( 4 ) mythological divinities— is, with one exception, the received doctrine of the Hindus.” Ibid, page 90. “It, (Hinduism) was founded on pure Deism of which the Gayatri, translated by Sir William Jones, is a striking proof but to comply with the gross ideas of the multitude who required a visible object of their devotion, they personified the three great attributes of the deity. The first founders of the Hindu religion do not appear to have had the intention of bewildering their followers with metaphysioal definitions; their description of the Deity was confined to those attributes which the wonders of the creation so loudly attest: his almighty power to create, his providence to preserve and his power to annihilate or change what he has created. In fact, no idea of the deity can be formed beyond this: it is simple but forcés conviction upon the mind.” The Origin of the Hindu Religion by F. D. Patterson, Vol. 8, Asiatic Researches, page 44, " . 4 “The deities invoked appear, on a cursory inspection of the Veda, to be as various as the authors of the prayers addressed to them: but according to the most ancient annotations on the Indian Scripture, those numerous names of persons and things are all resolvable into different titles of three deities, and ultimately of One God. The Nighanta or glossary of the Vedas concludes with three lists of names of deities: the first comprising such as are deemed synonymous with fire; the second with air; and the third with the sun. In the last part of the Nirukta which entirely relates to deities, it is twice asserted, that there are but three Gods. ‘Tisraevaderatah.” The further inference, that these intend but one deity, is supported by many passages in the Vedas and is very clearly and concisely stated in the beginning of the index to the Rigveda on the authority of the Nirukta and of the Veda itself.' It shows (what is also deducible from texts of the
