Around 261 BC, one of the greatest kings in Indian history, Ashoka of the Peacock Dynasty, eventually conquered much of northern India through a series of conquests, unifying all of India except Mysore. He then converted to Buddhism and established Buddhism as the state religion; in 325 AD, one of the greatest monarchs in Roman history, Constantine I of the Constantine dynasty, killed another emperor of the Roman Empire, Licinius, unifying the whole of Rome. His early "Milan Pardon" also made Christianity the de facto state religion of Rome, and he himself converted to Christianity; in 630 AD, the Islamic prophet Muhammad led an army of 100,000 to capture the city of Mecca, and completed the unification of the Arabian Peninsula the following year, and Islam became the common faith of the entire Middle East.
When we were young, we would always ask our parents, where did the Buddha come from, where did the Buddha come from, why should we have faith? The answer from the parents was unusually firm, the Buddha dwelt in heaven, his mana was boundless, and he would bless all good people. However, when we study history, we will find that the answer is simple and simple, and it is also very complicated to say that it is complex. The reason why people have faith is not only because they need it, but also because others want you to need it. For example, in the previous description, why did the great prosperity of the three major religions all after the great unification, is it really just because of coincidence? Or is there a deeper reason?
Buddha
In this respect, the relationship between Constantine the Great and Christianity is perhaps the most straightforward. Christianity was born around the 1st century AD in the Roman province of Palestine (present-day Israel, Palestine and Jordan), and was almost the same as most of the world's religions, and Christianity with the purpose of "gospel" spread rapidly among the poor of the empire, and then believers spread throughout most of the Roman Empire and North Africa, becoming one of the larger organizations in Rome.
When the number of Christians was large enough to shake the imperial rule and even clash with Rome's original polytheistic beliefs, the Roman Emperor ordered an investigation of Christians one by one, and even asked them to convert to the polytheism and emperor worship that Rome itself possessed. From the birth of Christianity to the "Milan Pardon" issued by Constantine the Great, the Roman Empire persecuted it a total of 10 times, of which the more famous one is the decree issued by the Roman Emperor Decius in 250 AD, who not only executed the Roman bishop Fabione, but even searched for Christians throughout Rome. Christians who disobeyed the sacrifices made to the king were thrown into prison, sold into slavery, and even sentenced to capital punishment.
Christians are persecuted
Coincidentally, when there were more and more Muslims in Mecca in the early seventh century AD, the local nobles tried to bribe Muhammad and force him to disband and convert. After Muhammad refused, the polytheists in Mecca carried out the assassination of Muhammad one by one, and organized a large-scale persecution of Muslims by the people. This eventually led Muhammad to Medina with his followers in 622 AD.
Compared with the suffering experiences of Christians and Muslims, Buddhism seems to have had a smoother life from the historical texts, and it did not experience too many storms from its birth around the 5th century BC to the time it was enshrined as the state religion by Ashoka in the early 2nd century BC. On the one hand, this may be due to the fact that India at that time only had Brahmanism, the predecessor of Hinduism, and on the other hand, India did not form a unified regime at that time, so Buddhism obviously had a much more moist life in India. Taking a step back ten thousand steps, the founder of Buddhism, Gautama Siddhartha, was himself a prince, and even the nobles dared to point fingers at him.
So you see, although Muhammad, who was born into the nobility, was disliked by the nobles of Mecca, they were still slightly jealous of his identity and did not dare to kill the killer, only Jesus, who was really born a commoner, died of the crucifixion, and it seems that the founding patriarchs were also divided into classes.
Gautama Siddhartha
History will tell us that "everything is not separated from its origin", and any law that you can't see here, in another place, it will eventually follow the path of law. When Buddhism was introduced to China during the Eastern Han Dynasty, after the Wuhu Chaohua and the turmoil of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Buddhism took the opportunity to spread on a large scale among the low-level people, and finally because it involved the Hu-Han dispute in the Northern Zhou Dynasty, it not only threatened the local Chinese religions Confucianism and Taoism, but also seriously threatened the rule of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. So in 577 AD, the Northern Zhou Wu Emperor Yuwen Yong ordered the "annihilation of the Buddha", the northern temple was taken into state ownership, the monks ordered the return of the secular, and the Buddha statues were all destroyed, that is, the "Zhou Wu Emperor destroyed the Buddha Incident".
Christianity has historically been immortal with Islam, but how similar is its development? Although the development of Buddhism in India is unknown due to the loss of texts, it has become the same history as the other two religions after its introduction to China. Emperor Wu of Zhou, the Roman Emperor, and the Makkah nobles never had the possibility of communicating with each other, but they made the same choice when faced with a growing sect.
