lack, or Sudra. The Brahman caste was above all these.

Concerning the origin of the Brahmans, it is related that "Manu was
created ... he, in turn created ten great sages, the ancestors of the
Brahmans. These created _seven_ other Manus or spiritual princes, the
preservers of moral orders in the world" (Goodyear). Pointing out that the
seven Manus evidently constituted a septarchy, let us now study the
Brahmanistic conception of a supreme divinity. From various authorities we
learn that, in later times "the Brahmans invented a new god, the
impersonal Brahma, who only appears in the youngest portion of the Vedas."
He is described as "the supreme One who alone exists really and
absolutely," and is represented with four heads and four arms, the idea of
four-fold power and rule being thus expressed. The proof that, at the same
time, the idea of duality existed, is furnished by the invention of a
female counterpart of Brahma, namely, his consort Sarawati and the later
development of the rival religions which now exist side by side and divide
the population of India into halves. The cult of Vishnu, associated with
the male principle, though curiously blended with the principle of
preservation, is obviously a parallel form of the American and Chinese
cult of the Above or Heaven; while that of Siva, or the female principle,
strongly mingled with the idea of destruction, forms a parallel to the
cult of the Earth-mother and of darkness and the nocturnal heaven. Brahma
was born of an egg and is also figured as springing from a lotus which, in
turn rises from the navel of Vishnu or Narayana, "the Spirit moving on the
waters."...(90)

In modern Buddhism the identical fundamental ideas continue to exist in a
slightly different form; the six directions in space are known and
elaborately worshipped. The embodiment of central power is Buddha, seated
cross-legged on a lotus flower. According to Birdwood, cited by Mr.
Goodyear, "In the Hindu cosmogony the world is likened to a lotus flower,
floating in the centre of a shallow circular vessel, which has for its
stalk an elephant and for its pedestal a tortoise. The seven petals of the
lotus flower represent the seven divisions of the world as known to the
ancient Hindus and the tabular torus (_Nelumbium speciosum_) which rises
from their centre represents Mount Meru, the Hindu Olympus."

In the statues of Buddha, thus associated with the centre of the world, we
have what may be termed th