When Buddhism arose and developed, India was a rich country.
Much of the area was under King Bimbisara who was a powerful and just ruler. Crime was rare. Rule of law prevailed. Economic activities such as trade were booming.
It was one of the best places to be in human history. And not only Buddhism, other rich philosophical schools rose and thrived at that place.
Healthcare wasn’t non-existent, as there is recorded history of doctors and hospitals existing.
Buddhism, and many other rich philosophies could arise at that time in India specifically because India was rich, peaceful, and calm.
Kings and rich merchants paid for huge expenses of a non-trivial number of people not working towards economic gain.
This ignores the relative realities of then and now, and we are speaking of now. Then, medical care was not what we have now. It was true quackery. While doctors and hospitals existed, and were certainly some of the best in the world in that age, they still did very little compared to medical care now. While they were rich compared to much of the world (but not all of it, let’s not forget at this time Rome and China were ascendant as well, and likely superior in terms of health, science, and economic development - although South Asia had a focus on preventive health that is an envy today). However, none of this is even similar to the quality of economic, medical, scientific, educational, or other dimension in any society outside the most abject in todays world. They’re incomparable. Just antibiotics and pain medication existing alone and distributed globally to any nation no matter how impoverished is enough to make my point.
So, despite what should be abject misery by todays standard, how did people attain a lack of suffering in the age of the buddha? By the same routes we do today. Buddha just wrote down a reproducible route.
Buddhism doesn’t offer eternal happiness with magic beings absolving your wrongs and ensuring you live forever with your friends and loved ones. It only offers a way to use meditation to end your suffering, with it changing your reality or destiny. From that alone a major world religion took root. No bribery. No promises. Just a way to meditate and construe our reality. Maybe there’s something there?
Much of the area was under King Bimbisara who was a powerful and just ruler. Crime was rare. Rule of law prevailed. Economic activities such as trade were booming.
It was one of the best places to be in human history. And not only Buddhism, other rich philosophical schools rose and thrived at that place.
Healthcare wasn’t non-existent, as there is recorded history of doctors and hospitals existing.
Buddhism, and many other rich philosophies could arise at that time in India specifically because India was rich, peaceful, and calm.
Kings and rich merchants paid for huge expenses of a non-trivial number of people not working towards economic gain.