Localization, Globalization and Glocalization: Paradigm Shifts in the Study of Transmission and Transformation of Buddhism in Asia and Beyond

This Special Issue Reprint examines Buddhism's transmission and Sinification as a major case of intercultural exchange in Asia. Tracing its spread from India to China and across East and Southeast Asia, it presents Buddhism not as mere religious import but as a dynamic force of cultural, philosophical, and institutional transformation-showing how sustained encounters between Indian Buddhist traditions and Chinese thought, ritual life, and social institutions produced a distinctive Chinese Buddhism with lasting regional influence. Situating this within global history, it challenges civilizational clash narratives by highlighting patterns of exchange, adaptation, and synthesis. While core doctrines were preserved, their interpretation, practice, textual production, institutional organization, and sacred geography were reshaped through engagement with Confucian, Daoist, and popular traditions. The formation of the Chinese Buddhist canon, transformation of monastic life, and emergence of new devotional cults illustrate this metamorphosis.

Framing Sinification as historical "glocalization," this volume offers insights into how religious traditions localize while sustaining transregional networks. Key themes include intercivilizational interaction, textual and commercial networks, sacred space formation, and geopolitical consequences of Buddhism's transborder transmission, providing both historical case study and conceptual framework for understanding cultural interaction, adaptation, and coexistence globally.