Historians define the integration of cults as a two-way process involving the dissemination of Brahmanical ideas and the acceptance of local beliefs by the Brahmanas. One aspect was the composition of Puranic texts in simple Sanskrit verse to make them accessible to women and Shudras, who were generally excluded from Vedic learning. Simultaneously, Brahmanas accepted and reworked the beliefs and practices of these social categories, leading to a continuous dialogue between "great" Sanskritic traditions and "little" traditions.

A prominent example is seen at Puri, Orissa, where a local deity, represented by a wooden image made by tribal specialists, was identified as Jagannatha (a form of Vishnu) by the twelfth century. This allowed Vishnu to be visualized in a way distinct from other parts of the country. Similarly, goddess cults were integrated when local deities, worshipped as stones smeared with ochre, were incorporated into the Puranic framework as wives of principal male deities, identified as Lakshmi or Parvati.