and India the acknowledged master of the third definition I thought that was more pop culture cliche than actually conventional wisdom, and even in pop culture east asian buddhists might come out ahead. Measured in terms of simply being poor, India is fortunately ahead (or behind, if we consider poverty good) of a number of countries.

herefore, there is minimal possibility that any Indian people ever discovered interesting mental techniques. You're turning a generalization into an absolute claim. A possible belief is that only "western/enlightenment" thinking produces interesting mental techniques and so any Indians (of which there are a very large number) would be part of the minority that were westernized. The majority of Indians should generally look westward, even though there are also many westerners who are unenlightened (though perhaps spiritual creationists).