Yogic practices were common among the followers of all the religions of ancient India, including
Brahmanism and Buddhism.
With regard to the growing influence of
Brahmanism in northern Afghanistan, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentions Kapisha (or Ka-pi-shi), in his famous travelogue from the years 629 to 645, referring to the ancient Kushan capital later known as Begram/Bagram, where Buddhism was about to decline and "stupas were desolate and rained".
The term 'Hindutva' is alternatively used to signify a variety of the concepts such as 'Hindu Nationalism', 'Hindu Supremacism' and '
Brahmanism' in today's India.
In the wake of Aryan ascendancy Sanskrit was put on a high pedestal as a sacred language of
Brahmanism spoken and used by elite scholars of upper castes.
In addition to examining various legal, didactic, and poetic texts from the traditions of
Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism, Upinder Singh surveys the epigraphic and numismatic records and political inscriptions and monuments, such as Ashokan edicts that proclaim the emperor's rejection of violence after a brutal military campaign, or hero-stones that commemorate the heavenly ascension of warriors slain in battle.
It is a collation of diverse traditions like
Brahmanism, Tantra, Nath, Siddhanta, Shaiva, Vashanav and Bhakti among others.
For the purposes of this research, what is most notable about
Brahmanism, as a philosophical system, is its grounding in the notion of pure consciousness.
He decried the Hindu religion as "
Brahmanism," asserting that its principal purpose is to uphold a flagrantly unjust system that sentences human beings to the bottom of the social ladder for life.
Inu said this is the land of pluralism where Sufism,
Brahmanism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity flourished side by side.
The V-branch accounts' (narrative) affiliation with the Vedic versions of the Pururavas story and their repeated reference to Vedic ritual position them as Puranic fragments representing an "orthodox
Brahmanism" that gains validity through recourse to Vedic texts and notions.
Kancha, Ilaiah, God as Political Philosopher: Buddha's Challenge to
Brahmanism, Kolkata: Samya, 2004.