into nearer relations with humanity.  Driven from India, though it was, it left an immense deposit of influence and of power.  We have seen how, as a counter-check to philosophy and Buddhism, the Code of Manu reasserted the authority of the Vedas, and riveted anew the chains of caste, and how it compensated for its oppressiveness by many wholesome and benign regulations—­accomplishing more, perhaps, than all other literatures combined to maintain the stability of Hinduism, through its many vicissitudes, and in spite of the heterogeneous elements which it received and incorporated.

Scarcely less important was the influence of the great epics—­the Ramayana and the Mahabharata—­with their doctrine of Trimurti and the incarnations of Vishnu in the national heroes.  This conciliated the soldier caste, subsidized the most popular characters in Hindu tradition, at the same time that it made them tenfold more glorious than before.  The Epics widened out the field of Hindu mythology immensely.  Never before had there been such a boundless range for the imagination.  The early Brahmans had cramped all intellectual growth, and held mankind by the leash of priestly ritual.  The philosophies had been too strait and lofty for any but the higher class; Manu’s laws had been a stern school-master to keep the people under curbs and restraints; even the Brahmans themselves were the slaves of their own ritual.  But all the people could understand and admire Rama’s wonderful victories over the demon Ravana.  All could appreciate the devotion of the lovely Sita, and weep when she was kidnapped and borne away, like Grecian Helen, to the demon court in Ceylon; and they could be thrilled with unbounded joy when she was restored—­the truest and loveliest of wives—­to be the sharer of a throne.

The Epics took such hold of the popular heart that any fact, any theory, any myth that could be attached to them found ready credence.  The Mahabharata especially became a general texture upon which any philosophy, or all the philosophies, might be woven at will.  And for a long period, extending from three or four centuries B.C. onward far into the Christian era, it was ever ready to receive modifications from the fertile brain and skilful hand of any devout Brahman.  A striking example of this was the introduction of the Bhagavad Gita.  When this was composed, somewhere about the second or third century of our era, there was no little conflict between the different schools of philosophy; and its unknown author attempted to unite them all in a poem which should harmonize their contradictions and exalt the virtues of each, and at the same time reiterate all the best maxims of Hinduism.  Some centuries later, the pronounced Vedantist Sancarakarya revamped the poem and gave its philosophy a more pantheistic character; later still the demigod Krishna was raised to full rank as the supreme Vishnu—­the Creator and Upholder of all things.[62]