ON KRISHNA, AND SOLAR MYTHS. 159 
marking a deeper degradation of religious thought, though 
intending to picture the deity incarnate. A similar descrip- 
tion, though with much more detail, which I shall shortly 
notice, occurs in the ‘‘ Bhagavad- Gita, ” evidently the work 
of the same brain. It is well to observe that the whole history 
of Krishna is interpreted by the later scholiasts in a mystic 
sense—as, for instance, in the Gitaé-Govinda; and the figure 
here, however ancient may be the original legends of the war 
between the Pandavas and Kauravas, is of a distinctly 
modern character ; and by modern I mean later than—to take 
the earliest date—the third century of the Christian era. Mr. 
Talboys Wheeler’s inference, from studying the whole of 
Krishna’s connexion with the events related in the Maha- 
- bharata, is, I think, conclusive, that the Brahmans either 
introduced Krishna into the poem, or so modified his history 
as to exhibit him as divine for the furtherance of their own 
objects. Mr. Telang, who has translated the ‘‘ Bhagavad- 
Gita,” and some other episodes in the poem, for The Sacred 
Books of the Hast, holds a contrary opinion. Any one 
interested in this question should read Mr. 'Talboys Wheeler’s 
notes on the “ Mahabharata,” as well as Mr. Telang’s Intro- 
duction to the ‘‘ Bhagavad- Git.” A discussion of the many 
points raised would be out of the question in this paper. 
4. The Bhagavad-Giti, or the Divine Song, is the great 
episode of the Mahabharata, which describes the divine 
character of Krishna. I have already said that Krishna 
became the charioteer of Arjuna, the leader of the Pandavas 
against their cousins, the Kauravas. When the two armies 
are at last ranged in battle array, and the great warriors have 
sounded their conchs, and Arjuna has raised his bow, a 
strange pity suddenly takes possession of him. Addressing 
Krishna, as he contemplates “ fathers, grandfathers, pre- 
ceptors, uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, companions, 
fathers-in-law, and friends,”’ he says, “‘ seeing these kinsmen, 
O, Krishna, standing here desirous to engage in battle, my 
limbs droop down, my mouth is dried up, a tremor comes over 
my body, I do not perceive any good to accrue after killing 
my kinsmen in the battle.” He casts aside his bow, and 
arrows on the battle-field, and sits down in his chariot, his 
mind agitated by grief. Krishna then entreats him to “cast off 
his base weakness of heart,’’ and in the Bhagavad-Gita, or divine 
speech or song, seeks to strengthen his heart by religion. In 
this long poem, Krishna explains to Arjuna, with the ‘authority 
of Deity, his solution of the religious and philosophical pro- 
blems that were evidently debated at the time when the poem 
was written. Many of these are questions that entered into 
