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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 Çankara placed the philosophy of unsectarian pantheism on a firm basis by his commentary on the Veds=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 [Fa]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 Çivaite 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 these and subsequent sects being composed in the centuries succeeding the latter term. These sects again divide into many subdivisions, of which we shall speak below. At present we take up the character of the Pur[ra]nas and their most important points of difference as compared
