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CHAPTER XV.

HINDUISM (CONTINUED).—­VISHNU AND CIVA.

In the epic the later union of the sectarian gods is still a novelty.  The two characters remain distinct enough.  Vishnu and Civa are different gods.  But each in turn represents the All-god, and consequently each represents the other.  The Vishnu-worship which grew about Krish[n.]a, originally a friend of one of the epic characters, was probably at first an attempt to foist upon Vedic believers a sectarian god, by identifying the latter with a Vedic divinity.  But, whatever the origin, Krishna as Vishnu is revered as the All-god in the epic.  And, on the other hand, Civa of many names has kept the marks of Rudra.  Sometimes one, sometimes another, is taken as the All-god.  At times they are compared, and then each sect reduces the god of the other to an inferior position.  Again they are united and regarded as one.  The Vishnu side has left the best literary representation of this religion, which has permeated the epic.  It is pantheism, but not an impersonal pantheism.  The Blessed Lord is the All.  This is the simple base and crown of its speculation.  It is like the personal development of Vedantic philosophy, only it is here degraded by the personality of the man-god, who is made the incarnate All-god.  The Krishna of the epic as a man is a sly, unscrupulous fellow, continually suggesting and executing acts that are at variance with the knightly code of honor.  He is king of Dv[=a]rak[=a] and ally of the epic heroes.  But again, he is divine, the highest divinity, the avatar of the All-god Vishnu.  The sectaries that see in Civa rather than in Vishnu the one and only god, have no such representative to which to refer.  For Civa, as the historical descendant of the Vedic Rudra,—­although even in his case there is an intrusion of local worship upon an older Vedic belief,—­represents a terror-god, either the lightning, the fairest of the gods, or, when he appears on earth, a divine horror, or, again, “a very handsome young man."[1] These two religions, of Vishnu as Krishna and of Civa alone, are not so much united in the epic as they are super-imposed upon the older worship of Brahm[=a], and indeed, in such a way that Civa-worship, in a pantheistic sense, appears to be the latest of the three beliefs that have influenced the story.[2]

The personal pantheism of the older Vishnuism has in its form and teachings so close a resemblance to the Christian religion that it has always had a great attraction for occidental readers; while the real power of its “Divine Song” gives the latter a charm possessed by few of the scriptures of India.  This Divine Song (or Song of the Blessed One) is at present a Krishnaite version of an older Vishnuite poem, and this in turn was at first an unsectarian work, perhaps a late Upanishad.  It is accepted by Vishnuites as a kind of New Testament; and with