The sectarian monotheism of the Pur[=a]nas never resulted in dispensing with the pantheon.  The Hindu monotheist is a pantheist, and whether sectarian or philosophical, he kept and added to his pantheon.[17] Indra is still for warriors, Maruts for husbandmen, although old views shift somewhat.  So for example, in the K[=u]rma Pur[=a]na the Gandharvas are added for the C[=u]dras.[18] The fourfoldness, which we have shown in the epic to be characteristic of Vishnu, is now represented by the military epithet caturvy[=u]has (agmen quadratum), in that the god represents peace, wisdom, support, and renunciation; though, as a matter of fact, he is avy[=u]ha, i.e., without any of these.[19] Starting with the physical ’god of the four quarters,’ one gets even in the epic the ’controller of four,’ or perfect person, conceived like [Greek:  aner tetragonos].  Tennyson’s ‘four-square to all the winds that blow’ is a good connecting link in the thought.  The Pur[=a]nas are a mine of legend, although most of the stories seem to be but epic tales, more or less distorted.  Nala ‘the great-great-grandson of R[=a]ma’ is described after the history of R[=a]ma himself; the installation of P[=u]ru, when his father had passed over his eldest son, and such reminiscences of the epic are the stock in trade of the legendary writers.[20]

The origin of the four castes;[21] the descriptions of hell, somewhat embellished,[22] where the ’sinful are cooked in fire’;[23] the exaltation of Vishnu as Krishna or K[=a]ma in one, and that of Civa in another—­these and similar aspects are reflections of epic matter, spirit, tone, and language, only the faith is still fiercer in religious matters, and the stories are fainter in historical references.  According to the Pur[=a]na last cited:  “There is no expiation for one that bows to a phallic emblem,” i.e., Civaite, and “all the B[=a]uddhas are heretics";[24] and according to the K[=u]rma Pur[=a]na:  “Vishnu is the divinity of the gods; Civa, of the devils,” although the preceding verses teach, in the spirit of the Divine Song, that each man’s divinity is that which he conceives to be the divinity.  Such is the concluding remark made by Vasistha in adjudicating the strife between the Vishnuite and Civaite sectaries of the epic heroes.[25] The relation that the Puranic literature bears to religion in the minds of its authors is illustrated by the remark of the N[=a]rad[=i]ya to the effect that the god is to be honored “by song, by music, by dance, and by recounting the Pur[=a]nas” (xvii. 9).

Some of the epic religious ceremonies which there are barely alluded to are here described with almost the detail of a technical handbook.  So the N[=a]nd[=i]ya (xix.) gives an elaborate account of the raising of a dhvaja or standard as a religious ceremony.[26] The legal rules affecting morality and especially caste-intercourse[27] show a laxity in regard to the rules as formerly preached.  Even the old Puranic