to find that there is actually a deity—­if indeed the term is suitable, but European vocabularies hardly provide one which meets the case—­called Harihara (or Sankara-Narayana), that is Siva and Vishnu combined.  The Harivamsa contains a hymn addressed to him:  fairly ancient sculptures attest the prevalence of his worship in the Deccan, especially at Badami, he was once the chief deity of Camboja and he is still popular in south India.  Here besides being worshipped under his own name he has undergone a singular transformation and has probably been amalgamated with some aboriginal deity.  Under the designation of Ayenar (said to be a corruption of Harihara) he is extensively worshipped as a village god and reputed to be the son of Siva and Vishnu, the latter having kindly assumed the form of a woman to effect his birth.

Another form of this inclination to combine and unite the various manifestations of the Divine is the tendency to worship groups of gods, a practice as old as the Vedas.  Thus many temples are dedicated to a group of five, namely, Siva, Vishnu, Durga, Ganesa and the Sun and it is stated that every Hindu worships these five deities in his daily prayers.[398] The Trimurti, or figure of Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, illustrates the worship of groups.  Its importance has sometimes been over-estimated by Europeans from an idea that it corresponded to the Christian Trinity, but in reality this triad is late and has little significance.  No stress is laid on the idea of three in one and the number of persons can be increased.  The Brahma-vaivarta Purana for instance adds Krishna to Brahma, Siva and Vishnu.  The union of three personalities is merely a way of summing up the chief attributes of the All-God.  Thus the Vishnu Purana[399] extols Vishnu as being “Hiranyagarbha, Hari and Sankara (i.e. Brahma, Vishnu and Siva), the creator, preserver and destroyer,” but in another passage as him who is “Brahma, Isvara and spirit (Pums), who with the three Gunas (qualities of matter) is the cause of creation, preservation and destruction....”  The origin of the triad, so far as it has any doctrinal or philosophical meaning, is probably to be sought in the personification of the three Gunas.[400]

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 334:  See especially Dig.  Nik.  XX. and XXXII.]

[Footnote 335:  But the lists may be pieces of folk-lore older than the suttas in which they are incorporated.]

[Footnote 336:  The Dionysus of Megasthenes is a deity who comes from the west with an army that suffers from the heat of the plains.  If we could be certain that he meant Siva by Dionysus this would be valuable evidence.  But he clearly misunderstood many things in Indian religion.  Greek legends connected Dionysus with India and the East.]