WI:No Buddah
- Thread starter mojojojo
- Start date
well, for starters who is 'Buddah?'
and Which Buddha?
if you butterfly away Gautama Buddha, You've butterflied away Buddhism as we know it.
butterfly away Amida Buddha and the 48 vows are gone.
there are multiple people who are considered Buddhas, the problem is figuring out which ones were real people.
as for impact, I guess China Keeps whatever it has, Japan remains Shinto and when Red China Invades Tibet, Buddhism doesn't spread through out the world.
and Which Buddha?
if you butterfly away Gautama Buddha, You've butterflied away Buddhism as we know it.
butterfly away Amida Buddha and the 48 vows are gone.
there are multiple people who are considered Buddhas, the problem is figuring out which ones were real people.
as for impact, I guess China Keeps whatever it has, Japan remains Shinto and when Red China Invades Tibet, Buddhism doesn't spread through out the world.
No Buddhism, along with changing much of Indian and Hindu history, would also butterfly away Red China.
Sachyriel
Banned
Is it a given that some one like that will come along
Yeah, you can draw parallels with Jesus. Supposedly Jesus had a privileged life in Heaven before he came to earth, saw suffering and assisted people. It's not that far of a leap to say that another person who lived a life of luxury without seeing sorrow would come along and see the same thing, come to similar conclusions and the idea spreads.
good point, you butterfly away Gautama's path as Buddha, he may end up conquering and uniting India.
yourworstnightmare
Banned
Buddhism historically competed with hinduism for influence in Southeast Asia, so I guess they'd go Hindu before Islam arrives.
Zoroastrianism and Hinduism are/were not particularly proselytistic and wouldn't spread further than the boundaries of the cultures that had created them. The peoples of Southeast, Central, and East Asia would keep their folk religions.
yourworstnightmare
Banned
Acctually there were Hinduism in Indonesia (Buddhism too) before Islam reached the place. Cambodia has also been influenced by Hinduism. Bali is still Hindu (with a Buddhist touch).
Wasn't most of Java also Hindu for quite a while? I think Sumatra as well, though I'm less certain.
Hinduism did indeed spread in Southeast Asia, brought by Indian traders for the most part. Zoroastrianism spread in Central Asia. Although they were not on the same level as Christianity, Buddhism and Islam in terms of getting all up in people's faces, they were able to spread. Though, it is true, they normally were spread as part of an overarching cultural package.
Something akin to Buddhism may develop, but without the figure of Gautama would remain part of mainstream Hinduism. Parts of SE Asia that were Buddhist, such as Thailand, would likely be Hindu or Hinduised.
The effects on China would be interesting indeed, without the Buddhist counterpoint to Confucianism and Taoism. It would be interesting if without Buddhism, other Indian texts and sutras reach China instead. Perhaps Jainism is more influential and widespread ITTL?
Something akin to Buddhism may develop, but without the figure of Gautama would remain part of mainstream Hinduism. Parts of SE Asia that were Buddhist, such as Thailand, would likely be Hindu or Hinduised.
The effects on China would be interesting indeed, without the Buddhist counterpoint to Confucianism and Taoism. It would be interesting if without Buddhism, other Indian texts and sutras reach China instead. Perhaps Jainism is more influential and widespread ITTL?
It might also prevent Tibet from ever being conquered by China in the first place, as pre-Buddhist Tibet was a lot less pacifist and a lot more expansionist.
There was both Hindusim and Buddhism here. Buddhism arrived first, for Indian Buddhist back then didn't have that restriciton to sail across the sea to be bothered with unlike the contemporary Indian Hindus. That maybe was also the cause of the first maritime hegemon of the archipelago, Srivijaya, being Buddhist. In here, the tenets of both religions tend to overlap with each other, and with local original animistic/dynamistic beliefs, by quite great extent. Hindu-Buddhist relations tended to be syncretistic here during medieval era, hence why every Hindu community here has at least some quite familiarly Buddhist tenets, and Bali is not an exception. However, Bali is still a unique case, for it being the only significant Hindu community around that actually holds more local influence in their tenets compared to Buddhist one. Being the largest Hindu community around at that !
Flocculencio
Donor
Is it a given that some one like that will come along
At that period in time there were quite a few reforming impulses in Hinduism- Jainism arose shortly before Buddhism and in many ways Buddhism is an evangelical version of Hindu thought that's more consumer friendly than Jainism. The reforming impulse was present- it's quite likely that without Siddartha Gautama someone else would have come up with a similar idea.