AHC: Europe primarily divided between Islam and Budhism.

Is there any way to have an Islamic western Europe and Bhudist eastern Europe, while having a few sprinkled christian strongholds?
 
You could have an Islamic Europe, but getting Buddism there seems impossible. It didn't even work in it's place of origin, India. Have the Crusades be a complete Christian loss, as well as a worse Black Plague, and have the Muslims take Iberia, Italy and southern France. Maybe traders or merchants bring Buddism from the far east and it gets accepted by the Ottomans for whatever reason. That would still leave northern France, Germany and the British Isles as Christian strongholds.
 
Have Islam invade all of Southern Europe, including Italy, Spain and southern France. Then, make a people like the Mongols (I'll assume that the Mongol Conquests are butterflied away) convert to a fanatic version of Buddhism. A strong enough horde could plausibly reach modern Germany and France, though I'm not sure, as they would be stretched quite thin. And you'll need to find a version of Budhism that is compatible to what we understand it to be, and yet appealing to horde peoples and mass conversion.
 
Maybe some group like the Avars or Magyars while in Central Asia convert to Buddhism and move into Europe, then have the Christians get locked into a major struggle with the Muslims (Byzantium collapses like the Persians maybe?), and the Christians are barely holding on when these Buddhist central asian nomads show up. The northern region crumbles and the Muslims attack again. Of course you have the issue of how to get rid of the Christians now under Buddhist government, which doesn't seem likely to happen if the Christian peasants aren't seen as a threat.
 
I can't think of any way for Buddhism to become a dominant religion in Europe without a POD so early that it would butterfly Islam.
 

katchen

Banned
The peoples of the Middle to Upper Volga Valley were originally Finno-Ugric speakers, as the Mari-el, Mordovians, Udmurt and Komi nations are today. They picked up both the Russian language and Eastern Orthodox Christianity as a result of being conquered by the Republic of Novgorod prior to the Golden Horde conquest and then retaining autonomy via Muscovy acting as an intermediary. Had the Golden Horde conquered Novgorod and perhaps Finland and Esthonia from the Swedes and Teutonic Knights, the entire area would have likely stayed pagan, at least for a few centuries longer, especially if the Golden Horde ruled directly. And if the Golden Horde had Buddhist Oirats instead of Tengrist Kipchaks, these Finns would likely have become Vajrayana Buddhists and thereafter defied with sisu all efforts by Swedes, Poles or anyone else alike to Christianize them.
 
You could have an Islamic Europe, but getting Buddism there seems impossible. It didn't even work in it's place of origin, India. Have the Crusades be a complete Christian loss, as well as a worse Black Plague, and have the Muslims take Iberia, Italy and southern France. Maybe traders or merchants bring Buddism from the far east and it gets accepted by the Ottomans for whatever reason. That would still leave northern France, Germany and the British Isles as Christian strongholds.

I think Buddhist missionaries in OTL made it as far as Greece and I remember reading somewhere about Roman legions with yin-yangs on their shields, but I cannot remember the source. It's not mentioned in the Wikipedia article below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_the_Roman_world

If there's a way to get more successful Buddhism in the Mediterranean, there's a chance Buddhism could replace Christianity as the state religion. And without the whole "heresy/unbelief damns" thing, there's much less incentive to force it on people, so a Buddhist Roman Empire might not behave as obnoxiously as some of the Christian emperors did.

This would set the butterflies flapping and there's a good chance it would butterfly away Islam. If doesn't, well, it's still pretty conjectural.
 
Maybe some group like the Avars or Magyars while in Central Asia convert to Buddhism and move into Europe, then have the Christians get locked into a major struggle with the Muslims (Byzantium collapses like the Persians maybe?), and the Christians are barely holding on when these Buddhist central asian nomads show up. The northern region crumbles and the Muslims attack again. Of course you have the issue of how to get rid of the Christians now under Buddhist government, which doesn't seem likely to happen if the Christian peasants aren't seen as a threat.

Is "official Buddhism" more or less easygoing than "official Christianity"? That might attract converts.

Furthermore, depending on the time period, there might still be a lot of full-blown pagans around and many whose Christianity is very superficial. It might be easier to adapt paganism (Christian veneer or not) to Buddhism, which seems more open*, than to Christianity.

*Some forms of Buddhism lack gods at all, while some teach there are gods but they too are subject to the law of karma.
 
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