Religious Timelines
History of Buddhism, CE
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Words in red are linked to our glossary - so clicking on them will take you to much more information than can be included in brief chronology like this.
| Buddhism CE | |
| 1st century CE | Perhaps as many as 500 sects of Buddhists existed by this time. |
| c. 61 CE | Mahayana Buddhism spread to China. |
| c. 100 CE | Fourth Buddhist Council was held in Jalandhar, northern India. |
| c. 150 CE | Madhyamika ("Middle Way") was founded by Nagarjuna. According to this major school of Mahayana Buddhism true salvation can only be achieved by shedding all knowledge until only a void remains. |
| c. 300 - 400 CE | Yoga (Yogocara), the second major school of Mahayana Buddhism, was founded by two brothers, Vasubandhu and Asanga. According to this school, absolute reality can be described as mind or consciousness and thus thought creates objects out of itself. |
| 320 to 600 CE | Vajrayana Buddhism developed. This school teaches that the recitation of certain phrases, names, or "magical" words can help people achieve particular ends. |
| 334 - 413 CE | Lifetime of Kumarajiva, who translated more than 100 Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Chinese. |
| 372 CE | Buddhism reached Korea. |
| c. 400 CE | Visuddhimagga, a major work on Theravadin philosophy, was written by Buddaghosa. |
| 480 CE | Bodhidharma travelled as a Buddhist missionary to China. The Zen school of Buddhism eventually developed out of his teachings. |
| 6th century CE | Buddhism finally reached Japan. |
| 515 - 597 CE | Lifetime of Chih-i, founder the T'ien-t'ai sect in China. He taught that the apparent contradictions in the Buddha's teachings are actually different levels of the same truth. |
| 552 CE | Latest date for the appearance of the first written account of Buddhism in Japan. |
| 549 - 623 CE | Lifetime of Chi-tsang, founder of the Madhyamika school in China. |
| 596 - 664 CE | Lifetime of Hsuan Tsang, founder of the Yoga (Fa-hsiang) school in China. |
| 600 to 800 CE | Buddhism arrived in Tibet |
| 600 to 800 CE | Mantrayana Buddhism, which uses sacred chants (mantras) to reach enlightenment, began to develop. |
| 613- 681 CE | Lifetime of Shan-tao, founder of the Pure Land sect (Ching-t'u) in China. He taught that there is a Pure Land, or paradise, to which the Buddha would lead his followers. |
| 625 CE | The Middle Way (Sanron) school developed in Japan. |
| 628 - 700 CE | Lifetime of Dosho, founder of the Yogacara (Hosso) school in Japan. |
| 632 CE | Tibet declared Tantric Buddhism to be the state religion. |
| 638 - 713 CE | Lifetime of Hui-neng founded the Ch'an sect in China in reaction to the extreme scholastic trends of traditional Buddhism. |
| 668 - 749 CE | Lifetime of Gyogi, a Korean Buddhist priest who worked to unite Buddhism and Shintoism. |
| 700 CE | Buddhist influence began to decline in India. |
| 787 CE | First Tibetan monastery was constructed. |
| c. 800 CE | Buddhism in Tibet struggled with local nature religion called Bonism, a religion which taught that the traditional gods were angry with Tibetans over their acceptance of the foreign religion, Buddhism. Buddhist leaders reacted by installing local Tibetan deities as guardians to Buddha and Bodhisattvas and by accepting indigenous rituals. |
| 803 CE | Saicho (767 - 822) founded the T'ien-t'ai sect (Tendai) in Japan. Tendai eventually grew into three important Japanese schools of Buddhist teachings: Pure Land, Zen and Nichiren. |
| 817 - 836 CE | Reign of King Ralpa-can in Tibet, during which Buddhism reached its apex. Buddhism experienced persecution under his successors, however. |
| 958 - 1055 CE | Buddhism experienced a second revival in Tibet when Rin-chen bzang-po translated a number of important Indian Buddhist texts. |
| 972 CE | The Buddhist canon Tipitaka was first printed in China. |
| 1030 CE | Tantric master Atisa (982 - 1054) arrived in Tibet. He began the tradition of Tibetan lamaism headed by the Dalai Lama, becoming the dominant form of Buddhism in Tibet. |
| 1140 - 1390 CE | During the reign of the Koryo Dynasty in Korea Buddhism reached its apex. |
| 1160 CE | The Council of Anuradhapura in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) ended the long conflict between the Mahavirahara and Abhayagiri monasteries. |
| c. 1200 CE | True Sect of Pure Land was founded in Japan by Shinran Shonin (1173 - 1261), whose followers rely upon the Buddha's grace for salvation rather than personal effort. |
| c. 1200 CE | Muslim conquests in India started a decline of Buddhism in northern India, eventually resulting in its effective elimination in the nation of its origin. |
| 1244 CE | The Soto Zen sect of Buddhism was founded in Japan by Dogen (1200 - 1253), who emphasized a gradual process of enlightenment rather than a sudden experience. |
| 1253 CE | In Japan Nichiren (1222 - 1253) founds a Buddhist sect that will become named after him. This nationalistic sect teaches that all other forms of Buddhism will lead Japan to ruin. |
| 1260 CE | Mongols established Lamaism as their national religion. |
| c. 1400 CE | Buddhism began to decline in southern India. |
| c. 1500 CE | Buddhism began to decline in Japan. |
| 1731 CE | The first section of Tibetan Buddhism's canonical sutras (Kanjur) was printed in Tibet. |
| c. 1800 CE | Buddhism experienced a revival in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the Buddhist Theosophial Society was created with aid from the American Theosophical Society. |
| 1890 CE | Buddhism experienced a revival in Japan. |
| 1891 CE | The Maha Bodhi Society was founded in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) by D. H. Hewavitarne (1865 - 1933). His goal was to take Buddhism to other English-speaking nations. |
| 1920s CE | Soviet government mounted an attack on Buddhism in Mongolia. |
| 1929 CE | The Chinese Buddhist Society was created by T'ai-hsu (1889 - 1947). By 1947 it had around 4.5 million members. |
| 1950 CE | The Chinese Communist government began to attack Buddhism. |
| 1950 CE | The World Fellowship of Buddhists was founded in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) |
| 1954 CE | Rangoon hosted the Buddhist Council to mark the 2,500th anniversary of the Buddha's death (according to Theravadin teaching). |
| 1960 CE | Cambodia holds a Buddhist Congress to combat growing opposition from Communists. |
| 1964 CE | Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga was translated into English. |
Keep reading: Buddhism before CE
