"The Indian monasteries taught not only Buddhism but, e.g., Hindu thought and other disciplines such as medicine. Monasteries like Nālandā and Vikramaśīla also trained missionaries in the skills needed in order to transmit Buddhism to Central Asia, China, and Tibet (Buddhism reached Korea and Vietnam via China, and Japan from China and Korea). More ominously for the history of Indian Buddhism, it is from the Gupta period that we can see the flowering of what has come to be called ‘Hinduism’ in its classical Purāṇic form, the form in which broadly speaking it is now familiar. It is admittedly difficult to show in detail the mutual influences of Hinduism and Buddhism at this time, although the influence of Buddhist thought on Gauḍapāda (seventh century), the founder of Advaita Vedānta, is quite clear. It is arguable that the positive influence of classical Hinduism on Buddhism was more often in the direction of practices – the forms of Mahāyāna devotionalism, for example – than directly on philosophical thought."

Paul Williams