When we talk about the religion that worships the Buddha, we refer to it as singular: Buddhism. However, it may be more accurate to talk about “Buddhisms.” The religion that originated in India took on so many different forms and adapted in such a variety ways that it is often difficult to see how the various sects of Buddhism are related. What do they all have in common? The worship of the Buddha, of course! But who was Buddha? Was Buddha a man or a god? In early forms of Buddhism, Buddha is most definitely a man. As the religion changes and adapts, the Buddha is deified.

Find out more about Buddhism's origins, doctrines, and the distinctive features of its major schools, to understand how Buddhism impacts our world.

There is nothing that does not flow forth from the Dharma Realm, and there is nothing that does not return to the Dharma Realm.

The Sanskrit textual corpus used in BuddhaNexus was obtained from the Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages (GRETIL, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), the Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon (DSBC, University of the West), some files from SuttaCentral (SC), and a couple of files obtained from individual researchers...

The University of the West is engaged in a ground-breaking project to gather, digitize and distribute the original Sanskrit scriptures of the Buddhist faith. Although Buddhism disappeared from its Indian homeland about eight centuries ago, many of its sacred texts are still preserved in Nepal. Since 2003, with the collaboration of Kathmandu’s Nagarjuna Institute, these texts are again being brought to the world...