Buddhism - the most ancient world religion and one of the most popular. The modern Buddhism is represented by its two main branches - Hinayana, which is conditionally called Southern, and Mahayana called Northern. Founder of the Buddhism was Siddhartha Gautama, who was born in the Northern India.

Sacred books of the Buddhism are called Tripitaka (three baskets). Buddhism has two main branches: Hinayana (Theravada) - narrow path of salvation through ascetic monk condition and Mahayana - wide path of salvation through secular life.

At the territory of Kazakhstan, Buddhism started to spread in the V-VI^th centuries due to expansion of influence of the Kushan Empire.  The spread of Buddhism was also related to Kalmyks dealt in nomadic cattle breeding in the number of regions of the North Kazakhstan in the end of the XIX^th century.
Today, Buddhism is mainly introduced by missionaries.