Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
The Secret Doctrine
By Helena P. Blavatsky
Book II-Part I-The Beginnings Of Sentient Live
§§ (1) THE LHA, or Spirit of the Earth. (2) Invocation of the Earth to the Sun.
(3) What the Sun answers. (4) Transformation of the Earth.
--------------
1. THE LHA (a) WHICH TURNS THE FOURTH (Globe, or our Earth) IS SERVANT TO THE LHA(S) OF THE SEVEN (the planetary Spirits) (b), THEY WHO REVOLVE, DRIVING THEIR CHARIOTS AROUND THEIR LORD, THE ONE EYE (Loka-Chakshub) OF OUR WORLD. HIS BREATH GIVES LIFE TO THE SEVEN (gives light to the planets). IT GAVE LIFE TO THE FIRST (c). "THEY ARE ALL DRAGONS OF WISDOM," adds the Commentary (d).
(a) Lha is the ancient word in trans-Himalayan regions for "Spirit," any celestial or superhuman Being, and it covers the whole series of heavenly hierarchies, from Archangel, or Dhyani, down to an angel of darkness, or terrestrial Spirit.
(b) This expression shows in plain language that the Spirit-Guardian of our globe, which is the fourth in the chain, is subordinate to the chief Spirit (or God) of the Seven Planetary Genii or Spirits. As already explained, the ancients had, in their Kyriel of gods, seven chief Mystery-gods, whose chief was, exoterically, the visible Sun, or the eighth, and, esoterically, the second Logos, the Demiurge. The seven (who have now become the "Seven Eyes of the Lord" in the Christian religion) were the regents of the seven chief planets; but these were not reckoned according to the enumeration devised later by people who had forgotten, or who had an inadequate notion of, the real Mysteries, and included neither the sun, the moon, nor the earth. The sun was the chief, exoterically, of the twelve great gods, or zodiacal constellations; and, esoterically, the Messiah, the Christos (the subject anointed by the Great BREATH, or the ONE) surrounded by his twelve subordinate powers, also subordinate, in turn, to each of the seven "Mystery-gods" of the planets.
"The seven higher make the Seven Lhas create the world," states a Commentary; which means that our Earth, leaving aside the rest, was created or fashioned by terrestrial spirits, the "Regents" being simply the supervisors. This is the first germ, the seed of that which grew later into the Tree of Astrology and Astrolatry. The Higher ones were the Kosmocratores, the fabricators of our solar system. This is borne out by all the ancient Cosmogonies: that of Hermes, of the Chaldees, of the Aryans, of the Egyptians, and even of the Jews. Heaven's belt, the signs of the Zodiac (the Sacred animals), are as much the Bne' Alhim (Sons of the Gods or the Elohim) as the Spirits of the Earth; but they are prior to them. Soma and Sin, Isis and Diana, are all lunar gods or goddesses, called the fathers and mothers of our Earth, which is subordinate to them. But these, in their turn, are subordinate to their "Fathers" and "Mothers" -- the latter interchangeable and varying with each nation -- the gods and their planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn Bel, Brihaspati, etc.
(c) "His breath gave life to the seven," refers as much to the sun, who gives life to the Planets, as to the "High One," the Spiritual Sun, who gives life to the whole Kosmos. The astronomical and astrological keys opening the gate leading to the mysteries of Theogony can be found only in the later glossaries, which accompany the Stanzas.
In the apocalyptic Slokas of the Archaic Records, the language is as symbolical, if less mythical, than in the Puranas. Without the help of the later commentaries,compiled by generations of adepts, it would be impossible to understand the meaning correctly. In the ancient Cosmogonies, the visible and the invisible worlds are the double links of one and the same chain. As the invisible Logos, with its seven hierarchies (represented or personified each by its chief angel or rector), form one POWER, the inner and the invisible; so, in the world of Forms, the Sun and the seven chief Planets constitute the visible and active potency; the latter "Hierarchy" being, so to speak, the visible and objective Logos of the invisible and (except in the lowest grades) ever-subjective angels.
Thus -- to anticipate a little by way of illustration -- every Race in its
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 24 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
evolution is said to be born under the direct influence of one of the Planets: Race the first receiving its breath of life from the Sun, as will be seen later on; while the third humanity -- those who fell into generation, or from androgynes became separate entities, one male and the other female -- are said to be under the direct influence of Venus, "the little sun in which the solar orb stores his light."
The summation of the Stanzas in Book I. showed the genesis* of Gods and men taking rise in, and from, one and the same Point, which is the One Universal, Immutable, Eternal, and absolute UNITY. In its primary manifested aspect we have seen it become: (1) in the sphere of objectivity and Physics, Primordial Substance and Force (centripetal and centrifugal, positive and negative, male and female, etc., etc.); (2) in the world of Metaphysics, the SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSE, or Cosmic Ideation, called by some the LOGOS.
This LOGOS is the apex of the Pythagorean triangle. When the triangle is complete it becomes the Tetraktis, or the Triangle in the Square, and is the dual symbol of the four-lettered Tetragrammaton in the manifested Kosmos, and of its radical triple RAY in the unmanifested, or its noumenon.
Put more metaphysically, the classification given here of Cosmic Ultimates, is more one of convenience than of absolute philosophical accuracy. At the commencement of a great Manvantara, Parabrahm manifests as Mulaprakriti and then as the Logos. This Logos is equivalent to the "Unconscious Universal Mind," etc., of Western Pantheists. It constitutes the Basis of the SUBJECT-side of manifested Being, and is the source of all manifestations of individual consciousness. Mulaprakriti or Primordial Cosmic Substance, is the foundation of the OBJECT-side of things -- the basis of all objective evolution and Cosmogenesis. Force, then, does not emerge with Primordial Substance from Parabrahmic Latency. It is the transformation into energy of the supra-conscious thought of the Logos, infused, so to speak, into the objectivation of the latter out of potential latency in the One Reality. Hence spring the wondrous laws of matter: hence the "primal impress" so vainly discussed by Bishop Temple. Force thus is not synchronous with the first objectivation of Mulaprakriti. But as, apart from it, the latter is absolutely and necessarily inert -- a mere abstraction -- it is unnecessary to weave too fine a cobweb of subtleties as to the order of succession of the Cosmic Ultimates. Force succeeds Mulaprakriti; but, minus Force, Mulaprakriti is for all practical intents and purposes non-existent.*
The "Heavenly Man" (Tetragrammaton) who is the Protogonos, Tikkoun, the firstborn from the passive deity and the first manifestation of that deity's shadow, is the universal form and idea, which engenders the manifested Logos, Adam Kadmon, or the four-lettered symbol, in the Kabala, of the Universe itself, also called the second Logos. The second springs from the first and develops the third triangle (see the Sephirothal Tree); from the last of which (the lower host of Angels) MEN are generated. It is with this third aspect that we shall deal at present.
The reader must bear in mind that there is a great difference between the LOGOS and the Demiurgos, for one is Spirit and the other is Soul; or as Dr. Wilder has it: "Dianoia and Logos are synonymous, Nous being superior and closely in affinity with [[To agathon]], one being the superior apprehending, the other the comprehending -- one noetic and the other phrenic."
