Buddha does not become Buddha

Kaze

Banned
Considering the fact that several Confucian and Taoist emperors tried unsuccessfully to root out Buddhism - they would not have the headache of doing so.

If memory serves in part of the legend of the Buddha, he was destined by fate to either be a conqueror or a holy man. He choose the latter. As for the former - perhaps he would become the Qin Shi Huang of India.
 
There is a small extent to which the POD is a bit ASB, as there are many historical issues surrounding the historical Buddha. Not in the Christ mythicist way, but more RE howuch we know about his existence beyond doctrine.

I love the idea of a TL where instead he becomes the prophesized "world conqueror" (IMO uniting India into something of a civilisation identity like China would be awesome), but how possible that is would be ultimately unknowable.


I am certainly biased as a Buddhist, but IMO the world would be a lot poorer for his absence as the Buddha. His influence on philosophy, Mathematics, ethics, art etc is unaccountable in its magnitude.
 
Even without Buddhism, India in the era of the Buddha was undergoing a major period of philosophical and religious transformation. Jainism was already an emerging faith when Siddharta began to develop his teachings, so without Buddhism, we'd see the development of Hinduism in reaction to the seeming extremism of a more successful Jainism.

In many respects I think Jainism would be much more successful if it didn't have the competition of Buddhism.
That would be interesting, seeing Jainism grow would be pretty cool
 
He had as good of chance as any ruler of a small, insignificant kingdom in the Vedic period which happened to border larger and more powerful kingdoms. I don't think Siddhartha Gautama would've been anything special as a secular leader or military figure--not terrible, but not a genius, and certainly not the political/military equivalent of his influence OTL:

Interesting what makes you say so?

if Alexander of Macedon decided that he become a simple Philosopher King in the mold of Aristotle teachings, we would also said that Alexander won't be a great conqueror.

A favorite saying of my has always been 'history is stranger than fiction'. Or as Mark Twain put it "Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.”

So if OTL Siddhārtha Gautama could create the fourth largest religion and one of the most influential faiths, who say he can not found a great empire? Maybe become a philosopher warrior king while he at it.
 
Hinduism as we know it today was formed in response to Buddhism. (Well, and to a lesser degree to some of the other religious movements of the time, such as Jainism and others which have not survived). Without Buddhism, there would still be something that could be called Hinduism, but it would be distinctly different to OTL Hinduism.
Indeed, I suppose it would be a religion that remains fixated on the trappings of vedic ritual and remains recognisably a form of Indo-European paganism (although it might still have upanishadic thought to mark it as something slightly different). But to get this result, you can't just eliminate Buddhism—you have to eliminate all Sramanic movements and prevent any from enjoying the success that Buddhism had in OTL. I am not sure how you do that. Where do the roots of Sramanic thought lie—aren't they a reaction against vedic ritualism, but also influenced by upanishadic philosophy?
If you can do this, I wonder how well that kind of sacrificial-ritualistic Hinduism without vedanta or the bhakti movement would do if it came up against an Abrahamic-style religion with mass appeal. Not well, I imagine.
 
A favorite saying of my has always been 'history is stranger than fiction'. Or as Mark Twain put it "Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.”

So if OTL Siddhārtha Gautama could create the fourth largest religion and one of the most influential faiths, who say he can not found a great empire? Maybe become a philosopher warrior king while he at it.
That’s be dope
 
A favorite saying of my has always been 'history is stranger than fiction'. Or as Mark Twain put it "Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.”

So if OTL Siddhārtha Gautama could create the fourth largest religion and one of the most influential faiths, who say he can not found a great empire? Maybe become a philosopher warrior king while he at it.

I now have the image of Siddhārtha Gautama being an early version of Ashoka, he conquers the Indian Subcontinent, then has a crisis of conscious and converts to Jainism and spreads it across India.
 
If he did make a powerful Hindu Empire, reforming the faith would definitely be something he would have to do for the sake of maintaining the ivy cultural standards and promoting unification

From what I read on Wikipedia, the region where Siddharta Gautama lived didn't put much emphasis on brahmins, Brahma, or the Vedas. The Shakya were apparently sun worshipers. For that matter, the Shakya seem to have been a sort-of republic.
 
From what I read on Wikipedia, the region where Siddharta Gautama lived didn't put much emphasis on brahmins, Brahma, or the Vedas. The Shakya were apparently sun worshipers. For that matter, the Shakya seem to have been a sort-of republic.

Okay, now I am very intrigued by that. You think that form of Sun worship could become a more widespread religion in its own right then?

While the Republic does sound interesting, that doesn’t mean it cannot become an empire
 
Okay, now I am very intrigued by that. You think that form of Sun worship could become a more widespread religion in its own right then?

While the Republic does sound interesting, that doesn’t mean it cannot become an empire
Could well have been a worship of surya the sun god, who I believe they claimed descent from
 
Could well have been a worship of surya the sun god, who I believe they claimed descent from

So, if Siddharta did become one, he would probably try and reshape the religion of Hinduism around Surya though he would need to do more than conquest to achieve this.
 
So, if Siddharta did become one, he would probably try and reshape the religion of Hinduism around Surya though he would need to do more than conquest to achieve this.

Indeed indeed, which would be uphill struggle I imagine, given the predominance of Vishnu and Shiva at this point.
 
Buddha the Great? Unites India, invade Persia - Babylon - Lydia up to Asia Minor, besiege the Greeks, and last attempt to threaten Italy?

I wasn't thinking that far, just that the Buddha would Unite all of India, and then possibly invade Persia, Burma, or maybe even a few wars with China.
 
From what I read on Wikipedia, the region where Siddharta Gautama lived didn't put much emphasis on brahmins, Brahma, or the Vedas. The Shakya were apparently sun worshipers. For that matter, the Shakya seem to have been a sort-of republic.

Okay, now I am very intrigued by that. You think that form of Sun worship could become a more widespread religion in its own right then?

While the Republic does sound interesting, that doesn’t mean it cannot become an empire

Could well have been a worship of surya the sun god, who I believe they claimed descent from

Indeed indeed, which would be uphill struggle I imagine, given the predominance of Vishnu and Shiva at this point.

I think, if he had been able to push forward with a Hindu Faith around worship of the Sun, could have some very interesting cultural affects. (A North subcontinent with Sun Worship and Surya and a South base around Vishnu and Shiva/what we would know as core parts of OTL Hinduism.) And how this affects the region.

Kind of like if Atenism had taken hold in Egypt, or had survived far better.
 
I think, if he had been able to push forward with a Hindu Faith around worship of the Sun, could have some very interesting cultural affects. (A North subcontinent with Sun Worship and Surya and a South base around Vishnu and Shiva/what we would know as core parts of OTL Hinduism.) And how this affects the region.

Kind of like if Atenism had taken hold in Egypt, or had survived far better.

Hmm would the south divide that way do you think?
 
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