Talk:History of Buddhism in India

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Former good article nomineeHistory of Buddhism in India was a Philosophy and religion good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
April 15, 2007Good article nomineeNot listed

Change title[edit]

The article should be moved to "Buddhism in India". "History of Buddhism in India" will be automatically found in "Buddhism in India". Vijay bramhane (talk) 07:21, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Requested move 4 December 2019[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. The option to split the article is an editorial decision that is outside the scope of this close. Dekimasuよ! 04:59, 16 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

History of Buddhism in India → Buddhism in India – The article should be titled "Buddhism in India", as the article currently has two new sections "Demography" and "Buddhist Population in India". Earlier, these two sections reflecting the current situation were not in the article, hence the article was titled "History of Buddhism in India". The article now contains information not only about the past, but also information of present state. so, it would be appropriate to have the title of the article "Buddhism in India". Mahi914101 (talk) 11:10, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - most of the article is about the history of Buddhism in India. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:27, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – History of X =/= X. The rename will likely create/worsen CFork problems, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:50, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. There are individual articles about Buddhism in many different places in the world. India still has a million Buddhists today, and they have an important role in being the bridge between foreign Buddhist pilgrims and Indian pilgrimage places. Furthermore, there are the Ambedkar Buddhists (Navayana) and the Triratna community, both of which are still prominent today. Since there is no article about Buddhism in current India yet, this article should include it, and its widened scope should be reflected in the title. The current title just doesn't do it.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 19:37, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • FRT: Missing sections you mention can be added to the History of Buddhism in India. There are some additional major sections missing in this article. For example, the history of Buddhism, major monasteries and texts in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (see Fogelin, Himanshu Prabha Ray, etc), as well as those in Tamil regions, both between 2nd and 14th-century (see Zvelebil, pilgrim Xuanzang records detailing his visit to southern Buddhist institutions in 7th century / under Hindu Pallavas, Nathakuthanaar's 10th-century Buddhist epic, etc). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:46, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not about missing sections, it's about the word history being incomplete.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 13:13, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Demographics should not receive undue weight in the lead. JimRenge (talk) 02:26, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - The simple thing is that "Buddhism in India" itself contains "History of Buddhism in India". See Hinduism in India, it also includes "History of Hinduism". Thus the article "Buddhism in India" should include "History of Buddhism". Therefore the article title should be "Buddhism in India". Wikipedia has pages like "Hinduism/ Islam/ Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism... in India", but this is not the only article" Buddhism in India". In this page there are only four main sections showing the history of Buddhism – "Gautama Buddha", "Buddhist movements", "Strengthening of Buddhism in India" and "Decline of Buddhism in India" (Although a major article of "Decline of Buddhism in India" is available "Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent"). There are also four sections showing the current state of Buddhism - "Revival of Buddhism in India", "Demographics", "Buddhist population in India" and "List of mass Buddhist conversions". The article "History of Buddhism in India" also has information about the current state of Buddhism, so this title is not perfect. My first suggestion is that the article should be "Buddhism in India", or my second suggestion would be that both the "History of Buddhism in India" page and "Buddhism in India" page can also be done independently or separately. Thank you. Mahi914101 (talk) 10:50, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Unlike the other religions, such as Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, and Jainism, which have had a continuous presence in India from the time they arose or arrived, Buddhism died in India. It disappeared from India, remaining not even a folk memory. When the British discovered the gutted Mahabodhi Temple in Gaya in the mid 19th century and began to look to restore it, they had to go to Burma for the blueprints (of a similar temple in Pegan), they had to go to Ceylon for the sapling of the tree. There was nothing in India except the ruins. The votive models of the temple, made for ancient pilgrims, which had lain buried in the surrounding countryside, upon being occasionally found, were being worshipped by the locals in Gaya as Shiva lingams. So complete was the erasure, mostly at the hands of the Shaivites. Nalanda had become near-deserted long before Bakhtiyar Khalji famously destroyed its library. An article Buddhism in India will create a false impression that Buddhism did not die in the land in which it had arisen, that its history in India is continuous, and obliquely, that Hinduism is the benign religion of its 19th century reconstruction, especially at a time it is reasserting a proclivity for domination. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:08, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The history of Buddhism in India is continuous. Buddhism never died in India, but Buddhism was reduced to a minority in India. Buddhists have always been, and still are, widespread in the East, North-East and Eastern regions and states of India. Before Ambedkar's conversion movement, in 1951, there were around 2 lakh Buddhists in India. The country has more followers of Buddhism than Judaism and Jainism. Mahi914101 (talk) 11:48, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • The numbers were even higher. I don't have the 26 volumes of The Imperial Gazetteer of India for nothing. Published in 1909 during a period when Burma was a part of the British Indian Empire it had this to say about the numbers based on the 1901 Census of the Empire:

        Out of nearly nine and a half million Buddhists enumerated at the last Census, all but about 300,000 are in Burma. They exist in small numbers along the north and north-east frontiers of Bengal, and in the Punjab districts of Spiti, Lahul, and Kanawar, on the lower slope of the Himalayas, where there is a considerable Tibetan clement in the population. All along the Bengal frontier, Buddhism is being gradually pushed back by Brahmanism. In Nepal, it is still a powerful element, in spite of the steady opposition exercised against it by the Hindu ruling dynasty.

