"When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would exert his power, he retired to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a cross, placed upon it a piece of tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry aloud to the spirits of the rains. The Creeks at the festival of the Busk, celebrated to the four winds, and according to the legends inst.i.tuted by them, commenced with making the new fire. The manner of this was to place four logs in the centre of the square, end to end, forming a cross, the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points; in the centre of the cross the new fire is made."[4]
"As the emblem of the winds which disperse the fertilising showers," says Brinton, "it is emphatically the tree of our life, our subsistence, and our health. It never had any other meaning in America, and if, as has been said, the tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was perhaps with reference to a resurrection and a future life as portrayed under this symbol, indicating that the buried body would rise by the action of the four spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new existence when watered by the vernal showers. It frequently recurs in the ancient Egyptian writings, where it is interpreted _life_; doubtless, could we trace the hieroglyph to its source, it would likewise prove to be derived from the four winds."[5]
The Buddhist cross to which allusion has been made was exactly the cross of the Manicheans, with leaves and flowers springing from it, and placed upon a Mount Calvary as among the Roman Catholics. The tree of life and knowledge, or the Jambu tree, in their maps of the world, is always represented in the shape of a Manichean cross 84 yojanas, or 423 miles high, including the three steps of the Calvary. This cross, putting forth leaves and flowers (and fruit also, Captain Wilford was informed), is called the divine tree, the tree of the G.o.ds, the tree of life and knowledge, and productive of whatever is good and desirable, and is placed in the terrestrial Paradise. Agapius, according to Photius, maintained that this divine tree, in Paradise, was Christ himself. In their delineation of the heavens, the globe of the earth is filled with this cross and its Calvary. The divines of Thibet, says Captain Wilford, place it to the S.W. of Meru, towards the source of the Ganges. The Manicheans always represented Christ crucified upon a tree, among the foliage. The Christians of India, though they did not admit of images, still entertained the greatest veneration for the cross. They placed it on a Calvary in public places and at the meeting of cross roads, and even the heathen Hindus in these parts paid also great regard to it.
Captain Wilford was presented by a learned Buddhist with a book, called the Cshetra-samasa, which contained several drawings of the cross. Some of these his friend was unable to explain to him, but whatever the variations of the cross were in other particulars, they were declared to be invariable as regards the shaft and two arms; the Calvary was sometimes omitted. One of these crosses seemed to puzzle the Buddhist completely, or he would not say either what he thought or knew about it. It consisted of the ordinary cross with shaft and cross-bar, pointed at the ends, but with two other bars intersecting the right angles formed by the shaft and cross-bar, thus giving six points. No one can look at this cross, and not at once discern its phallic character. Some writers affect to laugh at this, but we have ample evidence that at times such a meaning has been attributed to the cross. In connection with this, Dr. Inman makes some remarks which we shall do well to consider, whether we receive them or not; there may be nothing in them, and there may be much. He says:--"There can be no doubt, I think, in the mind of any student of antiquity, that the cross is not originally a Christian emblem; nay, the very fact that the cross was used as a means of executing criminals shows that its form was familiar to Jews and Romans. It was used partly as an ornament, and partly in certain forms of religious worship. The simple cross, with perpendicular and transverse arms of equal length, represented the nave and spokes of the solar wheel, or the sun darting his rays on all sides.
As the wheel became fantastically developed so did the cross, and each limb became so developed at the outer end as to symbolise the triad.
Sometimes the idea was very coa.r.s.ely represented; and I have seen, amongst some ancient Etruscan remains, a cross formed of four phalli of equal length, their narrow end pointing inwards; and in the same work another was portrayed, in which the phallus was made of inordinate length so as to support the others high up from the ground; each was in itself a triad.
The same form of cross was probably used by the Phoenicians, who appear to have colonised Malta at a very early period of their career; for they have left a form of it behind them in the shape of a cross similar to that described above, but which has been toned down by the moderns, who could not endure the idea of an union between grossness and the crucifix, and the phalli became as innocent as we see them in the Maltese cross of to-day."
So many traces of the cross, as used in ancient times in all parts of the world, meet us on every hand that we find it difficult within the limited s.p.a.ce at our command even to enumerate them; we have already traversed in our account a greater part of the known world, and still vast numbers of instances remain unnoticed. Almost as varied as its princ.i.p.al forms are the explanations offered respecting its origin and significance. We are told by some that for its origin we must go to the Buddhists and to the Lama of Thibet, who is said to take his name from the cross, called in his language Lamh. Higgins quotes Vallence as saying that the Tartars call the cross Lama, from the Scythian Lamh, a hand, synonymous to the Yod of the Chaldeans; and that it thus became the name of a cross, and of the high priest with the Tartars; and with the Irish, Luarn, signifying the head of the church, an abbot, &c.
