The main invasion route into India from the Central Asian steppes is through Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush region. A big centre for Buddhism, so I don't see why the Turks wouldn't raid and conquer the region and become Buddhist before staging any significant invasions into India. It's not the whole of Afghanistan but it is a significant region.
I see no reason why they'd spend a great deal of time there. It's not very wealthy in relation to India, and their real goal would be invading India. Maybe a few Turks do convert, but by and large they remain largely members of their many religions. But I think you want Buddhist Turks, so to get that, I think you're going to want the Turks to go through the other great centre of Buddhism - Kashmir. So, let's say that the Turks go from Afghanistan into Gilgit-Baltistan and into the Kashmir Valley. Then, I think there's a large chance of Buddhist Turks.
Remember these different faiths (Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism) were all in competition for converts and had different views of karma and social organization, the former two deemphasized the Brahmanic varna-karma correlation and Jainism abolished kshatriya ideals entirely.
Agreed, but I think having Buddhist Turks in a land where the Buddha is a great Hindu figure really does open them to at least pay lip service to Hinduism. Remember, Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion. Even IOTL, you saw a great deal of syncretism between Hinduism and Islam. The most notable example of this is Sikhism, but most of the Mughals were borderline heretics, and Indo-Islamic culture as a whole is Indian culture with a bit more Persian influence.
And, if Buddhism does make an upswing, I do think the result would be that the Buddha's role in Hinduism is increased; when Bhakti spreads north, you could even see Buddhist Bhaktism alongside Krishnaist Bhaktism and Rama-ist Bhaktism. Hinduism adapts to every invader, and I think the Turks would be no different.
They'd probably be more amenable to the Brahmins as a sort of scholarly and administrative class which wouldn't directly challenge the authority of the Turkic.
I agree with that, but in order to make the Brahmins serve them loyally, I think, again, they'd need to pay lip service at the very least to Hinduism - which isn't very hard. All they have to do is go to a temple and pretend to pray there. It would be far easier for them to do this while still being seen as loyal Buddhists than OTL's Muslim Turks.
In which case the Indic languages could remain the language of administration while Turkic would be the language spoken by the elites amongst themselves, and the Turkic languages would be written in a Brahmi based script as opposed to the Old Turkic one. Inscriptions or whatnot would likely be in Turkic and Indic languages.
I doubt it. Even the holy texts of the Buddhists are written in Sanskrit and the Prakrits. The first few generations would likely be Turkic-speaking, but I think down the line you'll have Akbar-like people - well-schooled in native culture, and believe themselves to be Indians. Now, you'd still see Turkic spoken by a lot of Turks, but its role is going to greatly recede over the generations as the Turks become more Indian.
Jesus has a role in Islam and Adam and Abraham have a role in all the Judaic religions, still in socio-political terms they were all different in how they saw themselves as communities and as belief systems.
That's true, but Hinduism and Buddhism (especially the Afghan Buddhism the Turks would espouse) are closer than the Judaic religions. I also don't think you can compare the significantly different cultural scene in the West with that of India.
I think that if the Buddhist Turks establish themselves in India they'd ignore a lot of old Vedic Aryan cultural markers or change it to their advantage to clearly demarcate between them - the elites - and the Indian subject population.
The latter is more likely. They are going to be seen as members of the Kshatriya class whether they want to or not, and such a class would mean that they are widely considered the ruling class of India.
Turks who invaded India brought in Turkic as an elite language and Persian as courtly languages.
Even that did not last forever, as Turkic was swept away during the reign of Humayun, and even the use of Persian declined rapidly during the time of Akbar, being replaced by the hybrid language of Urdu (or Rekhta, as it was known at the time).
I'm not saying that they'd Turkicize India like Anatolia (which happened due to a mass migration of Turks due to Mongol pressures) but that they'd have their own language as the the tongue of nobility
Perhaps for a few generations, but I do think after spending a lot of time in India and marrying Indians that they would then use the spoken Prakrits as their own language.
and Pali or Sanskrit would be the courtly / administrative language, and the subjects would speak their local Indic languages.
Agreed.
By this way the new Turk rulers would create a new class system in which they're clearly different and, as they would think, superior to everyone below them because they speak the language and carry over the practices of a conquering culture.
A new caste system? The Turks would really just be seen as new Kshatriyas along the lines of the Rajputs. I see no real reason why they wouldn't just make themselves Kshatriyas and thus the ruling class. It's pretty easy for them to differentiate themselves from the other Kshatriyas - just make a Turkic subcaste. But there's no reason why they wouldn't be Kshatriyas.
In Babur's time the cultural dynamics of the Mughal elite was very much like that of the Timurid empire, with the highest elites being actually Turco-Mongol in culture, but far less than in Timur or his predecessors time.
And that Turco-Mongol culture disappeared in a generation, and in another, the Persian element was diluted even more with the rise of Urdu as a courtly language and large cultural syncretism.
In this scenario a much stronger current of Turkic elite culture would persist like it did with Hellenic invaders of India, with the Turkic language persisting as an elite language and on coinage and inscriptions,
I doubt it. The Turks would just be like other Central Asian invaders in India's history, becoming a warrior caste and becoming very Indian in culture. There would be far less differentiating them from the local populace than what differentiated the Muslim Turks from the local populace, and even the Muslim Turks went heavily Indian IOTL. So, I think that points to very quick absorption into Indian culture.
I don't see a complete assimilation for the Turkic elites as possible, since their incentive would be to remain as distinct from their subjects and as connected to their conquering forefathers as possible. Meaning that they'd likely keep on importing Turkic warriors from the steppes to keep the Turkic warrior class in power, as well as preserving the old Turkic cultural practices.
I hate to bring this up again, but to differentiate themselves from the locals and keep the Turkish warrior class in power, all they have to do is make a new subcaste of the Kshatriya caste. Central Asian invaders becoming a Kshatriya subcaste is one theory of the formation of the Rajputs, for instance.
Think of it as Normans ruling Britain
Not the right example, considering what happened to the Normans ruling Britain (hint: they went native). That is essentially what occurred IOTL with the Muslim Turks, though. With the Turkic identity in India being weaker with less Persian culture, assimilation is easier, and would occur earlier - and with less Turkic culture absorbed in Indian culture.