Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 138

GOD.
117
this simple sound, el, to their primitive roots, of which we need only refer to Israel here.
"It is obvious," writes Mr. Bayley, “ that Jeshurun or Israel' refers frequently to something more than an historic tribe of Semitic demon-worshippers, and that Israel, he or she, is sometimes a personification of the individual soul wandering in the wilderness. I suggest that the name Israel resolves itself naturally into Is, the light of,' ra, 'the eternal Sun which has existed for ever,' and El, the First Cause, the principle or beginning of all things. The poetic * Israel' thus appears as an extension of the name Ezra, 'Rising of Light,' and as another personification of the Divine Essence, Light, or Colony in the soul.”*
Thus, Allah is the 'hidden flame,'t the eternal, uncreate, conscious Essence, which is manifested in the Ilah or Elohim, whether we take the word to be Al-lah or a contraction of Al-ilah. As regards the notion of a plurality of Gods implied in the epithet, it would be premature to enter into its explanation at this stage ; we shall, therefore, reserve it for a more fitting occasion. Meanwhile, we may proceed with our enquiry into the general idea of God.
The etymological significance of the word God is not quite clear, but in Old Norse or Icelandic, the oldest of the Scandinavian group of tongues, we find it applied * to heathen deities (neuter and almost always plural), and afterwards changed to gud, to signify God' (The Imperial Dictionary). Possibly, the word is resolvable into the following primitive sounds :(i) g, signifying gigantic, or infinite, as in Gog,
Magog, * The Lost Language of Symbolism,' Vol. I. p. 284,
A flame itself is the summation of a large number of luminous points.