From Introduction:

Gautama Buddha's teaching have spread through out the world and his story deserve to be told and retold.

Many events from his life and about Buddhism have been commemorated on postage stamps by many countries. This series is an attempt by a philatelist to comprehensively collect and document the postage stamps from around the world, and use them to illustrate the story about Buddhism. Collectively, this is "Buddhist Philately" -- a specialized collection of Buddhism related postage stamps and philatelic material, writing about them and displaying them of exhibitions.

The author received a Silver Medal (Literature Philately) for this manuscript at the World Stamp Exhibition organized under the patronage of the Federation of International de Philatelie (FIP) at Baunding, Indonesia in August 2017.

Geography is not a boundary in "Buddhist Philately". The author has prepared a separate catalog of more than 4,200 stamps issued by nearly 151 countries and territories around the world (including former colonies).

An essential note to this week is that this write -- up does not intend to explain or discuss Gautama Buddha's teaching. I have not made any distinction in the various schools of Buddhism. Instead, this document exclusively focuses on how postage stamps can narrate the story of Gautama Buddha. The availability of stamps to illustrate the events in his life and his teaching sets the limit in the coverage.

As this write -- up takes a philatelic perspective to the life of Gautama Buddha, this manuscript uses different types of philatelic material. These materials include mint stamps, classics, aerograms, pre -- stamped envelop