te Cvet[=a]cvatara Upanishad
Civa is pantheistic, yet is he not so in the epic till some of the
latest passages make him the All, in imitation of Krishna as All-god.
Probably Civaism remained by the first philosophy, Sankhyan dualism,
and was forced into Krishna's Vedantic pantheism, as this became
popular. At first neither was more than a single great god without any
philosophy.[68]

In one of the early exegetical works, which is occupied somewhat with
philosophical matter, there is evidence that a triad existed between
the Vedic triad of fires and the Puranic triad. Fire, Wind (or Indra),
and the Sun (S[=u]rya), are stated in a famous passage to be the only
real gods, all the others being but names of these. But, although in
form this triad (Nirukta, vii. 4, 5) is like the Vedic triad,[69] it
is essentially a triad in a pantheistic system like that of the epic
and Pur[=a]nas, for it is added that "all the gods are parts of one
soul." In explanation it is said: "Fire is the earth-god, Wind, or
Indra, is the god of the atmosphere, and the sun is the god of the
sky." Now in the Rig Veda Indra is closely united not only with Agni
but with Vishnu, albeit in this period Vishnu is his subordinate. The
nearest approach of this Vishnu to his classical descendant is in one
of the latest hymns of the Rig Veda, where it is said that the seven
seeds of creation are Vishnu's, as in later times he comprises seven
males. In the philosophy of the T[=a]ittir[=i]ya Samhit[=a] the three
places of Vishnu are not, as in the Rig Veda, the two points of the
horizon (where the sun sets) and the zenith, but 'earth, air, and
sky.'[70] That is to say, in the Brahmanic period Vishnu is already a
greater god than he had been. Nay, more, he is explicitly declared to
be
"the best of the gods."[71] That best means greatest may be shown from
the same work, where in savage fable it is recited that all the gods,
including Indra, ran up to him to get his strength.[72] But especially
in the Upanishads is Vishnu the one great god left from the Rig Veda.
And it is with the philosophical (not with the ritualistic) Vishnu
that Krishna is equated.

Of Civa, on the other hand, the prototype is Rudra ('red'), his
constant sobriquet. In the Rig Veda he is the god of red lightning,
who is the father of the Maruts, the storm-gods. His attributes of a
fulgurant god are never lost. Even as Civa the All-god he is still the
god of the blue neck, whose three-forked t