Buddhism in Malaysia
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| Total population | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,620,483 (2010) | |||||||||
| Regions with significant populations | |||||||||
| Penang · Selangor · Kuala Lumpur · Johor | |||||||||
| Languages | |||||||||
| Malaysian Mandarin · English · Thai · Sinhala · Indian · Malay | |||||||||
| Religion | |||||||||
| Majority Mahayana Buddhism (Chinese) · Theravada Buddhism (Sri Lankans and Thais) · Sukhavana | |||||||||
| Related ethnic groups | |||||||||
| Malaysia Hindus | |||||||||
Buddhism is the second largest religion in Malaysia, after Islam, with 19.2% of Malaysia's population being Buddhist although some estimates put that figure up to 21.6% when combined with Chinese religions.Buddhism in Malaysia is mainly practised by the ethnic Malaysian Chinese, but there are also Malaysian Siamese, Malaysian Sri Lankans and Burmese in Malaysia that practice Buddhism such as Ananda Krishnan and K. Sri Dhammananda and a sizeable population of Malaysian Indians.
Buddhism was introduced to the Malays and also to the people of the Malay Archipelago as early as 200 BCE. Chinese written sources indicated that some 30 small Indianised states rose and fell in the Malay Peninsula. Malay-Buddhism began when Indian traders and priests traveling the maritime routes and brought with them Indian concepts of religion, government, and the arts. For many centuries the peoples of the region, especially the royal courts, synthesised Indian and indigenous ideas including Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism and that shaped their political and cultural patterns. However, the Malay Kedah Kingdom denounced Indian religion after the king of Chola from Tamil Nadu attacked them in the early 11th century. The king of Kedah, Phra Ong Mahawangsa, was the first Malay ruler to denounce the traditional Indian religion; he converted to Islam, and in the 15th century, during the golden age of the Malacca Sultanate, the majority of Malays converted to Islam.
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