The most remarkable feature of this literature is its elaborate doctrine of evolution and emanation from the Deity, the world process being conceived in the usual Hindu fashion as an alternation of production and destruction.  A distinction is drawn between pure and gross creation.  What we commonly call the Universe is bounded by the shell of the cosmic egg and there are innumerable such eggs, each with its own heavens and its own tutelary deities such as Brahma and Siva who are sharply distinguished from Vishnu.  But beyond this multitude of worlds are more mysterious and spiritual spheres, the highest heaven or Vaikuntha wherein dwells God in his highest form (Para) with his Saktis,[472] certain archangels and liberated souls.  Evolution commences when at the end of the cosmic night the Sakti of Vishnu[473] is differentiated from her Lord and assumes the two forms of Force and Matter.[474] He as differentiated from her is Vasudeva a personal deity with six attributes[475] and is the first emanation, or Vyuha, of the ineffable godhead.  From him proceeds Sankarshana, from Sankarshana Pradyumna, and from Pradyumna Aniruddha.  These three Vyuhas take part in creation but also correspond to or preside over certain aspects of human personality, namely Sankarshana to the soul that animates all beings, Pradyumna to intelligence and Aniruddha to individuality.  Strange to say these seem to be the names of distinguished personages in the Sattvata or Vrishni clan.[476] Mere deification occurs in many countries but the transformation of heroes into metaphysical or psychological terms could hardly have happened outside India.  Next to the Vyuhas come twelve sub-Vyuhas, among whom is Narayana,[477] and thirty-nine Avataras.  All these beings are outside the cosmic eggs and our gross creation.  As a prelude to this last there takes place the evolution of the aggregates or sources from which individual souls and matter are drawn, of space and of time, and finally of the elements, the process as described seeming to follow an older form of the Sankhya philosophy than that known to us.  The task of human souls is to attain liberation, but though the language of the Samhitas is not entirely consistent, the older view is that they become like to God, not that they are absorbed in him.[478]

Thus it is not incorrect to say that the Bhagavata religion is monotheistic and recognizes a creator of souls.  Indeed Sankara[479] condemns it on the very ground that it makes individual souls originate from Vasudeva, in which case since they have an origin they must also have an end.  But Ramanuja in replying to this criticism seems to depart from the older view, for he says that the Supreme Being voluntarily abides in four forms which include the soul, mind and the principle of individuality.  This, if not Pantheism, is very different from European monotheism.[480]

The history of these Bhagavatas, Pancaratras or worshippers of Vishnu must have begun several centuries before our era, for there are allusions to them in Panini and the Niddesa.[481] The names of Vasudeva and Sankarshana occur in old inscriptions[482] and the Greek Heliodoros calls himself a Bhagavata on the column found at Besnagar and supposed to date from the first part of the second century B.C.