In the middle of posting this, someone just told me that many previously colonized countries have to outport their goods at an uneven exchange, and India has their culture as a product. Is there a lot of white washing disrespectful appropriation? Are there lots of cults too?
It was one of the most politically important Buddhist doctrines that anyone, regardless of caste, gender, age, etc. can reach enlightenment in this very life, where the Hindu dogma at the time is that such a thing is impossible for the lower castes.
The very abbreviated origin story is that Buddha was a great prince who had endless bounty as you say, but due to a revelation that came from a series of hardships that he witnessed, he came to understand that suffering is inherent to the nature of our world and could not be escaped even through his wealth, because he too would grow old and die (etc.) He then set about to discover a solution to this problem, which at one point involved studying with yogis who were extreme ascetics, which escalated to him starving himself nearly to death before being nursed back to health from a comatose state by being fed rice porridge. He concluded from this that neither extreme indulgence nor extreme asceticism could save someone, but that moderation was a necessary element of right living. Following this, he meditated under a tree for 49 days and reached enlightenment, at which point he began proselytizing about the Four Noble Truths that he discovered over the course of his life, and his solution, the Noble Eightfold Path.
This is an extremely pared-down telling, so I’d appreciate if other users not jump on me, but I would appreciate any necessary corrections or additions for bettering the explanation. Probably the biggest issue is that it doesn’t cover the issue of non-attachment adequately.