Part 3 — Footnotes

1.

See Theosophist, June, 1883.

2.

Preface to the original edition.

3.

Dan, in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics Chhan, is the general term for the esoteric schools and their literature. In the old books, the word Janna is defined as “reforming one's self by meditation and knowledge,” a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically; the Book of Dzyan. See Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 129, note.

4.

Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagâya, and a distinguished archæologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it.

5.

See Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, p. 27.

6.

Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 23.

7.

Ain í Akbari, translated by Dr. Blochmann, quoted by Max Müller, op. cit.

8.

Tao-te-King, p. xxvii.

9.

Max Müller, op. cit., p. 114.

10.

Found out and proven only now, through the discoveries made by George Smith (see his Chaldean Account of Genesis), and which, thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the “civilized nations” for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish derivations for direct Divine Revelation.

11.

Egypt's Place in History, i. 200.

12.

Spence Hardy, The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, p. 66.

13.

E. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, p. 77.

14.

Lassen (Ind. Althersumkunde, II, 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery erected in the Kailâs. Range in 137 b.c.; and General Cunningham, one earlier than that.

15.

Rev. J. Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 87.

16.

See, for example, Max Müller's Lectures.

17.

Op. cit., p. 118.

18.

Op. cit., p. 318.

19.

Asiatic Researches, I, 272.

20.

See Max Müller, op. cit., pp. 288 et seq. This relates to the clever forgery, on leaves inserted in old Purânic MSS., and written in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pandits had heard from Colonel Wilford about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three sons, etc., etc.

21.

From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky.

22.

Lün-Yü (§ I a); Schott, Chinesische Literatur, p. 7; quoted by Max Müller.

23.

Life and Teachings of Confucius, p. 96.

24.

Op. cit., p. 257.

25.

The name is used in the sense of the Greek word ἅνθρωπς.

26.

Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about a.d. 72, openly declared that he had performed “miracles” by means of the book Sepher Jetzirah, and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina and Oshoi. (See Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, c. 7, etc.; and Franck, Die Kabbalah, pp. 55, 56). Many of the mediæval Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists have made the same claim; and even the late modern Magus, Éliphas Lévi, publicly asserts it in his books on Magic.

27.

It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the term Divine Thought, like that of Universal Mind, must not be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man. The “Unconscious,” according to von Hartmann, arrived at the vast creative, or rather evolutionary plan, “by a clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness,” which in Vedântic language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realize how far intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc., all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Mâyâ. Sensation, again, necessarily postulates limitation. The Personal God of orthodox Theism perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels “fierce anger.” But the notion of such mental states clearly involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a being whose emotions fluctuate with events in the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse, unphilosophical.

28.

Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that θεός is derived from θέειν, to move, to run, for the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the planets θεοί, gods. Later the word produced another term, ἀλήθεια—the breath of God.

29.

Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that “it is impossible ... to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving” (Principles of Human Knowledge, Introd., par. 10), may put the question, What is that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God? etc., etc. This will be answered farther on, in a further part of this work; meanwhile, we claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against Roscelini's materialistic views of Realism and Nominalism. “Has science,” says one of its ablest advocates, Edward Clodd, “revealed anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient words in which the essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?” And we agree, provided we connote by the word God, not the crude anthropomorphism which is still the backbone of our current theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is the Life and Motion of the Universe, to know which in the physical order is to know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of successions of phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know what has been, is, and will be, within human consciousness. (See Science and the Emotions, a Discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London, December 27th, 1885.)

30.

Isis Unveiled, II, 264-5.

31.

Rig Veda.

32.

We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in the Kabalah also “the value of the Jehovah name is that of the diameter of a circle.” Add to this the fact that Jehovah is the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, a feminine word, and you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic transformations this name, which is androgynous in the first chapters of Genesis, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and phallic. The choosing of a deity among the pagan gods and making of it a special national God, to call upon it as the “One Living God,” the “God of Gods,” and then proclaiming this worship monotheistic, does not change it into the One Principle whose “Unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form,” especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah is now demonstrated to be.

33.

See that suggestive work, The Source of Measures, where the author explains the real meaning of the word Sacr' from which “sacred,” “sacrament,” are derived, words which have now become synonyms of holiness, though purely phallic!

34.

Mândûkya Upanishad, I. 28.

35.

Bodhimür, Book II.

36.

See the Vedânta Sâra, by Major G. A. Jacob; and also The Aphorisms of Shândilya, translated by Cowell, p. 42.

37.

Aitareya Upanishad.

38.

Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists would like to prove this to be pure Atheism. For proof of this, compare Major Jacob's Vedânta Sâra. Yet, the whole of antiquity echoes the thought: Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur— as Lucretius has it—a purely Vedântic conception.

39.

The very names of the two chief deities, Brahmâ and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. Brahman, or Brahm, is derived by some from the root brih, to grow or to expand (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); Vishnu, from the root vish, to pervade, to enter into the nature of the essence; Brahmâ-Vishnu thus being infinite Space, of which the Gods, the Rishis, the Manus, and all in this Universe are simply the Potencies (Vibhûtayah).

40.

See Manu's account of Brahmâ separating his body into male and female, the latter the female Vâch, in whom he creates Virâj, and compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II, III, and IV of Genesis.

41.

Occultism is indeed “in the air” at the close of this our century. Among many other works recently published, we would recommend especially to students of theoretical Occultism who would not venture beyond the realm of our special human plane, New Aspects of Life and Religion, by Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric dogmas and philosophy, the latter, however, in the concluding chapters, rather limited by what seems to be a spirit of conditioned positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as “the Unknown First Cause,” merits quotation. “This unknown something, thus recognized as, and identified with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable [as abstract space, granted]: and because invisible and impalpable, therefore incognizable. And this incognizability has led to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be admitted to be either self-existent, infinite, and eternal, or to have had a first cause outside, behind, and beyond itself. “And yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only lead to the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise accruing to space, and thus merely throw the difficulty of origination a step farther back, without gaining additional light as to primary causation.” (Op. cit., p. 5.) This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic creator, an extra-cosmic, instead of an intra-cosmic God. Many of Dr. Pratt's subjects—most of them we may say—are old Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents in quite a new garb—“New Aspects” of the Occult in Nature, indeed. Space, however, viewed as a Substantial Unity—the living Source of Life—is, as the Unknown Causeless Cause, the oldest dogma in Occultism, millenniums earlier than the Pater-Æther of the Greeks and Latins. So are “Force and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable, and the unknown revealers of the Unknown.” They are all found in Âryan philosophy personified as Vishvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they are expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects, in the work referred to.

42.

In contradistinction to the manifested Universe of matter, the term Mûlaprakriti (from mûla, root, and prakriti, nature), or the unmanifested primordial Matter—called by Western Alchemists Adam's Earth—is applied by the Vedântins to Parabrahman. Matter is dual in religious metaphysics, and in esoteric teachings septenary, like everything else in the Universe. As Mûlaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and eternal: as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated and conditioned, according to Shvetâshvatara Upanishad, I, 8, and Devî Bhâgavata Purâna. The author of the Four lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, in speaking of Mûlaprakriti, says: “From its [the Logos'] objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as Mûlaprakriti.... Of course this Mûlaprakriti is material to it, as any material object is material to us.... Parabrahman is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mûlaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it.” (Theosophist, VIII, 304.)

