In some senses, no doubt, Buddhism is a coherent and self-contained object of study; but for historical purposes it is essential to place it within a context supplied by brahmanism. The two are not totally independent entities; they belong together, in a complex and ambivalent relationship, as aspects of Sanskrit civilization. It is misleading to create the impression of a monolithic civilization centred on the use of the Sanskrit language, though it remains respectable to argue for the centrality of values expressed most prominently in Sanskrit literature as providing a kind of filter through which cultural motifs passed to constitute the repertoire of the Great Tradition. Possibly this notion of core culture as a compilation is unduly influenced by the analogy of the case of the Mahābhārata, which grew by accumulation; but if so we must still ask what role the urban state played in the nurturing both of Sanskritic values and of intellectual movements that reacted against them.

It is within this framework that we can legitimately see in the teaching of śramaṇas like the Buddha a systematic critique of the brāhmaṇical programme. The brahmin goal of penetration to sacred truth by spiritual cultivation was heartily commended, but the perceived exclusivism and moral bankruptcy of worldly brahmins, clinging to ritual formulae to justify themselves, was rejected; and this rejection was a means of appealing to all those in society who had their own reasons for resisting the claims of brahmins to have a monopoly on access to sacred power or the means of religious legitimation of secular power.