Further information respecting the male and female forms of the Trimurti has been gathered as follows:--
Atropos (or Raudri), who is placed about the sun, is the beginning of generation; exactly like the destructive power, or Siva among the Hindus, and who is called the cause and the author of generation: Clotho, about the celestial moon, unites and mixes: the last, or Lachesis, is contiguous to the earth: but is greatly under the influence of chance. For whatever being is dest.i.tute of a sensitive soul, does not exist of its own right; but must submit to the affections of another principle: for the rational soul is of its own right impa.s.sable, and is not obnoxious to affections from another quarter. The sensitive soul is a mediate and mixed being, like the moon, which is a compound of what is above and of what is below; and is to the sun in the same relation as the earth is to the moon. Major Wilford says:--"Well Pliny might say, with great truth, the refinements of the Druids were such, that one would be tempted to believe that those in the east had largely borrowed from them. This certainly surpa.s.ses everything of the kind I have ever read or heard in India."
These three G.o.ddesses are obviously the Parcoe, or fates, of the western mythologists, which were three and one. This female tri-unity is really the Tri-murtti of the Hindus, who call it the Sacti, or energy of the male Tri-murtti, which in reality is the same thing. Though the male tri-unity be oftener mentioned, and better known among the unlearned than the other; yet the female one is always understood with the other, because the Trimurtti cannot act, but through its energy, or Sacti, which is of the feminine gender. The male Trimurtti was hardly known in the west, for Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune have no affinity with the Hindu Trimurtti, except their being three in number. The real Trimurtti of the Greeks and Latians consisted of Cronus, Jupiter and Mars, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. To these three G.o.ds were dedicated three altars in the upper part of the great circus at Rome. These are brothers in their Calpas; and Cronus or Brahma, who has no Calpa of his own, produces them, and of course may be considered as their father. Thus Brahma creates in general; but Vishnu in his own Calpa, a.s.sumes the character of Cronus or Brahma to create, and he is really Cronus or Brahma: he is then called Brahma-rupi Janardana, or Vishnu, the devourer of souls, with the countenance of Brahma: he is the preserver of his own character.
These three were probably the Tripatres of the western mythologists, called also Tritopatores, Tritogeneia, Tris-Endaimon, Trisolbioi, Trismacaristoi, and Propatores. The ancients were not well agreed who they were: some even said that they were Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, the sons of Tellus and the sun. Others said that they were Amalcis, Protocles, and Protocless, the door-keepers and guardians of the minds. Their mystical origin probably belonged to the secret doctrine, which the Roman college, like the Druids, never committed to writing, and were forbidden to reveal.
As the ancients swore by them, there can be little doubt but that they were the three great deities of their religion.
Disentangling the somewhat intricate and involved web of Indian mythology, and putting the matter as simply as possible, we may say the deities are only three, whose places are the earth, the intermediate region, and heaven, namely Fire, Air, and the Sun. They are p.r.o.nounced to be deities of the mysterious names severally, and (Praj.a.pati) the lord of creatures is the deity of them collectively. The syllable O"ru intends every deity: it belongs to (Paramasht"hi) him who dwells in the supreme abode; it pertains to (Brahma) the vast one; to (Deva) G.o.d; to (Ad"hyatma) the superintending soul. Other deities, belonging to those several regions, are portions of the three G.o.ds; for they are variously named and described on account of their different operations, but there is only one deity, the Great Soul (Mahanatma). He is called the Sun, for he is the soul of all beings. The Sun, the soul of (jagat) what moves, and of that which is fixed; other deities are portions of him.
The name given by the Indians to their Supreme Deity, or Monad, is Brahm; and notwithstanding the appearance of materialism in all their sacred books, the Brahmins never admit that they uphold such a doctrine, but invest their deities with the highest attributes. He is represented as the Vast One, self-existing, invisible, eternal, imperceptible, the only deity, the great soul, the over-ruling soul, the soul of all beings, and of whom all other deities are but portions. To him no sacrifices were ever offered; but he was adored in silent meditation. He triplicates himself into three persons or powers, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer, or Reproducer; and is designated by the word Om or Aum by the respective letters of which sacred triliteral syllable are expressed the powers into which he triplicates himself.
The Metempsychosis and succession of similar worlds, alternately destroyed by flood and fire and reproduced, were doctrines universally received among the heathens: and by the Indians, the world, after the lapse of each predestined period of its existence, was thought to be destroyed by Siva.
