This book provides new unprecedented research on Buddhism in the five Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Aiming at comparisons between the different Nordic countries, the chapters identify possible unique characteristics of Nordic Buddhism.
Buddhism in the Nordic Countries contributes to the growing literature on Buddhism in the West. Identifying a number of similar cultural and social trends that have been at work in the Nordic countries, the book shows that these have favoured the growth of Buddhism in northern Europe. The chapters on each of the Nordic countries describe the establishment of the main Buddhist traditions in the country, temple institutions, monasteries, demography, estimation on the number of Buddhists, geography, economy and funding. They discuss tensions between ethnic Buddhist and converts, if any, and controlling mechanisms of who is a proper Buddhist and how Buddhism should be presented in public space. The contributors analyse representation in media and images of Buddhism in popular culture and present relevant scholarly interest in Buddhism. Additionally, the book includes chapters on significant Buddhist individuals in the Nordic countries who have played major roles in the development of Buddhism.
The first book to examine the characteristics of Nordic Buddhism, its connection to the ideology of the Nordic welfare society and to establish if Nordic Buddhism might differ from other forms of Buddhism, this work will be of interest to researchers in the field of religious studies, religion in context and Buddhist studies.
Chapter 2 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1
Introduction: Buddhist converts and migrants in a Nordic setting
Chapter 2
Buddhism in Sweden: Religious institutions, secular applications and Christian meditations
Chapter 3
Ngawang and the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism in Sweden
Chapter 4
A Thai missionary for the Dhamma in Sweden: Ten Years of a monk in snowyland
Chapter 5
Buddhism in Denmark: Institutionalized Religion, Mindfulness and Cool Branding
Chapter 6
Buddhism in Norway: The strange story of the rebirth of the Buddha and Sariputra in the early twentieth century and other Buddhist histories and developments
Chapter 7
Buddhism in Finland: From Kalmyks to engaged activism
Chapter 8
Mauno Nordberg and early Buddhism in Finland
Chapter 9
Buddhism in Iceland: An overlooked companion
Chapter 10 Conclusion
About the Author :
Jørn Borup is Associate Professor at the Department of the Study of Religion in Aarhus University. His research areas include Japanese Buddhism, Buddhism in the West, religious diversity, spirituality, migration and decolonisation. Since 2002, he has conducted research on Buddhism in Denmark for various projects at the Center for Contemporary Religion, Aarhus University. Besides articles for journals and publications in Danish, he is the author of Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism: Myōshinji, a Living Religion (2008) and Decolonising the Study of Religion: Who Owns Buddhism? (Routledge 2023).
Mitra Härkönen is Academy Research Fellow with a master’s degree (MSocSc) in social and cultural anthropology and a doctorate degree (PhD) in the study of religions. She also has a degree in university pedagogy and previously worked as a university lecturer. Härkönen’s research interests range from Buddhist, Tibetan and migration studies to gender studies. She conducted ethnographic fieldwork among Tibetan Buddhist nuns in India and the Tibetan regions under the Republic of China. She has also extensively studied Buddhism in Finland, conducted ethnographic fieldwork among Thai Buddhist women living in Finland and done research on Thai berry-pickers. Her current research project examines the impact of Thai Buddhism on Finnish-Thai transnational families’ decision-making and everyday life and practices. In addition to various articles, she has authored Power and Agency in the Lives of Contemporary Tibetan Nuns: An Intersectional Study (2023) and co-edited a book on Buddhism in Finland.
Knut A. Jacobsen is Professor in the Study of Religions at the University of Bergen, Norway, and author of many books and articles in journals and edited volumes on various aspects on religions of South Asia and in the South Asian diasporas. His main fields of research include South Asian transnational religions, religions and public space in South Asia and the South Asian diasporas, sacred geography and pilgrimage in South Asia and Yoga history and theory. He is the author of five monographs, Prakṛi in Sāṃhya-Yoga: Material Principle, Religious Experience, Ethical Implications (1999), Kapila: Founder of Sāṃhya and Avatāa of Viṣṇ (2008), Pilgrimage in the Hindu Tradition: Salvific Space (Routledge 2013), Yoga in Modern Hinduism: Hariharāanda Āaṇa and Sāṃhyayoga (Routledge 2018) and Hinduism in the World: Migrations and Global Presence (Routledge 2025), and is the editor or co-editor of numerous books, the latest of which are the Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions (2021) and Hindu Diasporas (2023).
Katarina Plank is Associate Professor of Religious Studies in Karlstad University, focusing on the lived religious experiences of migrants and on contemporary spirituality in Sweden. She has been conducting research in several projects funded by the Swedish Research Council: her postdoc project (2012–2014) explored Thai Buddhism in Sweden, and two other projects have focused on lived religion and social mobility among migrants (2020–2024) and how COVID affected migrant religious groups in Sweden (2024–2026). Plank led the project “The New Faces of the Folk Church” (funded by Riksbankens jubileumsfond 2021–2025). She has authored and edited several works, including Mindfulness: Tradition, tolkning och tilläpning (2014), Levd religion: det heliga i vardagen (2018) and Eastern Practices and Nordic Bodies (2023).
Review :
"The editors [among the foremost Nordic scholars of religion] bring decades of research and fieldwork experience
to this volume, creating a comprehensive and comparative framework for understanding Buddhism as a religious, cultural,
and social phenomenon in the Nordic region. Methodologically, the collection combines historical, ethnographic, and sociological approaches...The unifying thread of the volume lies in its depiction of “Nordic Buddhism” as a form of lived religion characterized by pragmatism, inclusivity, and hybridity: a constellation shaped by the interaction of global Buddhist flows and local Nordic values."
-- Elena Popov, University of Vienna, Religious Studies Review, Vol.54, no. 4, December 2025.
