They may be kindly (though generally requiring punctilious attention), or mischievous, or determined enemies of mankind.  But infinite as are their variations, the ordinary Asiatic no more doubts their existence than he doubts the existence of animals.  The position which they enjoy, like their character, is various, for in Asia deities like men have careers which depend on luck.  Many of them remain mere elves or goblins, some become considerable local deities.  But often they occupy a position intermediate between real gods and fairies.  Thus in southern India, Burma and Ceylon may be seen humble shrines, which are not exactly temples but the abodes of beings whom prudent people respect.  They have little concern with the destinies of the soul or the observance of the moral law but much to do with the vagaries of rivers and weather and with the prosperity of the village.  Though these spirits may attain a high position within a certain district (as for instance Maha Saman, the deity of Adam’s Peak in Ceylon) they are not of the same stuff as the great gods of Asia.  These latter are syntheses of many ideas, and centuries of human thought have laboured on their gigantic figures.  It is true that the mental attitude which deifies the village stream is fundamentally the same as that which worships the sun, but in the latter case the magnitude of the phenomenon deified sets it even for the most rustic mind in another plane.  Also the nature gods of the Veda are not quite the same as the nature spirits which the Indian peasants worship to-day and worshipped, as the Pitakas tell us, in the time of the Buddha.  For the Vedic deities are such forces as fire and light, wind and water.  This is nature worship but the worship of nature generalized, not of some bold rock or mysterious rustling tree.  It may be that a migratory life, such as the ancient Aryans at one time led, inclined their minds to these wider views, since neither the family nor the tribe had an abiding interest in any one place.  Thus the ancestors of the Turks in the days before Islam worshipped the spirits of the sky, earth and water, whereas the more civilized but sedentary Chinese had genii for every hamlet, pool and hillock.

It is difficult to say whether monotheism is a development of this nature worship or has another origin.  In Japanese religion the monotheistic tendency is markedly absent.  The sun-goddess is the principal deity but remains simply prima inter pares.  But in the ancient religion of China, T’ien or Heaven, also called Shang-ti, the supreme ruler, though somewhat shadowy and impersonal, does become an omnipotent Providence without even approximate rivals.  Other superhuman beings are in comparison with him merely angels.  Unfortunately the early history of Chinese religion is obscure and the documents scanty.  In India however the evolution of pantheism or theism (though usually with a pantheistic tinge) out of the worship of nature forces seems clear.