In the ancient epics Crishna is made to say:
"I am Vishnu, Brahma, Indra, and the source as well as the destruction of things, the creator and the annihilator of the whole aggregate of existences. While all men live in unrighteousness, I, the unfailing, build up the bulwark of righteousness, as the ages pass away."[288:4]
These words are almost identical with what we find in the Bhagavad-gita. In the Maha-bharata, Vishnu is associated or identified with Crishna, just as he is in the Bhagavad-gita and Vishnu Purana, showing, in the words of Prof. Williams, that: the Puranas, although of a comparatively modern date, are nevertheless composed of matter to be found in the two great epic poems the Ramayana and the Maha-bharata.[288:5]
FOOTNOTES:
[278:1] It is also very evident that the history of Crishna—or that part of it at least which has a religious aspect—is taken from that of Buddha. Crishna, in the ancient epic poems, is simply a great hero, and it is not until about the fourth century B. C., that he is deified and declared to be an incarnation of Vishnu, or Vishnu himself in human form. (See Monier Williams' Hinduism, pp. 102, 103.)
"If it be urged that the attribution to Crishna of qualities or powers belonging to the other deities is a mere device by which his devotees sought to supersede the more ancient gods, the answer must be that nothing is done in his case which has not been done in the case of almost every other member of the great company of the gods, and that the systematic adoption of this method is itself conclusive proof of the looseness and flexibility of the materials of which the cumbrous mythology of the Hindu epic poems is composed." (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 130.) These words apply very forcibly to the history of Christ Jesus. He being attributed with qualities and powers belonging to the deities of the heathen is a mere device by which his devotees sought to supersede the more ancient gods.
[278:3] See The Gospel of Mary, Apoc., ch. vii.
[278:4] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 329.