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A Series of Lessons on the Inner Teachings of the Philosophies and Religions of India1302
thereby increasing his ardent, fiery, warlike character, which made him so
popular among the earlier warlike Hindu people.
There were thirty-three popular and celebrated gods in the early Hindu
Pantheon, with innumerable demi-gods, minor gods, and demons, and
lesser nature-spirits, many of which resembled the godlings of the ancient
Greeks, having arisen from the same source, i.e. the personification of
natural principles, etc. Among these was the well known Yama, the “God-of-
Death,” who was held to be the first man who died, and who thus assumed
god-hood. There began to be noticed a peculiar tendency to blend the
conceptions of two or more gods into one, and to exchange properties or
characters between separate gods. This tendency increased and developed,
until finally the distinctions between the several gods began to grow misty,
and the people began to regard them all as appearances or personifications
of some one Deity, and the fundamental ideas and conceptions of Hindu
Pantheism began to assume more definite and much clearer shape and form.
* * *
As time rolled on, the minor deities were lost sight of, and many survived
only in name. The, Brahmins, or priestly caste, assumed a still greater control,
and impressed its teachings upon the people, shaping the popular belief
more into a set system, and unifying its conceptions. As the Pantheistic idea
developed, the nature and duties of the gods changed. Indra lost much of
his terrifying power, and became the King of the After-World—the realm
of the gods. Varuna became the Lord of the Ocean, and so on, many of
the minor-gods being merged into the greater ones, as the race-conception
moved toward Pantheism.
Gradually the idea of Brahman, the Supreme Self, of the Universe, began
to gain immense headway in India, among the masses, as it had long before
been held as truth by the philosophers and priests. And, accordingly
the god Brahma, a personification of the Brahman, began to attain great
popularity. Brahma was regarded as the Creative Deity, akin to the Greek
Demiurge or divine agent of the Supreme Being employed to create the