The Expansion of Buddhism in India

This paper, study with those unfamiliar with the Buddhist tradition in mind. Hence, it is not an in-depth critical study of the relationship between Buddhism and expansion, but rather an overview of existing studies. Readers should also be reminded to reflect upon the gulf that often exists between ‘lived religion’ and the ideal version of the tradition that can be extracted from the texts. This is, on the one hand, a result of the fact that people often do not exactly follow or match up to the ideals of the traditions that they profess to follow. On the other hand, local cultural variations in religious belief and practice are also relevant and have an impact upon diversity within different traditions.