sun protects and devours all,” and " Vishnu protects and devours " (of Vishnu, passim; of the sun, iii. 33. 71).  A good deal of old stuff is left in the Forest Book amongst the absurd tales of holy watering places.  One finds repeated several times the Vedic account of Indra’s fight with Vritra, the former’s thunderbolt, however, being now made of a saint’s bones (ii. ch. 100-105).  Agni is lauded (ib. ch. 123).  To the Acvins[15] there is one old hymn which contains Vedic forms (i. 3).  Varuna is still lord of the West, and goes accompanied with the rivers, ‘male and female,’ with snakes, and demons, and half-gods (d[=a]ityas, s[=a]dhyas, d[=a]ivatas).  Later, but earlier than the pseudo-epic, there stands with these gods Kubera, the god of wealth, the ‘jewel-giver,’ who is the guardian of travellers, the king of those demons called Yakshas, which the later sect makes servants of Civa.  He is variously named;[16] he is a dwarf; he dwells in the North, in Mt.  K[=a]il[=a]sa, and has a demoniac gate-keeper, Macakruka.  Another newer god is the one already referred to, Dharma V[=a]ivasvata, or Justice (Virtue, Right), the son of the sun, a title of Yama older than the Vedas.  He is also the father of the new love-god, K[=a]ma.  It is necessary to indicate the names of the gods and their functions, lest one imagine that with pantheism the Vedic religion expired.  Even that old, impious Brahmanic fable crops out again:  “The devils were the older brothers of the gods, and were conquered by the gods only with trickery” (in. 33. 60), an interesting reminiscence of the fact that the later name for evil spirit was originally the one applied to the great and good spirit (Asura the same with Ahura).[17] According to a rather late chapter in the second book each of the great Vedic gods has a special paradise of his own, the most remarkable feature of the account being that Indra’s heaven is filled with saints, having only one king in it—­a view quite foreign to the teaching that is current elsewhere in the epic.  Where the sectarian doctrine would oppose the old belief it set above Indra’s heaven another, of Brahm[=a], and above that a third, of Vishnu (i. 89. 16 ff.).  According to one passage Mt.  Mandara[18] is a sort of Indian Olympus.  Another account speaks of the Him[=a]layas, Himavat, as ‘the divine mountain, beloved of the gods,’ though the knight goes thence to Gandham[=a]dana, and thence to Indrak[=i]la, to find the gods’ habitat (III. 37. 41).  Personified powers lie all around the religious Hindu.  And this is especially true of the epic character.  He prays to Mt.  Mandara, and to rivers, above all to the Ganges.  Mt.  Kol[=a]hala is divine, and begets divine offspring on a river (I. 63).  The Vindhya range of mountains rivals the fabled Meru (around which course the sun and all the heavenly bodies), and this, too, is the object of devotion and prayer.[19] In one passage it is said that in Beh[=a]r (M[=a]gadha) there was a peak which was continuously ‘worshipped with offerings of flowers and perfumes,’ exactly as if it were a god.  The reason why flowers are given and worn is that they bring good luck, it is said in the same chapter (II. 21. 15, 20, 51).