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MARKL. BLUMDECLINE OF THE DHARMAThe first of the “three marks of existence”—ANITYA
(IMPERMANENCE), anatman (no-self), and DUHKHA
(SUFFERING)—holds that all conditioned (that is,
causally produced) phenomena are transitory. With
striking consistency, most Buddhists over the centuries
have believed this to imply that Buddhism itself—as a
historically constructed religious tradition flowing
from the life and teachings of a particular individual—
must also have a finite duration. While the truth about
the nature of reality (dharma) propounded by S ́akya-
muni and other buddhas before him is considered to
be unchanging, particular expressions of that truth,
and the human communities that embody them, are
viewed as conditioned, and thus impermanent, phe-
nomena. According to this widely held understanding,
each buddha discovers the same truth about reality as
that realized by his predecessors, and then he teaches
it to a community of followers. After a certain period
of time, however (commonly ranging from five hun-
dred to five thousand years), this truth will be forgot-
ten, thus necessitating its rediscovery by another
buddha in the future.In addition to this general assumption of transi-
toriness, Indian Buddhists have shared with their Jain
and Hindu counterparts the idea that the present age
is part of a cycle of decline. The entire cosmos, and
with it the moral and spiritual capacity of human be-
ings, is viewed as being on a downward cycle, with each
succeeding generation being less spiritually adept than
the last. In this context it is not surprising that Bud-
dhists have anticipated a gradual erosion both in the
quality and quantity of the transmitted teachings and
in the karmic character of their practitioners. Such ex-
pectations have been recorded in a wide range of
prophecies of the decline and eventual disappearance
of Buddhism found in Buddhist canonical texts.Timetables of decline
The earliest tradition offering a specific figure for the
duration of the dharma predicts that Buddhism will
endure for only five hundred years. This prophecy,
found in the VINAYAtexts of several different ordina-
tion lineages (nikaya) and dating from perhaps a cen-
tury or so after the Buddha’s death, is generally
intertwined with the claim that Buddhism would have
survived for a full one thousand years were it not for
the fateful decision made by S ́akyamuni to ordain
women as well as men. As a direct result of the pres-DECLINE OF THEDHARMA