ABSTRACT
Many non-Hindu writers on Hinduism have been appalled by the boundless fancy and extravagance of imagination displayed by Hindu myths and legends. An illiterate Hindu will no doubt normally take the heads as actually there, but a sophisticated Hindu will calmly accept the factual non-existence of these heads and, indeed, if need be, of Brahma himself, and yet find the employment of this image meaningful. Freedom from limitations involved in all name and form is an integral part of the Hindu concept of fullness and perfection and a liberated man is supposed to achieve this limitlessness here on earth. According to the Hindu tradition there is no such thing as a once-for-all creation at a particular time from which progress towards a definite end, again once-for-all, can be calculated. The Hindus mythically anticipated another scientific doctrine, that of evolution, not only progressive origination in higher and higher forms of all living things, but also the origination of life from matter.
