Persecution of Buddhists#Bangladesh

File:Tapa Shotor lunette.jpg.{{cite journal |last1=GREENE |first1=ERIC M. |title=Death in a Cave: Meditation, Deathbed Ritual, and Skeletal Imagery at Tape Shotor |journal=Artibus Asiae |date=2013 |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=265–294 |jstor=24240815 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24240815 |issn=0004-3648}}The Sarvāstivādin vihāra of Tapa Shotor, period VI (350-450).{{cite book |last1=Vanleene |first1=Alexandra |editor1-last=Rienjang |editor1-first=Wannaporn |editor2-last=Stewart |editor2-first=Peter |title=The Geography of Gandhāran Art Proceedings of the Second International Workshop of the Gandhāra Connections Project, University of Oxford, 22nd-23rd March, 2018 |date=2019 |publisher=Archaeopress Archaeology |location=Oxford |page=154 |chapter=Differences and similarities in Gandhāran art production: the case of the modelling school of Haḍḍa (Afghanistan)|url=https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/PublicFiles/media/Geography%20of%20Gandharan%20Art%20published%20files/10_32028-9781789691863P143-163.pdf}}]]

In the 3rd century, the Sasanian Empire overran Bactria, overthrowing Kushan Empire.{{Cite web |last=Berzin |first=Alexander |year=2001 |title=History of Buddhism in Afghanistan |url=https://studybuddhism.com/en/advanced-studies/history-culture/buddhism-in-central-asia/history-of-buddhism-in-afghanistan |access-date=2023-01-02 |website=studybuddhism.com |language=en}} Although strong supporters of Zoroastrianism, the Sasanians tolerated Buddhism and allowed the construction of more vihāras. It was during their rule that Lokottaravādins erected the two Buddhas of Bamiyan.

During the second half of the third century, Kartir, the Zoroastrian mowbadān-mowbad of the Empire, dominated the state's official religious policy. He ordered the destruction of several Buddhist monasteries in Afghanistan, since the amalgam of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism manifested in the form of Buddha-Mazda appeared to him as heresy. Buddhism quickly recovered after his death.

The first persecution of Buddhists in India took place in the 2nd century BC by King Pushyamitra Shunga, although it has been continuously refuted by many historians on various reasons.Encyclopedia of Buddhism: "Persecutions", P. 640. A non-contemporary Buddhist text states that Pushyamitra cruelly persecuted Buddhists. While some scholars believe he did persecute Buddhists based on the Buddhist accounts, others consider them biased because of him not patronising them.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vdu1AAAAIAAJ |title=Indigenous states of northern India, circa 200 B.C. to 320 A.D. |first=Bela |last=Lahiri |publisher=University of Calcutta |year=1974 |pages=34–35}} Many other scholars have expressed skepticism about the Buddhist claims. Étienne Lamotte points out that the Buddhist legends are not consistent about the location of Pushyamitra's anti-Buddhist campaign and his death: "To judge from the documents, Pushyamitra must be acquitted through lack of proof."Lamotte, E., Dantinne, J., & Webb-Boin, S. (1988). History of Indian Buddhism: From the origins to the Śaka era. Louvain-la-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste. Agreeing with him, D. Devahuti states that Pushyamitra's sudden destruction after offering rewards for Buddhist heads is "manifestly false". R. C. Mitra states that "The tales of persecution by Pushyamitra as recorded in Divyavadana and by Taranatha bear marks of evident absurdity."{{cite book |last1=Simmons|first1=Caleb|last2=Sarao|first2=K. T. S.|editor1-last=Danver|editor1-first=Steven L.|title=Popular Controversies in World History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=slVobUjdzGMC&pg=RA1-PA98 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2010 |isbn=9781598840780 |page=98 }}

Central Asian and Northwestern Indian Buddhism weakened following the Hephthalites invasion, who followed traditional religious practices as well as Manichaeism. Around 440, they conquered Sogdia then conquered Gandhara and pushed on into the Indo-Gangetic Plain. King Mihirakula, who ruled starting in 515, suppressed Buddhism, destroying monasteries as far as what is now Allahabad before his son reversed the policy.

Chinese scholars traveling through the region between the 5th and 8th centuries, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, Yijing, Hui-sheng, and Sung-Yun, began to speak of a decline of the Buddhist Sangha in the Northwestern parts of Indian subcontinent, especially in the wake of the Hun invasion from central Asia in the 6th century CE.{{cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780877790440 |url-access=registration|year=1999|publisher=Merriam-Webster|isbn=978-0-87779-044-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780877790440/page/155 155]–157 }} Xuanzang wrote that numerous monasteries in north-western India had been reduced to ruins by the Huns.{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism/Historical-Development#toc68658|title=Historical Development of Buddhism in India – Buddhism under the Guptas and Palas|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=12 September 2015}}

The Hun ruler Mihirakula, who ruled from 515 CE in north-western region (modern Afghanistan, Pakistan and north India), suppressed Buddhism as well. He did this by destroying monasteries as far away as modern-day Prayagraj.{{cite book |last=Nakamura |first=Hajime |title=Indian Buddhism: A Survey With Bibliographical Notes |year=1980 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publications |isbn=8120802721 |page=146}}

After the Kalabhra interregnum, the Tamil states of the Pandyas and Pallavas reemerged, reviving the Saivite and Vaishnavite native religions. Further, the Saivite saint Thirugnanasambandar theologically defeated 8000 Sramanas with Buddhist names among them. When they rebelled, they were impaled by Koon Pandiyan at Samanatham near Madurai. Mahendravarma Pallava under Appar, a reformed Saivite saint destroyed Sramana monuments and wrote Mattavilasaprahasana, a comic play on the heretical (non Vedic) sects of the time including Buddhism. These events are considered to be the ushering in of the Bhakti era in India which resulted in the routing of Buddhism in the India.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}

{{main| Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent}}

File:Dharmarajika Stupa1.JPG

File:Dhamekh Stupa, Sarnath.JPG of Sarnath]]

Another story is recounted by D N Jha, based on Rajatarangini, persecution of Buddhists also happened in the time of King Gonandiya-Ashoka (different from King Ashoka of Mauryan Empire). Jha writes that according to a book Rajatarangini, dated to the 12th century, Jalauka was a Shaivite and was responsible for the destruction of many Buddhist monasteries.{{Cite web|url=http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reviews-and-essays/dn-jha-destruction-buddhist-sites|title=Monumental Absence The destruction of ancient Buddhist sites|last=Jha|first=DN|date=1 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180709153810/http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reviews-and-essays/dn-jha-destruction-buddhist-sites|archive-date=2018-07-09|url-status=dead|access-date=9 July 2018}} The story of Jalauka is essentially legendary, and its to be noted that no independent corroboration of the Kashmir tradition has ever been discovered.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W0EbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA180|title=The Early History of India|publisher=Oxford University|year=1908|pages=180|oclc=235958116|last1=Smith|first1=Vincent A.|isbn=9788185205212|author-link=Vincent A. Smith}} {{PD-notice}} Patanjali, a famous grammarian stated in his Mahabhashya that Brahmins and Śramaṇa, which included Buddhists, were eternal enemies. With the emergence of Hindu rulers of the Gupta Empire, Hinduism saw a major revivalism in the Indian subcontinent which challenged Buddhism which was at that time at its zenith. Even though Gupta empire was tolerant towards Buddhism and patronized Buddhist arts and religious institutions, Hindu revivalism generally became a major threat to Buddhism which led to its decline.

A Buddhist illustrated palm leaf manuscript from Pala period (one of the earliest Indian illustrated manuscripts to survive in modern times) is preserved in University of Cambridge library. Composed in the year 1015, the manuscript contains a note from the year 1138 by a Buddhist believer called Karunavajra which indicates that without his efforts, the manuscript would have been destroyed during a political struggle for power. The note states that 'he rescued the Perfection of Wisdom, incomparable Mother of the Omniscient' from falling into the hands of unbelievers (who according to Camillo Formigatti were most probably people of Brahmanical affiliation).{{Cite web|url=http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/news/1000-year-old-manuscript-and-stories-it-tells|title=The 1,000-year-old manuscript and the stories it tells|last=Harper|first=Francesca|date=2015-05-12|publisher=University of Cambridge|access-date=2018-06-03}} In 1794 Jagat Singh, Dewan (minister) of Raja Chet Singh of Banaras began excavating two pre Ashokan era stupas at Sarnath for construction material. Dharmarajika stupa was completely demolished and only its foundation exists today while Dhamekh stupa incurred serious damage. During excavation a green marble relic casket was discovered from Dharmarajika stupa which contained Buddha's ashes was subsequently thrown into Ganges river by Jagat Singh according to his Hindu faith. The incident was reported by a British resident and timely action of East India Company officials saved Dhamekh Stupa from demolition.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h2Qh2zzNkNkC&q=Jagat+Singh,+the+Diwan+of+Raja+Chet+Singh+of+Banaras&pg=PA70|title=The Historical Buddha: The Times, Life, and Teachings of the Founder of Buddhism|last=Schumann|first=Hans Wolfgang|date=2004|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|page=70|isbn=9788120818170|language=en}}

The Asokavadana legend has been likened to a Buddhist version of Pushyamitra's attack of the Mauryas, reflecting the declining influence of Buddhism in the Shunga Imperial court. Later Shunga kings were seen as amenable to Buddhism and as having contributed to the building of the stupa at Bharhut.{{cite book |last1=Hirakawa |first1=Akira |last2=Groner |first2=Paul |date=1993 |title=A history of Indian Buddhism : from Śākyamuni to early Mahāyāna |location=Delhi |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |page=223 |isbn=81-208-0955-6}} The decline of Buddhism in India did not set in until the Gupta dynasty.

Archeological remains of stupas have been found in Deorkothar that suggest deliberate destruction, conjectured to be one mentioned in Divyavadana about Pushyamitra.{{cite web|url=http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/deorkothar/index.html |title=Article on Deokothar Stupas possibly being targeted by Pushyamitra |publisher=Archaeology.org |date=4 April 2001 |access-date=27 May 2013}} However, it is unclear whether the stupas were destroyed in ancient India or a much later period, and the existence of religious violence between Hinduism and Buddhism in ancient India has been disputed.Akira Hirakawa, Paul Groner, A History of Indian Buddhism: From Sakyamuni to Early Mahayan, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1996, {{ISBN|81-208-0955-6}}, p. 223{{cite book |title=India's Ancient Art|first=Tom |last=O'Neill |others=Benoy K. Behl |publisher=National Geographic Magazine |date=January 2008 |quote=The flow between faiths was such that for hundreds of years, almost all Buddhist temples, including the ones at Ajanta, were built under the rule and patronage of Hindu kings. |url=http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=4,5605,0,0,1,0}} It is unclear when the Deorkothar stupas were destroyed, and by whom. The fictional tales of Divyavadana is considered by scholarsAndy Rotman (Translator), Paul Harrison et al (Editors), Divine Stories - The Divyāvadāna Part 1, Wisdom Publications, Boston, {{ISBN|0-86171-295-1}}, Introduction, [http://www.wisdompubs.org/sites/default/files/preview/Divine%20Stories%20Book%20Preview_0.pdf Preview summary of book] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170805101928/http://www.wisdompubs.org/sites/default/files/preview/Divine%20Stories%20Book%20Preview_0.pdf|date=2017-08-05}} as being of doubtful value as a historical record. Moriz Winternitz, for example, stated, "these legends [in the Divyāvadāna] scarcely contain anything of much historical value". Similarly, Paul Williams states that the persecution claims with alleged dates of Buddha's nirvana (400 BCE) and the subsequent Pusyamitra reign, as depicted in the Mahasanghika school of early Buddhism are the "most far fetched of all the arguments and hardly worth of any further discussion".{{cite book|author=Paul Williams|title=Buddhism: Buddhist origins and the early history of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tg2-QU2J10YC |year=2005|publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-33227-9 |pages=66 footnote 8 }}

According to other scholars, the Shunga kings were seen as more amenable to Buddhism and as having contributed to the building of the stupa at BharhutAkira Hirakawa, Paul Groner, A History of Indian Buddhism: From Sakyamuni to Early Mahayan, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1996, {{ISBN|978-81-208-0955-0}}, p. 223 and an inscription at Bodh Gaya at the Mahabodhi Temple records the construction of the temple as follows, "The gift of Nagadevi the wife of King Brahmamitra". Another inscription reads: "The gift of Kurangi, the mother of living sons and the wife of King Indragnimitra, son of Kosiki. The gift also of Srima of the royal palace shrine."{{Cite journal |title=Old Buddhist Shrines at Bodh-Gaya Inscriptions |url=http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ENG/bar.htm |access-date=2023-01-02 |author1=B.M. Barua |journal=The Indian Historical Quarterly |volume=VI |issue=1 |date=March 1930 |pages=1–31}}

The Hindu and Buddhist communities between 6th to 12th centuries living in eastern India had engaged in intense conflicts. Buddhist monasteries and Viharas had been converted into Hindu temples. In 2015, an archeological team by Jahangirnagar University discovered Hindu temples on 13 demolished stupas in Dinajpur. The construction may date back to between 8th to the 11th century, during Pala period. The excavation found the temples after digging 3,600 square feet at ‘Itakura Dhibi’ at Setabganj’s Ranagaon Union. Professor Swadhin Sen states the conversation of Buddhist religious structures to Hindu temples. Evidences suggests Gokul Medh's conversion to Hindu site. The Siddheshwar Shiva temple at West Bengal’s Bakurar Bahulraris is also noted to be built on a Votive Stupa.{{Cite web |last=bdnews24.com |title=Ancient Hindu temple found built on Buddhist shrine in Bangladesh's Dinajpur |url=https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/ancient-hindu-temple-found-built-on-buddhist-shrine-in-bangladeshs-dinajpur- |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=Ancient Hindu temple found built on Buddhist shrine in Bangladesh’s Dinajpur |language=en}}

{{main|Huichang Persecution of Buddhism}}

Emperor Wuzong of Tang (814–846) indulged in indiscriminate religious persecution, solving a financial crisis by seizing the property of Buddhist monasteries. Buddhism had developed into a major religious force in Tang empire during the Tang period, and its monasteries had tax-exempt status. Wuzong closed many Buddhist shrines, confiscated their property, and sent the monks and nuns home to lay life. Apart from economic reasons, Wuzong's motivation was also philosophical or ideological. As a zealous Taoist, he considered Buddhism a foreign religion that was harmful to Chinese society. He went after other foreign religions as well, all but eradicating Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism in China, and his persecution of the growing Nestorian Christian churches sent Chinese Christianity into a decline from which it never recovered.

{{see also|Four Buddhist Persecutions in China}}

Langdarma was a Tibetan King, who reigned from 838 to 841 CE. He is believed to have been anti-Buddhist and a follower of the Bön religion.

