_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--Gods 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 God, sometimes the Word, sometimes the Mind, and sometimes the
Wisdom of God, and asserted 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 gods 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 asserted
even by Parmenides. Some have referred its origin to Pythagoreans, and
others to Orpheus, who adopted three principles, called Phanes, Uranus,
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 God, 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 assigned,
in the Hindoo system of mythologic superstition, corresponding to the
different significations of their names. They are distinguished, likewise,
besides these general titles, 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 amusement 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 altitude, 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 instituted 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,
passes to the right side, and hangs down as low as the fingers can reach.
"The Hindoos," says M. Sonnerat, "adore three principal 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 pagodas, 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 gods 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
circumstance 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 God; the beautiful woman is the Imma of
the Hebrews; and the union of the sexes 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 pagodas, 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
pagoda, 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 gods.
Mr. Maurice points out that the unsatisfactory reasons given by
mythologists for the assignment 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-pronged sceptre alludes to Neptune's threefold power over the sea,
viz., to _agitate_, to _assuage_, 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 circumstance 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 principal 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 God, 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 encompasses
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 God 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 God. The Meru of the Hindoos has the name of Sabha, or the
congregation, and the gods 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 God,
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 fictitious 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
aptitude, and lay dormant and inert until it was excited by the bija, or
vivifying principle, of the plastic Iswara. This power, or aptitude, 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 identity. In another point of view
Brahma corresponds with the Chronos, or Time of the Greek mythologists:
for through him generations pass 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 God 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.
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 destitute 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 impassable, 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 surpasses
everything of the kind I have ever read or heard in India."
These three goddesses 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 gods 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, assumes 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 pronounced to be deities
of the mysterious names severally, and (Prajapati) 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) God; to (Ad'hyatma) the
superintending soul. Other deities, belonging to those several regions,
are portions of the three gods; 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 assumed by Vishnu. His chief attribute is Wisdom: he is
the Air, Water, Humidity in general, Space, 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 asserted by
Mr. Wilford, that, when closely interrogated on the title of Deva or God,
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 asserted 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 Godhead, 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 principal god gives birth to himself. Considered as a Father,
he remains the great god 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 god, while, being double, the
first is the eternal god; 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 gods 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 god
Emeph as the prince and ruler over all the celestial gods, 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 God 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 gods 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 gods, but also as a Trinity in Unity in his own person. "He stands
between the goddesses, 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 goddess Athor, and the
ball and feathers above are the ornaments of the god 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
Hellanicus wrote the Egyptian name, was the God 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 multitude of gods, 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 god, 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 God 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 god 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 goddesses 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 god, 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 principal
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 god 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 God was worshipped as Jumala, and three
gods were recognised as subordinate to him. The first was Thor of the
Edda; the second Storjunkare, his vicegerent, the common household god;
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 god Dragon, who is the
Ouranus 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 god of heat and
generation. The Edessenes also held the triad, and placed Monimus and
Azizus as contemplars with the Sun.[10]