Indischer Spät-Buddhismus

The growth of new forms of Hinduism (and to a lesser extend Jainism) was a key element in the decline in Buddhism in India, particularly in terms of diminishing financial support to Buddhist monasteries from laity and royalty. According to Hazra, Buddhism declined in part because of the rise of the Brahmins and their influence in socio-political process.

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The disintegration of central power also led to regionalisation of religiosity, and religious rivalry. Rural and devotional movements arose within Hinduism, along with Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Bhakti and Tantra, that competed with each other, as well as with numerous sects of Buddhism and Jainism. This fragmentation of power into feudal kingdoms was detrimental for Buddhism, as royal support shifted towards other communities and Brahmins developed a strong relationship with Indian states.

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Over time the new Indian dynasties which arose after the 7th and 8th centuries tended to support the Brahmanical ideology and Hinduism, and this conversion proved decisive. These new dynasties, all of which supported Brahmanical Hinduism, include "the Karkotas and Pratiharas of the north, the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan, and the Pandyas and Pallavas of the south" (the Pala Dynasty is one sole exception to these). One of the reasons of this conversion was that the brahmins were willing and able to aid in local administration, and they provided councillors, administrators and clerical staff Moreover, brahmins had clear ideas about society, law and statecraft (and studied texts such as the Arthashastra and the Manusmriti) and could be more pragmatic than the Buddhists, whose religion was based on monastic renunciation and did not recognize that there was a special warrior class that was divinely ordained to use violence. As Johannes Bronkhorst notes, Buddhists could give "very little" practical advice in response to that of the Brahmins and Buddhist texts often speak ill of kings and royalty.

Omvedt states that while Buddhist institutions tended to be less involved in politics, Hindu brahmins provided numerous services for Indian royalty:

At the higher level they provided legitimacy by creating genealogies and origin mythologies identifying the kings as Kshatriyas and organising impressive ceremonial functions that invested the king with all the paraphernalia and mystique of Hindu royalty; at the lower level they propagandised the mystique of social supremacy and political power. They taught the population, they established ritual and priestly relations with the prominent households of the region, they promulgated caste and the rights of kings.