Turning now to Asia, we find in Brahmanism and Buddhism two systems of religion that are related to one another exactly as are Judaism and Christianity.  The analogue of the Old Testament is a group of priestly hymnal writings known as the Vedas, which date back to about the fourteenth century before Christ lived.  Their objects of worship at first are numerous invisible beings that actuate the things of the world, as in Greek theology, but later one of them assumes preeminence as the all-pervading essence of things,—­Brahma.  The precepts of Brahmanism enjoined adoration of the unseen powers and of their works, as well as practical rules of human conduct, such as those which divided a man’s life into the four periods when he should be successively a student, the head of a family, a counselor, and a religious mendicant who should renounce the world of social activities and human desires.  In earlier writings, the immortal state is a kind of heaven, but later it meant simply an absorption into Brahma, the eternal impersonal being.

Buddha was an orthodox Brahman reformer of the sixth century before our present era, just as Jesus was an orthodox Hebrew reformer.  The essential creed of Buddha made his religion far more ethical than earlier forms, and placed it on a plane even above Christianity of later centuries.  This creed relates to the element of human responsibility particularly, the other two remaining much as they were found by Buddha.  According to his teachings, a man rested under an obligation to live nobly in the truest sense, and he acquired merit—­karma—­or lost it, in proportion to his deserts.  At death a human soul is reincarnated, in a lower form of animal or even in a being residing in one of a series of unseen hells, if punishment is due; if a higher state is merited, progress is made through thousands of existences until perfection is rewarded by an eternal fusion with the essence of Brahma.  It is because there is no escape from just punishment that Buddhism in its original form is properly denoted more ethical than a religion which teaches that sacrifice of any kind will exempt the sinner from deserved penalties and bring about the bestowal of unearned rewards.

Polytheism is the name given to a religion such as that of the Greeks or Romans, who believed in many gods and spirits of greater and lesser power.  These supernatural beings, each in its own sphere, immediately directed the processes of nature and controlled the lives of men.  One of them, Zeus, was regarded as the supreme “father of gods and men,” who delegated specific duties to others; Ares was the god of battles, Hermes was the messenger, Athena implanted wisdom in the minds of men, and Poseidon ruled the sea.  The gods were very human to the Greek mind, living in Olympus as men do upon earth, and even visiting the mortals.  Their worship involved propitiatory sacrifices and rites as well as thanksgiving offerings when favors were bestowed.  But although they were immortal, they did not allow the immortal souls of human beings to join them in their elysium, but compelled the disembodied shades to wander unhappily among the tombs and about their earthly abodes.