The 1893 World's Parliament of Religions Introduces Buddhism to America
A Sri Lankan reformer and a Japanese Zen master address Chicago, and Western Buddhism gets its opening
Quick facts
- Dates
- September 11-27, 1893
- Location
- Chicago, as part of the World's Columbian Exposition
- Key Buddhist delegates
- Anagarika Dharmapala (Sri Lanka), Soyen Shaku (Japan)
- Total participants
- c. 400 delegates, 41 denominations/traditions
What happened
The World's Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago from September 11 to 27, 1893, as part of the World's Columbian Exposition, brought representatives of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions together in what the Chicago History Museum calls the origin of the modern interfaith movement. Among the delegates were the Sri Lankan Buddhist reformer Anagarika Dharmapala, representing Buddhism, and the Japanese monk Soyen Shaku, representing Zen Buddhism specifically. The event's own organizing body records that some four hundred men and women representing forty-one denominations and traditions took part over the gathering's seventeen days, with Buddhist, Jain, and Muslim speakers appearing alongside Christian and Hindu ones.
Why it matters
The Parliament is the conventional starting point for organized Buddhism's presence in the West: the earliest Buddhist and other Asian religious organizations catering to non-immigrant Western audiences in the United States trace back directly or indirectly to this gathering and the delegates who spoke there.
How we know
The Parliament's proceedings were recorded and published at the time, and the event is documented today by institutional records including the Chicago History Museum and the Parliament of the World's Religions organization, which trace their own histories back to the 1893 gathering.
Sources
- Chicago History Museum. Commemorating 130 Years of the Parliament of the World's Religions · General sourcechicagohistory.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Parliament of the World's Religions. 1893 Chicago · General sourceparliamentofreligions.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineHistory of Buddhism26 events · A prince who saw four sights and walked out of his palace, and a teaching that spread from one valley in northern India to become a global religionView all →