodia and Bhutan, and receives prominent mention in the constitutions of Thailand and Sri Lanka. In northern India and Nepal, the religion severely declined during the first millennium. This decline was likely due to the competitive and antagonistic relationship towards Buddhism from the influential Brahmin Hindu caste, and then perhaps the Islamic conquest of northern India. However, there is still some debate over the exact reasons for Buddhism’s decline. See the article Decline of Buddhism in India. Ethnic Buddhism with local traditional religions Chinese[30] Mahayana Buddhism with Confucianism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religion[31][32][33] Japanese[30] Mahayana Buddhism with Shinto[34][35][36] Korean[30] Mahayana Buddhism with Confucianism, and Korean shamanism[37][38][39][40] Vietnamese[30] Mahayana Buddhism with Confucianism, Taoism,[41][42] and Dao Mau[43] Mongolian Vajrayana Buddhism with Tengrism, and Mongolian shamanism[44] Nepali Vajrayana Buddhism with Mahayana [45] Jewish Buddhist Buddhism with Judaism By Country[edit] Buddhism by Country Country/Territory Population (July 2013)[46] % Buddhist Buddhist total Afghanistan Afghanistan 31,108,077
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 21:55:15 +0000
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