Page:A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1.djvu/87

 The monasteries degenerated into hot beds of corruption, so much so that the semi-savage Mussulman conquerors felt little compunction in putting the inmates thereof to the sword. Hinduism also, which has been noted in all ages for its assimilative and elastic character, swallowed up the remnants of the Buddhists by acknowledging the founder of their religion to be an Avatāra or Incarnation of Vishnu.

We have seen that the A.V. rites as also the Tantric cults cover almost identical ground; both had their origin in the attempts at popularising the religion among the masses by appealing to the baser or the less refined elements of human nature. An enormous bulky literature has thus sprung up representing this corrupt and effete outgrowth of