The partially overlapping convictions of Brahmanism and Buddhism with regard to language allowed thinkers from both traditions to interact and indeed borrow from each other. It is probably safe to say that, as a whole, Brahmanism found itself most often in the role of borrower and Buddhism in the role of provider of new ideas.
—Johannes Bronkhorst.[1]
In the surrounding discussion, Bronkhorst makes clear that this remark on “overlapping convictions … with regard to language” forms part of a broader argument about philosophical method and intellectual exchange. He connects Brahmanism’s eventual adoption of systematic reasoning, certain metaphysical ideas, and even aspects of its major philosophical schools to earlier Buddhist influence—Buddhism itself having drawn on Greater Magadha culture and Hellenistic rationality. Here, “language” refers not merely to Sanskrit or speech forms, but to the shared linguistic–philosophical framework that made such borrowing possible.
When I come across such sweeping scholarly generalizations, I find myself pausing. This particular view—which places Buddhism in the position of the original provider and Brahmanism as a habitual borrower—seems to rely heavily on academic speculation. It may serve a functional role within the framework of Bronkhorst’s argument, particularly in the context of How the Brahmins Won: From Alexander to the Gupta, but it risks oversimplifying a far more intricate historical reality.
If we follow Bronkhorst’s reasoning, early Buddhism, emerging in the Greater Magadha region outside early Brahminical influence (largely confined to the West), could indeed appear as the “provider” of philosophical developments later absorbed into Brahminism. Yet this raises a further question: Vedic literature predates the Buddha by roughly a thousand years. Are we to assume that, for all that time, it remained restricted to western India without spreading—even in part—into the East where Greater Magadha lay?[2] If even a fraction of Vedic tradition reached the region, there is every chance that early Buddhism drew from it. Moreover, the Vedic corpus did not develop in strict chronological order; its four components [Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishad] evolved and overlapped, allowing ideas to circulate across regions over time.
Bronkhorst himself distinguishes between the questioning found in Vedic texts and what he calls “authentic” rational inquiry, arguing that the latter entered India through Greek influence on Buddhism. Yet even by his account, Vedic literature—particularly the Upanishads—contained debates, scepticism, and conceptual probing, albeit in a different style from Greek dialectic. These indigenous forms of inquiry, though not always systematised, provided an intellectual environment that early Buddhism could draw upon. This suggests that Buddhism’s rational elements were likely shaped not only by Greek contact but also by a pre-existing Vedic tradition, making its development less an isolated phenomenon and more a product of intersecting influences.
Even if we grant that Buddhism was a major contributor of new ideas, we must still ask: where did those new ideas originate? Can we isolate Buddhism as an entirely original source, uninfluenced by the intellectual, ritual, and cultural heritage from which it arose? Bronkhorst, in How the Brahmins Won, argues that both Brahmanism and Buddhism developed within overlapping cultural and philosophical contexts that extended beyond orthodox Brahmanism. This suggests that rather than a one-way transmission, both traditions share a common heritage and acted as borrowers and contributors in shaping early Indian thought. [3]
Indeed, the Buddha’s teachings were shaped not in a vacuum, but through continuous dialogue, response, and confrontation with existing traditions—especially Vedic and proto-Brahmanical streams. Even where he rejected certain metaphysical premises, such as the existence of a permanent self (ātman), that rejection was deeply entangled with what preceded it. Richard Gombrich notes that the Buddha’s thought was simultaneously a critique of, and a reaction to, the Vedic worldview, “turning many of its central assumptions on their head while retaining its conceptual vocabulary.” [4]
Furthermore, as Patrick Olivelle demonstrates in his studies on the Āśrama system and Dharmasūtras, Brahmanical traditions themselves were not static. [5] Over time, they integrated Śramaṇa ideals such as renunciation and nonviolence, particularly as Buddhist and Jain ascetic practices gained widespread acceptance. However, renunciants existed even before Buddha’s era, [6] albeit not in monastic communities like Buddhist monks. It’s likely that Buddhism borrowed the concept of renunciation from this earlier tradition, and later adopted monastic orders from Buddhism itself, as suggested by Kane. [7] Wendy Doniger points out that this assimilation of non-Vedic ideas occurred in the earlier, more tolerant period when Buddhism and Hinduism grew together and “borrowed freely from one another,” so much so that “it is fruitless to attempt to sort out the earlier source of many doctrines” because “they lived in one another’s pockets.” [8]
The flow of influence was not only between these two traditions. A.L. Basham observed that certain Mahāyāna Bodhisattva ideals—such as the figure of the Suffering Bodhisattva—bear striking resemblance to the Christian conception of a savior who sacrifices himself for others, and that such features do not appear in Buddhism until after the start of the Christian era. [9] Thomas McEvilley has similarly argued that Mahāyāna Buddhism emerged in part through a conflation of Greek philosophical traditions with early Buddhist thought, producing a polyglot tradition into which elements from Pyrrhonism to Shinto were integrated.[10] The Milindapañha episode, in which a Greek king debates a Buddhist sage, itself suggests the importation of Greek dialectical methods into Buddhist philosophy, which may have influenced the later formalization of Madhyamaka reasoning.[11]
Gregory Schopen’s archaeological work also challenges the neat binary of “ritualistic Brahmanism” versus “rational Buddhism.” Early Buddhist monastic communities practiced rituals resembling Vedic forms, suggesting mutual borrowing even in religious praxis.[12] Schopen also cautions against assuming a one-way borrowing in legal traditions: sometimes Dharmasastra influenced Buddhist Vinaya, sometimes the reverse, and in some cases both may have drawn on a third source such as guild law. [13]
There are also intriguing cases of near-verbatim philosophical overlap, such as between Gauḍapāda’s Kārikā—a foundational text for Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta—and Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Both employ similar formulations to deny origination, cessation, bondage, and liberation in the ultimate sense, suggesting either direct borrowing or a shared source of inspiration.[14]
The real difficulty in determining who borrowed from whom lies in the nature of historical evidence itself. As modern readers and scholars in 2025, we rely on textual fragments, archaeological data, and reconstructed chronologies—each filtered through interpretive frameworks and scholarly assumptions. The term “Proto-” itself, as used in linguistics and cultural studies, points to a common source rather than a fixed origin point for any single tradition.
