Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c8.49

c8.49

Although Vishnu came to be looked upon by some as "the most excellent of the gods," he was, even now, far from being regarded by any section of the Aryan people as the One God. His pre-eminence among the gods is not always apparent and in a passage of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa he is called Devānām dvārapaḥ,² the door-keeper of the gods, not a very complimentary epithet for the 'highest' among the gods.