1. Buddhism faced divisions from time to time. Division into various splinter groups like 'Hinayana', 'Mahayana', 'Vajrayana', 'Tantrayana' and 'Sahajayana' led Buddhism to lose its originality.
2. Pali and Prakrit were the spoken languages of people of north India and it was through these languages the message of Buddhism was spread. But ever since the times of Fourth Buddhist Council held during the reign of Kanishka, Sanskrit had come to be adopted.
3. Buddhism there upon became unintelligible to common people.

1. Right Views;
2. Right Resolve;
3. Right Speech;
4. Right Conduct;
5. Right Livelihood;
6. Right Effort;
7. Right Recollection;
8. Right Meditation.

About 500 years after Mahavira's death, in about 79 or 82 CE, a schism occurred in Jainism. Magadha was affected by severe famine and some of the Jaina monks under Bhadrabahu went south to maintain their strict discipline. They remained without garments and were known as Digambaras (space-clad or naked). Others stayed back under the leadership of Sthulabhadra and adopted a white garment and were known as Svetambaras (white-clad). The schism weakened Jainism in Magadha, but it foundardent followers in Gujarat, Rajasthan,Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Karnataka.

Kacchayana believed that the world was made of seven substances that were unmade, irreducible, uncreated, barren, stable as a mountain peak, standing firm like a pillar that do not alter, do not change, do not interfere with one another, are incapable of causing one another pleasure, pain or both pleasure and pain.The Ajivikas had rich lay disciples such as potters and bankers. The Ajivika sect spread across the length and breadth of the country, though their influence was much less compared to that of Buddhism and Jainism.

1. State formation and the rigidity of the Vedic religion constrained the liberty of thought and action. A revolt against religious practice of following dogmas found its articulation in heterodox sects.
2. The emergence of territorial identities accelerated the process of socio political and economic changes. The elite class, disillusioned with the system in place, began to move in protest towards the heterodox religions blossoming in Magadha or middle Ganges plains.
3. As the Vedic religion was not fully organised, its reach did not permeate into the society and hence people did not find it difficult to follow the newly emerging religious sects.
4. With urbanisation and expansion of trade, new classes of merchants and bankers such as sethis sought higher social status appropriate to their economic status.
5. The grievance of Kshatriyas was that they were denied a staged life of ashramas, a privilege permitted only to Brahmins in the Vedic texts.