unication with and impartation of himself to humanity
through repeated _descents_ is here inculcated. And it is a
fundamental conception of Hinduism--a conception which differentiates
it essentially from the Christian religion.

From this remark of Krishna, who speaks here as the Supreme Being, one
would suppose that Hindu incarnations have been, and still are,
definitely intended to enhance human piety upon earth, and have been
such as to accomplish this purpose. As a matter of fact, the historic
or legendary incarnations of India, as they are now recorded in their
sacred books, have practically no ethical or spiritual content. I defy
any Hindu to take the narratives of these descents, as found in the
Puranas and other books, and show from them that there was anything
more than physical and social relief to men intended by them or
accomplished through them. I have yet to find, in those narratives,
the conception of human sin and moral depravity and of the purpose of
the incarnation to break the fetters of sin and to bring spiritual
light and moral beauty to those among whom it manifested itself. The
gulf which thus stands between the Hindu ideal of incarnation and the
real incarnations which are recorded in Hindu literature, including
that of Krishna himself, is wide and impassable. One has well said
that the incarnation of Krishna is an incarnation of lust, and the
record of his 16,100 wives and 180,000 sons is but a suggestion of the
correctness of this estimate. Even the incarnation of Buddha, which,
doubtless, is the highest and best among those incorporated into the
Hindu Pantheon, is expressly stated by Hindu authorities to be for
the purpose of deceiving and destroying the people.

When one begins to compare the picture of the Christian Incarnation
with that of any and of all those that occupy the Hindu mind, and fill
many volumes of Hindu literature, we pass from noon-day light into
Egyptian darkness.

2. The doctrine of _atma_, or the human self, or soul, is more in
accordance with the Sankya than the Vedantic school. The individual
soul is represented, not as a part of the Supreme Soul, which is the
distinct doctrine of the _Adwaitha_ philosophy, but as a separate
entity which is immutable and eternal. Listen to Krishna's argument to
Arjuna, in order to urge him into battle and to shed the blood of his
friends: "Learned men grieve not for the living nor the dead. Never
did I not exist, nor you, nor these r