BOOK SUMMARY OF BUDDHIST SECTS AND PHILOSOPHIES FACETS OF BUDDHIST THOUGHT AND
CULTURE: VOL. 3
Early Buddhism though propogated in different provincial dialects could not be
appreciated by the common-folk in general. The insistence on retirement from
worldly life was a great handicap n the way of its popularity; so during the
first century of its existence, it remained confined to the recluses and
monastries, and hardly reached the home and the hearth. It was perhaps about a
century after Buddha's death that the religion became dynamic, assimilating some
of the ideas and thoughts current around and stepped down from its high pedestal
of exclusiveness