In the period of the Puranas, we find that Siva, instead of being one of a multitude of nature-deities, has risen to be one of the great triad, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, who are far above all gods. How the change has come about we have not yet the means of discovering. The function has changed as much as the person, Siva being now the destroyer as Brahma is the creator and Vishnu the preserver. The process of reduction in the number of the superior deities goes further, and Brahma falls practically into the background, leaving only Vishnu and Siva as supreme beings for the worship of the people of India. By the time Hinduism penetrated southwards into the Tamil country, probably somewhere about 500 B.C., it had two main forms, the worship of Vishnu and the worship of Siva, the two being not too sharply disconnected. The Tamil Hindu believed in the existence of both, but held his own god, whether Siva or Vishnu, to be supreme. Hinduism seemed to be Firmly established, but was dangerously shaken when the Jains and Buddhists spread over South India. Then came for the Vaishnavites the teachers known as the Alvars, while Saivism was defended by the poets of whose work this book gives specimens. Hinduism was saved, but it existed henceforth in two distinct forms, Vaishnavism and Saivism, separated by a wider gulf than in earlier days.

2. The portrait of Siva and its interpretation.

Siva as imagined by his worshippers has a human form, usually with one but occasionally with five or six heads. He has three eyes, the right one being really the sun, the left eye the moon, and the one in the middle of his forehead fire, His reddish hair is