Moreover, Man was regarded in several systems as the third Logos. The esoteric meaning of the word Logos (speech or word, Verbum) is the rendering in objective expression, as in a photograph, of the concealed thought. The Logos is the mirror reflecting DIVINE MIND, and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the esse of that Universe. As the Logos reflects all in the Universe of Pleroma, so man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in his Universe, the Earth. It is the three Heads of the Kabala: "Unum intra alterum, et alterum super alterum" (Zohar, Idra Suta, sec. VII). "Every Universe (world or planet) has its own Logos," says the doctrine. The Sun was always called by the Egyptians "the eye of Osiris," and was himself the Logos, the first-begotten, or light made manifest to the world, "which is the Mind and divine intellect of the Concealed." It is only by the sevenfold Ray of this light that we can become cognizant of the Logos through the Demi-urge, regarding the latter as the creator of our planet and everything pertaining to it, and the former as the guiding Force of that "Creator" -- good and bad at the same time, the origin of good and the origin of evil. This "Creator" is neither good nor bad per se, but its differentiated aspects in nature make it assume one or the other character. With the invisible and the unknown Universes disseminated through space, none of the sun-gods had anything to do. The idea is expressed very clearly in the "Books of Hermes," and in every ancient folk lore. It is symbolised generally by the Dragon and the Serpent -- the Dragon of Good and the Serpent of Evil, represented on Earth by the right and the left-hand Magic. In the epic poem of Finland, the Kalewala,* the origin of the Serpent of Evil is given: it is born from the "spittle of Suoyatar . . . . and endowed with a living Soul by the Principle of Evil," Hisi. A strife is described between the two, the "thing of Evil" (the Serpent or Sorcerer), and Ahti, the Dragon; "Magic Lemminkainen." The latter is one of the seven sons of Ilmatar, the virgin "daughter of the air," she "who fell from heaven into the sea," before Creation, i.e., Spirit transformed into the matter of sensuous life. There is a world of meaning and Occult thought in these few lines, admirably rendered by Dr. J. M. Crawford, of Cincinnati. The hero Lemminkainen, the good magician,
"Hews the wall with might of magic,
Breaks the palisade in pieces,
Hews to atoms seven pickets,
Chops the Serpent wall to fragments.
. . . . . .
When the monster little heeding,
. . . . . .
Pounces with his mouth of venom
At the head of Lemminkainen.
But the hero, quick recalling,
Speaks the Master words of Knowledge,
Words that came from distant ages,
Words his ancestors had taught him . . . . "
(d) In China the men of Fohi (or the "Heavenly Man") are called the twelve Tien-Hoang, the twelve hierarchies of Dhyanis or Angels, with human Faces, and Dragon bodies; the dragon standing for divine Wisdom or Spirit**; and they create men by incarnating themselves in seven figures of clay -- earth and water -- made in the shape of those Tien-hoang,a third allegory; (compare the "Symbols of the Bonzes"). The twelve AESERS of the Scandinavian Eddas do the same. In the Secret Catechism of the Druses of Syria -- a legend which is repeated word for word by the oldest tribes about and around the Euphrates -- men were created by the "Sons of God" descending on Earth, where, after culling seven Mandragoras, they animated these roots, which became forthwith men.*
All these allegories point to one and the same origin -- to the dual and the triple nature of man; dual, as male and female; triple -- as being of spiritual and psychic essence within, and of a material fabric without.
--------
2. SAID THE EARTH, "LORD OF THE SHINING FACE (the Sun) MY HOUSE IS EMPTY. . . . SEND THY SONS TO PEOPLE THIS WHEEL (Earth). THOU HAST SENT THY SEVEN SONS TO THE LORD OF WISDOM (a). SEVEN TIMES DOTH HE SEE THEE NEARER TO HIMSELF; SEVEN TIMES MORE DOTH HE FEEL THEE. THOU HAST FORBIDDEN THY SERVANTS, THE SMALL RINGS, TO CATCH THY LIGHT AND HEAT, THY GREAT BOUNTY TO INTERCEPT ON ITS PASSAGE (b). SEND NOW TO THY SERVANT THE SAME!" (c).
(a) The "Lord of Wisdom" is Mercury, or Budha.
(b) The modern Commentary explains the words as a reference to a well-known astronomical fact, "that Mercury receives seven times more light and heat from the Sun than Earth, or even the beautiful Venus, which receives but twice that amount more than our insignificant Globe." Whether the fact was known in antiquity may be inferred from the prayer of the "Earth Spirit" to the Sun as given in the text.* The Sun however, refuses to people the globe, as it is not ready to receive life as yet.
Mercury is, as an astrological planet, still more occult and mysterious than Venus. It is identical with the Mazdean Mithra, the genius, or god, "established between the Sun and the Moon, the perpetual companion of 'Sun' of Wisdom." Pausanias shows him as having an altar in common with Jupiter (Book V). He had wings to express his attendance upon the Sun in its course; and he was called the Nuntis, or Sun-wolf, "solaris luminis particeps." He was the leader of and the evocator of Souls, the "great Magician" and the Hierophant. Virgil depicts him as taking "his wand to evoke from Orcus the souls plunged therein" -- tum virgam capit, hac animas ille evocat Orco. (See also the 21st Fargard of the Vendidad on the celestial militia.) He is the golden-coloured Mercury, the [[chrusophaes Hermes]] whom the Hierophants forbade to name. He is symbolised in Grecian mythology by one of the dogs (vigilance), which watch over the celestial flock (occult wisdom), or Hermes Anubis, or again Agathodaemon. He is the Argus watching over the Earth, and which the latter mistakes for the Sun itself. It is through the intercession of Mercury that the Emperor Julian prayed to the Occult Sun every night; for, as says Vossius: "All the theologians agree to say that Mercury and the Sun are one. . . . He was the most eloquent and the most wise of all the gods, which is not to be wondered at, since Mercury is in such close proximity to the Wisdom and the Word of God (the Sun) that he was confused with both." (Idolatry, Vol. II., p. 373.) Vossius utters here a greater occult truth than he suspected. The Hermes-Sarameyas of the Greeks is closely related to the Hindu Saram and Sarameya, the divine watchman, "who watches over the golden flock of stars and solar rays."
In the clearer words of the Commentary:
"The Globe, propelled onward by the Spirit of the Earth and his six assistants,
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Copernicus wrote his theories on the "Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies" in the XVIth century, and the Zohar, even if compiled by Moses de Leon in the XIIIth century, states that: "In the book of Hammannunah, the Old, we learn . . . that the earth turns upon itself in the form of a circle; that some are on top, the others below, . . . . that there are some countries which are lightened, whilst others are in darkness; these have the day, when for the former it is night; and there are countries in which it is constantly day, or in which at least the night continues only some instants." (Zohar iii., fol. 10a "Qabbalah," p. 139.) gets all its vital forces, life, and powers through the medium of the seven planetary Dhyanis from the Spirit of the Sun. They are his messengers of Light and Life."
"Like each of the seven regions of the Earth, each of the seven* Firstborn (the primordial human groups) receives its light and life from its own especial Dhyani -- spiritually, and from the palace (house, the planet) of that Dhyani physically; so with the seven great Races to be born on it. The first is born under the Sun; the second under Brihaspati (Jupiter); the third under Lohitanga (the "fiery-bodied," Venus, or Sukra); the fourth, under Soma (the Moon, our Globe also, the Fourth Sphere being born under and from the Moon) and Sani, Saturn** the Krura-lochana (evil-eyed) and the Asita (the dark); the fifth, under Budha (Mercury)."
