During and after Ashokas reign what happened was the Buddhists got inside Hinduism's philosophical schools and started corrupting it from within. A lot of our common understanding about Vedic Values come from corrupted notions of Karma from the Buddhist philosophy. They created the Vegetarianism bs which wasn't there before as well as the concept of asceticism and sexual celibacy. There was a recent addition in the Hatha Yoga Pradapika which is the principal Yogic text claiming one should not eat meat. I don't remember when it was added but it wasn't there before. As for Maharishi Manu ,I don't believe the text he wrote has existed in the original form. The text seems to be completely altered by some Brahmninist types.
We can redeem it but we'll need to create a unified Hinduism that is devoid of all corrupted notions and have a unified consensus of all Priests of the Pithas agree to that consensus. I believe that Hinduism should be primarily focused around Hatha Yoga in the personal life and Karma Yoga in the Professional and National life.
There is much to learn even from what exists today. We must just forget the explanations and focus on the practical Techniques.
