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ParallelsA comparative study
ChristianityHinduismTaoism
On The Word, the Way, the Logos, the Tao
A cosmic principle by which the universe is ordered — personified, spoken, or named as unnameable. Read John 1 next to Tao Te Ching 1 and the Rigveda's Nasadiya for the most striking comparative moment in scripture.
What every account tells.
- iA principle older than the world
- iiThrough which all things come to be
- iiiBoth immanent (in the world) and transcendent (beyond it)
How each tradition tells it.
Christianity
The Logos is personified in Christ — 'the Word became flesh' (John 1:14). Philo of Alexandria had already been using logos in a Jewish-Hellenistic framework.
Taoism
The Tao is explicitly unnameable — 'the Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao'. Not a person.
Hinduism
Brahman — the ground of being — precedes the gods themselves in Rigveda 10.129. The sacred sound Om is called the seed-syllable of the cosmos.