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366 and the annihilator of the whole aggregate of existences. While all men live in unrighteousness, I, the unfailing, build up the bulwark of righteousness, as the ages pass away." As such he is not generated by a father. He is the unborn,

The character of Rudra, thus said to be sprung from Krishna, is not more definite. As so produced, he is Time, and is declared by his father to be the offspring of his anger. But in the character of Mahadeva, Rudra is worshipped by Krishna, and the necessary explanation is that in so adoring him Krishna was only worshipping himself. Rudra, however, is also Narayana, and Siva the destroyer. There is no difference between Siva who exists in the form of Vishnu, and Vishnu who exists in the form of Siva, just as in the form of Hari and Hara Vishnu and Mahadeva are combined. " He who is Vishnu is Rudra ; he who is Rudra is Pitamaha (Brahma, the great father) ; the substance is one, the gods are three, Rudra, Vishnu, and Pitamaha. . . . Just as water thrown into water can be nothing else than water, so Vishnu entering into Rudra must possess the nature of Rudra. And just as fire entering into fire can be nothing else but fire, so Rudra entering into Vishnu must possess the nature of Vishnu. Rudra should be understood to possess the nature of fire : Vishnu is declared to possess the nature of Soma (the Moon) ; and the world, moveable and immoveable, possesses the nature of Agni and Soma."

It is the same with Rama, who is sometimes produced from the half of Vishnu's virile power, and sometimes addressed by Brahma as "the source of being and cause of destruction, Upendra and Mahen- dra, the younger and the elder Indra." He is Skambha, the sup- porter, and Trivikrama, the god of three strides. But the story of his wife Sita who is stolen away and recovered by Rama after the slaughter of Ravana runs parallel with that of Sarama and Pani, of Paris and Helen.

This cumbrous mysticism leads us further and further from the simpler conceptions of the oldest mythology, in which Rudra is scarcely more than an epithet, applied sometimes to Agni, sometimes to Mitra, Varuna, the Asvins, or the Maruts.

"Thou, Agni, art Rudra, the deity of the great sky. Thou art the host of the Maruts. Thou art lord of the sacrificial food. Thou, who hast a pleasant abode, movest onwards with the ruddy winds."