Having previously looked at the demographics and “denominations”
(major branches, movements, divisions) of Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, and Hinduism, we turn now to Buddhism. And, just as the
other four of the “Big Five” among the world’s major religions
are by no means homogeneous and uniform in content but instead
heterogeneous and diverse, so is this also the case with
Buddhism. While Buddhism is ranked as the fourth largest major
world religion (after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, in
descending order), specific numbers reliably reflecting the
precise number of Buddhists in the world today are tricky to
come up with for a number of reasons. Perhaps foremost among
such reasons is the the fact that, in some countries, it is
possible to be a practicing Buddhist while also actively
observing other faiths simultaneously. In China, for example,
one can be a Buddhist, a Confucian, and a Taoist, all at the
same time (and without any inconsistency or self-contradiction).
In Japan, one can likewise quite happi