Page "Greco-Buddhism" Paragraph 52

Some elements of the Mahayana movement may have begun around the 1st century BCE in northwestern India, at the time and place of these interactions.

According to most scholars, the main sutras of Mahayana were written after 100 BCE, when sectarian conflicts arose among Nikaya Buddhist sects regarding the humanity or super-humanity of the Buddha and questions of metaphysical essentialism, on which Greek thought may have had some influence: " It may have been a Greek-influenced and Greek-carried form of Buddhism that passed north and east along the Silk Road ".