Cambodian Brahmanism may be understood as a court‑centered adaptation of Hindu ideas and rituals that came to live inside a Buddhist and Khmer cultural world, whereas South Asian Hinduism is a self‑standing religious civilization with its own broad social base. In South Asia, Hinduism permeates village life, household practice, temple networks, pilgrimage, and devotional communities, sustained by a wide lay following and complex sectarian traditions. In Cambodia, by contrast, Brahmanical practice historically clustered around the royal court, state cults, and elite temples, with Brahmins serving primarily as ritual specialists, astrologers, and priests for kingship rather than as leaders of a mass religious community. Over time, the general population in Cambodia became predominantly Buddhist, especially in the Theravāda form, and Brahmanism ceased to function as an independent popular religion.

The relationship to scripture and philosophy also diverged. South Asian Hinduism engages a vast corpus of Vedic, epic, Purāṇic, and philosophical literature, giving rise to multiple systematic schools such as Vedānta, Sāṅkhya, and Nyāya, along with extensive commentarial traditions in Sanskrit and various vernaculars. Cambodian Brahmanism did draw on Sanskrit texts—Vedic portions, Purāṇas, and Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava āgamas—but mainly for ritual, royal legitimation, and inscriptional purposes, rather than for elaborating local philosophical systems. In Cambodia, the doctrinal center of gravity gradually shifted toward Theravāda Buddhist thought, with Pāli and Khmer Buddhist literature overshadowing Sanskritic philosophical production, even as Sanskrit remained present in high ritual and royal inscriptions.

The configuration of deities and sectarian life further marks a difference. South Asian Hinduism hosts a wide pantheon and strong devotional currents to Viṣṇu/Kṛṣṇa, Śiva, Devī, Gaṇeśa, and many regional forms, expressed through distinct Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava, Śākta, Smārta, and other lineages. Cambodian Brahmanism, while also venerating Śiva and Viṣṇu, placed particular emphasis on Śiva in liṅga form and on royal cults such as the devarāja, and expressed its Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava orientations mainly through royal temples and state rituals rather than through clearly differentiated popular sects. Many Hindu deities in Cambodia were gradually reinterpreted within a Buddhist cosmology as powerful devas, important for protection and auspiciousness but not necessarily as exclusive supreme lords in the way some South Asian bhakti traditions present them.

Social structure and everyday religious life reflect this distinct trajectory. In South Asia, Hinduism has long been intertwined with the varna–jati system and with a dense network of domestic rites, temple worship, festivals, and pilgrimage, carried out by diverse priestly and lay lineages. Cambodian Brahmanism, by contrast, did not reproduce a rigid hereditary caste system and remained closely tied to kingship, state welfare, calendrical rites, and certain life‑cycle ceremonies, while ordinary Cambodians typically turned to Buddhist monks, local spirit cults, and village rituals for their primary religious needs. Over the centuries, Brahmanical elements in Cambodia became woven into a predominantly Theravāda Buddhist fabric, surviving in royal ceremonies, some temple traditions, astrology, and protective rites, not as a separate religion but as part of a larger Buddhist‑royal‑cultural heritage.