are found in the Stan-gyour, or the second part of
the Tibetan canon, and in some of the late Tantras of the Nepalese
collection.]

Besides the plurality of gods, which was sure to lead to their
destruction, there was a taint of mortality which they could not throw
off. They all derived their being from the life of nature. The god who
represented the sun was liable, in the mythological language of
antiquity, to all the accidents which threatened the solar luminary.
Though he might rise in immortal youth in the morning, he was
conquered by the shadows of the night, and the powers of winter seemed
to overthrow his heavenly throne. There is nothing in nature free from
change, and the gods of nature fell under the thralldom of nature's
laws. The sun must set, and the solar gods and heroes must die. There
must be one God, there must be one unchanging Deity; this was the
silent conviction of the human mind. There are many gods, liable to
all the vicissitudes of life; this was everywhere the answer of
mythological religion.

It is curious to observe in how many various ways these two opposite
principles were kept for a time from open conflict, and how long the
heathen temples resisted the enemy which was slowly and imperceptibly
undermining their very foundations. In Greece this mortal element,
inherent in all gods, was eliminated to a great extent by the
conception of heroes. Whatever was too human in the ancient legends
told of Zeus and Apollon was transfered to so-called half-gods or
heroes, who were represented as the sons or favorites of the gods, and
who bore their fate under a slightly altered name. The twofold
character of Herakles as a god and as a hero is acknowledged even by
Herodotus, and some of his epithets would have been sufficient to
indicate his solar and originally divine character. But, in order to
make some of the legends told of the solar deity possible or
conceivable, it was necessary to represent Herakles as a more human
being, and to make him rise to the seat of the Immortals only after he
had endured toils and sufferings incompatible with the dignity of an
Olympian god. We find the same idea in Peru, only that there it led to
different results. A thinking, or, as he was called, a freethinking
Inca[69] remarked that this perpetual travelling of the sun was a sign
of servitude,[70] and he threw doubts upon the divine nature of such
an unquiet thing as that great luminary appeared to him to be. And
t