43.

Esoteric Philosophy, regarding every finite thing as Mâyâ (or the illusion of ignorance), must necessarily view in the same light every intra-cosmic planet and body, seeing that it is something organized, hence finite. The sentence, therefore, “it proceeds from without inwardly, etc.”, in its first clause, refers to the dawn of the Mahâmanvantara, or the great reëvolution after one of the complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature, from planet to molecule, into its ultimate essence or element; and in its second clause, to the partial or local Manvantara, which may be a solar or even a planetary one.

44.

By Centre, a centre of energy or a cosmic focus is meant; when the so-called “creation,” or formation, of a planet, is accomplished by that force which is designated by Occultists Life and by Science Energy, then the process takes place from within outwardly, every atom being said to contain in itself the creative energy of the divine Breath. And, whereas after an Absolute Pralaya, when the preëxisting material consists but of One Element, and Breath “is everywhere,” the latter acts from without inwardly; after a Minor Pralaya, when everything having remained in statu quo—in a refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon—then at the first flutter of Manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within outwardly.

45.

In the evolutionary cycles of ideas, it is curious to notice how ancient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr. Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindû philosophers when he wrote a certain passage in his First Principles (p. 482)? Or is it an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half correctly, half incorrectly, “motion as well as matter, being fixed in quantity [?], it would seem that the change in the distribution of matter which motion effects, coming to a limit in whichever direction it is carried [?], the indestructible motion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally coëxistent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes—produce now an immeasurable period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces predominating, cause universal diffusion—alternate eras of evolution and dissolution.”

46.

Whatever the news of Physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has been teaching for ages that Âkâsha (of which Ether is the grossest form), the Fifth universal cosmic Principle—to which corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas—is, cosmically, a radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions, immutable in its higher principles. In the creative condition it is called the Sub-Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it recalls “dead worlds to life.” In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the World; in its lower—the Destroyer.

47.

Hypoth., 1675.

48.

The “First” presupposes necessarily something which is the “first brought forth,” “the first in time, space, and rank”—and therefore finite and conditioned. The “first” cannot be Absolute for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the One Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root, and limits the “First Cause” to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term.

49.

See T. Subba Row's four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, in The Theosophist, Feb. 1887.

50.

Called by Christian theology, Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc.

51.

“Pilgrim” is the appellation given to our Monad (the Two in one) during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and eternal Principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole—the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate from the One Spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be used for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedântins call it Sûtrâtmâ (Thread-Soul), but their explanation differs somewhat from that of the Occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the Vedântins themselves.

52.

It is not the physical organisms that remain in statu quo, least of all their psychic principles, during the great Cosmic or even Solar Pralayas, but only their âkâshic or astral “photographs.” But during the Minor Pralayas, once overtaken by the “Night,” the planets remain intact, though dead, just as a huge animal, caught and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages.

53.

Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair—reverently formulates the grand mystery; “that which persists unchanging in quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the Universe presents to us, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit in Space and without beginning or end in Time.” It is only daring Theology—never Science or Philosophy—which seeks to gauge the Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable.

54.

Space.

55.

It is stated in Book II, ch. viii, of Vishnu Purâna: “By immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa”; and Wilson, the translator, remarks in a foot-note: “This, according to the Vedas, is all that is to be understood of the immortality [or eternity] of the gods; they perish at the end of universal dissolution [or Pralaya].” And Esoteric Philosophy says: “They ‘perish’ not, but are reäbsorbed.”

56.

Celestial Beings.

57.

And hence to manifest it.

58.

Nirvâna. Nippang in Chinese; Neibban in Burmese; Moksha in India.

59.

Nidâna and Mâyâ. The “Twelve” Nidânas (in Tibetan Ten-brel Chug-nyi) are the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes produced.

60.

See Wassilief, Der Buddhismus, pp. 97-128.

61.

The term “Wheel” is the symbolical expression for a world or globe, which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers taught. The “Great Wheel” is the whole duration of our Cycle of Being, or Mahâkalpa, i.e., the whole revolution of our special Chain of seven Globes or Spheres from beginning to end; the “Small Wheels” meaning the Rounds, of which there are also seven.

62.

Absolute Perfection, Paranirvâna, which is Yong-Grub.

63.

See Dzungarian Mani Kumbum, the “Book of the 10,000 Precepts.” Also consult Wassilief's Der Buddhismus, pp. 327 and 357, etc.

64.

In clearer words: One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti, or the “origin of delusion.” Paramârtha is the synonym of the term Svasamvedanâ, or the “reflection which analyses itself.” There is a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of Paramârtha between the Yogâchâryas and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression.

65.

In India it is called the “Eye of Shiva,” but beyond the Great Range it is known in Esoteric phraseology as “Dangma's Opened Eye.” Dangma means a purified soul, one who has become a Jîvanmukta, the highest Adept, or rather a Mahâtmâ so-called. His “Opened Eye” is the inner spiritual eye of the seer; and the faculty which manifests through it, is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, i.e., the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the “third eye,” which mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men.

66.

Vishnu Purâna, I. 21.

67.

And yet, one, claiming authority, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied the fact. This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain: “Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism ... to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no esoteric system of doctrine ... withheld from ordinary men” (!!). And, again: “... When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known.” And then, contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his audience that “we learn from Lalita-Vistara that various forms of bodily torture, self-maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama's time.” (!!) But the lecturer seems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self-maceration is precisely the lower form of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, which was “little known” and yet so “common” in Gautama's time.

68.

It is even argued that all the Six Darshanas, or Schools of Philosophy, show traces of Buddha's influence, being either taken from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Müller, etc.) We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, “the highest authority” in such matters, had long ago settled the question by showing that “the Hindûs were in this instance the teachers, not the learners.”

69.

Soul, as the basis of all, Anima Mundi.

70.

Absolute Being and Consciousness, which are Absolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness.

71.

“Paramârthasatya” is self-consciousness; Svasamvedanâ, or self-analyzing reflection—from parama, above everything, and artha, comprehension; satya meaning absolute true being, or esse. In Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya—the relative truth only—Samvriti meaning “false conception” and being the origin of Illusion, Mâyâ; in Tibetan Kundzabchidenpa, “illusion-creating appearance.”

72.

Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas.

73.

Âryâsanga was a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma de Körös places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh century a.d. There was another Aryâsanga, who lived during the first centuries of our era, and the Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two.

74.

Vâyu Purâna.

75.

Vishnu Purâna, Wilson, I. 20.

76.

Finite self-consciousness, I mean. For how can the Absolute attain this otherwise than simply as an aspect, the highest of which aspects known to us is human consciousness?

77.

See Schwegler's Handbook of the History of Philosophy, in Sterling's translation, p. 28.

78.

