[Buddha-l] Anomalous doctrines

[jkirk]

 ........ The probability that Mahayana adherents were always in the
minority
> in India should also be recognized -- the audiences of some Mahayana
> panditas must have been miniscule.........................
> Best wishes,
> Stephen Hodge
=================
Not according to Basham, who says that by the time of the Guptas (8th c.)
Mahayana Buddhism (he calls it the Great Vehicle) predominated and the
earlier forms had practically disappeared ((Wonder That Was India, 264-265).
He writes  that Xuang Zhang had found  (7th c.) that the "Lesser Vehicle"
was "almost extinct in most of India, and only flourishing in a few parts of
the West" (what he means by West here isn't clear). Basham, A.L., 1954)

Have these interpretations of the historical record been seriously revised,
or discarded altogether?
Joanna