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end of the age thou returnest all things into thyself. At the beginning of the age Brahms=a] was born from thy lotus-navel as the venerable preceptor of all things (the same epithet is in vs. 22 applied to Vishnu himself); and Çiva sprang from thy angry forehead when the demons would kill him (Brahm[=a]); both are born of thee, in whom is the universe." The following verses (45 ff.) are like those of the Divine Song: "Thou, Knight Arjuna, art the soul of Krishna; thou art mine alone and thine alone am 1; they that are mine are thine; he that hates thee hates Me, and he that is for thee, is for Me; thou art Nara ('man') and I am N[=a]r[=a]yana ('whose home is on the waters,' god);[35] we are the same, there is no difference between us." Again, like the Divine Song in the following verses (51-54) is the expression the sacrifice and he that sacrifices,' etc, together with the statement that Vishnu plays 'like a boy with playthings,' with the crowds of gods, Brahm[=a), Çiva, Indra, etc. The passage opposed to this, and to other identifications of Vishnu with many gods, is one of the most flagrant interpolations in the epic. If there be anything that the Supreme God in Civaite or Vishnuite form does not do it is to extol at length, without obvious reason, his rivals' acts and incarnations, Yet in this clumsy passage just such an extended laudation of Vishnu is put into the mouth of Çiva. In fact, iii. 272, from 30 to 76, is an interpretation of the most naïve sort, and it is here that we find the approach to the later trim[=u]rti (trinity): "Having the form of Brahm[=a] he creates; having a human body (as Krishna) he protects, in the nature of Çiva he would destroy—these are the three appearances or conditions (avasth[=a]s) of the Father-god". (Praj[=a]pati).[36] This comes after an account of the four-faced lotusborn Brahm[=a], who, seeing the world a void, emitted his sons, the seers, mind-born, like to himself (now nine in number), who in turn begot all beings, including men (vss. 44-47). If, on the other hand, one take the later sectarian account of Vishnu (for the above is more in honor of Krishna the man-god than of Vishnu, the form of the Supreme God), he will see that even in the pseudo-epic the summit of the theological conceptions is the emphasis not of trinity or of multifariousness but of unity. According to the text the P[=añcak[=a]lajñas are the same with the Vishnuite sect called P[=ajñcar[=a]tras, and these are most emphatically ek[=a]ntinas, i.e., Unitarians (xii. 336; 337. 46; 339. 6667).[37] In this same passage 341. 106, Vishnu is again caturm[=uJrtidh[r.Jt, 'the bearer
