Hindus, even those who are not prepared to admit the claim of the Brahman to the exalted position of the earthly god usually conceded to him. In the Veda no tendency shows itself as yet towards rendering divine honour to the cow; and though the importance assigned her in an agricultural community is easily understood, still the exact process of her deification and her identification with the mother earth in the time of Manu and the epics requires further elucidation. An idealized type of the useful quadruped--likewise often identified with the earth--presents itself in the mythical Cow of Plenty, or "wish-cow" (Kamadhenu, or Kamadugha, i.e. wish-milker), already appearing in the Atharvaveda, and in epic times assigned to Indra, or identified with Surabhi, "the fragrant," the sacred cow of the sage Vasishtha. Possibly the growth of the legend of Krishna--his being reared at Gokula (cow-station); his tender relations to the _gopis_, or cow-herdesses, of Vrindavana; his epithets _Gopala_, "the cowherd," and _Govinda_, "cow-finder," actually explained as "recoverer of the earth" in the great epic, and the _go-loka_, or "cow-world," assigned to him as his heavenly abode--may have some connexion with the sacred character ascribed to the cow from early times. Worship. Since the time of Sankara, or for more than a thousand years, the gods Vishnu and Siva, or _Hari_ and _Hara_ as they are also commonly called--with their wives, especially that of the latter god--have shared between them the practical worship of the vast majority of Hindus. But, though the people have thus been divided between two different religious camps, sectarian animosity has upon the whole kept within reasonable limits. In fact, the respectable Hindu, whilst owning special allegiance to one of the two gods as his _ishta devata_ (favourite deity), will not withhold his tribute of adoration from the other gods of the pantheon. The high-caste Brahman will probably keep at his home a salagram stone, the favourite symbol of Vishnu, as well as the characteristic emblems of Siva and his consort, to both of which he will do reverence in the morning; and when he visits some holy place of pilgrimage, he will not fail to pay his homage at both the Saiva and the Vaishnava shrines there. Indeed, "sectarian bigotry and exclusiveness are to be found chiefly among the professional leaders of the modern brotherhoods and their low-caste followers, who are taught to believe that theirs are the only true gods, and that the rest do not deserve any reverence whatever" (Jog. Nath). The same spirit of toleration shows itself in the celebration of the numerous religious festivals. Whilst some of these--e.g. the _Sankranti_ (called _Pongal_, i.e. "boiled rice," in the south), which marks the entrance of the sun into the sign of Capricorn and the beginning of its northward course (_uttarayana_) on the 1st day of the month Magha (c. Jan.