Buddhism spread with amazing rapidity, and flourished for some time on Indian soil. During the reign of the celebrated Indian king Asoka, three centuries more or less before Christ, it was the dominant religion of India, about which time it was also introduced by Buddhist missionaries into Ceylon, China, and the Japanese Archipelago. At length, the Brahmans, recovering from the lethargy that seemed to have overtaken them, joined all their forces, and, rising _en masse_ everywhere against these dissenters from the Vèdas and from the old code of Manu, drove out of Hindostan proper those whom they could not put to death. The Buddhists finally found refuge in Guzerat and ready acceptance among the early primitive races; and here the new religion reached its highest prosperity, but began to decline in the eighth or ninth century after Christ. At this juncture a new sect arose under the leadership of one Jaina, or saint, a man of great purity of character, who undertook to correct the many errors which had crept into Buddhism. Veneration and worship of deified men, confined by the Buddhists some to five and others to seven saints, were extended by the Jains to twenty-four, of whom colossal statues in black or white marble were set up in their temples. Tenderness and respect for animal life they carried to an extreme point, which has led to the establishment of the hospitals for infirm aged animals in different parts of India. In its essence Jainism agrees with Buddhism. It rejects the inspiration of the Vèdas, has no animal sacrifices, pays no respect to fire. But in order to escape the unremitting persecution of the Brahman priesthood it admits _caste_, and even the worship of the chief Hindoo gods. Thus Jainism secured that toleration on Indian soil which was never extended to Buddhism, the very birthplace of Buddha having been rendered a wilderness and untenanted by man through the rage and fury of Brahmanic persecution. Brahmanism, finding itself once more in the ascendency, proceeded with great tact to incorporate into its ritual all the divinities, the rites, and the ceremonies peculiar to the non-Aryan populations. In Southern India Vishnoo is worshipped under the name and character of Jaggernath (or Juggernaut), "Lord of the universe;" but in Northern Hindostan this worship is mingled with that of Rama and Krishna, two Aryan heroes, whom the Brahmans with great political adroitness represent as later incarnations of both Vishnoo and Jaggernath. The pre-Aryan Mahrattas and Marwhars were brought to believe their supreme deities, Cando-ba, and Virabudra, as incarnations of Siva, and so on, until at length every god, hero, or saint belonging to the pre-historic inhabitants of Asia found a place in the Brahmanic calendar of incarnations of gods and goddesses.