Vajrapâni or Vajradhara means the diamond-holder; in Tibetan Dorjesempa, sempa meaning the soul; its adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation with regard to the Anupâdaka given in the Kâla Chakra, the first in the Gyut division of the Kanjur, is half esoteric. It has misled the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to the Dhyâni-Buddhas and their earthly correspondencies, the Mânushi-Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a subsequent volume, and will be more fully explained in its proper place.

79.

To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatâras (special incarnations of the World-Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great religious reformers): “The essence of man is spirit ... only by stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ-man, as man in whom the Unity of God-man [identity of the individual with the universal Consciousness as taught by the Vedântins and some Advaitees] appeared, has, in his death and history generally, himself presented the eternal history of Spirit—a history which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit.”—Philosophy of History, Sibree's English Translation, p. 340.

80.

Chohanic, Dhyâni-Buddhic.

81.

Rûpa.

82.

Arûpa.

83.

“Mother of the Gods,” Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the Zohar, she is called Sephira, the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her primordial form, in abscondita.

84.

Hence Non-Being is “Absolute Being,” in Esoteric Philosophy. In the tenets of the latter even Âdi-Buddha (the First or Primeval Wisdom) is, while manifested, in one sense an Illusion, Mâyâ, since all the gods, including Brahmâ, have to die at the end of the Age of Brahmâ; the abstraction called Parabrahman—whether we call it Ain Suph, or with Herbert Spencer the Unknowable—alone being the One Absolute Reality. The One Secondless Existence is Advaita, “Without a Second,” and all the rest is Mâyâ, so teaches the Advaita Philosophy.

85.

Motion.

86.

Wilson, I. iv.

87.

Mother-Lotus.

88.

An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic.

89.

Gross, The Heathen Religion, p. 195.

90.

Precepts for Yoga.

91.

A Vedântin of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy would say that, though the only independent Reality, Parabrahman is inseparable from His Trinity. That He is three, “Parabrahman, Chit, and Achit,” the last two being dependent Realities unable to exist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahman is the Substance—changeless, eternal, and incognizable—and Chit (Âtmâ) and Achit (Anâtmâ) and its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather aspect (sharîra) of Parabrahman. But an Occultist would find much to say against this claim, and so would the Advaiti Vedântin.

92.

Sc., Sons.

93.

Simultaneously.

94.

Moves.

95.

Periodical.

96.

Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, I. 40.

97.

Triangle.

98.

Quaternary.

99.

Hiranyagarbha.

100.

The three hypostases of Brahmâ, or Vishnu, the three Avasthâs.

101.

Number, truly; but never Motion. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word, in Occultism.

102.

The “fourteen precious things.” The narrative or allegory is found in the Shatapatha Brâmanah and others. The Japanese Secret Science of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has “seven precious things.” We will speak of them, hereafter.

103.

“The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Shankara renders Antaskarana. ‘Refined,’ he says, ‘by sacrifices and other sanctifying operations.’ In the Katha, at p. 148, Sattva is rendered by Shankara to mean Buddhi—a common use of the word.” (Bhagavadgîtâ, etc., translated by Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A.; edited by Max Müller, p. 193.) Whatever meaning various schools may give the term, Sattva is the name given among Occult students of the Âryâsanga School to the dual Monad, or Âtmâ-Buddhi, and Âtmâ-Buddhi on this plane corresponds to Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti on the higher plane.

104.

Amrita.

105.

Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 314.

106.

On Rosenkranz.

107.

i. 2.

108.

John, i. 4.

109.

Lanoo is a student, a Chelâ who studies practical Esotericism.

110.

“Whom thou knowest now as Kwan-Shai-Yin.”—Comment.

111.

Eka is One; Chatur, Four; Tri, Three; and Sapta, Seven.

112.

“Tridasha,” or Thirty, three times ten, alludes to the Vedic deities in round numbers, or more accurately 33—a sacred number. They are the 12 Âdityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and the 2 Ashvins—the twin sons of the Sun and Sky. This is the root-number of the Hindû Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores, or three hundred and thirty millions of gods and goddesses.

113.

Stars.

114.

The Upper Space.

115.

Element.

116.

The Gnostic Sophia, “Wisdom,” who is the “Mother” of the Ogdoad (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The “Father” is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere—the mother of the seven planetary powers.

117.

See Chinese Buddhism, by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who always gives correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently erroneous.

118.

Book of Sarparâjni.

119.

By “God, the Father,” the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are here unmistakably meant, this principle being inseparable in its Esse and Nature from the seventh cosmic principle. In one sense it is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteshvara of the Esoteric “Buddhists.”

120.

Fitzedward Hall's edition, in the Bibliotheca Indica, p. 16.

121.

Anugîtâ, ch. xxvi, K. T. Telang's Translation, p. 333.

122.

See Mariette's Abydos, II. 63, and III. 413, 414, No. 1,122.

123.

Book of Dzyan, III.

124.

Od is the pure life-giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the messenger of death used by sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the Philologists tell why Od—a term used by Reichenbach to denominate the vital fluid—is also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness, radiancy? It also means “sky” in an Occult sense. Whence the root of the word? But Âkâsha is not quite Ether, but far higher than that, as will be shown.

125.

This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God-Spirit or Universal Principle (the Advaita doctrine). It is difficult to find a single speculation in Western metaphysics which has not been anticipated by archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dvaita, Advaita, and Vedântic doctrines generally.

126.

Compare Dowson's Dictionary of Hindû Mythology, p. 57.

127.

Whether the genus of the bird be cygnus, anser, or pelecanus, it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the Eighteenth Degree of the Rosecroix is precisely this, though it was later on poetised into the motherly feeling of the pelican rending its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood.

128.

The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan (Deuteronomy, xiv. 16, 17), classing the two among the unclean fowls, and permits eating “the bald locusts, beetles, and the grasshopper after his kind” (Leviticus xi. 22.), is a purely physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so far as the word “unclean,” like every other word, ought not to be understood literally; for it is esoteric like all the rest, and may as well mean “holy” as not. It is a very suggestive blind in connection with certain superstitions—e.g., that of the Russian people, who will not use the pigeon for food; not because it is “unclean” but because the “Holy Ghost” is credited with having appeared under the form of a dove.

129.

Chaos.

130.

Not the Mediæval Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire-Worshippers, from whom the Rosicrucians, or the Philosophers per ignem, the successors of the Theurgists, borrowed all their ideas concerning Fire, as a mystic and divine element.

131.

Isis Unveiled, I. 146.

132.

“Para” gives the force of beyond, outside.

133.

Purusha.

134.

Prakriti.

135.

I, I. 7.

136.

The Web.

137.

The Father.

138.

The Root of Matter.

139.

The Elements, with their respective Powers, or Intelligences.

140.

The Web.

141.

Popular Astronomy, pp. 507, 508.

142.

American Journal of Science, July, 1870.

143.

Winchell, World-Life, pp. 83-5.

144.

Of the Atoms.

145.

The Universe.

146.

Primeval Light.

147.

This is said in view of the fact that the flame from a fire is inexhaustible, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be lit from one simple rush-light without diminishing the flame.

