Buddhism in Central Asia

Due to historical Tibetan, Mongol and Manchurian influence, Kyrgyzstan[7] has the highest percentage of Buddhists in 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):[8] 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.

They appear to have carried out a vast circling movement along the trade routes from Aparānta north-west into Iran and at the same time into Oḍḍiyāna (the Suvastu valley, north of Gandhāra, which became one of their main centres).

[...] For the earlier period of Chinese Buddhism it was the Dharmaguptakas who constituted the main and most influential school, and even later their Vinaya remained the basis of the discipline there.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.

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: Buddhist characters are always represented with a dhoti loincloth before this innovation), the halo, the contrapposto stance of the upright figures (see: 1st–2nd century Gandhara standing Buddhas [15] and [16]), the stylized Mediterranean curly hair and top-knot apparently derived from the style of the Belvedere Apollo (330 BCE),[17] 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.

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.

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'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.

Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī, a Persian scholar and writer in service to the Ghaznavids, reported that around the start of the 10th century, the monasteries in Bactria, including Nava Vihāra, were still functioning and decorated with Buddha frescoes.

[31] Nava Vihara's hereditary administrators, the Iranian Barmakids, converted from Buddhism to Islam after the monastery's conquest and became powerful viziers under the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad.

In folktales and popular culture Ja'far has been associated with a knowledge of mysticism, sorcery, and traditions lying outside the realm of Islam.

Such traditions of mysticism and syncretism continued in Balkh, which was the birthplace of the medieval Persian poet Rumi, founder of the Mevlevi Sufi Order.

Thus, 11th-century Persian poems, such as Varqe and Golshah by Ayyuqi, use the word budh with a positive connotation for "Buddha," not with its second, derogatory meaning as "idol."

Other religious kings, such as the 16th century Mongol potentate Altan Khan, invited Buddhist teachers to their realm and proclaimed Buddhism as the official creed of the land in order to help unify their people and consolidate their rule.

In the process they may have prohibited certain practices of non-Buddhist, indigenous religions and even persecuted those who followed them, but these heavy-handed moves were primarily politically motivated.

[34] Buddhism in Kyrgyzstan has only one registered Buddhist community called “Chamsen”, which exists since 1996 and their membership consist of mainly Koreans, Russians and Kyrgyz.