At each appointed time of its destruction, Vishnu ceases from his preserving care, and sleeps beneath the waters: but after the allotted period, from his navel springs forth a lotus to the surface, bearing Brahma in its cup, who reorganises the world, and when he has performed his work, retires, leaving to Vishnu its government and preservation; when all the same heroes and persons reappear, and similar events are again transacted, till the time arrives for another dissolution.
After the construction of the world by Brahma, the office of its preservation is a.s.sumed by Vishnu. His chief attribute is Wisdom: he is the Air, Water, Humidity in general, s.p.a.ce, and sometimes, though rarely, Earth: he is Time present, and the middle: and he is the Sun in the evening and at night. His colour is blue or blackish; his Vahan, the Eagle named Garuda; his allotted place, the Air or intermediate region, and he symbolises Unity. It is he who most commonly appears in the Avatars or Incarnations, of which nine in number are recorded as past: the most celebrated of which are his incarnations as Mateya or the Fish Rama, Krishna, and Buddha: the tenth of Kalki, or the Horse, is yet to come. It is from him that Brahma springs when he proceeds to his office of creation.
The destroying and regenerating power, Siva, Maha-deva, Iswara, or Routrem is regarded metaphysically as Justice, and physically as Fire or Heat, and sometimes Water. He is the Sun at noon: his colour is white, with a blue throat, but sometimes red; his Vahan is the bull, and his place of residence the heaven. As destruction in the material world is but change or production in another form, and was so held by almost all the heathen philosophers, we find that the peculiar emblems of Siva are, as we have already shown, the Trident, the symbol of destruction; and the Linga or Phallus, of regeneration.
The three deities were called Trimurtti, and in the caverns of Ellora they are united in a Triune bust. They are collectively symbolized by the triangle. Vishnu, as Humidity personified, is also represented by an inverted triangle, and Siva by a triangle erect, as a personification of Fire; while the Monad Brahm is represented by the circle as Eternity, and by a point as having neither length, nor breadth, as self-existing, and containing nothing. The Brahmans deny materialism; yet it is a.s.serted by Mr. Wilford, that, when closely interrogated on the t.i.tle of Deva or G.o.d, which their most sacred books give to the Sun, they avoid a direct answer, and often contradict themselves and one another. The supreme divinity of the Sun, however, is constantly a.s.serted in their scriptures; and the holiest verse in the Vedas, which is called the Gayatri, is:--"Let us adore the supremacy of that divine sun, the G.o.dhead, who illuminates all, who recreates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understanding aright in our progress towards his holy seat."
It has been said that in India is to be found the most ancient form of that Trinitarian worship which prevails in nearly every quarter of the known world. Be that as it may, it is not in India where the most remarkable phase of the worship is to be found; for that we turn to Egypt.
Here we meet with the strange fact that no two cities worshipped the same triad. "The one remarkable feature in nearly all these triads is that they are father, mother, and son; that is, male and female principles of nature, with their product."
Mariette Bey says:--"According to places, the attributes by which the Divine Personage is surrounded are modified; but in each temple the triad would appear as a symbol destined to affirm the eternity of being. In all triads, the princ.i.p.al G.o.d gives birth to himself. Considered as a Father, he remains the great G.o.d adored in temples. Considered as a Son, he becomes, by a sort of doubling, the third person of the triad. But the Father and the Son are not less the one G.o.d, while, being double, the first is the eternal G.o.d; the second is but the living symbol destined to affirm the strength of the other. The father engenders himself in the womb of the mother, and thus becomes at once his own father and his own son.
Thereby are expressed the uncreatedness and the eternity of the being who has had no beginning, and who shall have no end."
Generally speaking, the G.o.ds of Egypt were grouped in sets of three, each city having its own Trinity. Thus in Memphis we find Ptah, Pasht and Month; in Thebes, Amun-Ra, Athor and Chonso; in Ethiopia, Noum, Sate and Anucis; in Hermonthis, Monthra, Reto and Harphre; in Lower Egypt, Seb, Netphe and Osiris; in Thinnis, Osiris, Isis and Anhur; in Abousimbel and Derr, Ptah, Amun-Ra and Horus-Ra; in Esne, Neph, Neboo and Hake; in Dabad, Seb, Netpe and Mandosti; in Ambos, Savak, Athor and Khonso; in Edfou, Horket, Hathor and Horsenedto. The trinity common throughout the land is that of Osiris, Isis and Horus.