The Oirats (Western Mongols) converted to Tibetan Buddhism around 1615. The Dzungars were a confederation of several Oirat tribes that emerged suddenly in the early 17th century. The Dzungar Khanate was the last great nomadic empire in Asia. In the 18th century, the Dzungars were annihilated by Qianlong Emperor in several campaigns. About 80% of the Dzungar population, or around 500,000 to 800,000 people, were killed during or after the Zunghar Genocide by Manchu Bannermen and Khalkha Mongols during the Manchu conquest in 1755–1757.[http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/uploads/approved/adt-QGU20061121.163131/public/02Whole.pdf Michael Edmund Clarke, In the Eye of Power (doctoral thesis), Brisbane 2004, p37] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706114903/http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/uploads/approved/adt-QGU20061121.163131/public/02Whole.pdf |date=2011-07-06 }}

The Kalmyk Khanate was founded in the 17th century with Tibetan Buddhism as its main religion, following the earlier migration of the Oirats from Dzungaria through Central Asia to the steppe around the mouth of the Volga River. During the course of the 18th century, they were absorbed by the Russian Empire, which was then expanding to the south and east. The Russian Orthodox church pressured many Kalmyks to adopt Orthodoxy. In the winter of 1770–1771, about 300,000 Kalmyks set out to return to China. Their goal was to retake control of Dzungaria from the Qing dynasty of China.{{cite web|url=http://www.tibetan-museum-society.org/java/arts-culture-Kalmyk-People.jsp|title=The Kalmyk People: A Celebration of History and Culture|author=Asian Art|access-date=8 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160327193010/http://www.tibetan-museum-society.org/java/arts-culture-Kalmyk-People.jsp|archive-date=27 March 2016|url-status=dead}} Along the way many were attacked and killed by Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, their historical enemies based on intertribal competition for land, and many more died of starvation and disease. After several months of travel, only one-third of the original group reached Dzungaria and had no choice but to surrender to the Qing upon arrival.{{cite web|title=Republic of Kalmykia in Transition: Natural Resource Management After Disintegration of the Soviet Union|url=http://casestudies.lead.org/index.php?csp=17|website=lead.org|publisher=Lead International|access-date=28 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720192137/http://casestudies.lead.org/index.php?csp=17|archive-date=20 July 2011|location=London}}

{{Islam and other religions}}

Qutaybah ibn Muslim, the Arab general of Khorasan conquered a number of territories in Central Asia including Samarkand where he broke a number of images.{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780333631423 |url-access=registration |title=History of The Arabs |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |author=Phillip K. Hitti |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780333631423/page/213 213] |year=2002 |isbn=9781137039828}} Several instances of Buddhist shrines being destroyed by the advancing Muslims are recorded though the religion continued to survive in some places for a considerable period of time. Bertolf Spuler cites the writings of Narshakhi while stating that the residents of Bukhara had reconverted from Islam to Buddhism four times until it was conquered by Qutayba in 712–13. A mosque was built in the city in place of a Buddhist monastery. Buddhists continued to live there until the tenth century. Similarly, Buddhism continued to exist in other places like Old Bukhara, Simingan in southern Tukharistan, Bamiyan and Kabul with suburbs inhabited by "Indians" which were also home to Buddhists. However, the religion could no longer develop as a power or distribute propaganda and its adherents also had to abandon the conversion of peoples in these regions.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G-FTBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA207 |title=Iran in the Early Islamic Period: Politics, Culture, Administration and Public Life between the Arab and the Seljuk Conquests, 633-1055 |publisher=Bertold Spuler |author=Brill Publishers |page=207 |year=2014 |isbn=9789004282094}} Scholars like Richard Nelson Frye have doubted the story of Marshaki, pointing out that unlike its statement, Qutayba ibn Muslim did not live during the time of Umayyad Caliph Mu'awiya, as this story suggests, but rather much later.The History of Bukhara by Narshaki (Tras. Richard Nelson Fyre), Commentary, Pg 137 In addition to discrimination, emigration, and the conversion of the laity, Buddhism and its monasteries also declined with the Muslims taking over the trade along the Silk Road as well as in Sindh.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yPZzBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA230 |title=An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism |publisher=Oxford University Press |author=Lars Fogelin |page=230 |isbn=9780199948239 |year=2015}}

During their conquest of Sindh, the Arabs brought the non-Muslims into the category of ahl al-kitab, considering them ahl al-dhimmah (protected subjects) and thus practicing a certain amount of non-interference in their religious lives under the condition that they fulfil a number of obligations that came with this status. Since both Buddhism and Hinduism are literate religions with scriptures, the precedent of assimilating Zoroastrians into the category of ahl al-kitab was extended to them as well. The dhimmis were obligated to pay the jizya for following their ancestral religion. The historian Al-Baladhuri notes a decision by Muhammad bin Qasim in relation to a Buddhist vihara and Aror that after conquering the city through a treaty (sulh) he agreed not to kill the people and enter their temple, in addition to imposing kharaj on them.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xxAVAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41| author=Derryl L. MacLean|title=Early History Of Buddhism |publisher=Brill Publishers |year=1989| isbn=978-9004085510}} The Buddhists had petitioned the Arabs for the right to restore one of their temples and it was granted by Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. However, this decision was later violated by the Pact of Umar and subsequent Muslim law codes which prohibited the restoration of existing non-Muslim religious structures as well as the building of new ones. Despite this fact, Buddhist inscriptions were still being recorded in the eleventh century.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N7_4Gr9Q438C&pg=PA50| author=Johan Elverskog|title= Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2011|pages=48, 50, 52–54| isbn=978-0812205312}} Some Buddhists also fled and emigrated from Muslim-ruled areas into other regions. Unlike Brahmanical worship, Buddhism rapidly declined in Sindh after the eighth century and it virtually disappeared by the eleventh century.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NBwissQ0_dcC&pg=PA38| author=Alka Patel|title= Building Communities in Gujarāt: Architecture and Society During the Twelfth Through Fourteenth Centuries|publisher= Brill Publishers |year=2004|pages=38–39| isbn=978-9004138902}}

The Arabs conquered Balkh which was a centre of Buddhism. Many people in Balkh were sympathetic to Buddhism after the conquest and they were harshly denounced by adherents of Islamic orthodoxy.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kW8PAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA98|title=Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane|publisher=Princeton University Press|author=S. Frederick Starr|page=98|year=2013|isbn=9781400848805}} The Buddhist monastery of Nava Vihara which had become a symbol of national resistance was damaged under Muawiyah I in 663.{{cite book|title=Buddhism: Art and Values : a Collection of Research Papers and Keynote Addresses on the Evolution of Buddhist Art and Thought Across the Lands of Asia|publisher=International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan|author=Lokesh Chandra|year=2007|page=269}} The Arabs allowed the non-Muslims to practice their religion as long as they paid the poll-tax called jizya.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YZJcAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA118|title=A Concise History of Afghanistan in 25 Volumes, Volume 14|publisher=Trafford Publishing|author=Hamid Wahed Alikuza|year=2013|pages=118, 120|isbn=9781490714417}} In addition to the destruction of Buddhist temples, part of the old city was also destroyed during the Arab conquest.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KjQ_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT278|title=The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History|publisher=Oxford University Press|author=Touraj Daryaee|year=2012|page=278|isbn=9780190208820}} Nava Vihara continued to remain open according to historical accounts. Along with it, many other viharas evidently continued to function in Central Asia for at least a century after the Arab conquests.{{cite book |last1=Beckwith |first1=Christopher I. |author-link=Christopher I. Beckwith |editor-last1=Akasoy |editor-first1=Anna |editor-last2=Burnett |editor-first2=Charles S. F. |editor-last3=Yoeli-Tlalim |editor-first3=Ronit |chapter=The Sarvāstivādin Buddhist Scholastic Method in Medieval Islam and Tibet |title=Islam and Tibet: Interactions Along the Musk Routes |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZfWXIfbynwYC&pg=PA168 |year=2011 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing |page=168 |isbn=978-0-7546-6956-2}} Al-Biruni records the existence of the religion and its monasteries in the early eleventh century. The eighth-century Korean traveller Hui'Chao records Hinayanists in Balkh under Arab rule.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7IHmyKcPtYC&pg=PA958 |title=The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods |series=The Cambridge History of Iran |volume=3 |editor-last=Yarshater |editor-first=Esham |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1983 |issue=2 |page=958 |isbn=978-0-521-24693-4}} The city was reduced to ruins by 705 as a result of frequent revolts.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6tFvlaM1LmgC&pg=PA308|title=The Places Where Men Pray Together: Cities in Islamic Lands, Seventh Through the Tenth Centuries|publisher=University of Chicago Press|page=308|year=2001|isbn=9780226894287}}

It is visible from some copper-plate inscriptions that some Buddhists had moved to other domains. Al-Ma'mun (r. 813-833 A.D.) while visiting Khorasan, launched an attack on Kabul, whose ruler submitted to taxation.RC Majumdar (ed), History of Bengal, Dacca, 1943 The king of Kabul was captured and he then converted to Islam.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=883OZBe2sMYC&pg=PA470|title=History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The crossroads of civilizations, A.D. 250 to 750|author=Ahmad Hasan Dani, B.A. Litvinsky|publisher=UNESCO|page=470|isbn=9789231032110|date=1996-01-01}} Per sources, when the Shah submitted to al-Ma'mun, he sent his crown and bejeweled throne, later seen by the Meccan historian al-Azraqi to the Caliph who praised Fadl for "curbing polytheists, breaking idols, killing the refractory" and refers to his successes against Kabul's king and ispahabad. Other near-contemporary sources however refer to the artifacts as a golden jewel-encrusted idol sitting on a silver throne by the Hindu Shahi ruler or by an unnamed ruler of "Tibet" as a sign of his conversion to Islam.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OLNE_li8C10C&pg=PA30|title=Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval "Hindu-Muslim" Encounter|publisher= Princeton University Press|author=Finbarr B. Flood|page=30|isbn=978-0691125947|date=2009-05-03}}

{{See also|Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent}}

File:The end of Buddhist Monks, A.D. 1193.jpg, depicts the Muslim Turkic general Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khilji's massacre of Buddhist monks in Bihar. Khaliji destroyed the Nalanda and Vikramshila universities during his raids across North Indian plains, massacring many Buddhist and Brahmin scholars.{{cite book|last=Sanyal|first=Sanjeev|title=Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xu-O9eNmQXMC&pg=PT130|date=15 November 2012|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-81-8475-671-5|pages=130–1}}]]

According to Lars Fogelin, the Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent is "not a singular event, with a singular cause; it was a centuries-long process."Fogelin, Lars, An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism, Oxford University Press, p. 218.

Various personages involved in the revival of Buddhism in India such as Anagarika Dharmapala and The Mahabodhi Movement of the 1890s as well as Dr. B. R. Ambedkar hold the Muslim Rule and Brahmanism in India responsible for the decay of Buddhism in India.{{cite web|url=http://www.sasnet.lu.se/EASASpapers/19SwapnaBhattacharya.pdf |title=A Close View of Encounter between British Burma and British Bengal |access-date=2015-09-27 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070607054212/http://www.sasnet.lu.se/EASASpapers/19SwapnaBhattacharya.pdf |archive-date=7 June 2007 }}The Maha-Bodhi By Maha Bodhi Society, Calcutta (page 205)The Maha-Bodhi By Maha Bodhi Society, Calcutta (page 58)The Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi: And Other Essays, Philosophical and Sociological by Ardeshir Ruttonji Wadia (page 483)B.R. Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol.3, p.229-230.

In 1193, Qutb-ud-din Aybak, the founder of the Delhi Sultanate and first Muslim ruler in India, left defenseless the northeastern territories that were the heart of Buddhist India. The Mahabodhi Temple was almost completely destroyed by the invading Muslim forces.

One of Qutb-ud-Din's generals, Ikhtiar Uddin Muhammad Bin Bakhtiyar Khilji, who later becomes the first Muslim ruler of Bengal and Bihar, invaded Magadha and destroyed the Buddhist shrines and institutions at Nalanda, Vikramasila and Odantapuri, which declined the practice of Buddhism in East India.The Maha-Bodhi by Maha Bodhi Society, Calcutta (page 8) Many monuments of ancient Indian civilization were destroyed by the invading armies, including Buddhist sanctuaries{{cite encyclopedia|title=The Turkish conquest|url=http://kids.britannica.com/oscar/article-46902|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=28 September 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305205850/http://kids.britannica.com/oscar/article-46902|archive-date=5 March 2016}} near Benares. Buddhist monks who escaped the massacre fled to Nepal, Tibet and South India.Islam at War: A History by Mark W. Walton, George F. Nafziger, Laurent W. Mbanda (page 226)

Tamerlane destroyed Buddhist establishments and raided areas in which Buddhism had flourished.Sir Aurel Stein: Archaeological Explorer by Jeannette MirskyEthnicity & Family Therapy edited by Nydia Garcia-Preto, Joe Giordano, Monica McGoldrick

Mughal rule also contributed to the decline of Buddhism. They are reported to have destroyed many Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines alike or converted many sacred Hindu places into Muslim shrines and mosques.War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet by Eric S. Margolis page 165 Mughal rulers like Aurangzeb destroyed Buddhist temples and monasteries and replaced them with mosques.Buddhism and Dalits: Social Philosophy and Traditions, by C. D. Naik, 2010, Page 35

The Saffarids had sent looted Buddhist and Hindu icons to the Abbasids as gifts.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t7TDDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA31|title=Authority and Identity in Medieval Islamic Historiography: Persian Histories from the Peripheries|publisher= Cambridge University Press|author=Mimi Hanaoka|page=31|isbn=9781107127036|date=2016-09-09}} The Mongol ruler Ghazan called on Buddhists to convert to Islam or leave the Ilkhanate and ordered their temples to be destroyed, but he later adopted a slightly less severe position.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ubgBCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA72 |title=Medieval Persia 1040-1797 |edition=Second |publisher=Routledge |author=David Morgan |year=2016 |orig-year=First published 1987 |page=72 |isbn=978-1-317-41567-1}} Though he had earlier supported their persecution as well as the persecution of other non-Muslims, his religious policies changed after the death of Nowruz with punishments imposed on perpetrators of religious intolerance and attempts to restore relations with non-Muslims.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4gB9DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA149|publisher= ABC-CLIO|title=The Mongol Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical Encyclopedia|author=Timothy May|date=7 November 2016|page=141|isbn= 9781610693400}} Although the religion survived there,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N7_4Gr9Q438C&pg=PA141|publisher= Harvard University Press|title=Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road|author=Johan Elverskog|page=141|isbn= 978-0812205312|date= 2011-06-06}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRIt9sZaTREC&pg=PA188|publisher= Reaktion Books|title=The Mongol Conquests in World History|author=Timothy May|page=188|isbn= 9781861899712|date= 2013-02-15}} it never recovered from the assault by Ghazan.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRIt9sZaTREC&pg=PA188|publisher= Prus24.pl|title=Towards Rewriting?: New Approaches to Byzantine Archaeology and Art : Proceedings of the Symposium on Byzantine Art and Archaeology, Cracow, September 8 - 10, 2008|page=188|isbn= 9781861899712|date= 2013-02-15}}

{{main|History of Xinjiang|Turkic settlement of the Tarim Basin|Kingdom of Khotan}}

The historical area of what is modern day Xinjiang consisted of the distinct areas of the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria, and it was originally populated by Indo-European Tocharian and Iranic Saka peoples who practiced the Buddhist religion. The area was subjected to Turkification and Islamification at the hands of invading Turkic Muslims.

