instance the ruins at Eran) suggest that they were Vishnuites but a little later the cult of Siva becomes more prominent.  The Emperor Harsha (612-648) and his family were eclectic, honouring Siva, the Sun and the Buddha, but it is not recorded that they worshipped Vishnu.  Bana who lived at his court indicates[511] that Sivaism was the predominant form of worship, but also mentions Buddhists and Bhagavatas.  Hsuean Chuang on the other hand holds him up as a devout Buddhist.  Great Sivaite shrines in different parts of India such as the temple of Bhuvaneshwar in Orissa and the Kailas at Ellora were probably constructed in the seventh century and it is likely that in the defeat of Buddhism the worshippers of Siva played an active part.

This conflict is connected with the names of Kumarila Bhatta (c. 725 A.D.) and Sankara Acarya (c. 800 A.D.).  It clearly represents forces which cannot be restricted to the character of individuals or the span of human lives.  The elements which compose Hinduism had been vigorous long before the eighth century and Buddhism, though decadent, continued to exist in India later.  But probably the careers of these two men are the best record of the decisive turn of the tide.  It is often said that they revived Hinduism, but however much they insisted on the authority of ancient tradition, the real result of their labours was not to re-establish the order of things which prevailed before the rise of Buddhism, but to give authority and solidity to the mixture of Brahmanism, Buddhism and popular beliefs which had grown up.  Kumarila is said to have been a Brahman of Bihar who was a Buddhist monk but became a worshipper of Siva and so zealous a persecutor of his former faith that he persuaded a king of his time named Sudhanvan to exterminate it from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin.  This is a monstrous exaggeration but he was doubtless a determined enemy of the Buddhists, as can be seen from his philosophical works.[512] He taught little about metaphysics or the nature of God, but he insisted on the necessity and efficacy of Vedic rites.

More important both as a thinker and an organizer was Sankara.  There is some discrepancy in the traditions of his birth, but he was probably born about 788 A.D.[513] in a family of Nambuthiri Brahmans at Kaladi[514] in the Cochin state.  Kaladi occupies a healthy position at some height above the sea level and the neighbourhood is now used as a sanatorium.  The cocoanut trees and towered temples which mark many south Indian landscapes are absent, and paddy fields alternate with a jungle of flowering plants studded with clumps of bamboos.  A broad river broken by sandbanks winds through the district and near the villages there are often beautiful avenues of great trees.  Not far distant is Trichur which possesses a Vedic college and a large temple, forbidden to Europeans but like most edifices in Malabar modest in architecture.  This is not the land of giant gopurams and multitudinous sculpture, but of lives dedicated to the acquisition of traditional learning and the daily performance of complicated but inconspicuous rites.