WI: Buddhism becomes popular in Ancient Greece

What if Buddhism had gained a foothold in Greece through means of the Silk Road? And what would it's chances be of surviving to Medieval or even modern history as a major religion?
 
Why?Buddhism predates both Christianity and Islam for LONG,LONG,TIME.

Even when Europe was pagan, Buddhism never reached that far west. And even if it did, I'm not sure if it would survive the expansion of Abrahamic faiths (Afghanistan was once Buddhist long ago, now it's not).
 
I think you'd need an alternate world without Christianity or Islam to allow Buddhism to spread into Southeastern Europe.

Not quite, Ashoka sent Buddhist missionaries as far as Alexandria and Athens, there were also Buddhists present in the various Persian Empires until Genghis Khan's invasion, and it's speculated that Gnosticism was partly influenced by Buddhist ideas, not to mention those who think that Buddhism had influence on Christianity and Jesus Christ himself.

So... I think it's perfectly possible for Buddhism to gain a major following in Greece, not to mention the Roman Empire.
 
What I meant to say earlier was that, even if Buddhism gets a significant following in Greece of all places, how do you make the region stay Buddhist? I think you would need to remove Christianity and Islam from the picture (or at least stunt their growth), because of the effect they had on destroying most of the old pagan religions in western Eurasia.

Also, I've read somewhere that when Alexander reached present-day India, the Greek culture and religion mixed with that of the native Hinduism/Buddhism. So basically, this thread is proposing a similar situation happening, but in the opposite direction?
 
What I meant to say earlier was that, even if Buddhism gets a significant following in Greece of all places, how do you make the region stay Buddhist? I think you would need to remove Christianity and Islam from the picture (or at least stunt their growth), because of the effect they had on destroying most of the old pagan religions in western Eurasia.

Also, I've read somewhere that when Alexander reached present-day India, the Greek culture and religion mixed with that of the native Hinduism/Buddhism. So basically, this thread is proposing a similar situation happening, but in the opposite direction?

Greece being Buddhist would butterfly away Christianity and Islam.
 
Even when Europe was pagan, Buddhism never reached that far west. And even if it did, I'm not sure if it would survive the expansion of Abrahamic faiths (Afghanistan was once Buddhist long ago, now it's not).

Not quite, Ashoka sent Buddhist missionaries as far as Alexandria and Athens, there were also Buddhists present in the various Persian Empires until Genghis Khan's invasion, and it's speculated that Gnosticism was partly influenced by Buddhist ideas, not to mention those who think that Buddhism had influence on Christianity and Jesus Christ himself.

So... I think it's perfectly possible for Buddhism to gain a major following in Greece, not to mention the Roman Empire.


Buddhism in fact spread quite a bit thanks to the the Silk Road ( Massive amounts of trade and ideas going back and forth.) and Alexander the Great conquest. (You already had Greco-Buddhism going on in India with the Indo-Greek Kingdom lasing to 10 AD.) The Indian king Pandya sent an embassy to Athens to meet with Augustus, and one member burned himself alive in Athens to prove his faith.

So I can see Buddhism becoming popular in the eastern portions of the Roman Empire, Greece among them.
 
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I can’t see it. Why would they convert from their traditional religion? Buddhism isn’t really monotheistic.

Buddhism attracted a ton of people which in fact made Christian expansion easier later on in the ealry years.

The very idea of a Buddhist Roman Empire, or even just a Buddhist Europe would be so much fun to play around it. At the very least, the Eastern Empire going Buddhist.

As said, there already is Greco-Buddhism with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, the Indo-Greek Kingdom, and the Greco-Buddhist monasticism started by Ahsoka.
 
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I can’t see it. Why would they convert from their traditional religion? Buddhism isn’t really monotheistic.

Keep in mind that Buddhism doesn't necessarily have to replace other religions, it can be mixed together in syncretism. When that religion spread to China and Japan for example, they still worshiped their own native gods. And the aforementioned Greco-Buddhism blended Greek and Indian beliefs.
 
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Well I guess the real question is why did its success in the Med. peak where it did OTL; and what variables can be realistically altered to promote its growth in that time and place?
 
Wouldn't step one be to have some iteration of the Persian Empire convert to Buddhism, so that you have a base for missionaries to expand further west?
 
It would fit in nicely. Greco-Bactrian culture is just one hint. And it could stay because christianity is not going to replace it, its popularity had a lot to do with there being a certain niche left rather open, but with buddhism all over the Eastern Med, that niche is already filled.

Why was it not more successful? I think its influence was rather indirect because it was just so far away. Changing that is the tough part but not impossible.
 
Would it help if there was a really popular buddhist philosopher/missionary going around and writing polemics against stoics n whatnot?
 
It did get a foothold in ancient Greece, or at the very least it influenced Greek philosophy during the Hellenistic period (apparently, Alexander brought a bunch of philosophers with him on his conquests). I can see a few tweaks making Buddhism big in ancient Greece.

That Achaemenid Greece TL by Daeres also shows Buddhism spreading all the way to the Norselands, never mind the Orphic Buddhism and Baal-Buddo stuff.

With PoDs like these, Christianity and Islam are quite safely butterflied away. Heck, Second Temple Judaism may well be drastically altered.
 
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