Note 108 — LECTURE II. THE HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY, AND THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF THEIR RESPECTIVE SCRIPTURES.

Professor Müller finds the first traces of a Maker or Creator in the Vedic deity Tvashtar, the carpenter—the clever workman, even smith, forging bolts for Indra therein, Rig-Ved. iii. 55. 19. “Tvashtar, the enlivener, endowed with many forms, has nourished the creatures and produced them in many ways; all these worlds are his.” Of another god, latterly called Pragâpati, he quotes Rig-Ved. x. 81. 2, as one who, “creating the earth, disclosed the sky by his power.” Very significantly, however, he reminds us that the same poet loses the idea, and speaks of the secret of creation as undiscoverable.—Müller’s Natural Religion, p. 245. Also Introd. to Upanishads, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xv. p. xxiv.