And that's one of the reasons why Ashoka's empire wasn't actually very Buddhist, because ultimately Buddhism isn't that concerned with the order of the world. Buddhism argues that the fulfillment of the self will lead to the order of the world. In the end, Ashoka's empire didn't outlast him by much, and soon enough Buddhism declined in India, almost to the point of extinction. Part 8, the big finish. So as anyone who's ever practiced yoga knows, Hinduism is the most flexible of all the world religions, which is part of the reason it's often described as polytheistic. The belief that gods can take many forms makes it easy for Hinduism to assimilate other religious traditions, which is exactly what happened with Buddhism. In time, the Buddha came to be worshipped as another incarnation of one of the Hindu gods and not as a mortal teacher.