The Islamic attacks and conquest of the Buddhist cities east of Kashgar was started by the Turkic Karakhanid Satok Bughra Khan who in 966 converted to Islam and many tales emerged about the Karakhanid ruling family's war against the Buddhists, Satok Bughra Khan's nephew or grandson Ali Arslan was slain by the Buddhists during the war. Buddhism lost territory to Islam during the Karakhanid reign around the Kashgar area.{{cite book |author1=Trudy Ring |author2=Robert M. Salkin |author3=Sharon La Boda |title=International Dictionary of Historic Places: Asia and Oceania |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vWLRxJEU49EC&pg=PA457 |year=1994 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-884964-04-6 |pages=457–}} A long war ensued between Islamic Kashgar and Buddhist Khotan which eventually ended in the conquest of Khotan by Kashgar.{{cite book |author1=George Michell |author2=John Gollings |author3=Marika Vicziany |author4=Yen Hu Tsui |title=Kashgar: Oasis City on China's Old Silk Road |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hMJC0JSfBkEC&pg=PA13 |year=2008 |publisher=Frances Lincoln |isbn=978-0-7112-2913-6 |pages=13–}}

Iranic Saka peoples originally inhabited Yarkand and Kashgar in ancient times. The Buddhist Iranic Saka Kingdom of Khotan was the only city-state that was not conquered yet by the Turkic Uyghur (Buddhist) and the Turkic Qarakhanid (Muslim) states and its ruling family used Indian names and the population were devout Buddhists. The Buddhist entitites of Dunhuang and Khotan had a tight-knit partnership, with intermarriage between Dunhuang and Khotan's rulers and Dunhuang's Mogao grottos and Buddhist temples being funded and sponsored by the Khotan royals, whose likenesses were drawn in the Mogao grottoes.{{cite book |author=James A. Millward |title=Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA55 |year=2007 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-13924-3 |pages=55–}} The rulers of Khotan were aware of the menace they faced since they arranged for the Mogao grottoes to paint a growing number of divine figures along with themselves. Halfway in the 10th century Khotan came under attack by the Qarakhanid ruler Musa, and in what proved to be a pivotal moment in the Turkification and Islamification of the Tarim Basin, the Karakhanid leader Yusuf Qadir Khan conquered Khotan around 1006.

The Taẕkirah is a genre of literature written about Sufi Muslim saints in Altishahr. Written sometime in the period from 1700 to 1849, the Eastern Turkic language (modern Uyghur) Taẕkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams provides an account of the Muslim Karakhanid war against the Khotanese Buddhists, containing a story about Imams, from Mada'in city (possibly in modern-day Iraq) came four Imams who traveled to help the Islamic conquest of Khotan, Yarkand, and Kashgar by Yusuf Qadir Khan, the Qarakhanid leader.{{cite journal |last=Thum |first=Rian |date=August 2012 |title= Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism |url= https://www.academia.edu/1558522 |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |publisher=The Association for Asian Studies |volume=71 |issue=3 |page=632 |doi= 10.1017/S0021911812000629 |jstor=23263580 |s2cid=162917965 |access-date=29 September 2014}} Accounts of the battles waged by the invading Muslims upon the indigenous Buddhists takes up most of the Taẕkirah with descriptions such as "blood flows like the Oxus", "heads litter the battlefield like stones" being used to describe the murderous battles over the years until the "infidels" were defeated and driven towards Khotan by Yusuf Qadir Khan and the four Imams, but the Imams were assassinated by the Buddhists prior to the last Muslim victory so Yusuf Qadir Khan assigned Khizr Baba, who was born in Khotan but whose mother originated from western Turkestan's Mawarannahr, to take care of the shrine of the four Imams at their tomb and after Yusuf Qadir Khan's conquest of new land in Altishahr towards the east, he adopted the title "King of the East and China".{{cite journal |last=Thum |first=Rian |date=August 2012 |title= Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism |url= https://www.academia.edu/1558522 |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |publisher=The Association for Asian Studies |volume=71 |issue=3 |page=633 |doi= 10.1017/S0021911812000629 |jstor=23263580 |s2cid=162917965 |access-date=29 September 2014}} Due to the Imams deaths in battle and burial in Khotan, Altishahr, despite their foreign origins, they are viewed as local saints by the current Muslim population in the region.{{cite journal |last=Thum |first=Rian |date=August 2012 |title= Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism |url= https://www.academia.edu/1558522 |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |publisher=The Association for Asian Studies |volume=71 |issue=3 |page=634 |doi= 10.1017/S0021911812000629 |jstor=23263580 |s2cid=162917965 |access-date=29 September 2014}}

Muslim works such as Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam contained anti-Buddhist rhetoric and polemic against Buddhist Khotan,{{cite book |author=Johan Elverskog |title=Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N7_4Gr9Q438C&pg=PA94 |year=2011 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-0531-2 |pages=94–95}} aimed at "dehumanizing" the Khotanese Buddhists, and the Muslims Kara-Khanids conquered Khotan just 26 years following the completion of Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam.

Muslims gouged the eyes of Buddhist murals along Silk Road caves and Kashgari recorded in his Turkic dictionary an anti-Buddhist poem/folk song.{{cite book |last1=Elverskog |first1=Johan |editor-last1=Akasoy |editor-first1=Anna |editor-last2=Burnett |editor-first2=Charles S. |editor-last3=Yoeli-Tlalim |editor-first3=Ronit |chapter=Ritual Theory across the Buddhist-Muslim Divide in Late Imperial China |title=Islam and Tibet: Interactions Along the Musk Routes |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZfWXIfbynwYC&pg=PA295 |year=2011 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing |page=295 |isbn=978-0-7546-6956-2}}

The Karakhanid leader Satuq Bughra Khan and his son proselytized Islam among the Turks and ordered the destruction of Buddhist temples.{{cite book |author=Valerie Hansen |year=2012 |title=The Silk Road: A New History |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=226–227 |isbn=978-0-19-993921-3}} The Islamic conquest of Khotan led to alarm in the east. Dunhuang's Cave 17, which contained Khotanese literary works, may have been sealed, possibly after its caretakers heard that Khotan's Buddhist buildings were razed by the Muslims, and Khotan had suddenly ceased to be Buddhist.{{cite book |author=Valerie Hansen |year=2012 |title=The Silk Road: A New History |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=227–228 |isbn=978-0-19-993921-3}}

In 1006, the Muslim Kara-Khanid ruler Yusuf Kadir (Qadir) Khan of Kashgar conquered Khotan, ending Khotan's existence as an independent state. The war was described as a Muslim Jihad (holy war) by the Japanese Professor Takao Moriyasu. The Karakhanid Turkic Muslim writer Mahmud al-Kashgari wrote a poem on the conquest:

We came down on them like a flood,

We went out among their cities,

We tore down the idol-temples,

We shat on the Buddha's head!

{{cite book|author1-link=Robert Dankoff |last=Dankoff |first=Robert |date=2008 |title=From Mahmud Kaşgari to Evliya Çelebi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KaYZAQAAIAAJ |publisher=Isis Press |page=79 |isbn=978-975-428-366-2}}{{cite journal |last1=Dankoff |first1=Robert |title=Three Turkic Verse Cycles Relating to Inner Asian Warfare |journal=Harvard Ukrainian Studies |date=1979–1980 |volume=3/4 |page=160 |jstor=41035824}}{{efn|{{lang-uniturk|kälginläyü aqtïmïz; kändlär üzä čïqtïmïz; furxan ävin yïqtïmïz; burxan üzä sïčtïmïz}}{{cite book |author=Takao Moriyasu |title=Die Geschichte des uigurischen Manichäismus an der Seidenstrasse: Forschungen zu manichäischen Quellen und ihrem geschichtlichen Hintergrund |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_uOrQKcnMkAC&pg=PA207 |year=2004 |publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag |isbn=978-3-447-05068-5 |pages=207–}}}}

Idols of "infidels" were subjected to desecration by being defecated upon by Muslims when the "infidel" country was conquered by the Muslims, according to Muslim tradition.

The Buddhist Uyghurs of the Kingdom of Qocho and Turfan were converted to Islam by conquest during a ghazat (holy war) at the hands of the Muslim Chagatai Khizr Khwaja.{{cite book |author=James A. Millward |year=2007 |title=Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA69 |publisher=Columbia University Press |pages=69– |isbn=978-0-231-13924-3}}

Kara Del was a Mongolian who ruled an Uighur-populated Buddhist Kingdom. The Muslim Chagatai Khan Mansur invaded and used the sword to make the population convert to Islam.{{cite web|url=http://www.hami.gov.cn/10037/10037/00016/00013/00004/2004/11719.htm |title=哈密回王简史-回王家族的初始 |access-date=2015-09-27 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090601094645/http://www.hami.gov.cn/10037/10037/00016/00013/00004/2004/11719.htm |archive-date=1 June 2009 }}{{better source needed|date=August 2017}}

After being converted to Islam, the descendants of the previously Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan failed to retain memory of their ancestral legacy and falsely believed that the "infidel Kalmuks" (Dzungars) were the ones who built Buddhist monuments in their area.{{cite book |author1=Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb |author2=Bernard Lewis |author3=Johannes Hendrik Kramers |author4=Charles Pellat |author5=Joseph Schacht |title=The Encyclopaedia of Islam |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJPrAAAAMAAJ&q=...+and+forgetting+all+the+other+highlights+of+their+past,+they+attributed+the+Buddhist+and+other+monuments+to+the+%22infidel+Kalmuks%22.+Both+the+Djungars+and+their+successors+the+Chinese+of+the+Ching+%28Manchu%29+dynasty+who+destroyed+the+Djungars+in+... |year=1998 |publisher=Brill |page=677}}{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJPrAAAAMAAJ&q=...+and+forgetting+all+the+other+highlights+of+their+past,+they+attributed+the+Buddhist+and+other+monuments+to+the+%22infidel+Kalmuks%22.+...+Archaeologie+und+Kunstgeschichte+Chinesisch-^entralasiens+%28Xinjiang%29,+Leiden+1987,+118-42;+Emel+Esin,+IA+art. |title=The Encyclopaedia of Islam - Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Bernard Lewis, Johannes Hendrik Kramers, Charles Pellat, Joseph Schacht |date=2009-12-08 |access-date=2015-09-27|last1=Gibb |first1=Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen |last2=Lewis |first2=Bernard |last3=Kramers |first3=Johannes Hendrik |last4=Pellat |first4=Charles |last5=Schacht |first5=Joseph }}{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJPrAAAAMAAJ&q=infidels+art+buddhist+xinjiang |title=The Encyclopaedia of Islam - Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Bernard Lewis, Johannes Hendrik Kramers, Charles Pellat, Joseph Schacht |date=2009-12-08 |access-date=2015-09-27|last1=Gibb |first1=Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen |last2=Lewis |first2=Bernard |last3=Kramers |first3=Johannes Hendrik |last4=Pellat |first4=Charles |last5=Schacht |first5=Joseph }}{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJPrAAAAMAAJ&q=infidel+Kalmuks |title=The Encyclopaedia of Islam - Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Bernard Lewis, Johannes Hendrik Kramers, Charles Pellat, Joseph Schacht |date=2009-12-08 |access-date=2015-09-27|last1=Gibb |first1=Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen |last2=Lewis |first2=Bernard |last3=Kramers |first3=Johannes Hendrik |last4=Pellat |first4=Charles |last5=Schacht |first5=Joseph }}

{{main|Haibutsu kishaku}}

Some Buddhist monks were forced to return to the laity, Buddhist property was confiscated, Buddhist institutions were closed, and Buddhist schools were reorganized under state control in order to separate Shinto from Buddhism. However, this persecution was short lived.James Edward Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan; {{ISBN|0-691-02481-2}} The state-control of Buddhism was part of Imperial Japanese policy both at home and abroad in Korea and other conquered territories.Brian Victoria, Zen War Stories, {{ISBN|0-7007-1581-9}}

The Burmese military government has attempted to control Buddhist institutions through coercive means, including the intimidation, torture, and murder of monks.{{cite web|editor1-last=Isla|editor1-first=Natasha|title=Burma: A Land Where Buddhist Monks Are Disrobed and Detained in Dungeons|url=http://www.aappb.org/monkreport.pdf|website=aappb.org|publisher=Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)|access-date=28 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140102212221/http://www.aappb.org/monkreport.pdf|location=Mae Sot|date=November 2004|archive-date=2 January 2014}} Translated by Ko Kyaw Ye Aung After monks played an active role in the protest movements against the then-ruling socialist military dictatorship and later the then-ruling military dictatorship in 1988 during the Fall of Socialism and 2007, the state cracked down on Buddhist monks and monasteries.{{cite news |last=Chopra |first=Anuj |date=20 September 2007 |title=Burma's Buddhist monks take to the streets |url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0920/p06s01-wosc.html |newspaper=The Christian Science Monitor |access-date=8 August 2015}}

During the Northern Expedition, in 1926 in Guangxi, Kuomintang Muslim General Bai Chongxi led his troops in destroying Buddhist temples and smashing statues, forcefully turning the temples into schools and Kuomintang party headquarters.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tCA9AAAAIAAJ&q=muslim |title=Region and nation: the Kwangsi clique in Chinese politics, 1925-1937 |author=Diana Lary |year=1974 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=98 |isbn=978-0-521-20204-6 |access-date=2010-06-28}} It was reported that almost all Buddhist monasteries in Guangxi were destroyed by Bai in this manner. The monks were removed.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LxDUeWdMubkC&pg=PA146 |title=Toward a modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu's reforms |author=Don Alvin Pittman |year=2001 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |page=146 |isbn=978-0-8248-2231-6 |access-date=2010-06-28}} Bai led a wave of anti foreignism in Guangxi, attacking Americans, Europeans, and other foreigners and missionaries, and generally making the province unsafe for foreigners. Westerners fled from the province, and some Chinese Christians were also attacked as imperialist agents.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tCA9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA99 |title=Region and nation: the Kwangsi clique in Chinese politics, 1925-1937 |author=Diana Lary |year=1974 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=99 |isbn=978-0-521-20204-6 |access-date=2010-06-28}} The three goals of his movement were anti-foreignism, anti-imperialism, and anti-religion. Bai led the anti-religious movement, against superstition. Muslims have hostile attitude toward idol-worship and his personal faith may have influenced Bai to take action against the statues of deities in the temples and the superstitious practices rampant in China. Huang Shaoxiong, also a Kuomintang member of the New Guangxi Clique, supported Bai's campaign, and Huang was not a Muslim, the anti religious campaign was agreed upon by all Guangxi Kuomintang members.

