We shall now see, in the words of Bishop Hawes: "that God should, in some extraordinary manner, visit and dwell with man, is an idea which, as we read the writings of the _ancient Heathens_, meets us in a thousand different forms."
Immaculate conceptions and celestial descents were so currently received among the ancients, that whoever had greatly distinguished himself in the affairs of men was thought to be of supernatural lineage. Gods descended from heaven and were made incarnate in men, and men ascended from earth, and took their seat among the gods, so that these incarnations and apotheosises were fast filling Olympus with divinities.
In our inquiries on this subject we shall turn first to _Asia_, where, as the learned Thomas Maurice remarks in his _Indian Antiquities_, "in every age, and in almost every region of the Asiatic world, there seems uniformly to have flourished an immemorial tradition that one god had, from all eternity, _begotten another god_."[112:2]
In India, there have been several _Avatars_, or incarnations of Vishnu,[112:3] the most important of which is _Heri Crishna_,[112:4] or _Crishna the Saviour_.
In the _Maha-bharata_, an Indian epic poem, written about the sixth century B. C., Crishna is associated or identified with Vishnu the Preserving god or Saviour.[113:1]
Sir William Jones, first President of the Royal Asiatic Society, instituted in Bengal, says of him:
"Crishna continues to this hour the darling god of the Indian woman. The sect of Hindoos who adore him with enthusiastic, and almost exclusive devotion, have broached a doctrine, which they maintain with eagerness, and which seems general in these provinces, that he was distinct from all the _Avatars_ (incarnations) who had only an _ansa_, or a portion, of his (_Vishnu's_) divinity, _while Crishna was the person of Vishnu himself in human form_."[113:2]
The Rev. D. O. Allen, Missionary of the American Board, for twenty-five years in India, speaking of Crishna, says:
"He was greater than, and distinct from, all the _Avatars_ which had only a portion of the divinity in them, while he was the very person of Vishnu himself in human form."[113:3]
Thomas Maurice, in speaking of _Mathura_, says: