Template talk:Buddhist traditions timeline

Mahayana and Vajrayana in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia
User:Sacca pointed out today that there was a Mahayana and Vajrayana presence on Sri Lanka and in Southeast Asia. To provide a basis for start and end dates for such, I'm looking at Robinson & Johnson (1970/1982), p. 112:
 * During the third and fourth centuries C.E., Mahayana influences reached the country [Ceylon/Sri Lanka], but its partisans did not enjoy royal favor for very long.... By the sixth century, ... Mahayana continued with the support of one monastery; by the eight and ninth centuries Perfection of Wisdom teachings and Buddhist Tantra had a place on the island, too.

So, at least according to this source, I could start the Mahayana sliver at about 300 CE and the Vajrayana sliver around 800 CE. Skimming Robinson & Johnson, I don't see an obvious end date (perhaps none should be used?); Sacca suggested the 11th c., so I'm going to use 1000 CE. Please, if anyone has a better source for start and end dates, please let us all know here. Also, if I error in using Sri Lanka to determine these dates because parts of SE Asia might need consideration, please identify that here too. (I make no claim to using the best start and end dates for just about any of this diagram :-) ). Thanks so much! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 19:39, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure. There are also other examples:
 * Burma: There must be Vajrayana stuff here prior to ~1000 since it existed in the Pala Kingdom to the west, and the Nanzhao kingdom to the east.
 * Cambodia: Angkor vacillated between these types of Buddhism and Hinduism.
 * Indonesia: Buddhist temples of Sumatra and Java.
 * Laos: Books / oral traditions suggesting that the first recorded king of Laos was a devotee of Vajrayana, and that he was therefore unpopular with his subjects.
 * Vietnam: I recall the Chams were mostly Hindu but might have some evidence Buddhism also?
 * You are definitely correct there should be some more holistic revision here. I would caution that some mention a text existed in a place doesn't imply anyone read it or it had any influence... as an overview we should probably establish baseline for relevance, ie. there is some archaeological or textual evidence of a community of monks or lay people studying the asserted tradition. prat (talk) 01:13, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Post-Islamic Buddhism in Central Asia
It seems the Central Asian picture needs to be revised. From Muslim conquest of Transoxiana: "The Buddhist Kara-Khitan Khanate conquered a large part of Central Asia from the Muslim Karluk Kara-Khanid Khanate in the 12th century. The Kara-Khitans also reintroduced the Chinese system of Imperial government, since China was still held in respect and esteem in the region among even the Muslim population, and the Kara-Khitans used Chinese as their main official language." As it happens I know a professor who is a Liao/Khitan expert, I will ask him for his opinion on sources for such. From fallible memory, Tajikistan seems archaeologically unexplored and with a heavy Buddhist tradition in the past ... not sure what the evidence is for its termination, and given the mountainous nature of the region it's feasible this continued for some time. Will have to take a look at sources for that, too. prat (talk) 16:21, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Template creation
This template was created after more than a week's worth of collaborative discussions on Talk:Buddhism in June 2008 and Nov-Dec 2008. The contributors to this diagram's contents and design were Peter jackson, Andi 3ö, Victor Klimov, Ninly, Nat Krause, OldMonkeyPuzzle, Mitsube and myself (though the final template is not necessarily endorsed by any one of these individuals :-) ). With metta/Tashi delegs, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 04:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I hereby officially endorse this template ;)
 * ...no, really: love it, love it love it! ...i admire all the work u put into it, Larry!! ...and enjoyed participating a little. Was so much fun seeing it evolve so rapidly. Great work!
 * I see u put it into two other articles as well. Great! It's so good to have this visual representation of the timeline at hand. Never felt i had such a clear idea of the chronological and geographical relationship of the different traditions before; helps a lot! Thanks again, with metta :)) Andi 3ö (talk) 07:37, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It was a great team effort! I too learned much during its development.  And thank you again for saving the diagram from talk-page oblivion, for making excellent design changes [you have a very impressive aesthetic sensibility!] and content recommendations, and for embodying the type of kind-hearted thoughtfulness that cultivated an unusually constructive discussion.  Kudos & sādhu! - Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 06:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Clarifying Zen Mahayanist Traditions
It's heavily misleading to suggest that these are from 100BCE, which is what the current design accomplishes. I am therefore going to add some clarity here by denominating each of the Mahayana traditions presently at the bottom of the timeline with more specific dates, which will move them towards the right. prat (talk) 21:47, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, done. Also introduced Nara which is important if you're visually delineating along the lines of major traditions, as it was more syncretic/open-minded than what the former graph suggested. It makes it clear that this was probably an extension of the vibrance of the Tang Dynasty Xi'an cultural wealth of the silk road. prat (talk) 02:00, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

