after a few centuries of existence had to contend with no rival of approximately equal strength, for the struggle with Mohammedanism was chiefly military and hardly concerned the merits of the faiths.  But Buddhism never had a similarly paramount and unchallenged position.  It never attempted to extirpate its rivals.  It coexisted with a mass of popular superstition which it only gently reprobated and with a powerful hereditary priesthood, both intellectual and pliant, tenacious of their own ideas and yet ready to countenance almost any other ideas as the price of ruling.  Neither Islam nor Christianity had such an adversary, and both of them and even Judaism resemble Buddhism in having won greater success outside their native lands than in them.  Jerusalem is not an altogether satisfactory spectacle to either Christians or Jews.[264]

Still all this does not completely explain the disappearance of Buddhism from India.  Before attempting to assign reasons, we shall do well to review some facts and dates relating to the period of decadence.  If we take all India into consideration the period is long, but in many, indeed in most, districts the process of decay was rapid.

In the preceding chapter I have mentioned the accounts of Indian Buddhism which we owe to the Chinese travellers, Hsuean Chuang and I-Ching.  The latter frankly deplores the decay of the faith which he had witnessed in his own life (i.e. about 650-700 A.D.) but his travels in India were of relatively small extent and he gives less local information than previous pilgrims.  Hsuean Chuang describing India in 629-645 A.D. is unwilling to admit the decay but his truthful narrative lets it be seen.  It is only of Bengal and the present United Provinces that he can be said to give a favourable account, and the prosperity of Buddhism there was largely due to the personal influence of Harsha.[265] In central and southern India, he tells us of little but deserted monasteries.  It is clear that Buddhism was dying out but it is not so clear that it had ever been the real religion of this region.  In many parts it did not conquer the population but so to speak built fortresses and left garrisons.  It is probable that the Buddhism of Andhra, Kalinga and the south was represented by little more than such outposts.  They included Amaravati, where portions of the ruins seem assignable to about 150 A.D., and Ajanta, where some of the cave paintings are thought to be as late as the sixth century.  But of neither site can we give any continuous history.  In southern India the introduction of Buddhism took place under the auspices of Asoka himself, though his inscriptions have as yet been found only in northern Mysore and not in the Tamil country.  The Tamil poems Manimegalei and Silappadigaram, especially the former, represent it as prevalent and still preserving much of its ancient simplicity.  Even in later times when it had almost completely disappeared from southern India, occasional Buddhist temples were founded.  Rajaraja endowed one at Negapatam about 1000 A.D.  In 1055 a monastery was erected at Belgami in Mysore and a Buddhist town named Kalavati is mentioned as existing in that state in 1533.[266] But in spite of such survivals, even in the sixth century Buddhism could not compete in southern India with either Jainism or Hinduism and there are no traces of its existence in the Deccan after 1150.