OP CHRISTIANITY dPON OTHER RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 25 



tion of Vishnu, still maintains something of the same view, for 

 he says in his Hindi Eamayana : " The fool who, in the pride of 

 know^ledge, presumes to copy them [the gods], saying. It is the 

 same for a man as for a god, shall be cast into hell for as long as 

 the world lasts."* 



So, too, Manikka Yacakar says of Siva's manifestation of 

 himself in a somewhat similar manner, that all his appearances 

 are illusion. Whether he seems to be a groom, a coolie, or 

 something else, he is all the time the Great Deceiver," with 

 nothing real in the appearances. 



Perhaps one of the earliest dogmatic statements about the 

 manner and object of Vishnu's various Avataras is that con- 

 tained in the Bhagavad-Gita, where the god says : — f 



" For whenever, 0 son of Bharata, there occurs a decrease 

 of relioion, 



An uprising of irreligion, then I produce myself : 

 For the preservation of the pious and for the destruction of 

 evil-doers. 



For the establishment of reliction, I am born from asje to 

 age." 



Here again we see that there is a great and essential differ- 

 ence between the Hindu Avatara and the Christian Incarnation 

 doctrine. But there is sufficient resemblance to warrant the 

 conclusion that, though the former is not derived directly from 

 Christian teaching, yet its development has been steadily 

 carried on in such a way as to approach nearer and nearer 

 to the Christian doctrine, though without ever coinciding with 

 it. Tulasi-Das's near approach to monotheism in his devotion 

 to Eama, whom he endeavours to depict as in part divine and in 

 part human, shows at once how deeply the Indian mind feels 

 the need of an Incarnation, and how completely the Avatara 

 theory fails to satisfy that natural human yearning for personal 

 knowledge of, and communion with, the Living God. 



In the legends about Krishna — at least in their late Puranic 

 form — clear traces of Christian influence are evident. When 

 Krishna first appears in Sanskrit literature, in the Chandogya 

 Upanishad,J there is nothing either divine or mysterious about 

 him. In the later parts of the Bhagavad-Gita he is depicted as 

 an Avatara of Vishnu, but nothing is related of him which in 



^ Farquhar, pp. 394, 395. 

 + Book IV, sll. 7, 8. 

 + Book III, § 17, 6. 



