Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 587

THREE PRINCIPAL DIVINITIES
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like Juno, Lakshmi had a good deal to suffer, as well as
her prototype, on account of the numberless infidelities
of her husband, the consequences of which were the same,
namely, perpetual domestic quarrels. The Romans, in the
feasts which they celebrated in honour of their gods, always
represented Jupiter in company with his wife and the
Hindus do the same in the case of Vishnu and Lakshmi.
There are other divinities, such as Devendra, Varuna, and
Yama, who display still greater resemblances to the three
;
most powerful deities of Greek mythology. Devendra,
whose name is equivalent to that of master of the deities,
monarch of the sky.' He exercises his sovereignty
is the
'
over the deities of the second rank, who inhabit with him
a place called Sivarga, where they enjoy all kinds of carnal
He distributes among them the amrita, which
pleasures.
has the virtue of rendering them immortal *. Like Jupiter,
he is armed with lightning and launches it against the
giants.
Varuna is really the Hindu Neptune. He is the god of
water, the lord of the ocean, and is worshipped as such over
the whole Peninsula.
We recognize Pluto in Yama. Yama exercises his
sovereignty in Naraka (hell), as Pluto does in Tartarus.
He presides at men's death-beds, and determines their
subsequent destiny according to the deeds, good or bad.
I might
which they have done during their lifetime.
prolong this comparison, without however drawing the
conclusion that the Hindus ever borrowed their system of
theogony from the Greeks, or the Greeks from the Hindus.
But if it is not from other ancient peoples that the Hindus
derived their three principal divinities, whence have they
derived them ? I shall attempt some reflections on this
point with all the reserve imposed upon me by a subject so
Let us first observe that Hindu
difficult of explanation.
idolatry differs in one essential point from that which
prevailed formerly in Athens and in Rome. In Greece
and Rome it was not the sea that was worshipped, but
All his attendants, the
its monarch, the god Neptune.
Nereids and the Tritons, had a share in the worship offered
1
Mrita signifies death, and amrita immortality.
appear to differ from the ambrosia of the Greeks.
The amrita does not
Dubois.