. The history of the devil and the idea of evil; from the earliest times to the present day . an illusion, a dream.* The polytheism of the popular Hinduismf is practi-cally a pantheism in which the various deities are re-garded as aspects of the One and All in which a dis-crimination between good and evil is entirely lost sightof. Thus the struggle between good and evil is contem-plated as a process of repeated God-incarnations madenecessary, according to the idea of the Brahmans, bj-the appearance of tyranny and injustice, lack of rever-ence for the priests, encroachments of the warrior caste
. The history of the devil and the idea of evil; from the earliest times to the present day . an illusion, a dream.* The polytheism of the popular Hinduismf is practi-cally a pantheism in which the various deities are re-garded as aspects of the One and All in which a dis-crimination between good and evil is entirely lost sightof. Thus the struggle between good and evil is contem-plated as a process of repeated God-incarnations madenecessary, according to the idea of the Brahmans, bj-the appearance of tyranny and injustice, lack of rever-ence for the priests, encroachments of the warrior caste * Pantism, the theory of the All (from ttHv, root IIANT), is different from Pan-theism, the theory which identifies the All (irav) with God (iStof). f Sir Monier-Monier Williams distinguishes between Brahmanism, the oldfaith of the Indian Aryas, and Hinduism, the modern form of this same religion,as it developed after the expulsion of Buddhism from India. BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM. 75 on the supremacy of the Brahmans, or some other dis-order. While the enemies of the gods—giants, demons,. (1 ^:Y<)!\\- iVitttt) a u 9 Q u ^W e^<^^^ ^ ^Wruty/rf Mr,,Jl., The Brahman Trimurti. Underneath the marks of the sects of Vishnu (1-12), Siva(13-30), RamE((36), Durga (31-32), and the Trimurti (33-35). (After Coleman.) and other monsters—are not radically bad, and cannot beregarded as devils in the sense of the Christian Satan, 76 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL. the Brahman gods in their turn are by no means the rep-resentatives of pure goodness. Not only do they fre-quently assume shapes that to the taste of any Westernnation would be exceedingly ugly and diabolical, but thesame deities who in one aspect are beneficent powers oflife, are in another respect demons of destruction. Brahm, the highest god of Brahmanism, represents the All, or the abstract idea ofbeing. He is conceived as atrinity which is called Tri-murti, consisting of Brahma,Vishnu,
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