his visions? That blazing house of crystal, burning hot and icy cold--that
place where were the bow of fire, the quiver of arrows, the sword of
fire--that other where he had to cross the babbling stream, and the river
of fire--and those extremities of the Earth full of all kinds of huge
beasts and birds--or the habitation where appeared one of great glory
sitting upon the orb of the sun--and, lastly, does not the tamarind tree in
the midst of the earth, that he was told was the Tree of Knowledge, find
its simile in the calabash tree, in the middle of the road where those of
Xibalba placed the head of Hunhun Ahpu, after sacrificing him for having
failed to support the first trial of the initiation? Even the title
[Symbol: 6 letter-like signs] _Hach-mac_, "the true, the very man," of the
high priest in Mayax, that we see over the bust of High Pontiff, prince
_Cay Canchi_, son of King _Can_ at Uxmal, recalls that of the chief of the
Magi at Babylon.
[Illustration]
These were the awful ordeals that the candidates for initiation into the
sacred mysteries had to pass through in Xibalba. Do they not seem an exact
counterpart of what happened, in a milder form at the initiation into the
Eleusinian mysteries? and also the greater mysteries of Egypt, from which
these were copied? Does not the recital of what the candidates to the
mysteries in Xibalba were required to know, before being admitted, in order
to distinguish the wooden statue pointed out to them as the King from the
veiled Brothers; to avoid seating themselves on a burning hot stone seat;
to keep lighted the torch and cigar and prevent them from being consumed;
to produce the flowers asked from them while isolated from the world in a
guarded chamber; to defend themselves from the attacks of dexterous
spearmen; to protect themselves against the intense cold of the "Ice
house;" to remain unhurt amidst wild tigers; or unscorched in the middle of
a burning furnace; recall to mind the wonderful similar feats said to be
performed by the _Mahatmas_, the Brothers in India, and of several of the
passages of the book of Daniel, who had been initiated to the mysteries of
the Chaldeans or Magi which, according to Eubulus were divided into three
classes or genera, the highest being the most learned?
Will it be said that the mysteries were imported from Egypt or Chaldea or
India, or Phoenicia to America? Then I will ask when? By whom? What facts
can be adduced to sustain such assertion? Why should the words with which
the priest at the conclusion of the ceremonies in the Eleusinian mysteries,
and the Brahmins at the end of their religious ceremonies, dismiss the
assistants, be Maya instead of Greek or Sanscrit words? Is it not probable
that the dismissal continued to be uttered in the language of those who
first instituted and taught the ceremonies and rites of the mysteries to
the others? That sacred mysteries have existed in America from times
immemorial, there can be no doubt. Even setting aside the proofs of their
existence, that we gather from the monuments of Uxmal, and the description
of the trials of initiation related in the sacred book of the Quiches, we
find vestiges of them in various other countries of the Western Continent.
Garcilasso de la Vega informs us that in Peru, it was illicit for any one
not belonging to the nobility to acquire learning. There again, as in
Egypt, in Chaldea, Etruria, India, Mayax, science was the privilege of the
priests and kings. The sacerdotal class held the pre-eminence. Sacerdotal
orders were conferred only upon young men who had given proofs of
sufficiency for such important office; and before they could be received
into the Society of the _Amautas_ or wise men, which was considered a great
honor, they had to submit to very severe ordeals. The rites and ceremonies
of initiation were imported in Peru by the ancestors of Manco Capac, the
founder of the Inca dynasty, who were colonists from Central America, as we
learn from an unpublished MS., written by a Jesuit father, Rev. Anello
Oliva, at the beginning of the year 1631, in Lima; and now in the library
of the British Museum in London. The name _Quichua_, of the general
language of Peru, points directly to the _Quiches_ as the branch of the
Maya nation that carried civilization to that country.
If from South America we go to New Mexico, there we find the Zuñis, and
other Pueblo Indians. Having preserved their independence by shaking off at
an early period the yoke of the Spaniards, they have been little
influenced, if at all, by the civilization of the Europeans, and live
to-day as their ancestors did many centuries back; preserving with great
care, not only the purity of their language, which they teach their
children to speak correctly, but their customs, traditions, and ancient
religious rites and observances.
