306 THE IVYDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.
consistently, identified with Herakles) absorbed into himself all
the chief aboriginal deities as well as the Vedic Rudra and the
demons of the storm; Krishna, the dusky god of the setting
sun, was identified with Dionysos or Pan, and like Dionysos he
was not only a god of the underworld, but a god of procreation
and love, of song and dance. Under Brahmanical guidance
he became associated with the Aryan Vishnu, an obscure solar
deity, who absorbed all the vast nature-myths connected with
Krishna, leaving Krishna the rl61e of a popular hero and a god
of love. Under the wing of these great deities, by means of
numberless counterfeited avatdrs of Vishnu or forms of Siva,
all the aboriginal gods found shelter. Thus Neo-Hinduism
attempted to combine the monotheisms of Siva and Vishnu
with a vast polytheism, and these personal deities took the
place of the esoteric pantheism of the Vedas.
(b) The Vedic religion had ended in an elaborate sacrificial
system and a gnosis, both the property of the Brahmans. For
these the popular religions substituted worship and devotion,
and from the seventh century the Brihmanical sacrifices fell
into desuetude. But this involved a change in the position of
the Brghmans. They had hitherto been venerated for their
theosophy and thaumaturgy. Disdaining to be priests of the
plebeian gods, they were themselves venerated as divine.
Lastly, Neo-Hinduism created a vast popular literature, the
work of men of every class, and not confined to a circle of
savants or concealed in the obscurity of a learned language.
The great cyclic poems, the lakahzibAirata and the Raminyana,
together with the encyclopaedic Purtnas, popularized in oral
translations by reciters and dramatists, were the textbooks of
the new religion. The efficacy of pilgrimages and the cult of
the great rivers, especially the Ganges and the Jumna, were
equally potent in attracting the multitude.
History of The evolution of Neo-Hinduism as a religion was mainly the
caste in work of the Gupta period, but it was the uprush of aboriginal
the Middle
Ages.Midd and foreign elements which put a sudden end to the Vedic
mythology and the ancient sacrificial system. On the other
hand, the change which affected the nature of caste was the work
of the mediaeval period. The history of caste is very obscure
and much still remains in dispute, but the main outlines may be
sketched as follows. The original constitution of both Aryan
and Dravidian society was tribal; but while the Aryans were
exogamous and readily married the women they captured
even from the aborigines, the Dravidians were endogamous,
and although they married outside their village, yet they
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