Yeah – it was called Hinduism. The word Mahayanam is sanskrit means greater vehicle. The problem is though, Buddhism doesn’t explain why the sutra is the way it is.There is nothing found in Buddhism that isn’t either just lifted directly from Hinduism (and other religions) or rehashed to make it seem like the various Buddha’s had epiphanies. It’s a bogus religion with no explanations of science and physics, where most of the ideology comes from and there is no proper explanation for how it all came about because it had to be distinguished from all the existing religions it stole from over the centuries. Hence a lot of the monks and nuns make no sense when they talk about the Buddhist philosophy and they always have to end up either referring to well respected philosophers from the west or smiling crazily.

But in defense of Buddhism, you can not convert to Hinduism and Buddhism made it possible for people to follow a pretty logical and cool philosophy, simplified down for the masses by cutting out huge explanations and the exclusivity that goes a long with Hinduism.