with rival
tribes who contested the dominion of Northern India. They did not live
three thousand years before Christ, as our translator declares, for they
belonged to the soldier caste, and according to the consensus of
Oriental scholarship the system of caste did not exist till about the
beginning of the Brahmanic period--say eight hundred years before
Christ. Krishna was born in the Punjab, near Merut, and it was near
there that his chief exploits were performed. The legends represent him
as a genial but a reckless forester, brave on the battle-field, but
leading a life of low indulgence. The secret of his power lay in his
sympathy. His worship, even as a heroic demi-god, brought a new and
welcome element into Hinduism as contrasted with the remorselessness of
Siva or the cold indifference of Brahma. It was the dawn of a doctrine
of faith, and in this character it was probably of later date than the
rise of Buddhism. Indeed, the Brahmans learned this lesson of the value
of Divine sympathy from the Buddha. The supernatural element ascribed to
Krishna, as well as to Rama, was a growth, and had its origin in the
jealousy of the Brahmans toward the warrior caste. His exaltation as the
Supreme was an after-thought of the inventive Brahmans. As stated in a
former lecture, these heroes had acquired great renown; and their
exploits were the glory and delight of the dazzled populace. In raising
them to the rank of deities, and as such appropriating them as kindred
to the divine Brahmans, the shrewd priesthood saved the prestige of
their caste and aggrandized their system by a fully developed doctrine
of incarnations. Thus, by a growth of centuries, the Krishna cult
finally crowned the Hindu system.

The Mahabharata, in which the Bhagavad Gita was incorporated by some
author whose name is unknown, is an immense literary mosaic of two
hundred and twenty thousand lines. It is heterogeneous, grotesque,
inconsistent, and often contradictory--qualities which are scarcely
considered blemishes in Hindu literature.

The Bhagavad Gita was incorporated as a part of this great epic probably
as late as the second or third century of our era, and by that time
Krishna had come to be regarded as divine, though his full and
extravagant deification as the "Adorable One" probably did not appear
till the author of "Narada Pancharata" of the eighth century had added
whatever he thought the original author should have said five centuries
before.