The last form of cross to which we shall here allude is that known as the Crux Ansata, or Handled Cross. Whatever may be the signification of that instrument, or ornament, it is certain that no other has ever been so variously explained, or has been so successful in puzzling those who have sought to give it a meaning. Some have said it was a Nilometer, or measure of the rise of the Nile; one--a bishop--thought it was a setting stick for planting roots; another said it represented the Law of Gravitation. Don Martin said it was a winnowing fan; Herwart said it was a compa.s.s; Poc.o.c.ke said it represented the four elements. Others, again, suggest that it may be only a key. "It opened," says Borwick, "the door of the sacred chest.
It revealed hidden things. It was the hope of life to come." And he continues, "However well the cross fit the mathematical lock, the phallic lock, the gnostic lock, the philosophical lock, the religious lock, it is quite likely that this very ancient and almost universal symbol was at first a secret in esoteric holding, to the meaning of which, with all our guessing, we have no certain clue."
This cross has certainly a most remarkable connection with the ancient history of Egypt, being found universally represented on the monuments, the tombs, the walls, and the wrapping cloths of the dead; hence, evidently, the idea that it is peculiarly Egyptian and its ascription of "Key of the Nile." From Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Ruffinus, we learn that it was known to the Egyptian Christians at the close of the fourth century as the symbol of eternal life. Later on, Dr. Max Uhlman wrote, "that the handle cross means _life_, is manifest from the Rosetta inscription and other texts." Zockler, another German author, notices the opinion of Macrobius that it was the hieroglyphic sign of Osiris, or the sun, it being a fact that when the ancient Egyptians wished to symbolise Osiris, they set up a staff with an eye upon it, because in antiquity the sun was known as the eye of G.o.d, and then claims that the round portion represented the orb of the sun, the perpendicular bar signifying the rays of the high mid-day sun, and the shorter horizontal bar symbolising the rays of the rising or setting sun. The discovery of this emblem by M.
Mariette in a niche of the holy of holies in the ancient temple of Denderah, points significantly to its importance and peculiar sacredness, and it has been thought probable that it was the central object of interest in the inner precincts of the temple.
It seems that the Egyptian priests, when asked for an explanation of this cross, evaded the question by replying that the Tau was a "_divine mystery_."
However varied the explanations offered may be, and whatever the mystery said to surround this object, the feature always remains,--its symbolisation of life and regeneration. From this, its phallic character was very easily inferred--its derivation from the _lingam-yoni_ symbol, said Barlow, seemed a very natural process. The junction of the yoni with the cross, in Dr. Inman"s judgment, sufficiently proved that it had a phallic or male signification; a conclusion which certain unequivocal Etruscan remains fully confirmed. "We conclude, therefore," says this writer, "that the ancient cross was an emblem of the belief in a male creator, and the method by which creation was initiated."
Not the least remarkable exemplification of the universal prevalence of the cross both as to time and country, is found amongst coins and medals: here as in other things it is ever prominent. Take the ancient Gaulish coins, for instance, and the fylfot and ordinary Greek cross abound; take the ancient British coins of the age long prior to Christianity, and the same thing occurs. "On Scandinavian coins, as well as those of Gaul, the fylfot cross appears, as it also does on those of Syracuse, Corinth, and Chalcedon. On the coins of Byblos, Astarte is represented holding a long staff, surmounted by a cross, and resting her foot on the prow of a galley. On the coins of Asia Minor, the cross is also to be found. It occurs as the reverse of a silver coin, supposed to be of Cyprus, on several Cilician coins; it is placed beneath the throne of Baal of Tarsus, on a Phoenician coin of that time, bearing the legend "Baal Tharz." A medal possibly of the same place, with partially obliterated Phoenician characters, has the cross occupying the entire field of the reverse side.
Several, with inscriptions in unknown characters, have a ram on one side and the cross and ring on the other. Another has the sacred bull, accompanied by this symbol; others have a lion"s head on obverse, and a cross and circle on the reverse."[6]
Strangely enough, even Jewish money is marked with this emblem, the shekel bearing on one side what is usually called a triple lily or hyacinth; the same forming a pretty floral cross.
