This accords with other statements to the effect that the Kalacakra tantra was introduced in 965 A.D. from Sambhala, a mysterious country in Central Asia.  This system is said to be Vishnuite rather than Sivaite.  It specially patronizes the cult of the mystic Buddhas such as Kalacakra and Heruka, all of whom appear to be regarded as forms of Adi-Buddha or the primordial Buddha essence.  The Siddha named Pito is also described as the author of this doctrine,[328] which had less importance in India than in Tibet.

On the other hand Taranatha gives us the names of several doctors of the Vinaya who flourished under the Pala dynasty.  Even as late as the reign of Ramapala (? 1080-1120) we hear that the Hinayanists were numerous.  In the reign of Dharmapala (c. 800 A.D.) some of them broke up the great silver image of Heruka at Bodh-Gaya and burnt the books of Mantras.[329] These instances show that the older Buddhism was not entirely overwhelmed by Tantrism[330] though perhaps it was kept alive more by pilgrims than by local sentiment.  Thus the Chinese inscriptions of Bodh-Gaya though they speak at length of the three bodies of Buddha show no signs of Tantrism.  It would appear that the worship celebrated in the holy places of Magadha preserved a respectable side until the end.  In the same way although Tantrism is strong in the literature of the Lamas, none of the many descriptions of Tibet indicate that there is anything scandalous in the externals of religion.  Probably in Tibet, Nepal and mediaeval Magadha alike the existence of disgraceful tantric literature does not indicate such widespread depravity as might be supposed.  But of its putrefying influence in corrupting the minds of those who ought to have preserved the pure faith there can be no doubt.  More than any other form of mixed belief it obliterated essential differences, for Buddhist Tantrism and Sivaite Tantrism are merely two varieties of Tantrism.

What is happening at Bodh-Gaya at present[331] illustrates how Buddhism disappeared from India.  The abbot of a neighbouring Sivaite monastery who claims the temple and grounds does not wish, as a Mohammedan might, to destroy the building or even to efface Buddhist emblems.  He wishes to supervise the whole establishment and the visits of pilgrims, as well as to place on the images of Buddha Hindu sectarian marks and other ornaments.  Hindu pilgrims are still taken by their guides to venerate the Bodhi tree and, but for the presence of foreign pilgrims, no casual observer would suppose the spot to be anything but a Hindu temple of unusual construction.  The same process went a step further in many shrines which had not the same celebrity and effaced all traces and memory of Buddhism.