Mr. Frank Cushing, who was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution, at
Washington, to make a study of their customs and manners, has been adopted
by the tribe, and has now become one of their most influential chiefs.
Among the many interesting things discovered by him, not the least is the
existence of _twelve sacred orders_, with their priests, their initiations,
their sacred rites, as carefully guarded as the secrets of the ancient
sacred mysteries to which they bear great resemblance. He has been
initiated into many of them, having had to submit to ordeals almost as
severe as those of Xibalba from which no doubt they are derived, having
been brought among them by Maya colonists and afterward Nahualt invaders.
The Nahualts invaded and for a long time held sway over Mexico and some of
the northern portions of Central America. The aborigines of those countries
at last expelled them from their territories, when they scattered in all
directions, about the beginning of the Christian era. Some reached as far
north as the gulf of California and Arizona. The Yaqui Indians, neighbors
of the Mayos, and who inhabit the countries watered by the rivers Yaqui and
Mayo in Sonora, are descendants of a Nahualt tribe, from which in all
probability, the adjoining nations, the inhabitants of the seven cities of
Cibola, the Zuñis among them, learned many of their religious practices;
and the institution of the _twelve_ sacred orders, that recall the _twelve_
priests who presided at the initiation into the sacred mysteries at
Xibalba.
Seeking for the origin of the institution of the sacred mysteries, of which
Masonry seems to be the great-grandchild, following their vestiges from
country to country, we have been brought over the vast expanse of the blue
sea, to this western continent, to these mysterious "Lands of the West"
where the souls of all good men, the Egyptians believed, dwelt among the
blessed. It is, therefore, in that country, where Osiris was said to reign
supreme, that we may expect to find the true signification of the symbols
held sacred by the initiates in all countries, in all times, and which have
reached us, through the long vista of ages, still surrounded by the veil,
well-nigh impenetrable, of mystery woven round them by their inventors. My
long researches among the ruins of the ancient temples and palaces of the
Mayas, have been rewarded by learning at the fountain-head the esoteric
meaning of some at least of the symbols, the interpretation of which has
puzzled many a wise head--the origin of the mystification and symbolism of
the numbers 3, 5, and 7.
Whoever has read history knows that in all nations, civilized as well as
uncivilized, from the remotest antiquity, the priests have claimed learning
as the privilege of their caste, bestowed upon them by special favor of the
Ruling Spirit of the universe. For this reason they have zealously kept
from the gaze of other men their intellectual treasures, and surrounded
them with the veil of mystery. They have carefully hid all their
discoveries, scientific or artistic, under the cover of symbols, reserving
their esoteric or secret meaning for the initiated; giving to the people
only such exoteric or public explanation of them as best suited their
purpose. They put into practice the principle, that "It was necessary to
keep the discoveries of the philosophers in the works of art or nature from
those unworthy of knowing them," enunciated by the erudite and celebrated
English monk Roger Bacon, one of the most learned men of his time, who was
confined during many years in a prison cell by his ignorant brethren on
account of his great erudition. This same principle is yet closely adhered
to by the Brahmins, the Buddhist priests of Thibet, the Adepts of India,
and I might add the Jesuits among the Christians, although they are very
inferior in knowledge to the others; the secrecy they have observed for
centuries, and do still observe, being their best guarantee of power and
honor.
Judging from the numerous devices and emblems that formed the ornamentation
of the temples and palaces in the ancient ruined cities of Yucatan, the
priests of Mayax seem to have been as addicted to symbology as their
congeners in India, Egypt, Chaldea and other countries. Among these devices
and symbols, several belong clearly to their sacred mysteries.
The study of the relics of ancient Maya civilization has made manifest to
my mind the source of many of the primitive traditions of mankind, which
have reached us through the sacred books of the Hindoos, the Chaldeans, the
Egyptians, and the Jews. These, having received them from both the Chaldees
and the Egyptians, have consigned the relation in the Pentateuch, a book
long attributed to Moses, but now believed by Matthew Henry and other
commentators, who pride themselves upon their orthodoxy, to have been
written in times subsequent to the foundation of the Hebrew monarchy. Might
it not be possible that, in Mayax also, could be found the origin of the
mystification of the numbers 3, 5, and 7, regarded as mystic by all
civilized nations of antiquity all over the earth?
