Yama, Fire, Wind, Civa, Time, Space, Earth, and the
cardinal points. Thou, Krishna, art the Creator
(’emitter’); thou, chief of gods, didst
worship the highest; thou, Vishnu called, becamest
Indra’s younger brother, entering into sonship
with Aditi; as a child with three steps thou didst
fill the sky, space, and earth, and pass in glory....
At the end of the age thou returnest all things into
thyself. At the beginning of the age Brahm[=a]
was born from thy lotus-navel as the venerable preceptor
of all things (the same epithet is in vs. 22 applied
to Vishnu himself); and Civa sprang from thy angry
forehead when the demons would kill him (Brahm[=a]);
both are born of thee, in whom is the universe.”
The following verses (45 ff.) are like those of the
Divine Song: “Thou, Knight Arjuna, art
the soul of Krishna; thou art mine alone and thine
alone am I; they that are mine are thine; he that hates
thee hates Me, and he that is for thee, is for Me;
thou art Nara (’man’) and I am N[=a]r[=a]yana
(’whose home is on the waters,’ god);[35]
we are the same, there is no difference between us.”
Again, like the Divine Song in the following verses
(51-54) is the expression ’the sacrifice and
he that sacrifices,’ etc, together with the statement
that Vishnu plays ‘like a boy with playthings,’
with the crowds of gods, Brahm[=a], Civa, Indra, etc.
The passage opposed to this, and to other identifications
of Vishnu with many gods, is one of the most flagrant
interpolations in the epic. If there be anything
that the Supreme God in Civaite or Vishnuite form
does not do it is to extol at length, without obvious
reason, his rivals’ acts and incarnations, Yet
in this clumsy passage just such an extended laudation
of Vishnu is put into the mouth of Civa. In fact,
iii. 272, from 30 to 76, is an interpretation of the
most naive sort, and it is here that we find the approach
to the later trim[=u]rti (trinity): “Having
the form of Brahm[=a] he creates; having a human body
(as Krishna) he protects, in the nature of Civa he
would destroy—these are the three appearances
or conditions (avasth[=a]s) of the Father-god”.
(Praj[=a]pati).[36] This comes after an account of
the four-faced lotus-born Brahm[=a], who, seeing the
world a void, emitted his sons, the seers, mind-born,
like to himself (now nine in number), who in turn begot
all beings, including men (vss. 44-47). If, on
the other hand, one take the later sectarian account
of Vishnu (for the above is more in honor of Krishna
the man-god than of Vishnu, the form of the Supreme
God), he will see that even in the pseudo-epic the
summit of the theological conceptions is the emphasis
not of trinity or of multifariousness but of unity.
According to the text the P[=a]ncak[=a]lajnas are the
same with the Vishnuite sect called P[=a]ncar[=a]tras,
and these are most emphatically ek[=a]ntinas, i.e.,
Unitarians (xii. 336; 337. 46; 339. 66-67).[37] In
this same passage 341. 106, Vishnu is again caturm[=u]rtidh[r.]t,