New traditions to integrate
I don't have time to wrestle with this monster table at the moment but the following additional changes should be made. To be rolled in to the next edit... prat (talk) 10:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Addition of Tangmi to East Asia, from ~700 onward. This was the long surviving thread of Vajrayana/Tantric Buddhism in China which is still well physically evidenced at least as far east as Wutaishan and Beijing.
 * Addition of Tibetan sub-schools: The 'older' Nyingma tradition is in the earlier period of its attributed age actually probably fairly characterized as pre-segmentation pan-Tibetan Buddhism, dating from around ~700, so probably best not to delineate from the sarma schools until they emerge in the 11th century. Those schools are Kagyu, Sakya and Kadam/Geluk.
 * First one down (Tangmi) .. second to go... prat (talk) 03:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Second one seems to be potentially complicated by the appearance of more traditions over here. I will have a crack at figuring out which are worth adding with respect ot their overall significance/longevity/influence. prat (talk) 15:19, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, so far we've got...


 * Bon (to be excluded)
 * Why?
 * Apparently the Dalai Lama considers this one of the Tibetan traditions
 * It predates Buddhism in Tibet, but has Indian characteristics that may have paved the way
 * Difficult to rectify earlier presence since 'time immemorial' with delimited timeline
 * This is clearly not Bon's fault, and is a limitation of timelines :)
 * Difficult to rectify potentially less-Buddhist earlier Bon and potentially more Buddhist later bon with colours on timeline
 * Conclusion: forget including it since it's too hard to integrate and the whole thing is a bit murky anyway.
 * Newar Buddhism (too late in the picture for this timeline)
 * Nyingma (8th century onward .. generally considered the beginnings of 'Tibetan Buddhism')
 * Jonang (early 12th century onward) - founded by Yumo Mikyo Dorje
 * Kadam (~1020? onward) - founded by Atisha (982-1054)
 * Sub-tradition of the "New Kadampas" (Tib. Sarma Kadampa) appear beyond the end of the timeline
 * Sakya (~1073 onward) - Sakya Monastery, the first monastery of this tradition, and the seat of the Sakya School was built by Khon Konchog Gyalpo (1034–1102) in 1073.
 * Subschools Ngor and Tscha appear only beyond the end of the timeline.
 * Gelug (~1400 onward) - founded by Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), rose to pre-eminence over Tibet in 16th c. this begins beyond the end of the timeline so will be excluded.
 * Kagyu (~1050 onward) - from multiple apparently independent starts about that time, including Marpa, which antecedes the following
 * Lingre Kagyu (~1150 onward) - refers to the lineages founded by Lingrepa Pema Dorje (Wylie: gling ras pa padma rdo rje) [1128-1188][28] also known as Nephupa after Nephu monastery (sna phu dgon) he founded near Dorje Drak (rdo rje brag) in Central Tibet (dbus).
 * Dagpo Kagyu (~1140 onward) - all the branches of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism which trace their lineage back through Gampopa (1079-1153) who was also known as Dagpo Lhaje (Tibetan: དྭགས་པོ་ལྷ་རྗེ, Wylie: dwags po lha rje) ("the Physician from Dagpo") and as Nyamed Dakpo Rinpoche or the "Incomparible Precious One from Dagpo". All the institutional branches of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism surviving today including the Drikung Kagyu, Drukpa Kagyu and the Karma Kagyu are branches of the Dagpo Kagyu.
 * Drugpa Kagyu (~1200 onward) - established by Ling Repa's main disciple Tsangpa Gyare Yeshe Dorje (1161–1211) who established monasteries at Longbol (klong rbol) and Ralung (rwa lung). this seems one or two levels descended from dagpo, actually, according to the schools list that sparked this hunt. so we'll leave it out.

That means, in terms of the major schools, nyingma leads to most of the others simultaneously (kadam, kagyu, sakya) then a little later we jonang comes in to play. Both many subschools of these earlier schools and the major Gelug school are not visible because they are too late in the picture. In fact, the only major subschool that is shown of a major Tibetan tradition is kagyu dagpo. Those to be included are in bold above.

Unfortunately, we've only really got existing column alignments to the years 700, 800, 1000, 1200. Therefore we align as follows.
 * 700 = Nyingma
 * 800 = (nothing / continuation of nyingma)
 * 1000 = kadam, kagyu, sakya begin
 * 1200 = jonang begins, dagpo begins beneath kagyu

That looks like a reasonable revised plan. prat (talk) 17:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, all done. prat (talk) 17:57, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Early Buddhist schools (plural)
VictoriaGrayson has twice replaced the phrase "Early Buddhist Schools" with "Mahāsāṃghika". In my imperfect knowledge this is definitely inaccurate because the last time I delved in to matters of early Buddhist practice there were entire books written about the various early Buddhist schools and their philosophical differences. (Unfortunately my library is not currently at hand). However, the Early Buddhist schools does concur with this view. I have therefore reverted, for a second time, that edit, and would request that anyone requesting to re-instate the edit please provide a case here before doing so. prat (talk) 11:57, 27 June 2017 (UTC)