If we were to extend our scope beyond early Buddhism, we might note that the later development of world religions often shows not only mutual influence but also borrowing across seemingly distant traditions—even Abrahamic faiths borrowing from Indic thought, and vice versa. But since our present focus is on early Buddhism as framed by Bronkhorst’s view, we can leave that for another discussion.
Given all this, to claim that Buddhism was the main provider and Brahmanism most often the borrower may serve an academic narrative but fails to reflect the complexity of historical evolution. Intellectual development was neither linear nor hierarchical, but dialogical and contested. Perhaps it is better to think of Brahmanism and Buddhism not as debtor and creditor, but as co-participants in a long and vibrant conversation—each borrowing, contributing, and transforming in response to the other, and each at times drawing from a common creditor beyond them both.
So, from a broad perspective, it seems that early Buddhism, while influenced by Greek philosophies (which in turn influenced Brahminism), likely borrowed from and interacted with Vedic or Proto-Vedic sources. It’s unlikely that early Buddhism emerged in a vacuum. Instead, early Indian philosophy was a vibrant marketplace of ideas where Brahmins, Buddhists, Greeks, and others exchanged and cross-pollinated concepts, each returning home with new insights.
Ashram, August 14, 2025
Notes
[1] Johannes Bronkhorst, How the Brahmins Won: From Alexander to the Guptas, New Delhi, Manohar, 2025 How p. 367
[2] As a tangential speculation, if we can identify Brahminical influences in southern regions like the Tamil area (with ample evidence in Sangam and pre-Sangam Tamil literature, despite debates around the Sangam era’s timeline), it’s plausible that similar influences, albeit varied in degree, extended to other parts of India, leaving subtle yet discernible imprints.
[3]The new understanding of the cultural history of early India offers a different chronology. It does not take for granted that the Vedic corpus in its entirety has to precede all non-Vedic developments recorded in surviving literature. It also introduces a spatial dimension: the heartland of Vedic-Brahmanical culture was to the west of the confluence of the two rivers Ganges (Ganga) and Jumna (Yamuna). East of this confluence, in the area I have called ‘Greater Magadha’, an altogether different culture had its seat. This cultural distinction still existed during the last centuries BCE, and had been considerable. It was primarily in the region of Greater Magadha that the so-called ‘second urbanization’ (after the first one of the Indus civilization, which had disappeared a thousand years before) took place. It was in this same region that the political unification of most of the subcontinent was centered, culminating in the Maurya Empire (ca. 320–ca. 185 BCE).—How The Brahmins Won, p. 1
[4] Richard Gombrich, What the Buddha Thought (London: Equinox Publishing, 2009), p. 136—this information was accessed by ChatGPT, August 13, 2025.
[5] Patrick Olivelle, The Āśrama System: The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). See p. 59
[6] …The Upanishads refer to already existing renunciants who operated within the Vedic tradition, and Buddhist texts tell us that such people were also there before the time of the Buddha, who, in the story of his enlightenment, meets a sick man, an old man, a dead man, and then a renunciant, perhaps a Vedic renunciant. The fringe mystics that the Rig Veda mentions, Vratyas and the long-haired ascetic, may also have belonged to some of these motley and marginalized Vedic groups. The Upanishads attest to the existence of ascetic traditions that, by the sixth or fifth century BCE, had developed within the bounds of Vedic tradition, though not necessarily within the Brahmin class….— Wendy Doniger, The Hindus An Alternative History, New Delhi, Penguin/Viking. 2009, p. 181
[7]‘..Mathas among the followers of the Vedic religion probably owed their origin to the example of Buddhist monasteries [vihaaras]. …–P. V. Kane, History of Dharmasastras, Poone, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol.II. Part. II. Ch.XXVI. Temples and Mathas.p. 907.
[8] Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), pp. xvii–xviii.
[9] A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India (Delhi: Rupa & Co., 1990), pp. 277–78.
[10] Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2008), p. 504
[11]—ibid. p. 342
[12] Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997).
[13] Gregory Schopen, “A Buddhist Monastic Code as a Source for Indian Law,” in Patrick Olivelle and Donald R. Davis Jr., eds., Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmasastra (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 401.
[14] Rani Śiva Śaṅkara Śarma, The Last Brahmin: Life and Reflections of a Modern-day Sanskrit Pandit, trans. D. Venkat Rao (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2012), pp. 73–74.
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