The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

46 HISTORY OF INITIATION.
initiated; and which signified the solar fire, or more properly
the sun itself, the sacred emblem of the supreme
and united in its comprehensive meaning the great
deity ;
Trimurti, or combined principle, on which the existence
of all is things founded. This word was OM n
; or as it
12
was expressed
in a triliteral form in the mysteries, AUM,
to represent the creative, preserving, and destroying
personified in Brahma, Vishnu,
power of the deity, 13
14
Siva, the symbol of which was an equilateral triangle.
This ineffable word formed the subject of incessant and
pleasing contemplation, which could be indulged only in
. silence, 15 and seclusion ; for the pronunciation of this aw-
16
ful Name A. U. M. was said to make earth )
tremble,
u
They pretend that God is the Lock of the Ism Allah, or science of
that consequently none
the name of God, and Mohammed the King ;
but Mohammedans can attain it; that it discovers what passes in
distant countries; that it familiarizes the possessors with the genii,
who are at the command of the initiated, and who instruct them ;
that it places the winds and the seasons at their disposal that it
;
heals the bite of serpents, the lame, the maimed, and the blind."
(Niebuhr, cited by Southey, Thalaba, vol. i., p. 198.)
11 Vid. Asiat. Res., vol. i., p. 285.
1S
In the Oracles ascribed to Zoroaster is a passage which pronounces
the sacred Names used in the Mysteries to be ineffable, and not to be
changed, because revealed by God himself.
13
Wilkins, notes on Bhagvat Geeta, p. 142. This mystic emblem
of the deity OM, is forbidden to be pronounced but in silence. It is
a syllable formed of the letters SJ a, "*5 66, which in composition
and the nasal consonant *?^ m. The first
letter stands for the Creator, the second for the Preserver, and the
third for the Destroyer.
14
Maur. Ind. Ant, vol.
vii., p. 623. The perfectiors of God are
thus described in the last book of the Ramayan, translated by Sir W.
Jones. (Works, vol. vi.) "Vishnu is the being of beings; one substance
in three forms ; without mode, without quality, without passion ;
coalesce, and make 3 5
immense, incomprehensible, infinite, indivisible, immutable, incorporeal,
irresistible. His operations no mind can conceive ; and his will moves
all the inhabitants of the universe, as puppets are moved by strings."
It must be observed, however, that the same is also true of the other
two persons in the divine triad for ; as these three are in fact but one
person, the above attributes were ascribed to him, under what name
soever he might be designated.
Bhagvat [
Geeta, p. 74.
16 Mr. Faber says, that this cipher graphically exhibits the divine
triad, Balrarna, Subhadra, and Jagan-nath. In an old Purana, as we
learn from the Abbe Du Bois, the following passage is found, which
shows the veneration displayed by the ancient Indians for this tremendous
word: "All the rites ordained in the Vedas, the sacrifices