Dr. Cudworth translates Jamblichus as follows, quoting from the Egyptian Hermetic Books in defining the Egyptian Trinity:--"Hermes places the G.o.d Emeph as the prince and ruler over all the celestial G.o.ds, whom he affirmeth to be a Mind understanding himself, and converting his cogitations or intellections into himself. Before which Emeph he placeth one indivisible, whom he calleth Eicton, in which is the first intelligible, and which is worshipped only by silence. After which two, Eicton and Emeph, the demiurgic mind and president of truth, as with wisdom it proceedeth to generations, and bringeth forth the hidden powers of the occult reasons with light, is called in the Egyptian language Ammon: as it artificially affects all things with truth, Phtha; as it is productive of good, Osiris; besides other names that it hath according to its other powers and energies." Upon this, Dr. Cudworth remarks:--"How well these three divine hypostases of the Egyptians agree with the Pythagoric or Platonic Trinity of,--first, Unity and Goodness itself; secondly, Mind; and, thirdly, Soul,--I need not here declare. Only we shall call to mind what hath been already intimated, that Reason or Wisdom, which was the Demiurgus of the world, and is properly the second of the fore-mentioned hypostases, was called also, among the Egyptians by another name, Cneph; from whom was said to have been produced or begotten the G.o.d Phtha, the third hypostasis of the Egyptian Trinity; so that Cneph and Emeph are all one. Wherefore, we have here plainly an Egyptian Trinity of divine hypostases subordinate, Eicton, Emeph or Cneph, and Phtha."
Mr. Sharpe, in his Egyptian Inscriptions, mentions the fact that there is in the British Museum a hieroglyphical inscription as early as the reign of Sevechus of the eighth century before the Christian Era, showing that the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity already formed part of their religion, and stating that in each of the two groups, Isis, Nephthis and Osiris, and Osiris, Isis, and Horus, the three G.o.ds made only one person.
Also that the sculptured figures on the lid of the sarcophagus of Rameses III., now at Cambridge, show us the King, not only as one of a group of three G.o.ds, but also as a Trinity in Unity in his own person. "He stands between the G.o.ddesses, Isis and Nepthys, who embrace him as if he were the lost Osiris, whom they have now found again. We further know him to be in the character of Osiris by the two sceptres which he holds; but at the same time the horns upon his head are those of the G.o.ddess Athor, and the ball and feathers above are the ornaments of the G.o.d Ra."
Nearly all writers describe the Egyptian Trinity as consisting of the _generative_, the _destructive_, and the _preserving_ powers. Isis answers to Siva. Iswara, or Lord, is the epithet of Siva. Osiris, or Ysiris, as h.e.l.lanicus wrote the Egyptian name, was the G.o.d at whose birth a voice was heard to declare, "that the Lord of all nature sprang forth to light."
A peculiar feature in the ancient trinities is the way in which the worship of the first person is lost or absorbed in the second, few or no temples being found dedicated to Brahma. Something very much like this often occurs among Christians; we are surrounded by churches dedicated to the second and third persons in the trinity, and to saints, and to the Mother of Christ, but none to the Father.
