dan at last forgot to fear or fight. After this
there is only the overthrow of the Mohammedan power to record; and the
rise of the Mahratta native kingdoms. A new faith resulted from the
amalgamation of Hinduism with Mohammedism (after 1500), as will be
shown hereafter. [8] In the pauses before the first Mohammedan
invasion, and between the first defeat of the Mohammedans and their
successful second conquest, the barbarians being now expelled and
Buddhism being decadent, Brahmanism rallied. In the sixth century
there was toleration for all faiths. In the seventh century
Kum[=a]rila renewed the strength of Brahmanism on the ritualistic side
with attacks on Buddhism, and in the ninth century Cankara placed the
philosophy of unsectarian pantheism on a firm basis by his commentary
on the Ved[=a]nta S[=u]tra.[7] These two men are the re-makers of
ancient Brahmanism, which from this time on continued in its
stereotyped form, adopting Hindu gods very coyly, and only as spirits
of small importance, while relying on the laws as well as the gods of
old, on holy _[=a]c[=a]ra_ or 'custom,' and the now systematized
exposition of its old (Upanishad) philosophy.[8] Its creative force
was already spent. Buddhism, on the other hand, was dying a natural
death. The time was ripe for Hinduism, which had been gathering
strength for centuries. After the sixth century, and perhaps even as
late as 1500, or later, were written the modern Pur[=a]nas, which
embody the new belief.[9] They cannot, on account of the distinct
advance in their cult, have appeared before the end of the epic age.
The breathing spell (between barbarian and complete Mohammedan
conquest) which gave opportunity to Kum[=a]rila to take a high hand
with Buddhism, was an opportunity also for the codification of the new
creeds. It is, therefore, to this era that one has probably to refer
the first of the modern sectarian Pur[=a]nas, though the ritualistic
Tantras and [=A]gamas of the lower Civaite sects doubtless belong
rather to the end than to the beginning of the period. We are
strengthened in this belief by the fact that the oldest of these works
do not pretend to antedate Kum[=a]rila's century, though the sects
mentioned in the epic are known in the first centuries of the
Christian era. The time from the first to the seventh centuries one
may accordingly suppose to have been the era during which was
developing the Brahmanized form of the early Hindu sects, the
literature of