Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 594

554
in
the
RESEMBLANCE TO THE TRINITY
Hindu books
— expressions
which have led many
authors to believe that the people of India possessed from
These
the earliest times some knowledge of the Trinity.
are but one
Siva is the
three gods,' say those books,
heart of Vishnu, and Vishnu the heart of Brahma
it is
one lamp with three lighted wicks.' At first sight these
expressions would appear to indicate one god in three
persons.
But, even granted it were true that the primi-
tive Hindus intended to transmit to their posterity the
idea of the Trinity under the form and attributes of the
Trimurti, it must be confessed that the result has been
a sadly distorted presentation of this great mystery. On
the other hand, I believe there is another explanation
which is more simple and more reasonable. I cannot
indeed doubt that the Hindu writers, in using the expres-
sions just quoted, and many others of the same kind,
wished them to be understood to mean that the co-opera-
tion of the three elements in question was indispensable
for the production and reproduction of everything that
exists in nature, a co-operation so necessary that the absence
of one would reduce the others to a state of complete inert-
ness and impotence.
The early Fathers of the Christian Church, such as
St. Justin, St. Clement, Theodoret, St. Augustine, and
others, proved the truth of the mystery of the Trinity to
the heathens of their time by the authority of the ancient
Greek philosophers, and particularly by that of Plato and
his principal disciples, such as Plotinus and Porphyry.
They gained at that time considerable advantage by laying
stress on those authorities in whose works were to be found
the words Father, Son, Word, Spirit
the Father compre-
hending perfection, the Son perfectly resembling the Father,
and the Word by whom all things were created these three
Persons being but one God. Such expressions were not
the chance creations of those philosophers they formed
the foundation of the system of Plato, who did not, how-
ever, venture to teach their meaning to a people steeped in
the follies of polytheism, lest he should be treated in the
same manner as his master Socrates.
Nevertheless, I doubt whether the illustrious Fathers of
the Christian Church would have laid so much stress upon
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