Buddhism

===Spread to East and Southeast Asia===
[[File:Prasat Bayon 2014.JPG|thumb|[[Angkor Thom]] build by [[Khmer Empire|Khmer]] King [[Jayavarman VII]] ({{circa|1120}}–1218)]]
The [[Silk Road transmission of Buddhism]] to China is most commonly thought to have started in the late 2nd or the 1st century CE, though the literary sources are all open to question.{{sfnp|Zürcher |1972|pp=22–27}}{{refn|group=note|name=Hill |See Hill (2009), p. 30, for the Chinese text from the ''[[Hou Hanshu]]'', and p. 31 for a translation of it.{{sfnp|Hill |2009|pp=30–31}}}} The first documented translation efforts by foreign [[Buddhist monk]]s in China were in the 2nd century CE, probably as a consequence of the expansion of the [[Kushan Empire]] into the Chinese territory of the [[Tarim Basin]].{{sfnp|Zürcher |1972|p=23}}

The first documented Buddhist texts translated into Chinese are those of the Parthian [[An Shigao]] (148–180 CE).<ref>Zürcher, Erik. 2007 (1959). The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China. 3rd ed. Leiden: Brill. pp. 32–34</ref> The first known [[Mahayana|Mahāyāna]] scriptural texts are translations into Chinese by the Kushan monk [[Lokaksema (Buddhist monk)|Lokakṣema]] in [[Luoyang]], between 178 and 189 CE.{{sfnp|Williams|2008|p=30}} From China, Buddhism was introduced into its neighbours [[Korea]] (4th century), [[Japan]] (6th–7th centuries), and [[Vietnam]] ({{Circa|1st}}–2nd centuries).<ref name="Dykstra, Yoshiko Kurata 2001 p. 100">Dykstra, Yoshiko Kurata; De Bary, William Theodore (2001). ''Sources of Japanese tradition''. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 100. {{ISBN|0-231-12138-5}}.</ref><ref>Nguyen Tai Thu. ''The History of Buddhism in Vietnam''. 2008.</ref>

During the Chinese [[Tang dynasty]] (618–907), [[Chinese Esoteric Buddhism]] was introduced from India and [[Chan Buddhism]] (Zen) became a major religion.<ref>McRae, John (2003), Seeing Through Zen, The University Press Group Ltd, pp. 13, 18</ref><ref>Orzech, Charles D. (general editor) (2011). Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Brill. p. 4</ref> Chan continued to grow in the [[Song dynasty]] (960–1279) and it was during this era that it strongly influenced Korean Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism.<ref>McRae, John (2003), Seeing Through Zen, The University Press Group Ltd, pp. 13, 19–21</ref> [[Pure Land Buddhism]] also became popular during this period and was often practised together with Chan.<ref>Heng-Ching Shih (1987). Yung-Ming's Syncretism of Pure Land and Chan, The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 10 (1), p. 117</ref> It was also during the Song that the entire [[Chinese Buddhist canon|Chinese canon]] was printed using over 130,000 wooden printing blocks.{{sfnp|Harvey|2013|p=223}}

During the Indian period of Esoteric Buddhism (from the 8th century onwards), Buddhism spread from India to Tibet and [[Mongolia]]. Johannes Bronkhorst states that the esoteric form was attractive because it allowed both a secluded monastic community as well as the social rites and rituals important to laypersons and to kings for the maintenance of a political state during succession and wars to resist invasion.{{sfnp|Bronkhorst|2011|pp=242–246}} During the Middle Ages, Buddhism slowly declined in India,<ref>{{cite book |author=Andrew Powell |title=Living Buddhism |url=https://archive.org/details/livingbuddhism00powe |pages=[https://archive.org/details/livingbuddhism00powe/page/38 38–39] |year=1989 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-20410-2}}</ref> while it vanished from Persia and Central Asia as Islam became the state religion.<ref name="larsfogelin6">{{cite book|author=Lars Fogelin |title=An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yPZzBgAAQBAJ |year=2015|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-994823-9 |pages=6–11, 218, 229–230}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Sheila Canby |title=Depictions of Buddha Sakyamuni in the Jami al-Tavarikh and the Majma al-Tavarikh |journal=Muqarnas |volume=10 |year=1993 |pages=299–310 |doi=10.2307/1523195 |jstor=1523195}}</ref>

The [[Theravada]] school arrived in Sri Lanka sometime in the 3rd century BCE. Sri Lanka became a base for its later spread to [[Southeast Asia]] after the 5th century CE ([[Myanmar]], [[Malaysia]], [[Indonesia]], [[Thailand]], [[Cambodia]] and coastal [[Vietnam]]).<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vO_-AgAAQBAJ|title=Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia|author=John Guy|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|year=2014|isbn=978-1-58839-524-5|pages=9–11, 14–15, 19–20|access-date=10 July 2016|archive-date=11 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111060324/https://books.google.com/books?id=vO_-AgAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfnp|Skilling|1997}} [[Theravada|Theravada Buddhism]] was the dominant religion in [[Myanmar|Burma]] during the Mon [[Hanthawaddy Kingdom]] (1287–1552).<ref>Myint-U, Thant (2006). ''The River of Lost Footsteps – Histories of Burma''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. {{ISBN|978-0-374-16342-6}}. pp. 64–65</ref> It also became dominant in the [[Khmer Empire]] during the 13th and 14th centuries and in the Thai [[Sukhothai Kingdom]] during the reign of [[Ram Khamhaeng]] (1237/1247–1298).<ref>[[George Cœdès|Cœdès, George]] (1968). Walter F. Vella, ed. ''The Indianized States of Southeast Asia''. trans. Susan Brown Cowing. University of Hawaii Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8248-0368-1}}.</ref><ref>Gyallay-Pap, Peter. "Notes of the Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism," Radical Conservativism.</ref>