On Roman coins the cross was of very frequent occurrence, and ill.u.s.trations of good examples may be seen in the pages of the _Art Journal_ for the year 1874. An engraving of the _quincunx_, or piece of five _unciae_, is given, bearing on one side a cross, a =V=, and five pellets; and on the other a cross only. This is an example of the earlier periods; of course when we come to the later periods the emblem is still more frequent. These coins are often found in ancient graves and sarcophagi, and these latter again supply examples of various familiar forms of crosses of very remote antiquity,--not simply the adornment of coffin and gravecloths, but the actual construction of the tomb or grave-mound in that form. Fine specimens of these have been discovered at Stoney-Littleton, at New Grange, at Banwell, Somerset, at Adisham, at Hereford, at Helperthorpe, and in the Isle of Lewis.
"Before the Romans, long before the Etruscans, there lived in the plains of northern Italy a people to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the sign beneath which they laid their dead to rest; a people of whom history tells nothing, knowing not their name, but of whom antiquarian research has learned this, that they lived in ignorance of the laws of civilisation, that they dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes, and that they trusted in the cross to guard, and may be to revive their loved ones whom they committed to the dust. Throughout Emilia are found remains of these people; these remains form quarries whence manure is dug by the peasants of the present day. These quarries go by the name of _terramares_. They are vast acc.u.mulations of cinders, charcoal, bones, fragments of pottery, and other remains of human industry. As this earth is very rich in phosphates it is much appreciated by agriculturists as a dressing for their land. In these _terramares_ there are no human bones.
The fragments of earthenware belong to articles of domestic use; with them are found querns, moulds for metal, portions of cabin floors, and great quant.i.ties of kitchen refuse. They are deposits a.n.a.logous to those which have been discovered in Denmark and Switzerland. The metal discovered in the majority of these _terramares_ is bronze; the remains belong to three distinct ages. In the first none of the fictile ware was turned on the wheel or fire-baked. Sometimes these deposits exhibit an advance of civilisation. Iron came into use, and with it the potter"s wheel was discovered, and the earthenware was put in the furnace. When in the same quarry these two epochs are found, the remains of the second age are always superposed over those of the bronze age. A third period is occasionally met with, but only occasionally; a period when a rude art introduced itself, and representatives of animals or human beings adorned the pottery. Among the remains of this period is found the first trace of money, rude little bronze fragments without shape.
"Among other remains in these lake-dwellings, pottery has been in many cases found, and these vessels bear, on the bottom, crosses of various forms, as well also curious solid double cones. That which characterises the cemeteries of Golasecca, says M. de Mortillet, and gives them their highest interest, is this:--first, the entire absence of all organic representations; we only found three and they were exceptional, in tombs not belonging to the plateau; secondly, the almost invariable presence of the cross under the vases in the tombs. When we reversed the ossuaries, the saucer-lids, or the accessory vases, we saw almost always, if in good preservation, a cross traced thereon ... the examination of the tombs of Golasecca proves, in a most convincing, positive, and precise manner, that which the _terramares_ of Emilia had only indicated, but which had been confirmed by the cemetery of Villanova; that above a thousand years before Christ, the cross was already a religious emblem of frequent employment."[7]
"There is every reason to suppose that the cross was a symbol of more import in the early patriarchal ages than is generally imagined. It was not only the _first letter_, but it was also the emblem, of Taut, the Mercury, the word, the messenger of the G.o.ds, the angel, as we may say, of his presence, himself a G.o.d among the Egyptians and the Britons, whose G.o.d Teutates was a.n.a.lagous both in name and nature; a winged messenger. M. Le Clerc, one of the ablest mythologists who ever wrote, has shown that the Teutates of the Gauls, the Hermes of the Greeks, the Mercury of the Romans, were all one and the same.
The Ethiopic letter _Taui_, or _Taw_, says Lowth, still retains the form of a cross, =X=; and the Samaritan =T=, which the Ethiopians are said to have borrowed from the Samaritans, was in the form of a =X= cross. In several Samaritan coins, says Montfaucon, to be found in the collections of medallists, the letter Tau is engraved in the form of a cross, or Greek Chi, and he gives as his authority Origen and Jerome.
The Jewish High-priest, we are informed by the Rabbis, was anointed on his invest.i.ture, while he who anointed him drew on his forehead with his finger the figure of the Greek letter Chi, =X=."[8]
CHAPTER III.
