Historical Vedic religion from c. 500 BCE, declined in India over the 5th to 12th centuries in favor of Puranic Hinduism and Islam. Historical Vedic religion The historical Vedic religion (also known as Vedism, Brahmanism, Vedic Brahmanism, and ancient Hinduism) refers to the religious ideas and practices among Indo-Aryan-speaking peoples of ancient India after about 1500 BCE. These ideas and practices are found in the Vedic texts, and they were one of the major influences that shaped contemporary Hinduism. According to the "Encyclopædia Britannica", in the Hindu tradition and particularly in India, the Vedic religion is considered to be a part of Hinduism.
Ancient Mesopotamian religion Oppenheim (1964) stating that "a systematic presentation of Mesopotamian religion cannot and should not be written. " Others, like Jean Bottéro, the author of "Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia", disagreed, believing that it would be too complicated to divide the religion into many smaller groups, stating that: According to Panbabylonism, a school of thought founded by Hugo Winckler and held in the early 20th century among primarily German Assyriologists, there was a common cultural system extending over the Ancient Near East which was overwhelmingly influenced by the Babylonians. According to this theory the religions of the Near East were rooted in