Buddhism crosses Asia
Missionaries and merchants carry the dharma along the trade routes.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 749 years
- Known to
- ± 50 years
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
From Ashoka's missions onward Buddhism spreads to Sri Lanka, Central Asia, and along the Silk Road into China by the first century CE, then Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia. It splits into Theravada and Mahayana traditions, the latter developing the bodhisattva ideal of postponing one's own liberation for others. It is arguably the first religion to spread deliberately across cultures without conquest, adapting to each rather than replacing it wholesale.