What if India remained Buddhist?

[Brahman]

Simply not true. Buddhist influence in South India is tremendous. At the height of the Mauryan Empire, the south was slowly transforming itself culturally to adapt Buddhist ideologies. Go to any Southern temples and you will see Buddhist influence even today. The fall of the Mauryan Empire struck a blow to the Buddhist influence as Buddhist monasteries and monks lost their patrons. The internal fighting in Mauryan Empire caused their distant holdings to disenfranchise themselves from the capital. Not to mention I believe the central authority tried to enforce too many reforms or politically overextended themselves without using proper military force. Most likely this emboldened regions to revolt against the Empire.

The best way I can see Buddhism to propagate and replace 'Hinduism' is by taking up the social justice cause. The caste system, sati, elevation of Brahmins, occult practices, sacrificial rituals etc should be the ideological enemy of Buddhism. What Buddhism should do is to dig into the Vedic era and demolish the existing caste system that locks people into a caste by virtue of birth. To that effect, Buddhist monasteries will have to transform into an educational institution that teaches people not just Buddhist Philosophy but life skills. Also, there should be a proper separation between the Church and State. The Mauryans to my knowledge dabbled too much into Buddhism and they lost track of the military domination of their Empire.

Well, I do agree on the fact Buddhism being its strongest in south India during Mauryan period but not after that, it just was not at grassroots level

Its not that Mauryans became too pacifistic, its that they allowed non Buddhist, especially upper class and caste of non Buddhist origin to be relatively free of scrutiny that allowed the said upper classes to attack and rebel when the Mauryans were at thier weakest, as such focus more on standardized Buddhist conversion of many such upper classes to make sure no such revolt arises in future

Essentially make Ashoka more aggressive in his conversions

 

[Deleted member 116192]

The caste system, sati, elevation of Brahmins, occult practices, sacrificial rituals etc should be the ideological enemy of Buddhism

Sati system was something of post 3rd century ad practice not something to do with maurya or even vedic (a person who followed vedic faith in 600 bc would be shocked at the practice even though they were quite sexist)

Rituals and sacrifice had positive impact on Society remember it was the days before scientific temperament and intellectual learning, people even in subcontinent had no idea of germ theory, rituals provided mental peace and also the placebo don't forget that. We should avoid hindsight which is always 20-20.

Occult practice? What is occult? I don't think Hinduism or buddhism had that, they had the dark sorcery but the think was it didn't carry much social stigma as in the West, the Orthodoxy hated but people still went to the people who performed the occult arts.

The central tenets of buddhism was freedom from suffering and buddha Gave an answer which had nothing to do with social justice. If buddhism adopts such ideology something like mazdak of Iran (mind you he may not exist irl) it would play right into the hands of the brahmins who would say ha! I told you so to their Kshatriya and vaishya fellow. Further most of the early Buddhist were former brahmins themselves so.... I don't know borders of unlikely.

What Buddhism should do is to dig into the Vedic era and demolish the existing caste system that locks people into a caste by virtue of birth

Vedic era didn't have such practice we had passages in vedas where a king said his father was a Shepard and his mother a corn grinder we also had vedic sages who said of their origin all of which shows there was more of class system rather than caste, mind you these people moved from place to place at least once or twice in their life, you could not enforce caste order in such situation.

It was vedantic hinduism that kinda sorta did that but then again it's kinda debated.

Essentially make Ashoka more aggressive in his conversions

There was no such thing as religion back then, people even if converted as you say still stuck to their old rituals and practice, they just had new philosophy and that's what Buddhist dominated India would look like, mostly the same thing but with more Buddhist emphasis Rather than on purana ( bhagavat gita is part of puranic tradition not vedic or Buddhist).

 

[Brahman]

There was no such thing as religion back then, people even if converted as you say still stuck to their old rituals and practice, they just had new philosophy and that's what Buddhist dominated India would look like, mostly the same thing but with more Buddhist emphasis Rather than on purana ( bhagavat gita is part of puranic tradition not vedic or Buddhist).

Agreed, Abrahamic view of religion would not be applicable to Indian religions, it would be more like Ashoka aggressively spreading Buddhist concepts and uprooting Brahministic and Puranic philosophies and concept

 

[Kaushlendra pratap singh]

Modern Hinduism ritual come from Buddhism, in between 7-10 century Buddhism was more casteist ,more ritualistic.
1- in one book writer wrote that by eating flash of brahmin with ritual you can gain immortality
Also at one place Buddha comparing Brahmins with the dog because they are marrying outside of their caste and working in other industry like merchant soldiers.
After learning about Buddhism what I feel is that both religions were casteist more or less.