radition alleges that he was
the _rishi_, or inspired seer, who composed the Purusha-sukta of the
Rig-veda (X. 90), and represents him by choice as lying in a
_yoga-nidra_, or mystic sleep, upon the body of the giant serpent
Sesha in the midst of the Ocean of Milk. Thus the worship of Vishnu,
like the worship of Siva, has owed much to the influence of live yogis
idealised as divine saints; though it must be admitted that the yogis
of the Vaishnava orders have usually been more agreeable and less
ambiguous than those of the Saiva community.

We must briefly consider now the religious teachings of the
Bhagavad-gita and the Narayaniya, and then turn to the inscriptions
and contemporary literature to see whether we can find any sidelights
in them. We begin with the Bhagavad-gita, or The Lord's Song.

The Bhagavad-gita purports to be a dialogue between the Pandava prince
Arjuna and Krishna, who was serving him as his charioteer, on the eve
of the great battle. In order to invent a leading motive for his
teaching, the poet represents Arjuna as suddenly stricken with
overwhelming remorse at the prospect of the fratricidal strife which
he is about to begin. "I will not fight," he cries in anguish. Then
Krishna begins a long series of arguments to stimulate him for the
coming battle. He points out, with quotations from the Upanishads,
that killing men in battle does not destroy their souls; for the soul
is indestructible, migrating from body to body according to its own
deserts. The duty of the man born in the Warrior-caste is to fight;
fighting is his caste-duty, his _dharma_, and as such it can entail
upon him no guilt if it be performed in the right spirit. But how is
this to be done? The answer is the leading motive of Krishna's
teaching. For the maintenance of the world it is necessary that men
should do the works of their respective castes, and these works do not
operate as _karma_ to the detriment of the future life of their souls
if they perform them not from selfish motives but as offerings made in
perfect unselfishness to the Lord. This is the doctrine of
_Karma-yoga_, discipline of works, which is declared to lead the soul
of the worshipper to salvation in the Lord as effectually as the
ancient intellectualism preached in the Upanishads and the Samkhya
philosophy. But there is also a third way to salvation, the way
through loving devotion, or _bhakti_, which is as efficacious as
either of the other two; the worshipp