Source: TW
In brief: While China was exceptional in applied tech in the ancient world, India fared far better than it in sciences viz medicine, theology etc. Nastika missionaries empowered by successive favorable regimes in NW took these sciences there & armed with superior magic & medicine – won much fame which was followed by conversion of elites & favors.
Rather than theorizing, a 1st-hand account from a 17C Buryat, Shaman explains this very well:
1st the Lamaist display superior magical and medicinal proficiency to get close to elites as seen in these two accounts:
At that time a wise, fortune-telling Shamaness was living amidst the people of the Tüsiyetü Khan. Whatever matters they undertook, if the Shamaness had predicted them, she was never found to be wrong. This wise Shamaness lost both of her eyes by sickness. “What is the purpose of it”, she said, because she could not see anything at all, “that I should live without eyes? I shall starve to death!” Two disciples of the venerable. Lama, on their way to the hamlet to beg for milk to be mixed into the tea, passed and saw her - she had gone to the desert and was lying there starving, as she could not obtain enough though collecting everything. When they asked the Shamaness, “Why are you sleeping in the desert?” the Shamaness said, “I shall die!” When she had related the circumstances of her sleeping there, the two disciples said, “If it be so, Shamaness, do not give yourself up without reason. A great wise Lama has come and stays at your place. Let him look if (your eyes) can not be well again. We go into the hamlet to look for milk!” “If it be like this”, she said when they had told her, “you might as well accompany me to my tent. I shall give you what you need. Let me meet your Lama accompanied by you!” Upon these words the disciples brought the Shamaness to her home and received what they wanted. The Shamaness then, while led her way, was stirred deeply in her heart hearing the sound of the Lama clearing his throat when she arrived outside of the Lama’s tent, and she developed faith. Because the two eyes of the Shamaness were completely cured as she rose, after entering the tent and receiving the Lama’s blessing prostrated before him, the Shamaness believed with faith and of her own accord. praised the venerable Lama to the Tüsiyetü Khan…'
‘At that time the royal princess of the Ongnighut fell gravely ill. When she did not get better after consulting learned monks as well as physicians and exorcists, a dignitary said:
“A great, wise and powerful Shaman-prince is living in this my country. Should he be summoned and the illness of the princess be examined, this certainly would be good!” The imperial son-in-law, the princess, the dignitaries all consented heartily to what he had said. Therefore a messenger was sent to approach the Shaman.
Many people were crying when the Lama who in the meantime had been roving over the country and living by alms, came to the outside of the residence of the princess. The Lama asked them, “Why are you so alarmed?”
“Our princess has fallen ill”, they told him, “We are worrying because her illness is grave. Monk, do you know how to treat the disease?”
While they were talking in this way and that way, one man went inside. He reported to the royal princess, “An old Lama is outdoors; he came to ask for alms!”
“If he is an old Lama”, the princess thereupon said, “then he certainly has experienced many things. Invite him and show him in!”
Hastily the Lama was led in. When he had been seated, a cushion having been prepared for him at the right side, the princess spoke, “My inferior body”, she said, “has been stricken with pain. Grant relief, o Lama, as I cannot bear it!”
The Lama then proceeded with benedictions from the side where he was sitting cross-legged, towards the royal princess. With every benediction - both while sitting cross-legged at his place as well as while coming nearer - the disease receded. Marvelling, the princess and all the others said, “Have we not finally met with a truly great Saint?”
They felt very happy.
“We will offer a tent for the Lama, to stay”, they said.
“I cannot live in close community with many people”, answered the Lama, “you may set up the tent for me far outside of the camp!”
According to his words the tent was set up at a very remote place outside of the camp. When he had installed himself and had been living there for more than one day and one night, the Shaman-prince who had the magic power and who had been summoned earlier arrived.
Inquiring for the cause of the princess’s recovery, he was told, “Having met with a migrant old Lama he, after sitting cross-legged (near the bed of the sick), began to bless her and the disease receded with each blessing!”
It should be noted that even the Yuan Qan-s adoption of nastikamata was on account of the magical protection it could provide. Using these they befriend elites & influence them to interfere with Shaman religion, beginning from age of Altan Qan, which includes banning of sacrifices, replacing Shaman hymns with nastika dharani-s, appropriation of deities, giving horses and cattle to encourage people to join the Lamaist cult.
This spell against ‘an enchantment in the form of an ailment’ is pronounced while making loud noises. The exorcising lama, uttering pat- and sot-dhāranī, lashes out threateningly with a whip of braided straps and a handle of tamarisk which resembles the whip-like drumstick ‘daytar eriyen moyai - the scaly spotted snake’ of the East Mongolian, Manchu and Tungus Shamans, the amitai-yin tasiyur ~ sorbi tasiyur 138 ‘wand’ of the Buriat Shamans. 139 …
The chanting of the old shamanistic songs and tunes was prohibited, too.’ rigorously this purge of shamanist deities and idols was carried out is demonstrated by the form in which some spells or prayers of shamanistic origin have been preserved by oral tradition. A dalalya for a successful hunt from Ordos, doubtless of shamanistic origin and once addressed to Bayan mani, the Ordos equivalent of the Buriat hunter- ongghot Anda bars, 140 was permitted to remain in use but without addressing any particularly named deity.14
To lead with charitable ingenuity to a good expansion of the Buddhist Faith he (= Tüsiyetü Khan) 164 made publicly known:
“I shall give a horse to everybody who memorizes the Khuriyangghui; I shall give a cow to everybody who memorizes the Yamantaka (-Dhāranī)!”
Thereupon, from the moment that the announcement was heard, all the poor and destitute memorized the prayers according to their mental capacity. As he, in accordance with the announcement, was presenting horses and cattle also to those who had learned (them) by heart from others before, there were many believers who, whilst memorizing great and small prayers complied with it by and by in such a way.
One is immediately reminded of the tyrant Constantine here:
‘Silingge. qori irinčin arban tabun ečige qasay-ud. baryujin suyisu. tungkin alayir kürtele. ongyon-u düri dürisü böge iduyan-u jebseg tei. čöm yal-dur tülibei. - Selenge, Khori, the fifteen clans Irintsin, Khasakh, Barghutsin, Suisu (?) up to Tungkin and Alair put to destruction by fire all the Ongghot images, utensils and armours of Shamans and Shamanesses. . .’ Shortly after his conversion to Lamaism the jasayul Ranča of the Khori ‘… uridu sitüğü bayiysan ongyodiyan uyaryad – foreswore his idols which before had been venerated’. 153 152
Regents and noblemen became very faithful upon these words and, according to the urging, each of them sent his own representative envoy with each one monk of the Lama’s disciples, on relay horses in every direction. When these, entering the lodgings of all noblemen, dignitaries and commoners alike, were saying, “Hand your idols to us!” some handed them over, the others too timid to remove them said (only), “Here are they!" Dispersed all over the banner the deputed monks and envoys collected these idols and brought them together from all sides. What they had brought, they piled up as high as a tent of four gratings outside of the Lama’s lodging, and they set fire to them.
The heterodox faith was thus brought to an end and the religion of Buddha became immaculate.’
The region affected by this iconoclastic purge was the Khortsin Country and its vicinity.
The size of the pyre built from the confiscated idols gives an indication how very large their number was. The average Mongolian tent is about two and a half yards high at its summit; the qana, its grated, folding wall units each extend 6-7 feet in length.
Finally begins the persecution of Shamans and purge of their idols, equipment & even people by fire. The account we have holds that Shaman idols piled up to a height of 28 feet while being burned: “Hand your idols to us”, the Lamaists shout & use force on others. More notes on the same: it was on the back of the knowledge of high souled H physicians that the nastika-s gained converts unfortunately.
However, note that the Lamaist aren’t unique in acquiring converts as such – H who follow news would recall Xtian tactics in impoverished lands in India. They followed the same tactics in the past as well. Rodney Stark writes on how epidemics were big opportunities for conversion. “All early fathers believed that without epidemics, Xtianity would’ve never established itself in Rome.”.
But while historians of Rome have been busy making good the oversights of earlier generations, the same cannot be said of his- torians of the early Christian era. The words “epidemic,” “plague,” and “disease” do not even appear in the index of the most respected recent works on the rise of Christianity (Frend 1984; MacMullen 1984). This is no small omission. Indeed, Cyprian, Dionysius, Eusebius, and other church fathers thought the epidemics made major contributions to the Christian cause. I think so too. In this chapter I suggest that had classical society not been disrupted and demoralized by these catastrophes, Christianity might never have become so dominant a faith. To this end, I shall develop three theses.