ABSTRACT
The source of the mahayana revolution was that now-familiar region in the northwestern part of the indian subcontinent, the region known as Ghandara in ancient times. In the early centuries of the common era, Mahayana Buddhism radiated out from there, ultimately traveling great distances. (In fact, it’s still traveling.) Much of North India was influenced by Mahayana, but Buddhism’s days of growth were numbered in its Indian homeland. Over the next several centuries the once vigorous state of Buddhism in India would slowly decline. Those Buddhist communities that did endure were ultimately all but destroyed by foreign invaders, first the Huns in the fifth century C.E. and finally the Turkish Mughals, whose brutal conquest of India began in the eleventh century. By this time, though, Buddhism—especially Mahayana Buddhism—was alive and well in many places outside of India.
