Buddhism in Central Asia mainly existed in Mahayana forms and was historically especially prevalent along the Silk Road. The history of Buddhism in Central Asia is closely related to the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism during the first millennium of the common era. Buddhism dominated in Pre-Islamic Central Asia. It has been argued that the spread of Indian culture and religions, especially Buddhism, as far as Sogdia, corresponded to the rule of the Kidarites over the regions from Sogdia to Gandhara.
Buddhism has now been largely replaced by Islam in modern Central Asia. Uzbekistan"The results of the national population census in 2009". Agency of Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 12 November 2010. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 21 January 2010. and Kazakhstan have the most Buddhists, largely practiced by their Koryo-saram minority, although the former has the lowest percentage of Buddhists. Due to historical Tibetan, Mongol and Manchurian influence, Kyrgyzstan has the highest percentage of Buddhists in Central Asia.
History Buddhist monastic groups A number of Early Buddhist schools were historically prevalent throughout Central Asia. A number of scholars identify three distinct major phases of missionary activities seen in the history of Buddhism in Central Asia, which are associated with the following sects (chronologically):Willemen, Charles. Dessein, Bart. Cox, Collett. Sarvastivada Buddhist Scholasticism. 1997. p. 126
Dharmaguptaka Sarvāstivāda Mūlasarvāstivāda
The Dharmaguptaka made more efforts than any other sect to spread Buddhism outside India, to areas such as Afghanistan, Central Asia, and China, and they had great success in doing so.Warder, A.K. Indian Buddhism. 2000. p. 278 Therefore, most countries which adopted Buddhism from China, also adopted the Dharmaguptaka vinaya and ordination lineage for bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs. According to A.K. Warder, in some ways in those East Asian countries, the Dharmaguptaka sect can be considered to have survived to the present.Warder, A.K. Indian Buddhism. 2000. p. 489 Warder further writes:Warder, A.K. Indian Buddhism. 2000. pp. 280-281
In the 7th century CE, Yijing grouped the Mahīśāsaka, Dharmaguptaka, and Kāśyapīya together as sub-sects of the Sarvāstivāda, and stated that these three were not prevalent in the "five parts of India," but were located in some parts of Oḍḍiyāna, Khotan, and Kucha.Yijing. Li Rongxi (translator). Buddhist Monastic Traditions of Southern Asia. 2000. p. 19
Greco-Buddhism
Buddhism in Central Asia began with the syncretism between Western Classical Greek philosophy and Indian Buddhism in the Hellenistic successor kingdoms to Alexander the Great's empire (Greco-Bactrian Kingdom 250 BCE-125 BCE and Indo-Greek Kingdom 180 BCE - 10 CE), spanning modern Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. See Greco-Buddhism and Dayuan (Ta-yuan; ; literarily "Great Ionians"). The later Kushan empire would adopt the Greek alphabet (Bactrian language), Greco-Buddhist art forms and coinage, and Greco-Buddhist religion of these Hellenistic kingdoms.Halkias “When the Greeks Converted the Buddha: Asymmetrical Transfers of Knowledge in Indo-Greek Cultures.” In Religions and Trade: Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West, ed. Volker Rabens. Leiden: Brill, 2013: 65-115.
The first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha himself are often considered a result of the Greco-Buddhist interaction. Before this innovation, Buddhist art was "aniconic": the Buddha was only represented through his symbols (an empty throne, the Bodhi tree, the Buddha's footprints, the Dharma wheel). This reluctance towards anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha, and the sophisticated development of aniconic symbols to avoid it (even in narrative scenes where other human figures would appear), seem to be connected to one of the Buddha's sayings, reported in the Digha Nikaya, that discouraged representations of himself after the extinction of his body."Due to the statement of the Master in the Dighanikaya disfavouring his representation in human form after the extinction of body, reluctance prevailed for some time". Also "Hinayanis opposed image worship of the Master due to canonical restrictions". R.C. Sharma, in "The Art of Mathura, India", Tokyo National Museum 2002, p.11
Probably not feeling bound by these restrictions, and because of "their cult of form, the Greeks were the first to attempt a sculptural representation of the Buddha". In many parts of the Ancient World, the Greeks did develop syncretic divinities, that could become a common religious focus for populations with different traditions: a well-known example is the syncretic God Sarapis, introduced by Ptolemy I in Egypt, which combined aspects of Greek and Egyptian Gods. In India as well, it was only natural for the Greeks to create a single common divinity by combining the image of a Greek God-King (The Sun-God Apollo, or possibly the deified founder of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, Demetrius), with the traditional attributes of the Buddha.
Many of the stylistic elements in these first representations of the Buddha point to Greek influence: the Greek himation (a light toga-like wavy robe covering both shoulders), the halo, the contrapposto stance of the upright figures (see: 1st–2nd century Gandhara standing Buddhas Standing Buddha:Image and Standing Buddha:Image ), the stylized Mediterranean curly hair and top-knot apparently derived from the style of the Belvedere Apollo (330 BCE),Belvedere Apollo: Image and the measured quality of the faces, all rendered with strong artistic realism (See: Greek art). Some of the standing Buddhas (as the one pictured) were sculpted using the specific Greek technique of making the hands and sometimes the feet in marble to increase the realistic effect, and the rest of the body in another material. Foucher especially considered Hellenistic free-standing Buddhas as "the most beautiful, and probably the most ancient of the Buddhas", assigning them to the 1st century BCE, and making them the starting point of the anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha ("The Buddhist art of Gandhara", Marshall, p101).
