1400 and 1470
and was somehow connected with the school of Ramanuja, preached
salvation through Rama to all castes and classes of Northern India,
with immense and enduring success. To his spiritual lineage belongs
Tulsi Das (1532-1623), whose Rama-charita-manasa, a poem in Eastern
Hindi on the story of Valmiki's Ramayana, has become the Bible of the
North. The same influences are visible in the poems of Kabir, a Moslem
by birth, who combined Hindu and Muhammadan doctrines into an eclectic
monotheism, and is worshipped as an incarnation of God by his sect. He
died in 1518. A kindred spirit was Nanak, the founder of the Sikh
church (1469-1538).[33]

[Footnote 32: The student may refer to Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's
_Vaisnavas and Saivas_ (in Buehler's _Grundriss_, p. 74 ff.,) J. N.
Farquhar's _Outline of the Relig. Liter. of India_, p. 234 f., 298
ff., and my _Heart of India_, p. 60 ff., for some details on these
poets.]

[Footnote 33: See Farquhar, _ut supra_, p. 323 ff.; _Heart of India_,
p. 49 f., etc.]

By the side of these upward movements there have been many which have
remained on the older level of the Bhagavata. The most important is
that of Visvambhara Misra, who is better known by his titles of
Chaitanya and Gauranga (1485-1533); he carried on a "revival" of
volcanic intensity in Bengal and Orissa, and the church founded by
him is still powerful, and worships him as an incarnation of Krishna.

IV. BRAHMA AND THE TRIMURTI

_Brahma_, the Creator, a masculine noun, must be carefully
distinguished from the neuter _Brahma_, the abstract First Being. The
latter comes first in the scale of existence, while the former appears
at some distance further on as the creator of the material world (see
above, p. 60 f.). In modern days Brahma has been completely eclipsed
by Vishnu and Siva and even by some minor deities, and has now only
four temples dedicated to his exclusive worship.[34] But there was a
time when he was a great god. In the older parts of the Mahabharata
and Ramayana he figures as one of the greater deities, perhaps the
greatest. But in the later portions of the epic he has shrunk into
comparative insignificance as compared to Vishnu and Siva, and
especially to Vishnu. This change faithfully reflects historical
facts. During the last four or five centuries of the millennium which
ended with the Christian era the orthodox Vedic religion of the
Brahmans had steadily lost ground, and the sects worshipping Vis