Buddhism's Spread Essay

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The spread of Buddhism is a particularly fascinating phenomenon which not only transformed

the worlds which it affected, but also developed through its social movement and patronage from India

through the rest of the Asian world. An important point about the rise of Buddhism in the first place is

that it caught on in places that Brahmanical Hinduism, which appealed to the religious and social elite

only, was weak. Buddhism appealed to the socially unprivileged because it offered them a way to

nirvana and becoming a god, something that Brahmanical Hinduism reserved solely for Brahmins and

thus found a small following in India of people who were dissatisfied with Brahmanical Hinduism.

Another important point is that the travels of Buddhism include, and frankly would not have

been possible without, the attraction of patronage on various levels of scale. As it did not have a lot of

support in India, Buddhism needed a larger following to be able to survive as a global religion. From big

kingdoms in Anuradhapura to the Khmer Kingdom in Cambodia or even parts of the Mongol Empire,

Buddhism seemed to resonate with East Asian cultures after being overshadowed by Hinduism in India.

These patrons, such as Ashoka Maurya as well, allowed Buddhism to survive and spread and ultimately

caused the adoption of Buddhism on a much wider scale and by lower ranked social members of society.

Lastly, Buddhism moved eastward because the tendency

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