story, was the Evangelium Infantiæ1, an apocryphal writing known originally by the title of 'Gospel of St Thomas,' and, perhaps from a supposed connexion with him, circulated at an early period on the coast of Malabar. It is significant also that this gospel was already current among heretics, but reprobated by the Church herself, as early as the time of Irenæus, and was subsequently held in special honour by the followers of Mani3, and by other misbelievers like him; their object being, as we know, to blend the creed, the legends, and the institutes of paganism with some of the distinctive elements of supernatural religion. CHAP. mental between Christian But leaving all these questions, as we must do, Funda in comparative obscurity, it is important to observe differences that Krishnäism, when purged from all the lewd Krishnaand Bacchanalian adjuncts which disfigure and de- ism and base it, comes indefinitely short of Christianity. ity ; Regarded in its brighter aspect, it will prove that man is far from satisfied with the prevailing forms of nature-worship, and is struggling to become more conscious of the personality of God, and panting for complete communion with Him. It recognises the idea of God descending to the level of the fallen creature and becoming man. It 1 Printed in the Codex Apocryphus, ed. J. A. Fabricius, I. 127 sq. 2 Adversus Hæres. lib. I. c. 20, ed. Stieren. 3 See the 'Testimonia' collected by Fabricius, pp. 133, 136, 138, 140. In the decree of Pope Gelasius, De libris apocryphis, it is called 'Evangelium nomine Thoma apostoli, quo utuntur Manichæi.' 4 See Wilson's Vishnu Purána, p. 492, n. 3, where it is explained II. CHAP. welcomes Krishna as one realization of this great idea, as the hero who was sent to lighten many a burden of pain and misery under which the universe was groaning, as the teacher who alone could save mankind by pointing out a method of escape from the necessity of repeated births. These yearnings after something higher, purer, and more heavenly, are discernible at intervals amid the very sternest forms of pantheism; they bear witness, notwithstanding all the flagrant contradictions in the system with which they are connected, to a consciousness of moral guilt, as well as to a sense of physical evil; they give rise to the anticipation, that mankind will ultimately burst the trammels of their adversary and be reconciled to God. on the sub Incarna tion. Yet, on the other hand, the dogma of Hindus, ject of the when measured by a Christian standard, is but shadowy and unsatisfying. The most perfect incarnation of Vishnu, as found in Krishna, is docetic merely; it rather seems to be than is'. According to the theory of matter, which prevailed among his followers, the Divine and human could not truly come together, and could not permanently coexist. The one essentially excludes the other. Krishna, therefore, on going back to his celestial home, or, in the language of philosophy, on his reabsorption into the Great Spirit of the universe, entirely lays aside the perishable flesh, which he had once inhabited. He quits his human body; he abandons 'the condition of the three-fold qualities;' he unites himself with 'his own pure, spiritual, inexhaustible, inconceivable, unborn, undecaying, imperishable and 1 Dorner (Lehre von der Person Christi, 1. 7 sq. Stuttgart, 1845) has some excellent remarks on this point. II. universal spirit, which is one with Vásudeva'.' In CHAP. this respect, he differs altogether from the GodMan of the Christian Church, the Mediator in whom Divine and human are completely reconciled, the Meeting-point where earth and heaven, the finite and the Infinite, the personal and Absolute, have coalesced for ever, and are wedded in the bonds of an indissoluble union. And as one result of such imperfect and confused idea, it followed that the blessings said to have been brought by Krishna were not real and abiding: they could only last until the close of one particular age, or period, when the powers of evil, softened and repressed, but still, according to this view, incapable of subjugation, would break forth again with irresistible violence, and be everywhere triumphant. It is written in one of the Puránas: 'The day that Krishna shall have departed from the earth will be the first of the Kali age".' 1 Vishnu Pur. ed. Wilson, p. 612. The death of Krishna is here ascribed to a random shot of the hunter Jará (i.e. infirmity, old age, decay.) 2 Ibid. p. 487. In like manner it is stated (p. 486), 'As long as the earth was touched by his sacred feet, the Kali age could not affect it.' III. the human race. CHAPTER III. Real Correspondencies between Hinduism and 'Nulla porro falsa doctrina est, quæ non aliqua vera intermisceat.' ST AUGUSTINE. CHAP. IT has been shewn1 how various but converging arguments, for which we are indebted mainly Unity of to the light of modern science, have all tended to corroborate the scriptural narrative with reference to the common origin of men. Exactly therefore in proportion as this point has been established, it is likely that the different sections of the human family will preserve in their dispersion many an interesting fragment of primeval knowledge, and contribute to the reconstruction of primeval history. If all have radiated from one centre; if all inherit the same human faculties, and have been actuated by the same peculiar instincts, we shall be prepared to find, with local variations, and at different depths below the surface, many a link of that great chain which girdles the whole globe, and binds humanity together. Trans religious Proofs of common parentage may all indeed mission of have been obscured and weakened by a multiknowledge. tude of disuniting agencies, as climate, isolation, force of character, and the like. Two stories of the ancient world may in the process of trans 1 Part I. ch. II. mission have been blended into one. The names of persons may have been entirely lost or hopelessly corrupted. The scene of this or that catastrophe may have been altered for the gratification of individual caprice or national vanity. A race of simple shepherds, with none of the explicit guidance which is furnished by a written document, may have so magnified, embellished, and confused the stories and traditions of their ancestors, that all the ingenuity of modern criticism will prove unequal to the work of disentangling the historic from the mythic, and of weeding out the genuine from the false. Yet, notwithstanding these formidable obstructions, we are warranted, on the hypothesis of unity, in searching everywhere, as far as human steps have wandered, for remains of a substratum of primeval knowledge; confident that such remains had once extended on all sides with the extension of the human species, however much they are at present buried and corrupted, broken and displaced. And the tenacity with which the popular mind has ever clung to what is ancient and established, will further justify us in predicting that the many would retain their hold on the original traditions of the Indo-Aryan race, long after the philosopher had ceased to care about them, or provide a place for them in his new system of ethics and religion. CHAP. III. verence for Let us, then, inquire, as far as may be, whether Hindu resuch hints can be derived from any of the extant tradition. documents of India, and more particularly from one class of writings, the Puranic', which, as 1 It is true, as I have more than once observed, that the Puránas in their present form are thoroughly |