Buddhism

Rise and Fall in India in Confrontation with Hinduism

Abstract

Generally speaking Buddhism has a fascinating history of giveand-take with the other religions and cultures. Christianity and
Buddhism after a small beginning spread rapidly, one to the West
and the other to the East. Christianity spread to the West rather
imposing itself on others, by trying either to destroy or replace
other religions and cultures, while Buddhism spread to the East by
enriching other religions and cultures, and by being enriched by
them. Wherever it went. nobly assimilating the religions and cultural
insights of that place, Buddhism took a new form, and gently inspired
the local religions and cultures to imbibe the Buddhist spirit. The
result is that just as by the influence of Christianity the Western
culture has become a basically Christian one, so by the influence
of Buddhism the Eastern culture has become a basically Buddhist one.
All the same there is one important difference indeed: while the
previously existing cultures and religions in the West simply gave
way to Christianity, and the latter took their place, in the East the
encounter of Buddhism with the other religions and cultures resulted
in a creative transformation of Buddhism itself as well as of those
others. Buddhism, not insisting on uniformity, easily took on different
forms in accordance with the religious and cultural ethos of the
different regions, while the original religions and cultures of those
places allowed themselves to be influenced by the Buddhist ethos.
This is the story of the different forms of Buddhism in Tibet, China,
Japan, Burma, Sri Lanka, India and so on. While all of them retain
,he basically Buddhist perception of life, they also differ considerably
from one another, having transformed in accordance with the particular
ethos of each of those countries.