"Learn, O devotee, that there is no real distinction between us; what to you appears such is only by semblance; the Single Being appears under three forms, but he is One."[370:1]
Sir William Jones says:
"Very respectable natives have assured me, that one or two missionaries have been absurd enough in their zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles, to urge that the Hindoos were even now almost Christians; because their Brahmā, Vishnou, and Mahesa (Siva), were no other than the Christian Trinity."[370:2]
Thomas Maurice, in his "Indian Antiquities," describes a magnificent piece of Indian sculpture, of exquisite workmanship, and of stupendous antiquity, namely:
"A bust composed of three heads, united to one body, adorned with the oldest symbols of the Indian theology, and thus expressly fabricated according to the unanimous confession of the sacred sacerdotal tribe of India, to indicate the Creator, the Preserver, and the Regenerator, of mankind; which establishes the solemn fact, that from the remotest eras, the Indian nations had adored a triune deity."[371:1]
Fig. No. 34 is a representation of an Indian sculpture, intended to represent the Triune God,[371:2] evidently similar to the one described above by Mr. Maurice. It is taken from "a very ancient granite" in the museum at the "Indian House," and was dug from the ruins of a temple in the island of Bombay.
The Buddhists, as well as the Brahmans, have had their Trinity from a very early period.
Mr. Faber, in his "Origin of Heathen Idolatry," says: