The final volume of this three-part work on Buddhism discusses the various schools of Mahayana in East Asia. The presentation of Buddhism in China and Japan naturally plays a major role here. A special aspect worth emphasizing is that the forms of Buddhism that developed in Vietnam and Korea are given independent chapters and are not treated merely as a marginal appendix to the influence of Chinese Buddhism on Vietnam, or with a reduction of Korea to being a mere conduit and mediator of Chinese Buddhism to Japan. Since various forms of Buddhism have also come to the West since the nineteenth century, an extensive chapter on Western Buddhism closes this multivolume religious history of Buddhism.

Prof. Manfred Hutter teaches Comparative Religion at the Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of Bonn.