were, written with starry letters upon the sky, where they could be read without trouble by the most distant peoples of antiquity. The myth of Krishna offers a characteristic example of the manner in which in India a sacrificial cult is changed into a myth. Like Astyages and Herod, in order to ward off the danger arising from his sister's son, of which he had been warned by an oracle, King Kansa caused his sister and her husband Vasudewa to be cast into prison. Here, in the darkness of a dungeon, Krishna comes into the world as Jesus did in the stable at Bethlehem. The nearer the hour of birth approaches the more beautiful the mother becomes. Soon the whole dungeon is filled with light. Rejoicing choirs sound in the air, the waters of the rivers and brooks make sweet music. The Gods come down from heaven and blessed spirits dance and sing for joy. At midnight his mother Dewaki (i.e., the divine) brings the child into the world, at the commencement of a new epoch. The parents themselves fall down before him and pray, but a voice from heaven admonishes them to convey him from the machinations of the tyrant to Gokala, the land of the cow, and to exchange him for the daughter of the herdsman Nanda. Immediately the chains fall from the father's hands, the dungeon doors are opened, and he passes out into freedom. Another Christopher, he bears the child upon his shoulders through the river Yamuna, the waters of which recede in reverence before the son of God, and he exchanges Krishna for the new-born daughter of Nanda. He then returns to the dungeon, where the chains again immediately fasten of their own accord upon his limbs. Kansa now makes his way into the dungeon. In vain Dewaki entreats her brother to leave her the child. He is on the point of tearing it forcibly from her hands when it disappears before his eyes, and Kansa gives the order that all newly-born children in his country under the age of two years shall be killed.