....and stay that way for the most part, even if Islam emerges....what happens from there?
....and stay that way for the most part, even if Islam emerges....what happens from there?
That said, Buddhism is not as 'missionary' a religion as Islam
So your thinking is that what the Turks do religiously is based less on their choice and more on where they live and move to. IE, they conquer China and accordingly migrate east they can go Buddhist. But the processes of Islamization and westward migration to the Middle East in OTL reinforce each other, and you couldn't end up with a Turkish Buddhist Anatolia for instance.
No, I'd say that Buddhism is actually a very proselytizing religion. The existence of OTL Buddhist missionaries also makes it easier to convert the Turks. In fact, I believe Buddhism already had a presence in Central Asia.
EDIT: This article nicely elaborates on what I mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_transmission_of_Buddhism#Central_Asian_missionaries