--not the neuter abstract Brahma, but the masculine Brahma, the
Demiurge, who corresponds more or less to Prajapati of the Brahmanas
and is represented in classical art as a four-headed old man reciting
the Vedas--and Krishna seems to figure only as a hero or at best as a
demigod; but the later parts with fine impartiality claim the
supremacy of heaven variously for Siva, Brahma, and Vishnu; and
Vishnu, as we have seen, is sometimes identified with Krishna, notably
in the chapters known as the Bhagavad-gita.

The gods have changed somewhat since earlier days. Indra has settled
down in the constitutional monarchy of Paradise assigned to him by
the Brahmanas; he now figures as the prototype of earthly kings,
leading the armies of the gods to war against the demons when occasion
requires, and passing the leisure of peace in the enjoyment of
celestial dissipation. His morals have not improved: he is a debonair
debauchee. Brahma the Creator, a more popular version of Prajapati, is
still too impersonal to have much hold on the popular imagination; the
same is the case with Agni the Fire-god. Plainly there was a vacancy
for a supreme deity whose character was powerful enough to move men's
souls, either through awe or love; and for this vacancy there were two
strong candidates, Vishnu and Siva, who in course of time succeeded to
the post and divided the supremacy between them.

Vishnu has altered immensely since last we met him. First, after an
extraordinary change in his own character, he has been identified with
Narayana, and then both of them have been equated with Krishna. The
development is so portentous that it calls for a little study.

We have seen that in the Vedas Vishnu appears to be, and in the
Brahmanas certainly is, the embodied Spirit of the Sacrifice, and that
ritual mysticism has invented for him a supreme home in the highest
heaven. But in the Epics he has developed into a radiant and gracious
figure of ideal divinity, an almighty saviour with a long record of
holy works for the salvation of mankind, a god who delights in moral
goodness as well as in ritual propriety, and who from time to time
incarnates himself in human or animal form so as to maintain the order
of righteousness. Symbolism has further endowed him with a consort,
the goddess Sri or Lakshmi, typifying fortune; sometimes also he is
represented with another wife, the Earth-goddess. The divine hawk or
kite Garuda, who seems to have been original