147 
1877. j G. S. Leonard —The Mythic History of the God Viraj. 
It may perhaps not be irrelevant here to trace some analogies of the 
incorporeal natures treated herein, with those met with in European philo¬ 
sophy, although I am far from maintaining that they bear any exact simili¬ 
tude to each other. I find Virajism bears a great resemblance to Stahl’s 
doctrine of Animeism, whose automaton or moving force of the world cor¬ 
responds exactly with Vaisvanara, the other name of Viraj, and answers to 
one of the demiurgoi of Plato, called nature by Lampsacus and the Stoics 
and Plastic nature by Dr. Cudworth. Viraj agrees in some respects with 
the Archseus of Paracelsus, and the Principium Hylarchicum of Henry 
Moore. 
Some are apt to consider these theories, as also Virajism, to be allied 
to Pantheism, while on the other hand it can plainly be seen, that though 
the spirit of god is apparent to all as working in the universe, it is essen¬ 
tially separate from it, having had a separate personal existence before it 
was brought into being, and continuing to have a separate personal exis¬ 
tence simultaneously with it. The words of St. Augustine “ in illo sunt 
omnia,” could not be construed in a Pantheistic sense, nor could that which 
Lucan says, “ Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris,” be taken 
in that sense. The angel in Genesis [xvi, 7-13] is called ‘ El roi,’ ‘ God of 
sight,’ or God manifest, and the word Immanuel, God with us, plainly refers 
to the manifestation of Viraj. The mystic doctrine of the Persian Sufis 
alludes to the manifestation of divine essence in the whole creation in the 
words “ there is no real entity besides that of god.” 
The universality and individuality of the divine spirit, of which it is 
difficult to derive an idea from their definitions in the Vedanta, appear much 
to resemble the generality or particularity of the psychic fluid, which accord¬ 
ing to the doctrine of Quesne is said to be diffused alike through all 
nature, but differently exhibited according to the particular organisations 
of minds and bodies. The Hindu Theism, like every other system of Uni- 
tarianism, inculcates the unity, soleity, and monadity of the divinity, as it is 
well known by its maxim “ Ekamevadvitiyam,” agreeing with the juoVos 6eos 
of the Christians and the hua waliid of the Muhammadans, but at the same 
time it speaks of the persons of the Trinity, only as so many manifestations 
and denominations of the same being, according to the distinctions of mere 
modes as maintained by Modalists, and illustrated by them by analogies drawn 
from nature, as the following : “ Speciem ignis, splendorem et calorem; 
splendor ab igne nascitur, calor ab igne et splendore generatur. Splendor est 
de igne, et tamen sunt coeva. Sic tria in sole occurrent; ipsa solis substantia, 
radius et lumen, et tamen in his tribus est eadem lux : ut radius de sole 
nascitur, sic Filius de patre generatur, calor ab utroque progreditur, sic 
spiritus ab utroque spiratur.” To each of these persons they ascribe a 
“ character, WoVrao-is, hypostasis,” i. e. “ Complexus notarum quibus persona 
