120 Fun Facts About Buddhism

Pew found Buddhists were the only major religious group whose numbers did what between 2010 and 2020?

Shrank: more people left Buddhism than joined it, and Buddhists are concentrated in slow-growing countries such as China and Japan.

Where was the Buddha born?

Lumbini, in present-day Nepal: the emperor Ashoka later made a pilgrimage there and set up a stone pillar inscribed as marking the Buddha's birthplace.

The Buddha was born into which community, governed by a small oligarchy or republic-like council?

The Shakya: his father is described as an elected chief of the clan, rather than the king that later tellings made him.

In legend, what did Queen Maya dream entered her side when the Buddha was conceived?

A white elephant with six tusks: the legend adds that seers foretold the child would become either a great king or a great spiritual leader.

What were the names of the Buddha's wife and son according to the early texts?

Rahula later joined the monastic order his father founded.

Under which two meditation teachers did Gautama first study before abandoning their methods?

Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta each offered him leadership of their followers, but Gautama walked away, finding their meditation fell short of awakening.

What kind of tree is the Bodhi Tree, under which the Buddha attained awakening?

A fig tree, the sacred fig: Ashoka's queen, jealous of his devotion to the Bodhi Tree, is said to have had it killed.

A village girl named Sujata is remembered for offering the Buddha what before his awakening?

Milk and rice pudding revived the starving Gautama, and in the popular telling Sujata offered it because she mistook him for a tree spirit.

In the legendary biographies, which ruler of the desire realm tried to stop the Buddha's awakening?

Mara sent an army and alluring women against him, and the Buddha is said to have touched the ground to call the earth as witness, the pose of many Buddha statues.

Where did the Buddha give his first sermon after enlightenment?

At Sarnath, the Deer Park near Varanasi, he taught the five monks who had walked out on him, and one of them, Kondanna, grasped the teaching as he listened.

In his last words, the Buddha urged his monks to strive with what?

Diligence, since all conditioned things decay, he said; he had refused to name a successor, leaving his teaching and discipline as their teacher.

Which of the Buddha's cousins tried to seize leadership of his monks and formed a rival sect?

Devadatta, the Pali texts say, even plotted to kill the Buddha, but every attempt failed, and the Buddha sent two disciples to win back the monks who had followed him.

According to the second Noble Truth, dukkha arises with tanha, a word literally meaning what?

Thirst is the literal sense of tanha, usually rendered craving, and the third truth says dukkha ends once that craving is let go.

Which practice belongs to the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path?

Right livelihood rules out harmful trades, such as dealing in weapons, human beings, meat or poison.

What does the word nirvana literally mean?

Blowing out, as of a flame: early texts picture greed, hatred and delusion as fires, and nirvana as their going out.

The Buddha compared a straining monk's effort to what?

Tuning an instrument: Sona, once a skilled player, learned that strings too tight or too slack won't play in tune, balanced his effort and became an arahant.

Anicca, dukkha and anatta are collectively known as what?

The three marks of existence are impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-self, and seeing them with insight is said to bring suffering to an end.

The Buddha compared the rarity of human birth to a turtle, surfacing once a century, doing what?

Putting its neck through a yoke, and so, he told the monks, those who have won a human birth should now contemplate the four noble truths.

What is the literal meaning of samsara?

Wandering is samsara's literal sense, and one sutta has the Buddha teach that the tears shed while wandering from life to life exceed the water of the four great seas.

In Buddhist karma theory, what is essential to bring about a karmic result?

Intent, and in the same spirit the Buddha taught that no one is a brahmin or an outcaste by birth, only by their deeds.

What are the Three Jewels in which all Buddhists take refuge?

Buddha, Dharma and Sangha: reciting the formula of refuge in them is traditionally the first step in becoming a Buddhist.

Which object did the Buddha liken his teaching to, useful for crossing over and then let go?

A raft is left behind once the river is crossed, and even good teachings, he said, should be let go, to say nothing of bad ones.

What is the Sangha?

The monastic community of monks and nuns relies on laypeople, who earn merit by giving food and cloth for robes, while monks offer teachings.

Which is one of Buddhism's five lay precepts?