During the Kuomintang Pacification of Qinghai the Muslim General Ma Bufang destroyed Tibetan Buddhist monasteries with support from the Kuomintang government.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g3C2B9oXVbQC&q=genocidal |title=Dilemmas The Mongols at China's edge: history and the politics of national unity |author=Uradyn Erden Bulag |year=2002 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |page=54 |isbn=978-0-7425-1144-6 |access-date=2010-06-28}} Ma served as a general in the National Revolutionary Army, and sought to expand the Republic of China's control over all of Qinghai, as well as the possibility of bringing Tibet back into the Republic by force. When Ma Bufang launched seven expeditions into Golog, killing thousands of Tibetans, the Republic of China government, known as the Kuomintang, supported Ma Bufang. Ma was highly anti-communist, and he and his army wiped out many Tibetans in the northeast and eastern Qinghai, and destroyed Tibetan Buddhist temples.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DbkfQATHikQC&pg=PA72 |title=China's campaign to "Open up the West": national, provincial, and local perspectives|author=David S. G. Goodman |year=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=72 |isbn=978-0-521-61349-1 |access-date=2010-06-28}}

{{main|Religious persecution}}

{{main|Buddhas of Bamiyan}}

The Muslim Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, tried to use heavy artillery to destroy the Buddha statues but failed. Another failed attempt to destroy the Bamiyan statues was made by the 18th century Persian king Nader Afshar, who directed cannon fire at them.Asian Art, chap. "History of attacks on the Buddhas"

The enormous statues, the male Salsal ("light shines through the universe") and the (smaller) female Shamama ("Queen Mother"),{{cite web|url=http://www.christian-frei.info/dvd/christian_frei-booklet_en.pdf |title=booklet web E.indd |access-date=9 October 2013}} as they were called by the ignorant locals, did not fail to fire the imagination of Islamic writers in centuries past. The larger statue reappears as the malevolent giant Salsal in medieval Turkish tales.Laban Kaptein, Eindtijd en Antichrist, p. 127. Leiden 1997. {{ISBN|90-73782-89-9}}

Afghan Muslim King Abdur Rahman Khan destroyed its face during a military campaign against the Shia Hazara rebellion.{{cite web|url=http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54808 |title=Ancient Buddhas Will Not Be Rebuilt – UNESCO |publisher=Ipsnews.net |access-date=9 October 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110913032140/http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54808 |archive-date=13 September 2011 }} An explorer named Alexander Burnes made a sensationalized drawing of the statues in the 1830s.{{cite web |url=http://www.idb.arch.ethz.ch/files/04_ag-remondino_zhang_photogr.record.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150824114215/http://www.idb.arch.ethz.ch/files/04_ag-remondino_zhang_photogr.record.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2015-08-24 |title=Photogrammetric reconstruction of the Great Buddha of Bamiyan, Afghanistan |publisher=Idb.arch.ethz.ch |access-date=2015-09-27 }}

The Bamiyan Buddhas were eventually destroyed by the fundamentalist Islamist Taliban regime in 2001 after not able to get monetary funding, in defiance of worldwide condemnation. The statues were blown up and fired upon by rockets and gunfire.

Excavators at the Buddhist site of Mes Aynak have been denounced as "promoting Buddhism" and threatened by the Taliban and many of the Afghan excavators who are working for purely financial reasons do not feel any connection to the Buddhist artifacts.{{cite journal |last=Bloch |first=Hannah |date=September 2015 |title=Mega Copper Deal in Afghanistan Fuels Rush to Save Ancient Treasures |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/mes-aynak/bloch-text |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150814062203/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/mes-aynak/bloch-text |url-status=dead |archive-date=14 August 2015 |journal=National Geographic }}

Swat Valley in Pakistan has many Buddhist carvings, stupas and Jehanabad contains a Seated Buddha statue. Kushan era Buddhist stupas and statues in Swat valley were demolished by the Taliban and after two attempts by the Taliban, the Jehanabad Buddha's face was dynamited.{{cite book |author=Malala Yousafzai |title=I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban |url=https://archive.org/details/iammalalastoryof0000yous |url-access=registration |date=8 October 2013 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=978-0-316-32241-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/iammalalastoryof0000yous/page/123 123]–124}}{{cite news |last=Wijewardena |first=W.A. |date=17 February 2014 |title='I am Malala': But then, we all are Malalas, aren't we? |url=http://www.ft.lk/article/255420/%E2%80%98I-am-Malala---But-then--we-all-are-Malalas--aren-t-we? |newspaper=Daily FT}}{{cite news |last=Wijewardena |first=W.A |date=17 February 2014 |title='I am Malala': But Then, We All Are Malalas, Aren't We? |url=https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/i-am-malala-but-then-we-all-are-malalas-arent-we/ |newspaper=Colombo Telegraph}} Only the Bamiyan Buddhas were larger than the carved giant Buddha status in Swat near Manglawar which the Taliban attacked.{{cite news |date=12 September 2007 |title=Attack on giant Pakistan Buddha |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6991058.stm |work=BBC News}} The government did nothing to safeguard the statue after the initial attempt at destroying the Buddha, which did not cause permanent harm, and when the second attack took place on the statue the feet, shoulders, and face were demolished.{{cite news |date=10 November 2007 |title=Another attack on the giant Buddha of Swat |url=http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Another-attack-on-the-giant-Buddha-of-Swat-10761.html |newspaper=AsiaNews.it}} Islamists such as the Taliban and looters destroyed much of Pakistan's Buddhist artifacts left over from the Buddhist Gandhara civilization especially in Swat Valley.{{cite news |date=22 October 2012 |title=Taliban and traffickers destroying Pakistan's Buddhist heritage |url=http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Taliban-and-traffickers-destroying-Pakistan's-Buddhist-heritage-26142.html |newspaper=AsiaNews.it}} The Taliban deliberately targeted Gandhara Buddhist relics for destruction.{{cite news |date=27 November 2009 |title=Taliban trying to destroy Buddhist art from the Gandhara period |url=http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Taliban-trying-to-destroy-Buddhist-art-from-the-Gandhara-period-16984.html |newspaper=AsiaNews.it}} The Christian Archbishop of Lahore Lawrence John Saldanha wrote a letter to Pakistan's government denouncing the Taliban activities in Swat Valley including their destruction of Buddha statues and their attacks on Christians, Sikhs, and Hindus.{{cite news |last=Felix |first=Qaiser |date=21 April 2009 |title=Archbishop of Lahore: Sharia in the Swat Valley is contrary to Pakistan's founding principles |url=http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=15040&size=A |newspaper=AsiaNews.it}} Gandhara Buddhist artifacts were illegally looted by smugglers.{{cite news |last=Rizvi |first=Jaffer |date=6 July 2012 |title=Pakistan police foil huge artefact smuggling attempt |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-18738909 |work=BBC News}} A rehabilitation attempt on the Buddha was made by Luca Olivieri from Italy.{{cite news |date=25 June 2012 |title=Buddha attacked by Taliban gets facelift in Pakistan |url=http://dawn.com/2012/06/25/buddha-attacked-by-taliban-gets-facelift-in-pakistan/ |newspaper=Dawn |location=Karachi, Pakistan |agency=Associated Press}} A group of Italians helped repair the Buddha.{{cite news |last=Khaliq |first=Fazal |date=7 November 2016 |title=Iconic Buddha in Swat valley restored after nine years when Taliban defaced it |url=http://www.dawn.com/news/1294246 |newspaper=Dawn}}

{{See also|2012 Ramu violence|||||}}

In Bangladesh, the persecution of the indigenous tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts such as the Chakma, Marma, Tripura and others who are mainly Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, and Animists, has been described as genocidal.{{sfn|Gray|1994}}{{sfn|O'Brien|2004}}{{sfn|Mey|1984}}{{sfn|Mohsin|2003}}{{sfn|Roy|2000}} The Chittagong Hill Tracts are located bordering India, Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal, and is the home to 500,000 indigenous people. The perpetrators of are the Bangladeshi military and the Bengali Muslim settlers, who together have burned down Buddhist and Hindu temples, killed many Chakmas, and carried out a policy of gang-rape against the indigenous people. There are also accusations of Chakmas being forced to convert to Islam, many of them children who have been abducted for this purpose. The conflict started soon after Bangladeshi independence in 1972 when the Constitution imposed Bengali as the sole official language – with no cultural or linguistic rights to minority populations. Subsequently, the government encouraged and sponsored massive settlement by Bangladeshis in region, which changed the demographics from 98 percent indigenous in 1971 to fifty percent by 2000. The government allocated a full third of the Bangladeshi military to the region to support the settlers, sparking a protracted guerilla war between Hill tribes and the military.{{sfn|O'Brien|2004}} During this conflict which officially ended in 1997, and in the subsequent period, a large number of human rights violations against the indigenous peoples have been reported, with violence against indigenous women being particularly extreme.{{sfn|Chakma|Hill|2013}}{{cite web|title=Chittagong Hill Tracts: Sabita Chakma's Murder Condemned By CHT Commission|url=http://unpo.org/article/16867|publisher=Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization|date=19 February 2014}} Bengali settlers and soldiers have raped native Jumma (Chakma) women "with impunity" with the Bangladeshi security forces doing little to protect the Jummas and instead assisting the rapists and settlers.{{cite web |url=http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10141 |title=Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh – rapists act with impunity |last1=McEvoy |first1=Mark |date= 3 April 2014 |website=Survival International - The movement for tribal peoples }} The Karuna Bihar Buddhist temple was attacked by Bengali settlers.{{cite web|title=Chittagong Hill Tracts: Town of Chakma Villagers Attacked and Houses Burned Down|url=http://unpo.org/article/17798|publisher=Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization|date=18 December 2014}}

Chittagong Hill Tracts had 98.5% Buddhist and Hindu population in 1947 during the partition of India.{{cite book |last= Singh |first=Deepak K. |title=Stateless in South Asia The Chakmas Between Bangladesh and India |year=2010|publisher=Sage Publications |isbn=978-8132104940|pages=33}} The British gave the Buddhist dominated land to East Pakistan against the principles of partition and against wishes of indigenous people. Chittagong Hill Tracts is the traditional home of the Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Mro, Khumi and other indigenous tribes who mainly practice Buddhism. Successive Pakistan and Bangladeshi governments had been encouraging Muslim migration into the Chittagong Hill Tracts to dilute the indigenous Buddhist population. Indigenous Buddhist people of Chittagong Hill Tracts resisted the colonization of their land by demographic engineering. In response Bangladesh government sent tens of thousands of military personnel to the Chittagong Hill Tracts to protect the Muslim settlers and fight the indigenous resistance movement named Shanti Bahini.

Bangladesh Army in league with the Muslim settlers committed 13 major massacres in the span of 15 years between 1980 and 1995 slaughtering hundreds of indigenous Buddhist people in each massacre.{{cite book |last1=IWGIA |title=Life Is Not Ours |date=2000 |publisher=The Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission |location=Denmark |page=34}} They committed numerous other massacres killing 10 to 20 people since birth of Bangladesh in 1971. Apart from mass killing Bangladesh and Muslim settlers are involved in extrajudicial execution of the indigenous people. Indigenous people are victims of arbitrary arrest and detention. Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers often subject them to severe torture and beating. Indigenous Buddhist women and even minor girls are vulnerable to rape by Muslim settlers and Bangladesh army. Bangladesh army and Muslim settlers had raped thousands of indigenous Buddhist women and girls. Indigenous Buddhist people are subjected to systematic proselytization by the Bangladesh government and many Saudi funded Islamic missionary organizations. Bangladesh army also resort to forcible conversion. Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers destroyed and desecrated hundreds of Buddhist temples in Chittagong Hill Tracts.

Between 1980 and 1995, Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers committed at least 13 major massacres against the indigenous Buddhist people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. No military personnel or settler was ever tried for these massacres. The massacres are usually carried out to evict indigenous people from their villages or in retaliation to Shanti Bahini attacks.{{cite book |title=Unlawful Killings in Chittagong Hill Tracts |date=1986 |publisher=Amnesty International |location=London, United Kingdom |isbn=0862101107 |page=11}}

;Kaukhali Massacre 25 March 1980

The commander of the Bangladesh army at Kaukhali ordered the indigenous Buddhist people to gather at Kaukhali Bazar in the morning of 25 March 1980 to discuss the repair of the Poapara Buddhist Vihara. On 25 March 1980, when indigenous Buddhist people gathered at Kaukhali Bazar, Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers suddenly attacked and massacred an estimated 300 Chakma and Marma Buddhists at Kaukhali in Rangamati district.

;Barkal Massacre 31 May 1984

Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers attacked several Buddhist villages of Bhusanchara, Bhusanbagh, Het Baria, Suguri Para, Goranstan, Tarengya Ghat in Barkal and massacred more than 400 Chakma Buddhists. Amnesty International collected 67 names killed in the massacre.{{cite book |title=Unlawful Killings in Chittagong Hill Tracts |date=1986 |publisher=Amnesty International |location=London, United Kingdom |isbn=0862101107 |page=13}}

;Panchari Massacre 1–2 May 1986

Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers attacked indigenous Buddhist villages of Golakpatimachara, Kalanal, Soto Karmapara, Shantipur, Mirjibil, Hetarachara, Pujgang, Logang, Hathimuktipara, Sarveshwarpara, Napidpara and Dewan Bazar. Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers randomly opened fire on indigenous people massacred hundreds of Chakma Buddhists. Amnesty International collected more than 50 names killed in the massacre.{{cite book |title=Unlawful Killings in Chittagong Hill Tracts |date=1986 |publisher=Amnesty International |location=London, United Kingdom |isbn=0862101107 |page=15}}

;Matiranga Massacre 1–7 May 1986

Between 1 and 7 May 1986, widespread military operation and persecution forced a group of Tripuri people to take refuge in the jungle between Sarveswarpara and Manudaspara in Matiranga. While they were trying to reach India, Bangladesh Army detected and ambushed them. Bangladesh army massacred at least 60 indigenous Tripuri people.{{cite book |title=Unlawful Killings in Chittagong Hill Tracts |date=1986 |publisher=Amnesty International |location=London, United Kingdom |isbn=0862101107 |page=23}}

;Matiranga Massacre 18–19 May 1986

To escape systematic persecution, a large group of indigenous Tripuri people were trying to reach India by following jungle trails. However Bangladesh army discovered and surrounded them. Bangladesh army took them to a narrow valley between Comillatila and Taidong in Matiranga. Bangladesh army suddenly opened fire in the restricted space and killed at least 200 indigenous Tripuri people.{{cite book |title=Unlawful Killings in Chittagong Hill Tracts |date=1986 |publisher=Amnesty International |location=London, United Kingdom |isbn=0862101107 |page=24}}

;Baghaichari Massacre 3–10 August 1988

Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers launched a week long campaign of terror in retaliation for Shanti Bahini attacks on Bangladeshi armed forces and Muslim settlements. Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers attacked Durchari, Khedamara, Battuli, Sarwatuli villages in Baghaichari and murdered more than 500 indigenous Chakma Buddhists.{{cite journal |last1=Dewan |first1=R.S. |title=Jana Samhati |journal=Jana Samhati Report |date=December 1988 |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=3, 4, 5}}

;Langadu Massacre 4 May 1989

Un-identified gunmen murdered a Muslim community leader Abdur Rashid of Langadu. Bangladesh military and civil administration suspected Buddhist resistance movement Shanti Bahini murdered the Muslim leader. Bangladesh Army agitated the Muslim settlers. Muslim settlers attacked the indigenous Buddhist people of Langadu with the encouragement of the Bangladesh military ad civil authorities. More than 50 indigenous Buddhist people were massacred with swords and lances.{{cite journal |last1=Dewan |first1=R.S. |title=Jana Samhati |journal=Jana Samhati Report |date=September 1989 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=1, 2, 3}}

;Malya Massacre 2 Feb 1992

A commuter ferry loaded with people was sailing from Marishya to Rangamati. A bomb exploded at Malya in Langadu Upazila. According to eyewitnesses, two Bangladesh military personnel planted the bomb. Bangladesh government had settled many Muslim settlers at Malya by displacing indigenous Buddhist people. The survivors of the explosion swam to the shore. But Muslim settlers were waiting for them with weapons and attacked them when reached the shore. More than 30 indigenous Buddhist people were massacred.{{cite book |title=Life Is Not Ours |date=1994 |publisher=The Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission |location=The Netherlands |page=20 |edition=Update 2 }}

;Logang Massacre 10 April 1992

2 Muslim settlers armed with swords attempted to rape indigenous Buddhist girls who were grazing cows at Logang in Panchari. An indigenous man defended the girls and was killed in the brawl. The Muslim settler ran to the Bangladesh Army camp and spread the rumor that indigenous people attacked them. In reprisal Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers attacked indigenous people at Logang and massacred more than 500 indigenous people.{{cite book |title=Life Is Not Ours |date=April 1994 |publisher=The Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission |location=Armsterdam |page=20 |edition=Update 2}}

;Naniachar Massacre 17 November 1993

Indigenous Buddhist people demanded the Bangladesh Army check post at Naniachar in Rangamati be removed. Bangladesh Army often harassed indigenous Buddhist people from the check post at Naniachar Ferry Stoppage. Indigenous Buddhist people gathered at Naniachar Bazar to protest harassment. Muslim settlers with the direct help from the Bangladesh Army attacked the peaceful demonstration of the indigenous people and murdered at least 66 indigenous people.

