A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c20.6

c20.6

But soon a great change came—particularly in the Tamil country—and people began to entertain fears of the whole land going over to Jainism and Buddhism. At any rate, worshippers of Śiva and Viṣṇu felt the call to stem the rising tide of heresy. The growth, on the one hand, of an intense emotional bhakti to Śiva or Viṣṇu and, on the other, of an outspoken hatred of Buddhists and Jains, are the chief characteristics of the new epoch. Challenges to public debate, competition in the performance of miracles, tests of the truth of doctrines by means of ordeal, became the order of the day. Parties of devotees under the leadership of one gifted saint or another traversed the country many times over, singing, dancing and debating all their way. This great wave of religious enthusiasm attained its peak in the early seventh century and had not spent itself in the middle of the ninth.