No intoxicants: laypeople vow to avoid drink and drugs that lead to heedlessness, and on holy days the devout keep eight precepts, adding no afternoon meals.

What is the meaning of the term Tripitaka, used for the canonical collections of Buddhist texts?

Three baskets: the name is thought to recall the containers in which palm-leaf manuscripts of the teachings were kept.

The Four Noble Truths are often likened to the method of which professional?

A doctor: the first two truths diagnose suffering and its cause, the third says a cure exists, and the fourth prescribes the path to it.

Which group destroyed the giant Buddha statues carved into the cliffs at Bamiyan, Afghanistan?

The Taliban destroyed them in 2001, though the statues had survived Genghis Khan's sack of Bamiyan in 1221.

In what form does the Dhammapada present the Buddha's teachings?

Short verses, among them the teaching that hatred never ends through hatred, only through non-hatred.

Which brutal war, fought in his eighth regnal year, preceded Ashoka's turn toward Buddhism?

Kalinga's conquest, by Ashoka's own edict, killed 100,000 people and uprooted 150,000, and the same edict voices his deep remorse.

What did Ashoka's envoy Sanghamitta found in Sri Lanka?

An order of nuns: Queen Anula and the women of her court had asked to be ordained, and Sanghamitta ordained them.

The temple in the royal palace complex at Kandy, Sri Lanka, is said to house which relic of the Buddha?

A tooth, and a tradition held that whoever possessed the relic had the right to rule, so it was always kept near the ruler's home.

Which Greek king of northwest India questions the monk Nagasena in a famous Buddhist dialogue?

Menander, the dialogue says, was won over, handed his kingdom to his son and retired from the world to follow the teaching.

Which empire controlled the Silk Road from 30 to 375 CE and helped Buddhism spread to China?

Kushan emperor Kanishka backed the faith and even struck coins showing the Buddha standing, rare in a coinage full of other gods.

Which Chinese monk who studied at Nalanda inspired the novel Journey to the West?

Xuanzang's pilgrimage to India became Journey to the West, which keeps the outline of his own travel account but adds fantasy companions.

What do Tibetan monks often do with a swept-up sand mandala to spread its blessings?

Cast it into water: sweeping away the finished work is meant to show that all things are impermanent.

What does Mahayana, the largest branch of Buddhism, literally mean?

Great Vehicle: the name set Mahayana against what its followers called the Lesser Vehicle, their label for older schools.

What are the puzzling stories and questions that Zen teachers use as an aid to meditation called?

Koans are often paradoxical on purpose, serving as a spur to sudden awakening, which Zen calls satori.

Buddhist monks led the 2007 'Saffron Revolution' protests in which country?

Myanmar: the protests began after the military rulers abruptly raised fuel prices, and thousands of monks took the lead that September.

Which semi-legendary monk is traditionally credited with bringing Chan (Zen) to China?

Bodhidharma, as his legend grew, was also credited with helping the monks of the Shaolin Monastery, famed for their martial arts.

Zen derives from the Chinese 'Chan', which comes from which Sanskrit word for meditation?

Dhyana became chan in Chinese and zen in Japanese, and the Japanese scholar D. T. Suzuki later popularised Zen in the West.

The nianfo chant central to Pure Land Buddhism is devoted to which Buddha?

Amitabha's name is repeated in trust of rebirth in his Pure Land, where reaching enlightenment is said to be far easier than on Earth.

Which Parthian Buddhist monk made the first documented translations of Buddhist texts into Chinese, c.148-180 CE?

The Kushan monk Lokaksema followed with the first Mahayana translations in Luoyang.

Tibetan Buddhism has four major schools: Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and which other, founded in 1409?

The Dalai Lamas belong to the Gelug tradition; Bon was Tibet's pre-Buddhist religion.

The Dalai Lamas are believed to be incarnations of which enlightened being?

Avalokiteshvara, embodiment of compassion, is invoked by the mantra om mani padme hum, which Tibetans carve on rocks and set spinning in prayer wheels.

What did the 14th Dalai Lama lead after fleeing to India?

A government in exile, which appealed to the United Nations and won three General Assembly resolutions on Tibet.

