na. The great importance
attached to these two deities has been traced to the influence of
Buddhism. That system had exerted immense power in consequence of the
gentle and attractive character ascribed to Buddha. The older gods were
dim, distant, and often stern; some near, intelligible, and loving
divinity was longed for. Buddha was a brother-man, and yet a
quasi-deity; and hearts longing for sympathy and succor were strongly
attracted by such a personality.

[Sidenote: The god Rama.]
The character of Rama--or Ramachandra--is possessed of some high
qualities. The great poem in which it is described at fullest
length--the Ramayana of Valmiki--seems to have been an alteration, made
in the interests of Hinduism, of early Buddhist legends; and the
Buddhist quality of gentleness has not disappeared in the history.[25]
Rama, however, is far from a perfect character. His wife Sita is
possessed of much womanly grace and every wifely virtue; and the
sorrowful story of the warrior-god and his faithful spouse has appealed
to deep sympathies in the human breast. The worship of Rama has seldom,
if ever, degenerated into lasciviousness. In spite, however, of the
charm thrown around the life of Rama and Sita by the genius of Valmiki
and Tulsida,[26] it is Krishna, not Rama, that has attained the greatest
popularity among the "descents" of Vishnu.

[Sidenote: Krishna.
His early life a travesty of the life of Christ, according to
the Gospel of the Infancy.]
Very different morally from that of Rama is the character of Krishna.
While Rama is but a partial manifestation of divinity Krishna is a full
manifestation; yet what a manifestation! He is represented as full of
naughty tricks in his youth, although exercising the highest powers of
deity; and, when he grows up, his conduct is grossly immoral and
disgusting. It is most startling to think that this being is by grave
writers--like the authors of the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavata
Purana--made the highest of the gods, or, indeed, the only real God.
Stranger still, if possible, is the probability that the early life of
Krishna--in part, at least--is a dreadful travesty of the early life of
Christ, as given in the apocryphal gospels, especially the Gospel of the
Infancy. The falling off in the apocryphal gospels, when compared with
the canonical, is truly sad; but the falling off even from the
apocryphal ones, in the Hindu books, is altogether sickening.[27]

A very striking charact