of the Hindoos").  Under such circumstances the foot-note above quoted is certainly very misleading.  Mr. Barth does not inform his readers where he obtained the tradition referred to, and what reasons he has for supposing that it refers to the first Sankaracharya, and that it is “the best accredited tradition.”  When the matter is still open to discussion, Mr. Barth should not have adopted any particular date if he is not prepared to support it and establish it by proper arguments.  The other traditions alluded to are not intended, of course, to strengthen the authority of the tradition relied upon.  But the wording of the foot-note in question seems to show that all the authorities and traditions relating to the subject are comprised therein, when in fact the most important of them are left out of consideration, as will be shown hereafter.  No arguments are to be found in support of the date assigned to Sankara in the other portions of Mr. Barth’s book, but there are a few isolated passages which may be taken either as inferences from the statement in question or arguments in its support, which it will be necessary to examine in this connection.

Mr. Barth has discovered some connection between the appearance of Sankara in India and the commencement of the persecution of the Buddhists, which he seems to place in the seventh and eighth centuries.  In page 89 of his book he speaks of “the great reaction on the offensive against Buddhism which was begun in the Deccan in the seventh and eighth centuries by the schools of Kumarila and Sankara;” and in page 135 he states that the “disciples of Kumarila and Sankara, organized into military bands, constituted themselves the rabid defenders of orthodoxy.”  The force of these statements is, however, considerably weakened by the author’s observations on pages 89 and 134, regarding the absence of any traces of Buddhist persecution by Sankara in the authentic documents hitherto examined, and the absurdity of legends which represent him as exterminating Buddhists from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin.

The association of Sankara with Kumarila in the passages above cited is highly ridiculous.  It is well known to almost every Hindu that the followers of Purva Mimamsa (Kumarila commented on the Sutras) were the greatest and the bitterest opponents of Sankara and his doctrine, and Mr. Barth seems to be altogether ignorant of the nature of Kumarila’s views and Purva Mimamsa, and the scope and aim of Sankara’s Vedantic philosophy.  It is impossible to say what evidence the author has for asserting that the great reaction against the Buddhists commenced in the seventh and eighth centuries, and that Sankara was instrumental in originating it.  There are some passages in his book which tend to show that this date cannot be considered as quite correct.  In page 135 he says that Buddhist persecution began even in the time of Asoka.