Note 1138 — Chapter V

Caesar does not say that Mercury was actually the supreme deity of the Gauls, but only the most fervently worshipped: he expressly says that they regarded their Jupiter as the lord of the celestials. ‘It must not be supposed,’ says Sir Alfred Lyall (Asiatic Studies, i, 1899, p. 121), ‘that even the uppermost gods of Hinduism have retired behind mere ceremonial altars, like constitutional monarchs.... But there seem to be many grades of accessibility among them, from Brahma—who, since he created the world, has taken no further trouble about it, and is naturally rewarded by possessing only one or two of the million temples to Hindu gods,’ &c.