India is too big to generalize.Pre dominant here would mean majority in areas where the empire had its roots eh?
Anyway Asoka and all his predecessors were all hindus right.
Asoka turned Buddhist because he got freaked out by a battle
so before buddhism got established as a major religion it was hinduism.
Hinduism began from Aryans migrating from Eurasia and therefore it is the earliest religion recorded.
Buddha itself was a hindu
or i am missing something
Buddha was a hindu, but meditated under a tree for 7 days (' in bodh gaya') to come up with a new idea about another religion. Back then, Hindu was the predominant religion in India. The new religion which was created by Buddha was Buddhism.
Buddhism spread rapidly in India, until it became the predominant religion. Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism falls
within this time span and is the main reason why Buddhism became the predominant religion in India back then.
After the battle of Kalinga, due to Ashoka's influence, Buddhism became the predominant religion of India (as opposed to hinduism before). This predominance of Buddhism in India after Kalinga battle was
not due to force on part of Ashoka because it goes against the teachings of Buddhism.
Long after Ashoka, Hindu emperors , attacked India (I don't remember the exact names of those emperors). They destroyed many Buddhist structures, and forced people to convert to Hinduism back again. That is why most people in India are Hindus and not Buddhists.
What I'm talking about is that, after this, Muslim emperors conquered major parts of India too. However, unlike the previous Hindu emperors, they did not force people to convert to Islam. Thus, they demonstrated significant religious tolerance there. But some statement of SpongeBob I pointed out earlier is in direct contrast to this fact.
I hope I'm clear about the timeline I'm talking about.