And which Polynesians were Buddhist from which time onwards?Polynesians, with the right POD, could have physically made the trip to North America - maybe some kind of powerful kingdom, trading with China and India extensively, could build up the wealth to make voyages just to explore and look for new things to sell?
Not sure how you'd get there, but it'd probably be easier to set up than overcoming China's (well founded, which is the problem) contentment with their own wealth and territory.
And there have been occasional documented cases of this in human history, right?Buddhist missionaries on their way to Japan get blown out to sea by a storm. Somehow they survive the voyage to north America (fishing?? Rainwater collected during the storm??), and credit their survival to their faith. They prothelytise amongst the natives, and a few hundred years later a heavily syncretized version if Buddhism is encountered by European explorers.
It's low probability but I don't think it's ASB.
Hm.Seems plausible for some missionaries to make their way north to work with the natives in Kamchatka and such. Then have them meet up with some Inuit and get taken across the Bering Straight.
Perhaps the Ainu or their ancestors convert, and the Buddha becomes a seafaring-relating deity in the far north up to the Alaska Peninsula (which is still the Americas). More realistic than super-Tang in the AmericasIMO.For Buddhist missionaries to work with hunter-gatherer societies, you´d need to find a Buddhist confession. (That shouldn`t be too difficult, though; new ones kept coming up every century.)
Hm.
Fairly unusual behaviour for Buddhist missionaries. Usually, they only went where there was some sort of proto-statehood, someone who could direct surplus production into the construction and maintenance of a monastery and who would protect it.
For Buddhist missionaries to work with hunter-gatherer societies, you´d need to find a Buddhist confession. (That shouldn`t be too difficult, though; new ones kept coming up every century.)
Hermits on Japan´s periphery sound possible. Who knows, perhaps there were some IOTL!Well maybe you could have some rumours of a kingdom up there? If I remember correctly there were some on again, off again, statelets in some parts of Siberia during warmer eras.
That or get some of the more hermit-y monastic groups to be involved. So that rather than a proper monastery you have some hermits chilling out that local groups can go to for guidance sometimes?