Foundations of Eastern Civilization | Origins of Buddhism (Lecture 19)

Lecture 19: As we’ve seen in the last few lectures, the cultural exchange fostered by the Silk Roads was a two-way street; foundational technologies and ideologies traveled from Eastern civilizations westward and from Eurasia to the east. Chief among these ideas coming from Eurasia, in terms of the subsequent impact it would have on Eastern civilization, was the Indian spiritual philosophy of Buddhism. In this lecture, we will explore the Indian origins of Buddhism. We will then follow up in the next lecture with a more detailed account of its spread into China and East Asia in the centuries following the collapse of the Han dynasty, another bitterly fragmented and violent period that has been called the Age of Disunity.

Suggested Reading:
Aldiss, ed., Zen Sourcebook.
Ebrey, The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, chapter 4.
Schirokauer et al., A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations, chapter 4.

Lecture 20: https://www.bitchute.com/video/6xL73rpxiqSz/