_Heathen Ideas of a Trinity--The Magi--Ancient Theologies--The Indian Trinity--The Sculptures of Elephanta--The Sacred Zennar--Temples consecrated to Indian Trinities--The Greek Trident--Attributes of Brahm--The Hindu Meru--Narayana--The Trimurti--G.o.ds of Egypt._
"Many of the heathens are said to have had a notion of a Trinity," wrote a contributor to an encyclopaedia, some eighty years ago. Now that altogether fails to reach the truth, for heathen nations are known to scholars to have had very definite ideas indeed about a sacred Triad; in fact, as another writer has said, there is nothing in all theology more deeply grounded, or more generally allowed by them, than the mystery of the Trinity. The Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, both in their writings and their oracles, acknowledged that the Supreme Being had begotten another Being from all eternity, whom they sometimes called the Son of G.o.d, sometimes the Word, sometimes the Mind, and sometimes the Wisdom of G.o.d, and a.s.serted to be the Creator of all things.
Among the sayings of the Magi, the descendants of Zoroaster, was one as follows:--"The Father finished all things, and delivered them to the Second Mind."
We learn from Dr. Cudworth that, besides the inferior G.o.ds generally received by all the Pagans (viz.: animated stars, demons, and heroes), the more refined of them, who accounted not the world the Supreme Deity, acknowledged a Trinity of divine hypostases superior to them all. This doctrine, according to Plotinus, is very ancient, and obscurely a.s.serted even by Parmenides. Some have referred its origin to Pythagoreans, and others to Orpheus, who adopted three principles, called Phanes, Ura.n.u.s, and Cronus. Dr. Cudworth apprehends that Pythagoras and Orpheus derived this doctrine from the theology of the Egyptian Hermes; and, as it is not probable that it should have been first discovered by human reason, he concurs with Proclus in affirming that it was at first a theology of divine tradition, or revelation, imparted first to the Hebrews, and from them communicated to the Egyptians and other nations; among whom it was depraved and adulterated.
Plato, also, and his followers, speak of the Trinity in such terms, that the primitive fathers have actually been accused of borrowing the doctrine from the Platonic school.
In Indian theology there is no more prominent doctrine than that of a Divine Triad governing all things, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.
By Brahma, they mean G.o.d, the Creator; by Vishnu (according to the Sanscrit), a preserver, a comforter, a cherisher; and by Siva, a destroyer and avenger. To these three personages, different functions are a.s.signed, in the Hindoo system of mythologic superst.i.tion, corresponding to the different significations of their names. They are distinguished, likewise, besides these general t.i.tles, in the various sastras and puranas, by an infinite variety of appellations descriptive of their office.
Whatever doubts may arise respecting the Indian Trinity, they will very speedily be dispelled by a view of that wonderful and magnificent piece of sculpture which is found in the celebrated cavern of Elephanta, which has so often been described by travellers, and which has ever been such a source of amus.e.m.e.nt to them. This, it is said, proves that from the remotest era, the Indian nations have adored a Triune Deity. In this cavern, the traveller beholds, with awe and astonishment, carved out of the solid rock, in the most conspicuous part of the most ancient and venerable temple in the world, a bust nearly twenty feet in breadth, and eighteen feet in alt.i.tude, gorgeously decorated, the image of the great presiding Deity of that sacred temple. The bust has three heads united to one body, and adorned with the oldest symbols of the Indian theology, is regarded as representing the Creator, the Preserver, and the Regenerator of mankind. Owing to the gross surroundings of these characters, respectively denominated Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, any comparison cannot be inst.i.tuted with the Christian Trinity; yet the worship paid to that triple divinity incontestably evinces that, on this point of faith, the sentiments of the Indians are congenial with those of the Chaldeans and Persians. Nor is it only in this great Deity with three heads that these sentiments are demonstrated, their veneration for that sacred number strikingly displays itself in their sacred books--the three original _Vedas_--as if each had been delivered by one personage of the august Triad, being confined to that mystic number; by the regular and prescribed offering up of their devotions three times a day; by the immersion of their bodies, during ablution, three times in the purifying wave; and by their constantly wearing next their skin the sacred Zennar, or cord of three threads, the mystic symbol of their belief in a divine all ruling Triad.
The sacred Zennar, just mentioned, is of consequence enough to demand a fuller notice. Its threads can be twisted by no other hand than that of a Brahmin, and he does it with the utmost solemnity and many mystic rites.
