1. The Period before 1879:

The United States, founded in 1776, is a young. Buddhism arrived in America two ways. First, it arrived directly with Buddhist monks. Second, it arrived indirectly through European colonists in America who had exposure to Buddhism in Europe. Buddhism came to America before the Europeans "discovered" the continent. It is difficult to determine the first person who brought Buddhism to America because pertinent historical documents are hard to find. However, there are a few helpful ones. In 1761, M. de Guignes, a French scholar, translated and published a document found in Chinese archives about a Chinese monk named Hwui Shan (also spelled Hoei-shin or Hui-shên) who, together with four other monks, sailed to the west coast of the Americas in 458 CE. In 1875, Charles G. Leland published "Fu-sang or The Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century", which supported the story told by Guignes. In 1885, Edward Payson Vining published "An Inglorious Columbus" or "Evidence that Hwui Shan and a Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan Discovered America in the Fifth Century A.D." This author quoted at length the report of Hwui Shan which explained the details of the trip to America, and described the ways of life of natives, including individual life, family life, social life, customs, and religion. He concluded: "This country has never known anything about Buddhism, but in 458 CE during the Song Dynasty, five Buddhist monks from Ki-pin (Kabul, Afghanistan) went to that country. They carried with them the Buddha statues, sutras, and taught those people to take refuge in the Buddha and to renounce their bad habits."

Physical evidence of this trip was found in 1914. A swastika carved on a rock was discovered in Lakeside Mountains, near San Jacinto valley in California. (The swastika is an ancient symbol; the word itself is Sanskrit.) In 1953, Gordon Ekholm wrote an article about the similarities between the Buddhist art, Indian art and Mexican art, including the commonality of  such images as the lotus base for religious statues, the bowl, the sun, the dragon, and the snake. These images appeared in Mexico around the fifth century CE, the period during which the Chinese monks were present in America.