Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/183

 self-existent spirit, no representation is made: to his direct and immediate honour no temples rise; nor dare an Hindū address to him the effusions of his soul, otherwise than by the mediation of a personified attribute, or through the intervention of a priest; who will teach him that gifts, prostration, and sacrifice, are good, because they are pleasing to the gods; not as an unsophisticated heart must feel, that piety and benevolence are pleasing to God because they are good. But although the Hindūs are taught to address their vows to idols and saints, these are still but types and personifications of the deity, who is too awful to be contemplated, and too incomprehensible to be described. The Hindū erects no altar to Br[)u]mh[)u] "Of him, whose glory is so great, there is no image" (Veda), and we must proceed to the consideration of the personified attributes of that invisible, incomprehensible Being, "which illumines all, delights all, whence all proceeded; that by which they live when born, and that to which all must return" (Veda).

Br[)u]mh[)u], the one god without a second, became a trinity, and the three emanations or parts of one Br[)u]mh[)u], are Brahma, Vishn[)u], and Shiv[)u]. The first presided over Creation, the second over Preservation, and the third over Destruction. The three principal goddesses are, Durgā, Lachhmī, and Saraswatī.

BRAHMA, THE CREATOR.

In mythology, Brahma is the first of the Hindū Triad, the three great personified attributes of Br[)u]mh[)u], or the Supreme Being; but his name is not so often heard of in India as either of the other two great powers of Preservation and Destruction. He is called the first of the gods, the framer of the universe. From his mouth, arm, thigh, and foot, proceeded severally the priest, the warrior, the trader, and the labourer; these, by successive reproduction, people the earth: the sun sprung from his eye, and the moon from his mind.

Brahma is usually represented with four faces, said to represent the four quarters of his own work; and said, sometimes, to refer to a supposed number of elements of which he composed