1400), ending with the total expulsion of Buddhism, and the triumphant establishment of the Triad, as the worship of India.[79] Before this Triad or Trimurtti (of Brahma, Vischnu, and Siva) there seems to have been another, consisting of Agni, Indra, and Surya.[80] This may have given the hint of the second Triad, which distributed among the three gods the attributes of Creation, Destruction, and Renovation.

Of these Brahma, the Creator, ceased soon to be popular, and the worship of Siva and Vischnu as Krishna remain as the popular religion of India.
One part, and a very curious one, of the worship of Vischnu is the doctrine of the Avatars, or incarnations of that deity.

There are ten of these Avatars,--nine have passed and one is to come.

The object of Vischnu is, each time, to save the gods from destruction impending over them in consequence of the immense power acquired by some king, giant, or demon, by superior acts of austerity and piety.

For here, as elsewhere, extreme spiritualism is often divorced from morality; and so these extremely pious, spiritual, and self-denying giants are the most cruel and tyrannical monsters, who must be destroyed at all hazards.