WI - Post-Vedic Monotheistic Brahmanism

What if alongside Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism a non-pantheistic aniconic Monotheistic Indian religion called Brahmanism was developed in the Post-Vedic era worshipping Brahman as the one personal and supreme transcendent God and surviving to the present?

While this Brahmanism religion would share similarities to other Indian / Dharmic religions and other cultural aspects albeit in a non-pantheistic monotheistic context, differences would include aniconism, anti-asceticism (similar to Zoroastrianism where fasting and mortification are forbidden) as well as a more liberal semi-vegetarian Pesco-pollo diet at minimum (poultry and fish/seafood are permitted) though also permitted Jhatka (quick death) meat for other Brahmanist sects.

How would such a faith likely fare in comparison to other Indian religions (without potentially displacing them completely) as well as interact later on with other non-Indian belief systems?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmanism
 
I'm not entirely sure it would come about tbh. Or at least, I'm not sure it would be overly popular when a holy man of such a religion would be preaching, only for a common man to say "oh so you mean Zoroastrianism?"

Zoroastrianism was know in ancient India and (without adding more traits) it would be so similar as to be hard to distinguish, especially to the layman.
 
I'm not entirely sure it would come about tbh. Or at least, I'm not sure it would be overly popular when a holy man of such a religion would be preaching, only for a common man to say "oh so you mean Zoroastrianism?"

Zoroastrianism was know in ancient India and (without adding more traits) it would be so similar as to be hard to distinguish, especially to the layman.

Brahmanism would not be the same as Zoroastrianism, the only thing both faiths would have in common is that they both subscribe to anti-asceticism otherwise Brahmanism would essentially be more akin to aniconic non-pantheistic monotheistic Hinduism and other Indian religions.
 
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Brahmanism would not be the same as Zoroastrianism, the only thing both faiths would have in common is that they both subscribe to anti-asceticism otherwise Brahmanism would essentially be more akin to aniconic non-pantheistic monotheistic Hinduism and other Indian religions.
You have got to remember, in terms of layman or populist religion, there often was not the education to make meaningful distinction. Just look to the early Vedic faith OTL and you have a radically different religion practiced by holy men and the laymen, just like with Buddhism and the populist pure land sect, or the fact that most Catholics to this day don't overly care about transsubstantiation etc.

From the point of view of someone not understanding the nuances, an aniconic non-pantheistic God would be hard not to relate to the Zoroastrian sects of the time who preached exactly that.
 
You have got to remember, in terms of layman or populist religion, there often was not the education to make meaningful distinction. Just look to the early Vedic faith OTL and you have a radically different religion practiced by holy men and the laymen, just like with Buddhism and the populist pure land sect, or the fact that most Catholics to this day don't overly care about transsubstantiation etc.

From the point of view of someone not understanding the nuances, an aniconic non-pantheistic God would be hard not to relate to the Zoroastrian sects of the time who preached exactly that.

Still depending on the POD it might be the case that Brahmanism precedes Zoroastrianism, with the latter being distinguished from the former by combining cosmogonic dualism and eschantological monotheism whereas Brahmanism would be strictly monotheistic.

Do not envision Brahmanism being a large religion compared to OTL Hinduism or Buddhism overall (in terms of global followers), though perhaps at least managing to both outnumber Jainism and later Sikhism within the Indian subcontinent or roughly 4+% of the present day OTL Indian population.
 
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