When archaeologists began excavating the unassuming mounds of Zehanpora in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, few anticipated that the soil would speak so eloquently to global history. Yet the discovery of Kushan-period Buddhist remains stupas, structural foundations and nearly two thousand years old artefacts, has reopened an essential but long-neglected question: How central was Kashmir to the making of Buddhism as a world religion?

The answer, increasingly supported by archaeology, texts and trans-Asian historical evidence, is unequivocal. Kashmir was not a peripheral recipient of Buddhist ideas. It was a crucial intellectual, institutional and geographical launchpad from where Buddhism was  debated, evolved and radiated across Asia.

The association of Buddhism with Kashmir dates back to the Mauryan period, traditionally linked to Emperor Ashoka. Ancient sources credit Ashoka with forming  Srinagar and establishing monasteries and stupas across the Valley. Kashmir’s strategic position—at the crossroads of the Indus-Gandhara region and the Himalayan corridors leading into Central Asia—made it uniquely suited to act as a bridge between the Indian heartland and the wider Asian world.

While popular memory anchors Buddhism to four sacred sites—Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar—religions do not become global through sacred geography alone. They spread through scholarship, translation, debate and institutional networks. In this deeper story of transmission, Kashmir and Ladakh occupy a vital but under-acknowledged place.

Early Buddhist chronicles and later Sanskrit sources consistently refer to Kashmir as Sharada Pitha—a seat of learning. The Valley emerged as a centre not merely of devotion but of rigorous intellectual engagement. Buddhist thought in Kashmir was analytical, dialectical and scholastic, contributing significantly to the systematisation of doctrine. If the Buddha’s message was born in the Gangetic plains, its philosophical refinement found fertile ground along the banks of the Jhelum.

This intellectual legacy reached its zenith during the Kushan period. Under Emperor Kanishka, Buddhism received unprecedented royal patronage. Tradition holds that Kanishka convened the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir, presided over by the scholar Vasumitra and attended by luminaries such as Ashvaghosha. This council was pivotal in the formalisation and spread of Mahayana Buddhism—a tradition emphasising compassion, the Bodhisattva ideal and universal liberation.

From Kashmir, Mahayana ideas travelled westward through Gandhara to Qandhar, Kabul and Bactria and eastward into Central and East Asia. In this sense, Kashmir was not on the margins of Buddhist history; it stood at its centre, shaping the form of Buddhism that would eventually take root in China, Korea, Japan and Tibet.

Material evidence reinforces this role. The Gilgit Manuscripts—among the oldest surviving Buddhist texts in the world—reveal Kashmir and its neighbouring regions as custodians of Buddhist knowledge. Written in Sanskrit and Prakrit, these manuscripts underscore the Valley’s function as a repository, translator and transmitter of Buddhist philosophy at a time when ideas moved along monastic and mercantile networks rather than modern borders.

Kashmir’s Buddhist legacy did not vanish with the decline of institutional Buddhism in the region. Instead, its philosophical emphasis on the “Middle Path”—the rejection of extremes—left a lasting imprint on Kashmir’s later spiritual traditions. The Sufi-Rishi movement, particularly the teachings of Lal Ded and Sheikh Noor-ud-din Noorani, echoes this ethic of moderation, compassion and inner discipline. These traditions emerged from a shared cultural soil shaped by centuries of Buddhist, Shaivite and Sufi thought, forming the foundations of Kashmir’s syncretic composite culture, often described as kashmiriyat.

For decades, Kashmir’s global image has been dominated by narratives of conflict, terrorism and political instability. This narrow framing has obscured the region’s deeper civilisational identity. Discoveries such as the Zehanpora excavation invite a necessary rethinking—not of Kashmir as a land perpetually seeking calm, but as a region that once shaped the moral and philosophical vocabulary of half the world.

Buddhism did not pass through Kashmir in silence. It argued, evolved, translated and transformed here. The Valley served as a crucible where ideas were tested before being carried across mountains and deserts to distant civilisations. Recognising this legacy is not merely an academic exercise; it is an act of historical correction.

To understand global Buddhism without Kashmir is to read only half the story. The Valley was not just a witness to history—it was one of its makers.