Talk:Timeline of Buddhism

Proposal for Scope Limitation

Hi all. I'm not sure that 'government x attacks buddhist in place y' or 'group of buddhists x protests government y' events really belong on this timeline. While it's nice to include everything the modern timeline will become bloated with events that are trivial to the overall history of Buddhism if this trend continues. prat (talk) 15:11, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

• Further to this suggestion I am removing the transparently politically motivated / Chinese government sponsored 'World Buddhist' events of the last few years. Note that I am not a Tibetan Buddhist or western China-basher, I lived in the country seven years and have a lot of sympathy for all points of view: I just don't think these events are truly significant for Buddhism and should not be used here to effectively advertise a political agenda. prat (talk) 22:42, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
• I still have concerns about the bloat of recent day event and their probable irrelevance to the history of Buddhism. By all means it makes sense to mark the first Buddhist temple founded in a region (or even, per major Buddhist tradition) but including everything will rapidly render the timeline illegible. prat (talk) 07:52, 15 July 2011 (UTC), Dharmasthala, India

Timeline of Buddhist texts

Until now there is no timeline of Buddhist texts here. Anyone? Wiki-uk (talk) 15:57, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

See for a simple example Timeline of Hindu texts. Wiki-uk (talk) 05:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure how useful this would be, since to my understanding the historical Buddha is reputed to have specifically designed the sangha or an experientially focused, lineage scheme for the transmission of dhamma without resort to texts. The dates of texts are all very early, with the exception of latter accretions in Tibetan/Vajrayana and Mahayana, and commentaries. I could see value in discussing these dates within the context of early Buddhism, but I don't think it holds much water to timeline them, since most of those occuring later are distinct from historical Buddhism. Furthermore, early texts are often discovered in multiple and in different scripts or languages. Treating such texts as a single work then adds significant complexity to an attempted timeline since we can only suppose a text occured "prior to" the possibly available, possibly only roughly known attributed date of its earliest known copy. In short this is a pretty academic area which within the context of Wikipedia is probably hard to cover with adequate sources without falling in to original research. prat (talk) 21:41, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be worthwhile. Sutra/Sutta literature is of course difficult, but as Wiki-uk points out the Timeline of Hindu texts page, you can see that they just put a broad range for many of the earlier texts. Where this will be more useful would be in commentarial or treatise literature, the dates of which are often quite easy to determine (e.g. Nagarjuna, Asanga, Candrakirti) and in the case of East Asia can often be pinned down to a single year. I would welcome an attempt to begin a Timeline of Buddhist Texts. Alexoneill (talk) 17:09, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Year of First Council

The date of the First Council listed in this article as three months after the Buddha's death, 483 BCE, contradicts the First Buddhist council article, which says "the year after." This should be clarified with research and citations... which may be a challenge, given the academic debates about dating the Buddha's lifetime. Maybe there is a time span generally agreed upon by scholars? -Dekyi 13:56, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Creating different time-lines for each Buddhist country and Buddhist school

To avoid the timeline become too large and bloated -- which will inevitably happen since important events vary in each country, region and school -- it might be better to make different timelines for each country (e.g. Sri Lanka, Tibet), region (e.g. Europe, Southeast Asia) and school (e.g. Theravada, or Sri Lankan Theravada, Gelugpa). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyanatusita (talk • contribs) 18:35, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

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Details & tabels

@Alexoneill: your efforts are appreciated of course, but I think that these edits

• added too much detail on the life of the Buddha;
• tabels are more complicated to edit than plain lists;
• and a topical division is cleares than a long list of dates.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:29, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: Thank you for your comments, however, I am inclined to differ. Before I make further changes however, I would like to point out:

• There is no particular reason why not to have this bare-bones outline of the Buddha's life (as you know it could be far more detailed), as this is, after all, a Timeline of Buddhism. Simply having one point which notes inconsistencies in dating the parinirvana hardly do the topic justice. I would be open to reducing the detail further, but I am not open to having as little detail as you have reverted the article to having. I added a large deal of content, with citation, which you, without justification, have removed, this needs further conversation beforehand, and I am happy to discuss it further before including material again.
• Actually, tables are fairly common in timeline articles, e.g. Timeline of Japanese history, Timeline of Roman history, but I am open to not using tables. However, this does not mean you can discard changes I made to the timeline, just because you reverted the format, without discussion.
• The topical division does not make more sense. As I noted in the edit summary, the only objective and non-geographically biased way of categorizing periods is to use century divisions. This is done in most other timeline articles. In addition, the current topical divisions don't make sense. The Expansion of Buddhism division includes events at the time that did not take place in the "expansion" but in the ancestral heartland of Buddhism. Similarly, at the time of the Decline in India topic, most of the events are clearly NOT in India, which makes the topic division completely nonsensical. This should be brought into line with other timelines and made more objective by using century divisions.

