‘“On whom dost thou meditate, putting on a pretence of religious abstraction, yet opening thine eyes? See, saviour that thou art, thou dost not pity us sick with the shafts of Love. Falsely art thou compassionate. Who is more cruel than thou?” May Buddha, the conqueror, who was thus jealously addressed by the Apsarasas (daughters) of Māra (p. 34), protect you!’ Professor E. B. Cowell has shown in his valuable Preface that both this play and the sister Hindū play called Ratnāvali were probably put forth or at least patronised by Harsha-vardhana (Ṡilāditya), and that both were probably acted at the same period, the king being as much a Hindū as a Buddhist. Hiouen Thsang praises Harsha-vardhana for his support of Buddhism, but in his description of the two Convocations held by that king, states that both Buddhists and Brāhmans were equally honoured by him, and intimates that half his subjects held one doctrine and half the other. In the second Convocation which took place at Prayāga (now Allahābād) eighteen kings were present and 500,000 monks and laymen. On the first day the statue of Buddha was installed; on the second day that of the Sun, and on the third that of Ṡiva. Alms were distributed to Brāhmans and Buddhists alike, and even to the Nirgranthas or Jaina naked heretics. Again the well-known play called Mālatī-Mādhava (by Bhava-bhūti, who lived at Kanauj in the beginning of the eighth century) has an opening prayer addressed to Ṡiva, and yet a female Buddhist ascetic and her attendant constitute two of the principal dramatis personæ, proving that an intermixture of the two creeds prevailed everywhere. It was also during the reign of Ṡilāditya that the immense monastery at Nālanda near Rāja-gṛiha formed a seat of learning, which might suggest a comparison with the learned monkish communities and even with the universities of mediæval Europe[75]. In that monastery might be seen several thousand novices and monks of the eighteen Buddhist schools—all of them supported by royal grants, and thus enabled both to perform their religious duties, and to prosecute the study of philosophy, law, and science in literary ease. It is probable that if disputes and disagreements upon burning questions occurred, they rarely led to serious conflicts, and were not general throughout India, but confined to particular localities; and I think it may be safely affirmed that if Buddhism was ever anywhere persecuted, it never anywhere persecuted in return. I myself was much struck in a visit I paid to Ellora in the Nizām’s territory by the evidence I there saw of the friendly tolerance which must have prevailed between Brāhmans, Buddhists, and Jains. Brāhmanical, Buddhist, and Jaina caves are there seen side by side, and their inmates no doubt lived on terms of fairly friendly tolerance, much as the members of the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Wesleyan communions live in Europe at the present day.