Page:Hindu Gods and Heroes.djvu/68

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66
BRĀHMAṆAS AND UPANISHADS

they are endeavouring to find for him a corresponding place in their intellects. To this end they claim that Siva as Īśvara is the highest of all forms of existence; and this doctrine is growing and finding much favour. Among the Aupanishadas there are many who reconcile it with the teaching of the Upanishads by identifying Śiva with Brahma. Thus a new light begins to flicker here and there in the Upanishads as the conception of Śiva, a personal god wielding free grace, colours the pale whiteness of the impersonal Brahma; and at last in the Śvētāśvatara, which though rather late in date is not the least important of the Upanishads, this theistic movement boldly proclaims itself: the supreme Brahma, identified with Śiva, is definitely contrasted with the individual soul as divine to human, giver of grace to receiver of grace. Later Upanishads will take up this strain, in honour of Śiva and other gods, and finally they will end as mere tracts of this or that theistic church.

Yet another current is now beginning to stir men's minds, and it is one that is also destined to a great future. It starts from Kṛishṇa.

The teaching of the Upanishads, that all being is the One Brahma and that Brahma is the same as the individual soul, has busied many men, not only Brahmans but also Kshatriyas, noblemen of the warrior order. Some even say that