2f22 THE TEMPLES OF CHATAPUR
more of human nature, they learned the use of
compromise. Powerless before the dark hordes of
aborigines faithful for the most part to their multi-
farious jungle pantheon, they acted as the hierarchs
of all successful religions have ever acted ; since they
could not oust the older gods, they took them over.
Little by little they incorporated all the primitive
cults in an eclectic orthodoxy. They treated the
three predominant religions—Brahmanism, Vishnu-
ism and Sivaism—as three aspects of a single
revelation, and adored Brahma, Vishnu and Siva
as three persons of a trinity. Thus Brahmanism,
originally founded on the Vedas, with the slow
process of the centuries, developed into the synthetic
faith that was thereafter known as Hinduism.
Even in its ascendency Buddhism had never been
more than a philosophic creed, appreciated only by
an intellectual ttitt and maintained in an unstable
equilibrium that was steadily yielding to the up-
thrust of Brahminic elements. Now on its ruins, in
the eighth century of our era, was established the
vast edifice of Hinduism, foursquare, impregnable.
The ingenious device by which the Brahmins
adjusted to their canon a host of diverse cults had
curious consequences. To justify the syncretism at
which they aimed, they laid it down that at certain
epochs, for the salvation of the world, each person
of the trinity took it on himself to descend on
earth in human form and manifest himself in
various guises. And thus the priests accounted for
the aboriginal deities by styling them the avatars of
one or other member of the Hindu Three. More-
over, since each person of the trinity was infinite
and as such might have an unHrnited number of
avatars, the number of gods capable of being thus
accounted for was likewise infinite. The cults,