Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/248

200 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY will directly succeed that of the Guptas, with its Sanskrit Literature and logic in Bengal. In order to pass from one type so highly evolved, however, into another which shall give the people an equal place in Humanity, it is necessary that the moral and ethical standards of the race shall grow, rather than relax, in strength and stability. The meeting line of periods is a time of winnowing and of judgment in the history of nations, and many are the souls to be scattered like chaff.

It is clear from many of the allusions in the life of Krishna, as told both in the Mahabharata and in the Puranas, that He directly, in most places, supersedes the Vedic gods. In the moment of his Ascension it is Indra who hymns Him. And already at Brindaban He has successfully preached the Law of Karma in opposition to Vedic sacrifice, and has succeeded in bringing Indra low in the ensuing contest. This new religion of Vishnu, indeed, like that of Shiva, belongs to a different class from that of the old nature-gods. The more modern are subjective. Their sphere is in the soul, and their power that of the highest ideals. Indra, Agni, Yama, and Varuna represented external forces, cosmic some of them, irresistible in their might by puny man, glorious, lovable, but not of. They were supremely objective.

The story of Nala and Damayanti, coming as it does out of the earlier Vedic period, has nevertheless had its conclusion modified by the Gupta