Mahayana History

The Mahayana Buddhist movement developed prominently beginning about one century B.C.E. in northern India, though its undocumented roots go back much further. Christianity and Mahayana Buddhism emerged around the same time and shared an emphasis on compassion, altruism, and universal salvation. Indeed, there was some mutual influence between the Mideast and northern India carried on by pilgrims and merchants for several centuries after Alexander's invasion of India in the fourth century B.C.E. Some religious scholars speculate that Jesus may have been influenced by ideas percolating over from Buddhist India, and the teachings of early Christianity might in turn have had some influence on the development of the Mahayana.Putting aside such provocative yet unverifiable speculations, Mahayana Buddhism was certainly an organic development from early Buddhism dating back to the historical Buddha Sakyamuni, who live in northern India in the sixth century B.C.E.

---Taigen Dan Leighton, in Faces of Compassion---