PARA. SANSE. Strange, foreign, supreme, infinite ; hence Parabara, SANSK., the most high ; but Para baravasta, as conceived by the Hindus, is not the true Supreme Being. As an immaterial being, it is the universal spirit ; as a material being, it is the universe ; • the masculine power is identified with Siva, and the feminine power is the so-called Sakti.
Parabrahma or Brahm of the Hindus, the supreme Universal Spirit, the Supreme Being, is a term that first appears in Hindu religious books, in sonic of the best Upanishads, or appendages to the Padua, of later date than the first three, and introducing a different and superior theology. It seems to have been a first effort towards the re cognition of a Creator ; and many Hindus now recognise the Almighty as an infinite, eternal, in comprehensible, and self-existent Being. He who sees everything, though never seen ; lie who is not to be compassed by description, and who is beyond the limits of human conception ; he from whom the universal world proceeds ; who is the lord of the universe, and whose work is the universe ; he who is the light of all lights, whose namo is too sacred to be pronounced, and whose power is too infinite to'be imagined, is Bralun 1 the one un known, true being, the creator, the preserver, and destroyer of the universe,from whom all souls come, andto him again return. Under such, and innumer able other definitions, is the Deity acknowledged in the Vedas, or sacred writings of the Hindus. But while there are learned Brahmans who thus acknowledge and adore one God, without form or quality, eternal, unchangeable, and occupying all space, they have carefully confined their doctrines to their own schools, and have tacitly assented to, or even taught in public, a religion in which, in supposed compliance with the infirmities and passions of human nature, the Deity has been brought more to a level with man's own prejudices and wants, and the incomprehensible attributes assigned to him, invested with sensible and even human forms.' Upon this foundation the most discordant fictions have been erected, from which priestcraft and superstition have woven a mytho logy of the most extensive character. In India, the human form in its natural state, or possessing the heads or limbs of various animals, the elements, the planets, rivers, fountains, stones, trees, etc. etc., have all been deified, and become objects of religious adoration. The sun, moon, and all the heavenly host ; fire, earth, and all natural phenomena,—all nature, indeed,—the passions and emotions of human beings, their vices and virtues, are transformed into persons, and act appropriate parts in the turbulent history of man. The omnipotent God, whom the Hindu has been taught to consider as too mighty for him to attempt to approach, or even to name, has been lost sight of in the multiplicity of false deities, whose images have been worshipped in his place. To these deities the many splendid temples of the Hindus have been erected, while throughout the whole of India not one has been devoted to Brahm, whom they designate as the sole Divine Author of the universe, the One Eternal Mind, the self-existing, incomprehensible Spirit.
But the will of God, that the world should exist and continue, is also personified by them, and his creative and preservative powers are made to appear as Bialima and Vishnu, while Siva is the emblem of the destructive energy,—not, however, of absolute annihilation,but rather of reproduction in another form. In the Hindu religion, therefore, this triad of persons represents the almighty powers of creation, preservation, and destruction. lu their metaphysics, Brahma is matter, Vishnu spirit, Siva time ; or, in natural philosophy, earth, water, and fire. These three persons have wives, the executors of the divine will and the energies of their respective lords. Tho preservative and re nresentative Dowers. being in constant action, are, as have been also their wives and children, fabled to havedeseended on earth innumerable times in divers places for the instruction and benefit, including the profitable punishment, of mankind. And these endless incarnations have been worked up by the poets with a wonderful fertility of genius and the of language into a variety of sublime descriptions, interspersed with theological and moral texts, that at length they were received as inspired productions, and became the Hindu standard of truth. Bralana, the creative power, is not specially adored in temples dedicated ex clusively to him. His creative duties over, his portion of the Divine activity ceased to operate on the hopes and fears of mankind. In their myth ology, however, the Hindus narrate fabulous per secutions and warfare which overthrew Brahma, his temples and worship ; and the sects of Vaish nava and Saiva now comprise all the individuals of the races in India distinguished by the appella tion of Hindus. A philosophic few excepted, they are worshippers of a superstitious and idolatrous polytheism ; and the Hindu erects no altars to Brahm, the infinite, incomprehensible, self-exist ing Spirit, ' which illumines all, delights all, whence all proceed ; that by which they live when born, and that to which all must return.' The Narayana of the Hindu of the present day is rather the Spirit of God moving on the water, and can be regarded but as the spirit of Brahm (Ins. of Menu, ch. 1, v. 10), though the two Hindu sects claim for their Vishnu and Siva the title of Narayana, and Brahm himself is sometimes called Narayana. At present there will not be found two Hindu families whose belief is identical, though almost all the educated of the people recognise one God under one name or another. God thus adored is Brahm, the One Eternal Mind, the self-existing, incompre hensible Spirit. From time to time great re formers rise, condemning the prevailing Hindu idolatry, and so anxious are the people to know the truth, that every new teacher immediately gathers around him a number of disciples.—Tod.