Which Martin Scorsese film tells the story of the 14th Dalai Lama's early life?

Kundun angered Beijing, which retaliated against Disney, the film's distributor, by banning Disney films in China.

Vesak, the festival commemorating the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death, is named after what?

A lunar month, Vaisakha: Buddhist tradition holds that his birth, awakening and death each fell on that month's full moon.

Borobudur, the 9th-century Mahayana temple, is on which island?

Java's Borobudur was abandoned for centuries, until in 1814 the island's British ruler, Stamford Raffles, heard reports of a big monument in its interior.

Angkor Wat, now a Theravada Buddhist site, was originally built as a Hindu temple to which god?

Vishnu is associated with the west, which scholars suggest is why Angkor Wat faces west rather than east like most Khmer temples.

Which Indian reformer launched Navayana, reinterpreting the Buddha as a teacher of social equality?

B. R. Ambedkar launched Navayana at a mass ceremony in 1956, converting to Buddhism along with hundreds of thousands of his followers.

Which Indian state is home to almost 90 percent of India's Navayana Buddhists?

Maharashtra is where the movement began, with the 1956 mass conversion at the Deekshabhoomi ground in its city of Nagpur.

Which Russian republic is the only traditionally Buddhist region in Europe?

Kalmykia is home to the Kalmyks, descendants of Mongol peoples, whom the Soviet state deported en masse in 1943 before later letting them return.

During which Chinese dynasty was the first woodblock-printed Buddhist canon produced?

The Song dynasty's Kaibao Canon was later lost, but it became the main basis for Korea's surviving Tripitaka Koreana.

Which Japanese esoteric Buddhist school has its headquarters on Mount Koya?

Shingon's founder Kukai brought esoteric teachings back from Tang China and built the school's centre on Mount Koya.

At the First Buddhist Council, which disciple was the authority on the monastic rules?

Upali had been a barber, yet the Buddha named him foremost among the monks who knew the monastic rules by heart.

Buddhism's first schism split the Sthavira elders from which other group?

The Mahasamghikas parted from the elders after a dispute that some accounts put down to monastic rules and others to points of teaching.

Which invasions helped make Buddhism nearly vanish from India?

Turkic invasions brought the general Bakhtiyar Khalji, whose forces are blamed for sacking the great monastery of Nalanda.

Which two kings of Magadha reigned during the Buddha's life and death, according to most scholars?

Bimbisara and Ajatashatru were father and son, and the son took over Magadha's throne while his father was still alive.

Which metalworker served the Buddha his last meal?

Cunda was to be assured, the Buddha said, that the meal had earned him great merit and that no one should blame him for it.

How was the quarrel over the Buddha's relics settled?

Divided eight ways by a brahmin, so each claimant carried a share home and raised a stupa over it.

In the legend of the 'four sights', Gautama saw an old man, a sick man, a corpse and what?

An ascetic: the story goes that his father had kept him inside the palace so that he would never see such suffering.

Which of the four Brahma-viharas is 'mudita'?

Empathetic joy is one of four virtues said to bring rebirth in the Brahma realm, a heaven the Buddha taught still falls short of awakening.

Early Buddhist monks had to refuse meat they suspected was what?

Killed for them, and when a monk proposed making all monks vegetarian, the Buddha refused.

What is the three-month rainy-season retreat during which monks stay in one place called?

Vassa, the Vinaya says, became a rule after people complained that monks travelling in the rains were trampling green plants and small creatures.

The 'Dalai' in the title Dalai Lama comes from a Mongolian word meaning what?

Ocean: the Mongol ruler Altan Khan gave the title to Sonam Gyatso, counted as the third Dalai Lama because his two predecessors were named only after their deaths.

Who founded the Pali Text Society?

T. W. Rhys Davids came to Pali not as a scholar but as a young British civil servant posted to Sri Lanka.

Which Chicago event gave major Buddhist leaders a well-publicised platform in the West?

The World Parliament of Religions brought the Zen teacher Soyen Shaku from Japan, one of the first figures to carry Zen to the West.

Which country's constitution makes Buddhism the state religion?

Cambodia, though the Khmer Rouge banned all religious practice in the late 1970s.

