lling of his share in
the Great War as ally of the five Pandava brethren. Both cycles
represented him as supported by princely heroes. The Mathura-Dvaraka
legend gave him his brother Bala-bhadra or Samkarshana, his son
Pradyumna, and his grandson Aniruddha, whom theologians about the
beginning of the Christian era fitted into their philosophical schemes
by representing them as successive emanations from him; and the
Mahabharata furnished him with the Pandavas, whose heroic tale soon
created for them a worship everywhere. As we have seen, there were
adorers of Arjuna already in the fifth century B.C.; and in the first
century B.C. there seems to be evidence for a worship of all the five
together with Vasudeva, for an inscription has been found at Mora
which apparently mentions a son of the great Satrap Rajuvula,
probably the well-known Satrap Sodasa, and an image of the "Lord
Vrishni," probably Vasudeva, and of the "Five Warriors."[28] Already
the poets of the Mahabharata have taken the first step towards the
deification of the Pandavas by finding divine fathers for each of
them, making Yudhishthira the son of Dharma or Yama, the god of the
nether world, Arjuna son of Indra, Bhima son of Vayu the Wind-god, and
Nakula and Sahadeva offspring of the Asvins. Hundreds of caverns
throughout India are declared by popular legend to have been their
dwellings during their wanderings; and a noble monument to their
memory has been raised by one of the great Pallava kings of Conjevaram
who in the seventh century A.D. carved out of the solid rock on the
seashore at Mamallapuram the fine chapels that bear their names.
Doubtless all these heroes from both cycles were once worshipped in
the usual manner, with offerings of food, incense, lights, flowers,
etc., and singing of hymns on their exploits--chiefly in connection
with Vasudeva; but all this worship is now utterly forgotten, except
where echoes of it linger in popular legend.

[Footnote 28: R. Chandra, _ut supra_, p. 165 f.]

Our survey of the religion of Vasudeva has brought us down to a date
which cannot indeed be exactly fixed, but which may be placed
approximately in the second century of our era. This religion, as we
have seen, arose and grew great in the fertile soil of the spiritual
needs and experiences of India. It began by moulding a personal God
out of ancient figures of myth and legend, and it surrounded him with
a hierarchy of godly heroes. Though its doctrines were