Storia do Mogor 243: WHAT THE HINDUS SAY AND BELIEVE ABOUT GOD AND HIS ESSENCE

243

There is not an individual among them who denies that there is a God; still, they have so many different views in what they say of God that they are incompetent to find the truth. Some say that water is God, and they style this 'the infallible science'; others, that God is a spiritual substance widely diffused. Then shortly afterwards, with hardly any discussion, they will tell you that it is the air which is God, and there is none other. But as they have no fixity in their belief, they will next tell you briefly, after setting forth the above statements as infallible, that the sun is God; that it has created, and still creates — that it preserves and destroys all things in this world. It is in this last belief that the greater number of the heathen of India live, never failing on the rise of that luminary to prostrate themselves before it, and to yield it homage and adoration; and this they do once more when they go to bed.
There are those who think more of their stomach than of anything else. They worship cooked rice as their god, and as a sign of their veneration never fail before eating it to offer to it their humblest homage. These are the people who have made the definition that there is but the one God, who is called Parama Bruma (Parama Brahma), which means 'Superior Knowledge,' or 'Most Excellent.' They say of Parama Brahma that he is the letter O; and they believe that when they breathe and pronounce the letter O they fail not at that juncture to enter into glory. For it is then, they say, that the soul of such a person comes out by the crown of his head and passes with the velocity of an arrow into the centre of the sun, where it takes its position amidst heavenly glory. They hold that anyone who dies while doing this act is a true martyr.
In addition to this Parama Brahma there are, they say, three hundred and thirty millions of gods. The king of them they call Vendyrem (Devendram)—that is, 'Lord of the Gods'—of whom [93] I will say something hereafter. At present I wish to speak of the belief that these Hindus have in a sort of false Trinity. They say very dreadful things of this pretended Trinity, such as are not only unworthy of God, but even of man. Since, in such an essay as this, there arise many things which are undesirable or even contrary to good manners, I shall not say anything not permissible for a historian to write, and, so far as I may, will keep within the bounds of modesty set to a Catholic believer.
But before beginning I think it desirable to give an explanation of the figures here inserted, which represent their false THE GOD AGASTYA. gods. I have had them drawn with all possible exactness, in order to instruct the reader.
No. I. is a god of which the Hindus themselves do not know the name.
No. II. is the air, which, as I said, they place among the gods.
No. III. is the wind, which they distinguish from the air.
No. IV. is fire, also put among the gods.
No. V. is water, also according to them a divinity.
No. VI. is the earth, which they also deify.
No. VII. is the tower which encloses all the other figures and signifies Parachety (Para Sakti), mother of the other gods. The picture of a man seated on a tiger-skin is that of the author of all the brutalities believed by the Hindus. He is esteemed among them as much as Aristotle was of old. They have him represented in their temples just as he is seen here. The name of this worthy person is Agastian (Agastyan).