New Vistas in the Study of Buddhism: Guide to Educators

The spread of Buddhism across Asia is well documented in scholarly works. The transmission of Buddhism which is often described as a linear process spreading from ancient India to other parts of Asia is being questioned, and scholars are aiming at reading the multiple voices of Buddhism not only in Sri Lanka, southeast Asia and China but in countries like Korea, Japan and Vietnam. The complexities in the spread of Buddhism are being recognized. In the process, new themes are emerging and the book that caught my attention recently for its novel theme was Buddhist Asia edited by Christoph Kleine, Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz, and Hubert Seiwert (De Gruyter, 2025). The book argued that the doctrinal and institutional peculiarities of Buddhism enabled it to play a distinctive role in the development of Asian secularities. Buddhist ideas formed an integral part of the dominant epistemes in regions of Asia.