AHC/WI: Buddhism reach the Americas before Columbus

What are the most plausible scenarios/PODs for Buddhism to have a significant presence in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus.

How can this affect the interaction between the Old and New worlds?
 
Super-wank any of the Chinese empires (Sui/Tang or Song perhaps) after the arrival of Buddhism into a land-and-sea-based world empire, which should begin with including the Malay archipelago, the Philippines, Japan etc., but don`t just wank in size, also with regards to political-administrative and economic-technological aspects. (China is about the only candidate where this is not totally ASB.) Such an empire might venture into the unknown, who knows, especially if there`s some expansion force built into its system.

This would butterfly away Columbus, though, I fear.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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 which Polynesians were Buddhist from which time onwards?
 
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.
And there have been occasional documented cases of this in human history, right?
 
Evidently there was a practice called fudaraku tokai in parts of Japan where people (evidently the elderly) would sail into the sea in a small boat to try and reach the Pure Land. Now imagine if the boat wasn't so small, like maybe a former noble banished to the monastery wanted to leave existence in style (the extravagence of some monks was often criticised by the reformers of the day), and he brought with him some other monks, and they got swept by the current to somewhere on the Pacific Coast, like Japanese fishermen who historically shipwrecked along the Pacific coast (it could be anywhere from the Aleutians to California depending on where the currents dump you). It's a stretch, but if you want Buddhism in the Americas in this era, well...
 
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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.
 
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.
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.)
 
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.)
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.

Now the actual question is whether this actually is Buddhism, as opposed to a vaguely Buddhist-influenced religion.
 
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.)

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?
 
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?
Hermits on Japan´s periphery sound possible. Who knows, perhaps there were some IOTL!
But it´s really freaking cold along the coastline to the Aleuts, so they`ve got to be tough hermits.
Also, when the hermits die, they`re gone, and so is the religion. To an Aleutian band, the hermit`s stories are likely to be interesting fairy-tales, and if he was able to substantiate his words and authority with, say, some medical skills, he´s likely to be "the weird foreign magician / shaman / medicine man".

If this is how Buddhism seeps into America = Alaska, then the answer to the OP´s question is:
Buddhism in the New World will not affect Old World-New World contacts.
 
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