confer a benefit upon the doer, because he has given him an opportunity of establishing a claim on heaven.

The theory of caste, which gives in some sense a Divine significance to the present order in which we live, raises questions at the same time as to the past and the future. How can we account for the startling differences which we recognise, and what will be their final issue? The answers

to these questions were found by a recurrence to the fundamental doctrine of being and appearance. All that truly is, is in the theoretic Hindu faith, divine all transitory appearances of things, all that falls under the senses, is a mere illusion, due to the selfwill of finite creatures. The happy end of the world will therefore be gained when each existence has cast off the cloak of vanity in which it has become enveloped. To this end souls are invested, from life to life, with material forms, as with prison-houses, in which they may be cleansed from the effects of the dimly-conceived declension from their original purity. The outward difference between man and brute and reptile image to the Hindu the inward differences of the souls which animate them. Hence all living creatures are looked upon as shewing stages in the purification of finite being. According to the nature of each life spent on earth

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the soul is supposed to receive after death an appropriate body for its next stage of existence. The myths of Plato will shew us how great an attraction this doctrine of transmigration exerts upon the imagination of men. At present I wish only to notice its general significance as an expression of an elementary religious consciousness. So far it seems to bear testimony to two great beliefs. It affirms the vital connexion of all the forms of animated being. It affirms a possible, if indefinitely distant, reunion of every isolated existence with the one absolute existence.

While these thoughts were taking shape, the popular theology was modified by corresponding changes. The Brahmanic conception of the Divine Being has risen before the minds of men in every age, but it cannot provide a resting-place for practical belief. We necessarily consider not only the origin of things, but also the actual constitution of things, the manifestations of Divine power. Hence the Indian mind found no rest in the abstract idea of the unity of Brahmâ. The various divine workings were gathered up by the Brahmanic teachers under their contrasted aspects of preservation and destruction; and these were assigned to distinct persons. Vishnu was the representative of the Divine Being as a Preserver,

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Siva the representative of the Divine Being as a Destroyer. And these three, Brahmâ, Vishnu and Siva, were regarded in the age of the epic poems as constituting a Trinity, Trimurti, three forms. As such however they were considered to be not three distinct beings, but three manifestations of one Being. Now one name and now the other was taken as the name of the One. 'Some 'worship Brahmâ,' it is said in one of the Puranas, 'others Vishnu, others Siva, but Vishnu, one yet 'threefold, creates, preserves, destroys; therefore 'let the pious make no difference between them.' Elsewhere each of the three is represented as subordinate to and even created by the One ineffable Supreme Being, the Great Soul, lest the conception of the Divine unity should be injured. So great thinkers argued: meanwhile Brahmâ, the Creator, the absolute God, almost passed out of the mind of the people. 'It is doubtful if he was ever worshipped, though the Brahma Purana 'speaks of his being adored at Pushkara near 'Ajmer, and it is said that he still receives 'some worship there.' The thoughts of struggling, suffering men were concentrated upon the deities of preservation and destruction, or Vishnu and Siva. And even these broad aspects of divine working failed to meet the actual wants of worshippers. These generalised deities were again

special Divinities.

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broken up into countless fragmentary powers, to whom some one portion or other of good or evil activity was assigned, and the Hindu pantheon was peopled as the old faith spread southward into the plains of Bengal, and came into contact with aboriginal creeds.

This multiplication of deities, or divine manifestations, springs out of and perpetuates one of the original characteristics of the earliest belief. In some regions of India, it has been said, 'every brook, every grove, every jutting rock has its divinity;' 'every institution, every pursuit, every power beneficent or maleficent is consecrated by a supernatural influence or presidency.' With these subordinate gods and popular beliefs of the 'Puranic' age, we have at present no concern, except so far as they witness to the impulse which drives men at all times to the specialities of saint-worship, to characterise the impulse by its noblest type; but there is one feature of the greatest interest in the general mode of representing the beneficent action of Vishnu which cannot be passed over. Vishnu, the Preserver, is described as coming among his creatures in Avataras-Descents or Incarnations, both for purposes of judgement and redemption. These Avataras are variously reckoned, but most commonly they are said to be ten, of which the

tenth is yet future. In each of the nine past Avataras Vishnu is said to have descended 'in a 'small portion of his essence,' taking the form of a fish, or a tortoise, or a boar, or a man-lion, or a dwarf, or a man, as the case might be. But most conspicuous among them is the Krishna-Avatara, in which Vishnu is said to have appeared in the form of a popular hero, Krishna. This legend of Krishna appears to have taken full shape first in the Bhagavad-Gita, an episode of the Mahabharata, and that possibly under Christian influences. None of its characteristic elements can be shewn to be earlier than the Christian era, and it has been argued from minute coincidences in detail that the framers of the story were not unacquainted with the Gospels. This is, however, very uncertain, and it must be enough to say that the idea of the Krishna-Avatara, in its most complete form, when divested of every unholy accessory, is essentially distinct from the Christian idea of the Incarnation. The assumption of humanity by Vishnu is in appearance only, and the human nature is wholly laid aside when Krishna, slain by a random shot of the hunter Jará (that is decay, old age), returns to the Great Being. Yet even so Krishnaism has been the strength of Hinduism. Again and again the belief in the most human manifestation of the Deity among his creatures which Hinduism ever