Buddhist stamps

Richard Scott Morel, Curator, British Library’s Philatelic Collections, examines the many stamps issued around the world to celebrate Buddhism

With over 500 million practising Buddhists, Buddhism is the fourth largest faith in the world. Consequently, numerous countries produce stamps with Buddhist themes and imagery. Stamps may now largely be viewed as a superseded technology, and are certainly less commonly encountered than in the past, but they remain an intrinsic part of our global visual and material culture. This raises the question of whether such stamps depicting Buddhist themes have any inherent didactic religious purpose, or whether they are merely pieces of visual ephemera? The selection of late 20th century Sri Lankan stamps issued for Vesak, celebrating the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death, may provide some tentative answers.

Since Buddhists start their path to enlightenment seeking refuge in the Tiratana or three jewels, this