Europe

Europe. European interest in Buddhism first began to develop during the colonial period. The earliest Buddhist texts to be studied in Europe were Mahāyāna Sanskrit manuscripts collected in Nepal by the British Resident, B. H. Hodgson. Another British civil servant who made an outstanding contribution to the study of Theravāda Buddhism was T. W. Rhys Davids (1843–1922). Rhys Davids became interested in Buddhism during his residence in Sri Lanka and went on to found the Pāli Text Society in 1881. The Society, based in Oxford, England, remains to this day the most important outlet for the publication of texts and translations of Pāli Buddhist literature. Professional scholars from many European countries played an important role in the transmission of Buddhism to the West. In 1845 the Frenchman Eugène Burnouf published his Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism and followed this seven years later with a translation of the Lotus Sūtra. Interest in Buddhism in Germany was stimulated by the publication of Herman Oldenberg's The Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine, his Community in 1881. The great Belgian scholars Louis de la Vallée Poussin and (later) Étienne Lamotte also made an enormous contribution through their work with Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese sources. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was the first major Western thinker to take an interest in Buddhism. Due to the absence of reliable sources, Schopenhauer had only an imperfect knowledge of Buddhism, and saw it as confirming his own somewhat pessimistic philosophy. Of all the world religions Buddhism seemed to him the most rational and ethically evolved, and the frequent references to Buddhism in his writings brought it to the attention of Western intellectuals in the latter part of the 19th century. In England, Sir Edwin Arnold (1832–1904) published his famous poem The Light of Asia in 1879. The poem describes the life and teachings of the Buddha in a melodramatic style. The German novelist Herman Hesse often alluded to Buddhist themes in his writings, notably in his 1922 novel Siddhartha which has been translated into many languages (the eponymous protagonist of the novel is not Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha).

In more recent times, immigration has influenced the situation of Buddhism in Europe, although not to the degree it has done in the USA. Although the United Kingdom has received large numbers of Asian immigrants these have come mainly from the Indian subcontinent and are mostly Hindus or Muslims. There are some 19,000 refugees from Indochina in Britain, 22,000 in Germany, and 97,000 in France. The majority of Buddhists in Europe are Caucasians who have converted to Buddhism rather than immigrants who brought their beliefs with them. Although accurate numbers are difficult to come by, in the UK there are around 100 Tibetan centres, about 90 Theravāda centres, and some 40 zen centres, together with a further 100 or so other groups including the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. As in north America, converts to Buddhism come predominantly from the middle classes. The increase in the popularity of Buddhism has been notable although less spectacular than in north America. Estimates suggest there are over a million Buddhists in Europe, with about 200,000 in the UK and an equivalent number in France.