Buddhism never ousted Brahmanism from any large part of India. The two systems co-existed as popular religions during more than a thousand years (250 B.C. to about A.D. 800), and modern Hinduism is the joint product of both. Certain kings and certain eras were intensely Buddhistic; but the continuous existence of Brahmanism is abundantly proved from the time of Alexander (327 B.C.) downwards. The historians who chronicled his march, and the Greek ambassador Megasthenes, who succeeded them (300 B.C.) in their literary labours, bear witness to the predominance of the old faith in the period immediately preceding Asoka. Inscriptions, local legends, Sanskrit literature, and the drama disclose the survival of Brahman influence during the next six centuries (250 B.C.-A.D. 400). From A.D. 400 we have the evidence of the Chinese pilgrims, who toiled through Central Asia into India as the birthplace of their faith. Fa-Hien entered India from Afghanistan, and journeyed down the whole Gangetic valley to the Bay of Bengal in A.D. 399-413. He found Brahman priests equally honoured with Buddhist monks, and temples to the Indian gods side by side with the religious houses of his own faith. Hsüan Tsang also travelled to India from China by the Central Asia route, and has left a fuller record of the state of the two religions in the 7th century. His journey extended from A.D. 629 to 645, and everywhere throughout India he found the two faiths eagerly competing for the suffrages of the people. By that time, indeed, Brahmanism was beginning to assert itself at the expense of the other religion. The monuments of the great Buddhist monarchs, Asoka and Kanishka, confronted him from the time he neared the Punjab frontier; but so also did the temples of Siva and his "dread" queen Bhima. Throughout north-western India he found Buddhist convents and monks surrounded by "swarms of heretics." The political power was also divided, although Buddhist sovereigns predominated. A Buddhist monarch ruled over ten kingdoms in Afghanistan. At Peshawar the great monastery built by Kanishka was deserted, but the populace remained faithful. In Kashmir king and people were devout Buddhists, under the teaching of five hundred monasteries and five thousand monks. In the country identified with Jaipur, on the other hand, the inhabitants were devoted to heresy and war. Decline of Buddhism.