What is happening at Bodh-Gaya at present[331] illustrates how Buddhism disappeared from India. The abbot of a neighbouring Śivaite monastery who claims the temple and grounds does not wish, as a Mohammedan might, to destroy the building or even to efface Buddhist emblems. He wishes to supervise the whole establishment and the visits of pilgrims, as well as to place on the images of Buddha Hindu sectarian marks and other ornaments. Hindu pilgrims are still taken by their guides to venerate the Bodhi tree and, but for the presence of foreign pilgrims, no casual observer would suppose the spot to be anything but a Hindu temple of unusual construction. The same process went a step further in many shrines which had not the same celebrity and effaced all traces and memory of Buddhism. At the present day the Buddha is recognized by the Brahmans as an incarnation of Vishnu,[332] though the recognition is often qualified by the statement that Vishnu assumed this form in order to mislead the wicked who threatened to become too powerful if they knew the true method of attaining superhuman powers. But he is rarely worshipped _in propriâ personâ_.[333] As a rule Buddhist images and emblems are ascribed to Vishnu or Śiva, according to sectarian preferences, but in spite of fusion some lingering sense of original animosity prevents Gotama from receiving even such respect as is accorded to incarnations like Paraśu-râma. At Bodh-Gaya I have been told that Hindu pilgrims are taken by their guides to venerate the Bodhi-tree but not the images of Buddha. Yet in reviewing the disappearance of Buddhism from India we must remember that it was absorbed not expelled. The result of the mixture is justly called Hinduism, yet both in usages and beliefs it has taken over much that is Buddhist and without Buddhism it would never have assumed its present shape. To Buddhist influence are due for instance the rejection by most sects of animal sacrifices: the doctrine of the sanctity of animal life: monastic institutions and the ecclesiastical discipline found in the Dravidian regions. We may trace the same influence with more or less certainty in the philosophy of Śaṅkara and outside the purely religious sphere in the development of Indian logic. These and similar points are dealt with in more detail in other parts of this work and I need not dwell on them here. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 264: Written before the war.] [Footnote 265: Even at Kanauj, the scene of Harsha's pious festivities, there were 100 Buddhist monasteries but 200 Deva temples.] [Footnote 266: Rice, _Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions_, p. 203.] [Footnote 267: See the note by Bühler in _Journ. Pali Text Soc._ 1896, p. 108.] [Footnote 268: Râjataranginî, III. 12.] [Footnote 269: See for the supposed persecution of Buddhism in India, _J.P.T.S._ 1896, pp. 87-92 and 107-111 and _J.R.A.S._ 1898, pp. 208-9.]