INDIA, MYSTERIES OF. The leading idea of the India philosophy is that a state of absolute quiescence or rest constitutes the most perfect bliss, and that it can be attained only by the most complete self-abnegation. This idea natu rally grows out of the pantheistic nature of their religion. They believe in unity existing in all things, and all things in unity; God in the universe, and the universe in God; and regard nature as a revelation of the divine intelligence. Everything is thus the perpetual transformation or meta morphosis of God. This doctrine is taught in all their mysteries, and upon this theory rests the idea of the reci procal influence, of worlds upon each other, and their central light, and the conception of the universe as a perpetual creation, as does, likewise, the belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls after death. Beginning and end are mingled, and mind and matter are continually striving for predominance in the universe, which, therefore, exhibits an eternal struggle between good and evil, light and darkness. The notion of God taught in the highest Hindoo mysteries is pure and elevated. He is called Brahm, Atma, Bramettma. Before the creation he reposed in silence, and absorbed in himself. "This world," says Menou, "was all darkness, ' undiscernible, undistinguishable, altogether as in profound sleep, till the self-evident and visible God, making it manifest with five elements, and other glorious forms, perfectly dis pelled the gloom. He, desiring to raise up various creatures
by an emanation from his own glory, first created the waters, and impressed them with the power of motion; by that power was brought the wondrous egg, bathed in golden splendors and blazing like a thousand suns, from which sprang Brahma, the self-existing, the parent of all rational beings. In the Hindoo mysteries God is represented under three forms: Vishnu, Siva, and Brahma ; for that is the order in which the three are expressed by the letters A U M, that form the mysterious and ineffable name, OM, which is never spoken, but is the object of silent and constant contemplation. The Lingam is worshiped in these rites the same as the Phallus in the Egyptian. The Lotos, too, is a sacred attribute in these mysteries, as it was in those of Isis. The whole initiation represented the same idea as the Egyptian. The eternal combat between the opposing forces of good and evil, of light and dark, and the ultimate triumph of the former, is the leading feature of both, showing conclu sively, that the Egyptian system, which is the parent of the Grecian, Roman, and, consequently, of our Masonic system, was itself the offspring of. the old Indian mysteries. The most celebrated temples where these rites were performed were those of Eloxa„ Salsette, and Elephanta.