e soul of action, the unmoved one; and he that knows
Civa as the self of self, as the unknowable one, goes to
_brahma_-bliss. This also is late Civaism in pantheistic form. In
other words, everything said of Vishnu must be repeated for Civa.[26]

As an example of the position of the lowest member of the later
trinity and his very subordinate place, may be cited a passage from
the preceding book of the epic. According to the story in vi. 65. 42
ff., the seers were all engaged in worshipping Brahm[=a], as the
highest divinity they knew, when he suddenly began to worship "the
Person (Spirit), the highest Lord"; and Brahm[=a] then lauds Vishnu as
such: "Thou art the god of the universe, the All-god, V[=a]sudeva
(Krishna). Therefore I worship thee as the divinity; thou, whose soul
is devotion. Victory to thee, great god of all; thou takest
satisfaction in that which benefits the world.... Lord of lords of
all, thou out of whose navel springs the lotus, and whose eyes are
large; Lord of the things that were, that are, that are to be; O dear
one, self-born of the self-born ... O great snake, O boar,[27] O thou
the first one, thou who dwellest in all, endless one, known as
_brahma_, everlasting origin of all beings ... destroyer of the
worlds! Thy feet are the earth ... heaven is thy head ... I,
Brahm[=a], am thy form ... Sun and moon are thy eyes ... Gods and all
beings were by me created on earth, but they owe their origin to thy
goodness." Then the creation of Vishnu through Pradyumna as a form of
the deity is described, "and Vishnu (Aniruddha) created me, Brahm[=a],
the upholder of the worlds; so am I made of Vishnu; I am caused only
by thee."

While Brahm[=a] is represented here as identical with Vishnu he is at
the same time a distinctly inferior personality, created by Vishnu for
the purpose of creating worlds, a factor of inferior godliness to that
of the World-Spirit, Krishna-Vishnu.

It had been stated by Holtzmann[28] that Brahm[=a] sometimes appears
in the epic as a god superior to Vishnu, and on the strength of this
L. von Schroeder has put the date of the early epic between the
seventh and fourth centuries B.C, because at that time Brahm[=a] was
the chief god.[29] von Schroeder rather exaggerates Holtzmann's
results, and asserts that "in the original form of the poem Brahm[=a]
appears _throughout_ as the highest and most revered god, while the
worship of Vishnu and Civa as great gods is apparently a later
intr