乾县铁佛寺移动版

QUESTION: So Buddhism spread very widely.

ANSWER: Not only that, there are very few instances of Buddhism persecuting the religions it encountered as it spread or of it being spread by conquering armies. Buddhism  has  always  been  a  gentle  way  of  life  and  the  idea  of  using  force  or pressure to induce belief is repugnant to Buddhists.

QUESTION: What influence did Buddhism have on the countries it went to?

ANSWER: When  missionary  monks went to  different countries they  usually took more than just the Buddha’s teachings with them, they also brought some of the best aspects  of  Indian  civilization.  Monks  were  sometimes  skilled   in  medicine  and introduced new medical ideas into areas where they had not existed before. Neither Sri  Lanka,  Tibet  nor  several  regions  of  central  Asia   had  writing   until   monks introduced it and of course with writing came new knowledge and ideas. Before the coming of Buddhism the Tibetans and the Mongolians were a wild unruly people and Buddhism made them gentle and civilized. Even within India animal sacrifice went out of vogue because of Buddhism and the caste system became less harsh, at least

for a while. Even today, as Buddhism spreads in Europe and the Americas,   modern Western  psychology  is  starting  to  be  influenced  by  some  of  its  insights  into  the human mind.

QUESTION: Why did Buddhism die out in India?

ANSWER:  No one  has  ever given a satisfactory explanation for this  unfortunate development. Some historians say that Buddhism became so corrupt that people turned against it, others say that it adopted too many  Hindu ideas and gradually became  indistinguishable from  Hinduism. Another  theory  is that  monks  began  to congregate in large monasteries supported by the kings and that this alienated them from the ordinary people. Whatever the reasons, by the 8th  or 9th  centuries, Indian Buddhism  was  already  in  serious  decline.  It  disappeared  completely  during  the chaos and violence of the Islamic invasion of India in the 13th  century.

QUESTION: But there are still some Buddhists in India aren’t there?

ANSWER: There are and indeed since the middle of the 20th  century Buddhism has started to grow in India again. In 1956 the leader of India’s untouchables converted to Buddhism because he and his people suffered so badly under the Hindu caste system. Since then about 8 million people have become Buddhist and the numbers continue to grow.

QUESTION: When did Buddhism first come to the West?

ANSWER: The first Westerners to become Buddhists were probably the Greeks who migrated to India after the invasion of Alexander the Great in the 3rd  century    BCE. One of the most important ancient Buddhist books, the Milindapanha, consists of a dialogue between the Indian monk Nagasena and the Indo-Greek king Milinda. But in  recent  times  Buddhism  started  to  attract  admiration  and  respect  in  the  West towards  the  end  of  the   19th    century  when  scholars  began  translating  Buddhist scriptures and writing about Buddhism. By the early 1900s a few Westerners were calling themselves Buddhists and one or two even became monks. Since the 1960s the number of Western Buddhists has grown steadily and today they make up a small but significant minority in most Western countries.

QUESTION: Can you say something about the different types of Buddhism? (责任编辑：admin)