148.

Chap. viii., p. 80, Telang's Translation.

149.

Deuteronomy, iv 24.

150.

Thess., i. 7, 8.

151.

Acts, ii. 3.

152.

Rev., xix. 13.

153.

Telang's Translation, Sacred Books of the East, viii. 278.

154.

Dhyân Chohans.

155.

Formless.

156.

With Bodies.

157.

Pitris.

158.

The Four, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktys, the Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the Mystics of every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in Brâhmanism, Buddhism, in Kabalism and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and other numerical systems.

159.

In the Kabalah, the same numbers, viz., 1065 are a value of Jehovah, since the numerical values of the three letters which compose his name—Jod, Vau and twice Hé—are respectively 10 (י), 6 (ו) and 5 (ה); or again thrice seven, 21. “Ten is the Mother of the Soul, for Life and Light are therein united,” says Hermes. “For number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from Matter [Chaos, feminine]; the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity.” (Book of the Keys.) By means of Temura, the anagrammatical method of the Kabalah, and the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal science may be obtained regarding Cosmos and its mysteries (Rabbi Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as the most sacred of all.

160.

The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered the same number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chaldæa. See “Hebrew Metrology,” in The Masonic Review, July, 1885, McMillan Lodge, No. 141.

161.

We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing, “Mother,” and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of that country. She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one of the principal titles of the god being “the husband of his mother.” The goddess Mout, or Mût, is addressed as “Our Lady,” the “Queen of Heaven” and “of the Earth,” thus “sharing these titles with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc.” (Maspero).

162.

The Sparks.

163.

The permutation of Oeaohoo. The literal signification of the word is, among the Eastern Occultists of the North, a circular wind, whirlwind; but in this instance, it is a term to denote the ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion, or rather the Force that moves it, which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity, but never named. It is the eternal Kârana, the ever-acting Cause.

164.

vi. 15. The Anugîtâ forms part of the Ashvamedha Parvan of the Mahâbhârata. The translator of the Bhagavadgîtâ, edited by Max Müller, regards it as a continuation of the Bhagavadgîtâ. Its original is one of the oldest Upanishads.

165.

This shows the modern metaphysicians, added to all past and present Hegels, Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns, Herbert Spencers, and even the modern Hylo-Idealists to boot, no better than the pale copyists of hoary antiquity.

166.

It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Arhat to perform his Siddhis, or various phenomena, such as the disintegration of matter, the transport of objects from one place to another, etc.

167.

These are ancient Commentaries attached with modern Glossaries to the Stanzas, for the Commentaries in their symbolical language are usually as difficult to understand as the Stanzas themselves.

168.

In a polemical scientific work, The Modern Genesis (p. 48), the Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticizing the position assumed by the astronomers, says: “It is to be regretted that the advocates of this [nebular] theory have not entered more largely into the discussion of it [the beginning of rotation] No one condescends to give us the rationale of it. How does the process of cooling and contracting the mass impart to it a rotatory motion?” (Quoted by Winchell, World-Life, p. 94.) It is not materialistic Science that can ever solve it. “Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in the manifest,” says an Occult teaching. It is “when heat caused by the descent of Flame into primordial matter causes its particles to move, which motion becomes the Whirlwind.” A drop of liquid assumes a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal essence; unresolvable for Physical Science, at any rate. The question is amply treated later on.

169.

The x, the unknown quantity.

170.

Which makes Ten, or the perfect number, applied to the “Creator,” the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the Monotheists into One, as the “Elohim,” Adam Kadmon or Sephira, the Crown—are the androgyne synthesis of the ten Sephiroth, who stand for the symbol of the manifested Universe in the popularized Kabalah. The Esoteric Kabalists, however, following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle (or Sephira, Chokmah and Binah) from the rest, which leaves seven Sephiroth. As for Svabhâvat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the universal plastic matter diffused through space, with, perhaps, half an eye to the Ether of Science. But the Occultists identify it with “Father-Mother” on the mystic plane.

171.

Arûpa.

172.

Boundless Circle.

173.

Subjective, Formless.

174.

Bhâskara.

175.

This refers to the Abstract Thought and concrete Voice, or the manifestation thereof, the effect of the Cause. Adam Kadmon, or Tetragrammaton, is the Logos in the Kabalah. Therefore this Triad answers in the latter to the highest Triangle of Kether, Chokmah and Binah, the last a female potency, and at the same time the male Jehovah, as partaking of the nature of Chokmah, or the male Wisdom.

176.

The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central star and not a planet. Yet the ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods, excluding the Sun and Earth. Which was that “Mystery God” they set apart? Of course not Uranus, only discovered by Herschel in 1781. But could it not be known by another name? Says Ragon: “Occult Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that the number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to introduce the Sun into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and make him occupy the vacant place. Thus, every time they perceived an influence that pertained to none of the six planets known, they attributed it to the Sun.... The error seems important, but was not so in practical results, if the astrologers replaced Uranus by the Sun, which ... is a central Star relatively motionless, turning only on its axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be turned aside from its true functions.” (Maçonnerie Occulte, p. 447.) The nomenclature of the days of the week is also faulty. “The Sun-day ought to be Uranus-day (Urani dies, Urandi),” adds the learned writer.

177.

Planetary System.

178.

“The Sun rotates on its axis always in the same direction in which the planets revolve in their respective orbits,” astronomy teaches us.

179.

See Anugîtâ, Telang, x. 9; and Aitareya Brâhmana, Haug, p. 1.

180.

This essence of cometary matter, Occult Science teaches, is totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which Modern Science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its primitive form beyond the Solar Systems, and differentiates entirely once it crosses the boundaries of our Earth's region; vitiated by the atmospheres of the planets and the already compound matter of the interplanetary stuff, it is heterogeneous only in our manifested world.

181.

Manas—the Mind-Principle, or the Human Soul.

182.

Buddhi—the Divine Soul.

183.

See Correlation of Physical Forces, 1843, p. 81; and Address to the British Association, 1866.

184.

Very similar ideas were those of W. Mattieu Williams, in The Fuel of the Sun; of Dr. C. William Siemens, On the Conservation of Solar Energy (Nature, XXV, 440-444, March 9, 1882); and also of Dr. P. Martin Duncan in an Address, as the President of the Geological Society, London, May, 1877. See World-Life, by Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 53, et seq.

185.

When we speak of Neptune, it is not as an Occultist but as a European. The true Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas there are many yet undiscovered planets in our system, Neptune does not really belong to it, in spite of its apparent connection with our Sun and the influence of the latter upon it. This connection is mâyâvic, imaginary, they say.

186.

Word, Voice and Spirit.

187.

These are the four “Immortals,” which are mentioned in the Atharva Veda as the “Watchers” or Guardians of the four quarters of the sky. (See Ch. lxxvi., 1-4, et seq.)

188.

Conflict between Religion and Science, pp. 132 and 133.

189.

Principles of Science, II. 455.

190.

Les Mystères de l'Horoscope, Ely Star, p. xi.

191.