"So also with man and every 'man' in man (every principle). Each gets its specific quality from its primary (the planetary spirit), therefore every man is a septenate (or a combination of principles, each having its origin in a quality of that special Dhyani). Every active power or force of the earth comes to her from one of the seven Lords. Light comes through Sukra (Venus), who receives a triple supply, and gives one-third of it to the Earth. Therefore the two are called 'Twin-sisters,' but the Spirit of the Earth is subservient to the 'Lord' of Sukra. Our wise men represent the two Globes, one over, the other under the double Sign (the primeval Svastica bereft of its four arms, or the cross )."***
The "double sign" is, as every student of Occultism knows, the symbol of the male and the female principles in Nature, of the positive and the negative, for the Svastica or is all that and much more. All antiquity, ever since the birth of Astronomy -- imparted to the Fourth Race by one of its divine kings of the Divine Dynasty -- and also of Astrology, represented Venus in its astronomical tables as a Globe poised over a Cross, and the Earth, as a Globe under a Cross. The esoteric meaning of this is: "Earth fallen into generation, or into the production of its species through sexual union." But the later Western nations did not fail to give quite a different interpretation. They explained this sign through their mystics -- guided by the light of the Latin Church -- as meaning that our Earth and all on it were redeemed by the Cross, while Venus (otherwise Lucifer or Satan) was trampling upon it. Venus is the most occult, powerful, and mysterious of all the planets; the one whose influence upon, and relation to the Earth is most prominent. In exoteric Brahmanism, Venus or Sukra -- a male deity* -- is the son of Bhrigu, one of the Prajapati and a Vedic sage, and is Daitya-Guru, or the priest-instructor of the primeval giants. The whole history of "Sukra" in the Puranas, refers to the Third and to the Fourth Races.
"It is through Sukra that the 'double ones' (the Hermaphrodites) of the Third (Root-Race) descended from the first 'Sweat-born,'" says the Commentary. Therefore it is represented under the symbol of (the circle and diameter) during the Third (Race) and of during the Fourth.
This needs explanation. The diameter, when found isolated in a circle, stands for female nature, for the first ideal World, self-generated and self-impregnated by the universally diffused Spirit of Life -- referring thus to the primitive Root-Race also. It becomes androgynous as the Races and all on Earth develop into their physical forms, and the symbol is transformed into a circle with a diameter from which runs a vertical line: expressive of male and female, not separated as yet -- the first and earliest Egyptian Tau ; after which it becomes or male-female separated** (See first pp. of Book I) and fallen into generation. Venus (the planet) is symbolised by the sign of a globe over the cross, which shows it as presiding over the natural generation of man. The Egyptians symbolised Ank, "life," by the ansated cross, or , which is only another form of Venus (Isis) , and meant, esoterically, that mankind and all animal life bad stepped out of the divine spiritual circle and fallen into physical male and female generation. This sign, from the end of the Third Race, has the same phallic significance as the "tree of life" in Eden Anouki, a form of Isis, is the goddess of life; and Ank was taken by the Hebrews from the Egyptians and introduced by Moses, one learned in the Wisdom of the priests of Egypt, with many other mystical words. The word Ank in Hebrew, with the personal suffix, means "my life," my being, which "is the personal pronoun Anochi," from the name of the Egyptian goddess Anouki.*
In one of the most ancient Catechisms of Southern India, Madras Presidency, the hermaphrodite goddess Adanari (see also "Indian Pantheon") has the ansated cross, the Svastica, the "male and female sign," right in the central part, to denote the pre-sexual state of the Third Race. Vishnu, who is now represented with a lotus growing out of his navel -- or the Universe of Brahma evolving out of the central point Nara -- is shown in one of the oldest carvings as double-sexed (Vishnu and Lakshmi) standing on a lotus-leaf floating on the water; which water rises in a semicircle and pours through the Svastica, "the source of generation" or of the descent of man.
Pythagoras calls Sukra-Venus the Sol alter, "the other Sun." Of the "seven palaces of the Sun," that of Lucifer Venus is the third one in Christian and Jewish Kabala, the Zohar making of it the abode of Samael. According to the Occult Doctrine, this planet is our Earth's primary, and its spiritual prototype. Hence, Sukra's car (Venus-Lucifer's) is said to be drawn by an ogdoad of "earth-born horses," while the steeds of the chariots of the other planets are different.
"Every sin committed on Earth is felt by Usanas-Sukra. The Guru of the Daityas is the Guardian Spirit of the Earth and Men. Every change on Sukra is felt on, and reflected by, the Earth."
Sukra, or Venus, is thus represented as the preceptor of the Daityas, the giants of the Fourth Race, who, in the Hindu allegory, obtained at one time the sovereignty of all the Earth, and defeated the minor gods. The Titans of the Western allegory are as closely connected with Venus-Lucifer, identified by later Christians with Satan. Therefore, as Venus, equally with Isis, was represented with Cow's horns on her head, the symbol of mystic Nature, and one that is convertible with, and significant of, the moon, since all these were lunar goddesses, the configuration of this planet is now placed by theologians between the horns of the mystic Lucifer.** It is owing to the fanciful interpretation of the archaic tradition, which states that Venus changes simultaneously (geologically) with the Earth; that whatever takes place on the one takes place on the other; and that many and great were their common changes -- it is for these reasons that St. Augustine repeats it, applying the several changes of configuration, colour, and even of the orbital paths, to that theologically-woven character of Venus-Lucifer. He even goes so far in his pious fancy as to connect the last changes of the planet with the Noachian and mythical Deluge alleged to have taken place 1796 years B.C. (See "City of God" lxxi., ch. viii.).
As Venus has no satellites, it is stated allegorically, that "Asphujit" (this "planet") adopted the Earth, the progeny of the Moon, "who overgrew its parent and gave much trouble," a reference to the occult connection between the two. The Regent (of the planet) Sukra* loved his adopted child so well that he incarnated as Usanas and gave it perfect laws, which were disregarded and rejected in later ages. Another allegory, in Harivansa, is that Sukra went to Siva asking him to protect his pupils, the Daityas and Asuras, from the fighting gods; and that to further his object he performed a Yoga rite "imbibing the smoke of chaff with his head downwards for 1,000 years." This refers to the great inclination of the axis of Venus (amounting to 50 degrees), and to its being enveloped in eternal clouds. But it relates only to the physical constitution of the planet. It is with its Regent, the informing Dhyan Chohan, that Occult mysticism has to deal. The allegory which states that for killing Sukra's mother, Vishnu was cursed by him to be reborn seven times on the Earth, is full of occult philosophical meaning. It does not refer to Vishnu's Avatars, since these number nine, the tenth being still to come, but to the Races on Earth. Venus, or Lucifer (also Sukra and Usanas) the planet, is the light-bearer of our Earth, in both its physical and mystic sense. The Christians knew it well in early times, since one of the earliest popes of Rome is known by his Pontiff name as Lucifer.
"Every world has its parent star and sister planet. Thus Earth is the adopted child and younger brother of Venus, but its inhabitants are of their own kind. . . . All sentient complete beings (full septenary men or higher beings) are furnished, in their beginnings, with forms and organisms in full harmony with the nature and state of the sphere they inhabit."*
"The Spheres of Being, or centres of life, which are isolated nuclei breeding their men and their animals, are numberless; not one has any resemblance to its sister-companion or to any other in its own special progeny."**
"All have a double physical and spiritual nature."
"The nucleoles are eternal and everlasting; the nuclei periodical and finite. The nucleoles form part of the absolute. They are the embrasures of that black impenetrable fortress, which is for ever concealed from human or even Dhyanic sight. The nuclei are the light of eternity escaping therefrom."
