APPENDIX C.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Doane, T. W. (Thomas William)
"It is highly probable that the triple divinity of the Hindoos was originally no more than a personification of the Sun, whom they called Three-bodied, in the triple capacity of producing forms by his general heat, preserving them by his light, or destroying them by the counteracting force of his igneous matter. Brahmá, the Creator, was indicated by the heat of the Sun; Vishnu, the Preserver, by the light of the Sun, and Siva, the Reproducer, by the orb of the Sun. In the morning the Sun was Brahmā, at noon Vishnu, at evening Siva."[562:6]
"He is at once," says Mr. Cox, in speaking of the Sun, "the 'Comforter' and 'Healer,' the 'Saviour' and 'Destroyer,' who can slay and make alive at will, and from whose piercing glance no secret can be kept hid."[562:7]
Sir William Jones was also of the opinion that the whole Triad of the Hindoos were identical with the Sun, expressed under the mythical term O. M.
The idea of a Tri-murti, or triple personification, was developed gradually, and as it grew, received numerous accretions. It was first dimly shadowed forth and vaguely expressed in the Rig-Veda, where a triad of principal gods, Agni, Indra, and Surya is recognized. And these three gods are One, the Sun.[562:8]
We see then that the religious myths of antiquity and the fireside legends of ancient and modern times, have a common root in the mental habits of primeval humanity, and that they are the earliest recorded utterances of men concerning the visible phenomena of the world into which they were born. At first, thoroughly understood, the meaning in time became unknown. How stories originally told of the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, &c., became believed in as facts, is plainly illustrated in the following story told by Mrs. Jameson in her "History of Our Lord in Art:" "I once tried to explain," says she, "to a good old woman, the meaning of the word parable, and that the story of the Prodigal Son was not a fact; she was scandalized—she was quite sure that Jesus would never have told anything to his disciples that was not true. Thus she settled the matter in her own mind, and I thought it best to leave it there undisturbed."
Prof. Max Müller, in speaking of "the comparison of the different forms of Aryan religion and mythology in India, Persia, Greece, Italy and Germany," clearly illustrates how such legends are transformed from intelligible into unintelligible myths. He says:
"In each of these nations there was a tendency to change the original conception of divine powers, to misunderstand the many names given to these powers, and to misinterpret the praises addressed to them. In this manner some of the divine names were changed into half-divine, half-human heroes, and at last the myths which were true and intelligible as told originally of the Sun, or the Dawn, or the Storms, were turned into legends or fables too marvelous to be believed of common mortals. This process can be watched in India, in Greece, and in Germany. The same story, or nearly the same, is told of gods, of heroes, and of men. The divine myth became an heroic legend, and the heroic legend fades away into a nursery tale. Our nursery tales have well been called the modern patois of the ancient mythology of the Aryan race."[563:1]
In the words of this learned author, "we never lose, we always gain, when we discover the most ancient intention of sacred traditions, instead of being satisfied with their later aspect, and their modern misinterpretations."