Vishnu and Rudra are known even to the Rig Veda but as deities of no special eminence.  It is only after the Vedic age that they became, each for his own worshippers, undisputed Lords of the Universe.  A limiting date to the antiquity of Sivaism and Vishnuism, as their cults may be called, is furnished by Buddhist literature, at any rate for north-eastern India.  The Pali Pitakas frequently[334] introduce popular deities, but give no prominence to Vishnu and Siva.  They are apparently mentioned under the names of Venhu and Isana, but are not differentiated from a host of spirits now forgotten.  The Pitakas have no prejudices in the matter of deities and their object is to represent the most powerful of them as admitting their inferiority to the Buddha.  If Siva and Vishnu are not put forward in the same way as Brahma and Indra, the inference seems clear:  it had not occurred to anyone that they were particularly important.

The suttas of the Digha Nikaya in which these lists of deities occur were perhaps composed before 300 B.C.[335] About that date Megasthenes, the Greek envoy at Pataliputra, describes two Indian deities under the names of Dionysus and Herakles.  They are generally identified with Krishna and Siva.  It might be difficult to deduce this identity from an analysis of each description and different authorities have identified both Siva and Krishna with Dionysus, but the fact remains that a somewhat superficial foreign observer was impressed with the idea that the Hindus worshipped two great gods.  He would hardly have derived this idea from the Vedic pantheon, and it is not clear to what gods he can refer if not to Siva and Vishnu.  It thus seems probable that these two cults took shape about the fourth century B.C.  Their apparently sudden appearance is due to their popular character and to the absence of any record in art.  The statuary and carving of the Asokan period and immediately succeeding centuries is exclusively Buddhist.  No temples or images remain to illustrate the first growth of Hinduism (as the later form of Indian religion is commonly styled) out of the earlier Brahmanism.  Literature (on which we are dependent for our information) takes little account of the early career of popular gods before they win the recognition of the priesthood and aristocracy, but when that recognition is once obtained they appear in all their majesty and without any hint that their honours are recent.

As already mentioned, we have evidence that in the fifth or sixth century before Christ the Vedic or Brahmanic religion was not the only form of worship and philosophy in India.  There were popular deities and rites to which the Brahmans were not opposed and which they countenanced when it suited them.  What takes place in India to-day took place then.  When some aboriginal deity becomes important owing to the prosperity of the tribe or locality with which he is connected, he is recognized by the Brahmans and admitted to their pantheon, perhaps as the son