"It is that LIGHT which condenses into the forms of the 'Lords of Being' -- the first and the highest of which are, collectively, JIVATMA, or Pratyagatma (said figuratively to issue from Paramatma. It is the Logos of the Greek philosophers -- appearing at the beginning of every new Manvantara). From these downwards -- formed from the ever-consolidating waves of that light, which becomes on the objective plane gross matter -- proceed the numerous hierarchies of the Creative Forces, some formless, others having their own distinctive form, others, again, the lowest (Elementals), having no form of their own, but assuming every form according to the surrounding conditions."
"Thus there is but one Absolute Upadhi (basis) in the spiritual sense, from, on, and in which, are built for Manvantaric purposes the countless basic centres on which proceed the Universal, cyclic, and individual Evolutions during the active period."
"The informing Intelligences, which animate these various centres of Being, are referred to indiscriminately by men beyond the Great Range* as the Manus, the Rishis, the Pitris**, the Prajapati, and so on; and as Dhyani Buddhas, the Chohans, Melhas (fire-gods), Bodhisattvas,*** and others, on this side. The truly ignorant call them gods; the learned profane, the one God; and the wise, the Initiates, honour in them only the Manvantaric manifestations of THAT which neither our Creators (the Dhyan Chohans) nor their creatures can ever discuss or know anything about. The ABSOLUTE is not to be defined, and no mortal or immortal has ever seen or comprehended it during the periods of Existence. The mutable cannot know the Immutable, nor can that which lives perceive Absolute Life."
Therefore, man cannot know higher beings than his own "progenitors." "Nor shall he worship them, "but he ought to learn how he came into the world.
(c) Number Seven, the fundamental figure among all other figures in every national religious system, from Cosmogony down to man, must have its raison d'etre. It is found among the ancient Americans, as prominently as among the archaic Aryans and Egyptians. The question will be fully dealt with in the second part of this Book; meanwhile a few facts may be given here. Says the author of the "Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and Quiches, 11,500 years ago"****:-- "Seven seems to have been the sacred number par excellence among all civilised nations of antiquity. Why? Each separate people has given a different explanation, according to the peculiar tenets of their (exoteric) religion. That it was the number of numbers for those initiated into the sacred mysteries, there can be no doubt. Pythagoras . . . calls it the 'Vehicle of Life' containing body and soul, since it is formed of a Quaternary, that is Wisdom and intellect, and of a Trinity or action and matter. The Emperor Julian, 'In matrem, etc.,' expresses himself thus: 'Were I to touch upon the initiation into our Sacred Mysteries, which the Chaldees Bacchized, respecting the seven-rayed god, lighting up the soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to the blessed Theurgists.' " (p. 141).
And who, acquainted with the Puranas, the Book of the Dead, the Zendavesta, the Assyrian tiles, and finally the Bible, and who has observed the constant occurrence of the number seven, in these records of people living from the remotest times unconnected and so far apart, can regard as a coincidence the following fact, given by the same explorer of ancient Mysteries? Speaking of the prevalence of seven as a mystic number, among the inhabitants of the "Western continent" (of America), he adds that it is not less remarkable. For: --
"It frequently occurs in the Popul-vuh . . . we find it besides in the seven families said by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied the mystical personage named Votan, the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by some with Palenque. In the seven caves* from which the ancestors of the Nahuatl are reported to have emerged. In the seven cities of Cibola, described by Coronado and Niza. . . . In the seven Antilles; in the seven heroes who, we are told, escaped the Deluge . . . ."
"Heroes," moreover, whose number is found the same in every "Deluge" story -- from the seven Rishis who were saved with Vaivasvata Manu, down to Noah's ark, into which beasts, fowls, and living creatures were taken by "Sevens." Thus we see the figures 1, 3, 5, 7, as perfect, because thoroughly mystic, numbers playing a prominent part in every Cosmogony and evolution of living Beings. In China, 1, 3, 5, 7, are called "celestial numbers" in the canonical "Book of Changes." (Yi King, or transformation, as in "Evolution").
The explanation of it becomes evident when one examines the ancient Symbols: all these are based upon and start from the figures given from the Archaic Manuscript in the proem of Book I. , the symbol of evolution and fall into generation or matter, is reflected in the old Mexican sculptures or paintings, as it is in the Kabalistic Sephiroth, and the Egyptian Tau. Examine the Mexican MSS (Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 9789)*; you will find in it a tree whose trunk is covered with ten fruits ready to be plucked by a male and female, one on each side of it, while from the top of the trunk two branches shoot horizontally to the right and left, thus forming a perfect (tau), the ends of the two branches, moreover, each bearing a triple bunch, with a bird -- the bird of immortality, Atman or the divine Spirit -- sitting between the two, and thus making the seventh. This represents the same idea as the Sephirothal Tree,ten in all, yet, when separated from its upper triad, leaving Seven. These are the celestial fruits, the ten or 10, born out of the two invisible male and female seeds, making up the 12, or the Dodecahedron of the Universe. The mystic system contains the , the central point; the 3 or ; the five, , and the seven or , or again ; the triangle in the square and the synthesizing point in the interlaced double triangles. This for the world of the archetypes. The phenomenal world receives its culmination and the reflex of all in MAN. Therefore he is the mystic square -- in his metaphysical aspect -- the Tetraktis; and becomes the Cubeon the creative plain. His symbol is the cube unfolded** and 6 becoming 7, or the three crossways (the female) and four vertically; and this is man, the culmination of the deity on Earth, whose body is the cross of flesh, on, through,and in which he is ever crucifying and putting to death the divine Logos or his HIGHER SELF.
"The universe," says every Philosophy and Cosmogony, "hath a Ruler (Rulers collectively) set over it, which is called the WORD (Logos); the fabricating Spirit is its Queen: which two are the First Power after the ONE."
These are the Spirit and Nature, which two form our illusory universe. The two inseparables remain in the Universe of Ideas so long as it lasts, and then merge back into Parabrahm, the One ever changeless. "The Spirit, whose essence is eternal, one and self-existent," emanates a pure ethereal LIGHT -- a dual light not perceptible to the elementary senses -- in the Puranas, in the Bible, in the Sepher Jezirah, the Greek and Latin hymns, in the Book of Hermes, in the Chaldean Book of Numbers, in the esotericism of Lao-tse, everywhere. In the Kabala, which explains the secret meaning of Genesis, this light is the DUAL-MAN, or the Androgyne (rather the sexless) angels, whose generic name is ADAM KADMON. It is they who complete man, whose ethereal form is emanated by other divine, but far lower beings, who solidify the body with clay, or the "dust of the ground" -- an allegory indeed, but as scientific as any Darwinian evolution and more true.
The author of the "Source of Measures" says that the foundation of the Kabala and all its mystic books is made to rest upon the ten Sephiroth; which is a fundamental truth.* He shows these ten Sephiroth or the ten numbers in the following diagram: --
wherein the circle is the naught, its vertical diameter line is the first or primal ONE (the Word or Logos), from which springs the series of the other numbers up to 9, the limit of the digits. The 10 is the first Divine Manifestation** containing "every possible power of exact expression of proportion." By this Kabalistic speculation we are taught that the Sephiroth "were the numbers or emanations of the Heavenly Light (figures 20612 to 6561), they were the 10 'Words,' DBRIM, 41224, the light, of which they were the flux, was the Heavenly Man, the Adam KDM (the 144- 144); and the Light, by the New Testament or Covenant (or 41224) created God; just as, by the Old Testament God (Alhim, 31415) creates light (20612 to 6561)."