Kushan Empire
At the beginning of the Kushan dynasty (), various religious systems were widespread in Central Asia. These included the cult of Anahit (originating in Armenia); Zoroastrianism, including the cults of Mithra/Mitra, Ormuzd, Verethragna and (especially in Khorezm and Sogd) Siyâvash; as well as the Greek pantheon, including Zeus, and Helios.
According to Chinese chronicles, Buddhism arrived in China in 147 from the Kushans (who were known in China by an older, Chinese exonym: the Great Yuezhi) and the work of Kushan missionaries resulted in Buddhism being adopted as the official religion of the court of the Chinese emperor, Emperor Huan of Han (reigned 146–168).
In the middle of the 2nd century, the Kushan empire under Kanishka I expanded into Central Asia and went as far as taking control of Kashgar, Khotan and Yarkand, in the Tarim Basin, modern Xinjiang. As a consequence, cultural exchanges greatly increased, and Central Asian Buddhist missionaries became active shortly after in the Chinese capital cities of Luoyang and sometimes Nanjing, where they particularly distinguished themselves by their translation work. They promoted both Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna scriptures.
The followers of Buddhism had been banished from Iran in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and found support in Central Asia, where Buddhism became widely practiced.
During modern archeological excavations in Khorezm (including Bazaar-Kala, Gyaur-Kala, Gyaz-Kala), Sogd (Tali-barzu, Zohak-i-Maron, Er-Kurgan and others) and Old Termez it was found that many settlements and forts dated back to the Kushan period. However, the largest number of traces of Buddhist culture during the Kushan period were found in Takhar previously Tukhara or Tokharistan, in modern Afghanistan.
Khotan
The ancient Kingdom of Khotan was one of the earliest Buddhist states in the world and a cultural bridge across which Buddhist culture and learning were transmitted from India to China. Its capital was located to the west of the modern city of Hotan. The inhabitants of the Kingdom of Khotan, like those of early Kashgar and Yarkand, spoke the Iranian Saka language.
Available evidence indicates that the first Buddhist missions to Khotan were carried out by the Dharmaguptaka sect:Heirman, Ann. Bumbacher, Stephan Peter. The Spread of Buddhism. 2007. p. 98
By the 3rd century CE, it appears that some Mahāyāna texts were known in Khotan, as reported by the Chinese monk Zhu Shixing 朱士行 (d. after 282):Forte, Erika. 2015. "A Journey “to the Land on the Other Side”: Buddhist Pilgrimage and Travelling Objects from the Oasis of Khotan." In Cultural Flows across the Western Himalaya, edited by Patrick Mc Allister, Cristina Scherrer-Schaub and Helmut Krasser, 151-185. Vienna: VÖAW. p.152.
When the Chinese monk Faxian traveled through Khotan, he recorded that everyone there was Buddhist. According to his accounts, there were fourteen main monasteries, and he stayed at the most important of these, the monastery of Gomatī, which housed 3000 Mahāyāna monks.Whitfield, Susan. The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith. 2004. p. 35 When Xuanzang was later traveling through Khotan in the 7th century, he wrote that the king came out to personally greet him at the border of Khotan. He was escorted to the capital, and lodged at a monastery of the Sarvāstivāda sect. Xuanzang records there being about 100 monasteries in Khotan, housing a total of 5000 monastics who all studied the Mahāyāna.
A manuscript in Tibetan called The Religious Annals of Khotan was found at Dunhuang, and may date to sometime in the 8th century CE.Nattier, Jan. Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline. 1991. p. 200 It describes the initial appearance of Buddhism in Khotan, including the eight major tutelary deities of Khotan, the "self-originated bodhisattvas" of the country, and a description of the major principles of the Śrāvakayāna and the Mahāyāna, though the Mahāyāna is given preeminence. The śrāvakas are depicted as entering the Dharma through the Four Noble Truths, while the Mahāyāna bodhisattvas are depicted as entering through non-conceptualization and the Śūraṅgama Samādhi.
After the Tang dynasty, Khotan formed an alliance with the rulers of Dunhuang. Khotan enjoyed close relations with the Buddhist center at Dunhuang: the Khotanese royal family intermarried with Dunhuang élites, visited and patronized Dunhuang's Buddhist temple complex, and donated money to have their portraits painted on the walls of the Mogao grottoes. Through the 10th century, Khotanese royal portraits were painted in association with an increasing number of deities in the caves.
Khotan's indigenous dynasty (all of whose royal names are Indian in origin) governed a fervently Buddhist city-state boasting some 400 temples in the late 9th / early 10th century—four times the number recorded by Xuanzang around the year 630 CE. The Buddhist kingdom was independent but was intermittently under Chinese control during the Han and Tang dynasty.
Shanshan
Buddhism was known to be prevalent in the kingdom of Shanshan. An inscription in the Kharoṣṭhī script was found at Endere, originally written around in the middle of the 3rd century CE. The inscription describes the king of Shanshan as a follower of Mahāyāna Buddhism — one who has "set forth in the Great Vehicle."Walser, Joseph. Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. 2005. p. 31 The king who this refers to was probably Aṃgoka, who was the most powerful king of Shanshan. According to Richard Salomon, there is every reason to believe that Mahāyāna Buddhism was prominent in Shanshan at this time and enjoyed royal patronage.