It is important to notice that in the trend of Hindu literature through so many ages there has been no upward movement, but rather a decline.  Nowhere do we find hymns of so pure and lofty a tone as in the early Vedas.  No philosophy of the later times has equalled that of the Upanishads and the six Darsanas.  No law-giver like Manu has appeared for twenty-four centuries.  No Sanskrit scholarship has equalled that of the great grammarian Panini, who lived in the fourth century B.C.  And although no end of poetry has succeeded the great Epics, it has shown deterioration.  The Puranas, written at a later day, reveal only a reckless zeal to exalt the incarnate deities.  They may properly be called histories of the incarnations of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, and glorifications of Krishna.  And the very nature of the subjects with which they deal gives free scope to an unbridled imagination and to the most reckless exaggeration.

If anything more were wanting to insure their extravagance, it may be found in the fact that they were inspired by the rivalry of the respective worshippers of different gods.  The Puranas mark the development of separate sects, each of which regarded its particular deity as the supreme and only god.  The worshippers of Vishnu and the worshippers of Siva were in sharp rivalry, and they have continued their separation to this day.[63] Those who came to worship Vishnu as incarnate in Krishna, gained an advantage in the popular element associated with a favorite hero.  Yet this was matched by the influence of the Sankhya philosophy, which assigned to Siva a male and female dualism, a doctrine which finally plunged Hinduism into deepest degradation.  It brought about a new development known as Saktism, and the still later and grosser literature of the Tantras.  In these, Hinduism reached its lowest depths.  The modern “Aryas” discard both the Tantras and the Puranas, and assert that the popular incarnations of Vishnu were only good men.  They take refuge from the corruptions of modern Hinduism in the purer teachings of the early Vedas.

The Contrasts of Hinduism and Christianity.

Hinduism has some elements in common with Christianity which it is well to recognize.  It is theistic; it is a religion, as distinguished from the agnostic and ethical systems of India and China.[64] Hinduism always recognized a direct divine revelation which it regards with profound reverence; and through all its variations and corruptions it has inculcated in the minds of the Indian races a deeply religious feeling.  It has been claimed that it has made the Hindus the most devotional people in the world.  Like Christianity, Hinduism appeals to man’s intellectual nature, and it is inwrought with profound philosophy.  It does not, however, like some modern systems, teach that divine truth has been revealed to man by natural processes; rather it regards the early revelation as having suffered obscuration.[65] It also has its