the very ground that it makes individual souls
originate from Vasudeva, in which case since they have an origin they
must also have an end. But Ramanuja in replying to this criticism
seems to depart from the older view, for he says that the Supreme
Being voluntarily abides in four forms which include the soul, mind
and the principle of individuality. This, if not Pantheism, is very
different from European monotheism.[480]

The history of these Bhagavatas, Pancaratras or worshippers of Vishnu
must have begun several centuries before our era, for there are
allusions to them in Panini and the Niddesa.[481] The names of
Vasudeva and Sankarshana occur in old inscriptions[482] and the Greek
Heliodoros calls himself a Bhagavata on the column found at Besnagar
and supposed to date from the first part of the second century B.C.

The Pancaratra was not Brahmanic in origin[483] and the form of the
Sankhya philosophy from which it borrowed was also un-Brahmanic. It
seems to have grown up in north-western India in the centuries when
Iranian influence was strong and may owe to Zoroastrianism the
doctrine of the Vyuhas which finds a parallel in the relation of Ahura
Mazda to Spenta Mainyu, his Holy Spirit, and in the Fravashis. It is
also remarkable that God is credited with six attributes comparable
with the six Amesha Spentas. In other ways the Pancaratra seems to
have some connection with late Buddhism. Though it lays little stress
on the worship of goddesses, yet all the Vyuhas and Avataras are
provided with Saktis, like the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of tantric
Buddhism, and in the period of quiescence which follows on the
dissolution of the Universe Vishnu is described under the name of
Sunya or the void. It attaches great importance to the _Cakra_, the
wheel or discus which denotes Vishnu's will to be,[484] to evolve and
maintain the universe, and it may have contributed some ideas to the
very late form of Buddhism called Kalacakra. This very word is used in
the Ahirbudhnya Samhita as the name of one of the many wheels engaged
in the work of evolution.

Though the Pancaratra is connected with Krishna in its origin, it
gives no prominence to devotion to him under that name as do modern
sects and it knows nothing of the pastoral Krishna.[485] It
recommends the worship of the four Vyuhas[486] presiding over the four
quarters in much the same way that late Buddhism adores the four Jinas
depicted in somewhat similar forms. Similar