f the warriors vanquishes the hero-god of the priests,
and this hero-god of the warriors is then worshipped by common
consent as the greater divinity, but under priestly patronage. The
tenacity and vitality of the Brahmans enabled them ultimately to lead
the conqueror captive, and Ramacandra became a champion of Brahmanism
as much as Parasu-rama.

Very interesting too is the ninth avatara (to leave for a moment the
strict numerical order) or Buddha.[358] The reason assigned in
Brahmanic literature for Vishnu's appearance in this character is
that he wished to mislead the enemies of the gods by false teaching,
or that out of compassion for animals he preached the abolition of
Vedic sacrifices. Neither explanation is very plausible and it is
pretty clear that in the period when degenerate Buddhism offered no
objection to deification and mythology, the Brahmans sanctioned the
worship of the Buddha under their auspices. But they did so only in a
half-hearted way. The Buddha was so important a personage that he had
to be explained by the intervention, kindly or hostile, of a
deity.[359]

In his tenth incarnation or Kalki,[360] which has yet to take place,
Vishnu will appear as a Messiah, a conception possibly influenced by
Persian ideas. Here, where we are in the realm of pure imagination, we
see clearly what the signs of his avataras are supposed to be. His
mission is to sweep away the wicked and to ensure the triumph of the
pious, but he comes as a warrior and a horseman, not as a teacher, and
if he protects the good he does so by destroying evil. He has thus all
the attributes of a Kshatriya hero, and that is as a matter of fact
the real character of the two most important avataras to which we now
turn, Rama and Krishna.

Rama, often distinguished as Ramacandra, is usually treated as the
seventh incarnation and anterior to Krishna, for he was born in the
second age of this rapidly deteriorating world, whereas Krishna did
not appear until the third. But his deification is later than that of
Krishna and probably an imitation of it. He was the son of
Dasaratha, King of Ayodhya or Oudh, but was driven into banishment by
a palace intrigue. He married Sita, daughter of the King of Mithila.
She was carried off by Ravana, the demon tyrant of Ceylon, and Rama
re-captured her with the aid of Hanuman, King of the Monkeys, and his
hosts.[361] Is there any kernel of history in this story? An
examination of Hindu legends suggests t