Buddhism in Australia

In

.

Demographics

The change in demography of Buddhism in Australia is given[4]^{[circular reference]}:

Year	Percent	Increase
1986	0.5%	–
1996	1.1%	0.6%
2006	2.1%	1.0%
2011	2.5%	0.4%
2016	2.4%	0.1%
2021	2.4%	0%

2011 census data showed the Buddhist affiliated population had grown from 418,749 to 528,977 people, an increase of 20.8%.^[5] As Australia's population was estimated at 21.5 million at the time, according to the same census, the Buddhist population may be estimated at 2.46% of the population.

According to the

The highest percentage of Buddhists are present in

History

The first clear example of Buddhist settlement in Australia dates to 1858. However, there has been speculation from some

relics appearing in northern Australia dating to the 15th century, although it may have been brought much later through trade rather than earlier exploration.

In 1851, the first large group of Chinese to come to Australia came as part of the

activities. However, no clerics from China ever came to Australia, and the temple eventually declined and disappeared by the end of the 20th century.

The first Buddhist group to arrive in Australia was a troupe of acrobats and jugglers from Japan who toured in 1867.^{[citation needed]} More arrived throughout the century, mostly involved in the pearling industry in northern Australia, reaching an estimate of 3600 on Thursday Island, and also in Broome and Darwin, Northern Territory.^{[citation needed]}

The first Sinhalese Buddhists from Sri Lanka arrived in 1870 to work in sugarcane plantations. A community was believed to exist on Thursday Island in 1876. In 1882, a group of 500 left Colombo for Queensland, mostly in Mackay. The oldest remaining structure attesting to the establishment of Buddhism in Australia are two Bodhi Trees planted on Thursday Island in the 1890s, although the temple which once stood there no longer exists.

During the 20th century, the number of Buddhists gradually declined due to emigration and a lack of immigration caused by the

.

In 1891, the American Buddhist, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, who was the co-founder of Theosophical Society came to Australia and participated in a lecture series, which led to a greater awareness of Buddhism in small circles of mainly upper-class society. One of the members of the Theosophical Society was future Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, who had spent three months in India and Sri Lanka in 1890 and wrote a book which discussed spiritual matters, including Buddhism.

The first instance of a monk arriving in Australia was in 1910, when U Sasana Dhaja, born E.H. Stevenson in

. Over the years, various monks visited Australia, but it was not until the 1970s that a resident monk (named Venerable Somaloka) arrived from Sri Lanka.

The first specific Buddhist group, the Buddhist Study Group Melbourne, was formed in

. The Buddhist Society of Victoria was formed in 1953, and in 1956 the Buddhist Society of New South Wales was formed. From the 1950s until the 1970s, the Buddhist Societies were lay organizations which self-discussed Buddhism.

Phap Hoa Temple, a Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Adelaide

.

In the late 1970s, Buddhism began to become more widespread, mainly due to immigration from

in the proceeding decades.

In 2009 in Australia four women received

Buddhism used to have the

highest percentage growth

of all religions in Australia, having had an increase of 79 percent in the number of adherents from the 1996 to the 2001 census. Since the 1986 census, the number of adherents has increased from 80,387 to around 370,345 in 2001. However, it started to decline from 2.5 percent in 2011 to 2.4 percent in 2016, although there is still an increase of about 34,700 Buddhists in the number of adherents.

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Buddhist temples

• Bodhinyana Monastery
• Dhammasara Monastery
• Pháp Hoa Temple
• Nan Tien Temple
• Newbury Buddhist Monastery
• Chung Tian Temple
• Stream Entering Monastery (Tu viện Nhập Lưu)
• Sunnataram Forest Monastery
• Tara Institute

See also

• Ajahn Brahmavamso
• Ajahn Sujato
• Ayya Nirodha
• Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden
• Geshe Sonam Thargye
• Buddhism in New Zealand
• Buddhism in Oceania
• Great Stupa of Universal Compassion

References

Further reading

• Croucher, Paul (1989). A History of Buddhism in Australia, Kensington, N.S.W. : New South Wales University Press
• Halafoff, Anna; Fitzpatrick, Ruth; Lam, Kim (2012). Buddhism in Australia: An Emerging Field of Study, Journal of Global Buddhism 13, 9-25
• Daniel A. Metraux, "Soka Gakkai in Australia" in Nova Religio (8.1, July 2004).
• Metraux, Daniel A. (2003). The Soka Gakkai in Australia: Globalization of a new Japanese Religion, Journal of Global Buddhism 4, 108-143
• Spuler, Michelle (2000). Characteristics of Buddhism in Australia, Journal of Contemporary Religion 15 (1), 29-44
• Spuler, Michelle (2002). The Development of Buddhism in Australia and New Zealand. In: Prebish, Charles S., and Baumann, Martin, (eds.) Westward Dharma: Buddhism beyond Asia. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, USA, pp. 139–151
• Barker, Michelle (2007). Investments in Religious Capital: An explorative case study of Australian Buddhists Archived 22 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Journal of Global Buddhism 8, 65-80

External links

• Article from Buddhism Today
• Sri Lankan Buddhist temples in Australia