Thread by @blog_supplement

Received a note in DM that the bauddha conversion might have nevertheless helped the core Mongols resist infection by even more pernicious counter-religions like those from West Asia. I actually don't disagree with that assessment. The below thread was to primarily illustrate how

https://twitter.com/blog_supplement/status/1586191418795737088

the tAthAgatan religion had the hallmarks of a counter-religion even as it did at the time of its birth in India. As I've noted before, it often takes a counter-religion to counter another. We have thus seen the bauddha-s of different strains being quite effective at this, e.g.

in lankA against the pretamata. The imposition or the missionary spread of the nAstika-mata in Mongolia & Japan had some interesting consequences. First, in Japan it gave a model for shinto to canonize itself & become more resistant to West Asian counter-religions. The japanese

also abstracted the H core from the bauddha-mata and cultivated that to a greater degree -- thus finding a natural religion within the counter-religion. One could say the same thing happened to a degree in Mongolia. E.g., the fire ritual incantations I mentioned on the original

thread. A similar situation was also seen with other shamanistic traditions and the cult of Chingiz Khan, some of which survived beneath a bauddha patina.