Surely this mystification must have originated with one of these nations
and been carried to the others either by colonists, missionaries, or
travelers. It is not admissible, or even presumable, that the same idea and
mysticism has been attached to these numbers by all these different peoples
without being communicated from one to another. Such abstruse speculations
respecting the ontological properties of numbers can not be ascribed to the
first workings of the human mind in its incipient steps toward intellectual
development. In its awakening, human intellect, still unable to comprehend
the causes of the natural phenomena that take place, as everyday
occurrences, in the material existence of man, does not soar in the
elevated regions of metaphysics or of philosophical and abstract theories.
Do we not see, even in our midst, that men who live in ignorance ascribe
the manifestations of the powers of nature to unseen, mighty beings, of
whom they continually stand in awe; to whom they tribute homage, and
address prayers filled with the superstitious fears that these fancies of
their untutored imagination inspire in them? Abstract conceptions,
numerical combinations, metaphysical speculations, philosophical
hypothesis, are productions of highly cultivated intelligences, of minds
accustomed to reason on causes and effects, to deduce things unseen from
things seen.
The mysticism with which these numbers have been invested, their
symbolization in the sacred mysteries, must have had its origin in material
causes, palpable to physical senses, the memory of which became lost in the
course of ages, altered by being transported among peoples living far away
from the nation that conceived the idea, by passing from mouth to mouth, in
the secrecy of initiations, generation after generation. The idea of a sole
and omnipotent Deity, who created all things, seems to have been the
universal belief in early ages, among all the nations that had reached a
high degree of civilization. This was the doctrine of the Egyptian priests.
They called the Divine Intelligence _Kneph_, and placed him above and apart
from the Triads. Damascius, an eclectic philosopher, who taught in the
schools of Athens, about the year 526 of the Christian era, in his
"Treatise on Principles," says that "they asserted nothing of the first
principle of all things, but celebrated it as a thrice unknown darkness,
transcending all intellectual perception." Proclus, platonic philosopher,
director of the school of Athens in 450 after Christ, says: "the Demiurgos
or Creator is triple, and the three intellects are the three kings, he who
exists, he who possesses, he who beholds." These three intellects,
therefore, he supposes to be the Demiurge; the same as the _three kings_ of
Plato, and as the three whom Orpheus celebrates under the names of Phænes,
Ouranos, and Kronos, kings of the great "Saturnian continent," in the
Atlantic ocean.
In Chaldea, the twin sister of Egypt, daughter of _Poseidon_, king of the
"Lands beyond the sea" and Lybia, we find that notwithstanding the apparent
polytheistic character which, from the earliest times, religion had
assumed, it was possible for the priests and learned men, if we give
credence to Pythagoras, Democritus, and other philosophers, to account by
esoteric explanation for the multiplicity of their gods, resolving them
into the powers of nature, thus reconciling the whole scheme with
monotheism. In fact, above and apart from the personages which peopled
their Pantheon and were reverenced with equal respect by kings and people,
they recognized a superior deity, Ra, so far removed from their first
triad, that they did not know how to worship it. The meaning of the name RA
seems to have been unknown to the historians. They only assert that it
means God emphatically; but its origin still remains a mystery. In Egypt
they gave that name to the "Sun" particularly, as the fount of all things,
the life-giver and sustainer of all that exists on earth. LA, in the Maya
language, means "that which has existed forever. The eternal truth."
So it is evident that the ancient Chaldeans recognized a supreme being, a
divine essence, _Ra_, to which the Triads were subordinate.
