The Spread of Hinduism and Buddhism in Southeast Asia

1429 Words3 Pages

Hinduism is a very popular religion in India, being that it could possibly be the oldest religion of all time and originated in India, the Hindu population in India is 80%. With Hinduism being such a popular religion, it competes with Christianity and Islam at 900 million followers of Hinduism worldwide (Miksic, 10). As for the popularity of Buddhism, it is not nearly as prevalent as Hinduism is, even in India. A very important attribute to Hinduism is the caste system. The caste system is comprised of five levels that each Hindu is born into and cannot switch out of or marry into another. These levels include the Brahmans, who are the highest caste and include priests, scholars and other professionals, Kshatriyas, who are typically known as the warriors and take authoritarian jobs such as police officers and other law enforcement positions, then are the Vaishyas, who are the merchants and agricultural laborers, Shudras, who are artisans and other providers of service, then we get to the lowest caste, which are the Periahs, also known as the untouchables who cannot look other in the eye and take janitorial jobs and other jobs dealing with filth and death (Miksic, pg 6). Buddhism was adopted and adapted to in Southeast Asia in various different methods, starting with those of the Tibetans, who developed their own form of Buddhism, after being introduced to it in the centuries before. This new form of Buddhism which will be a widely practiced form of Buddhism in later periods known as Mahayana Buddhism. From Tibet, Mahayana spread throughout the Himalayas and the difference between Mahayana and other forms of Buddhism is that it encompassed India's full history of the Mahayana's development. In Gandhara, modern-day Pakistan, the i... ... middle of paper ... ...theast Asia." JSTOR. University of Hawai'i Press. Web. 03 May 2014. John Miksic, The Buddhist-Hindu Divide in Pre-modern Southeast Asia, Nalanda Sriwijaya Centre Working Paper No. 1 (March 2006) King, Richard. "Orientalism and the Modern Myth of "Hinduism"" JSTOR. BRILL. Web. 03 May 2014. Lockard, Craig A. "Integrating Southeast Asia into the Framework of World History: The Period before 1500." JSTOR. Society for History Education. Web. 03 May 2014. Reynolds, Craig J. "A New Look at Old Southeast Asia." JSTOR. Association for Asian Studies. Web. 03 May 2014. Some Characteristics of Hinduism as a Religion, Hervey D. Griswold, The Biblical World, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Sept., 1912), PP 163-172 The Spread of Buddhism in Asia, Berzin, Alexander, Buddhism and Its Impact on Asia, Asian Monographs, No. 8, Cairo: Cairo University, Center for Asian Studies, June 1996

Open Document