Which Thai king began the modern reforms of Thai Buddhism that his son continued?

Mongkut founded the stricter Dhammayut order while he was still a monk, years before he became king.

Which teaching is Thailand's Dhammakaya movement known for?

A 'true self' doctrine, linking nirvana to a permanent Self, which sits uneasily with anatta, the Buddhist teaching of not-self.

The fat, laughing figure often mistaken in the West for Gautama Buddha is actually which 10th-century monk?

Budai, whose name means 'cloth sack', was a poor but contented Chinese monk who carried all he owned in a bag and is usually shown delighting in the company of children.

Which Hollywood star played Prince Siddhartha in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1993 film Little Buddha?

Keanu Reeves plays the prince in the film's ancient scenes, while its modern half follows a Seattle boy whom visiting lamas believe to be a great teacher reborn.

Which ancient symbol, known in Japan as manji, is used on Japanese maps to show a Buddhist temple?

Swastika signs denote temples under Japan's official survey rules, and in Buddhism the symbol stands for the auspicious footprints of the Buddha.

Which Buddhist scripture, printed in China in 868 CE, is the world's oldest surviving dated printed book?

The Diamond Sutra copy lay walled up in a cave near Dunhuang until 1900 and is held by the British Library; a note at its end says it was made for free distribution on behalf of the printer's parents.

Sokushinbutsu, attempted by Buddhist mountain monks in Japan over several centuries, was which extreme practice?

Self-mummification took about 3,000 days: the monk lived on pine needles and resins to burn off all body fat, then slowly cut out liquids so the body would not decay.

In a Tibetan sky burial, the body of the dead is cut up and left on a mountainside for which birds?

Vultures are given the whole body in most accounts, and Tibetans call the rite giving alms to the birds; rocky ground and scarce timber made graves and cremation impractical.

Which Canadian singer-songwriter spent five years at a Zen monastery on Mount Baldy and was ordained in 1996?

Leonard Cohen took the name Jikan, meaning 'silence', and served as personal assistant to his teacher, Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, at the centre near Los Angeles.

Which gold-leaf-covered Zen temple in Kyoto was burned to the ground by a young novice monk in 1950?

Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, was set alight by a 22-year-old novice and rebuilt in 1955; Yukio Mishima turned the arson into his novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

Buddhist temples across Japan see out the old year on New Year's Eve by ringing their bells how many times?

108 strikes are usually tied to the 108 worldly cravings said to cloud the mind, though other explanations exist; some temples let visitors keep ringing past 200.

Which Himalayan kingdom, home to the cliffside Tiger's Nest monastery, steers policy by Gross National Happiness?

Bhutan's fourth king framed the idea in 1972, calling it more important than gross domestic product, and the goal was written into the constitution in 2008.

What name did the Buddha give his path between sensual indulgence and harsh self-denial in his first sermon?

The Middle Way steers clear of two extremes that the Buddha called unworthy and unprofitable, and he went on to spell it out as the Noble Eightfold Path.

Karma, loosely used in English for cosmic payback, comes from a Sanskrit word that literally means what?

Action, not fate or destiny, is what karma means: in Indian thought the cycle of rebirth is driven by what a person does, with no judge handing out rewards.

In Buddhist cosmology, pretas are reborn with swollen bellies and needle-thin throats; what are they called in English?

Hungry ghosts have huge appetites and almost no means of satisfying them, and festivals from China to Japan set out offerings for them each year.

At the hub of the Tibetan Wheel of Life, a pig, a snake and which bird stand for the three poisons?

The rooster stands for attachment, the pig for ignorance and the snake for anger, and the whole wheel of rebirth they drive is held in the grip of Yama, lord of death.

Which bodhisattva, said to be waiting in Tushita heaven, is prophesied to appear on Earth as the next Buddha?

Maitreya is accepted as Gautama's direct successor by every branch of Buddhism, and his name comes from a Sanskrit word for friendliness.

Which bodhisattva, male in Indian Buddhism, has usually been depicted as female in China since about the 12th century?

Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, 'the one who perceives the sounds of the world', and the Lotus Sutra says the figure can take any form, male or female, to help someone in need.

