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 Chap. II.]

HINDOO MYTHOLOGY.

31

avatar.

vidual among the myriads of his lovers that she possesses his heart and person a.d. without a rival. As he advances in years his amom-s become less frequent, and he performs many heroic exploits. Having overthrown the tyrant who had sought to destroy him at his birth, he mounts the throne, but is driven from it by foreign enemies, and retires to Dwarika in Gujerat. Here his alli- ance is courted b}^ the Pandus, who were contesting the sovereignty of Has- tinapur, supposed to have been situated to the north-east of Delhi, with their relations, the Gurus. This war, of which the MaJtahharata makes him the hero, having terminated in the triumph of the Pandus, he returns to his capital ; not, however, to spend the residue of his human life in peace : civil discord ensues, and though he outlives it, it is only to die by the arrow of a hunter who, shooting unawares in a thicket, wounded him in the foot. The licentiousness generally characteristic of Krishna's career, and the gross indelicacy with which his amovirs are described in poetry or embodied in sculpture, perliaps furnish the best explanation of the fact that he counts among his worshippers all the opu- lent and luxmious, all the women, and a very large proportion of all ranks of ^''nth Indian society. As a justification of the preference thus given him, it is often alleo-ed that while in other avatars Vishnu exhibited only a portion of his godhead, in that of Krishna all his fulness was displayed, without diminution of power or splendour.

Buddha, whose worship though now almost banished from India has spread over countries of far wider area, is usually ranked as the ninth avatar of Vishnu. This, however, is denied by the Budd- hists, who claim for the object of their worship a more ancient and loftier origin, and also by most of the Brahmins, who, regarding Buddhism as an abominable heresy, and hating it for its hostility to their domination as a caste, hold it impossible that there could ever have been any identity of form or purpose between Buddha and Vishnu. The tenth or Khalki avatar is only expected, and will not take place till the end of the call yuga, when Vishnu will appear in the form of a white horse to close the present order of things and Buddha, dissolve the existing universe preparatory to a new creation. The horse is represented holding up the foot of his right fore leg. When the catastrophe takes place he will give the signal for it by stamping with that foot on the ground. In concluding this account of Vishnu, it is necessary to prevent mis- apprehension by observing that, when his avatars are spoken of as ten, the meaning is, or should be, only that in that number are included all whose importance entitles them to special notice. In point of fact, as observed by

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Buddha.

From Moore's Hindoo Pantheon.