Status of Chinese Buddhism

The feature of Chinese Buddhism lies in the coexistence of Mahayana Buddhism and Hinayana Buddhism as well as the concomitance of Exoteric and Esoteric Buddhism. Buddhism was initiated in India, developed in China and further expanded to Japan and Korea. However, Buddhist doctrinal classification itself never played any crucial role in Indian Buddhism as it did in China. Indian Buddhists were threatened by the values and socio-political structures of the Indian society dominated by Hinduism and Islam and vanished between 9th century and 10th century in India while Buddhism were developed rapidly in China so that China became the true homeland of Buddhism all over the world.

Another feature of Chinese Buddhism is that Mahasanghika Buddhism plays an important role. Most Chinese Buddhists take Mahasanghika Buddhism as their religion except people living near Thailand, whose religion is Theravada Buddhism as well as people living in Tibet whose religion is the Esoteric Buddhism.

The third feature of Chinese Buddhism is that it has ten sects. Some hierarchs founded new sects according to different canons including Tiantai Sect, Garland Sect, Three Sutra Sect, Reality Sect, Lotus Sect, Vinaya, Zen and Esoteric Buddhism.