eliverer,"
"renewer of life," "who sets in motion the revolutions of time," "a
protector," "preserving the highest heaven." Evidently he begins his
career in this mythology as the sun.

BRAHMA, at first a word meaning prayer and devotion, becomes in the laws
of Manu the primal God, first-born of the creation, from the self-existent
being, in the form of a golden egg. He became the creator of all things by
the power of prayer. In the struggle for ascendency which took place
between the priests and the warriors, Brahma naturally became the deity of
the former. But, meantime, as we have seen, the worship of Vischnu had
been extending itself in one region and that of Siva in another. Then took
place those mysterious wars between the kings of the Solar and Lunar
races, of which the great epics contain all that we know. And at the close
of these wars a compromise was apparently accepted, by which Brahma,
Vischnu, and Siva were united in one supreme God, as creator, preserver,
and destroyer, all in one.

It is almost certain that this Hindoo Triad was the result of an ingenious
and successful attempt, on the part of the Brahmans, to unite all classes
of worshippers in India against the Buddhists. In this sense the Brahmans
edited anew the Mahabharata, inserting in that epic passages extolling
Vischnu in the form of Krishna. The Greek accounts of India which followed
the invasion of Alexander speak of the worship of Hercules as prevalent
in the East, and by Hercules they apparently mean the god Krishna.[78]
The struggle between the Brahmans and Buddhists lasted during nine
centuries (from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1400), ending with the total expulsion of
Buddhism, and the triumphant establishment of the Triad, as the worship of
India.[79]

Before this Triad or Trimurtti (of Brahma, Vischnu, and Siva) there seems
to have been another, consisting of Agni, Indra, and Surya.[80] This may
have given the hint of the second Triad, which distributed among the three
gods the attributes of Creation, Destruction, and Renovation. Of these
Brahma, the Creator, ceased soon to be popular, and the worship of Siva
and Vischnu as Krishna remain as the popular religion of India.

One part, and a very curious one, of the worship of Vischnu is the
doctrine of the Avatars, or incarnations of that deity. There are ten of
these Avatars,--nine have passed and one is to come. The object of Vischnu
is, each time, to save the gods from destruction impending ov