as superior. In all other cases, in the real action of the epic, he is
subordinate to Vishnu and Civa whenever he is compared with them. When
he is not compared he appears, of course, as the great old Father-god
who creates and foresees, but even here he is not untouched by
passion, he is not all-knowing, and his role as Creator is one that,
with the allotment of duties among the gods, does not make him the
highest god. All the old gods are great till greater appear on the
scene. There is scarcely a supreme Brahm[=a] in the epic itself, but
there is a great Brahm[=a], and a greater (older) than the sectarian
gods in the old Brahmanic legends, while the old Brahmanhood reasserts
itself sporadically in the C[=a]nti, etc, and tells how the sectarian
gods became supreme, how they quarrelled and laid the strife.

Since the adjustment of the relations between the persons of the later
trinity is one of the most important questions in the theology of the
completed epic, it will be necessary to go a little further afield and
see what the latest books, which hitherto we have refrained as much as
possible from citing, have to say on the subject. As it seems to be
true that it was felt necessary by the Civaite to offset the laud of
Vishnu by antithetic laud of Civa,[31] so after the completion of the
Book of Peace, itself a late addition to the epic, and one that is
markedly Vishnuitic, there was, before the Genealogy of Vishnu, an
antithetic Book of Law, which is as markedly Civaitic. In these books
one finds the climax of sectarianism, in so far as it is represented
by the epic; although in earlier books isolated passages of late
addition are sporadically to be found which have much the same nature.
Everywhere in these last additions Brahm[=a] is on a plane which is as
much lower than that of the Supreme God as it is higher than that of
Indra. Thus in viii. 33. 45, Indra takes refuge with Brahm[=a], but
Brahm[=a] turns for help to Civa (Bhava, Sth[=a]nu, Jishnu, etc.) with
a hymn sung by the gods and seers. Then comes a description of
Cankara's[32] (Civa's) war-car, with its metaphorical arms, where
Vishnu is the point of Civa's arrow (which consists of Vishnu, Soma,
Agni), and of this war-car Brahm[=a] himself is the charioteer (_ib._
34. 76). With customary inconsistency, however, when Civa wishes his
son to be exalted he prostrates himself before Brahm[=a], who then
gives this youth (_kum[=a]ra_), called K[=a]rtikeya, the 'gene