In India the origin of dramatic entertainments has been attributed to the sage Bharata (meaning an actor), who received, it is said, a communication from the god Brahma to introduce them, as the latter had received his knowledge of them from the Vedas. Bharata was also said to be the "Father of dramatic criticism." Pantomimic scenes derived from the heathen Mythology of Vishnu--a collection of poems and hymns on the Aryan religion--are even now in India occasionally enacted by the Jatras of the Bengalis and the Rasas of the provinces in the west, and, just as their forefathers did ages and ages ago. An episode from the history of the god Vishnu, in relation to his marriage with Laxmi, was a favourite subject for the early Indian Drama. Of Vedic Mythology Professor Max Müller observes that in it "There are no genealogies, no settled marriages between gods and goddesses. The father is sometimes the son, the brother, the husband, and she who in one hymn is the mother, is in another the wife. As the conceptions of the poet vary so varies the nature of these gods." The Hindoo dramatic writer, Babhavñti--the Indian Shakespeare--introduced with success in one of his dramas, like in our "Hamlet," "a play within a play," and much in a similar way as our early dramatists used in their plays, the "dumb shows." Between the native Tragedy and Comedy, as in China, there was no definite distinction, and, although both contained some of the best and noblest sentiments, yet the racial philosophy of caste enters greatly into the construction of each. In the Hindoo Mythology we have prototypes of the gods of the Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman Mythologies. The god Vishnu, who, in Aryan Mythology, is the wind and "Traverses the heavens in three strides," is the greatest of all heathen deities. His dwelling-place was "The aerial mountains, where the many horned and swiftly moving cattle abide." In Grecian Mythology Hermes or Mercury took on some of the characteristics of Vishnu. In the Eleusinian Mysteries of the Greeks, the signs and symbols that marked the worship of Vishnu by the Aryans, are apparent; and in the British Museum the scenes of the vases of the Hamilton collection agree closely with the Sacti rites of Hindustan. After having briefly noticed and introduced Vishnu or Hermes to the notice of the reader, we will now take another of the Aryan deities--See-Va, the Wine god. This myth was the Dionysus, or Bacchus, of the Greeks, and the expedition of this "immortal" through the world to instruct mankind in agriculture, is likened as well as the god himself by the Egyptians to their deity Osiris--the god of the Nile. The worship of See-Va, Bacchus, or Osiris extended over Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy.