Hinduism / by Monier Williams.

  • Monier Monier-Williams
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hinduism / by Monier Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    need propitiation so urgently as the more uncertain air, fire, and water, lost importance, and was rarely adored in prayer or hymn. If to the foregoing enumeration of the gods of the Veda be added the name of Yatna, the god of de- parted spirits, and the appointed judge and punisher of th6 dead, the principal deities to whom the Mantras of the Vedic hymns were addressed, will then have been stated. It should be observed that the native commenta- ries on the Veda often allude to thirty-three gods, which number is also mentioned in the Rig-veda (I. 34, ii ; I. 45, 2). This is a multiple of three, which is a sacred number constantly appearing in the Hindu religious system.1 It is probable, indeed, that although the Tri-murti is not named in the Vedic hymns, yet the Veda is the real source of this Triad of personifications, afterwards so conspicuous in Hindu mythology. This much, at least, is clear, that the Vedic poets exhibited a tendency to group all the forces and energies of nature under three heads, and the assertion that the number of the gods was thirty-three, amounted to saying that each of the three leading personifications was capable of eleven modifications. There can be no doubt that a change of name in Hindu mythology does not necessarily imply the creation of a new deity. Indra, Vayu, the Maruts and Rudras, appear to have been all forms 1 For example, there are three Vedas, three Margas or ways of salvation, three Gunas or fetters of the soul, three principal castes, three eyes in Siva’s forehead, three objects of human pursuit, three worlds, &c.
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