“American Hinduism is a minority religion in America (…) that deserves the same treatment that is already being given to other American minority reli… - Rajiv Malhotra

After its publication, TBFS was released in multiple cities around the end of January and the beginning of February by some of India’s most well-known personalities: Subhash Chandra (Chairman of Zee Media) in Mumbai, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (eminent spiritual leader and humanitarian) in Bengaluru, and Dr. Najma Akbarali Heptulla (Minority Affairs Minister, Government of India) in New Delhi. Prominent educational, spiritual, and social institutes in India hosted Malhotra during this period: Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi); Ramakrishna Mission and IIT Madras (Chennai); Vedic Gurukulam (Bidadi); The Art of Living Ashram and Karnataka Sanskrit University (Bangalore); and Chinmaya Mission, IIT Bombay, and TISS (Mumbai). Malhotra also participated in a panel discussion at the Jaipur Literature Festival along with Amish Tripathi (bestselling fiction writer). This kind of reception is rarely seen in India for non-fiction books.

Although he sees this process as politically driven, Pollock does acknowledge there were no conquering Sanskrit legions that caused Sanskritization, unlike the coercive Romanization which followed Roman military legions. Nor was there a central church-like religious institution and hence no evangelism that could have Sanskritized through religious conversion. He admits that the notion of the Sanskrit cosmopolis does not fit the Western notion of an empire.

The suggestion that the story of the Ramayana could be traced to Buddhist sources was put forward by Weber who saw it as growing, under the influence of the Greek epics, to its present form.....The theory was cogently refuted shortly after it was promulgated... There can be no doubt, however, that.... the Dasaratha Jataka is substantially later than the Valmiki Ramayana and that it is both inspired by an derived from it.