The Colas c33.2

c33.2

The temple and the *maṭha* were the two great gifts of mediaeval Hinduism to Southern India. It was under the Cōḷas that these institutions entered on a process of gradual expansion and adaptation, which attracted the imagination of the populace and the benefactions of the rich; they thus reached a secure position of ascendancy over the Buddhist *vihāra* and Jain *paḷḷi*, and this position they retained almost unimpaired till our own time. In the stress of the conflict with heretical rivals who denied the sanctity of the Veda and questioned the existence of the Deity, there arose within Hinduism a tendency to close up its ranks, and foster a religious syncretism which found room within the fold of its orthodoxy for all forms of theistic belief. This syncretism was based on the conception of Trimūrti, the threefold manifestation of the same godhead.