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.
Historical Vedic religion religious practices and beliefs were reassessed. The brahmins and the rituals they performed no longer enjoyed the same prestige they had in the Vedic period". According to Muesse, some of the fundamental concepts of Hinduism, namely karma, reincarnation and "personal enlightenment and transformation", which did not exist in the Vedic religion, developed between 800 BCE and 200 BCE: Some scholars consider the term Brahmanism as synonymous with Hinduism and use it interchangeably. Others consider them different, and that the transition from ancient Brahmanism into schools of Hinduism that emerged later as a form of evolution, one that preserved many of