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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
It is only lately that the Trisula, or Trident, has attracted attention as a symbol. It so chances that for many years back I have collected matter connected with this subject, and have often wished to put it in form for publication, but want of time has always stood in the way of realizing this desire. Lately contributions dealing with the Trisula have appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society from Mr. Sewell and Mr. Pincott, and I feel urged to add some additional material to what they have given. I shall not be able to reproduce everything that I have gathered up, but my endeavour will be to give what seems to be important, or may throw light on the subject. As to a theory of origin, I have one: it has long been formed in my mind, and up to the present I see no reason to reject it; or it might be expressed, that no better theory has as yet, so far as I know, been proposed.
page 299 note 1 J.R.A.S. Vol. XVIII. p. 364, Vol. XIX. p. 238. Fergusson, Cunningham, and others have touched upon the trisula in their works. Lately Le Comte Goblet D'Alviella, Professeur d'histoire des Religions à l'Université de Bruxelles, has published a short brochure entitled Le Trisûla ou Vardhamâna des Bouddhistes.
page 301 note 1 See Pl. I. Fig. 19. This is from a Gnostic gem, and as it is a Greek E it may be accepted as accurate enough.
page 301 note 2 It may be worth noting that among the various meanings ascribed to the Eì, Plutarch seems to adopt that which ascribes to it the sense of “Being,” as an attribute of the Deity, as if it was intended to express on the part of the worshipper “Thou Art,” or “He” that “Is.” From this some writers have identified the Eì with the Hebrew 
or IE, pronounced Jah, a form of the word Jehovah; the root of which is “to be,” “to live,” etc. It is easy to account for the transposition of the letters, by supposing that in one case they had been written from right to left, and in the other from left to right.
page 302 note 1 Pl. I. Fig. 13.
page 302 note 2 See Pl. I.
page 302 note 3 Pl. I. Fig. 10.
page 302 note 4 Pl. II. Fig. 5.
page 303 note 1 Pl. II. Fig. 9.
page 304 note 1 Pl. II. Fig. 8. To prevent misconception here, I may state that this illustration is not given under the notion that the Muhammadans had any idea of a trisula, but merely to show how a sacred form may be repeated and continued by people who had no knowledge of the symbol they were using.
page 304 note 2 Pl. V. Figs. 7, 8, 9.
page 304 note 3 Pl. III. Fig. 4. This one is exceptional, in having only the one trident at each end, but on this account it is better adapted to show the character of this ritualistic instrument.
page 305 note 1 pp. 373–4.
page 306 note 1 See Antiquities of Orissa, by Mitra, Rajendralala, vol. ii. p. 146Google Scholar.
page 306 note 2 According to Callimachus, in the hymn to Delos, the trident of Poseidon was made by the Telchines; they also made the sickle of Chronus; these, with the discus of Vishnu, appear as weapons, but I think they should be also considered as symbols.
page 306 note 3 Pl. III. Fig. 8.
page 307 note 1 Pl. IV. Fig. 7. This was at one time a standard subject in valentines, but the “old gentleman” has entirely disappeared now from this walk in art. I bought one in 1866, to keep as a popular representation of this personage, and the illustration is copied from it.
page 307 note 2 Vol. iii. p. 434.
page 307 note 3 Pl. IV. Figs. 4, 5.
page 307 note 4 Pl. V. Fig. 6. This sceptre is represented in the armorial bearings of the late Emperor of the French; and may be seen in some of the coins of his reign.
page 307 note 5 Pl. V. Fig. 2.
page 307 note 6 Pl. V. Fig. 1.
page 307 note 7 Previous to the time of Nikon, about the middle of the seventeenth century, the benediction in the Russian Church was given with the thumb and two first fingers held up, the same as in the Latin Church, with the slight difference that the thumb and the two fingers were made to touch. The “Old Believers” in Russia still maintain that this is the right form. Pl. V. Fig. 4.
page 308 note 1 Pl. IV. Fig. 2.
page 308 note 2 See Pl. V. Fig. 5.
page 308 note 3 Pl I. Fig. 20.
page 309 note 1 Malcolm's, History of Persia, vol. i. p. 465Google Scholar.
page 309 note 2 Proc. Roy. Geogr. Soc. 1884, p. 504.
page 309 note 3 Pl. V. Fig. 3.