So, is that the end of the story?
Emperor Wu of Zhou destroyed the Buddha
How could it end. In 313 AD, the Roman Empire, which had been ruled by four emperors, became divided equally between the two emperors, with Constantine controlling the western part of the empire and Licinius the emperor in the eastern part of the empire. After a brief period of cooperation, they began a new struggle to dominate the empire. It was also at this time that Constantine and Licinius, in order to gain wider popular support, issued the "Milan Pardon" one by one in Milan, recognizing that Christians had the same right to freedom of belief as other pagans, and returning the churches and property they had confiscated, exempting Christian monks from their obligations of servitude.
Although the establishment of Christianity as the "state religion" was postponed until the reign of Theodosius in 392 AD, the "Milan Pardon" was the beginning of the persecution of Christianity in history, and also laid a solid foundation for the establishment of Christianity as the state religion of Rome, and was arguably one of the most important events in the early development of Christianity. After Constantine unified all of Rome, he greatly increased the welfare of Christianity in the Council of Nicaea in 324 AD, and even fully converted to Christianity, and converted to Christianity during his lifetime, becoming the first Roman Emperor to believe in Christianity. At this time, although Christianity was not explicitly defined as a state, it was already the highest status and de facto state religion within the Roman Empire.
Constantine I
As for why Constantine was so inclined to Christianity, to put it bluntly, it was to maintain the rule of the Constantine dynasty, the organic unity of religious beliefs and political motives. Because the mass base of Christ at that time was already larger than the original polytheistic beliefs in Rome, especially in the eastern region ruled by Licinius, the penetration of Christianity was much higher than that of Constantine's original western region. So in order to please the masses in the east and for the stability of the empire, Constantine not only chose to move the Roman capital from Rome to Byzantium, but also obeyed Christianity.
In this regard, the person most similar to Constantine was Ashoka. At that time, India was a multi-faith region, and the cultural and linguistic differences between countries were extremely large, and when Ashoka unified the whole of India, the most difficult nature to control was the clash of national cultures. If the culture of the Magadha kingdom, where Ashoka was located, were to be forcibly extended to other countries, it would inevitably cause a catastrophic backlash. For this reason, Ashoka had to choose Buddhism, which was already quite a mass base in India at that time, as the core, and use religious belief as a bridge for political unification, which can be said to be the best choice.
A poignant love story in folklore about Ashoka's belief in Buddha
Of course, many people may not believe that Ashoka would have overturned his car without choosing Buddhism, but fortunately, history has long proved this. After Yang Guangping Chen in the ninth year of the kai emperor, Yang Jian originally wanted to use the culture of Northern Zhou to assimilate Jiangnan, which had been separated from the Chinese Dynasty for more than 200 years, which led to rebellions among all ethnic groups in Jiangnan, so that Yang Guang had to go south again to quell the rebellion. Just as the so-called "eat a long and wise", after Jiangnan was suppressed again, Yang Guang, in addition to using Jiangnan gentry in a big way, was ordained by the Bodhisattva of the Buddhist Tendai Sect in Yangzhou in the eleventh year of the Kai Emperor and officially worshiped the Buddha's Gate, and Yang Jian also built three stupas in Daxing City, declaring to the world that he was the reincarnation of "Ashoka King".
The reason is also very simple, although after the Northern Zhou Wu Emperor destroyed buddhism, Buddhism has been deeply rooted in the Central Plains. In particular, because Nan Chen did not go through the extinction of Buddhism, almost everyone in Jiangnan believed in Buddhism, far more pious than in the north. The move of Yang Jian's father and son not only eliminated the negative impact of Yang Jian's usurpation of the throne, but also made it easier for the people of Jiangnan to accept the rule of the Sui Dynasty.
Tendai Ancestral Court, Guoqing Temple
Compared to Buddhism and Christianity, Muhammad was much more direct, and without Constantine I and Ashoka, he would have done it himself. In the middle of the seventh century, Muhammad led his 10,000 followers in a southern expedition to the Arabian Peninsula, and finally completed the unification of the entire peninsula. As a result, white mosques gradually spread throughout the entire peninsula land.
Many people will ask why we study history and what good it is. In fact, history is nothing mysterious, and he can't tell you that many of the periods that you don't seem to understand are actually just copies of history.
Jesus, Muhammad, and Gautama Siddhartha certainly did not know each other, but their stories were roughly the same: this is the law of social operation. It's also real history.