ch
was not to be disregarded. It had demonstrated one thing which had never
been recognized before, and that was the need of a more human and
sympathetic element in the divine objects of worship. Men were weary of
worshipping gods who had no kindly interest in humanity. They were weary
of a religion which had no other element than that of fear or of
bargaining with costly sacrifices. They longed for something which had
the quality of mercy. Buddha had demonstrated the value of this element,
and by an adroit stroke of policy the Brahmans adopted Gautama as the
ninth avatar of Vishnu. Meanwhile they adopted the heroic Krishna as the
god of sympathy--the favorite of the lower masses who were not too
critical toward his vices.

We have now reached the fully developed form of _Hinduism_.[59] The
Brahmans had embraced every element that could give strength to their
broad, eclectic, and all-embracing system.[60] The doctrine of the
Trimurti had become a strong factor, as it furnished a sort of
framework, and gave stability. As compared with the early Aryanism, it
removed the idea of deity from merely natural forces to that of abstract
thoughts, principles, and emotions, as active and potent in the world.
At the same time it retained the old Vedic deities under new names and
with new functions, and it did not abate its professed regard for Vedic
authority. The Brahmans had rendered their system popular in a sense
with the intellectual classes by adopting all the philosophies. They had
stopped the mouth of Buddhist protest by embracing the Buddha among
their incarnations. They had shown an advance in the succession of
incarnations from the early embodiments of brute force, the fish, the
tortoise, the boar, up to heroes, and from these to the ninth avatar,
the Buddha, as a moralist and philosopher.[61] They left on record the
prediction that a tenth should come--and he is yet to come--who, in a
still higher range of moral and spiritual power, should redeem and
renovate the earth, and establish a kingdom of righteousness.

Meanwhile, in this renaissance of the Hindu faith, this wide, politic,
self-adapting system, we find not only Buddhism, Philosophy, the early
Aryanism, and the stiff cultus of Brahmanism, but there is also a large
infusion of the original superstitions of the Dravidians, Kohls,
Santals, and other nature worshippers of the hill tribes. Much of the
polytheism of the modern Hindus--the worship of hills, trees, ape