Gordon Douglas has traditionally been seen as the first European to become ordained as a Bhikkhu in Southeast Asia, although Laurence Carroll (U Dhammaloka) and others are now understood to have been earlier. [1] He was ordained in Siam in 1899 or 1900 and assumed the name Bhikkhu Asoka or Bhikkhu Ashoka. [2] There are conflicting accounts of what happened after his ordination. One account is that he died six months later, the cause being cholera. The other account is that he relocated to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and lived there until his death in 1905. [2] The latter is more likely because Dr. Cassius Pereira, later Bhikkhu Kassapa Thera, gives an account of him in Ceylon and interacting with his family. [3]
Ānanda was the primary attendant of the Buddha and one of his ten principal disciples. Among the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda stood out for having the best memory. Most of the texts of the early Buddhist Sutta-Piṭaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council. For that reason, he is known as the Treasurer of the Dhamma, with Dhamma referring to the Buddha's teaching. In Early Buddhist Texts, Ānanda was the first cousin of the Buddha. Although the early texts do not agree on many parts of Ānanda's early life, they do agree that Ānanda was ordained as a monk and that Puṇṇa Mantānīputta became his teacher. Twenty years in the Buddha's ministry, Ānanda became the attendant of the Buddha, when the Buddha selected him for this task. Ānanda performed his duties with great devotion and care, and acted as an intermediary between the Buddha and the laypeople, as well as the saṅgha. He accompanied the Buddha for the rest of his life, acting not only as an assistant, but also a secretary and a mouthpiece.
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths are "the truths of the Noble Ones", the truths or realities for the "spiritually worthy ones". The truths are:
Theravāda is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed Theravādins, have preserved their version of Gautama Buddha's teaching or Buddha Dhamma in the Pāli Canon for over two millennia.
Dennis Philip Edward Lingwood, known more commonly as Sangharakshita, was a British spiritual teacher and writer. In 1967, he founded the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO), which was renamed the Triratna Buddhist Community in 2010.
The Vinaya texts are texts of the Buddhist canon (Tripitaka) that also contain the rules and precepts for fully ordained monks and nuns of Buddhist Sanghas. The precepts were initially developed thirteen years after the Buddha's enlightenment. Three parallel Vinaya school traditions remain in use by modern ordained sanghas: the Theravada, Mulasarvastivada and Dharmaguptaka. In addition to these three Vinaya traditions, five other Vinaya schools of Indian Buddhism are preserved in Asian canonical manuscripts, including those of the Kāśyapīya, the Mahāsāṃghika, the Mahīśāsaka, the Sammatīya, and the Sarvāstivāda.
Buddhaghosa was a 5th-century Indian Theravada Buddhist commentator, translator and philosopher. He worked in the Great Monastery (Mahāvihāra) at Anurādhapura, Sri Lanka and saw himself as being part of the Vibhajjavāda school and in the lineage of the Sinhalese Mahāvihāra.
Anagārika Dharmapāla was a Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist and a writer.
Charles Henry Allan Bennett was an English Buddhist and former member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He was an early friend and influential teacher of occultist Aleister Crowley.
Saṅghamittā was an Indian Buddhist nun and believed to be the eldest daughter of Emperor Ashoka and his first wife, Devi. Together with her brother Mahinda, she entered an order of Buddhist monks. The two siblings later went to Sri Lanka to spread the teachings of Buddha at the request of King Devanampiya Tissa who was a contemporary of Ashoka. Ashoka was initially reluctant to send his daughter on an overseas mission. However, because of the insistence of Sangamitra herself, he finally agreed. She was sent to Sri Lanka together with several other nuns to start the nun-lineage of Bhikkhunis at the request of King Tissa to ordain queen Anulā and other women of Tissa's court at Anuradhapura who desired to be ordained as nuns after Mahindra converted them to Buddhism.
Theravada Buddhism is the largest and official religion of Sri Lanka, practiced by 70.2% of the population as of 2012. Practitioners of Sri Lankan Buddhism can be found amongst the majority Sinhalese population as well as among the minority ethnic groups. Sri Lankan Buddhists share many similarities with Southeast Asian Buddhists, specifically Myanmar Buddhists and Thai Buddhists due to traditional and cultural exchange. Sri Lanka is one of five nations with a Theravada Buddhist majority.
Walpola Rahula Thero was a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk, scholar and writer. In 1964, he became the Professor of History and Religions at Northwestern University, thus becoming the first bhikkhu to hold a professorial chair in the Western world. He also once held the position of Vice-Chancellor at the then Vidyodaya University. He has written extensively about Buddhism in English, French and Sinhala. He wrote the book What the Buddha Taught about Theravada Buddhism.
Buddhism in Cambodia or Khmer Buddhism has existed since at least the 5th century. In its earliest form it was a type of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Today, the predominant form of Buddhism in Cambodia is Theravada Buddhism. It is enshrined in the Cambodian constitution as the official religion of the country. Theravada Buddhism has been the Cambodian state religion since the 13th century. As of 2019 it was estimated that 97. 1 percent of the population are Buddhists.
Buddhism in the United Kingdom has a small but growing number of adherents which, according to a Buddhist organisation, is mainly a result of conversion. In the UK census for 2011, there were about 247,743 people who registered their religion as Buddhism, and about 174,000 who cited religions other than Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Jainism and Sikhism. This latter figure is likely to include some people who follow the traditional Chinese folk religion which also includes some elements of Buddhism.
Ñāṇavīra Thera was an English Theravāda Buddhist monk, ordained in 1950 in Sri Lanka. He is known as the author of Notes on Dhamma, which were later published by Path Press together with his letters in one volume titled Clearing the Path.
Buddhism in England has growing support. 238,626 people in England declared themselves to be Buddhist at the 2011 Census and 34% of them lived in London.
Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahathera, born as Anton Walther Florus Gueth, was one of the earliest Westerners in modern times to become a Bhikkhu, a fully ordained Buddhist monk.
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.
U Dhammaloka was an Irish-born migrant worker turned Buddhist monk, strong critic of Christian missionaries, and temperance campaigner who took an active role in the Asian Buddhist revival around the turn of the twentieth century.
A bhikkhunī or bhikṣuṇī is a fully ordained female in Buddhist monasticism. Bhikkhunis live by the Vinaya, a set of either 311 Theravada, 348 Dharmaguptaka, or 364 Mulasarvastivada school rules. Until recently, the lineages of female monastics only remained in Mahayana Buddhism and thus were prevalent in countries such as China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Vietnam, while a few women have taken the full monastic vows in the Theravada and Vajrayana schools. The official lineage of Tibetan Buddhist bhikkhunis recommenced on 23 June 2022 in Bhutan when 144 nuns were fully ordained.