Which cousin and attendant of the Buddha, famed for his memory, recited the discourses at the First Buddhist Council?

Ananda tended the Buddha for 25 years, and most traditions hold that the opening formula of the early discourses, a claim to have heard them first-hand, is his voice.

The Emerald Buddha, a 66-centimetre statue carved from green stone and dressed in gold, is enshrined in which capital?

Bangkok has held the statue since 1785; before that it spent 214 years in Vientiane, until a Siamese general looted the city and carried it off in 1779.

In which town in India's Bihar state do pilgrims visit the spot where the Buddha is said to have reached enlightenment?

Bodh Gaya's Mahabodhi Temple has drawn pilgrims for over two thousand years, and Emperor Ashoka came around 250 BCE to found a monastery and shrine on the site.

The Potala Palace, winter home of the Dalai Lamas from 1649 until 1959, rises above which city?

Lhasa's hilltop palace rises 13 storeys and holds more than 1,000 rooms; the fifth Dalai Lama began building it in 1645, and it has since become a museum.

Which hill town in the Indian Himalayas became the 14th Dalai Lama's home in 1960?

Dharamsala became his base in May 1960, a year after he fled Tibet and settled first in Mussoorie; his residence stands in the upper town, about 1,830 metres up.

What does the spinning cylinder of a Tibetan prayer wheel hold inside?

Mantra scrolls, most often repeating Om mani padme hum, are long strips of rolled paper, and each turn is held to equal reading aloud every copy inside.

Which German-language novelist wrote Siddhartha, the 1922 story of a seeker living in the time of the Buddha?

Hermann Hesse made his hero a namesake who meets the Buddha, not the Buddha himself; the book reached the United States in 1951 and became influential in the 1960s.

Which bandit, said to have worn a string of his victims' fingers, became a monk after meeting the Buddha?

Angulimala means 'finger necklace', and across South and Southeast Asia the reformed killer is honoured as a patron saint of childbirth.

In a Buddhist parable, Kisa Gotami is told to fetch what from a home untouched by death to revive her child?

Mustard seeds were easy to find, but every house she tried had lost someone; grasping that death spares no family, she went on to become awakened herself.

Which three-day Japanese holiday, usually kept in mid-August, welcomes ancestors' spirits back to the family home?

Obon families light a small fire on the first evening to guide the souls home, and its Bon Odori dances are part of a custom kept in Japan for more than 500 years.

Which ancient region around Peshawar produced Greek-influenced art credited with the first human images of the Buddha?

Gandhara's sculptors gave the Buddha a toga-like robe and curly hair in the Greek manner; earlier artists had shown him only through symbols such as footprints or an empty seat.

What is the dome-shaped Buddhist monument, built to hold sacred relics and circled on foot by pilgrims, called?

Stupa comes from a Sanskrit word for 'heap'; as Buddhism spread along the Silk Road the form was reshaped into the chorten of Tibet and the pagoda of East Asia.

What name is given to the hundreds of stories about the Buddha's previous lives, many of them as animals?

Jataka tales show the future Buddha as a king, an outcaste, a god or an animal who always displays some virtue; the simplest read like Aesop's fables.

Under a rule shared by Buddhist monks and laypeople keeping the eight precepts, no solid food is eaten after what time?

Midday is the cut-off, with drinks allowed afterwards; the eight precepts also rule out dancing, music, perfume and luxurious beds.

Theravada, Buddhism's oldest surviving school, is the dominant form of the faith in which Southeast Asian country?

Laos shares the school with Thailand and Sri Lanka; its Pali name means 'Teaching of the Elders', the 'thera' being a senior monk.

Which form of Buddhism, also called Tantric or Esoteric Buddhism, arose in medieval India and became dominant in Tibet?

Vajrayana adds sacred chants, symbolic hand gestures, mandalas and the visualisation of deities to Mahayana teaching, and its texts promise Buddhahood within a single lifetime.

Which Zen school, brought to Japan from China by Dogen, stresses shikantaza, a meditation with no object or content?

Soto is the largest of Japan's three traditional Zen sects, with about 14,000 temples, and grew out of the Caodong school that Dogen studied abroad.

