ON KRISHNA, AND SOLAR MYTHs. 193 
not to destroy, but to fulfil the Law, or earlier revelation. It is 
just the case of the rebuilder of a ruined house using some of the 
old material. 
The ancient heathen systems are degradations of what was once 
the worship of God by Divine appointment, and cannot but contain 
some recognisable vestiges, degraded though perhaps the vestiges 
themselves may have become. In the same way, when a new 
revelation was added in confirmation and expansion of the old, 
its echoes may be expected to be found when they are properly 
sought for (as, for instance, they are found in the Koran), perhaps 
in wider tracks than even those traced by the inventors of Krishna’s 
and the embellishers of Buddha’s histories. A man who believes 
in the evolution of religions from man’s inner consciousness will 
not care to see this ; but for others, my own belief is that this light 
will become more and more evident. 
Iam not able to believe that the Hindu could sit down and 
deliberately think out a true antidote to some of the deepest 
religious needs of his nature, namely, a human manifestation of the 
Deity, all-comprehensive in his acceptance of those who should 
offer him the homage of entire acknowledgment, devotion, faith, 
and love; these are foundation-stones in Christ’s revelation of 
Himself ; and in their connexion with a human manifestation of 
God absolutely new to Hinduism, as, indeed, to the rest of the 
heathen world. The picture in itself would be perfect, were it not 
spoiled by the person of Krishna himself. However historical the 
original of Krishna may have been, he (the historical Krishna) did 
not shine as a thousand suns, or exhibit the universe tn his body, or 
go through the cities healing the infirm, raising the dead, restoring 
deformed women, receiving harlots on their confession of faith, and 
preaching forgiveness of sin to all who sought it from him, he himself 
the grossest picture the Hindu has ever drawn of human weakness 
and immorality. The beauties of the picture do not belong to it. 
They belong only to the perfect God-man. Even a knowledge, 
however supposed to have possibly reached the Hindu, of the 
previous prophecies as to the Messiah could not have suggested 
such individuality in the features of the picture. I cannot avoid 
the conviction that the original is only to be found in the veritable 
history of Christ. And on chronological grounds I fail, I confess, 
to see the difficulty that some express. In point of fact, there is, 
after much study by many minds, no reliable evidence for giving 
the Bhagavad-Gita an earlier date than that of a possible com- 
munication of the Christian story in India. So far as the argument 
founded on supposed quotations from the Gita in other early 
. 