Now there are three kinds of light in Occultism, as in the Kabala. (1) The Abstract and Absolute Light, which is Darkness; (2) The Light of the Manifested-Unmanifested, called by some the Logos; and (3) The latter light reflected in the Dhyan Chohans, the minor logoi (the Elohim, collectively), who, in their turn, shed it on the objective Universe. But in the Kabala -- re-edited and carefully adjusted to fit the Christian tenets by the Kabalists of the XIII. century -- the three lights are described as: -- (1) The clear and penetrating, that of Jehovah; (2) reflected light; and (3) light in the abstract." This light abstractly taken (in a metaphysical or symbolical sense) is Alhim (Elohim God), while the clear penetrating light is Jehovah. The light of Alhim belongs to the world in general, in its allness and general fulness, but the light of Jehovah is that pertaining to the chiefest production, man, whom this light penetrated and made." The author of the "Source of Measures" pertinently refers the reader to Inman's "Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient Names," vol. ii., p. 648. There, an engraving of "the vesica piscis, Mary and the female emblem, copied from a rosary of the blessed Virgin . . . . printed at Venice, 1542," and therefore, as Inman remarks, "with a license from the Inquisition, consequently orthodox," will show the reader what the Latin Church understood by this "penetrating power of light and its effects " How sadly disfigured -- applied as they were to the grossest anthropomorphic conceptions -- have become, under Christian interpretation, the noblest and grandest, as the most exalted, ideas of deity of the Eastern philosophy!
The Occultists call this light Daiviprakriti in the East, and light of Christos in the West. It is the light of the LOGOS, the direct reflection of the ever Unknowable on the plane of Universal manifestation. But here is the interpretation thereof given by the modern Christians from the Kabala. As declared by the author just cited: --
"To the fulness of the world in general with its chiefest content, man, the term Elohim-Jehovah applies. In extracts from the Zohar, the Rev. Dr. Cassell (a Kabalist), to prove that the Cabbalah sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity, among other things says: 'Jehovah is Elohim (Alhim) . . . by three steps God (Alhim), and Jehovah become the same, and though separated each and together, they are of the same one.'" Similarly, Vishnu becomes the Sun, the visible symbol of the impersonal deity. Vishnu is described as "striding through the seven regions of the Universe in three steps." But with the Hindus this is an exoteric account, a surface tenet and an allegory, while the Kabalists give it out as the esoteric and final meaning. But to proceed: --
"Now light," explains the author, "as shown, is 20612 to 6561, as the proper enunciation of the integral and numerical relation of diameter to circumference of a circle. God (Alhim, i.e., 3.1415 to one, a modified form of the above) is the reduction of this, so as to obtain a standard unitone,as the basis, in general, of all calculation and all mensuration. But, for the production of animal life, and for especial time measure or the lunar year, that influence which causes conception and embryotic development, the numbers of the Jehovah measure ('man even Jehovah' measure), viz. 113 to 355, have to be specialised.* But this last ratio is but a modified form of light or 20612 to 6561, as a '[[pi]]' value, being only a variation of the same (that is 20612 to 6561 is 31415 to one, or Alhim or God) -- and in such a manner that one can be made to flow into and be derived from the other, and these are the three steps by which the Unity and sameness can be shown of the divine names. That is, the two are but variations of the same ratio, viz., that of '[[pi]].' The object of this comment is to show the same measuring use for the Cabbalah as was employed in the three Covenants of the Bible, and in the symbols of Masonry, as just noticed."
"First then, the Sephiroth are described as Light, that is, they themselves are a function of, indeed, the same as, the manifestation of Ain Soph; and they are so from the fact that Light represents the ratio of 20612 to 6561, as part of the 'Words,' DBRIM, 41224, or as to the Word, Debar, 206 (= 10 cubits). Light is so much the burden of the Kabbalah, in explaining the Sephiroth, that the most famous book on the Kabbalah is called Zohar or Light. In this we find expressions of this kind: -- 'The Infinite was entirely unknown and diffused no light before the luminous point violently broke through into vision . . . .' 'When he first assumed the form (of the Crown, or the first Sephira), he caused 9 splendid lights to emanate from it, which, shining through it, diffused a bright light in all directions': that is, these 9 with his one (which was the origin, as above, of the nine), together made the 10, that is or , or the sacred Ten (numbers or Sephiroth), or Jod -- and these numbers were 'the Light.' Just as in the Gospel of St. John, God (Alhim, 31415 to one) was that light (20612 to 6561) by which (Light) all things were made."
In Sepher Jezirah, or Numbers of Creation, the whole process of evolution is given out in Numbers. In its "32 paths of Wisdom" the number 3 is repeated four times, and the number 4 five times. Therefore, the Wisdom of God is contained in numbers (Sephrim or Sephiroth), for Sepher (or S-ph-ra when unvowelled) means "to cipher." And therefore, also, we find Plato stating that the deity geometrizes in fabricating the Universe.
The Kabalistic book, the Sepher Jezirah, opens with a statement of the hidden wisdom of Alhi in Sephrim, i.e , the Elohim in the Sephiroth.
"In thirty and two paths, hidden wisdom, established Jah, JHVH, Tzabaoth, Elohi of Israel, Alhim of Life, El of Grace and Mercy -- exalted, uplifted Dweller on high, and King of Everlasting, and his name -- Holy! in three Sephrim: viz: -- B-S'ph-r, V-S'ph-r, V-Siph-o-r."
"This Comment sets forth 'the Hidden Wisdom' of the original text by hidden Wisdom, that is, by the use of words carrying a special set of Numbers and a special phraseology, which will set forth the very explanatory system which we find to fit so accurately in the Hebrew Bible. . . . . In setting forth his scheme, to enforce it, and to finish out his detailed exposition in a general postulate, viz., the one word Sephrim (Sephiroth) of the Number Jezirah, the author explains the separation of this word in the three subordinate ones, a play upon a common word s-ph-r, or number."
The prince Al-Chazari says to the Rabbi*: -- "I wish now that thou wouldest impart to me some of the chiefest or leading principles of Natural Philosophy, which as thou sayest were in former times worked out by them (the Ancient Wise Ones)"; to which the Rabbi makes answer: -- "To such principles appertains the Number of Creation of our Race-father Abraham" (that is Abram and Abraham, or numbers 41224 and 41252). He then says that this book of Number treats of teaching the Alhim-ness and One-ness through, "DBRIM," viz., the numbers of the Word "Words." That is, it teaches the use of the ratio 31415 to one, through 41224, which last, in the description of the Ark of the Covenant, was divided into two parts by two tables of stone, on which these, DBRIM or 41224, were written or engraved -- or 20612 by 2. He then comments on these three subordinately used words, and takes care as to one of them to make the comment: -- "And Alhim (31415 to 1) said: Let there be Light (20612 to 6561)."
The three words as given in the text are: . And the Rabbi in commenting upon them says: "It teaches the Alhim-ness (31415) and One-ness (the diameter to Alhim) through Words (DBRIM, 41224), by which on the one side there is infinite expression in heterogeneous creations, and on the other a final harmonic tendency to One-ness" (which as everyone knows is the mathematical function of "[[pi]]" of the schools, which measures, and weighs and numbers the stars of heaven, and yet resolves them back into the final Oneness of the Universe through Words). "Their final accord perfects itself in that Oneness that ordains them and which consists in (Book of Al-Chazari), that is the Rabbi, in his first comment, leaves the jod, or i, out of one of the words, whereas afterwards he restores it again. If we take the values of those subordinate words, we find them to be 340, 340, 346; together these are 1026, and the division of the general word into these has been to produce these numbers, which by Temurah may be changed in various ways for various purposes." (Kabala.)