Besides mass killing, indigenous Buddhist people are also killed in small numbers by Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers. Most common form of killing occurs when indigenous people are detained and beaten in numerous Bangladeshi military, intelligence and police installations in the CHT. Killings also occur when Bangladesh Army randomly open fire at villagers. Bangladesh Government provides weapons to Muslim settlers and they are also responsible for killing of indigenous people. The Muslim settlers often join the armed forces in raid of indigenous villages and involved in killing indigenous people by firearms or crude sharp weapons. The settlers also take part in communal riots instigated by the Bangladesh Army and kill indigenous Buddhist people.{{cite book |title=Bangladesh Unlawful Killings and Torture in the Chittagong Hill Tracts |date=September 1986 |publisher=Amnesty International |location=London, United Kingdom |isbn=0862101107 |page=10}}

Indigenous people are detained without warrant and often tortured in the custody of Bangladeshi armed forces. Bangladeshi armed forces detain and torture indigenous Buddhist people on mere suspicion of being members of the Shanti Bahini or helping the Shanti Bahini. There were numerous check posts on highways and ferries in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Bangladeshi armed forces interrogate and detain indigenous travelers from these check posts. Bangladeshi armed forces raid indigenous Buddhist villages and torture indigenous people on suspicion of sheltering and feeding the Shanti Bahini.{{cite book |title=Unlawful Killings in Chittagong Hill Tracts |date=September 1986 |publisher=Amnesty International |location=London, United Kingdom |isbn=0862101107 |pages=26–29}}

Indigenous people who are detained in military camps and cantonments are subjected to severe beating, electrocution, water boarding, hanging upside down, shoving burning cigarettes on bodies etc. Prisoners are detained in pits and trenches. Bangladeshi soldiers sprinkle hot water on indigenous prisoners. Indigenous captives are then taken out for interrogation one at a time. Indigenous people are often tortured during interrogation.

Bangladesh Government tacitly encourages Bangladesh Army and Muslim settlers to rape indigenous girls and women as tool to expel them from their traditional land. As a result, thousands of indigenous girls and women were raped by the armed forces and settlers since independence of Bangladesh in 1971.{{cite book |title=The Charge of Genocide |date=1986 |publisher=Organizing Committee Chittagong Hill Tracts Campaign |location=The Netherlands |pages=66–67}}

Since vast majority of the indigenous people are farmers and cultivators, land is very important and only means of survival. The government's sponsored settlement in the CHT dispossessed many indigenous people of their lands.{{cite journal |title=Life is Not Ours |journal=Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission |date=May 1991 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=58–62}}

During the 2012 Ramu violence a 25,000-strong mob set fire to at least five temples and dozens of homes throughout the town and surrounding villages after seeing a picture of an allegedly desecrated Quran, which they claimed had been posted on Facebook by Uttam Barua, a local Buddhist man.{{cite web |title=Protesters burn Bangladesh Buddhist temples |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/09/201293092057855387.html |publisher=Al Jazeera |date=30 September 2012}}{{cite news |title=Religious attacks lead to 300 arrests in Bangladesh |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-02/an_bangladesh-riots/4291778 |work=ABC News |date=2 October 2012 |language=en-AU}}

{{See also|Bodh Gaya bombings}}

The Ladakh Buddhist Association has said: "There is a deliberate and organised design to convert Kargil's Buddhists to Islam. In the last four years, about 50 girls and married women with children were taken and converted from village Wakha alone. If this continues unchecked, we fear that Buddhists will be wiped out from Kargil in the next two decades or so. Anyone objecting to such allurement and conversions is harassed."Tundup Tsering and Tsewang Nurboo, in: Ladakh visited, Pioneer, 4/12/1995.{{cite news|date=13 January 2000 |title=Conversions: LBA blames govt |url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000113/j&k.htm#2 |newspaper=The Tribune |location=Chandigarh, India |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110163047/http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000113/j%26k.htm |archive-date=10 November 2013 |url-status=dead }}

The Mahabodhi Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the most sacred Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, marking the location where Gautama Buddha is said to have attained Enlightenment.{{cite news |url=https://www.hindustantimes.com/travel/world-heritage-day-five-must-visit-sites-in-india/story-gJYb3KG93fXKBcX6dgFfOM.html |title=World Heritage Day: Five must-visit sites in India |work=Hindustan Times |date=18 April 2015}} On 7 July 2013, a series of ten bombs exploded in and around the Mahabodhi Temple complex. Five people, including two Buddhist monks, were injured by the blasts. Three other devices were defused by bomb-disposal squads at a number of locations in Gaya.{{cite web |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/5-injured-in-multiple-blasts-at-Mahabodhi-temple-in-Bodh-Gaya/articleshow/20951736.cms? |title=5 injured in multiple blasts at Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya |work=The Times of India |date=7 July 2013 |access-date=7 July 2013}}{{cite news |title=13 bombs were planted in Mahabodhi temple complex: Shinde |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/13-bombs-were-planted-in-mahabodhi-temple-complex-shinde/articleshow/20970721.cms |access-date=14 July 2013 |date=8 July 2013 |agency=Press Trust of India |newspaper=The Times of India }} On 4 November 2013, the National Investigation Agency announced that the Islamic terrorist group Indian Mujahideen was responsible for the bombings.{{cite news |last=Tiwari |first=Deeptiman |title=Ranchi document helps NIA crack Bodh Gaya blast case |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Ranchi-document-helps-NIA-crack-Bodh-Gaya-blast-case/articleshow/25281931.cms? |access-date=6 November 2013 |newspaper=The Times of India |date=6 November 2013}}{{cite news |last1=Gaikwad |first1=Rahi |title=Patna terror cell behind Bodh Gaya strike too: NIA |url=http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/patna-terror-cell-behind-bodh-gaya-strike-too-nia/article5322815.ece |access-date=7 November 2013 |newspaper=The Hindu |date=7 November 2013 |first2=Yadav |last2=Anumeha |first3=Pandey |last3=Devesh |location=Patna, Ranchi, New Delhi}}

{{main|Buddhism in the Maldives|National Museum (Maldives)|}}

The destruction of the Buddhist artifacts by Islamists took place on the day in which Mohamed Nasheed was toppled as president in a coup.{{cite news |last=Wright |first=Tom |date= 11 February 2012 |title=Islamism Set Stage for Maldives Coup |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203824904577215050907606404 |url-access=subscription |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal}} Buddhist antiquities were obliterated by Islamist radicals in the National Museum.{{cite news |last=Bajaj |first=Vikas |date=13 February 2012 |title=Vandalism at Maldives Museum Stirs Fears of Extremism |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/world/asia/political-turmoil-threatens-archaeological-treasures-in-maldives.html |newspaper=The New York Times }} The Museum was stormed by Islamists who destroyed the Buddhist artifacts.{{cite news |date=8 February 2012 |title=Maldives mob smashes Buddhist statues in national museum |url=http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/02/08/193376.html |publisher=Al Arabiya |agency=Agence France-Presse}}{{cite news |date=16 February 2012 |title=Self-denial of heritage in Maldives sends message to Establishments |url=http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=34884 |newspaper=TamilNet }} The non Muslim artifacts of Buddhist provenance were specifically singled out by the attackers.{{cite news |last=Lubna |first=Hawwa |date=9 February 2012 |title=Mob storms National Museum, destroys Buddhist statues: "A significant part of our heritage is lost now" |url=http://minivannews.com/society/mob-storms-national-museum-destroys-buddhist-statues-a-significant-part-of-our-heritage-is-lost-now-31813 |newspaper=Minivan News |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120211043056/http://minivannews.com/society/mob-storms-national-museum-destroys-buddhist-statues-a-significant-part-of-our-heritage-is-lost-now-31813 |archive-date=2012-02-11 }} The destruction was caught on camera.{{cite AV media |people=Interviewer Zoe Hatten, Ismail Ashraf |date=1 April 2013 |title=Attack on the Maldives National Museum (After the Island President) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU-jTyaZNZc |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211213/vU-jTyaZNZc |archive-date=2021-12-13 |url-status=live|publisher=M Stewart }}{{cbignore}} Most of Maldive's Buddhist physical history was obliterated.{{cite news |date= 12 February 2012 |title=Trouble in paradise: Maldives and Islamic extremism |url=http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/02/12/194095.html |publisher=Al Arabiya |agency=Agence France-Presse }} Hindu artifacts were also targeted for obliteration and the actions have been compared to the attacks on the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban.{{cite news |date=23 February 2012 |title=35 Invaluable Hindu and Buddhist Statues Destroyed in Maldives by Extremist Islamic Group |url=http://www.chakranews.com/invaluable-hindu-amd-buddhist-statues-destroyed-in-maldives-by-extremist-islamic-group/2224 |newspaper=The Chakra News |location=Maldives }}{{cite news |date=15 February 2012 |title=Vandalised Maldives museum to seek India's help |url=http://zeenews.india.com/news/south-asia/vandalised-maldives-museum-to-seek-indias-help_758586.html |newspaper=Zee News }}{{cite news |last=Francis |first= Krishan |date=14 February 2012 |title=Maldives museum reopens minus smashed Hindu images |url=http://archive.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2012/02/14/maldives_museum_reopens_minus_smashed_hindu_images/ |newspaper=Boston Globe |agency=Associated Press }} 7 February 2012 was the date of the anti-Buddhist attack by the Islamists.{{cite news |date=15 February 2012 |title=Islamists destroy some 30 Buddhist statues |url=http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Islamists-destroy-some-30-Buddhist-statues-23986.html |newspaper=AsiaNews }}

The violence and long lasting tension was reignited on 28 May 2012. It was reported that daughter of U Hla Tin, of Thabyechaung Village named Ma Thida Htwe aged 27 was violently raped then murdered by three Muslims. These men were later arrested.{{cite web|url=http://azaad-dreamer-articles.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-rohingya-tribe-of-burma.html|title=Azaad Dreamer Articles|author=Farhan Patel|access-date=8 August 2015|date=2012-08-10}}{{cite web|url=http://twocircles.net/2012jul22/rapemurder_buddhist_girl_muslims_led_riots_myanmar_ambassador.html|title=Rape-Murder of a Buddhist girl by Muslims led to riots: Myanmar Ambassador|date=22 July 2012|access-date=8 August 2015}}

Tensions between Buddhist and Muslim ethnic groups flared into violent clashes in Meiktila, Mandalay Division in 2013. The violence started on 20 March after a Muslim gold shop owner, his wife, and two Muslim employees assaulted a Buddhist customer and her husband in an argument over a golden hairpin. A large Buddhist mob formed and began to destroy the shop. The heavily outnumbered police reportedly told the mob to disperse after they had destroyed the shop.{{Cite web|url = http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/burma-myanmar/251-the-dark-side-of-transition-violence-against-muslims-in-myanmar.pdf|title = The Dark Side of Transition: Violence Against Muslims in Myanmar|date = 1 October 2013|access-date = 21 February 2015|publisher = The International Crisis Group|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150319013504/http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/burma-myanmar/251-the-dark-side-of-transition-violence-against-muslims-in-myanmar.pdf|archive-date = 19 March 2015}}

On the same day, a local Buddhist monk passing on the back of a motorbike was attacked by four Muslims. According to witnesses, the driver was attacked with a sword, causing him to crash, while the monk was also hit in the head with the sword. Per a witness, one of the men doused the monk with fuel and burnt him alive. The monk died in the hospital.{{cite news|title=Special Report: Buddhist monks incite Muslim killings in Myanmar |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-violence-specialreport-idUSBRE9370AP20130408 |work=Reuters |date=8 April 2013 |access-date=25 October 2013 |author=Jason Szep |archive-date=18 October 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131018005444/https://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/08/us-myanmar-violence-specialreport-idUSBRE9370AP20130408}} The killing of the monk caused the relatively contained situation to explode, greatly increasing intensity and violence.

