Even at Benares, the stronghold of Brāhmanism, I witnessed similar proofs of amicable mutual intercourse, and at Nāsik—the Benares of Western India—the proximity of the Buddhist caves and ruined monasteries which I visited, made it abundantly clear that Brāhmans and Buddhists agreed to differ and to avoid serious quarrels. It must nevertheless be admitted, that in the extreme South of India, and perhaps eventually at Benares and a few other strongholds of Brāhmanism, the difference between the systems became so accentuated as to lead to grievous conflicts. Whether blood was shed it is impossible to prove; but it is alleged, with some degree of probability, that violent crusades against Buddhism were instituted by Kumārila and Ṡaṅkara—two well-known Southern Brāhmans noted for their bigotry—in the seventh and eighth centuries of our era. It does not appear, however, that they were very successful either in the conversion or extermination of Buddhists. It may, I think, be confidently affirmed that what ultimately happened in most parts of India was, that Vaishṇavas and Ṡaivas crept up softly to their rival and drew the vitality out of its body by close and friendly embraces, and that instead of the Buddhists being expelled from India, Buddhism gradually and quietly lost itself in Vaishṇavism and Ṡaivism. In fact, by the beginning of the thirteenth century very little Buddhism remained on Indian soil. In a philosophical drama, called ‘the Rise of the Moon of Knowledge’ (Prabodha-ćandrodaya), written probably about the twelfth century, the approaching triumph of Brāhmanism over Buddhism is clearly indicated; for the Buddhist and other heretical sects are represented as belonging to the losing side. Yet, after all, it is scarcely correct to say that Buddhism ever wholly died away in India. Its name indeed perished there, but its spirit survived, and its sacred places remain to this day. Its ruined temples, monasteries, monuments, and idols are scattered everywhere, while some of these have been perpetuated and adopted by those later phases of Hindūism which its own toleration helped to bring into existence. At all events it may be safely affirmed that the passing away of the Buddhistic system in India was on the whole like the peaceful passing away of a moribund man surrounded by his relatives, and was at least unattended with any agonizing pangs[76]. LECTURE VIII. _Rise of Theistic and Polytheistic Buddhism._ In the preceding Lecture we have endeavoured to show generally how Buddhism was evolved out of Brāhmanism, how it flourished side by side with Brāhmanism, and how after a chequered career and protracted senility in the land of its birth—lasting for at least fifteen centuries[77]—it ultimately merged its individuality in Vaishṇavism and Ṡaivism, or, in other words, disappeared and became lost in a composite system called Hindūism.