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Gunawan Kartapranata  · CC BY-SA 3.0

Tradition collection 1,943 records

Buddhist traditions

Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, their figures, sutras, lineages and monasteries.

  • Extent India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Tibet, China, Korea and Japan, roughly 500 BCE to the present.
  • Holds 1,173 places · 256 figures · 158 traditions · 152 gods
See the holy places

Before you count

Teacher transmission is the backbone of these traditions and the thinnest thing in the structured data: most lineages here are incomplete.

What else it is missing

Places · 1,173

Holy places and sites

Temples, tombs, holy cities and sites recorded in this collection, the most widely linked first. A place is not a count of believers.

All 1,173 places

1,173 places 1,173 with a point on the map 615 with a date 1 archaeological site

See them on the atlas

The oldest on record

The earliest recorded starts among its best-known places, by 1000 CE, in date order. Each date is the place’s own — a city’s founding, a building’s — not the start of this tradition there.

  1. 68 CE White Horse Temple
  2. 491 CE Xuankong Temple
  3. 495 CE Shaolin Monastery
  4. 593 CE Shitennō-ji Temple
  5. 607 CE Hōryū-ji Temple
  6. 637 CE Potala Palace
  7. 639 CE Jokhang
  8. 644 CE Zenkō-ji Temple

Where they gather

Cities and sites with two or more of its places recorded in them — counted from each place’s own location.

Figures · 256

Who to meet first

The figures its own texts, stories and traditions name — the most widely linked first, this collection’s own before those it shares.

All 256 figures

More of its best-linked figures

Traditions · 158

Many paths, shared histories

The traditions, schools and movements this collection holds — each with its own page.

All 158 traditions

Gods · 152

The gods, and the company they keep

The most widely linked across Wikipedia, this collection’s own first. A picture of a god is a work of art, never a likeness.

All 152 gods

More of its best-linked gods

In company

Pantheons, read from the members’ own records — never from a fixed roster.

Eight Protectors of the Zodiac 8 members on record Explore the pantheon

Texts and stories · 146

Stories and texts

What was told, and what was written — dated when it was written.

All 2 stories All 144 texts

Festivals and practices · 34

Festivals, holy days and practices

Holy days with the day their record gives, then rites and practices. A festival recurs, so it has no date on the historical clock.

All 34 practices

Holy days and festivals · 2, each with the day its record gives

Rites and practices · 30, with no day on record

24 more — the full list.

Festivals, practices and events follow how densely Wikidata records them, not how much a tradition keeps: 77% of the 845 held across the collections are Christian, and this collection holds 39.

Offices and houses · 22

Offices and houses

Recorded in this collection, the most widely linked first. An office is a line of holders, not a family. A ruling house’s affiliation is the family’s, not its subjects’ practice.

All 13 offices All 9 houses

Events · 5

Events

None has a date on record yet, so none is placed in time here; the most widely linked first.

All 5 events

Argued, cited and signed

Explained connections that reach into it: a claim, its evidence, its limits.

All explained connections

What this collection holds

Counted, not scored. Each count opens its list.

Every collection

A record can be more than one kind — a monastery is a place and an institution — so these counts add up to more than its 1,943 records. The sections above count the same way, and draw each record once, under the kind its own page is filed under.

8 pantheons are listed above and 7 counted here: a pantheon is counted where its own record is filed, and listed wherever most of its members are.

Statements
7,684
With references
2,099
Undated
1,022
Accounts
0
Reviewed here
0
What it is missing, and how it was assembled

What this collection is missing

Written by an editor, not computed. A count of records cannot say any of this, and a collection read without it is a collection read wrongly.

  • Teacher transmission is the backbone of these traditions and the thinnest thing in the structured data: most lineages here are incomplete.
  • One figure has different names in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese, and upstream sometimes has several records.
  • Recognition of a lineage is contested in living cases, and only some contests are represented.

Counted across the collections

Festivals, practices and events follow how densely Wikidata records them, not how much a tradition keeps: 77% of the 845 held across the collections are Christian, and this collection holds 39.

What the counts mean

Statements
Relationships and facts recorded on these records.
With references
Statements that cite a source outside Wikimedia.
Undated
Records with no date on any of the three clocks.
Accounts
Named versions of a story, kept apart.
Reviewed here
Read by a person and signed with a date.

How it was assembled

Discovered from Wikidata by class and by religion, ranked by incoming links, then filtered against each item’s own claims. Relationships are imported statements unless a row says otherwise; none of them has been read here.

“Reviewed” means a person read it and signed it with a date — which is why it is zero. Nothing here measures how good the material is.

Records here have an article in 16 languages between them. The interface is English only for now. Published 2026-09-25.

How 28 of these records were placed here through another record

Most records are in Buddhist traditions by their own statements. These are here because of another record they are linked to — worked out when the data was built, not stated on the record itself. Each one’s own page says the same.

Cities and sites, through the places recorded in them · 11

  • Lhasa — 12 of the 14 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Nara — 19 of the 23 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Angkor — 3 of the 7 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Anuradhapura — 7 of the 7 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Bagan — 6 of the 9 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Bodh Gaya — 1 of the 1 places recorded in it here are in this collection

and 5 more

Tombs, through the figures buried in them · 1

Parts, through the whole they belong to · 9

and 3 more

Works, through their main subject · 3

Gods, through a parent or a consort · 1

Pantheons, through their own published gods · 3

Andrew Moore from Johannesburg, South Africa · CC BY-SA 2.0

Keep going

Walk Buddhist traditions another way.

A family tree as the records give it, every mapped place on the atlas, and the dates on the timeline — each on its own clock.

The Buddha’s family tree On the atlas The timeline, from Buddhism