To respect your editorial judgment (and I request the same), I shall await your reply. (Alexoneill (talk) 20:41, 23 October 2017 (UTC))

@Alexoneill: thank you for your reply. My further thoughts:

• Most of the details you added are legenday, not historical. Also, they're not necessary for an overview of Buddhist history. Details can be found in the article on Gautama Buddha
• The timelines you referred to are about countries c.q. states; that's one topic, sp to speak. Timeline of Christianity does not use tables.
• The topical division does make sense; that's how the topic is treated in textsbooks. One long list of dates is unclear. There is no need for a non-geographically "biased" way of presenting Buddhist history; on the contrary, Buddhist history differs per country.

Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:49, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan:

• Most early details in this article are legendary, e.g. "Second Buddhist council is convened by Kalasoka," (and uncited) as are a great deal of the details in the timeline of Roman history. Few things in ancient history can be pinned down with certainty. I think it is worthwhile including these details since it is an article about Buddhist history, while gradually working to reform the other aspects of the article that are lacking in citation (some of which I added and you removed without justification). I would be inclined to have a less detailed version than that I wrote earlier, with perhaps more qualifiers such as "purported," but you cannot remove chunks without justification.
• There is nothing inherent about country timelines that makes them different from religion timelines. There is no black and white rule for this. Also, editing a table is not much more difficult than this list.
• That is not true. Looking for instance at a few textbooks, e.g. "Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience" by Donald Mitchell uses a completely geographically independent outline, "The Experience of Buddhism" by John Strong also uses a completely different system. You need to back up your claims with evidence. The only way to provide a full timeline of Buddhism, without dividing into regions (an above suggestion which I think makes sense and we might as well consider) is to do so with centuries.

In response to our above discussion, I think it will make sense to revert to the century divisions and the table, but I will leave the life of the Buddha for now. When I, or someone else, has time, we can provide the bare-bones outline as suggested in the first point. Alexoneill (talk) 12:46, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

So it boils down to "I want it my way." You can open a RfC to ask for additonal comments from others. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:02, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

PS: see History of Buddhism for a relevant comparison at Wikipedia. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:05, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

PS2: Harvey takes a geographical approach in his description of Buddhist history; so does Buddhist Spirituality (ed. Takeuchi Yoshinori); Buddhism: Buddhist origins and the early history of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia (ed. Paul Williams); N. Ross Reat, Buddhism: A History. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:11, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: As you can see the History of Buddhism page actually does organize by centuries 'broadly' and then specifies individual locations. That is fine for such an article, but this is a timeline, and is not geographically isolated. The way in which the article developed is clearly ad hoc and no forethought had gone into it, I am the first to consider the rationality behind this structure and notice that it is wanting in various aspects. If you are in favour of geographical separation, then please take the lead and create the geographically separate timelines, but as of now, there is no way the information under the headings in the article prior to my revisions can be fit under those headings logically. Either rename or maintain my edit please.

As regards the table, I am not concerned, ultimately, with whether you prefer bullet points or a table, but in simply reverting the edit, you are also deleting a number of additions and corrects I made with citations. I intend to add further detail and revise the timeline in future to improve it overall, but what I do ask is that if you wish to revert it to bullet points, please do so manually (the way I laboriously created the table in the first place) and not just recklessly delete someone else's work. Either way, I'd like to see a thoughtful edit, not just a revision to an imperfect previous format. I feel like my edit was an improvement, and as you see, I am open to your criticisms, so please give some thought to this.

Thanks. Alexoneill (talk) 00:41, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Fine, go ahead. Maybe try to find some fitting images, to have some distinctions in what is otherwise a long list of dates. And try some overarching headers: Indian Buddhism; expansion; decline in India. etc. I think it makes the long list of data more accessible. Or try additional columns: India (South Asia), Sri Lanka, Tibet, China, Japan, western world. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:53, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: I am fine with the headings you suggest on the condition that we're talking about region specific timeline sections, which is mentioned further up on the talk page by Nyanatusita—for the timeline as it is currently, a heading like "expansion" doesn't make sense. That being said, I am also of the opinion that there is some advantage in having a single timeline, since we are not isolating regions that are in fact interacting with one another. Once we get to the modern world, the divisions and distinctions between "western world" and Asia become completely blurred, with people crossing back and forward on a regular basis. Just something to take into account. It will be easier to judge if someone can do it and we can see the results. At the moment I don't have the time however. Alexoneill (talk) 17:05, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

The regions are distinct. Until modern times, Theravada had no interaction with Tibetan Buddhism; Tibetan Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism have their own development aftet the introduction of Buddhism. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 03:54, 26 October 2017 (UTC)