Which school, founded by Saicho on Mount Hiei, trained the monks who later began Japan's Pure Land and Nichiren sects?

Tendai was formally established in 806 after Saicho came home from study in China, and it rose to prominence in the Heian period from its mountain base above Kyoto.

Which 8th-century tantric master, known as Guru Rinpoche, does Tibet's Nyingma school revere as a founder?

Padmasambhava, whose name means 'born from a lotus', is said to have designed Samye, the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet, for King Trisong Detsen.

Which Indian philosopher, widely ranked second only to the Buddha, founded the Madhyamaka school of emptiness?

Nagarjuna's writings on emptiness shaped Indian philosophy for a thousand years and remain a core source for Mahayana schools from Tibet to East Asia.

Which Vietnamese Zen monk coined the term 'engaged Buddhism' and founded the Plum Village monastery in France?

Thich Nhat Hanh was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967, and he opened Plum Village in the southwest of the country in 1982.

Which Tibetan lama, known as the holder of the Black Crown, heads the oldest major line of reincarnate teachers?

The Karmapa's crown is said to have been woven by dakinis from their own hair, and the second holder, Karma Pakshi, was the first recognised tulku in Tibetan Buddhism.

Jogyesa, chief temple of the Jogye Order of Seon Buddhism, stands in the centre of which Asian capital?

Seoul's Jogyesa heads the largest Buddhist sect in South Korea, a Zen order that survived centuries of suppression under the Confucian Joseon kings.

Which Buddha, lord of the central family in the five-Buddha scheme, is the giant bronze figure at Nara's Todai-ji?

Vairocana, whose name means 'the Sun' or 'Shining', is compared to the sun because both shed light on all beings alike; Nara's seated figure is the largest bronze image of him anywhere.

Which Buddha of the eastern family is named 'Immovable One' after a vow never to give way to anger?

Akshobhya began, in an early scripture, as a monk who swore to bear no malice toward any being until he was enlightened; he never wavered, and tantric art paints him blue-black.

Ratnasambhava, the 'jewel-born' Buddha who heads the Ratna family of the south, is usually painted in which colour?

Yellow, or gold, suits a family whose emblem is the jewel and whose element is earth; its Buddha holds one hand open in the gesture of giving.

Amoghasiddhi, the green Buddha of the north, leads the Karma family in overcoming which of the five poisons?

Envy is the poison this family destroys; its Buddha, whose name means 'Unfailing Accomplishment', raises a hand in the gesture of fearlessness to show the poisons hold no terror for him.

Which western paradise, East Asia's best-known pure land, belongs to the Buddha who heads the Lotus family?

Sukhavati means 'blissful', and believers across East Asia hope to be reborn there; the family's Buddha sits with both palms resting upward in his lap.

Which female Buddha, whose name can mean 'star', appears in green form as the consort of Amoghasiddhi?

Tara is linked with navigation, since stars guide travellers, and is prized for answering calls for help swiftly; each of the five Buddhas is paired with a female Buddha in this way.

Which text, known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, depicts Ratnasambhava and his consort among its visions?

Bardo Thodol means 'liberation through hearing during the intermediate state'; its English title was made popular by a 1927 edition and borrowed from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Which Tibetan teacher, founder of Naropa University in Colorado, based his Maitri therapy on the five Buddha families?

Chogyam Trungpa used the five families to describe differing styles of mind; the Naropa he opened in Boulder in 1974 became the first Buddhist-inspired school to win US regional accreditation.

In the five Buddha families, the Vajra family's wisdom is named after which object?

Mirror-like wisdom holds every image yet is touched by none of them, and the family's blue is likened to deep seas that stay calm however rough the surface.

The vajra, the ritual tool that names one of the five Buddha families, began as which weapon of the god Indra?

Thunderbolt and gem in one, the vajra stands for a force nothing can resist and a hardness nothing can break; Tibetans call it a dorje.

Which Buddhist monastery in China's Henan province, founded in the 5th century, is famed as the cradle of kung fu?

Shaolin is also honoured as the birthplace of Chan, the school the West knows by its Japanese name, Zen; its historic buildings are on UNESCO's World Heritage List.