Three threads, each measuring ninety-six hands, are first twisted together; then they are folded into three, and twisted again, making it to consist of nine,--that is three times three threads; this is folded again into three, but without any more twisting, and each end is then fastened with a knot. Such is the Zennar, which being put upon the left shoulder, pa.s.ses to the right side, and hangs down as low as the fingers can reach.
"The Hindoos," says M. Sonnerat, "adore three princ.i.p.al deities, Brouma, Chiven, and Vichenou, who are still but _One_; which kind of Trinity is there called Trimourti, or Tritvamz, and signifies the reunion of three powers. The generality of modern Indians adore only one of these three divinities, but some learned men, besides this worship, also address their prayers to the Three united. The representation of them is to be seen in many paG.o.das, under that of human figures with three heads, which, on the coast of Orissa, they call Sariharabrama; on the Coromandel coast, Trimourti; and Tretratreyam, in the Sanscrit. It is affirmed by Maurice that this latter term would not have been found in Sanscrit had not the worship of a Trinity existed in those ancient times, fully two thousand five hundred years ago, when Sanscrit was the current language of India."
There have been found temples entirely consecrated to this kind of Trinity; such as that of Parpenade, in the kingdom of Travancore, where the three G.o.ds are worshipped in the form of a serpent with a thousand heads. The feast of Anandavourdon, which the Indians celebrate to their honour, on the eve of the full moon, in the month of Pretachi, or October, always draws a great number of people, "which would not be the case," says Sonnerat, "if those that came were not adorers of the Three Powers."
Mr. Forster writing, in 1785, on the Mythology of the Hindoos, says:--"A circ.u.mstance which forcibly struck my attention, was the Hindoo belief in a Trinity. The persons are Sree Mun Narrain, the Mhah Letchimy (a beautiful woman), and a Serpent, which are emblematical of strength, love, and wisdom. These persons, by the Hindoos, are supposed to be wholly indivisible. The one is three, and the three are one. In the beginning, they say that the Deity created three men to whom he gave the names of Brimha, Vystnou, and Sheevah. To the first was committed the power of creating mankind, to the second of cherishing them, and to the third that of restraining and correcting them." The sacred persons who compose this Trinity are very remarkable; for Sree Mun Narrain, as Mr. Forster writes the word, is Narayen, the supreme G.o.d; the beautiful woman is the Imma of the Hebrews; and the union of the s.e.xes in the Divinity, is perfectly consonant with that ancient doctrine maintained in the Geeta, and propagated by Orpheus, that the Deity is both male and female.
Damascius, treating of the fecundity of the divine nature, cites Orpheus as teaching that the Deity was at once both male and female, to show the generative power by which all things were formed. Proclus upon the "Timaeus of Plato," among other Orphic verses, cites the following: "Jupiter is a man, Jupiter is also an immortal maid." In the same commentary, and in the same page we read that all things were contained in the womb of Jupiter.
The serpent is the ancient and usual Egyptian symbol for the divine Logos.
M. Tavernier, on his entering one of the great paG.o.das, observed an idol in the centre of the building, sitting cross-legged in the Indian fashion, upon whose head was placed _une triple couronne_; and from this triple crown four horns extended themselves, the symbol of the rays of glory, denoting the Deity to whom the four quarters of the world were under subjection. According to the same author, in his account of the Benares paG.o.da, the deity of India is saluted by prostrating the body three times, and he is not only adorned with a triple crown, and worshipped by a triple salutation, but he bears in his hand a three-forked sceptre, exhibiting the exact model of the trident of the Greek Neptune.
Now here we must allude to some very remarkable discoveries respecting the Trident of Neptune and the use of a similar symbol of authority by the Indian G.o.ds.
Mr. Maurice points out that the unsatisfactory reasons given by mythologists for the a.s.signment of the trident to the Grecian deity, exhibit very clear evidence of its being a symbol that was borrowed from some more ancient mythology, and did not naturally, or originally belong to Neptune. Its three points, or _tines_, some of them affirm to signify the different qualities of the three sorts of waters that are upon the earth, as the waters of the ocean, which are salt; the water of fountains, which is sweet; and the water of lakes and ponds, which, in a degree, partakes of the nature of both. Others, again, insist that this three-p.r.o.nged sceptre alludes to Neptune"s threefold power over the sea, viz., to _agitate_, to _a.s.suage_, and to _preserve_. These reasons are, all of them, in his estimation, mighty frivolous, and amount to a confession of their total ignorance of its real meaning.