        In other words, Buddhism had survived in regions that were only infirmly a part of India historically, which became a part of India during the British period. Similarly claiming that the history of Buddhism in Ladakh, which became a part of Kashmir in the 19th century, and which is still disputed territory, is a part of the history of Buddhism in India is dubious history. In the lands in which arose, the religion disappeared. It may yet have a future in India if, empowered by its egalitarian principles, the Dalits, and the Adivasi, who have no fanciful claims to Aryan ancestry, myths, or rituals, adopt it in greater numbers. They alone could make it the religion of a quarter of India's population, but that has not happened yet. The Jews, the Zoroastrians, and other minorities, on the other hand, meager though their numbers might be, have survived in India proper. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:41, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • The point is, Buddhism is still active in India, to the extent that it is written about in reliable sources, e.g. we can read regularly about conflicts between Dalit Buddhists and Hindus. Furthermore, there is the Tibetan diaspora, which has now become part of India as well. Buddhism still exists in this country—therefore, Buddhism in India is not just history. The only reason someone could have to reject these two arguments is either having lived in a cave for the last fifty years, or having a hidden Hinduist propaganda agenda. Since I take it on good faith that no-one here has such reasons, let's change the article title and get it over with. Even a small country such as Belgium with only 10,000 Buddhists has an article Buddhism in Belgium with RS, for crying out loud.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 23:39, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

— I have informed the Buddhism and India WikiProjects about this discussion.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 09:20, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • I might be willing to support a change if the lead sentence is clear about the history, i.e. something along the lines of: Buddhism arose in the middle- and lower Gangetic plain in late Iron Age India, thrived in a larger region of India for nearly a millennium, subsequently declined and practically disappeared (except in certain outlying regions) for a millennium and a half, until the 20th century, when in an amended form it was adopted by many Dalits in the Maharashtra region. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:33, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • {{u|Farang Rak Tham} OK, under those conditions, as well as the removal of much of the section on Muslim impact on Buddhism which is mostly POV, I support a change to "Buddhism in India". Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:18, 10 December 2019 (UTC) I am going back to my original vote, an oppose in light of JimRenge's remarks, about Buddhism in modern India being an option. In other words, keep this page, but move the modern history to this latter, would-be, page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:13, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those who think that Buddhism really had a continuous presence in India will do well to read this article from the Indian newspaper, The Wire As late as the 1800s, it was still not clear to scholars that Buddhism had Indian roots, so completely had the Buddha been forgotten in the Indian heartland. It is fine for Indians to take pride in Buddhism now, but most are unaware how much current-day knowledge is the result of British reconstruction and decipherment. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:38, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - The others opposed have great points. I concur. -Tibet Nation (talk) 18:15, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment- Why can't we have two separate articles? One on History of Buddhism in India, and the other called Buddhism in India.The second article can can include information on current demographics as well as the new sects such as the Ambedkarite Navayana. Thanks.Jonathansammy (talk) 18:50, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - like the last editor, I think a split would make sense, with Buddhism in India covering the revival and current situation, since there is a long period where there was very little (though perhaps more than is often thought - the centre at Ratnagiri, Odisha had its last building work in the 16th century). Johnbod (talk) 02:18, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose- This article is about the history of Buddhism in India and as has already been mentioned, there are still some topics missing. A split might be an option, "Buddhism in modern India" would give more weight to modern developments and movements. JimRenge (talk) 23:38, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Split Buddhism into branches[edit]

Buddhism didn't split into two branches called Sthaviravada and Maha Sanghika after King Ashoka. Buddhism split into two branches called Sthaviravada and Maha Sanghika after 100 years Lord Buddha's parinirvana during reign of King Kalashoka. Later, Sthaviravada Buddhism split as Vibhajjavada, Pudgalavada and Sarvastivada. Maha Sanghika Buddhism split as Caitika, Gokhuliko and Ekavyaharika. Ashoka was a follower of Vibhajjavada Buddhism. Present Theravada Buddhism originated from Vibhajjavada Buddhism. There's a book in Vinaya Pitaka of Theravada Buddhist Pali canon called Kathāvatthu. It was written by Moggaliputta-Tissa during Third Buddhist council which was supported by Ashoka. It's reject some beliefs of other Buddhist sects Pudgalavada, Sarvastivada, etc. It's proof that first split of Buddhism happened before Ashoka. Data World-Asia (talk) 12:26, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The meaning of "tathagata" as "thus-gone" is incorrect, please note[edit]

Tathaa + Aagata means "Thus-has-come" or "Thus-come". The confusion is due to the sandhi rules not being properly understood by the original author. Tathaa + Aagata = Tathaagata in Samskrita. Jksuresh (talk) 18:19, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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