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Like
Christianity and Islam, Buddhism is a missionary religion
in that it has always believed that the truth it teaches
should be made known to as many people as possible. After
the Buddha made and trained his first disciples he gave
them this commission: "Go ye forth for the good of
the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion
for the world. Let no two of you go in the same direction,
teach the Dhamma that is beautiful in the beginning, middle and
end, expound both the spirit and the letter of the holy
life completely fulfilled, perfectly pure. There are beings
with but little dust in their eyes, who not hearing the
Dhamma will decline but who, if they do hear it will grow".
However, the strategies and techniques that the Buddhist
missionaries have used in conversion have always been
markedly different from those of some other faiths. Both
now and in the past Buddhist missionaries would arrive
in an area, usually on invitation, and begin teaching
those who came to listen to them or translating text into
local languages. They usually also tried to find common
features with the already established religion rather
than oppose it. Buddhist missionary endeavour is therefore
usually gentle, unobtrusive and a response to a need rather
than the creating of a need.
After
the Buddha's direct disciples themselves, the next significant
Buddhist missionaries were those sponsored by King Asoka
who were sent to all the religions of
India, Sri Lanka and Burma
and to as far away as Libya, Egypt and Syria. The last
great Buddhist missionary success was the conversion of
the Buriats and the Kalmaks in the Russian Far East by
Tibetan monks in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first
modern missionary to the West was the Sri Lankan, Anagarika
Dhammapala at the end of the 19th century. Today Buddhist
missionaries from many countries are now actively working
in the West and although the signs look encouraging so
far it remains to be seen what the long term results of
their endeavours will be.
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