It was in accordance with the general course of Hindu mythology CHAP.
that the greatness of Rudra, who is sometimes regarded as self-
existent, should be obscured by that of his children.
The two opposite conceptions, which exhibit Herakles in one aspect as a self-sacrificing and unselfish hero, in another as the sensual voluptuary, are brought before us with singular prominence in the two aspects of Krishna's character. The being who in the one is filled with divine wisdom and love, who offers up a sacrifice which he alone can make, who bids his friend Arjuna look upon him as sustaining all worlds by his inherent life, is in the other a being not much more lofty or pure than Aphrodite or Adonis. If, like the legends of the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, the myth seems to lend itself with singular exactness to an astronomical interpretation, it also links itself with many stories of other Aryan gods or heroes, and thus throws on them a light all the more valuable from the independent develope- ' ments of these several myths from a common germ. Thus if Pausanias speaks of Dionysos Antheus, Krishna also is Vanamali, the flower-crowned. If Herakles smites Antaios, Krishna overthrows the giant Madhu, and the cruel tyrant of Madura. Like Oidipous, Romulus, Perseus, Cyrus, and others, he is one of the fatal children, born to be the ruin of their sires ; and the king of Madura, like Laios, is terrified by the prediction that his sister's son shall deprive him of his throne and his life. It is but the myth of Kronos and Zeus in another form. The desire of Kamsa is to slay his sister, but her husband promises to deliver all her children into the hands of the tyrant But although six infants were thus placed in his power and slain, he shut up the beautiful Devaki and her husband in a dungeon ; and when the seventh child was about to be born, Devaki prays, like Rhea, that this one at least may be spared. In answer to her entreaty, Bhavani, who shields the newly-born children, comes to comfort her, and taking the babe brings it to the house of Nanda, to whom a son, Balarama, had been born. When Devaki was to become for the eighth time a mother, Kamsa was again eager to destroy the child. As the hour drew near, the mother became more beautiful, her form more brilliant, while the dungeon was filled with a heavenly light as when Zeus came to Danae in a golden shower, and the air was filled with a heavenly harmony as the chorus of the gods, with Brahma and Siva at their head, poured forth their gladness in song.^ All these marvels (which the Bhagavata Purana assigns to the
- This song would of itself suffice to names, denotes the mere conception of
prove how thoroughly Krishna, like the One True God, who is but feebly Dyu, Indra, Varuna, Agni, or any other shadowed forth under these titles and
