Home›Buddhist Teachers & Monks›TraditionBrowse ByTraditionThis page groups historical figures by the religious tradition they belonged to or helped shape, connecting a person to the belief system that claims them. Wikipedia describes a tradition as "a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past." Browsing this way lets a visitor read every founder, reformer or teacher from one tradition together, rather than finding them scattered by century.FactsTraditionConnectionsSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsDirectoryCategoryWell-attestedHistorical Figures 1TraditionFilter Results1 entryAdherents TodayAllPew Research Center's Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020 report puts the global Buddhist population at 324 million as of 2020, about 4 percent of the world's population, down 19 million from 2010, the only major world religion measured to shrink in absolute numbers over that decade. (1)Adherents Today MaximumAll324,000,000 (1)Adherents Today MinimumAll324,000,000 (1)Basis of the Membership FigureAllIndependent Survey (1)Scholarly or Demographic Estimate (1)Establishment StatusAllVaries by Province (1)Form of the ConfessionAllTaking refuge in the Three Jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, functions as Buddhism's basic profession of faith. (1)FounderAllSiddhartha Gautama, the Buddha (1)How the Expectation Is EnforcedAllCustomary Norm (1)Legal StatusAllArticle 9 of the Constitution of Sri Lanka (1978, as amended) states that the Republic shall give Buddhism the foremost place and that it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana, while assuring to all religions the rights granted by Articles 10 and 14(1)(e). (1)Membership Figure As OfAll2010-01-01 (1)2012-12-18 (1)2020-01-01 (1)Membership Over TimeAllBy 2020, the same Pew study found the global Buddhist population had fallen further to 324 million (just over 4 percent of world population), a 5 percent decline over the decade, the only major religious group worldwide to shrink in absolute numbers, attributed to religious disaffiliation in East Asia and a comparatively low birth rate among Buddhist-majority populations. (1)In its December 2012 Global Religious Landscape study, Pew Research Center estimated about 488 million Buddhists worldwide as of 2010, 7 percent of the global population, a figure the study notes includes members of groups that identify as Buddhist such as Soka Gakkai and Hoa Hao. (1)Pew's June 2025 update to the same study revised its own 2010 Buddhist estimate sharply downward, to 343 million (just under 5 percent of world population), citing East Asian religious identity being deeply embedded with local folk religions, so many practitioners do not formally self-identify as Buddhist in survey terms. Both the 2012 report's 488 million and this 343 million figure describe the same year, 2010, under two different Pew methodologies, and are recorded here side by side rather than one replacing the other. (1)Origin AccountAllBuddhism traces its origin to the awakening of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, in the fifth century BCE in northern India. (1)Origin PeriodAllThe Buddha's dates are contested (traditional 563-483 BCE, critical scholarship c. 480-400 BCE) (1)Origin Period End YearAll400 BCE (1)Origin Period Start YearAll500 BCE (1)Place of OriginAllThe middle Ganges plain of north-eastern India: Magadha and Kosala (1)Practice StatusAllLiving, and practised in varied local forms (1)Standing Giving ExpectationAllDana, giving, is a shared ethical foundation across the Buddhist tradition, asked of every lay follower with no fixed rate or amount, in explicit contrast to a percentage-based tithe. A Buddhist Publication Society compilation of Pali Canon teaching on dana, already cited on this axis for the Theravada school fact, states that a gift's merit rests chiefly on the giver's intention rather than the gift's size. Each of the tradition's major branches, already recorded individually on this axis, carries its own documented expression of the same no-fixed-rate ethic: Theravada's daily almsround supporting monastics, Mahayana's dana paramita as one of the perfections and its historic role financing temple institutions, and Vajrayana's ngondro mandala offering, a formally counted practice with a set numerical target rather than an open-ended one. This religion-level fact records the shared ethic those three branch-level facts already document in its own tradition-specific detail. (1)Status TodayAllLiving tradition, practised today (1)TheologyAllNon-theistic: no creator god is central (1)Transgression CategoryAllByapada: ill will, the second of the Five Hindrances. (1)Dvesha (dosa): hatred or aversion, the second of the Three Poisons. (1)Kama-chanda: sensory desire, the first of the Five Hindrances (pancha nivarana) to meditative clarity. (1)Moha: delusion, or ignorance of the true nature of things, the third and most fundamental of the Three Poisons. (1)Raga (lobha): greed, craving or attachment, the first of the Three Poisons said to bind beings to samsara. (1)Thina-middha: sloth and torpor, the third of the Five Hindrances. (1)Uddhacca-kukkucca: restlessness and worry, the fourth of the Five Hindrances. (1)Vicikiccha: doubt, the fifth of the Five Hindrances. (1)BuddhismTradition37 entriesConnectionsAssociated WithAsia, Continents Well-attested This source names Asia directly: "forest monks of Theravada Southeast Asia to the Seon and Pure Land masters of Korea and China and the hierarchs and treasure revealers of Tibet."Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1China, Countries Well-attested This source names China directly: "and Pure Land masters of Korea and China and the hierarchs and treasure revealers of Tibet."Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Pure Land, Denominations Well-attested This source names Pure Land directly: "Southeast Asia to the Seon and Pure Land masters of Korea and China and the hierarchs and treasure revealers of Tibet."Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Theravada, Denominations Well-attested This source names Theravada directly: "and history, from the forest monks of Theravada Southeast Asia to the Seon and Pure Land masters of Korea and China and the hierarchs and treasure revealers of Tibet."Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Sources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Treetier 1Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.