Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online

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Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, published both in print and online, is the first comprehensive academic reference work devoted to the plurality of Buddhist traditions across Asia, offering readers a balanced and detailed treatment of this complex phenomenon in seven thematically arranged volumes: Literature and Languages (I, publ. 2015), Lives (II, publ. 2019), Thought (III, forthcoming 2024), History: South Asia, IV-1 (forthcoming 2023), History: Central and East Asia, IV-2 (2023) Life and Practice, V (forthcoming 2026), index and remaining issues VI (forthcoming 2027).


Each volume contains substantial original essays by many of the world’s foremost scholars, essays which not only cover basic information and well-known issues but which also venture into areas as yet untouched by modern scholarship. An essential tool for anyone interested in Buddhism, the online resource will provide easy access to the encyclopedia’s ever-growing corpus of information.
The online edition of History: Central and East Asia, IV-2, has been published online in November 2023 with further volumes following after their original publication in print.


Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism is under the general editorial control of Jonathan Silk (Leiden University, editor-in-chief). Each volume has a dedicated board of specialist editors and in later volumes also a volume editor; in the series so far this includes Richard Bowring (University of Cambridge), Vincent Eltschinger (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris), Oskar von Hinuber (Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg) and Michael Radich (Heidelberg University).



More information: Brill.com

Languages: Central Asian Languages

(6,069 words)

Author(s): Georges-Jean Pinault
The following survey covers several languages that reflect the spread of Buddhism from India to the north, that is, to Iranian-speaking territories of present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, eastern Iran, and Transoxiana, and to Chinese Turkestan, in present-day Xinjiang, and finally to the interior of China and the steppes of Mongolia, roughly from the last centuries before the Common Era until the 15th century ce. These languages belong to different linguistic families: Middle Iranian and Tocharian languages are two separate branches of the Indo-European lang…
Source: Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online

Languages: Indic

(7,959 words)

Author(s): Oskar von Hinüber
The linguistic history of Buddhism begins with a lost language, that of the Buddha. The most ancient languages extant are Pali, Gandhari, and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. These, however, are derived from a still earlier language (Buddhist Middle Indic), which can be reconstructed, if only to a very limited extent. From the very beginning, a large variety of Middle Indic languages, later also Sanskrit, was used by Buddhists, out of which, in the course of time, certain individual languages were sele…
Source: Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online

Languages: Mainland Southeast Asia (Mon, Khmer, and Thai)

(3,837 words)

Author(s): Christian Bauer
Several major vernacular languages in which Buddhist texts were transmitted in continental Southeast Asia are, in chronological order, Mon, Khmer, Burmese, and Thai; peripheral literary traditions confined to the northwest include Shan, Tai Khün, and Pwo Karen.Affiliations and Structural Characteristics of the LanguagesMon and Khmer belong to two distinct and independent branches of the Austroasiatic language family, the former originating in the center of what is today northeastern Thailand. What structural similarities their early for…
Source: Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online

Languages: Tibetan

(5,409 words)

Author(s): Nathan W. Hill
Tibetan is a member of the Trans-Himalayan language family. Also known as Tibeto-Burman and Sino-Tibetan, this family includes Chinese, Burmese, Newar, Lepcha, Meithei, and several hundred languages without literary traditions; agreement prevails that Tibetan is on the family’s Bodish branch (see fig. 1).Tibetan enters history as the language of the Yarlung Valley, the cradle of the Tibetan Empire (Takeuchi, 2012b, 4). Together with the troops of this empire, the language colonized the entire Tibetan plateau, extinguishing the languages…
Source: Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online

Laṅkāvatārasūtra

(3,860 words)

Author(s): Shanshan Jia
The Laṅkāvatārasūtra is one of the most important scriptural sources for later Mahāyāna doctrine, presenting a combination of śūnyatā (emptiness), tathāgatagarbha (buddha embryo), and ālayavijñāna (storehouse consciousness) theories. It is generally considered to have been composed in a comparatively late phase of the compilation of the Mahāyāna sūtras, not earlier than the 3rd century ce, and in any event after the formation of the corpus of Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. Its exact dating, however, is controversial, due to the evident relation between the composition …
Source: Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online

Lcang skya Rol pa’i Rdo rje

(3,803 words)

Author(s): Wang Xiangyun
Rol pa’i Rdo rje, the third Lcang skya Rin po che (Zhangjia Lama [章 嘉 喇嘛] or huofo [活佛], 1717–1786), was an important Buddhist figure at the Qing Court and acted as a key intermediary between the Qianlong emperor (乾隆 ; 1711–1799) and Inner Asia. His life story and achievements are impressive, and his influence was prominent among Mongol, Manchu, Tibetan, and Chinese Buddhists. Two biographies of Rol pa’i Rdo rje were written by his contemporaries: one by his brother Ngag dbang thub bstan dbang phyug, the Chu bzang Bla ma (1725–1796); and the other by Blo bza…
Source: Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online