70 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.