Psalms, civ. 4.

192.

The difference between the Builders, the Planetary Spirits, and the Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Shlokas 5 and 6 of this Commentary.)

193.

That is, he is under the influence of their guiding thought.

194.

Cosmic mists.

195.

The World to be.

196.

Atoms.

197.

See A. P. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism, 5th annotated edition, pp. 171-173.

198.

The first and greatest Tibetan Reformer who founded the “Yellow-Caps,” Gelukpas. He was born in the year 1355 a.d., in the district of Amdo, and was the Avatâra of Amitâbha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha.

199.

T. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the Logos. (See his Lectures on the Bhagavadgîtâ, in the Theosophist, vol. ix.)

200.

Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881.

201.

It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration, assumes a series of regular figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a complete explanation of this fact?

202.

See The Masonic Cyclopædia, Mackenzie; and The Pythagorean Triangle, Oliver.

203.

Ormazd is the Logos, the “First Born,” and the Sun.

204.

Against Apion, I, 25.

205.

See Isis Unveiled, II., 430-438.

206.

See Dowson's Hindû Classical Dictionary.

207.

The mineral atoms.

208.

Gaseous clouds.

209.

See Kabbalah Denudata, “De Anima,” p. 113.

210.

“The doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis was taught by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 b.c. It was also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of Plato. The immobility of the sun and the orbital rotation of the earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 b.c. to be suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The heliocentric theory was also taught about 150 b.c., by Seleucus of Seleucia on the Tigris. [It was taught 500 b.c. by Pythagoras.—H.P.B.] It is said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled Psammites, inculcated the heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was distinctly taught by Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure of the earth's shadow on the moon in eclipses. (Aristotle, De Cælo, lib. II., cap, XIV.) The same idea was defended by Pliny. (Nat. Hist., II., 65.) These views seem to have been lost from knowledge for more than a thousand years....” (Winchell, World-Life, 551-2.)

211.

On Vortex Atoms.

212.

Op. cit., 567.

213.

Abridged from Principia Rerum Naturalium.

214.

The Lipika.

215.

That is: the First is now the Second World.

216.

The Formless Universe of Thought.

217.

The Shadowy World of Primal Form, or the Intellectual.

218.

In the Rig Veda, we find the names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati alternating with, and equivalent to, each other. Also see Brihadâranyaka Upanishad; Brihaspati is a deity called the “Father of the Gods.”

219.

Logic, II. 125.

220.

Having already taken the first three.

221.

Hosts.

222.

The four Aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the “double” of the body—the triad which disappears with the death of the person—and the Kâma Rûpa which disintegrates in Kâma Loka.

223.

On Amos, iv.

224.

Theol. Cir., I. vii.

225.

See The Occult World, pp. 89, 90.

226.

Thus the sentence, “Natura Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei” (Clemens, Stromata, IV. 6), is applicable to both or neither. Consult the Zends, II. 228, and Plutarch De Iside, as compared by Layard, Académie des Inscriptions, 1854, Vol. XV.

227.

Exodus xxvi, xxvii.

228.

Antiquities, I. VIII, ch. xxii.

229.

Chinese Buddhism, p. 216.

230.

“Man” was here substituted for “Dragon.” Compare the Ophite Spirits. The Angels recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, who correspond to these “Faces,” were with the Ophites: Dragon—Raphael; Lion—Michael; Bull, or Ox—Uriel; and Eagle—Gabriel. The four keep company with the four Evangelists, and preface the Gospels.

231.

Ezekiel, i.

232.

The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no names for East, West, South, and North, expressed the idea by words signifying before, behind, right and left, and very often confounded the terms exoterically, thus making the blinds in the Bible more confused and difficult to interpret. Add to this the fact that out of the forty-seven translators of King James' Bible “only three understood Hebrew, and of these two died before the Psalms were translated” (Royal Masonic Cyclopædia), and one may easily understand what reliance can be placed on the English version of the Bible. In this work the Douay Roman Catholic version is generally followed.

233.

The vertical line or the figure 1.

234.

Circle.

235.

Also for those who, etc.

236.

The Formless World and the World of Forms.

237.

Theosophist, Feb., 1877, p. 303.

238.

These voluntary reïncarnations are referred to in our Doctrine as Nirmânakâyas—the surviving spiritual principles of men.

239.

Sûkshma Sharîra, “dream-like” illusive body, with which are clothed the inferior Dhyânis of the celestial Hierarchy.

240.

Compare this Esoteric tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in Pistis-Sophia (Knowledge-Wisdom), in which treatise Sophia (Achamôth) is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (Matter), on her way to the Supreme Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the right Path. Note well, that “Christos” with the Gnostics meant the Impersonal Principle, the Âtman of the Universe, and the Âtmâ within every man's soul—and not Jesus; though in the old Coptic MS., in the British Museum, “Christos” is replaced by “Jesus” and other terms.

241.

A Catechism of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy, by N. Bhâshiyacharya, F.T.S., late Pandit of the Adyar Library.

242.

Träume eines Geistersehers, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface to Von Hartmann's Spiritismus.

243.

Le Livre des Morts, Paul Pierret, Chap. xvii. p. 61.

244.

See also for other data on this peculiar expression, the Day of “Come To Us,” The Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians, by Viscount de Rougé.

245.

Chaos.

246.

Our Universe.

247.

The Theosophist, Feb., 1887, p. 305.

248.

Op. cit., p. 306.

249.

Madhya is said of something whose commencement and end are unknown, and Para means infinite. These expressions all relate to infinitude and to division of time.

250.

Op. cit., p. 307.

251.

From the Sanskrit Laya, the point of matter where every differentiation has ceased.

252.

Five Years of Theosophy, Art., “Personal and Impersonal God,” p. 200.

253.

Elements.

254.

Fraction.

255.

Presidential Address before the Royal Society of Chemists, March, 1888.

256.

P. 242.

257.

Worlds.

258.

A period of 311,040,000,000,000 years, according to Brâhmanical calculations.

259.

See the Scientific Arena, a monthly journal devoted to current philosophical teaching and its bearing upon the religious thought of the age. New York: A. Wilford Hall, Ph.D., LL.D., Editor, July, August, and September, 1886.

260.

Such, we believe, is the name applied to what he also calls “Etheric Centres,” by J. W. Keely, of Philadelphia, the inventor of the famous “Motor”—destined, as his admirers have hoped, to revolutionize the motor power of the world.

261.

The moon is dead only so far as regards her inner principles—i.e., psychically and spiritually, however absurd the statement may seem. Physically, she is only as a semi-paralysed body may be. She is aptly referred to in Occultism as the “Insane Mother,” the great sidereal lunatic.

262.

Occultists, however, having the most perfect faith in their own exact records, astronomical and mathematical, calculate the age of humanity, and assert that men (as separate sexes) have existed in this Round just 18,618,727 years, as the Brâhmanical teachings and even some Hindû calendars declare.

263.

The commentaries on the Stanzas are resumed on p. 213.

264.

In Esoteric Buddhism and Man: Fragments of Forgotten History.

265.

Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern astronomical works.

