But there is no Brahm[=a]ite to modify the impression.  There existed no strong Brahm[=a] sect as there were Vishnu and Civa sects.  Brahm[=a] is in his place merely because to the preceding age he was the highest god; for the epic regards Creator, Praj[=a]pati, Pit[=a]maha, Brahm[=a] as synonymous.[22] The abstract brahma, which in the Upanishads is the same with the Supreme Spirit, was called personally Brahm[=a], and this Brahm[=a] is now the Brahmanic Father-god.  The sects could never get rid of a god whose being was rooted alike in the preceding philosophy and in the popular conception of a Father-god.  Each age of thought takes the most advanced views of the preceding age as its axioms.  The Veda taught gods; the Br[=a]hmanas taught a Father-god above the gods; the Upanishads taught a Supreme Godhead of which this Father-god was the active manifestation.  The sects taught that their heroes were incarnations of this Supreme, but they carried with them the older pantheon as well, and, with the pantheon, its earlier and later heads, Indra and Brahm[=a].  Consequently each sect admits that Brahm[=a] is greater than the older Vedic gods, but, while naturally it identifies its special incarnation first with its most powerful opponent, and thus, so to speak, absorbs its rival, it identifies this incarnation with Brahm[=a] only as being chief of lesser divinities, not as being a rival.  One may represent the attitude of a Krishna-worshipper in the epic somewhat in this way:  “Krishna is a modern incarnation of Vishnu, the form which is taken in this age by the Supreme Lord.  You who worship Civa should know that your Civa is really my Krishna, and the chief point is to recognize my Krishna as the Supreme Lord.  The man Krishna is the Supreme Lord in human form.  Of course, as such, being the One God in whom are all things and beings, he is also all the gods known by names which designate his special functions.  Thus he is the head of the gods, the Father-god, as our ancestors called him, Brahm[=a]; and he is all the gods known by still older names, who are the children of the secondary creator, Brahm[=a], viz., Agni, Indra, S[=u]rya, etc.  All gods are active manifestations of the Supreme God called Vishnu, who is born on earth to-day as Krishna.”  And the Civaite says:  “Civa is the manifestation of the All-god,” and repeats what the Vishnuite says, substituting Civa for Vishnu,[23] but with the difference already explained, namely, that the Civa-sect has no incarnation to which to point, as has the Vishnuite.  Civa is modified Rudra, and both are old god-names.  Later, however, the Civaite has also his incarnate god.  As an example of later Civa-worship may be taken Vishnu’s own hymn to this god in vii. 80. 54 ff.:  “Reverence to Bhava, Carva, Rudra (Civa), the bestower of gifts, the lord of cattle, the terrible, great, fearful, god of three wives;[24] to him who is peace, the Lord, the slayer of sacrifices (makhaghna)[25] ... to the blue-necked god;