The reader is asked to turn to Stanza IV. of Book I. and its fourth commentary to find that the 3, 4 -- (7), and the thrice seven, or 1065, the number of Jehovah, is the number of the 21 Prajapati mentioned in the Mahabharata, or the three Sephrim (words in cipher or figures). And this comparison between the Creative Powers of Archaic philosophy and the anthropomorphic Creator of exoteric Judaism (since their esotericism shows its identity with the Secret Doctrine) will lead the student to perceive and discover that, in truth, Jehovah is but a lunar and "generation" god. (See Book I, Part 2, "Deus Lunus.") It is a fact well known to every conscientious student of the Kabala, that the deeper he dives into it, the more he feels convinced that unless the Kabala -- or what is left of it -- is read by the light of the Eastern esoteric philosophy, its study leads only to the discovery that, on the lines traced by exoteric Judaism and Christianity, the monotheism of both is nothing more exalted than ancient Astrolatry, now vindicated by modern Astronomy. The Kabalists never cease to repeat that primal intelligence can never be understood. It cannot be comprehended, nor can it be located, therefore it has to remain nameless and negative. Hence the Ain-Soph -- the "UNKNOWABLE" and the "UNNAMEABLE" -- which, as it could not be made manifest, was conceived to emanate manifesting Powers. It is then with its emanations alone that human intellect has to, and can deal. Christian theology, having rejected the doctrine of emanations and replaced them with direct, conscious creations of angels and the rest out of nothing, now finds itself hopelessly stranded between Supernaturalism, or miracle, and materialism. An extra-cosmic god is fatal to philosophy, an intra-cosmic Deity -- i.e. Spirit and matter inseparable from each other -- is a philosophical necessity. Separate them and that which is left is a gross superstition under a mask of emotionalism. But why "geometrize," as Plato has it, why represent these emanations under the form of an immense arithmetical table? The question is well answered by the author just cited. His remarks are quoted in Part II., § "The Theogony of the Creative Gods."
"Mental perception," he says, "to become physical perception, must have the Cosmic principle of light: and by this, our mental circle must become visible through light; or, for its complete manifestation, the Circle must be that of physical visibility, or Light itself. Such conceptions, thus formulated, became the groundwork of the philosophy of the divine manifesting in the Universe."
This is philosophy. It is otherwise when we find the Rabbi in Al-Chazari saying that "under s'ph-r is to be understood calculation and weighing of created bodies. For the calculation, by means of which a body must be constructed in harmony or symmetry, by which it must be in construction rightly arranged and made to correspond to the object in design, consists at last in number, extension, mass, weight; co-ordinate relation of movements, then harmony of music, must consist altogether by number, that is (S'ph-r). . . By Sippor (s'phor) is to be understood the words of Alhim whereunto joins or adapts itself the design of the frame or form of construction; for example, it was said 'Let Light be.' The work became as the WORDS were spoken, that is, as the numbers of the work came forth. . . . ."
This is materialising the Spiritual without scruple. But the Kabala was not always so well adapted to anthropo-monotheistic conceptions. Compare this with any of the six schools of India. For instance, in Kapila's "Sankhya" Philosophy, unless, allegorically speaking, Purusha mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti, the latter remains irrational, while the former remains inactive without her. Therefore Nature (in man) must become a compound of Spirit and Matter before he becomes what he is; and the Spirit latent in Matter must be awakened to life and consciousness gradually. The Monad has to pass through its mineral, vegetable and animal forms, before the Light of the Logos is awakened in the animal man. Therefore, till then, the latter cannot be referred to as "MAN," but has to be regarded as a Monad imprisoned in ever changing forms. Evolution, not creation, by means of WORDS is recognized in the philosophies of the East, even in their exoteric records. Ex oriente lux. Even the name of the first man in the Mosaic Bible had its origin in India, Professor Max Muller's negation notwithstanding. The Jews got their Adam from Chaldea; and Adam-Adami is a compound word and therefore a manifold symbol, and proves the occult dogmas.
This is no place for philological disquisitions. But the reader may be reminded that the words Ad and Adi mean in Sanskrit "the first"; in Aramaean, "One" (Ad-ad, "the only one"); in Assyrian, "father" whence Ak-Ad or "father-creator."* And once the statement is found correct it becomes rather difficult to confine Adam to the Mosaic Bible alone, and to see therein simply a Jewish name. Vide Part II. of this Volume, § "Adam-Adami."
There is frequent confusion in the attributes and genealogies of the gods in their theogonies, as given to the world by the half-initiated writers, Brahmanical and Biblical, the Alpha and the Omega of the records of that symbolical science. Yet there could be no such confusion made by the earliest nations, the descendants and pupils of the divine instructors: for both the attributes and the genealogies were inseparably linked with cosmogonical symbols, the "gods" being the life and animating "soul-principle" of the various regions of the Universe. Nowhere and by no people was speculation allowed to range beyond those manifested gods. The boundless and infinite UNITY remained with every nation a virgin forbidden soil, untrodden by man's thought, untouched by fruitless speculation. The only reference made to it was the brief conception of its diastolic and systolic property, of its periodical expansion or dilatation, and contraction. In the Universe with all its incalculable myriads of systems and worlds disappearing and re-appearing in eternity, the anthropomorphised powers, or gods, their Souls, had to disappear from view with their bodies: -- "The breath returning to the eternal bosom which exhales and inhales them," says our Catechism.
"Ideal nature," the abstract Space in which everything in the Universe is mysteriously and invisibly generated, is the same female side of procreative power in Nature in the Vedic as in every other Cosmogony. Aditi is Sephira, and the Sophia-Achamoth of the Gnostics, and Isis, the virgin Mother of Horus. In every Cosmogony, behind and higher than the creative deity, there is a superior deity, a planner, an Architect, of whom the Creator is but the executive agent. And still higher, over and around, within and without, there is the UNKNOWABLE and the unknown, the Source and Cause of all these Emanations. . . . .
It thus becomes easy to account for the reason why "Adam-Adami" is found in the Chaldean scripture, certainly earlier than the Mosaic Books. In Assyrian Ad is the father, and in Aramaean Ad is "One," and Ad-ad the "only one," while Ak is in Assyrian "creator." Thus Ad-am-ak-ad-mon became Adam Kadmon in the Kabala (Zohar), meaning as it did, the "One (Son) of the divine Father, or the creator," for the words "am" and "om" meant at one time in nearly every language the divine, or the deity. Thus Adam Kadmon and Adam-Adami came to mean: -- "The first emanation of the Father-Mother or divine nature," and literally "the first divine one." And it is easy to see that Ad-Argat (or Aster't, the Syrian goddess, the consort of Ad-on, the lord god of Syria or the Jewish Adonai), and Venus, Isis, Ishtar, Mylitta, Eve, etc., etc., are identical with the Aditi and Vach of the Hindus. They are all the "Mothers of all living" and "of the gods." On the other hand -- cosmically and astronomically -- all the male gods became at first "Sun-gods," then, theologically, the "Suns of Righteousness" and the Logoi, all symbolised by the Sun.* They are all Protogonoi (the first-born) and Mikroprosopoi. With the Jews Adam Kadmon was the same as Athamaz, Tamaz, or the Adonis of the Greeks -- "the One with, and of his father" -- the "Father" becoming during the later Races Helios, the Sun, as Apollo Karneios,* for instance, who was the "Sun born"; Osiris, Ormazd, and so on, were all followed by, and found themselves transformed later on into still more earthly types: such as Prometheus, the crucified of Mount Kajbee, Hercules, and so many others, sun-gods and heroes, until all of them came to have no better significance than phallic symbols.
