Sankara was a Brahman of the south who in a short life found time to write numerous works, to wander over India, to found a monastic order and build four monasteries.  In doctrine and discipline he was more pliant than Kumarila and he assimilated many strong points of Buddhism.  Both these teachers are depicted as the successful heroes of public disputations in which the interest at stake was considerable.  The vanquished had to become a disciple of the vanquisher or to forfeit his life and, if he was the head of an institution, to surrender its property.  These accounts, though exaggerated, are probably a florid version of what occurred and we may surmise that the popular faith of the day was generally victorious.  What violence the rising tide of Hinduism may have wrought, it is hard to say.  There is no evidence of any general persecution of Buddhism in the sense in which one Christian sect persecuted another in Europe.  But at a rather later date we hear that Jains were persecuted and tortured by Saiva princes both in southern India and Gujarat, and if there were any detailed account, epigraphic or literary, of such persecutions in the eighth and ninth centuries, there would be no reason for doubting it.  But no details are forthcoming.  Without resorting to massacre, an anti-Buddhist king had in his power many effective methods of hostility.  He might confiscate or transfer monastic property, or forbid his subjects to support monks.  Considering the state of Buddhism as represented by Hsuean Chuang and I-Ching it is probable that such measures would suffice to ensure the triumph of the Brahmans in most parts of India.

After the epoch of Sankara, the history of Indian Buddhism is confined to the Pala kingdom.  Elsewhere we hear only of isolated grants to monasteries and similar acts of piety, often striking but hardly worthy of mention in comparison with the enormous number of Brahmanic inscriptions.  But in the Pala kingdom[271] Buddhism, though corrupt, was flourishing so far as the number of its adherents and royal favour were concerned.  Gopala founded the monastery of Odontapuri or Udandapura, which according to some authorities was in the town of Bihar.  Dharmapala the second king of the dynasty (c. 800 A.D.) built on the north bank of the Ganges the even more celebrated University of Vikramasila,[272] where many commentaries were composed.  It was a centre not only of tantric learning but of logic and grammar, and is interesting as showing the connection between Bengal and Tibet.  Tibetans studied there and Sanskrit books were translated into Tibetan within its cloisters.  Dharmapala is said to have reigned sixty-four years and to have held his court at Patna, which had fallen into decay but now began to revive.  According to Taranatha his successor Devapala built Somapuri, conquered Orissa and waged war with the unbelievers who had become numerous, no doubt as a result of the preaching of Sankara.  But as a rule the Palas, though they