Judging from the numerous devices and emblems that formed the ornamentation of the temples and palaces in the ancient ruined cities of Yucatan, the priests of Mayax seem to have been as addicted to symbology as their congeners in India, Egypt, Chaldea and other countries. Among these devices and symbols, several belong clearly to their sacred mysteries.
The study of the relics of ancient Maya civilization has made manifest to my mind the source of many of the primitive traditions of mankind, which have reached us through the sacred books of the Hindoos, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and the Jews. These, having received them from both the Chaldees and the Egyptians, have consigned the relation in the Pentateuch, a book long attributed to Moses, but now believed by Matthew Henry and other commentators, who pride themselves upon their orthodoxy, to have been written in times subsequent to the foundation of the Hebrew monarchy. Might it not be possible that, in Mayax also, could be found the origin of the mystification of the numbers 3, 5, and 7, regarded as mystic by all civilized nations of antiquity all over the earth?
Surely this mystification must have originated with one of these nations and been carried to the others either by colonists, missionaries, or travelers. It is not admissible, or even presumable, that the same idea and mysticism has been attached to these numbers by all these different peoples without being communicated from one to another. Such abstruse speculations respecting the ontological properties of numbers can not be ascribed to the first workings of the human mind in its incipient steps toward intellectual development. In its awakening, human intellect, still unable to comprehend the causes of the natural phenomena that take place, as everyday occurrences, in the material existence of man, does not soar in the elevated regions of metaphysics or of philosophical and abstract theories. Do we not see, even in our midst, that men who live in ignorance ascribe the manifestations of the powers of nature to unseen, mighty beings, of whom they continually stand in awe; to whom they tribute homage, and address prayers filled with the superstitious fears that these fancies of their untutored imagination inspire in them? Abstract conceptions, numerical combinations, metaphysical speculations, philosophical hypothesis, are productions of highly cultivated intelligences, of minds accustomed to reason on causes and effects, to deduce things unseen from things seen.
The mysticism with which these numbers have been invested, their symbolization in the sacred mysteries, must have had its origin in material causes, palpable to physical senses, the memory of which became lost in the course of ages, altered by being transported among peoples living far away from the nation that conceived the idea, by passing from mouth to mouth, in the secrecy of initiations, generation after generation. The idea of a sole and omnipotent Deity, who created all things, seems to have been the universal belief in early ages, among all the nations that had reached a high degree of civilization. This was the doctrine of the Egyptian priests. They called the Divine Intelligence Kneph, and placed him above and apart from the Triads. Damascius, an eclectic philosopher, who taught in the schools of Athens, about the year 526 of the Christian era, in his "Treatise on Principles," says that "they asserted nothing of the first principle of all things, but celebrated it as a thrice unknown darkness, transcending all intellectual perception." Proclus, platonic philosopher, director of the school of Athens in 450 after Christ, says: "the Demiurgos or Creator is triple, and the three intellects are the three kings, he who exists, he who possesses, he who beholds." These three intellects, therefore, he supposes to be the Demiurge; the same as the three kings of Plato, and as the three whom Orpheus celebrates under the names of Phænes, Ouranos, and Kronos, kings of the great "Saturnian continent," in the Atlantic ocean.
In Chaldea, the twin sister of Egypt, daughter of Poseidon, king of the "Lands beyond the sea" and Lybia, we find that notwithstanding the apparent polytheistic character which, from the earliest times, religion had assumed, it was possible for the priests and learned men, if we give credence to Pythagoras, Democritus, and other philosophers, to account by esoteric explanation for the multiplicity of their gods, resolving them into the powers of nature, thus reconciling the whole scheme with monotheism. In fact, above and apart from the personages which peopled their Pantheon and were reverenced with equal respect by kings and people, they recognized a superior deity, Ra, so far removed from their first triad, that they did not know how to worship it. The meaning of the name Ra seems to have been unknown to the historians. They only assert that it means God emphatically; but its origin still remains a mystery. In Egypt they gave that name to the "Sun" particularly, as the fount of all things, the life-giver and sustainer of all that exists on earth. La, in the Maya language, means "that which has existed forever. The eternal truth."
So it is evident that the ancient Chaldeans recognized a supreme being, a divine essence, Ra, to which the Triads were subordinate.
The same conceptions about Deity existed in India from the remotest antiquity. H. T. Colebrooke, in his notice on "the Sacred Books of the Hindoos" says: "In the last part of the Niroukta, dedicated exclusively to the divinities, it is thrice affirmed that there are only three gods; and that these three gods designate one sole deity. The gods are three only, whose mansions are the Earth, the intermediate regions and heavens; that is the fire, the air, and the sun; but Pradjapati, the Lord of all creatures, is their collective God. In fact there is but one God, the "great Soul" Maha-atma. It is called the "Sun," because the sun is the soul of all beings, of all that moves, and of all that does not move. The other gods are only parts or fractions of his person." The belief in a Triune God has also existed from very early ages among the Chinese philosophers. Lo-pi, a Chinese writer, who flourished toward the eleventh century of the Christian era, during the Songs dynasty, explaining certain passages of the Hi-Tse, says: That the "Great Term," is "the Great Unit" and the great Y. That the Y has neither body or shape. That all that has body and shape was made by that which has no body or shape. Tradition recounts that the "Great Term" or the "Great Unit" comprehends three; that one is three and three are one.
Hiu-Chin, who lived under the dynasty of the Hans, is the author of a Chinese dictionary called Choueven in which he has preserved many ancient traditions. He wrote about the beginning of the Christian era. Explaining the character Y he says: In the first beginning reason subsisted in unity. Reason made and divided Heaven and Earth; converted and perfected all things. And Tao-Tse, a contemporary of Confucius, who wrote the Tao-te-King, a book reputed very profound, said more than five hundred years before Christ: "That reason, Tao, produced one. That one produced two, that both produced three; and that three had produced all things." All early writers who have given an account of the religion of the ancient Peruvians, tell us that they worshiped a mighty unseen being who they believed had created all things, for which reason they called him Pacha-camac. He, being incomprehensible, they did not represent under any shape or figure, although they raised a magnificent temple in his honor on the sea coast that rivaled in wealth and splendor those dedicated to the Sun at Titicaca and Cuzco. We are also informed that He stood at the head of a trinity composed of Himself—Pacha-camac—Con—and Uiracocha.
In this conception of a Supreme Being, Creator of all things, we see reflected the teachings of the Popol-vuh, Sacred book of the Quiches, in which we read, "that all that exists is the work of Tzakol—the Creator—who by his will caused the Universe to spring into existence, and whose names are Bitol—the maker—Alom—the engenderer—Qaholom—He who gives being."
The fact that the same doctrine of a Supreme Deity composed of three parts distinct from each other, yet forming one, was universally prevalent among the civilized nations of America, Asia and the Egyptians, naturally leads to the inference that at some time or other, communications and relations more or less intimate have existed between them. They must, then, have imparted their traditions, metaphysical speculations, and intellectual attainments one to another.