The Expansion of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia

Abstract

The subject of this chapter requires that a distinction be made between the history of the expansion of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia and the narration of that history in Buddhist sources. Any examination of this subject must reckon with questions concerning the often teleological nature of histories of the Buddha's sāsana (Dispensation), which comprises his Teachings and the institutions he founded to sustain and disseminate them. Thus, for example, local histories in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia have been known to connect the establishment of Buddhism in their territories with a prophecy of the Buddha and with efforts by King Asoka to expand Buddhism beyond his Indian empire in the third century BCE. In other words, the author finds narrative accounts that present the expansion of the Buddha's sāsana in mythic terms as a predestined event. Keywords:Buddha's sāsana ; Buddhism expansion; Southeast Asia; Sri Lanka