Trimurti (Sanskrit) [from tri three + murti imbodiment, form] The Hindu triad, consisting of Brahma, the emanator or evolver; Vishnu, the sustainer or preserver; and Siva, the beneficent, the destroyer, and the regenerator. These three entities as individualized divinities form the apex or crown of the spirit of the solar system. In the human being, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva represent the three divine-spiritual principles of the seven -- directly following forth from the highly recondite superspiritual triangle which, with the seven principles, make the full ten human principles.
In the world of matter, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are each personified by earth, water, and fire, i.e., each of these divinities combines in itself these three elements, one predominating when the divinity manifests one of its three fundamental gunas. "In Indian Puranas it is Vishnu, the first, and Brahma, the second logos, or the ideal and practical creators, who are respectively represented, one as manifesting the lotus, the other as issuing from it" (SD 1:381n). But Brahma, for instance, because of the significance of expansion inherent in the name, could equally well be looked upon as the source of Vishnu, manifesting as the cosmic waters or Second Logos. This perhaps is the reason why in this Trimurti, Brahma is called the emanator or evolver, and Vishnu the sustainer or preserver.
These three persons or aspects of the triad are really three sides of the same cosmic reality; and to gain an accurate understanding of their respective functions it should be born in mind that any one of the three may at any time, if the matter is considered from a different viewpoint, be said to contain the functioning elements of the other two in addition to its own. "Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are a trinity in a unity, and, like the Christian trinity, they are mutually convertible. In the esoteric doctrine they are one and the same manifestation of him 'whose name is too sacred to be pronounced, and whose power is too majestic and infinite to be imagined' " (IU 2:277-8).
In the Vedas, where neither Brahma nor Siva is known under these names, the trinity usually consists of Agni (fire), Vayu (air), and Surya (sun), the originants of the terrestrial, atmospheric, and heavenly fire respectively. The Padma-Purana states that in the beginning the great Vishnu desiring to produce the whole world, became threefold, in himself the creator, preserver, and destroyer. In order to produce the world, the supreme spirit emanated from the right side of his body, himself, as Brahma; then, to preserve the universe, he produced from the left side of his body, Vishnu; and to destroy the world he produced from the middle of his body the eternal Siva.
The three persons of the Trimurti are the three qualificative gunas or attributes of the universe of differentiated spirit-matter, self-formative, self-preserving, and self-destroying for purposes of regeneration and perfectibility. Because Brahma is the considered the formative or emanative force, it is said to be personified imbodiment of rajas, the quality of activity, of desire for creation -- that desire owing to which the universe and everything in it is called forth into being. Vishnu because of its preservative and sustaining function is said to be the imbodied sattva, which characterizes the intermediate period between full growth and the beginning of decay; and Siva is said to be the imbodiment of tamas which, in one of its functions, is the attribute of stagnancy and final decay, and thus becomes the destroyer.
The Jewish Qabbalistic triad, Sephirah, Hokhmah, and Binah, is identical in certain philosophical respects with the Hindu Trimurti.
Trinity The divine powers at the head of every theogony. In the Christian Trinity, the original idea of a triune divinity is preserved but has become confused and adapted to theological speculation. If the Holy Ghost is regarded as feminine, as it was in primitive Christianity, we have the trinity of Father-Mother-Son. The present manner of the procession of the Holy Ghost in the Occident is due to the early theological quarrels which was one of the main causes of the final rupture between the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches -- the filioque ("and from the son") controversy. The Orthodox held with the original procession of Father, Holy Ghost, and Son, while in the West the Holy Ghost or Spirit has become a kind of emanation from the Father or Son, or both of them, and is scarcely distinguishable in its attributes from the Son; while the place of Mother has been filled in the Roman Catholic Church by Mary who, though the mother of Jesus, nevertheless is not a member of the Trinity.
But there is another trinity besides that of Father-Mother-Son, that of the one divine root and its dual aspects -- a conception altogether lost in Christianity. The Christian God is at best but a Demiourgos or inferior creative power, and his necessary attributes clash irreconcilably with those pertaining to the supreme hierarch of our universe; but in many of the sayings of Jesus and in the Epistles of Paul is clear evidence of the true teachings as to the Trinity and the relation of the Father and the Son.
In the orthodox Christian view of its theological Trinity the three persons of the Godhead are not three gods but one God, and yet three Persons or individuals. So that we have one Godhead who is three-in-one, and yet one-in-three, which is not three gods, nor yet one God, but both. Moslems aver that the Christian Trinity is not one God in three aspects, but actually three gods manifesting as one, and the strict monotheism of Islam refuses to admit the logical monstrosity. The Christian Churches lost sight of the mystical origin of its own trinity out of the neo-Pythagorean and Neoplatonic mysticism.
All the great religious and philosophical systems of antiquity contained a divine or spiritual triadic unity as the cosmic source and focus of all beings and things, out of which emanate the universe and all that is in it. Examples are the Osiris-Isis-Horus of Egypt or the Brahma-Vishnu-Siva of India; yet these triads of gods are emanated reflections or representatives on lower planes of the still more sublime and ineffable triadic mystery above and beyond them.
