It is not through the pantheism of the brahmanically learned and of religious devotees that the Indian mind has come within Christ's sphere of influence, but rather through the beliefs of the multitude and the new education of the middle class. And how, we ask, has Christ been introduced to India by association with the popular beliefs--how, rather, has the attempt been made to do so? The theology of the people begins, as has been already stated, with the Hindu Triad, the three great personal deities, namely, Brahm[=a], Vishnu, and Siva,--Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer respectively. From these and other deities, but particularly from Vishnu, the Preserver, there descended to earth at various times and in various forms, human and animal, certain avatars.[89] Best known of these avatars of Vishnu, the Preserver, are Ram, the hero of the great epic called after him, the R[=a]m[=a]yan; and secondly, Krishna, one of the chief figures of the other great Indian epic, the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rat; and thirdly, Buddha, the great religious teacher of the sixth century B.C. Ram and Krishna have become deities of the multitude over the greater part of India. Buddha, latest in time of these three avatars, and unknown as an avatar to the multitude, has not yet been lost to history. Such is the genealogy of certain of the Hindu gods and their avatars, and the object of setting it forth is to enable us to see how Jesus Christ has presented Himself or been presented to the Hindu people. [Sidenote: Parallels in Christian and Hindu theology.]