266.

p. 48.

267.

See, in Esoteric Buddhism, “The Constitution of Man,” and the “Planetary Chain.”

268.

Winchell's World-Life.

269.

P. 113 (5th edition).

270.

pp. 185-6.

271.

Kosha is “sheath” literally, the sheath of every principle.

272.

Sthûla-upâdhi, or basis of the principle.

273.

Life.

274.

The Astral Body, or Linga Sharîra.

275.

Buddhi.

276.

See Diagram II, p. 195.

277.

Extract from the Teacher's letters on various topics.

278.

We are not concerned with the other Globes in this work except incidentally.

279.

Esoteric Buddhism, p. 136.

280.

Lucifer, May, 1888.

281.

Esoteric Buddhism (5th ed.), p. 46.

282.

Op. cit., p. 49.

283.

Op. cit., p. 140.

284.

p. 177 supra.

285.

Occultism divides the periods of Rest (Pralaya) into several kinds: there is the Individual Pralaya of each Globe, as humanity and life pass on to the next—seven minor Pralayas in each Round; the Planetary Pralaya, when seven Rounds are completed; the Solar Pralaya, when the whole system is at an end; and finally the Universal Pralaya, Mahâ or Brahmâ Pralaya, at the close of the Age of Brahmâ. These are the chief Pralayas or “destruction periods.” There are many other minor ones, but with these we are not concerned at present.

286.

Pp. 48, 49.

287.

Ibid.

288.

“Physical” here means differentiated for cosmical purposes and work; that “physical side,” nevertheless, if objective to the apperception of beings from other planes, is yet quite subjective to us on our plane.

289.

Pp. 276 et seq.

290.

Ibid.

291.

See diagram, op. cit., p. 277.

292.

Op. cit., pp. 273-4.

293.

Op. cit., p. 274-5.

294.

II. 278-9.

295.

P. 48.

296.

The Natures of the seven Hierarchies or Classes of Pitris and Dhyân Chohans which compose our nature and bodies are here meant.

297.

Round, or revolution of Life and Being round the seven smaller Wheels.

298.

Thirds.

299.

Race.

300.

P. 235.

301.

Rev., xii. 7-9.

302.

See Vol. II, Shloka 17.

303.

Isis Unveiled, I. 299, 300. Compare also Dunlap, Sôd: the Son of the Man, pp. 51 et seq.

304.

On the authority of Irenæus, of Justin Martyr and of the Codex itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes regarded “Spirit” as a female and evil Power, in its connection with our Earth.

305.

Fetahil is identical with the host of the Pitris, who “created man” as a “shell” only. He was, with the Nazarenes, the King of Light, and the Creator; but in this instance he is the unlucky Prometheus, who fails to get hold of the Living Fire necessary for the formation of the Divine Soul, as he is ignorant of the secret name, the ineffable or incommunicable name of the Kabalists.

306.

The spirit of Matter and Concupiscence; Kâma Rûpa minus Manas, Mind.

307.

Codex Nazaræus, ii. 233.

308.

This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hindû Manu, the Heavenly Man of the Rig Veda.

309.

“I am the true Vine, and my father is the husbandman.” (John, xv. 1.)

310.

With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael who is identical with him in some respects, was the “Chief of the Æons.”

311.

Codex Nazaræus, i. 135.

312.

See the Cosmogony of Pherecydes.

313.

I. 301, note.

314.

They are found, however, in the Chaldean Book of Numbers.

315.

Op. cit., II. 183 et seq.

316.

For the difference between nous, the higher divine Wisdom, and psyche, the lower and terrestrial, see St. James, iii. 15-17.

317.

Jehovah's connection with the Moon in the Kabalah is well known to students.

318.

For the Nazarenes, see Isis Unveiled, II. 131 and 132. The true followers of the true Christos were all Nazarenes and Christians, and were the opponents of the later Christians.

319.

See the diagram of the Lunar Chain of seven worlds, p. 195, where, as in our own or any other Chain, the upper worlds are spiritual, while the lowest, whether Moon, Earth, or any other planet, is dark with matter.

320.

The whole Kosmos. The reader is reminded that in the Stanzas Kosmos often means only our own Solar System, not the Infinite Universe.

321.

This is purely astronomical.

322.

For a clearer explanation of the above, see “Saptaparna” in the Index.

323.

Op. cit., III. 346.

324.

Book of Dzyan.

325.

See Index, at the words “Evolution,” “Darwin,” “Kapila,” “Battle of Life,” etc.

326.

Isis Unveiled, II. 260.

327.

Vishnu Purâna.

328.

Chain.

329.

Earth.

330.

Kenealy, Book of God, p. 118.

331.

Acosta, vi. 14.

332.

Kenealy, Ibid.

333.

I, 587-93.

334.

That which was natural in the sight of primitive man, has only now become miracle to us; and that which was to him a miracle, could never be expressed in our language.

335.

There is no nation in the world in which the feeling of devotion, or of religious mysticism, is more developed and prominent than in the Hindû people. See what Max Müller says of this idiosyncrasy and national feature in his works. This is a direct inheritance from the primitive conscious men of the Third Race.

336.

Lectures on Heroes.

337.

Vehicle.

338.

Âtman.

339.

Âtmâ-Buddhi, Spirit-Soul. This relates to the cosmic principles.

340.

Again.

341.

Avalokiteshvara.

342.

Builders. The seven creative Rishis, now connected with the constellation of the Great Bear.

343.

Earth.

344.

Rosenroth, Liber Mysterii IV. 1.

345.

Genesis i.

346.

Auszüge aus dem Zohar, pp. 13-15.

347.

See Vishnu Purâna, Book I.

348.

Ch. lxxxviii.

349.

Ch. lxiv. 29, 30.

350.

Ibid., 34, 35.

351.

A World, when called a “higher World,” is not higher by reason of its location, but because it is superior in quality or essence. Yet such a World is generally understood by the profane as “Heaven,” and located above our heads.

352.

Of Form, the Sthûla Sharîra, External Body.

353.

Pearls.

354.

Ἄνθρωπος, a work on Occult Embryology, Book I.

355.

Namely, a congenital idiot.

356.

John iii, 8.

357.

Ch. cxlviii.

358.

Ibid., cxlix. 51.

359.

The Seven Souls of Man, p. 2; a Lecture by Gerald Massey.

360.

De Iside et Osiride, xliii.

361.

Ch. xli.

362.

iv. 5.

363.

Mariette's Abydos, plate 51.

364.

P. Pierret, Études Égyptologiques.

365.

Ritual, ch. ii.

366.

Linked into.

367.

Op. cit., xvii. 4.

368.