It has been noticed that while we find inscribed upon the monuments of Egypt a vast mult.i.tude of G.o.ds, as in India, the number diminishes as we ascend. Amun Ra alone is found dedicated upon the oldest monuments, in three distinct forms, into one or other of whose characters all the other divinities may be resolved. Amun was the chief G.o.d, the sacred name, corresponding with the Aum of the Indians, also, probably, the Egyptian On. According to Mr. Wilkinson, the Egyptians held Kneph, Neph, Nef, or Chnoubus, "as the idea of the Spirit of G.o.d which moved upon the face of the waters." He was the Spirit, animating and perpetuating the world, and penetrating all its parts; the same with the Agathodaemon of the Phoenicians, and like him, was symbolized by the snake, an emblem of the Spirit which pervades the universe. He was commonly represented with a Ram"s head; and though the colour of the Egyptian divinities is perhaps more commonly green than any other, he is as frequently depicted blue. He was the G.o.d of the Nile, which is indirectly confirmed by Pindar; and by Ptolemy, who says that the Egyptians gave the name of Agathodaemon to the western, or Heracleotic branch. From his mouth proceeded the Mundane egg, from which sprung Phtah, the creative power. Mr. Wilkinson proceeds:--"Having separated the Spirit from the Creator, and purposing to act apart and defy each attribute, which presented itself to their imagination, they found it necessary to form another deity from the creative power, whom they call Phtah, proceeding from the former, and thence deemed the son of Kneph. Some difference was observed between the power, which created the world, and that which caused and ruled over the generation of man, and continued to promote the continuation of the human species. This latter attribute of the divinity was deified under the appellation Khem. Thus was the supreme deity known by the three distinct names of,
Kneph, Phthah, Khem:
to these were joined the G.o.ddesses Sate, Neith, and Buto; and the number of the eight deities was completed by the addition of Ra, or Amun-Ra,"
this last, however, was not a distinct G.o.d, but a name common to each person of the triad: and, indeed, to all the three names above the name of Amun was constantly prefixed.[9]
Phthah corresponds with the Indian Brahma, and the Orphic Phanes, and appears in several other forms. In one form he is represented as an infant--often as an infant Priapaean figure, and deformed.
The deity called Khem by Mr. Wilkinson, and Mendes by Champollion, is common on the monuments of Egypt, and is recognised as corresponding with the Pan of the Greeks. His chief attribute is heat, which aids the continuation of the various species, and he is generally coloured red, though sometimes blue, with his right arm extended upwards. His princ.i.p.al emblems are a triple-thonged Flagellum and a Phallus. He corresponds with Siva of the Indians, his attributes being similar, _viz._, Destroying and Regenerating. He is the G.o.d of generation, and, like Siva, has his Phallic emblem of reproduction; the triple-thonged flagellum is regarded by some as a variation of the trident, or of the axe of Siva. He has for a vahan the Bull Mneuis, as Sivi has the Bull Nandi. The Goat Mendes was also consecrated to him as an emblem of heat and generation; and it is well known that this animal is constantly placed in the hands of Siva. "In short," says Mr. Cory, "there is scarcely a shade of distinction between Khem and Siva: the Egyptians venerated the same deity as the Indians, in his generative character as Khem, when they suspended the flagellum, the instrument of vengeance, over his right hand; but in his destroying character, as the ruler of the dead, as Osiris, when they placed the flagellum in his hands as the trident is in that character placed in the hand of Siva."
In the Chaldean oracles, so far as they have been preserved, the doctrine of a triad is found everywhere. Allowing for the existence of much that is forged amongst these oracles, as suggested by Mr. Cory and others, we may reasonably conclude that there still remains a deal that is ancient and authentic. They teach as a fundamental tenet that a triad shines throughout the whole world, over which a Monad rules. This triad is Father, Power, and Intellect, having probably once been Air, Fire, and Sun.
Amongst the Laplanders the Supreme G.o.d was worshipped as Jumala, and three G.o.ds were recognised as subordinate to him. The first was Thor of the Edda; the second Storjunkare, his vicegerent, the common household G.o.d; and the third Beywe, the Sun.
With regard to the Phoenicians and Syrians, Photius states that the Kronus of both was known under the names of El, Bel, and Bolathen.
The Sidonians, Eudemus said, placed before all things Chronus, Pothas, and Omichles, rendered by Damascius as Time, Love, and Cloudy Darkness, regarded by some as no other than the Khem, Phthah, and Amun Kneph of the Egyptians.
The Heracles or Hercules of the Greeks, known as Arcles of the Tyrians, was a triple divinity, described by Hieronymus as a dragon, with the heads of a bull, of a lion, and of a man with wings.
Among the Philistines also we find their chief G.o.d Dragon, who is the Oura.n.u.s of Sanchoniatho. It appears also that Baal was a triple Divinity: while Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites, and Baal Peor, of the Midians, seem to be the Priapaean Khem of Egypt, the G.o.d of heat and generation. The Edessenes also held the triad, and placed Monimus and Azizus as contemplars with the Sun.[10]
CHAPTER IV.
_The Supreme G.o.d of the Peruvians--a.s.sumed Origin of the Trinity Idea in the Patriarchal Age--Welsh Ideas--Druidical Triads--The Ancient Religion of America--The Cla.s.sics and Heathen Triads--The Tritopatoreia--The Virgin Mary--The Virgin amongst the Heathen--Universality of the Belief in a Trinity--The Dahomans._
The Supreme G.o.d of the Peruvians, was called Viracocha; known also as Pachacarnac, Soul of the world, Usapu admirable, and other names.
