NON-CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. - In the history of religions, a m. is the commission that a person invested with religious authority — whether personally, as founder of a religion, or delegated by the founder or his legitimate representatives — confers upon specially appointed envoys (missionaries) so that they may spread the message proclaimed by him.
Religions proper to tribal and national groups do not foster m., because in them religion is the exclusive expression of the group, and outsiders are rigorously excluded from it; indeed, they are always invited to withdraw at the moment of the rite. Supranational or universal religions, on the other hand, which address individuals beyond the barriers of nation, stock, and social class, need missionaries to propagate their message. The major missionary religions are: Christianity (v. above), Buddhism, Mazdeism, and Manichaeism.
I. BUDDHISM
Following the example of the founder, who went about preaching his doctrine through the regions of northern India, monks streamed forth from the Buddhist monasteries into eastern Asia (China, Korea, Japan) and central Asia (Tibet and Mongolia), bringing there a religious current (Mahayana) better suited to the understanding of the masses, while in southern India and in Burma, Siam, and Ceylon the preaching that adhered more closely to original Buddhism (Hinayana) prevailed.
Buddhism entered China in 67 A.D. with a mission led by the monks Kāśyapa, Mātana and Dharmaraksa, who brought statues of the Buddha and sacred scriptures, which were later translated into Chinese in 148.
In 374 Buddhist missionaries passed from China into Korea, whence in 538 the king of that country sent a special mission to Japan, where it was well received by Prince Shotoku (d. 622) because of the greater civil and moral elevation of its message in the face of Japan's animistic feudalism. From the 9th century Buddhism took on a life of its own there, in part merging with Shinto, the country's indigenous religion (ryōbu-shinto = bilateral Shinto), until in 1868 it was officially, but in vain, suppressed in favor of the indigenous religion (v. SHINTO).
In Tibet the first appearance of Buddhism was due to the marriage of Prince Srongbtsan Gam ho
(d. 698) to a Chinese Buddhist princess. Its greatest diffusion occurred in the 8th century with the monk Padma Sambhava, and in the 15th century it assumed a more strictly hierarchical form there through the work of the monk Tsong-Khapa (d. 1417; v. LAMAISM).
II. MAZDEISM
It too had its missionaries, who under the Sassanid dynasty (224-651) reached as far as China. The fall of the dynasty in the face of the Muslim invasion of Persia caused the dispersion of this religion, whose survivors now live in a prosperous but small community of 100,000 faithful in Bombay.
III. MANICHEISMO
It spread thanks to missions organized by Mani himself and reached Egypt, Africa, Rome (3rd century), Gaul and Spain (4th century), and in the East as far as India, Turkestan and Mongolia (the discoveries of Turfan and Kansu); active survivals of it remained in medieval Europe with the sects of the Cathars, the Albigensians, the Bogomils (Balkans) and the Paulicians (Anatolia).
There is also an unorganized missionary proselytism, carried on from individual to individual as occasion offered. This is the case of the Jews in the Hellenistic diaspora, and of the adherents of the various mystery religions (Isis, Mithra, the Syrian Goddess) who lived in the commercial, rural and military centers of the Empire.
Islam has no priests and spread thanks to military conquest and to the material advantages offered to converted populations; it extended into Syria, Egypt and then Mesopotamia, Turkestan, India, China, Malaysia. Its diffusion in centers of inferior culture is likewise due to individual action, since Islam lacks any missionary organization. Nicola Turchi