The trident was, in the most ancient periods, the sceptre of the Indian deity, and may be seen in the hands of that deity in one of the plates (iv.) of M. d"Ancarville"s third volume, and among the sacred symbols sculptured in Elephanta cavern, as pictured by Niebuhr in his engravings of the Elephanta antiquities. "It was, indeed," says Maurice, "highly proper, and strictly characteristic, that a threefold deity should wield a triple sceptre, and I have now a very curious circ.u.mstance to unfold to the reader, which I am enabled to do from the information of Mr. Hodges, relative to this mysterious emblem. The very ancient and venerable edifices of Deogur, which are in the form of immense pyramids, do not terminate at the summit in a pyramidal point, for the apex is cut off at about one seventh of what would be the entire height of the pyramid were it completed, and, from the centre of the top, there rises a circular cone, that ancient emblem of the sun. What is exceedingly singular to these cones is, that they are on their summits decorated with this very symbol, or usurped sceptre, of the Greek [Greek: Poseidon]. Thus was the outside of the building decorated and crowned, as it were, with a conspicuous emblem of the worship celebrated within, which from the antiquity of the structure, raised in the infancy of the empire after cavern-worship had ceased, was probably that of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva: for we have seen that Elephanta is, in fact, a temple to the Indian Triad, evidenced in the colossal sculpture that forms the princ.i.p.al figure of it, and excavated probably ere Brahma had fallen into neglect among those who still acknowledge him as the creative energy, or different sects had sprung up under the respective names of Vishnu and Siva. Understood with reference to the pure theology of India, such appears to me to be the meaning of this mistaken symbol; but a system of physical theology quickly succeeded to the pure; and the debased, but ingenious, progeny, who invented it, knew too well how to adapt the symbols and images of the true and false devotion. The three sublime hypostases of the true Trinity were degraded into three attributes; in physical causes the sacred mysteries of religion were attempted to be explained away; its doctrines were corrupted, and its emblems perverted. They went the absurd length of degrading a Creator (for such Brahma, in the Hindoo creed, confessedly is) to the rank of a created Dewtah, which has been shewn to be a glaring solecism in theology.
"The evident result then is, that, nothwithstanding all the corruption of the purer theology of the Brahmins, by the base alloy of human philosophy, under the perverted notion of three attributes, the Indians have immemorially worshipped a threefold Divinity, who, considered apart from their physical notions, is the Creator, the Preserver, and the Regenerator. We must again repeat that it would be in the highest degree absurd to continue to affix the name of Destroyer to the third hypostasis in their Triad, when it is notorious that the Brahmins deny that anything can be destroyed, and insist that a change alone in the form of objects and their mode of existence takes place. One feature, therefore, in that character, hostile to our system, upon strict examination vanishes; and the other feature, which creates so much disgust and gives such an air of licentiousness to his character, is annihilated by the consideration of their deep immersion in philosophical speculations, of their incessant endeavours to account for the divine operations by natural causes, and to explain them by palpable and visible symbols."
No image of the supreme Brahma himself is ever made; but in place of it his attributes are arranged, as in the temple of Gharipuri, thus:
Brahma | Power | Creation | Matter | The Past | Earth Vishnu | Wisdom | Preservation | Spirit | The Present | Water Siva | Justice | Destruction | Time | The Future | Fire
Captain Wilford in the 10th vol. of the _Asiatic Researches_ writes of Meru or Moriah, the hill of G.o.d, and he says:--"Polyaenus calls Mount Meru or Merius, Tri-coryphus. It is true that he bestows improperly that epithet on Mount Meru, near Cabul, which is inadmissible. Meru, with its three peaks on the summit, and its seven steps, includes and encompa.s.ses really the whole world, according to the notions of the Hindus and other nations previously to their being acquainted with the globular shape of the earth." Basnage, in his history of the Jews, says "there are seven earths, whereof one is higher than the other; for the Holy Land is situated upon the highest earth, and Mount Moriah (or Meru) is in the middle of that Holy Land. This is the hill of G.o.d so often mentioned in the Old Testament, the mount of the congregation where the mighty King sits in the sides of the north, according to Isaiah, and there is the city of our G.o.d. The Meru of the Hindoos has the name of Sabha, or the congregation, and the G.o.ds are seated upon it in the sides of the north.