Several inimical critics are anxious to prove that no Seven Principles of Man, or Septenary Constitution of our Chain, were taught in our earlier volumes, Isis Unveiled. Though in that work the doctrine could only be hinted at, there are many passages, nevertheless, in which the Septenary Constitution of both Man and the Chain is openly mentioned. Speaking of the Elohim (II. 420), it is said: “They remain over the seventh heaven (or spiritual world), for it is they who, according to the Kabalists, formed in succession the six material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds, that preceded our own, which, they say, is the seventh.” Our Globe, in the diagram representing the Chain, is, of course, the seventh and lowest; though, as the evolution on these Globes is cyclic, it is the fourth, on the descending arc of matter. And again (II. 367) it is written: “In the Egyptian notions, as in those of all other faiths founded on philosophy, man was not merely ... a union of soul and body; he was a trinity, when spirit was added to it. Besides, that doctrine made him consist of ... body, ... astral form, or shadow, ... animal soul, ... the higher soul, and ... terrestrial intelligence ... [and] a sixth principle, etc., etc.”—the seventh—Spirit. So clearly are these principles mentioned, that even in the Index (II. 683), one finds “Six Principles of Man,” the seventh being, in strict truth, the synthesis of the six, and not a principle but a ray of the Absolute All.

369.

See Diagram III, p. 221.

370.

pp. 340-351, “Genesis of the Soul.”

371.

De Mysteriis, ii. 3.

372.

Asiatic Researches, xi. 99, 100.

373.

Ch. xxxii. 9.

374.

Their Upper Triad.

375.

Bhûmi or Prithivî.

376.

Book of the Dead, i. 7. Compare also Mysteries of Rostan.

377.

Kingdom.

378.

Kingdom.

379.

The first Shadow of the Physical Man.

380.

Man.

381.

The Moon.

382.

See Mantuan Codex.

383.

The formation of the “Living Soul,” or Man, would render the idea more clearly. A “Living Soul” is a synonym of Man in the Bible. These are our seven “Principles.”

384.

Ha Idra Zuta Kadisha, xxii. 746.

385.

xviii. 12.

386.

Hebrews, iv.

387.

Cruden, sub voce.

388.

Book of Numbers, 1. viii. 3.

389.

p. 389.

390.

Plate VII. p. 37.

391.

Esotericism teaches the same. But Manas is not Nephesh; nor is the latter the Astral, but the Fourth Principle, and also the Second, Prâna, for Nephesh is the “Breath of Life” in man, as in beast or insect; of physical, material life, which has no spirituality in it.

392.

Éliphas Lévi, whether purposely or otherwise, has confused the numbers: with us his No. 2 is No. 1 (Spirit); and by making of Nephesh both the Plastic Mediator and Life, he thus makes in reality only six principles, because he repeats the first two.

393.

Zohar, “Idra Suta,” Book iii., p. 292b.

394.

1. 302.

395.

Read, in Isis Unveiled (ii. 297-303), the doctrine of the Codex Nazaræus. Every tenet of our teaching is found there under a different form and allegory.

396.

Manu, Bk. I.

397.

The word “Sin” is curious, but has a particular Occult relation to the Moon, besides being its Chaldean equivalent.

398.

Professor Zöllner's theory has been more than welcomed by several Scientists, who are also Spiritualists; Professors Butlerof and Wagner, of St. Petersburg, for instance.

399.

“The giving reality to abstractions is the error of Realism. Space and Time are frequently viewed as separated from all the concrete experiences of the mind, instead of being generalizations of these in certain aspects.” (Bain, Logic, Part II. p. 389.)

400.

The Mysteries of Magic, by A. E. Waite.

401.

Wilson, I. 23, 24.

402.

Five Years of Theosophy, p. 169.

403.

In the Sânkhya philosophy, the seven Prakritis, or “productive productions,” are Mahat, Ahamkâra, and the five Tanmâtras. See Sânkhya Kârikâ, III., and the Commentary thereon.

404.

See Linga Purâna, Prior Section, lxx. 12 et seq.; and Vâyu Purâna, ch. iv., but especially the former Purâna—Prior Section, viii. 67-74.

405.

Vishnu Purâna, Book vi., ch. iv. No use to say so to the Hindûs, who know their Purânas by heart, but very useful to remind our Orientalists and those Westerns who regard Wilson's translations as authoritative, that, in his English translation of the Vishnu Purâna, he is guilty of the most ludicrous contradictions and errors. So on this identical subject of the seven Prakritis, or the seven zones of Brahmâ's Egg, the two accounts differ totally. In Vol. i. p. 40, the Egg is said to be externally invested by seven envelopes. Wilson comments: “by Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and Ahamkâra”—which last word does not exist in the Sanskrit texts. And in Vol. v. p. 198, of the same Purâna, it is written: “in this manner were the seven forms of nature (Prakriti) reckoned from Mahat to Earth” (?). Between Mahat, or Mahâ-Buddhi, and “Water, etc.”, the difference is very considerable.

406.

According to the great metaphysician Hegel also. For him Nature was a perpetual becoming. A purely Esoteric conception. Creation or Origin, in the Christian sense of the term, is absolutely unthinkable. As the above-quoted thinker said: “God (the Universal Spirit) objectivizes himself as Nature, and again rises out of it.”

407.

Book of Dzyan, Comm. III, par. 18.

408.

P. 19.

409.

Primitive, or First Man.

410.

Reïncarnation.

411.

Vehicle.

412.

See, for example, Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quichés, by Augustus le Plongeon, who shows the identity between the Egyptian rites and beliefs and those of the people he describes. The ancient hieratic alphabets of the Mayas and the Egyptians are almost identical.

413.

In The Theosophist, 1881.

414.

T. Subba Row, Five Years of Theosophy, p. 154.

415.

Also called the “Sons of Wisdom” and of the “Fire-Mist,” and the “Brothers of the Sun,” in the Chinese records. Si-dzang (Tibet) is mentioned, in the MSS. of the sacred library of the province of Fo-Kien, as the great seat of Occult learning from time immemorial, ages before Buddha. The Emperor Yu, the “Great” (2,207 b.c.), a pious Mystic and great Adept, is said to have obtained his Knowledge from the “Great Teachers of the Snowy Range” in Si-dzang.

416.

Matt. vi. 5, 6.

417.

The Virgin of the World, pp. 134-5.

418.

Paracelsus, Franz Hartmann, M.D., p. 44.

419.

This word is explained by Dr. Hartmann, from the original texts of Paracelsus before him, as follows. According to this great Rosicrucian; “Mysterium is everything out of which something may be developed, which is only germinally contained in it. A seed is the ‘Mysterium’ of a plant, an egg that of a living bird, etc.”

420.

Op. cit., pp. 41, 42.

421.

It is only the mediæval Kabalists who, following the Jewish and one or two Neo-Platonists, applied the term Microcosm to man. Ancient philosophy called the Earth the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, and man the outcome of the two.

422.

“This doctrine, preached 300 years ago,” remarks the translator, “is identical with the one that has revolutionized modern thought, after having been put into new shape and elaborated by Darwin. It is still more elaborated by Kapila in the Sânkhya philosophy.”

423.

The Eastern Occultist says that they are guided and informed by Spiritual Beings, the Workmen in the invisible Worlds, and behind the veil of Occult Nature, or Nature in abscondito.

424.

Wilson, I. ii., (Vol. I. 35).

425.

A frequent expression in the said “Fragments,” to which we take exception. The Universal Mind is not a Being or “God.”

