[Whose face turns every way.]] Brahmá is represented with four faces, one towards each point of the compass.
[The mystic Three.]] "The triad of qualities," a philosophical term familiar to all the systems of Hindú speculation. They are thus explained in the Tattwa Samása, a text-book of the Sánkhya school:—"Now it is asked, What is the 'triad of qualities'? It is replied, The triad of qualities consists of 'Goodness,' 'Foulness,' and 'Darkness.' By the 'triad of qualities' is meant the 'three qualities.' Goodness is endlessly diversified, accordingly as it is exemplified in calmness, lightness, complacency, attainment of wishes, kindliness, contentment, patience, joy, and the like; summarily, it consists of happiness. 'Foulness' is endlessly diversified, accordingly as it is exemplified in grief, distress, separation, excitement, anxiety, fault-finding, and the like; summarily, it consists of pain. 'Darkness' is endlessly diversified, accordingly as it is exemplified in envelopment, ignorance, disgust, abjectness, heaviness, sloth, drowsiness, intoxication, and the like; summarily, it consists of delusion."
[Thou, when a longing, &c.]] "Having divided his own substance, the mighty power became half male, half female, or nature active and passive."—Manu, Ch. I.
So also in the old Orphic hymn it is said,
[Greek: Zeus arsꮠgeneto, Zeus ambrotos epleto numphꮝ
"Zeus was a male; Zeus was a deathless damsel."
[The sacred hymns.]] Contained in the Vedas, or Holy Scriptures of the Hindús.
[The word of praise.]] The mystic syllable OM, prefacing all the prayers and most of the writings of the Hindús. It implies the Indian triad, and expresses the Three in One.
[They hail thee, Nature.]] The object of Nature's activity, according to the Sánkhya system, is "the final liberation of individual soul." "The incompetency of nature, an irrational principle, to institute a course of action for a definite purpose, and the unfitness of rational soul to regulate the acts of an agent whose character it imperfectly apprehends, constitute a principal argument with the theistical Sánkhyas for the necessity of a Providence, to whom the ends of existence are known, and by whom Nature is guided.... The atheistical Sánkhyas, on the other hand, contend that there is no occasion for a guiding Providence, but that the activity of nature, for the purpose of accomplishing soul's object, is an intuitive necessity, as illustrated in the following passage:—As it is a function of milk, an unintelligent (substance), to nourish the calf, so it is the office of the chief principle (nature) to liberate the soul."—Prof. Wilson's Sánkhya Káriká.
[Hail Thee the stranger Spirit, &c.]] "Soul is witness, solitary, bystander, spectator, passive."—Sánkh. Kár. verse xix.
[See, Varun's noose.]] The God of Water.