In and around the Buddha’s birthplace in Lumbini, Nepal, several important archaeological sites associated with the life of the Buddha were discovered from the end of the 19th century onwards. Findings such as the pillars which were erected by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC revealed important information about the birth and life of the Buddha. In the late 1960s, UN Secretary-General U Thant visited Lumbini. He subsequently called on the international community to develop the area into a pilgrimage centre.
Japanese art counts many illustrations of the life and death of Maya (“illusion”), the mother of the Buddha, which are very faithful to the Indian tradition. However, in one respect Japanese Buddhists chose an original path: even though Maya is generally not venerated by Buddhists, a temple devoted to the worship of Buddha’s mother was discovered on a mountain near Kobe. In this temple, a statue of Maya and inscriptions reveal that she was venerated there as a universal mother.
After the birth of Buddhism, the new religion quickly spread to large parts of Central, South and Southeast Asia. Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, was a very important pilgrimage destination from the 3rd century BC onwards. A pillar with an inscription erected by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka in 245 BC identifies the spot where the Buddha was born. Lumbini was densely populated and much visited until the early Middle Ages. However, the site was concealed by a forest from the fifteenth or sixteenth century onwards.
Since Buddhist monks used to travel with merchants, maritime trade relations between South and Southeast Asia played a major role for the expansion of Buddhism into the latter region. In mainland Southeast Asia, which entertained intense contact with Sri Lanka, Theravada Buddhism was predominant and survived even after the arrival of Islam and Christianity in the region led to the conversion of the biggest part of maritime Southeast Asia.
Sumatra was influenced by Indian culture from the 6th century AD onwards. The kingdom of Srivijaya became an important centre of Buddhism. There are various archaeological traces of the development of Buddhism in Sumatra from the 7th to the 14th century AD, such as inscriptions, religious buildings and bronze and stone sculptures. Many of these artefacts have a Tantric character, which corresponds to parallel developments in East Java. Tantric Buddhism reached Sumatra already during the 7th century AD.
Monasteries in Bulgaria have a long history and have always occupied a significant position in Bulgarian public life. Many of them were built in sacred sites which can be traced back to the Protobulgarians, who came to the West from Asia on similar routes to the later Silk Roads. On their way to Europe, the Protobulgarians came in contact with numerous tribes and peoples from different parts of Asia and were influenced by their culture and religion. In turn, their beliefs had an impact on Orthodox Christian dogmas.
The mural paintings in Ajanta constitute a unique example of ancient Buddhist art in Asia. They are the only well preserved mural paintings from this era in India. These paintings from the Gupta period had an important impact on the arts in the rest of India and Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the Indian pictorial tradition spread to the Northeast, East and Southeast Asia via the Silk Road. In the Himalaya, the Ajanta style had a very significant influence on Buddhist art.
In Buddhist art, two different ways of worshipping Shakayamuni have led to the emergence of two types of the triad format. From the Dharma cult, due to which the Dharma (the truth) is the essence of Buddha, has sprung the format of the Buddha surrounded by two attendants. In the context of Mahayana Buddhism, these attendants came to be represented as Mahayana Bodhisattvas. The Buddha cult, according to which there had been many other Buddhas before the birth of Shakyamuni, has given rise to a format showing three Mahayana Buddhas.
Buddhism spread to China during the Han dynasty, but Chinese knowledge about the life and the birthplace of the Buddha was initially limited. In the 5th century AD, the Buddhist monk Faxian travelled from China to Nepal. His description of Kapilavastu differed from Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures, which idealised the Buddha’s homeland. In the same century, the Chinese monk Sengyou wrote an account on the life of Buddha, which remained faithful to Buddhist translations.
Indian society before the birth of Buddhism and Arab society before the birth of Islam share several characteristics, such as polytheism, the worshipping of idols and the existence of great social inequalities. The Buddha and the Prophet Mohammed were opposed to these. Both religions attempted to unite and find a balance between Eastern and Western elements, between the worldly, material side of life and its spiritual side, between the tangible and the intangible, the profane and the sacred.
