It does not appear, in short, that the preachers of either Buddhism, or Vaishṇavism, or Ṡaivism, or Ṡāktism, or of any form of these sectarian systems, ever incurred the special animosity of the Brāhmans or of each other, or ever indulged in very violent denunciations of each other’s religious doctrines. In real truth, these systems of doctrine were all evolved out of Brāhmanism. They were, therefore, not only tolerated by Brāhmanism, but accepted as the inevitable outcome of its own pantheistic creed. No doubt each received at first a strong stamp of individuality from its founder, marking it off from other systems, but with the lapse of years the deeper shades of difference grew fainter. Then it became a question which should become merged in the other. In such a competition between rival systems Buddhism had less chance of holding its own than either Vaishṇavism or Ṡaivism; for its root-ideas—as we have seen—were not rooted in the eternal instincts of human nature. Buddhism, in fact, could never have maintained itself in India till the twelfth or thirteenth century of our era, had it not gradually, and to a great extent through interaction with Vaishṇavism and Ṡaivism, dropped its unnatural pessimistic theory of life and its unpopular atheistic character, and accommodated itself to those systems. But Buddhism in parting with its ultra-pessimism and its atheistic and agnostic ideas, lost its chief elements of individuality and its chief independent stand-point. Vaishṇavism, on the other hand, was quite alive to its own interests, and had an eye to the spread of its own doctrines. It took care to adopt all the popular features of Buddhism. It vied with Buddhism in inculcating universal love, toleration, liberality, benevolence, and abstinence from injury. It preached equality, fraternity, and even in some cases the abolition of caste distinctions. It taught a succession of incarnations or rather descents (Avatāra[71]) of divine beings upon earth (as Buddhism taught a succession of Buddhas), and it even adopted the Buddha himself as one of the incarnations of Vishṇu. This, indeed, is the best explanation of what has happened at Purī in Orissa, where a temple once dedicated to Gautama Buddha, and supposed to contain a relic of his burnt body, was afterwards dedicated to the Jagannāth form of Kṛishṇa and supposed to enshrine one of his bones, and where low-caste and high-caste both eat together the food cooked in the house of that popular god.