{{See also|South Thailand insurgency}}

Primarily Thai central government has been involved in a civil war with Muslim insurgents in Thailand's three southernmost Muslim-majority provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani. There are quite a number of cases of Buddhist civilians in these regions that have been beheaded by Muslim insurgents,{{cite news |title=Insurgents Behead Buddhist in Thailand |url=http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Jan14/0,4670,ThailandSouthernViolence,00.html |access-date=17 September 2015 |publisher=Fox News |date=14 January 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080212123214/http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Jan14/0%2C4670%2CThailandSouthernViolence%2C00.html |archive-date=12 February 2008 |url-status=dead}} Buddhist monks and Buddhist school teachers are frequently threatened with death and murdered.{{cite news |last1=Mydans |first1=Seth |title=In Muslim Thailand, teachers face rising threat |url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/03/news/thai.php |access-date=17 September 2015 |work=International Herald Tribune |date=4 July 2005}}{{cite news |url=http://www.thailandnews.co/2014/03/woman-teacher-shot-dead-in-pattani-body-burned/ |title=Thailand News Woman teacher shot dead in Pattani, body burned |work=Thailand News |date=14 March 2014 |access-date=28 November 2014}} Shootings of Buddhists are quite frequent in the South,{{cite web |url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HL07Ae02.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210053931/http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HL07Ae02.html |url-status=unfit |archive-date=2006-12-10 |title=Southeast Asia news – South Thailand: 'They're getting fiercer' |work=Asia Times |date=2006-12-07 |access-date=2015-09-27}}{{cite news |first=Surapan |last=Boonthanom |title=Three Buddhist women dead in south Thailand attack |date=2007-03-19 |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSBKK34991 |work=Reuters |access-date=2007-09-22}} as are bombings,{{cite news |title=Four soldiers killed in roadside attacks in Thailand's insurgency-plagued south |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/04/four-soldiers-killed-in-road-side-attacks-in-thailands-insurgency-plagued-south |access-date=28 September 2015 |work=The Guardian |date=4 June 2015}}{{cite news |last1=Thepgumpanat |first1=Panarat |last2=Petty |first2=Martin |last3=Williams |first3=Alison |title=Motorcycle blast kills two in southern Thailand bomb attacks |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-south-idUSKCN0RH2IT20150917 |access-date=28 September 2015 |work=Reuters |date=17 September 2015 |location=Bangkok}} and attacks on Buddhist temples.{{cite news |title=Three Buddhist Temples Attacked With Explosives (Thailand) |date=2004-05-16 |agency=Reuters |publisher=Pluralism Project |url=http://www.pluralism.org/news/article.php?id=7046 |access-date=2007-09-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080213110923/http://www.pluralism.org/news/article.php?id=7046 |archive-date=2008-02-13 |url-status=dead}}

During the Kumul Rebellion in Xinjiang in the 1930s, Buddhist murals were deliberately vandalized by Muslims.{{cite magazine |date=13 December 1943 |title=Old Sterile Death Leaves its Mark Over Sinkiang |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA99 |magazine=Life |page=99 |volume=15 |number=24 |issn=0024-3019}}

Buddhist murals at the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves were damaged by local Muslim population whose religion proscribed figurative images of sentient beings, the eyes and mouths in particular were often gouged out. Pieces of murals were also broken off for use as fertilizer by the locals.{{cite book | title=Conservation of ancient sites on the Silk Road: proceedings of the second International Conference on the Conservation of Grotto Sites, Mogao Grottoes, Dunhuang, People's Republic of China | editor-first=Neville | editor-last=Agnew | publisher=Getty Publications | year=2010 | isbn=978-1-60606-013-1 | chapter=A place of safekeeping? The vicissitudes of the Bezeklik murals | first=Susan | last=Whitfield | author-link=Susan Whitfield |pages=95–106 | chapter-url=http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/2nd_silkroad3.pdf | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121030073844/http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/2nd_silkroad3.pdf | archive-date=2012-10-30 }}

Uyghur Muslim opposition to a Buddhist Aspara statue in Ürümqi in Xinjiang was cited as a possible reason for its destruction in 2012.{{cite news |last= Dasgupta |first= Saibal |date= 22 August 2012 |title= Mystery grips Urumqi as Apsara statue demolished |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/Mystery-grips-Urumqi-as-Apsara-statue-demolished/articleshow/15595238.cms?referral=PM |newspaper= The Times of India }}{{cite news |last=Dasgupta |first= Saibal |date= 22 August 2012 |title='Flying Apsara' statue razed in China |url=http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToPrint_TOINEW&Type=text/html&Locale=english-skin-custom&Path=TOIKM/2012/08/22&ID=Ar01409 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925211427/http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToPrint_TOINEW&Type=text/html&Locale=english-skin-custom&Path=TOIKM/2012/08/22&ID=Ar01409 |url-status=dead |archive-date=25 September 2015 |newspaper=The Times of India |location=Kolkata |page=14 }} A Muslim Kazakh viewed a giant Buddha statue near Ürümqi as "alien cultural symbols".{{cite news |last=Wind |first=Beige |date= 4 August 2014 |title=Dispatches From Xinjiang: The Rise Of Buddhism In The Far West |url=http://beijingcream.com/2014/08/dfxj-the-giant-buddhas-of-the-western-region/ |newspaper= Beijing Cream }}

{{See also|1985 Borobudur bombing|2013 Ekayana Monastery bombing}}

Nine bombs were detonated at the Borobudur Buddhist temple located in Central Java on 21 January 1985, causing nine stupas to be badly damaged. There were no human casualties in this attack.{{cite news |title=Nine bombs exploded in the 1,100-year-old Borobudur temple in... |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/01/21/Nine-bombs-exploded-in-the-1100-year-old-Borobudur-temple-in/7717475131600/ |work=United Press International}} A Buddhist monastery in Jakarta was attacked by suspected local Islamic militants on 4 August 2013 at 6:53 p.m. Three people were injured in this attack.{{cite news |title=3 Orang terluka akibat bom di Vihara Ekayana |url=http://news.detik.com/read/2013/08/04/234347/2324211/10/3-orang-terluka-akibat-bom-di-vihara-ekayana |access-date=8 August 2014 |work=detik.com |date=4 August 2014 |language=id}}

In the village of Kebon Baru (Banten), an Islamic group forced a Buddhist monk, Mulyanto Nurhalim to sign an agreement to force him to abandon his home and wrongfully accused him of religious proselytism.{{cite web|url=https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Buddhist-monk-threatened-by-Islamists-(Video)-43076.html|title=Buddhist monk threatened by Islamists (Video)|access-date= 2022-08-04}}

On 29 July 2016, several Buddhist vihara were plundered and burnt down by Muslim mobs in Tanjung Balai of North Sumatra.{{cite web |url=https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/07/30/vihara-pagodas-burned-down-plundered-in-n-sumatra.html |title=Vihara, pagodas burned down, plundered in N. Sumatra |work=The Jakarta Post |access-date=2022-08-04}} On 26 November 2016, a homemade bomb was discovered in front of Vihara Buddha Tirta, a Buddhist temple in Lhok Seumawe of Aceh.{{cite web |url=https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/11/06/bomb-placed-near-buddhist-temple-door-in-aceh.html |title=Bomb placed near Buddhist temple door in Aceh |work=The Jakarta Post |access-date=2022-08-04}}

{{main|Buddhism and Christianity|History of Christian thought on persecution and tolerance}}

The National Socialist Council of Nagaland has been accused of demanding money and food from Buddhists living along the Assam-Arunachal border. It has also been accused by Buddhists of forcing locals to convert to Christianity. The NSCN is also suspected of burning down the Rangphra temple in Arunachal Pradesh.{{Cite news |url=https://www.worthynews.com/400-missionaries-arrested-in-northeast-india |title=Missionaries Arrested in Northeast India |date=2003-08-15 |work=Worthy Christian News |access-date=2018-04-23}}

The National Liberation Front of Tripura has shut down and attacked Hindu and Buddhist orphanages, hospitals, temples and schools in Tripura.{{Cite news|url=http://christianaggression.org/2016/04/29/national-liberation-front-of-tripura-nlft/|title=National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) - Christian Aggression|date=2016-04-29|work=Christian Aggression|access-date=2018-04-23|archive-date=2018-04-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180424135358/http://christianaggression.org/2016/04/29/national-liberation-front-of-tripura-nlft/|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/tripura/terrorist_outfits/NLFT_tl.htm|title=Incidents involving National Liberation Front of Tripura, India, South Asia Terrorism Porta|website=satp.org|access-date=2018-04-29}} They have also been falsely accused of force converting Buddhists to Christianity.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S0qWTxjASKAC|title=The Politics Behind Anti Christian Violence: A Compilation of Investigation Committee Reports Into Acts of Violence Against the Christian Minorities|last=Puniyani|first=Ram|date=2006|publisher=Media House|isbn=9788174952370|language=en}}

A mass scale ethnic riot was initiated by the Baptist Church in Tripura in 1980 by which both Hindu and Buddhist tribes faced systematic ethnic cleansing. Thousands of women were kidnapped and then raped and even forced to convert to Christianity. Reports state that the terrorists received aid from international Christian groups. The Christian tribals also received aid from the NLFT.{{Cite news|url=http://christianaggression.org/2016/04/27/christian-conversions-and-terrorism-in-north-east-india/|title=Christian Conversions and Terrorism in North-East India - Christian Aggression|date=2016-04-27|work=Christian Aggression|access-date=2018-04-29|archive-date=2018-04-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180430050402/http://christianaggression.org/2016/04/27/christian-conversions-and-terrorism-in-north-east-india/|url-status=dead}} This was the state's worst ethnic riot.{{Cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/717775.stm|title=Church backing Tripura rebels|work=BBC News|access-date=2018-04-29}}

In Sengoku period Japan, as several daimyos and their subjects converted to Christianity via the efforts of Jesuit missionaries, the destruction of Buddhist and Shinto temples and shrines would often accompany it, with the Jesuits also contributing to the destruction and persecutions.{{Cite journal |last=Strathern |first=Alan |date=2020-11-18 |title=The Many Meanings of Iconoclasm: Warrior and Christian Temple-Shrine Destruction in Late Sixteenth Century Japan |journal=Journal of Early Modern History |volume=25 |issue=3 |pages=163–193 |doi=10.1163/15700658-BJA10023 |s2cid=229468278 |issn=1385-3783|doi-access=free }}{{Cite web |last=Akito |first=Ishikawa |date=2019-11-22 |title=A Little Faith: Christianity and the Japanese |url=https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g00769/a-little-faith-christianity-and-the-japanese.html |access-date=2022-04-26 |website=Nippon.com |language=en}} Buddhist monks would face persecution by being forcefully evicted out of the temples which would then be reused as churches.{{Cite book |last=Mase-Hasegawa |first=Emi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z96wCQAAQBAJ |title=Christ in Japanese Culture: Theological Themes in Shusaku Endo's Literary Works |publisher=BRILL |year=2008 |isbn=978-90-474-3321-7 |pages=23 |language=en}} Christian daimyos would also force Buddhist monks to marry. Additionally, Buddhist relics hidden by monks would be sought out and destroyed. The Jesuit missionaries were intolerant of Shintoism and Buddhism, considering them as idol-worship propagated by the devil. Christian converts believed that Shinto and Buddhist deities were evil spirits whose influence could be eliminated via the destruction of their religious sites.

In the religious history of Japan, efforts to eliminate native or localized religions like Buddhism and Shinto by force and replace them with a different creed altogether was a phenomenon never experienced before in Japan. The disregard on the part of Christians towards the religious pluralism found in Japanese spirituality was similarly seen as foreign. The destruction of religious sites by Christians even in peacetime and as a purely religious act was also seen as unparalleled by the Japanese authorities. This along with other more political factors eventually led the Japanese authorities to release an edict forbidding the practice of Christianity in the nation, with a 1587 edict by Toyotomi Hideyoshi stating "Japan is the land of the Gods and so it is undesirable that evil doctrines from Christian lands be propagated. To approach the inhabitants of our lands, make them into followers and destroy shrines and temples is unprecedented behavior."

There was also a series of Buddhist temple burnings in the 1980s and 1990s, and attacks on Buddhist artwork have continued. In one instance, a Protestant minister used a microphone on a cord as a bolo weapon and smashed temple paintings and a statue. In other instances, red crosses have been painted on temple walls, murals, and statues. Buddha statues have also been decapitated. Furthermore, students at Buddhist universities report aggressive attempts by Christians to convert them on campus, especially near campus temples.See Frank Tedesco's "Questions for Buddhist and Christian Cooperation in Korea," Buddhist-Christian Studies 17 (1997).

Some South Korean Buddhists have denounced what they view as discriminatory measures against them and their religion by the administration of President Lee Myung-bak, which they attribute to Lee's membership in the Somang Presbyterian Church in Seoul.{{cite news |author=Kim Rahn |date=30 July 2008 |title=President Embarrassed Over Angry Buddhists |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/07/117_28491.html |newspaper=The Korea Times |access-date=2015-09-27 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080914141501/http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/07/117_28491.html |archive-date=2008-09-14}} Of particular note was after Lee Myung-bak's ascendence to the Presidency when the high proportion of Christians in relation to Buddhists in the public sector became known–particularly the president's cabinet, where there were twelve Christians to only one Buddhist.{{cite news |url=http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/305984.html |title=Buddhists set to protest against Lee's religious bias |date=22 August 2008 |publisher=HANKYOREH}}

The Buddhist Jogye Order has accused the Lee government of discriminating against Buddhism and favoring Christianity by ignoring certain Buddhist temples but including Christian churches in certain public documents. In 2006, according to the Asia Times, "Lee also sent a video prayer message to a Christian rally held in the southern city of Busan in which the worship leader prayed feverishly: 'Lord, let the Buddhist temples in this country crumble down!{{'"}}{{cite web |url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/JB01Dg01.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512022433/http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/JB01Dg01.html |url-status=unfit |archive-date=12 May 2008 |title=Korea News and Korean Business and Economy, Pyongyang News |work=Asia Times |date=1 February 2008 |access-date=2015-09-27}} Further, according to an article in Buddhist-Christian Studies: "Over the course of the last decade [1990s] a fairly large number of Buddhist temples in South Korea have been destroyed or damaged by fire by misguided Christian fundamentalists. More recently, Buddhist statues have been identified as idols, and attacked and decapitated in the name of Jesus. Arrests are hard to effect, as the arsonists and vandals work by stealth of night." A 2008 incident in which police investigated protesters who had been given sanctuary in the Jogye temple in Seoul and searched a car driven by Jigwan, executive chief of the Jogye order, led to protests by Buddhists who claimed that police had treated Jigwan as a criminal.

