In contrast to India where many early followers of Buddhism were

E for me. Valid comparison. Early followers of India compared to those of China.

I think its E.

(A) Wrong. Reason: In contrast to should have the same quantifiable value. Here at the start its 'India' (a country) and compared to 'those in China' (few people)
(B) Wrong. Reason: Buddhism's followers is a wrong term as Buddhism is not a person. And it's always followers of a group and not group's followers.
(C) Wrong. Reason: Same as (A) 'Buddhism in India' is being compared to 'China`s early followers of Buddism'. One is a belief and the other is a quantifiable number
(D) Wrong. Reason: Redundancy of thought, and not a very concisely written one. The wrong part is 'who were itinerants,many of them travelling' - both the parts separated by comma means the same

Cheers. Keep Dreaming.

E looks good for me. Except one doubt with the use of "they" which shows bit ambiguity between followers and the teachings.

Any comments

@mikemcgarry/@GMATNinja
Sir,
I have two doubts here-
1. Can you please help me to understand the usage of "many of whom" vs "many of them"?
2. I struggle to understand the usage of Comma+with?

Regards
Rahul

Hi,
Let me try.

Question No 1.

You can use both, but the punctuation varies slightly for each. If we wish to continue as a relative clause we use 'many of whom', and when as an independent clause we use 'many of them'.

"In the evening we went to a party. I met Diana's friends, many of whom are connected with the movie industry."
"In the evening we went to a party. I met Diana's friends. Many of them are connected with the movie industry."
"In the evening we went to a party where I met Diana's friends, many of whom are connected with the movie industry."
"In the evening we went to a party where I met Diana's friends. Many of them are connected with the movie industry.

We can use 'whom' under three different circumstances:

1) in questions when we ask about the name or identity of a person or group of people.
`I want to send a https://gmatclub.com/chat.'—`Fine, to whom?'

2)after certain words, especially verbs and adjectives, to introduce a clause where you talk about the name or identity of a person or a group of people.
'He asked whom I'd told about his having been away.'

3)at the beginning of a relative clause when specifying the person or group of people you are talking about or when giving more information about them. (Pronoun/prep pron)
'There were generations of women for whom work provided an escape from family life.

Question No. 2

', +with' usually plays a role of prepositional phrase.

A prepositional phrase will function as an adjective or adverb.

As an adjective, the prepositional phrase will answer the question Which one?
The book on the bathroom floor is swollen from shower steam.
Which book? The one on the bathroom floor!

As an adverb, a prepositional phrase will answer questions such as How? When? or Where?
His prospects for the future were very grim, with the bank foreclosing on his mortgage.

Hope it helps.

In Contrast to X , Y : Correct Idiomatic usage
Further both X and Y must be parallel (comparison)

Hence, Correct Answer must be (E)

What is difference between Option B and Option E ?

ammuseeru , here are shortened versions of B and E

B) In contrast to Buddhism's early followers in India, many of whom were itinerants . . . , in China they lived in monastic communities . . .

E) In contrast to early followers of Buddhism in India, many of whom were itinerants . . . , those in China lived in monastic communities . . .

An itinerant is a traveler, a person who does not stop in one place.
A person who lives in a monastic community lives in one place.

Take a look at my abbreviated versions of B and E.
The difference lies in the second part of the sentence that I have shortened.
One of those two pronoun constructions is wrong.

Followers of Buddhism in India is one group with a particular identity.
The pronoun in the second part of the sentence refers to . . . ?
We have a parallelism issue.

In the incorrect construction:
-- The problem is not pronoun ambiguity.
-- The problem is that NO antecedent exists for the pronoun, OR
-- that the pronoun and its alleged antecedent disagree in content — the alleged antecedent and the pronoun are not exactly the same kind of thing.

Hope that helps. Ask again if you get stuck.

generis

I had few more reasons to eliminate (B)
Let me share sentence structure again:

In contrast to Buddhism's early followers in India, so we are basically comparing followers in India. (more precisely Buddhism followers)

many of whom were itinerants whom correctly modifies followers
who traveled the countryside who correctly modifies itinerants
and were disseminating the Buddha's teachings, AND separates two verbs: traveled and were disseminating
Now, here is the catch why do we need a simple past tense verb and past continuous connected by AND.
I firmly believe the second verb tense is incorrect.
in China they in China lived in monastic communities in which rules were developed for the purposes of administrative organization, discipline and the management of monastic land and properties.

Compare the structure in (E)
In contrast to early followers of Buddhism in India,
many of whom were itinerants travelling the countryside in order to disseminate the Buddha's teachings, traveling is verb-ing modifier without coma
modifying previous noun: itinerants , in order to = infinitive verb showing purpose, ie itinerants traveled countryside with purpose
to disseminate the Buddha's teachings
those in china lived in monastic communities (those = followers)
in which rules were developed for purposes of administrative organization, discipline and the management of monastic land and properties.
Also in (E) comparision becomes more subtle to understand:
In contrast to early followers of Buddhism in India, .. . . , those (ie followers) in china lived in monastic communities

Hope I am correct in my understanding.

Comparisons should be made between similar things like noun with noun , pronoun with pronoun etc . Here in the correct answer E 'followers' are correctly compared with 'those' .

In contrast to X , Y is the correct idiom

Please give kuddos friend

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