creator of all things, Vishnu their preserver, and Siva their destroyer. But the fact of the case is that this book was composed for a Muslim Prince, Dara Shikuh, son of the Emperor Shah Jahan, about the year A.D. 1656 (A.H. 1067). It pretended to be a reliable translation of some of the many Upanishads, but in reality the authors of the pretended translation composed a book which they thought would give the Muslims a favourable opinion ¹ of Hinduism. Hence many Islamic terms were used, and the Hindu doctrines stated were not those of the Vedas, nor those of the Upanishads, but those which had arisen among certain Hindus in India in very much more recent times. In truth the Vedas recognize at least thirty-three ² different gods. Certain goddesses are also named and adored. In later Hinduism, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are three quite separate gods, in great measure opposed to one another. Each of the three, moreover, especially the two last (for Brahma seems hardly ever to have been worshipped to any extent, and has now only two temples in India), represents a large number of different deities, some of evil character, and all accompanied by at least one wife. The group of three deities is called the Trimurti (three-formed), a name found only ³ in late Sanskrit.

In sculpture it is thought that a colossal figure in the cave temple in the island of Elephanta near Bombay, which has three heads growing out of one body, may represent the Trimurti, but others say it is merely the three-headed Siva. These three deities are often confounded with one another, no doubt because of the belief of Hindu philosophers that all things are in reality one. Pantheism ¹ is the philosophic basis of their whole religion, and this is utterly opposed to belief in the One True God.

An attempt has been made to find in the ancient religion of Egypt a doctrine somewhat similar to that of the Trinity in Unity. But a study of old manuscripts written in hieroglyphics shows that this view is incorrect. The Egyptians worshipped a very large number of gods, and not a few animals. They believed that the whole of the gods were originally sprung from the earth as father and the sky as mother. There were nine chief deities. After a time these were found too numerous, and three of them were chosen as supreme; but these groups of three differed in different places. At Heliopolis the triad consisted of Tu'm, Ra' (راع), and Horem Khuti, that is, the setting sun, the sun during the day and the rising sun. Here we have the sun worshipped under three aspects, but the sun only. At Thebes the triad consisted of Amon,