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Buddhism: Indonesia’s oldest religion is also the least understood
How did Buddhism go from a major religion to such an obscure one in Indonesia?
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Bhikkhu (Buddhist monks) perform a walking meditation from Mendut Temple to Borobudur Temple in Magelang, Central Java, to celebrate Tri Suci Waisak or the Buddhist Day of Enlightenment last year. (Antara/Andreas Fitri Atmoko)
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arlier this year, the government quietly fixed a decades-old typo in its official documents. The Home Ministry issued on Feb. 6 a letter to announce that the correct spelling of Buddhism in Indonesian is "Buddha" and not "Budha" as is written on many identity cards (KTPs) of Indonesian Buddhists.
This might seem like a small gesture. But it took years for the Buddhist community in Indonesia to get the government to fix the spelling.
“I don’t know whether it was because of the complicated bureaucracy or because there are only a few Buddhists in this country, but it took years to fix the misspelling,” Council of Buddhist Communities (Walubi) vice chairman Jandi Mukianto told The Jakarta Post in March.
Despite its status as the world's fourth-largest religion and Indonesia’s oldest religion, Buddhism currently counts as a minor religion in Indonesia. And judging from the decades-long misspelling of the religion’s name, it is also the least understood.
According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), Indonesia has some 1.7 million Buddhists as of 2010. In a country with more than 250 million people, this means that less than 1 percent of Indonesians are Buddhists.
Unlike the country’s Hindus, 80 percent of whom live in Bali, the Buddhists are more scattered across the country with several cities as their stronghold. The provinces with the largest number of Buddhists are Jakarta, North Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Banten and Riau. Together, they are home to more than half of all the Buddhists in the country.
"There are actually a lot of Buddhists in rural areas, but they are rarely exposed, unlike the Chinese-Indonesian Buddhists in the urban areas," said Caliadi, the director general for Buddhist citizens' council at the Religious Affairs Ministry.
