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holiness), and the like phrase in 177. 22: pratibuddho 'smi[59] Of especial importance is the shibboleth Nirv[=a]na which is often used in the epic. There seems, indeed, to be a subtile connection between Çivaism and Buddhism. Buddhism rejects pantheism, Çivaism is essentially monotheism. Both were really religions of the lower classes. It is true that the latter was affected and practiced by those of high rank, but its strength lay with the masses. Thus while Vishnuism appealed to the contemplative and philosophical (R[ra]maism), as well as to the easy-going middle classes (Krishinaism), Çivaism with its dirty asceticism, its orgies and Bacchanalian revels, its devils and horrors generally, although combined with a more ancient philosophy, appealed chiefly to the magic-monger and the vulgar. So it is that one finds, as one of his titles in the thirteenth book, that Çiva is 'the giver of Nirv[=a]na,' (xiii. 16. 15). But if one examines the use of this word in other parts of the epic he will see that it has not the true Buddhistic sense except in its literal physical application as when the nirv[=a][n.Ja (extinguishing) of a lamp, iv. 22. 22, is spoken of, or the nirv[=a[n.Ja of duties in the Pañcar[=a]tra 'Upanishad,' xii. 340. 67). On the other hand, in sections where the context shows that this must be the case, Nirv[=a]na is the equivalent of 'highest bliss' or 'highest brahma,' the same with the felicity thus named in older works. This, for instance, is the case in xii. 21. 17; 26. 16, where Nirv[=a]na cannot mean extinction but absorption, i.e., the 'blowing out of the individual flame (spirit) of life, only that it may become one with the universal spirit. In another passage it is directly equated with sukham brahma in the same way (ib. 189. 17). If now one turn to the employment of this word in the third book he will find the case to be the same. When the king reproaches his queen for her atheistic opinions in iii. 31. 26 he says that if there were no reward for good deeds hereafter "people would not seek Nirv[=a]na," just as he speaks of heaven ('immortality') and hell, ib. 20 and 19, not meaning thereby extinction but absorption. So after a description of that third heaven wherein is Vishnu, when one reads that Mudgala "attained that highest eternal bliss the sign of which is Nirv[=a]na" (iii. 261. 47), he can only suppose that the word means here absorption into brahma or union with Vishnu. In fact Nirv[=a]na is already a word of which the sense has been subjected to attrition enough to make it synonymous with 'bliss.' Thus "the gods attained Nirv[=a]na by
