Syncretism of Buddhism

We recently had a quiz on the syncretism of Buddhism. For that quiz I wrote a paragrpah comparing how Japan and Korea syncrenised Buddhism. They similarly syncrenised Buddhism through trade, using the silk road. They sent merchants to travel on the silk road to India, in order for them to learn the details of Buddhism. However, once Buddhism was brought into both Japan and Korea, they differed in promoting it throughout their countries. Japan heavily promoted Buddhism, by recruitng monks and building monuments. They did this because they had a surplus of resources which gave them the ability to heavily promote Buddhism. They gained resources because they were not in any wars, and were isolated from other parts of Asia. Korea on the other hand, did not have the resources to promote Buddhism. Korea was in the middle of the warring states period, which greatly restricted their abiltiy to gain a surplus of resources. Their low resource total led to little promoting of Buddhism. The syncretism of Buddhism was very important to both Japan and Korea


Aaron Cohen