probably by Vikram[=a]ditya,[4] and were driven out.  The breathing-space between Northern barbarian and Mohammedan was nominally not a long one, but since the first Moslem conquests had no definitive result the new invaders did not quite overthrow Hindu rule till the end of the tenth century.  During this period the native un-Aryan tribes, with their Hinduizing effect, were more destructive as regards the maintenance of the old Brahmanic cult than were outsiders.[5]

When Tamerlane invaded India his was the fourth invasion after the conquest of the Punj[=a]b by the Moslem in 664.[6] In 1525 the fifth conqueror, Baber, fifth too in descent from Tamerlane, founded the Mogul empire that lasted till the fall of this dynasty (nominally till 1857).  But it must be remembered that each new conqueror from 997 till 1525 merely conquered old Mohammedan dynasties with new invasions.  It was all one to the Hindu.  He had the Mohammedan with him all this time only each new rival’s success made his lot the harder, But Baber’s grandson, the Great Mogul, Akbar (who reigned from 1556 to 1605), gave the land not only peace but kindness; and under him Jew, Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan 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