Svet. Upanishad. "The God who superintends every mode of production and all forms, who formerly nourished with various knowledge his son Kapila the rishi, and beheld him at his birth."
"Bhagavat Purana (I. 3, 10) makes Kapila an incarnation of Vischnu. In his fifth incarnation, in the form of Kapila, he declared to Asuri the Sankhya which defines the collection of principles.
"Bhagavat Purana (IX. 8, 12) relates that Kapila, being attacked by the sons of King Sangara, destroyed them with fire which issued from his body. But the author of the Purana denies that this was done in anger. 'How could the sage, by whom the strong ship of the Sankhya was launched, on which the man seeking emancipation crosses the ocean of existence, entertain the distinction of friend and foe'?"
The Sánkhya system is also frequently mentioned in the Mahabarata.
The Nyaya system differs from that of Kapila, by assuming a third eternal and indestructible principle as the basis of matter, namely, Atoms. It also assumes the existence of a Supreme Soul, Brahma, who is almighty and allwise. It agrees with Kapila in making all souls eternal, and distinct from body. Its evil to be overcome is the same, namely, transmigration; and its method of release is the same, namely Buddhï, or knowledge. It is a more dialectic system than the others, and is rather of the nature of a logic than a philosophy.
Mr. Banerjea, in his Dialogues on the Hindu philosophy, considers the Buddhists' system as closely resembling the Nyaya system. He regards the Buddhist Nirvana as equivalent to the emancipation of the Nyaya system. Apavarga, or emancipation, is declared in this philosophy to be final deliverance from pain, birth, activity, fault, and false notions. Even so the Pali doctrinal books speak of Nirvana as an exemption from old age, disease, and death. In it desire, anger, and ignorance are consumed by the fire of knowledge. Here all selfish distinctions of mine and thine, all evil thoughts, all slander and jealousy, are cut down by the weapon of knowledge. Here we have an experience of immortality which is cessation of all trouble and perfect felicity.[74]
§ 7. Origin of the Hindoo Triad.
There had gradually grown up among the people a worship founded on that of the ancient Vedas. In the West of India, the god RUDRA, mentioned in the Vedic hymns, had been transformed into Siva. In the Rig-Veda Rudra is sometimes the name for Agni.[75] He is described as father of the winds. He is the same as Maha-deva. He is fierce and beneficent at once. He presides over medicinal plants. According to Weber (Indische Stud., II. 19) he is the Storm-God. The same view is taken by Professor Whitney.[76] But his worship gradually extended, until, under the name of Siva, the Destroyer, he became one of the principal deities of India. Meantime, in the valley of the Ganges, a similar devotion had grown up for the Vedic god VISCHNU, who in like manner had been promoted to the chief rank in the Hindoo Pantheon. He had been elevated to the character of a Friend and Protector, gifted with mild attributes, and worshipped as the life of Nature. By accepting the popular worship, the Brahmans were able to oppose Buddhism with success.
We have no doubt that the Hindoo Triad came from the effort of the Brahmans to unite all India in one worship, and it may for a time have succeeded. Images of the Trimurtti, or three-faced God, are frequent in India, and this is still the object of Brahmanical worship. But beside this practical motive, the tendency of thought is always toward a triad of law, force, or elemental substance, as the best explanation of the universe. Hence there have been Triads in so many religions: in Egypt, of Osiris the Creator, Typhon the Destroyer, and Horus the Preserver; in Persia, of Ormazd the Creator, Ahriman the Destroyer, and Mithra the Restorer; in Buddhism, of Buddha the Divine Man, Dharmma the Word, and Sangha the Communion of Saints. Simple monotheism does not long satisfy the speculative intellect, because, though it accounts for the harmonies of creation, it leaves its discords unexplained. But a dualism of opposing forces is found still more unsatisfactory, for the world does not appear to be such a scene of utter warfare and discord as this. So the mind comes to accept a Triad, in which the unities of life and growth proceed from one element, the antagonisms from a second, and the higher harmonies of reconciled oppositions from a third. The Brahmanical Triad arose in the same way.[77]
Thus grew up, from amid the spiritual pantheism into which all Hindoo religion seemed to have settled, another system, that of the Trimurtti, or Divine Triad; the Indian Trinity of Brahma, Vischnu, and Siva. This Triad expresses the unity of Creation, Destruction, and Restoration. A foundation for this already existed in a Vedic saying, that the highest being exists in three states, that of creation, continuance, and destruction.
Neither of these three supreme deities of Brahmanism held any high rank in the Vedas. Siva (Çiva) does not appear therein at all, nor, according to Lassen, is Brahma mentioned in the Vedic hymns, but first in a Upanishad. Vischnu is spoken of in the Rig-Veda, but always as one of the names for the sun. He is the Sun-God. His three steps are sunrise, noon, and sunset. He is mentioned as one of the sons of Aditi; he is called the "wide-stepping," "measurer of the world," "the strong," "the deliverer," "renewer of life," "who sets in motion the revolutions of time," "a protector," "preserving the highest heaven." Evidently he begins his career in this mythology as the sun.
BRAHMA, at first a word meaning prayer and devotion, becomes in the laws of Manu the primal God, first-born of the creation, from the self-existent being, in the form of a golden egg. He became the creator of all things by the power of prayer. In the struggle for ascendency which took place between the priests and the warriors, Brahma naturally became the deity of the former. But, meantime, as we have seen, the worship of Vischnu had been extending itself in one region and that of Siva in another. Then took place those mysterious wars between the kings of the Solar and Lunar races, of which the great epics contain all that we know. And at the close of these wars a compromise was apparently accepted, by which Brahma, Vischnu, and Siva were united in one supreme God, as creator, preserver, and destroyer, all in one.