Garcilazo says, "he was considered as the giver of life, sustainer and nourisher of all things, but because they did not see him, they erected no temples to him nor offered sacrifices; however they worshipped him in their hearts, and esteemed him for the unknown G.o.d."
Generally, speaking, the sun was the great object of Peruvian idolatry during the dominion of the Incas. Its worship was the most solemn, and its temples the most splendid in their furniture and decorations, and the common people, no doubt, reverenced that luminary as their chief G.o.d.
Herrera mentions the circ.u.mstance that at one of the festivals, they exhibited three statues of the sun, each of which had a particular name, which as he translated them were Father and Lord Sun, the Son Sun, and the Brother Sun. He also says, "that at Chucuisaea, they worshipped an idol called Tangatanga, which they said was three and one."
The Spanish writers consider this doctrine to have been stolen by the devil from Christianity, and imparted by him to this people. By this opinion they evidently declare its antiquity in Peru to have been greater than the time of the Spanish conquest.
Those writers and scholars who refuse to believe that the doctrine of the Trinity as taught in the Christian religion, was known during the patriarchal or judaical dispensations, and therefore will not allow that the trinity of the Peruvians had any reference to the dogma of Christianity, contend that their trinity was founded in those early corruptions of patriarchal history, in which men began to represent Adam, and his three sons; and Noah, and his three sons; as being triplicates of the same essential person, who originally was the universal father of the human race: and secondly, being triplicated in their three sons, who also were considered the fathers of mankind. They say therefore, Adam and Noah were each the father of three sons; and to the persons of the latter of these triads, by whose descendants the world was repeopled, the whole habitable earth was a.s.signed in a threefold division. This matter, though it sometimes appears in an undisguised form, was usually wrapped up in the cloak of the most profound mystery. Hence instead of plainly saying, that the mortal who had flourished in the golden age and who was venerated as the universal demon father both of G.o.ds and men, was the parent of three sons, they were wont to declare, that the great father had wonderfully triplicated himself.
Pursuing this vein of mysticism, they contrived to obscure the triple division of the habitable globe among the sons of Noah, just as much as the characters of the three sons themselves. A very ancient notion universally prevailed that some such triple division had once taken place; and the hierophants when they had elevated Noah and his three sons to the rank of deity, proceeded to ring a variety of corresponding changes upon that celebrated threefold distribution. Noah was esteemed the universal sovereign of the world; but, when he branched out into three kings (_i.e._, triplicating himself into his three sons), that world was to be divided into three kingdoms, or, as they were sometimes styled, three worlds. To one of these kings was a.s.signed the empire of heaven; to another, the empire of the earth, including the nether regions of Tartarus; to a third, the empire of the ocean.
So again, when Noah became a G.o.d, the attributes of deity were inevitably ascribed to him, otherwise, he would plainly have become incapable of supporting his new character: yet even in the ascription of such attributes, the genuine outlines of his history were never suffered to be wholly forgotten. He had witnessed the destruction of one world, the new creation (or regeneration) of another, and the oath of G.o.d that he would surely preserve mankind from the repet.i.tion of such a calamity as the deluge. Hence when he was worshipped as a hero-G.o.d, he was revered in the triple character of the destroyer, the creator, and the preserver. And when he was triplicated into three cognate divinities, were produced three G.o.ds, different, yet fundamentally the same, one mild though awful as the creator; another gentle and beneficent as the preserver; a third, sanguinary, ferocious, and implacable as the destroyer.[11]
The idea of a trinity was rather curiously developed amongst the Druids, especially amongst the Welsh. They used a number of triplicated sentences as summaries of matters relating to their religion, history, and science, in order that these things might be the more easily committed to memory and handed down to future generations. The triads were these:--
1. There are three primeval Unities, and more than one of each cannot exist:
One G.o.d; One Truth; One Point of Liberty, where all opposites equiponderate.
2. Three things proceed from the primeval unities:
All of Life; All that is Good; and All Power.
3. G.o.d consists necessarily of three things:
The Greatest of Life; The Greatest of Knowledge; and The Greatest of Power.[12]