In this way, it would appear, the authors of the _Puranas_ effected a compromise between immemorial beliefs and practices and the higher religious conceptions towards which the people were being gradually elevated. A similar policy was adopted by Pope Gregory the Great, who in the year 601 caused the Archbishop of Canterbury to be instructed to infuse Pagan ceremonials with Christian symbolism. It was decreed that heathen temples should be changed into churches, and days consecrated to sacrificial ceremonies to be observed as Christian festivals. The Anglo-Saxons were not to be permitted to “sacrifice animals to the Devil”, but to kill them for human consumption “to the praise of God”, so that “while they retained some outward joys they might give more ready response to inward joys”. The Pope added: “It is not possible to cut off everything at once from obdurate minds; he who endeavours to climb to the highest place must rise not by bounds, but by degrees or steps.”[176] [176] Bede, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, lib. i, chap. xxx. It is necessary for us, therefore, in dealing with Puranic beliefs, and the movement which culminated in modern-day Hinduism, to make a distinction between the popular faith and the beliefs of the most enlightened Brahmans, and also between the process of mythology-making and the development of religious ideas. In early Puranic times, when Brahmanism was revived, Vishnu's benevolent character was exalted to so high a degree that, it was taught, even demons might secure salvation through his grace. Prahlada, son of the King of the Danavas, worshipped Vishnu. As a consequence, terrible punishments were inflicted upon him by his angry father. At length Vishnu appeared in the Danava palace as the Nrisinha incarnation (half man, half lion), and slew the presumptuous giant king who had aspired to control the Universe. Another incarnation of Vishnu was the boar, Varáha. A demon named Hiranyaksha had claimed the earth, when at the beginning of one of the Yugas it was raised from the primordial deep by the Creator in the form of a boar. Vishnu slew the demon for the benefit of the human race. Earlier forms of this myth recognize Brahma, or Prajapati, as the boar. In _Taittiriya Brahmana_ it is set forth: “This Universe was formerly water, fluid; with that (water) Prajapati practised arduous devotions (saying), ‘How shall this universe be (developed)?’ He beheld a lotus leaf standing. He thought, ‘There is something on which this rests.’ He as a boar—having assumed that form—plunged beneath towards it. He found the earth down below. Breaking off (a portion of) her, he rose to the surface.”