Buddhism
For more details on this topic, see Buddhism in Khotan.The kingdom was one of the major centers of Buddhism. Buddhism was introduced in the first century BCE. Up until the 11th century, the vast majority of the population was Buddhist.
The kingdom is primarily associated with the Mahayana branch. According to the Chinese pilgrim Faxian who passed through Khotan in the fourth century:
The country is prosperous and the people are numerous; without exception they have faith in the Dharma and they entertain one another with religious music. The community of monks numbers several tens of thousands and they belong mostly to the Mahayana.It differed in this respect to Kucha, a Śrāvakayāna-dominated kingdom on the opposite side of the desert. Fa-Hsien account of the city states it had fourteen large and many small Buddhist monasteries. Many foreign languages, including Chinese, Sanskrit, Prakrit and Tibetan were used in cultural exchange.
Read more about this topic: Kingdom Of Khotan
Famous quotes containing the word buddhism:
“A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)