There is the holy city of Brahma-puri, where resides Brahma with his court in the most pure and holy land of Ilavratta."
Thus Meru is the worldly temple of the Supreme Being in an embodied state, and of the Tri-Murtti or sacred Triad, which resides on its summit, either in a single or threefold temple, or rather in both: for it is all one, as they are one and three. They are three, only with regard to men who have emerged out of it they are but one: and their threefold temple and mountain, with its three peaks, become one equally. Mythologists in the west called the world, or Meru with his appendages, the temple of G.o.d, according to Macrobius. Hence this most sacred temple of the Supreme Being is generally typified by a cone or pyramid, with either a single chapel on its summit, or with three; either with or without steps.
This worldly temple is also considered by the followers of Buddha as the tomb of the son of the spirit of heaven. His bones, or limbs, were scattered all over the face of the earth, like those of Osiris and Jupiter Zagreus. To collect them was the first duty of his descendants and followers, and then to entomb them. Out of filial piety, the remembrance of this mournful search was yearly kept up by a fict.i.tious one, with all possible marks of grief and sorrow, till a priest came and announced that the sacred relics were at last found. This is practised to this day by several Tartarian tribes of the religion of Buddha; and the expression of the bones of the son of the spirit of heaven is peculiar to the Chinese, and some tribes in Tartary.
Hindu writers represent Narayana moving, as his name implies, on the waters, in the character of the first male, and the principle of all nature, which was wholly surrounded in the beginning by tamas, or darkness, the Chaos and primordial Night of the Greek mythologists, and, perhaps, the Thaumaz or Thamas of the ancient Egyptians; the Chaos is also called Pracriti, or crude Nature, and the male deity has the name of Purusha, from whom proceeded Sacti, or, the power of containing or conceiving; but that power in its first state was rather a tendency or apt.i.tude, and lay dormant and inert until it was excited by the bija, or vivifying principle, of the plastic Iswara. This power, or apt.i.tude, of nature is represented under the symbol of the yoni, or bhaga, while the animating principle is expressed by the linga: both are united by the creative power, Brahma; and the yoni has been called the navel of Vishnu--not identically, but nearly; for, though it is held in the Vedanta that the divine spirit penetrates or pervades all nature, and though the Sacti be considered as an emanation from that spirit, yet the emanation is never wholly detached from its source, and the penetration is never so perfect as to become a total union or ident.i.ty. In another point of view Brahma corresponds with the Chronos, or Time of the Greek mythologists: for through him generations pa.s.s on successively, ages and periods are by him put in motion, terminated and renewed, while he dies and springs to birth alternately; his existence or energy continuing for a hundred of his years, during which he produces and devours all beings of less longevity.
Vishnu represents water, or the humid principle; and Iswara fire, which recreates or destroys, as it is differently applied; Prithivi, or earth, and Ravi, or the sun, are severally trimurtis, or forms of the three great powers acting jointly and separately, but with different natures and energies, and by their mutual action excite and expand the rudiments of material substances. The word murti, or form, is exactly synonymous with [Greek: eidola], of the supreme spirit, and Homer places the idol of Hercules in Elysium with other deceased heroes, though the G.o.d himself was at the same time enjoying bliss in the heavenly mansions. Such a murti, say the Hindus, can by no means affect with any sensation, either pleasing or painful, the being from which it emanated; though it may give pleasure or pain to collateral emanations from the same source; hence they offer no sacrifices to the supreme Essence, of which our own souls are images, but adore Him with silent meditation; while they make frequent homas or oblations to fire, and perform acts of worship to the sun, the stars, the earth, and the powers of nature, which they consider as murtis, or images, the same in kind with ourselves, but transcendently higher in degree. The moon is also a great object of their adoration; for, though they consider the sun and earth as the two grand agents in the system of the universe, yet they know their reciprocal action to be greatly affected by the influence of the lunar orb according to their several aspects, and seem even to have an idea of attraction through the whole extent of nature. This system was known to the ancient Egyptians; for according to Diodorus, their Vulcan, or elemental fire, was the great and powerful deity, whose influence contributed chiefly toward the generation and perfection of natural bodies; while the ocean, by which they meant water in a collective sense, afforded the nutriment that was necessary; and the earth was the vase, or capacious receptacle, in which this grand operation of nature was performed: hence Orpheus described the earth as the universal mother, and this is the true meaning of the Sanscrit word Amba.