c enough to embrace all that has gone before;
that while Buddhism will be banished, many of its elements will be
retained, and the whole woven into one marvellous texture which we will
call _Hinduism_.[56] Even during the period of Buddhism's greatest
triumphs, say, two or three centuries before Christ, changes of great
moment were going on in the Brahmanical faith. The old sacrificial
system had lost its power, but the flexible and inexhaustible resources
of Brahmanical cunning were by no means dormant. In the border wars of
the Aryans, with rival invaders on the one hand, and with the conquered
but ever restless aborigines on the other, great and popular heroes had
sprung up. The exploits of these heroes had been celebrated in two great
epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and the popularity of these
poems was immense. The heroes were of the soldier caste, and gave to
that caste a prestige which seemed to the Brahmans formidable and
dangerous.[57] The divine prerogatives of their order were all in
jeopardy.

The remedy chosen by the Brahmans was a bold and desperate one. These
heroes must be raised out of the soldier caste by making them divine. As
such they would hold a nearer relation to the divine Brahmans than to
the soldiers. The legends were therefore worked over--Brahmanized--so to
speak.[58] Rama, who had overcome certain chieftains of Ceylon, and
Krishna, who had won great battles in Rajputana, were raised to the rank
of gods and demi-gods. By an equal exaggeration the hostile chiefs of
rival invaders were transformed to demons, and the black, repulsive hill
tribes, who were involved as allies in these conflicts, were represented
as apes. As a part of this same Brahmanizing process, the doctrine of
the Trimurti was developed, and also the doctrine of incarnation. Most
conspicuous were the incarnations of Vishnu; Rama and Krishna were
finally placed among the ten incarnations of that deity. This was a
skilful stroke of policy, for it was now no longer the heroes of the
soldier caste who had won victory for the Aryans; it was Vishnu, the
preserver, the care-taker, and sympathizer with all the interests of
mankind. The development of the doctrines of the Trimurti and of
incarnation undoubtedly followed both the rise of Buddhism and the
promulgation of the Laws of Manu.

Meanwhile the Brahmans were shrewd enough to adapt themselves to certain
other necessities. The influence of Buddhism was still a force whi