The same conceptions about Deity existed in India from the remotest
antiquity. H. T. Colebrooke, in his notice on "the Sacred Books of the
Hindoos" says: "In the last part of the _Niroukta_, dedicated exclusively
to the divinities, it is thrice affirmed that there are only _three gods_;
and that these three gods designate _one sole deity_. The gods are _three_
only, whose mansions are the Earth, the intermediate regions and heavens;
that is the fire, the air, and the sun; but _Pradjapati_, the Lord of all
creatures, is their collective God. In fact there is but one God, the
"great Soul" _Maha-atma_. It is called the "SUN," because the sun is the
soul of all beings, of all that moves, and of all that does not move. The
other gods are only parts or fractions of his person." The belief in a
Triune God has also existed from very early ages among the Chinese
philosophers. Lo-pi, a Chinese writer, who flourished toward the eleventh
century of the Christian era, during the Songs dynasty, explaining certain
passages of the _Hi-Tse_, says: That the "Great Term," is "the Great Unit"
and the great Y. That the Y has neither body or shape. That all that has
body and shape was made by that which has no body or shape. Tradition
recounts that the "Great Term" or the "Great Unit" comprehends three; that
one is three and three are one.
_Hiu-Chin_, who lived under the dynasty of the Hans, is the author of a
Chinese dictionary called _Choueven_ in which he has preserved many ancient
traditions. He wrote about the beginning of the Christian era. Explaining
the character Y he says: In the first beginning reason subsisted in unity.
Reason made and divided Heaven and Earth; converted and perfected all
things. And _Tao-Tse_, a contemporary of Confucius, who wrote the
_Tao-te-King_, a book reputed very profound, said more than five hundred
years before Christ: "That reason, _Tao_, produced one. That one produced
two, that both produced three; and that three had produced all things." All
early writers who have given an account of the religion of the ancient
Peruvians, tell us that they worshiped a mighty unseen being who they
believed had created all things, for which reason they called him
_Pacha-camac_. He, being incomprehensible, they did not represent under any
shape or figure, although they raised a magnificent temple in his honor on
the sea coast that rivaled in wealth and splendor those dedicated to the
Sun at Titicaca and Cuzco. We are also informed that He stood at the head
of a trinity composed of Himself--_Pacha-camac_--_Con_--and _Uiracocha_.
In this conception of a Supreme Being, Creator of all things, we see
reflected the teachings of the _Popol-vuh_, Sacred book of the Quiches, in
which we read, "that all that exists is the work of _Tzakol_--the
Creator--who by his will caused the Universe to spring into existence, and
whose names are _Bitol_--the maker--_Alom_--the engenderer--_Qaholom_--He
who gives being."
The fact that the same doctrine of a Supreme Deity composed of three parts
distinct from each other, yet forming one, was universally prevalent among
the civilized nations of America, Asia and the Egyptians, naturally leads
to the inference that at some time or other, communications and relations
more or less intimate have existed between them. They must, then, have
imparted their traditions, metaphysical speculations, and intellectual
attainments one to another.
In fact, all historians agree with Philostratus and admit that commercial
intercourse did exist between Egypt and India. Nay more, Eusebius asserts
that in the reign of Memnon, king of Ethiopia, a body of Ethiopians from
the countries about the Indus river migrated and settled in the valley of
the Nile. And the many Chinese bottles, with inscriptions in that language,
found in the tombs of Thebes, prove, beyond the least doubt, that
communications have existed between the inhabitants of China and the
Egyptians in times very remote, as is conjectured from the inferior quality
of the bottles, that some seem to believe were manufactured before the art
of making objects of porcelain reached the high degree of perfection to
which it attained afterward.
On the other hand, the vase with Chinese inscriptions found by Dr.
Schliemann in the lowest stratum of his excavations at Hissarlik,
inscriptions that were partly deciphered by the eminent indianist Mr. Emile
Burnouf and afterward thoroughly interpreted by the great Chinese scholar
Fi-Fangpao, when ambassador at Berlin, and proved to mention the fact of
the vase having contained samples of Chinese gauze, shows that active
commercial intercourse was carried on by the Chinese with Greece and Asia
Minor even before the siege of Troy.
