as regards
eschatological conceptions. It is not so easy to refute an improbable
historical theory as it is to propound it, but, on the other hand, the
_onus probandi_ rests upon him that propounds it, and till now all
arguments on this point have resulted only in increasing the number of
unproved hypotheses, which the historian should mention and may then
dismiss.

The Northern dynasty that ruled in India in the sixth century seems to
have had a hand in spreading Iranian sun-worship beyond the Indus, but
we doubt whether the radical effect of this dominion and its belief
(it is described by Kosmas, an Egyptian traveller of the time) is as
great as has been claimed.[4]

From Greece, the Hindus received architectural designs, numismatic,
and perhaps a few literary hints, but they got thence neither
religious myths, nor, with the possible exception of the cult of the
later Love-god and fresh encouragement to phallic
-worship, new rites;[5] though they may have borrowed some fables, and
one even hears of a Buddhistic king endeavoring to buy a sophist of
Antiochus. But there is no ground for assuming philosophical influence
on Brahmanism.

Christianity came late into the religious life of India, and as a
doctrine made upon her no deep or lasting impression. Certain details
of Christian story have been woven into the legends of Krishna, and
some scholars believe that the monotheistic worshippers depicted in
the pseudo-epic were Christians. But in respect of the latter point it
is enough to say that this account of foreign belief had no new
monotheizing effect upon the pantheism of India; the strange
(unbrahmanic) god was simply accepted as Vishnu. Nor do we believe
that the faith-doctrine of Hindu sectarianism and the trinitarianism
of India were derived from Christian sources. But it must be admitted
to be historically possible that the creed of the Christians, known to
the Hindus of the sixth and seventh centuries, may have suggested to
the latter the idea of the trinity as a means of adjusting the claims
of Brahmanism, Krishnaism, and Civaism.[6]

But from the Mohammedan India has taken much, albeit
only in the last few centuries. When Alexander entered India there
were still two bodies of Indic people west of the Indus. But the trend
was eastward, as it had been for centuries, and the first inroad of
the Mohammedan had little further effect than to seize a land forsaken
by Aryans and given over to the hordes of the