In the Zohar is it said "Man was created by the Sephiroth (Elohim-Javeh, also) and they engendered by common power the earthly Adam." Therefore in Genesis the Elohim say: -- "Behold Man is become as one of us." But in Hindu Cosmogony or "Creation," Brahma-Prajapati creates Viraj and the Rishis, spiritually; therefore the latter are distinctly called "the Mind-born Sons of Brahma"; and this specified mode of engendering precluded every idea of Phallicism, at any rate in the earlier human nations. This instance well illustrates the respective spirituality of the two nations.
-------
3. SAID THE "LORD OF THE SHINING FACE." "I SHALL SEND THEE A FIRE WHEN THY WORK IS COMMENCED. RAISE THY VOICE TO OTHER LOKAS, APPLY TO THY FATHER THE LORD OF THE LOTUS (Kumuda-Pati) (a) FOR HIS SONS . . . . THY PEOPLE SHALL BE UNDER THE RULE OF THE FATHERS (Pitri-pati). THY MEN SHALL BE MORTALS. THE MEN OF THE LORD OF WISDOM (Budha, Mercury) NOT THE SONS OF SOMA (the Moon) ARE IMMORTAL. CEASE THY COMPLAINTS (b). THY SEVEN SKINS ARE YET ON THEE. . . . THOU ART NOT READY. THY MEN ARE NOT READY (c).
(a) Kumuda-Pati is the Moon, the Earth's parent, in his region of Soma-loka. Though the Pitris (Pitar or "Fathers") are sons of the Gods, elsewhere sons of Brahma and even Rishis, they are generally known as the "lunar" ancestors.
(b) Pitri-pati is the lord or king of the Pitris, Yama, the god of Death and the Judge of mortals. The men of Budha (Mercury) are metaphorically immortal through their Wisdom. Such is the common belief of those who credit every star or planet with being inhabited. (And there are men of science -- M. Flammarion among others -- who believe in this fervently, on logical as well as on astronomical data). The Moon being an inferior body to the Earth even, to say nothing of other planets, the terrestrial men produced by her sons -- the lunar men or "ancestors" -- from her shell or body, cannot be immortal. They cannot hope to become real, self-conscious and intelligent men, unless they are finished, so to say, by other creators. Thus in the Puranic legend, the son of the Moon (Soma) is Budha (Mercury), "the intelligent" and the Wise, because he is the offspring of Soma, the "regent" of the visible Moon, not of Indu, the physical Moon. Thus Mercury is the elder brother of the Earth, metaphorically -- his step-brother, so to say, the offspring of Spirit -- while she (the Earth) is the progeny of the body. These allegories have a deeper and more scientific meaning (astronomically and geologically) thA
n our modern physicists are willing to admit. The whole cycle of the "first War in Heaven," the Taraka-maya, is as full of philosophical as of Cosmogonical and astronomical truths. One can trace therein the biographies of all the planets by the history of their gods and rulers. Usanas (Sukra, or Venus), the bosom-friend of Soma and the foe of Brihaspati (Jupiter) the instructor of the gods, whose wife Tara (or Taraka) had been carried away by the Moon, Soma -- "of whom he begat Budha" -- took also an active part in this war against "the gods" and forthwith was degraded into a demon (Asura) deity, and so he remains to this day.*
Here the word "men" refers to the celestial men, or what are called in India the PITAR or pitris, the Fathers, the progenitors of men. This does not remove the seeming difficulty, in view of modern hypotheses, of the teaching, which shows these progenitors or ancestors creating the first human Adams out of their sides: as astral shadows. And though it is an improvement on Adam's rib, still geological and climatic difficulties will be brought forward. Such, however, is the teaching of Occultism.
(c) Man's organism was adapted in every race to its surroundings. The first Root-Race was as ethereal as ours is material. The progeny of the seven Creators, who evolved the seven primordial Adams,* surely required no purified gases to breathe and live upon (see Part III. of this Volume). Therefore, however strongly the impossibility of this teaching may be urged by the devotees of modern science, the Occultist maintains that the case was as stated aeons of years before even the evolution of the Lemurian, the first physical man, which itself took place 18,000,000 years ago.**
Preliminary evolution is described in one of the BOOKS OF DZYAN and the Commentaries thereon in this wise: --
Archaic Scripture teaches that at the commencement of every local Kalpa, or Round, the earth is reborn; "as the human Jiva (monad), when passing into a new womb, gets re-covered with a new body, so does the Jiva of the Earth; it gets a more perfect and solid covering with each Round after re-emerging once more from the matrix of space into objectivity" (Comment). This process is attended, of course, by the throes of the new birth or geological convulsions.
Thus the only reference to it is contained in one verse of the volume of the Book of Dzyan before us, where it says:
--------
4. AND AFTER GREAT THROES SHE (the Earth) CAST OFF HER OLD THREE AND PUT ON HER NEW SEVEN SKINS, AND STOOD IN HER FIRST ONE (a).
(a) This refers to the growth of the Earth, whereas in the Stanza treating of the First Round it is said (given in the Commentary): --
"After the changeless (avikara) immutable nature (Essence, sadaikarupa) had awakened and changed (differentiated) into (a state of) causality (avayakta), and from cause (Karana) had become its own discrete effect (vyakta), from invisible it became visible. The smallest of the small (the most atomic of atoms, or aniyamsam aniyasam) became one and the many (ekanekarupa); and producing the Universe produced also the Fourth Loka (our Earth) in the garland of the seven lotuses. The Achyuta then became the Chyuta.*
The Earth is said to cast off her old three skins, because this refers to the three preceding Rounds she has already passed through; the present being the fourth Round out of the seven. At the beginning of every new ROUND, after a period of "obscuration," the earth (as do also the other six "earths") casts off, or is supposed to cast off, her old skins as the Serpent does: therefore she is called in the Aitareya-Brahmana the Sarpa Rajni, "the Queen of the Serpents," and "the mother of all that moves." The "Seven Skins," in the first of which she now stands, refer to the seven geological changes which accompany and correspond to the evolution of the Seven Root-Races of Humanity.
Stanza II., which speaks of this Round, begins with a few words of information concerning the age of our Earth. The chronology will be given in its place. In the Commentary appended to the Stanza, two personages are mentioned: Narada and Asura Maya, especially the latter. All the calculations are attributed to this archaic celebrity; and what follows will make the reader superficially acquainted with some of these figures.
--------
TWO ANTEDILUVIAN ASTRONOMERS.
To the mind of the Eastern student of Occultism, two figures are indissolubly connected with mystic astronomy, chronology, and their cycles. Two grand and mysterious figures, towering like two giants in the Archaic Past, emerge before him, whenever he has to refer to Yugas and Kalpas. When, at what period of pre-history they lived, none save a few men in the world know, or ever can know with that certainty which is required by exact chronology. It may have been 100,000 years ago, it may have been 1,000,000, for all that the outside world will ever know. The mystic West and Freemasonry talk loudly of Enoch and Hermes. The mystic East speaks of NARADA, the old Vedic Rishi, and of ASURAMAYA, the Atlantean.
