The Hindu Gods

India is a land whose past is ever receding in time and it is therefore not surprising that her myths and legends take us through centimes to the Great War 5,000 years ago. Cosmic events, heroic events, tales of the invisible, of human nature at its best and at its worst, of the nearness of gods and nature spirits to man, of the great powers of nature and those that can be gained by man-all these make up the drama which is unfolded to our gaze. But cosmos and man can never be separated and therefore all myths have a cosmic and a human, an astronomical and a psychological meaning. Running throughout the myths and legends are two important ideas (1) the nearness and relationship of the invisible to the visible, and(2) actions in time brings effects which to be understood, must be traced back to the cause. This on the moral as well as on the physical plane. Rama and Krishna show what man ought to be and can be; Sita and Radha show a perfection towards I which woman should aim. Savitri and Damayanti are two very poignant studies of the faithfulness and love of a wife for her husband, while Pritha and Draupadi show the anguish of a widow and mot her and the regal pride of the princess-wife. The myths and legends are told in the Vedas, and the Puranas and in the two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata with which is the Bhagavad Gita. The whole mythology is so vast in its concept, so infinitesimal in its detail, that it would take tomes fully to explain, even if anyone could fully explain it today. The attempt here to put down a tiny portion of it is fraught with difficulties, and the only excuse is that perhaps such a simple statement of that tiny portion may help the ordinary man to understand to some extent the vast heritage of India.