<p>This comparative essay is about the missionary activity between Buddhism and Islam from the period 700 to 1000. My teacher only gave me a 5 on the essay(he gave me a partial credit for only disccussing "most part of the task) How?</p>
<p>Comparative Essay on Missionary Activty</p>
<pre><code>Missionary activity had always been one of the most important methods by which a religion could be spread. This activity flourished and became prevalent in the period from 700 to 1000 as Buddhism and Christianity became more accepted and as societies expanded beyond their traditional boundaries. Nonetheless, the missionary activities between Buddhism and Christianity shared similarities and exhibited differences in the period from 700 to 1000.
Buddhism originated in India when the religions founder, Siddhartha Gautama, left his palace and began searching for the meaning of human suffering in the 5th century C.E. After years of arduous meditation and asceticism, Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment and became the Buddha, ore the Enlightened One. The precepts of Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths, two of which states that all life is suffering and that salvation can be achieved by adhering to the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path is a set of rules of righteousness that would lead to Nirvana, which would free the achiever from the recurrent cycle of reincarnation. Just like most major world religions, Buddhism experienced internal strife that resulted in several sects, such as Mahayana and Zen. As time progressed, Buddhism fanned out of India and spread to China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia.
Christianity began in Middle East by the religions founder, Jesus of Nazareth, in the beginning of the first century C.E. Born in Bethlehem, Judea, Jesus was a Jew and claimed to be the Son of God and won many followers. But the Roman government officials feared Jesuss popularity and saw him as a hindrance to their legitimacy to rule. To get rid of this hindrance, the officials crucified Jesus. After Jesuss death, his apostles preached that Jesus had died for human sins and that by praying and believing him, they
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<p>could obtain salvation and earn entrance into the Heaven. Through missionary activity, Christianity spread throughout almost the world.
No matter how different Buddhism and Christianity may be, whether in their perception of their founders or the practices of certain rituals, these two religions did share similarities in missionary activities in the period from 700 to 1000. When Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus died, the followers of each person believed that it was, and still is, their duty to spread the message of their religions. The missionaries both relied on the trade routes to spread their religions. Buddhism spread throughout most parts of Asia via the Silk Road when this trade route was resuscitated during the Tang Dynasty, which ruled from 618 C.E.-907 C.E. On the other hand, there was not a definitive trade route by which Christianity spread, but it still managed to spread throughout Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and Kievan Russia. Christianity and the Salvationist sect of Buddhism, also known as Mahayana, were aimed as appealing to the lower class and women, both of whom lived miserably and needed a salvationist belief to alleviate their
pain and suffering. As a result, vast majority of people, in this case the lower class and women, accepted either Buddhism or Christianity. In addition to that, the missionaries of both religions set up monasteries, preached in public, and helped the poor to make their religions more believable and accepted.
The missionary activities of Buddhism and Christianity were also different in several ways. For example, Christianity, during this time, spread throughout Western Europe, Northeastern Africa, the Byzantine Empire, and in the late 900s, Kievan Russia. On the other hand, Buddhism was more limited to Eastern Asia, which encompassed China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Moreover, Christianity was solely aimed at appealing to the lower class and women, but Buddhism was only attracted the lower class and
women, but also the upper class. The aristocrats in Japan found Mahayana Buddhism incompatible to their taste, but found solace in Zen Buddhism, which offered meditation, beauty, and serenity. Contrary to that, the upper class elites, especially the kings, tried to override the Church and the pope by practicing investiture and other heretical things, although these elites stilled feigned inferiority to the Church and pope during the Middle
Ages in Europe.
The prevalence of missionary activities facilitated in spreading Buddhism and Christianity during the period from 700 to 1000. Whether these two religions show any overlapping in their believes or not, it is evident that their missionary activities shared similarities and differences, either in the reason for which they spread, the location to which they spread, the mode by which they spread, or the subjects reactions to these religions.</p>