In speaking of the relative antiquity of Vishnuism and Civaism one must distinguish the pantheistic form of these gods from the single forms.  While Civaism,_per se_, that is, the worship of Civa as a great and terrible god, preceded the same exaltation of Krishna, as is shown by their respective literary appearance, and even by Megasthenes’ remark that the worship of Dionysos preceded that of Herakles by fifteen generations, yet did Krishnaism, as a popular pantheism, come before Civaism as such.  Although in the late Cvet[=a]cvatara Upanishad Civa is pantheistic, yet is he not so in the epic till some of the latest passages make him the All, in imitation of Krishna as All-god.  Probably Civaism remained by the first philosophy, Sankhyan dualism, and was forced into Krishna’s Vedantic pantheism, as this became popular.  At first neither was more than a single great god without any philosophy.[68]

In one of the early exegetical works, which is occupied somewhat with philosophical matter, there is evidence that a triad existed between the Vedic triad of fires and the Puranic triad.  Fire, Wind (or Indra), and the Sun (S[=u]rya), are stated in a famous passage to be the only real gods, all the others being but names of these.  But, although in form this triad (Nirukta, vii. 4, 5) is like the Vedic triad,[69] it is essentially a triad in a pantheistic system like that of the epic and Pur[=a]nas, for it is added that “all the gods are parts of one soul.”  In explanation it is said:  “Fire is the earth-god, Wind, or Indra, is the god of the atmosphere, and the sun is the god of the sky.”  Now in the Rig Veda Indra is closely united not only with Agni but with Vishnu, albeit in this period Vishnu is his subordinate.  The nearest approach of this Vishnu to his classical descendant is in one of the latest hymns of the Rig Veda, where it is said that the seven seeds of creation are Vishnu’s, as in later times he comprises seven males.  In the philosophy of the T[=a]ittir[=i]ya Samhit[=a] the three places of Vishnu are not, as in the Rig Veda, the two points of the horizon (where the sun sets) and the zenith, but ’earth, air, and sky.’[70] That is to say, in the Brahmanic period Vishnu is already a greater god than he had been.  Nay, more, he is explicitly declared to be “the best of the gods."[71] That best means greatest may be shown from the same work, where in savage fable it is recited that all the gods, including Indra, ran up to him to get his strength.[72] But especially in the Upanishads is Vishnu the one great god left from the Rig Veda.  And it is with the philosophical (not with the ritualistic) Vishnu that Krishna is equated.