In March 2009, in an effort to reach out to Buddhists affected by recent events, the President and First Lady participated in a Korean Buddhist conference where he and his wife were seen joining palms in prayer during chanting along with participants.{{cite web|url=http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=45,7926,0,0,1,0Korean|title=News & Issues - Korean President reaches out to Buddhist leaders|access-date=8 August 2015}} The discomfort among the Buddhists has gradually decreased since then.{{cite web|url=http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2008/10/01/2008100100032.html |title=대구·경북 범불교도대회 '정부규탄' 대신 '호법결의'로 – 1등 인터넷뉴스 조선닷컴 |publisher=News.chosun.com |access-date=2010-06-15}}{{cite web|url=http://media.daum.net/culture/religion/view.html?cateid=100028&newsid=20080930162403155&p=yonhap |title=Daum 미디어다음 – 뉴스 |language=ko |publisher=Media.daum.net |date=30 September 2008 |access-date=2010-06-15}}

In 1815, the British Army captured the Kingdom of Kandy and deposed the Sinhalese monarch, ending a line of Sinhalese Buddhist kings which lasted for over 2300 years. The British would rule over the island of Sri Lanka until 1948. Like the Dutch, the British refused to register unbaptized infants or accept non-Christian marriages. Christians were openly favored for jobs and promotions.{{cite web |url=http://www.buddhanet.net/sacred-island/kelaniya.html |title=BuddhaNet.Net: Sacred Island - A Buddhist Pilgrim's Guide to Sri Lanka: Kelaniya |access-date=8 August 2015}} The British also supported various Christian missionary groups to established Christian schools on the island. Education in these Christian schools (which disparaged Buddhism) was a requirement to serve in a government office. Missionaries also wrote tracts in Sinhalese attacking Buddhism and promoting Christianity.{{Cite web |author1=H.R. Perera |year=2007 |website=accesstoinsight.org|publisher=Buddhist Publication Society |title=Buddhism in Sri Lanka: A Short History |url=https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/perera/wheel100.html |access-date=2023-01-02 }} Robert Inglis, a 19th-century British Conservative, likened Buddhism to "idolatry" during a parliamentary debate in 1852 over the relationship of "Buddhist priests" to the British colonial government.Hansard, 3rd Series, cxxiii, 713–714. In the 19th century, a national Buddhist revival movement began as a response to Christian proselytization and suppression, and was empowered by the results of a Panadura debate between Christian priests and Buddhist monks such as Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera and Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera, which was widely seen as a victory for the Buddhists.[http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=local/buddhists-must-safeguard-religion-sangha-thera Buddhists must safeguard religion, Sangha – Thera] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150416202308/http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=local%2Fbuddhists-must-safeguard-religion-sangha-thera |date=2015-04-16 }}, Daily News

{{close paraphrasing|section|source=https://www-degruyter-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/document/doi/10.4159/9780674237087-002/html|date=December 2022}}

In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order 9066. This gave the military discretion to do whatever it deemed necessary to secure the safety and security of the United States. "The Army removed all persons of Japanese ancestry—more than 110,000 men, women, and children—from the west coast and put them in camps surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. Anyone with even a drop of Japanese blood was rounded up and incarcerated".{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Duncan Ryuken |year=2019 |title=American Sutra |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=3 |isbn=978-0-674-23708-7}} The wartime incarceration, which the religion played in the evaluation of whether or not they could be considered fully American because the vast majority of them were Buddhists. In Hawaiian Islands, the authorities were particularly anxious to remove leaders of the religious community. Four days prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor, 347 Japanese individuals were arrested and the majority of Buddhist leaders in the initial roundup were not simply a panicked reaction to a sudden military emergency, but the enactment of an already considered contingency plan. The Army also gave preferential treatment to Christians, despite the tens of thousands of Japanese-American Buddhists who served in the armed services during World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters.{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Duncan Ryuken |year=2019 |title=American Sutra |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=20–22 |isbn=978-0-674-23708-7}}

In 2020, Christian fundamentalists vandalized six Buddhist temples amid growing anti-Asian violence.{{Cite news |url=https://nextshark.com/buddhist-temples-vandalized-orange-county/ |title=6 Buddhist Temples Vandalized in OC in November, 2 Women Caught on Camera |date=30 November 2020 |publisher=NextShark}} The following year, a Buddhist temple in Los Angeles was burned and suffered other damages, including a broken glass door and a knocked down lantern.{{cite news |url=https://abc7.com/10374367/ |title=LAPD investigates vandalism incident at Buddhist temple in Little Tokyo |date=26 February 2021}}

{{main|Buddhist crisis|Huế Phật Đản shootings|Huế chemical attacks|Xá Lợi Temple raids}}

As early as 1953 rumoured allegations had surfaced of discrimination against Buddhists in Vietnam. These allegations stated that Catholic Vietnamese armed by the French had been raiding villages. By 1961, the shelling of pagodas in Vietnam was being reported in the Australian and American media.{{Cite news |author=Bernard B. Fall |date=16 May 1975 |type=book review |title=Errors Escalated Too |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/15/home/halberstam-quagmire.html |access-date=2023-01-02 |website=The New York Times}}

After the Catholic Ngô Đình Diệm came to power in South Vietnam, backed by the United States, he favoured his relatives and fellow Catholics over Buddhists and dedicated the country to the Virgin Mary in 1959. Though Buddhists made up 80% of Vietnam's population, Catholics were given high positions in the army and civil service. Half of the 123 National Assembly members were Catholic. Buddhists also required special government permits to hold large meetings, a stipulation generally made for meetings of trade unions.{{cite magazine |title=The Religious Crisis |url=https://time.com/archive/6812543/south-viet-nam-the-religious-crisis/ |magazine=Time |date=14 June 1963 |page=37}} In May 1963, the government forbade the flying of Buddhist flags on Vesak. After Buddhist protesters clashed with government troops, nine people were killed. In protest, the Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death in Saigon.{{cite web |title=Ngo Dinh Diem: South Vietnamese president |url=http://www.cnn.com/interactive/specials/0004/vietnam.profiles/diem.html |publisher=CNN |access-date=28 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081218190701/http://www.cnn.com/interactive/specials/0004/vietnam.profiles/diem.html |archive-date=18 December 2008}} On 21 August, the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids led to a death toll estimated in the hundreds.

Magha, the Hindu invader from Kalinga who seized power in Polonnaruwa in the 13th century CE with the help of his soldiers and mercenaries from the modern Kerala and Damila (Tamil Nadu) regions in India,{{sfn|de Silva|2005|p=91&92}} in the Culavamsa was the spreading of false faith.{{Cite journal |last=Schalk |first=Peter |date=1988-01-01 |title="Unity" and "Sovereignty": Key Concepts of a Militant Buddhist Organization in the Present Conflict in Sri Lanka |journal=Temenos - Nordic Journal for Study of Religion |language=en |volume=24 |pages=71 |doi=10.33356/temenos.6162 |doi-access=free }} The Pujavaliya composed in the aftermath of Magha's invasion declares that the unbelievers will never have permanent residence on the island reserved for Buddhism and that it is only suitable for Buddhist rulers.{{Cite book |last=Clough |first=Bradley S. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9P4TU-0zEs8C&pg=PA337 |title=Religious Tolerance in World Religions |date=2008 |publisher=Templeton Foundation Press |isbn=978-1-59947-136-5 |pages=337 |language=en |chapter=A Policy of Intolerance: The Case of Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism}} But Māgha's rule of 21 years and its aftermath are a watershed in the history of the island, creating a new political order.{{sfn|de Silva|2005|p=85}}

A second poilitical center emerged in the north of the island where Tamil settlers from previous Indian incursions occupied the Jaffna Peninsula and the Vanni.{{efn|The land between Anuradhapura and Jaffna}} Many Tamil members of invading armies, mercenaries, joined them rather than returning to India with their compatriots. By the 13th century the Tamils too withdrew from the Vanni almost entirely into the Jaffna peninsula where an independent Tamil kingdom had been established.{{sfn|de Silva|2005|p=87}} {{sfn|Indrapala|1969|p=16}} Māgha, a bigoted Hindu, persecuted Sinhalese Buddhists, despoiling the temples and giving away lands of the Sinhalese to his followers.{{sfn|Codrington|1926|p=67}} His priorities in ruling were to extract as much as possible from the land and overturn as many of the traditions of Rajarata as possible. His reign saw the Killing of many Sinhalese by his army and massive migration of the Sinhalese people to the south and west of Sri Lanka, and into the mountainous interior, in a bid to escape his power.

{{cite web|url=http://www.edupub.gov.lk/Final%20History%20Grade%207%20%2010.04.2008(Eng)/Chapter%204.pdf|title=The Kingdom of Polonnaruwa|publisher=Educational Publications Department, Sri Lanka|access-date=2009-04-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222173948/http://www.edupub.gov.lk/Final%20History%20Grade%207%20%2010.04.2008(Eng)/Chapter%204.pdf|archive-date=2012-02-22|url-status=dead}} {{sfn|Indrapala|1969|p=16}}

The increasing influence of Hinduism on the island starting from the 13th century CE was resisted by the Sangha who decried the worship of Hindu gods and ridiculed Hindu customs such as wearing the sacred ash.{{Cite book |last1=Holt |first1=John Clifford |editor-last1=Deegalle |editor-first1=Mahinda |year=2006 |chapter=Hindu influences on medieval Sri Lankan Buddhist culture |title=Buddhism, Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=83qhTJ_0i-8C&pg=PA61 |publisher=Routledge |pages=61–64 |isbn=978-0-415-35920-7}}{{Cite book |last=Tambiah |first=Stanley Jeyaraja |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J8LjxsG1_h8C&pg=PA143 |title=Buddhism Betrayed?: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-226-78950-7 |pages=143 |language=en}} However, the Sinhalese kingdoms continued to decline, under the attacks by South Indian states. The last Sinhala king to rule from Polonnaruva was Parākramabāhu III (1302–1310), who was actually a client king of the Pandyas and later had to retreat to Dambadeniya.{{sfnp|de Silva|1981|p=82}} After this, Sinhala kings were forced to retreat further to the south (to cities like Kurunagala and Gampola), mainly in search of security from South Indian states and from the expansive Tamil kingdom of Jaffna (a Hindu realm which now controlled the north-west of the island).{{sfnp|de Silva|1981|pp=82–84}}

In the Sri Lankan Sinhalese society, king Rajasinha I of Sitawaka reverted to Saiva Siddhantism{{Cite web |url=http://www.divaina.com/2010/01/20/feature02.html |title=ගණින්නාන්සේලා කියවිය යුතු සංඝරජ වැලවිට සරණංකර චරිතය |access-date=2010-01-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170120202643/http://www.divaina.com/2010/01/20/feature02.html |archive-date=2017-01-20 |url-status=dead }} after a prolonged domination of Theravada Buddhism following the conversion of king Devanampiya Tissa.

King Rajasinha arranged the marriage of his Tamil minister Mannamperuma Mohottala to a sister of a junior queen known as the "iron daughter" He converted to Shaiva Siddhanta[http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=25778 Mayadunne and Rajasinha I] The Island - 20 May 2011 He was reported to have settled Brahmans Adi Shaivas and Tamil Shaivite Velalars at significant Buddhist sites such as Sri Pada, etc. The Velala Gurukkals acted as religious mentors of the King and strengthened Shaiva Siddhantism at these centres. Under the advice of Mannamperuma Mohottala, he razed many Buddhist religious sites to the ground. Buddhism remained in decline thereafter until the formation of the Siam Nikaya and Amarapura Nikaya with the support of the Portuguese and Dutch East India Company respectively.

During the 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom, Tamil rioters attacked the Sri Naga Vihara in Jaffna and the Nagadeepa Purana Vihara, completely destroying the latter.{{cite book |last1=Vittachi |first1=Tarzie |title=Emergency '58: The Story of the Ceylon Race Riots |publisher=Andre-Deutsch |url=https://tamilnation.org/books/eelam/vitachi.pdf |access-date=7 September 2023}} Several Sinhalese witnesses testified to the Sansoni commission that there had been damage done to ancient Buddhist monuments and buildings in the Trincomalee District in the early 1970s. Justice Miliani Sansoni opined that the damage to ancient Buddhist sites in the Northern and Eastern Provinces was a cause of the 1977 riots. During the riots, a Buddhist temple in Kilinochchi was burned by a Tamil mob as part of anti-Sinhalese rioting.{{cite report |author=M. C. Sansoni |date=July 1980 |title=Report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry Into the Incidents Which Took Place Between 13th August and 15th September |url=https://lankafreelibrary.com/2019/10/15/sansoni-commission-1980/ |publisher=Government Printing, Sri Lanka |docket= |access-date= }} During the Sri Lankan civil war, there had been a number of attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and other Tamil militant groups at Buddhist sites such as the Dalada Maligawa, often involving the massacre of Sinhalese Buddhist civilians.{{cite book |last1=Tambiah |first1=Stanley |title=Buddhism Betrayed?: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka |date=15 July 1992 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |page=75 |isbn=9780226789491 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3MO_86VwNSkC&pg=PA75 |access-date=8 September 2023}}{{cite report |title=Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Report Submitted to the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate and Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives by the Department of State in Accordance with Sections 116(d) and 502B(b) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as Amended |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KDfINilTi4gC&pg=PA1380 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |page=1380 |docket= |access-date= }}{{cite report |title=Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2004, November 2004, 108-2 Joint Committee Print, S. Prt. 108-59, * |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q0zPzrCn2o8C&pg=RA4-PA674 |page=674 |docket= |access-date= }}{{cite report |date=16 October 1990 |title=The War And Its Consequences in the Amparai District |url=https://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport3.htm#_Toc15893102 |publisher=University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) |docket= |access-date= |quote=The local LTTE leader, Regan, ordered the Sri Vijayrama Buddhist temple to be blasted.}} Sociologist Sasanka Perera remarked that, while the militants sought to destroy Buddhist sites to erase signs of Sinhalese heritage in their claimed territories, they were actually destroying their own heritage.{{cite journal |last1=Perera |first1=Sasanka |title=Formation of Ethnocentrism and the Perpetuation of Hatred: The Role of Socialization and Media in the Sri Lankan Conflict |journal=Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences |year=1995 |volume=18 |issue=1–2 |page=71 |url=https://dl.nsf.gov.lk/bitstream/handle/1/4966/JSS_18_55.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y#page=17 |access-date=30 September 2023}}

{{See also|Banishment of Buddhist monks from Nepal}}

The banishment of Buddhist monks from Nepal was part of a Rana government campaign to suppress the resurgence of Theravada Buddhism in Nepal in the early decades of the 20th century.{{cite news|last=Dietrich|first=Angela|title=Buddhist Monks and Rana Rulers: A History of Persecution|url=http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-BH/bh117536.htm|access-date=17 March 2011|newspaper=Buddhist Himalaya: A Journal of Nagarjuna Institute of Exact Methods|year=1996|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131001124156/http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-BH/bh117536.htm|archive-date=1 October 2013|url-status=dead}} There were two deportations of monks from Kathmandu, in 1926 and 1944.{{cite web |url=http://www.lumbini.org.uk/bd_n_thera_t.html |title=Theravada Buddhism in Modern Nepal |publisher=Lumbini Nepalese Buddha Dharma Society (UK) |access-date=15 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140804160554/http://www.lumbini.org.uk/bd_n_thera_t.html |archive-date=4 August 2014 |url-status=dead }}{{cite news|last=Tuladhar|first=Kamal Ratna|title=The monks in yellow robes|url=http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/04/07/saturday-features/the-first-word--the-monks-in-yellow-robes/351932.html|access-date=17 May 2013|newspaper=The Kathmandu Post|date=7 April 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120408200957/http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/04/07/saturday-features/the-first-word--the-monks-in-yellow-robes/351932.html|archive-date=8 April 2012|url-status=dead}}{{cite book |last= Hilker |first= DS Kansakar |title= Syamukapu: The Lhasa Newars of Kalimpong and Kathmandu |year=2005 |publisher= Vajra Publications |location= Kathmandu |isbn=978-99946-644-6-7 |page=58 |chapter= Expulsion of Buddhist monks from Nepal}}

The exiled monks were the first group of monks to be seen in Nepal since the 14th century. They were at the forefront of a movement to revive Theravada Buddhism which had disappeared from the country more than five hundred years ago. The Rana regime disapproved of Buddhism and Nepal Bhasa, the mother tongue of the Newar people. It saw the activities of the monks and their growing following as a threat. When police harassment and imprisonment failed to deter the monks, all of whom were Newars, they were deported.