page 309 note 4 “Thus we see that in the Veda-Savatar, one of the names of the sun is ‘Golden-Handed.’ Certain it is that the early theological treatises of the Brahmins tell of the sun as having cut his hand at a sacrifice, and of the priests having replaced it by an artificial hand made of gold. Nay, in later times, the sun under the name of Savatar, became himself a priest; and a legend is told how, at a sacrifice, he cut off his hand, and how the other priests made a golden hand for him.”—Müller, Max, Science of Languages, p. 378Google Scholar.
page 310 note 1 Pl III. Fig. 9, and Pl. II. Figs. 2, 3, 7. Fig. 2 is the modern form.
page 310 note 2 I have a French work, published in Paris, Recherches sur l'Origine du Blason, et en particulier sur la Fleur de Lis, par M. Adelbert de Beaumont, which I would refer to; what I have given above, as to the period when the fleur de lis appeared in Europe, is the theory of this writer. I may mention that the fleur de lis appears in the Bayeux tapestry, and if that work of art was made immediately after the Conquest, it would throw a doubt on de Beaumont's ideas, or at least on the particular form in which he puts them. It may be also remarked that this writer does not show he has a large knowledge of the trisula, or trident, in the East. He states that “le roi Clovis reçut d'Anastase, empereur d'Orient, le sceptre fleurdelise.” That would be about the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century. This would make sceptres with the fleur-de-lis on them possible in Europe during five centuries before the Crusades; but it would still indicate an eastern origin for the emblem, a very important point in connection with this subject.
page 311 note 1 Pl IV. Fig. 3.
page 311 note 2 P. 434.
page 311 note 3 P. 168. See also Layard's, Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 463Google Scholar, where it is stated that this is on a bas-relief from Khorsabad. Layard, , in Discoveries in Nineveh and Babylon, p. 343Google Scholar, gives another representation of this Fish-god from a gem in the British Museum which has the same crown. I have seen this often referred to as the fleur-de-lis, but it is possibly nothing more than an ornament.
page 311 note 4 The Stupa of Bharhut, by Alexander Cunningham; see Plates xliii., xliv., xlvii., xlviii., xlix.
page 312 note 1 Pl. III. Fig. 5.
page 312 note 2 Pl. III. Figs. 6, 7.
page 314 note 1 The Androgynous form of the deity was simply a personification of the creative power. As Ardhanari in India, it was the combined figures of Siva and Parvati. Hermaphroditus was, as the name implies, Hermes and Aphrodite. Dionysus was also represented with the twofold nature. In Egypt the Nile was represented by a figure which is distinctly male and female. Genesis i. 27 may also be referred to. The legend of the Amazons has long been a subject of speculation; my suggestion is that they had an Androgynous type for their deity, and this, from some cause or another, came to be associated with the people of the race, and the one was confused with the other. The Ardhanari of India is perhaps a survival of the Amazonian deity, for it wants the right breast, because that side represents Siva; the left is Parvati, and has the female form of the breast.
page 314 note 2 Pl. IV. Fig. 6.
page 314 note 3 “The orb of the sun imitated in gold is placed between the horns.”— Herodotus, ii. 132.
page 314 note 4 Pl. II. Fig. 6.
page 314 note 5 Pl. II. Fig. 4.
page 315 note 1 Pl. I. Figs. 15, 16.
page 315 note 2 The Book of Respirations. Records of the Past, vol. iv. p. 121.
page 315 note 3 Yasts, and Sîrôzahs, , Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxiii. p. 16, also at p. 8Google Scholar.
page 315 note 4 Pl. I. Figs. 17, 18.
page 316 note 1 Pl IV. Fig. 1. I am aware that in some cases the moon was called male. This would be an important point to deal with, but its full consideration would be rather complicated to go into here. It is sufficient for my purpose that the moon was generally considered to be feminine. My own impression is that the two powers were so intimately connected as symbols, that the name of the one became the name of the other, or of both. We have many instances of this in language; the use of the word “throne,” when we mean the “monarch” who sits in it, is a good illustrative example.
page 316 note 2 Pl. I. Fig. 14.
page 316 note 3 The Vaisnavites, already noticed, who have the trisula painted on their foreheads, explain it as male and female, but they have somehow or another transposed the gender of the symbols.
page 317 note 1 See Pl. III. Fig. 1.
page 317 note 2 See Pl. III. Figs. 2, 3.