Vol 2 Page 273

FOOTNOTES TO “INDRA”

[The Theosophist, Vol. I, No. 5, February, 1880, p. 121]

[Indra] Derived from the Sanskrit Ind, which probably meant “to see, to discover,” hence literally, “he who sees or discovers,” scil. the doings of the world.

[The writer describes the attributes of Indra and some of the deeds which were ascribed to him by his worshippers. To this H.P.B. remarks:]

The attentive reader of the Christian Bible is constantly impressed with its strong resemblance to the Aryan sacred writings, and since the Hebrews are a far younger nation than the Aryas, it is a fair inference that if their literature was not copied from, it was at least inspired by, the primitive sublime model. Compare the Vedic conception of Indra, for instance, as alike the protector of his worshippers and the destroyer of cities, with these passages from the Psalms of David.

[H.P.B. then quotes from Ps. xxxviii, xvii, xxix, xviii, lxviii, 1xxviii, lxxxix, xcvi, and cxxxv, and closes by saying:]

Page 274

Scores of similar passages might be quoted to show that for thunder-hurling, the martial tutelar deity of the Hebrews, JAH or JAHVE, who was adopted by the Christians as the chief personage of their Trinity and made the putative father of their second personage, Jesus, was almost if not quite a reminiscence of the Aryan Indra.

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