Among the charges made against them were preaching a new faith, converting Hindus, encouraging women to renounce and thereby undermining family life and writing books in Nepal Bhasa.LeVine, Sarah and Gellner, David N. (2005). Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal. Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|0-674-01908-3}}, {{ISBN|978-0-674-01908-9}}. Page 48.{{cite web|url=http://www.lumbini.org.uk/bd_n_thera_t.html|title=Theravada Buddhism in Modern Nepal|publisher=Lumbini Nepalese Buddha Dharma Society (UK)|access-date=9 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140804160554/http://www.lumbini.org.uk/bd_n_thera_t.html|archive-date=4 August 2014|url-status=dead}}

The Khmer Rouge, under its policy of state atheism,{{Cite book |last=Salter |first=Richard C. |title=Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases |title-link=Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-8156-0599-7 |editor-last=Wessinger |editor-first=Catherine |editor-link=Catherine Wessinger |language=en |chapter=Time, Authority, and Ethics in the Khmer Rouge: Elements of the Millennial Vision in Year Zero |page=282 |quote=Democratic Kampuchea was officially an atheist state, and the persecution of religion by the Khmer Rouge was matched in severity only by the persecution of religion in the communist states of Albania and North Korea, so there were not any direct historical continuities of Buddhism into the Democratic Kampuchea era.}} actively imposed an atheistic agrarian revolution, resulting in the persecution of ethnic minorities and Buddhist monks during their reign from 1975 to 1979.{{cite web|url=http://gsp.yale.edu/case-studies/cambodian-genocide-program/publications/chronology-cambodian-events-1950|title=Chronology, 1994-2004 - Cambodian Genocide Program - Yale University|access-date=8 August 2015}} Buddhist institutions and temples were destroyed and Buddhist monks and teachers were killed in large numbers.{{cite web|url=http://www.sptimes.com/News/050300/NIE/Remembering_the_death.shtml |title=Nie: Remembering the deaths of 1.7-million Cambodians |work=St Petersburg Times |access-date=2015-09-27}} A third of the nation's monasteries were destroyed along with numerous holy texts and items of high artistic quality. 25,000 Buddhist monks were massacred by the regime.{{Cite news|last=Shenon|first=Philip|date=1992-01-02|title=Phnom Penh Journal; Lord Buddha Returns, With Artists His Soldiers|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/02/world/phnom-penh-journal-lord-buddha-returns-with-artists-his-soldiers.html|access-date=2023-01-02|issn=0362-4331}} Pol Pot believed that Buddhism was a decadent affectation, and he sought to eliminate its 1,500-year-old mark on Cambodia, while still maintaining the structures of the traditional Buddhist base.{{Cite book |last=Salter |first=Richard C. |title=Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases |title-link=Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-8156-0599-7 |editor-last=Wessinger |editor-first=Catherine |editor-link=Catherine Wessinger |language=en |chapter=Time, Authority, and Ethics in the Khmer Rouge: Elements of the Millennial Vision in Year Zero |pages=282–283|quote=Khmer Buddhist influences still persisted and they are also recognizable in the Khmer Rouge's worldview, particularly in their notions of time, authority, and normative ethics ... Though the Khmer Rouge was officially nonreligious, its worldview, especially its notions of time, authority and its normative ethics can be understood as having structural parallels with the Buddhist worldview.}}

{{main|Antireligious campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party}}

{{further|Chinese Buddhism|Cultural Revolution|Four Olds}}

Since the Chinese Communist Revolution, Buddhism was severely restricted and brought under state-control at times.{{citation needed|date=August 2017}} In addition, "Marxist–Leninist atheism has been widely publicized, resulting in steadily decreasing religious communities", especially in areas with developed economies. In 1989, less than 12% of the population held religious beliefs.{{cite book|title=Population Aging in China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pHD-AAAAMAAJ|access-date=1 July 2016|year=1989|publisher=Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific|language=en |page=48|quote=Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Marxist–Leninist atheism has been widely publicized, resulting in steadily decreasing religious communities, especially in predominantly Han and the coastal areas with a developed economy.}} During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese Buddhists were actively persecuted and sent for re-education, while Buddhist temples, statues, and sutras were vandalized and destroyed by the Red Guards for many years due to antireligious campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party. In recent years, Buddhism in China has been undergoing a revival but most Buddhist institutions are within the confines of the state.{{Cite news |last=Joske |first=Alex |author-link=Alex Joske |date=9 May 2019 |title=Reorganizing the United Front Work Department: New Structures for a New Era of Diaspora and Religious Affairs Work |language=en-US |website=Jamestown Foundation |url=https://jamestown.org/program/reorganizing-the-united-front-work-department-new-structures-for-a-new-era-of-diaspora-and-religious-affairs-work/ |access-date=2019-11-18}}

{{main|Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China}}

{{further|Antireligious campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party|Cultural Revolution|Four Olds}}

Although many Buddhist temples and monasteries have been rebuilt after the Cultural Revolution, Tibetan Buddhists have largely been confined by the Government of the People's Republic of China.{{Cite web |year=2007 |title=Human rights abuses up as Olympics approach |url=https://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=10025 |access-date=2023-01-02 |website=asianews.it |language=en}} Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns have been reported, incarcerated, tortured, and killed by the People's Liberation Army, according to all human rights organizations.{{Cite journal |date=10 March 2001 |title=Area Tibetans mourn their nation's lost independence |journal=Minneapolis Star Tribune |last=Zavoral |first=Nolan |via=HighBeam Research |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-71575498.html |access-date=2023-01-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110516194802/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-71575498.html |archive-date=2011-05-16}} There were over 6,000 Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, and nearly all of them were ransacked and destroyed by the Chinese communists, mainly during the Cultural Revolution.{{Cite news |date=2008-03-20 |work=The Guardian |title=Tibetan monks: A controlled life |language=en-GB |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7307495.stm |access-date=2023-01-02}} Witness statements document that many Tibetan Buddhist monasteries were destroyed by the Chinese communists before the cultural revolution.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tG32DwAAQBAJ |last=Kuzmin |first=Sergius L. |editor1=Andrey Terentyev |title=Hidden Tibet: History of Independence and Occupation |year=2011 |publisher=Library of Tibetan Works and Archives |isbn=978-93-80359-47-2 |pages=214–215}} Moreover, the "Chinese Communist Party has launched a three-year drive to promote atheism in the Buddhist region of Tibet", with Xiao Huaiyuan, a leader in the Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Department in Tibet, stating that it would "help peasants and herdsmen free themselves from the negative influence of religion. Intensifying propaganda on atheism is especially important for Tibet because atheism plays an extremely important role in promoting economic construction, social advancement and socialist spiritual civilization in the region." He further said it would push "people of all ethnic groups in the region to raise their ideological and ethical quality, to learn a civilized and healthy life style and to strive to build a united, prosperous and civilized new Tibet."{{cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/253345.stm |title=China announces "civilizing" atheism drive in Tibet |date=12 January 1999 |publisher=British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) |access-date=1 July 2016}}

Buddhist monks were persecuted in Mongolia during communist rule up until revolutionary democratization in 1990.{{cite news|url=http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_travel_story_skin/791031 |title=Mongolia's monks make a comeback |date=18 July 2006 |work=Television New Zealand |access-date=2 November 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110516095640/http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_travel_story_skin/791031 |archive-date=16 May 2011 }} Khorloogiin Choibalsan declared 17,000 of the monks to be enemies of the state and deported them to Siberian labor camps, where many perished. Almost all of Mongolia's over 700 Buddhist monasteries were looted or destroyed.{{cite web|last1=Cramer|first1=Marc|title=Mongolia: The Bhudda and the Khan|url=http://www.orientmag.com/8-30.htm|work=Orient Magazine|access-date=28 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100818173717/http://www.orientmag.com/8-30.htm|archive-date=18 August 2010}}

The Oxford Handbook of Atheism states that "North Korea maintains a state-sanctioned and enforced atheism".{{cite book|last1=Bullivant|first1=Stephen|last2=Ruse|first2=Michael|title=The Oxford Handbook of Atheism|date=21 November 2013|publisher=OUP Oxford|language=en |isbn=9780191667398|pages=506|quote=Plagued with poverty and starvation, and characterized by the entrenched denial of basic human or civil rights, North Korea maintains a state-sanctioned and enforced atheism, with the only 'religion' permissible being that of the worship of the dictator.}} During the 1960s and 1970s, "North Korea effectively exterminated all signs of Buddhism" in the country.{{cite book|last=Ross|first=Jeffrey Ian|title=Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present|date=4 March 2015|publisher=Routledge|language=en |isbn=9781317461098|page=776|quote=In the 1960s and 1970s, the Burmese government persecuted approximately 2,000 Buddhist monks who, refusing to ahdere to government rule that ultimately contravened Buddhist philosophy, were either arrested or bayoneted by government troops. During that time, North Korea effectively exterminated all signs of Buddhism, and Cambodia's Pol Pot regime implemented a similar extermination program of Buddhist clergy.}}

Buddhism was persecuted and looked down upon by the Soviet authorities under the government policy of state atheism.{{cite journal |last=Bräker |first=Hans |year=2008 |title=Buddhism in the Soviet Union: Annihilation or survival? |journal=Religion in Communist Lands |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=36–48 |issn=0307-5974 |doi=10.1080/09637498308431057 |quote=The Party and State countered with the argument that Buddhist atheism had nothing to do with militant atheism, which was based on the Marxist-materialist interpretation of the laws of nature and society. The precise and binding outcome of this "new" attitude is to be found in the article on Buddhism in the second edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia. This argued that the theory that Buddhism was an atheist religion or a philosophical system was totally untenable, and that it was an attempt by the ideologues of the exploiting class to gloss over the reactionary nature of Buddhism. In reality, Buddhism was no more than an instrument erected by the feudal lords to exploit the working masses. However, since ideological means did not prove all that effective in the struggle against Buddhism, administrative measures were adopted and implemented at the same time. As early as 1928, heavy taxes were imposed upon the monasteries (which were maintained by the population). In 1929, many monasteries were forcibly closed and many monks arrested and sent into exile. In 1934 even Agvan Dordzhiev was exiled to Leningrad. He was arrested there in 1937 and transferred to a prison in Ulan-Ude, where he died in 1938 (possibly as a result of torture)".}} Adherents were attacked by the authorities.{{cite web |url=http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/AH26Ag01.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000925131251/http://atimes.com/c-asia/AH26Ag01.html |url-status=unfit |archive-date=2000-09-25 |title=Asia Times: Buddhist revival tangles with politics |work=Asia Times |date=1999-08-26 |access-date=2015-09-27}} In 1929, the government of the USSR closed many monasteries and arrested monks, sending them into exile. As government efforts brought Sovietization to Buryatia and Kalmykia, the clergy were reduced.{{cite book |last1=Geraci |first1=Robert P. |last2=Khodarkovsky |first2=Michael |title=Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia |date=2001 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-8703-3 |language=en |quote=Despite the onset of antireligious persecution, the Soviet government, desiring the support of Muslims and Buddhists, stopped short of launching an all-out war against their religious beliefs and institutions. However, it was predictable that such a situation would be only temporary. As Sovietization advanced further into Buriat and Kalmyk regions, the number of Lamaist clergy and khuruls was reduced.}}

Despite the communist regime's hostility, Buddhism is still widely practiced in Vietnam. According to Human Rights News, "Vietnam continues to systematically imprison and persecute independent Buddhists as well as followers of other religions."{{cite web|url=https://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/05/08/vietna18774.htm|title=Vietnam: Religious Freedom Denied|date=8 May 2008 |publisher=Human Rights Watch|access-date=8 August 2015}} The leaders of the Unified Buddhist Congregation of Vietnam, Thích Huyền Quang and Thích Quảng Độ were imprisoned for decades. Thich Nhat Hanh has spoken out about the wiping out of his spiritual tradition in Vietnam.{{cite web|url=http://www.buddhachannel.tv/portail/spip.php?article10879|title=Vietnam — Thich Nhat Hanh responds to Bat Nha crackdown with Zen koan - Buddhachannel|website=buddhachannel.tv|access-date=2017-04-08|archive-date=2017-04-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170408171503/http://www.buddhachannel.tv/portail/spip.php?article10879|url-status=dead}}

• History of Buddhism

{{notelist}}

{{reflist|group=note}}

{{Reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book|last1=Chakma|first1=Kabita|title=Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East|chapter=Indigenous Women and Culture in the Colonized Chittagong Hills Tracts of Bangladesh|year=2013|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0812244878|first2=Glen |last2=Hill|editor=Kamala Visweswaran|pages=132–157}}
• {{cite book |last1=Codrington |first1=H. W. |author-link1=Humphrey William Codrington |title=A Short History Of Ceylon |date=1926 |publisher=Macmillan & Co |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.208024/page/n9}}
• {{cite book |last1=de Silva |first1=K. M. |author-link1=K. M. de Silva |title=A History of Sri Lanka |date=1981 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520043206 |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_dByI_qil26YC/page/n1}}
• {{cite book |last1=de Silva |first1=K. M. |author-link1=K. M. de Silva |title=A History of Sri Lanka |date=2005 |publisher=Vijitha Yapa Publications |location=Colombo |isbn=9789558095928 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PWbRAqsIJgIC}}
• {{cite journal|first=Richard A. |last=Gray|year=1994|title=Genocide in the Chittagong Hill tracts of Bangladesh|journal=Reference Services Review|volume=22|issue=4|pages=59–79|doi=10.1108/eb049231}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Indrapala |first1=K. |author-link1=K. Indrapala |title=Early Tamil Settlements in Ceylon. |journal=The Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland |date=1969 |volume=13 |pages=43–63 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43483465 |location=JSTOR|jstor=43483465 }}
• {{cite book|last=O'Brien|first=Sharon|chapter=The Chittagong Hill Tracts|title=Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity|editor=Dinah Shelton|publisher=Macmillan Library Reference|year=2004|pages=176–177}}
• {{cite book |editor-last=Mey |editor-first=Wolfgang |year=1984 |title=Genocide in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh |location=Copenhagen |publisher=International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) }}
• {{cite book|last=Mohsin|first=A.|year=2003|title=The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh: On the Difficult Road to Peace|location=Boulder, Col.|publisher=Lynne Rienner Publishers}}
• {{cite book|last=Roy|first=Rajkumari|year=2000|title=Land Rights of the Indigenous Peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh |location=Copenhagen |publisher=International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs}}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book |last=al-Balādhurī |author-link=Al-Baladhuri |translator-last=Murgotten |translator-first=Francis Clark |date=1924 |title=The Origins of the Islamic State |url=https://archive.org/details/originsoftheisla032520mbp |volume=Part II |location=New York |publisher=Columbia University |oclc=6396175}}
• {{cite journal |last=Dudink |first=Adrian |year=2000 |title=Nangong Shudu (1620), Poxie Ji (1640), and Western Reports on the Nanjing Persecution (1616/1617) |journal=Monumenta Serica |publisher=Maney Publishing |volume=48 |pages=133–265 |jstor=40727263|doi=10.1080/02549948.2000.11731345 |s2cid=192064160 }}
• Elliot and Dowson (1867–1877). The History of India as told by its own Historians, London: Trübner. Reprint, New Delhi 1990.
• Majumdar, R. C. (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, Volume VII, The Mughal Empire, Bombay, 1973.

{{refend}}

{{Wikiquote}}

{{commons category|Persecution of Buddhists}}

{{Religious persecution}}

{{Buddhism topics}}

{{Theology}}

{{Buddhist crisis}}

{{Discrimination}}

Category:Anti-Buddhism

Buddhists