Great Indian Religion

Author(s): G T Bettany
Publisher: Ward Lock Bowden and Co

Page 86

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MODER.V HINDUISM. and Rama with the axe, we must pass over. The great
Rama, Ramachandra, or the inoon-like Rama, Rama. has been already referred to as the subject of the Ramayana. “Every man, woman, and child in India," says Sir Monier-Williams, probably with some exaggeration, “is familiar with Rama's exploits for the recovery of his wife, insomuch that a common phrase for an ignorant person is one who does not know that Sita was Rama's wife. From Kashmir to Cape Comorin the name of Rama is on every one's lips. All sects revere it, and show their reverence by employing it on all occasions. For example, when friends meet, it is common for them to salute each other by uttering Rama's name twice. No name is more commonly given to children, and no name more commonly invoked at funerals and in the hour of death. It is a link of union for all classes, castes, and creeds."
But Krishna is the most popular of all the incarnations of Vishnu, and is represented as manifesting his entire Krishna, the essence. He is especially the god of the lower
preserver. orders, having been brought up among cowherds and other peasants, with whom he constantly sported. A multitude of marvellous stories are told about him ; but it is evident from the history of Krishna literature and practices that he, like Rama, is a deified hero. Sir Monier-Williams identifies him as a powerful chief of the Yadava tribe of Rajputs in central India east of the Jumna, while the original of Rama was a son of a king of Oudh. So possible is it to trace gods adored by multitudes of human beings to the exaggeration and deification of heroic men.
Thus we shall be little surprised to find Buddha adopted as one of the incarnations of Vishnu. The BrahBuddha.
mans account for this by saying that Vishnu,
de in compassion for animals, descended as Buddha in order to discredit the Vedic sacrifices. The Brahmanical writers, says Wilkins, “ were far too shrewd to admit that one who could influence men as Buddha did could be other than an incarnation of deity; and as his influence was in favour of teaching opposed to their own,