4.6 Global Buddhist Civilizations

THE GLOBAL CIVILIZATION OF BUDDHISM

INTRODUCTION:

In terms of its adherents, Buddhism would be the fifth-largest civilization in the contemporary world. Its adherents number approximately 462 million.

As is true for Hinduism, contemporary Buddhism is also regionally concentrated. Even though originated in the Northeast of India, its current presence in India is quite negligible accounting for less than 1%. The vast majority of the World-Wide Buddhist population is now concentrated in China and its neighbouring countries in the South, a region which one might call the extended Indo-China from Vietnam in the East and Myanmar in the Western end of East Asia with Cambodia and Laos in Bertram.

Together with China and its five neighbours in the South house 347 million adherents of the Buddhist Civilization account for 75% of the global Buddhist population. With its birthplace in South Asia Buddhism is now more of an East Asian Civilization.

In terms of its universal tendencies, the history of Buddhism is different from Hinduism. Its missionaries have historically travelled long distances in many parts of Asia and won many converts as well as political influence. With the passage of time, Buddhism lost many of its initial converts back to Hinduism, while others to Islam in South Asia. East Asia Buddhism nevertheless retains a sustained presence.

IN 17 COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD BUDDHIST PRESENCE IS MORE THAN ONE MILLION.

The 17 countries where Buddhist Civilization claims more than a million are the following, in descending order.

Table # 1 Seventeen Countries with Buddhist adherents more than 1 million

Regional segmentation of World Buddhist Civilization

The Global Barometer follows the following segmentation framework of the world-wide Buddhist Civilization.

EXAMPLES

Example # 1

Query1: Do we have trend data on the global presence of Buddhist populations, going back to 1960 for the present era; and earlier over the last couple of countries where possible.

GLOBAL BUDDHIST CIVILIZATIONS DASHBOARD