This elaborate description of higher and higher conditions of future existence may be contrasted with the reticence of the Bible and its simple allusion to a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
The description, however, belongs to later Buddhism. It enables us to understand the true position of the Buddhist gods. They merely constitute one of the six classes of beings, and, as they have to go through other forms of life, are inferior to Arhats and Buddhas.
Mahā-brahmā is often named, whereas Vishṇu, the popular god of the Hindūs, is neglected. In point of fact he was, as we have seen, represented by Padma-pāṇi (Avalokiteṡvara, [p. 198]), who seems to have taken his place in later Buddhism.
At all events the more modern form of Vishṇu called Kṛishṇa, who is generally worshipped by the lower orders of Hindūs as the most popular god of mediæval Hindūism, has not been adopted by the inhabitants of Buddhist countries.
When I was at Kandy in Ceylon I found one solitary shrine (Devālī) dedicated, not to Kṛishṇa, but to Mahā-Vishṇu. It was near the well-known Tooth-temple and appeared almost deserted. The shrine was at the end of a bare room, and contained a small silver-gilt image of Mahā-Vishṇu (as Vishṇu is called when worshipped by Buddhists, just as the chief of the Brahmā gods is called Mahā-Brahmā) about half a foot high. In the hands of the image was a thin metal bar with a kind of locket or amulet suspended from it, while round its neck was a long rosary and in front of the body a large plate for offerings. The folding doors of the sanctuary had representations of the sun and moon.
Turning to the god Ṡiva, we may note that he was adopted by later Buddhism in his character of Yogī, or Mahā-yogī (see ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ p. 83). Then, as the Buddhism of the North very soon became corrupted with Ṡaivism and its accompaniments, Ṡāktism, Tāntrism, and Magic, so in Northern countries various forms of Ṡiva—such as Mahā-Kāla, Bhairava, Bhīma—and of his wife (Pārvatī, Durgā, etc.), are honoured, and their images are found in temples. Sometimes bloody sacrifices are offered to them.
Among the female deities forms of Tārā are chiefly worshipped, and regarded as Ṡaktis of the Buddhas.
It is even held by the disciples of the more advanced Mahā-yāna—especially in Nepāl—that there are five Ṡaktis or female Energies (corresponding to the five human Buddhas), whose names are given in corresponding order thus:—Vajra-dhātrī, Loćanā, Māmakī, Pāṇḍarā, and Tārā or Tārā-devī (the latter being the Tārā par excellence)[101].
But the goddess Tārā was also worshipped by Buddhists in India proper; for we find that Hiouen Thsang alludes to having seen images of Tārā Bodhi-sattva[102] in the country of Magadha.
I may mention, too, that in a dilapidated building, which contains the Vajrāsana or thunderbolt throne of Gautama at Buddha-Gayā (in the same country of Magadha), I noticed in a shrine near the temple, an image of Tārā-devī, which, from the crown of fresh flowers encircling its head, appeared to have been recently worshipped by some Buddhist pilgrims, who had arrived on the day of my visit in 1876.