ORIENTAL SERIES.

SIVA. 297
eternal, discernible and undiscernible, I am Brahma and I am
not Brahma." Again it is said, "He is the only Eudra, he is
L'ana, he is divine, he is "
Maheswara, he is Mahadeva." There
is only one Eudra, there is no place
for a second. He rules
this fourth world, controlling and productive ; living beings
abide with him, united with him. At the time of the end he
annihilates all worlds, the "
protector." He is without begin-
ning, middle, or end ; the one, the pervading, the spiritual and
blessed, the wonderful, the consort of TJmFi, the supreme lord,
the three-eyed, the blue-throated, the tranquil. ... He is
Brahma, he is /Siva, he is Indra; he is undecaying, supreme, self-
resplendent ; he is Vislwu, he is breath, he is the spirit, the
supreme lord ; he is all that hath been or that shall be, eternal.
Knowing him, a man overpasses death, There is no other way
to liberation." In the Eamayana $iva is a great god, but the
references to him have more of the idea of a personal god than
of a supreme divinity. He is represented as fighting with
Vislwu, and as receiving worship with Brahma, Vishnu, and
Indra, but he acknowledges the divinity of Kama, and holds a
less exalted position than Vishnu. The Maha-bharata also gives
Vislwu or Krishna the highest honour upon the whole. But it
has many passages in which /Siva occupies the supreme place,
and receives the homage and worship of Vishnu and Krishna.
" Maha-deva," it says, " is an all-pervading god yet is nowhere
seen ; he is the creator and the lord of Brahma, Vishnu, and
Indra, whom the gods, from Brahma to the Pisachas, worship."
The rival claims of /Siva and Vishnu to supremacy are clearly
and many of those powers and attributes
displayed in this poem ;
are ascribed to them which were afterwards so widely developed
in the Puranas. Attempts also are made to reconcile their conflicting
claims by representing /Siva and Vishnu, Siva and
Krishna, to be one, or, as it is expressed at a later time in the
Hari-vansa, there is " no difference between /Siva who exists in
the form of Vishnu, and Vishnu who exists in the form of /Siva.*
The Puranas distinctly assert the supremacy of their particular
divinity, whether it be /Siva or whether it be Vishnu, and they
have developed aixd amplified the myths and allusions of the
older writings into numberless legends and stories for the glori-
fication and honour of their favourite god.
The Eudra of the Vedas has developed in the course of ages