Brahmanism is an early form of Hinduism which developed its worship and philosophy from the Vedas. Over years, the more tolerant and socially mobile system of Hindu society was pressurized into a rigid caste system and the more liberal mystic Vedism was reduced to a complex sacerdotalism . Brahmanism, which is called "proto-Hinduism" by some, soon saw the Brahmin caste as hereditary clergy.

It was only around three thousand years ago, with the advent of a group of thinkers who expounded on early Vedic monist and mystic leanings within the Vedas to produce the Upanishads that Brahminism saw challenges from schools of thought that came to form Classical Hinduism, otherwise seen as the six schools of Hindu or Vedic philosophy.

The Vedic line, which saw its nascence with the Aryan Brahminic schools, progressed into the Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Vedanta and Yoga schools, drawing from the rich Vedic canon of symbolism, philosophy theology and cosmology, as well as retaining Vedic gods or melding them with non-Vedic figures to create composites, like Shiva and Vishnu. The Purva Mimamsa school is the closest, albeit reformed, version of early Brahminism which sought to retain a puritan Vedic ritual and philosophical system, keeping alive such practices as the homa / fire ritual and worship of ancient Vedic gods like Indra, Agni and Varuna.

Some scholars, like Romila Thapar, would argue a discontinuance between Brahminism and later schools of Hinduism, but the retaining of the Vedas and Upanishads as spiritual fountainheads, the continuance of many customs and beliefs, and the acceptance of Vedic authority by later Hindus attest to an unbroken legacy that goes back over 4,000 years.