Note 29 — Chapter XIV · Creation Myths and the God and Goddess Cults

Shang-ti, the personal god who rules in the sky, is to the Chinese Buddhists identical with Indra, the Hindu god of thunder and rain. In India Indra was in Vedic times the king of the gods, but in the Brahmanic Age became a lesser being than Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu. When Buddha was elevated to the godhead these great deities shrank into minor positions. In China they stand among the auditors of the supreme Buddha, as he sits on the lotus flower, and “occupy”, as Edkins found, “a lower position than the personages called Poosa, Lohan, &c.”29