To ignore the fact that Vishnu and Rudra-Civa developed inside the Brahmanic circle and increased in glory before the rise of sectaries, and to asseverate, as have some, that the two chief characters of the later trinity are an unmeaning revival of decadent gods, whose names are used craftily to veil the modernness of Krishnaism and Civaism,—­this is to miscalculate the waxing dignity of these gods in earlier Brahmanic literature.  To say with Burnouf that the Vishnu of the Veda is not at all the Vishnu of the mythologists, is a statement far too sweeping.  The Vishnu of the Veda is not only the same god with the Vishnu of the next era, but in that next era he has become greatly magnified.  The Puranic All-god Vishnu stands in as close a relation to his Vedic prototype as does Milton’s Satan to the snaky slanderer of an age more primitive.

Civa-worship appears to have been adapted from a local cult in the mountainous West, and at an early date to have been amalgamated with that of his next resemblance, the Vedic Rudra; while Krishna-worship flourished along the Ganges.  These are those Dionysos and Herakles of whom speak the old Greek authorities.  One cult is possibly as venerable as the other, but while Civaism became Brahmanized early, Krishnaism was adopted much later, and it is for this reason, amongst others, that despite its modern iniquities Civa has appealed more to the Brahman than has Krishna.

Megasthenes tells us a good deal about these Hindu representatives of Herakles and Dionysos.  According to him there were Dionysiac festivals in honor of the latter god (Civa),[66] who belongs where flourishes the wine, in the Acvaka district, north of the Kabul river.  From this place Civa’s worship extended into the East, M[=a]gadha (Beh[=a]r), around Gokarna in the West, and even to the Kalinga country in the extreme Southeast.  But it was especially native to the mountainous Northwest, about the ‘Gate of Ganges’ (north of Delhi, near Saharampur), and still further north in Kashmeer.  In the epic, Civa has his throne on K[=a]il[=a]sa,[67] the Northern mountain, in the Him[=a]layas, and Ganges descend from the sky upon his head.

On the other hand, Herakles, of the Ganges land, where grows no wine, is plainly Krishna, who carries club, discus, and conch.  The Greek cities Methora and Kleisobora are Mathur[=a] and Krishna-pur, ‘Krishna-town’; the latter on the Jumna, the former near it on the same river, capital of the clan which venerated Krishna as its chief hero and god, the Y[=a]davas.  Megasthenes says, also, that Herakles’ daughter is Pandaie, and this agrees with the P[=a]ndya, a southern development of the epic Gangetic P[=a]ndavas, who especially worship Krishna in conjunction with the Y[=a]davas.  Their South-Indic town, Mathur[=a], still attests their origin.