In his new book, Casino Capitalism: The Collapse of the US Economy and the Transition to Secular Democracy in the Middle East, Dr. Susmit Kumar suggests Buddhism may be in for a comeback as the world’s largest religion:
“All religions are officially banned in China at present but it is said that nearly half of Chinese population practice or believe in Buddhism. Until the 1949 communist takeover, Buddhism had the largest number of followers in the world, with Christianity as the second largest. Hence once China starts to move away from the communistic ideology (that considers religion as “the opiate of the masses”) we will see the revival of Buddhism.”
According to PROUT, a world constitution should guarantee the fundamental right of spiritual practice to every individual, among other essential rights.
Kumar writes: “As China is poised to be the world’s military and economic superpower in very near future, Buddhism may eclipse all other religions and regain the position of the world’s leading religion. It may even make an inroad into India at the expense of Hinduism. During the heyday of Buddhism in India, from 3rd century BC to 12th century AD, there were several large universities like Taxila (4th century-6th century) and Nalanda (5th century-12th century) that attracted scholars and students from such faraway places as Greece, Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey. Nalanda University was one of the first great universities in recorded history. It had eight separate compounds, ten temples, meditation halls, classrooms, lakes and parks. It had a nine-story library where monks meticulously copied books and documents so that individual scholars could have their own collections.”
“At its peak, Nalanda provided dormitories for nearly 10,000 students, perhaps a first for an educational institution, and also accommodations for 2,000 professors. It was devoted to Buddhist studies, but it also trained students in fine arts, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, politics and the art of war.* In 1193, it was sacked by an invading Muslim army of Bakhtiyar Khilji, a Turk. The invading army burned thousands of Buddhist monks alive and beheaded thousands in order to uproot Buddhism. They also set fire to the nine story library that continued to burn for three months and the smoke from the burning manuscripts could be seen from hundreds of miles afar. Now efforts are underway to revive this grand old university. A consortium led by Singapore and Japan, with funding from India, China and other nations, have collected $500 million for this purpose.”
* Garten, Jeffrey E, “Really Old School,” The New York Times, December 9, 2006.
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See our review of Casino Capitalism: The Collapse of the US Economy and the Transition to Secular Democracy in the Middle East. The book is available at Amazon and other online book stores.
Buddhism IS and always has been the LARGEST religion in the world. It is hysterical that Buddhist aren’t counted in communist states because they are officially atheist . The vast majority of Chinese are Buddhist by several estimates 1.3 billion Buddhist in China alone.
There are 450 million Taoists, 50 million Confucianists and 500 million Buddhists in China. The rest are practitioners of indigenous religions.
Taoist is a secondary religion in China almost all Taoist in China are Buddhist just as most Shinto in Japan are Buddhist. Buddhism IS the largest religion in the world and ALWAYS has been over 2000 years. Buddhism is also currently the fastest growing religion in the world with OVER 2 BILLION adherents.
well said- BUDDHism rules
i want to say that buddhist are the part of hindiusm. it will follow our hindu god gautam buddha. so hindu was the the largest religions than buddhism
Buddhism is mostly an atheistic religion, though their are some that do believe in god but the Buddha didn’t originate from the hindu god gautam buddha.
The Buddha was born Hindu but Buddism is definately not a Hindu religion. Jesus was Jewish and Christianity and Islam are sort of bastardized versions of the Jewish religion but certainly not Jewish.
Buddhism has its own particular dogmas, such as “there is suffering”, “there is a cause of suffering”, etc., and other specific teachings, which makes it unique enough in the world of religions. Buddha himself may have followed a Tantric path of practices to achieve enlightenment but his teachings are unique. In the same way Jainism is also counted as a distinct religion of its own. Buddha and Mahaviir Jain lived roughly at the same time in the Hindu belt of North India and their teachings form two separate religions. Futhermore, if we reason somewhat in the way Ankit does here then perhaps all religions can be traced back to the roots of Hinduism, as its children, grandhildren, etc. as it were. Such as: This religion says “There is an Infinite Entity” (so it must be Hinduism)
In simple language, Buddha is a designation given to a person who is enlightened. Before become Lord Gautam Buddha, He is a king name Siddhartha and born in Nepal. when he enlightened then he called as Gautam Buddha. So, Gautam Buddha start teaching what he had gained by practicing so many years. from this all knowledge we found that he has not gained knowledge by other religion so how people is saying that Buddhism is a Part of Hinduism and also in Buddhism there is a vast knowledge in all streams like in medical as foreigner comes in Dharamsala, India to learn our ancient techniques of curing peoples. this also proves that Buddhism is a religion in which it believes in transformation(parivartan) with time which is one of the teaching in Buddhism.
I can also give all these useless comment which is given by some peoples but I don’t want to comment on other religions which can hurt other peoples and I RESPECT ALL RELIGIONS.
So I want to give an advice to that type of peoples who comment this type of nonsense is that ” BEFORE COMMENT SOMETHING FIRST YOU RESEARCH AND BE SURE AND THEN CONCLUDE”.
so Ankit think about that.
conclusion:- BUDDHISM MAY BE A LARGEST RELIGION IN THE WORLD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
check the above link and you will learn that only 10% of world populatoin are followers of buddhism. 15% of world population are following hinduism.
Please let me know if you disagree with me on this. and let me know the best source proof.
what type of fabric used in buddhism period
It is unlikely that Buddhism was the largest religion in 1949, though beforehand, surely. It won’t be the largest anytime soon though- the Chinese are less Buddhist than many think, and, indeed, Christianity is booming there extremely quickly (the former Communist Director of Religion estimated that there might be as many as 140 million Christians in China. I find this highly unlikely, but a hundred million is quite realistic).
I have no issue with Buddhism. Between the boom of Christianity and Asian’s demographic slowdown, it is unlikely to ever be the world’s largest religion again, though.
Chhyoe wangyal tamang is saying true.Buddha is a designation given to a person who is enlightened. it is true because Lord Gautam a start teaching what he had gained by practicing so many years. from this all knowledge we found that he has not gained knowledge by other religion so how people is saying that Buddhism is a Part of Hinduism and also in Buddhism there is a vast knowledge in all streams like in medical as foreigner comes in Dharamsala, India to learn our ancient techniques of curing peoples. this also proves that Buddhism is a religion in which it believes in transformation(parivartan) with time which is one of the teaching in Buddhism.
and I RESPECT ALL RELIGIONS.
So I want to give an advice to that type of peoples who comment this type of nonsense is that ” BEFORE COMMENT SOMETHING FIRST YOU RESEARCH AND BE SURE AND THEN CONCLUDE”.
so Ankit think about that.
conclusion:- BUDDHISM MAY BE A LARGEST RELIGION IN THE WORLD