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 CHAPTER III

THE TRIMŪRTI AND THE LESSER DEITIES

must be understood that the images of Brahmā, Vishnu, and Siva already illustrated belonged to the original conception of these deities as separate powers, each one of which was taken by his own devotees to be the Supreme God and had his own appropriate form of temple—the Brahmā temple open on all four sides; the Vishnu temple with one door towards the east, the shrine roofed by a sikhara; the Siva temple with one door towards the west, the shrine roofed by a stūpa-dome. But there was also a theological doctrine of the triune nature of the Supreme, a trinity which the Buddhists expressed by the formula of the Three Gems, Buddha—Sangha—Dharma, collectively representing the cosmos; and the Brahmans by the Three Aspects of the Godhead, Brahmā—Vishnu—Siva, who jointly represented a trinity of spirit and a trinity of matter.

The germ of the metaphysical concept is probably to be found in the three strides of Vishnu, or the three positions of the sun, which correspond to the Brahman's sandhyā, the spiritual exercises he performs at sunrise, noon, and sunset. When, by an inductive process of reasoning, Vedic philosophy 187