revenue, with a key transition perhaps at the downfall of the Guptas and
coming fully into place only around 1000–1200 (OHI, 1981: 63). The political
ascendancy of Hinduism, and its displacement of Buddhism’s political and
social base, came about by this indirect route. The Brahmans’ influence spread
in the regions of weak or formative states; by controlling law, they became the
more enduring element in Indian social organization, whose power was never
challenged by the series of ephemeral states. Here Indian social structure took
a fundamental turn onto a path contrasting with that of China or Rome, where
the administration of law was dominated by government officials. This struc-
tural relation between Brahmans as hereditary monopolists of the law and the
weak state was a basic cause of the pattern which Louis Dumont (1980) and
Murray Milner, Jr. (1994), have seen as the autonomy of a pure hierarchic or
status principle over economic and power stratification.
Hinduism acquired its definition by its opposition to the monastic move-
ments. The law books mark the point when Buddhism and Jainism became
systematically denounced as “heterodox” (nastika). Reverence for the sacrifices
enjoined in the Vedas became the criterion.^30 The Brahman intellectuals now
allied around their traditional ritual practice, downplaying the criticism of
Vedic sacrifices which pervades the Upanishads. The new emphasis was on
finding a rallying point which would clearly separate the Brahmans from the
ritual practice of their monastic rivals. But although ideological continuity was
stressed, a revolution had taken place in the social practice of Vedic rituals.
The old Vedas and Brahmanas had promulgated large public sacrifices, carried
out by Brahman priests in attendance on the kings. A grand ritual like the
horse sacrifice was a claim for political overlordship. Strong rulers such as
Ashoka suppressed such rituals by rivals to their own power; yet as the
Brahmans found a more valuable niche by controlling local social relationships,
the expensive and ostentatious public sacrifices became unnecessary. In their
place were put a new class of domestic rituals regulating the occasions of
everyday life, cheaper but reaping a reward of consistent social control. The
ideological work of transforming Brahman prestige from one activity to an-
other came about by interpreting the smaller and inward sacrifices as emblems
of the larger (Smith, 1989: 120, 143–145, 193–196).
In the third phase, a self-consciously “orthodox” Hinduism challenged
Buddhism intellectually. Now occurred the formation of philosophical tradi-
tions, darshanas, engaging in debates with the Buddhists. This phase culmi-
nated around 700 in what might be called the “Advaita revolution.” Hinduism
appropriated the core of Buddhist philosophy, its anti-materialism and acon-
ceptual mysticism, at just the time when Buddhism was institutionally on its
last legs in India.
Whereas Buddhist monasticism flourished best in strong state-building re-
External and Internal Politics: India • 211