It has already been hinted that of all the incomprehensible characters in the Mahabharata and the Puranas, Narada, the son of Brahrna in Matsya Purana, the progeny of Kasyapa and the daughter of Daksha in the Vishnu Purana, is the most mysterious. He is referred to by the honourable title of Deva Rishi (divine Rishi, more than a demi-god) by Parasara, and yet he is cursed by Daksha and even by Brahma. He informs Kansa that Bhagavat (or Vishnu in exotericism) would incarnate in the eighth child of Devaki, and thus brings the wrath of the Indian Herod upon Krishna's mother; and then, from the cloud on which he is seated -- invisible as a true Manasaputra -- he lauds Krishna, in delight at the Avatar's feat of killing the monster Kesim. Narada is here, there, and everywhere; and yet, none of the Puranas gives the true characteristics of this great enemy of physical procreation. Whatever those characteristics may be in Hindu Esotericism, Narada -- who is called in Cis-Himalayan Occultism Pesh-Hun, the "Messenger," or the Greek Angelos -- is the sole confidant and the executor of the universal decrees of Karma and Adi-Budh: a kind of active and ever incarnating logos, who leads and guides human affairs from the beginning to the end of the Kalpa.
"Pesh-Hun" is a general not a special Hindu possession. He is the mysterious guiding intelligent power, which gives the impulse to, and regulates the impetus of cycles, Kalpas and universal events.* He is Karma's visible adjuster on a general scale; the inspirer and the leader of the greatest heroes of this Manvantara. In the exoteric works he is referred to by some very uncomplimentary names; such as "Kali-Karaka," strife-maker, "Kapi-vaktra," monkey-faced, and even "Pisuna," the spy, though elsewhere he is called Deva-Brahma. Even Sir W. Jones was strongly impressed with this mysterious character from what he gathered in his Sanskrit Studies. He compares him to Hermes and Mercury, and calls him "the eloquent messenger of the gods" (see Asiat. Res. I. p. 264). All this led the late Dr. Kenealy ("Book of God"), on the ground that the Hindus believe him to be a great Rishi, "who is for ever wandering about the earth, giving good counsel," to see in him one of his twelve Messiahs. He was, perhaps, not so far off the real track as some imagine.
What Narada really is, cannot be explained in print; nor would the modern generations of the profane gather much from the information. But it may be remarked, that if there is in the Hindu Pantheon a deity which resembles Jehovah, in, tempting by "suggestion" of thoughts and "hardening" of the hearts of those whom he would make his tools and victims, it is Narada. Only with the latter it is no desire to obtain a pretext for "plaguing," and thus showing that "I am the Lord God."
Nor is it through any ambitious or selfish motive; but, verily, to serve and guide universal progress and evolution.
Narada is one of the few prominent characters, save some gods, in the Puranas, who visits the so-called nether or infernal regions, Patala. Whether or not it was from his intercourse with the thousand-headed Sesha, the serpent who bears the seven Patalas and the entire world like a diadem upon his heads, and who is the great teacher of astronomy,* that Narada learned all that he knew, certain it is that he surpasses Garga's Guru in his knowledge of cyclic intricacies. It is he who has charge of our progress and national weal or woe. It is he who brings on wars and puts an end to them. In the old Stanzas Pesh-Hun is credited with having calculated and recorded all the astronomical and cosmic cycles to come, and with having taught the Science to the first gazers at the starry vault. And it is Asuramaya, who is said to have based all his astronomical works upon those records, to have determined the duration of all the past geological and cosmical periods, and the length of the all the cycles to come, till the end of this life-cycle, or the end of the seventh Race.
There is a work among the Secret Books, called the "Mirror of Futurity," wherein all the Kalpas within Kalpas and cycles within the bosom of Sesha, or infinite Time, are recorded. This work is ascribed to Pesh-Hun Narada. There is another old work which is attributed to various Atlanteans. It is these two Records which furnish us with the figures of our cycles, and the possibility of calculating the date of cycles to come. The chronological calculations which will presently be given are, however, those of the Brahmins as explained further on; but most of them are also those of the Secret Doctrine.
The chronology and computations of the Brahmin Initiates are based upon the Zodiacal records of India, and the works of the above-mentioned astronomer and magician -- Asuramaya. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught astronomy, among other things, to mankind.
But here again we are deliberately and recklessly facing a new difficulty. We shall be told that our statement is contradicted by science, in the person of a man regarded as a great authority (in the West) upon all subjects of Sanskrit literature -- Professor Albrecht Weber, of Berlin. This, to our great regret, cannot be helped; and we are ready to maintain what is now stated. Asuramaya, to whom the epic tradition points as the earliest astronomer in Aryavarta, one to whom "the Sun-god imparted the knowledge of the stars," in propria persona, as Dr. Weber himself states, is identified by him, in some very mysterious way, with the "Ptolemaios" of the Greeks. No more valid reason is given for this identification than that "this latter name (Ptolemaios), as we see from the inscription of Piyadasi, became the Indian 'Turamaya,' out of which the name 'Asuramaya' might very easily grow." No doubt it "might," but the vital question is -- Are there any good proofs that it has thus grown? The only evidence that is given for it is, that it must be so: "since this Maya is distinctly assigned to Romaka-pura in the West."* The Maya is evident, since no Sanskritist among Europeans can tell where that locality of "Romaka-pura" was, except, indeed, that it was somewhere "in the West." Anyhow, as no member of the Asiatic Society, or Western Orientalist, will ever listen to a Brahmanical teaching, it is useless to take the objections of European Orientalists into consideration. "Romakapura" was in "the West," certainly, since it was part and parcel of the last continent of ATLANTIS. And it is equally certain that it is Atlantis, which is assigned in the Hindu Puranas as the birth-place of Asuramaya, "as great a magician as he was an Astrologer and an Astronomer." Moreover, Prof. Weber refuses to assign any great antiquity to the Indian Zodiac, and feels inclined to think that the Hindus never knew of a Zodiac at all till "they had borrowed one from the Greeks."** This statement clashes with the most ancient traditions of India, and must therefore be ignored. (Vide "The Zodiac and its Antiquity"). We are the more justified in ignoring it, as the learned German Professor himself tells us in the introduction to his work (History of Sanskrit Literature) that "in addition to the natural obstacles which impede investigation (in India), there still prevails a dense mist of prejudices and preconceived opinions hovering over the land, and enfolding it as with a veil." Caught in that veil, it is no wonder that Dr. Weber should himself have been led into involuntary errors. Let us hope that he knows better now.
Now whether Asuramaya is to be considered a modern myth, a personage who flourished in the day of the Macedonian Greeks, or as that which he is claimed to be by the Occultists, in any case his calculations agree entirely with those of the Secret Records.
From fragments of immensely old works attributed to the Atlantean astronomer, and found in Southern India, the calendar elsewhere mentioned was compiled by two very learned Brahmins* in 1884 and 1885. The work is proclaimed by the best Pundits as faultless -- from the Brahmanical standpoint -- and thus far relates to the chronology of the orthodox teachings. If we compare its statements with those made several years earlier in "Isis Unveiled," with the fragmentary teachings published by some Theosophists, and with the present data derived from the Secret Books of Occultism, the whole will be found to agree perfectly, save in some details which may not be explained; for secrets of higher Initiation -- as unknown to the writer as they are to the reader -- would have to be revealed, and that cannot be done. (But see "Chronology of the Brahmins" at the close of Stanza II.)
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* The "Tirukkanda Panchanga" for the Kali Yug 4986, by Chintamany Raghanaracharya, son of the famous Government astronomer of Madras, and Tartakamala Venkata Krishna Rao.
--------
