> Just as Christianity, in its early era, readily incorporated pagan beliefs and iconography into its developing creed and rituals, Buddhism was very accepting of preexisting Indian beliefs. It simply reframed them in Buddhist terms.
This is an important point. Over the decades, I have seen it claimed on news-for-nerds sites like this, that Buddhism denied the supernatural entirely. Yet Buddhism as it is actually historically attested from its earliest eras (and attempts to reconstruct some kind of “pure” ur-Buddhism are dubious) show ready acceptance of e.g. the Vedic pantheon, with only the caveat that the gods, too, are stuck in samsara.
This is an important point. Over the decades, I have seen it claimed on news-for-nerds sites like this, that Buddhism denied the supernatural entirely. Yet Buddhism as it is actually historically attested from its earliest eras (and attempts to reconstruct some kind of “pure” ur-Buddhism are dubious) show ready acceptance of e.g. the Vedic pantheon, with only the caveat that the gods, too, are stuck in samsara.