These conceptions concerning the Triune God have come down through the
vista of ages, to the present day, preserved in the works of the
philosophers, and are still held sacred by many among Christians and
Brahmins. But we do not learn from their sacred books where, when or how
said doctrine originated. Whatever may have been the source from which it
sprang, it is certain that the priests and learned men of Egypt, Chaldea,
India, or China, if they still knew the true history of its origin at the
time they wrote, kept it a profound secret, and imparted it only to a few
select among those initiated in the sacred mysteries.
We need not seek for information among the fathers of the Christian Church,
for they are as silent as the tomb on the subject. They admitted into their
tenets the notion of a Triune God as taught by the pagan philosophers, and
appropriated it, as they have many other of their teachings and theories,
without knowing, without inquiring, concerning their origin. The councils
pronounced them revelations from on high; unfathomable mysteries not to be
investigated; and imposed them as dogmas, to be implicitly believed, with
blind faith, as they are to-day, by the followers of the Romish Church.
Through their adherents the idea of the three persons in the Godhead has
found its way into Free Masonry, and on the columns that adorn the temple,
in the working of one of the degrees, we read these inscriptions: "_In the
name of the holy and indivisible Trinity_;" and further down, "_We have the
happiness to dwell in the pacific unity of the sacred numbers_."
To those initiated to the lesser mysteries the doctrine was presented under
the garb of the complicated metaphysical speculations with which it has
reached us. Such explanations of the symbolical nature of the mystic
numbers were given to them so as to make it well-nigh impossible to obtain
a fair understanding of their purport. By the perusal of the extracts just
quoted it is easy to see that all the reasonings concerning the mystic
value of number 3 and its relations to a Supreme Deity are mere fancies of
the imagination, vague speculations, fallacious cavils; meaningless for
practical and inquiring minds. So far as explaining the nature of the Deity
all philosophers agree in admitting that it transcends the intelligence of
man since man is finite; and what is finite will never be able to
comprehend that which is infinite.
Some of the Greek philosophers reflected in their teachings, as well as in
their writings, the doctrines they had learned from their teachers, the
priests of Heliopolis, Memphis and Thebes. From them we may gather a
glimmer of dim light pointing toward the origin of the symbolization of the
numbers. We have said that Proclus asserts that the three component parts
of the triple deity were three intellects or _three Kings_--a fact
corroborated by Plato, who also had been admitted to the mysteries, and by
Orpheus, who celebrated these _three Kings_, in the ceremonies instituted
by him, that Herodotus says were identical with the Egyptian mysteries.
Pythagoras, who had received his knowledge of the numbers and their meaning
from the Egyptians, taught his disciples that God was number and harmony.
He caused them to honor numbers and geometrical diagrams with the names of
the gods. The Egyptians likened nature to the equilateral triangle, the
most perfect and beautiful of all triangles; and according to Servius,
assigned the perfect number 3 to the great God.
The Chaldees symbolized the Eusoph or great light, by an equilateral
triangle; and in the _Sri-Santara_ or cosmogonical diagram of the Hindoos,
which has served as model for many of their temples, the nameless, the
great _Aum_ that dwells in the infinite, is figured as an equilateral
triangle. The Egyptians held the equilateral triangle as the symbol of
"Nature" beautiful and fruitful. In the hieroglyphs it was the emblem of
worship. We see, over the main altar, in all the ancient Catholic churches,
the representation of an equilateral triangle containing the all-seeing eye
of Osiris, as symbol of Deity. The same emblem is familiar also to those
who visit masonic lodges as one under which is figured the "Great Architect
of the Universe."
If from those countries that we have been accustomed to consider as the
"Old World," and guided by the three words of dismissal used by the
Brahmins, and the officiating priests of Eleusis, at the closing of their
religious ceremonies, words we have shown to belong to the Maya language,
we carry our inquiries into the "Lands of the West," there again we will
find that the triangle was also symbolical among the Mayas and their
neighbors.
We see it in the position of the three semispheres carved, as already said,
at each end of the northern chamber of the building above the sanctuary at
Uxmal. We next meet with it in the triangular arches that form the ceilings
of the apartments in all the temples and palaces, in fact in all the
edifices of Mayax, as well as in those of Palenque and other localities of
Central America.