The spread of Buddhism across Asia (2014)

This map, originally created by Gunawan Kartapranata in 2014 and subsequently translated into Spanish by Rowan Windwhistler, represents the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia throughout history.

The map uses three colours to identify different areas:

• Dark orange: original core of Buddhism in the Ganges Valley.
• Light orange: current area where Buddhism is still the majority religion.
• Yellow: regions where Buddhism was present in the past.

In addition, the illustration is accompanied by several coloured arrows explaining the different phases of expansion of the various schools of this religion:

• Black: early Buddhist schools.
• Red: Mahayana.
• Green: Theravada.
• Blue: Vajrayana

The map also includes dates that help to understand when Buddhism first appeared, in the 6th century BC, and later spread to different regions.

Sources

• Buddhist Expansion-en
• Buddhist Expansion