Part 4.4 - Cultural assimilation

[Full title: Buddhism and Brahmanism: different perspectives and cultural assimilation (4) Cultural assimilation]

P. V. Kane states that:

“As Buddhism grew in popularity and secured also royal support, the Brāhmaṇas had to tackle several tasks. They had to keep the number of Brāhmaṇas at a high level, they had to find maintenance for those who devoted to the deep study of the Veda and they had to make accommodation with prevalent Buddhist thoughts by assimilating as many of them as possible in their own writings”^[1]

During composition of the Brahmanical Epics, Purāṇas, Philosophical sutras and its commentaries, Smṛtis etc. there started a process of modifications, editing, transforming the ancient Vedic and the different Brahmanical doctrines and their practices with a view to countering the power and popularity of Buddhism; the Mahāyāna-sūtras, which were composed in dialectal Sanskrit (also called as the Buddhist Sanskrit or Sanskrit by the modern scholars) also popularized devotional and liturgical, ritualistic aspects with their peculiarities. Most probably from the point of view of the masses there were no core differences between the Mahāyāna Buddhism and the Puranic Brahmanism especially regarding the personal worship of the deities belonging to different pantheons i.e. Buddhism, Jainism and Puranic Brahmanism. Therefore, the Purāṇa literature which were composed to make the masses familiar with the Vedic religion, had also taken the responsibility to motivate people away from the so called heretics faith to the Vedic fold. Our Saura-purāṇa also is not an exception in this regard.

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

P. V. Kane: Op. cit., p. 938.