In this pantheism penitents and hermits were esteemed as above kings and heroes; but even the life of a hermit was not exacting enough for them, so they organized the idea of a soul of the universe so incomprehensible that, as they themselves acknowledged, no man could comprehend it or instruct another in it. Despairing of solving the problem they finally fancied that the universe was a phantasm, and that the earth and all things earthly were nothing. They taught that through countless aeons of time men grew always worse, and were born only to suffer and die, or to do penance in the torments of an indescribable Hell. Naturally of all these things the people could only understand the teachings pertaining to hell and future punishment, and so the Brahmins contrived for them a supreme deity, having the same name as their Soul of the Universe, namely Brahma, whom they made the creator but playing a passive part. The people were not content, however, with an absentee passive God, but paid much more attention to Vishnu the preserver, and the dreaded Siva, the destroyer. After a while these three Gods were united in a sort of trinity, represented by a three headed figure, but without temples or sacrifices. The Brahmins continued their subtleties and divided the people into parties, like the scholiasts and disputants of the middle centuries of our present Christian era, and so the Hindoo religion became more and more debased. However, in the sixth century B. C., Buddha, that great figure in early history, endeavored to save it by a reform which found much more encouragement in the West, and to the far East of India, than in India itself, and which has since assumed a more composite character by fusion with the religions of the surrounding countries. Buddha formed first a monastic society based upon ethical doctrines, whose underlying principle was that only by a renunciation of everything can man find safety, peace and comfort. Buddha's first teachings were mystic and for the initiated only; his followers believed also in reincarnation. After his death and that of those who were supposed to have lived before him, and who were expected to appear again, and who had been raised to the dignity of Gods, (and after their number had been added to that of the popular Hindoo Gods and to the Gods of the other people), then Buddhism became a polytheism, and because of the variety of possible explanations and the necessary exegesis, assumed in the end the dimensions of a secret mystic doctrine.