426.

The Virgin of the World, p. 47. “Asclepios,” Pt. I.

427.

Divine Pymander, ix. 64.

428.

The Virgin of the World, p. 153.

429.

Op. cit., pp. 139, 140. Fragments from the “Physical Eclogues” and “Florilegium” of Stobæus.

430.

Vishnu Purâna, I. ii, Wilson, I. 13-15.

431.

Op. cit., pp. 135-138.

432.

This teaching does not refer to Prakriti-Purusha beyond the boundaries of our small universe.

433.

The ultimate quiescent state; the Nirvânic condition of the Seventh Principle.

434.

The teaching is all given from our plane of consciousness.

435.

Or the “dream of Science,” the primeval really homogeneous matter, which no mortal can make objective in this Race, or Round either.

436.

“Vishnu, in the form of his active energy, neither ever rises nor sets, and is at once, the seven-fold sun and distinct from it,” says Vishnu Purâna, II. xi., (Wilson, II. 296).

437.

“In the same manner as a man approaching a mirror placed upon a stand, beholds in it his own image, so the energy (or reflection) of Vishnu [the Sun] is never disjoined but remains ... in the Sun (as in a mirror), that is there stationed.” (Ibid., loc. cit.)

438.

Compare the Hermetic “Nature” “going down cyclically into matter when she meets the ‘Heavenly Man’.”

439.

The writers of the above knew perfectly well the physical cause of the tides, of the waves, etc. It is the informing Spirit of the whole cosmic solar body that is meant here, and which is referred to whenever such expressions are used from the mystic point of view.

440.

Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 110, 111, art., “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac.”

441.

See Stanzas III and IV, and the Commentaries thereupon, and especially compare the comments on Stanza IV, concerning the Lipika and the four Mahârâjahs, the agents of Karma.

442.

And “Gods” or Dhyânis, too, not only the Genii or “guided Forces.”

443.

The meaning of this is that as man is composed of all the Great Elements—Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Ether—the Elementals which respectively belong to these Elements feel attracted to man by reason of their coëssence. That Element which predominates in a certain constitution will be the ruling Element throughout life. For instance, if man has a preponderance of the earthly, gnomic Element, the Gnomes will lead him towards assimilating metals—money and wealth, and so on. “Animal man is the son of the animal elements out of which his Soul [life] was born, and animals are the mirrors of man,” says Paracelsus. (De Fundamento Sapientiæ.) Paracelsus was cautious, and wanted the Bible to agree with what he said, and therefore did not say all.

444.

Cyclic progress in development.

445.

The God in man and often the incarnation of a God, a highly Spiritual Dhyân Chohan in him, besides the presence of his own Seventh Principle.

446.

Now, what “God” is meant here? Not God the “Father,” the anthropomorphic fiction; for that God is the Elohim collectively, and has no being apart from the Host. Besides, such a God is finite and imperfect. It is the high Initiates and Adepts who are meant here by the “few in number.” And it is precisely such men who believe in “Gods”, and know no “God” but one Universal unrelated and unconditioned Deity.

447.

The Virgin of the World, pp. 104-5, “The Definitions of Asclepios.”

448.

P. 120.

449.

National Reformer, January 9th, 1887. Article “Phreno-Kosmo-Biology,” by Dr. Lewins.

450.

This is Cyclic law; but this law itself is often defied by human stubbornness.

451.

Vol. I. p. 256.

452.

Sepher Jetzirah.

453.

As far as “Divine Revelation” is concerned, we agree. Not so with regard to “human history.” For there is “history” in most of the allegories and “myths” of India; and events, real actual events, are concealed under them.

454.

When the “false theologies” disappear, then true prehistoric realities will be found, contained especially in the mythology of the Âryans and ancient Hindûs, and even the pre-Homeric Hellenes.

455.

See Section VII, “Deus Lunus.”

456.

From an MS.

457.

Guide au Musée de Boulaq, pp. 148, 149.

458.

As we said in Isis Unveiled (II. 438-9): “To the present moment, in spite of all controversies and researches, History and Science remain as much as ever in the dark as to the origin of the Jews. They may as well be the exiled Chandâlas of old India, the ‘bricklayers’ mentioned by Veda-Vyâsa and Manu, as the Phœnicians of Herodotus, or the Hyksos of Josephus, or the descendants of Pali shepherds, or a mixture of all these. The Bible names the Tyrians as a kindred people and claims dominion over them.... Yet whatever they may have been, they became a hybrid people, not long after the time of Moses, for the Bible shows them freely intermarrying not alone with the Canaanites, but with every other nation or race they came in contact with.”

459.

Knowledge, Vol. I; see also Petrie's letter to The Academy, Dec. 17, 1881.

460.

The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid, p. 9.

461.

Op. cit., I. 519.

462.

The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid, p. 93.

463.

vii. 13 et seq.

464.

P. 224.

465.

Vol. I. Part I. 46.

466.

x. 10.

467.

See Isis Unveiled, II. 442-3.

468.

Exodus, 11. 21.

469.

George Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 299, 300.

470.

II. 3.

471.

As a reminder how the esoteric religion of Moses was crushed several times, and the worship of Jehovah, as reëstablished by David, put in its place, by Hezekiah for instance, compare Isis Unveiled (II. 436-42). Surely there must have been some very good reasons why the Sadducees, who furnished almost all the High Priests of Judæa, held to the Laws of Moses and spurned the alleged “Books of Moses,” the Pentateuch of the Synagogue and the Talmud?

472.

Once more, remember the Hindû Wittoba crucified in space; the significance of the “sacred sign,” the Svastika; Plato's Decussated Man in Space, etc.

473.

See farther on the description given of the early Âryan Initiation: of Vishvakarman crucifying the Sun, Vikarttana, shorn of his beams—on a cruciform lathe.

474.

Primeval Man Unveiled; or the Anthropology of the Bible, by the author (unknown) of The Stars and the Angels, 1870, p. 14.

475.

Op. cit., p. 195.

476.

Especially in the face of the evidence furnished by the authorized Bible itself in Genesis (iv. 16, 17), which shows Cain going to the land of Nod and there marrying a wife.

477.

Ibid., p. 194.

478.

Ibid., p. 55.

479.

Ibid., pp. 206-7.

480.

Acts, xvii. 23, 24.

481.

Taittirîyaka Upanishad, Second Vallî, First Anuvâka.

482.

Ephesians, vi, 12.

483.

Oracles of Zoroaster, “Effatum,” xvi.

484.

Georgica, Book II. 325.

485.

Isis Unveiled.

486.

Op. cit., I. 5-13, Burnell's translation.

487.

The ideal apex of the Pythagorean Triangle.

488.

See A. Coke Burnell's translation, edited by Ed. W. Hopkins, Ph. D.

489.

Ahamkâra, as universal Self-Consciousness, has a triple aspect, as has also Manas. For this “conception of I,” or the Ego, is either sattva, “pure quietude,” or appears as rajas, “active,” or remains tamas, “stagnant,” in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and Earth, and assumes the properties of Ether.

490.

See Sânkhya Kârikâ III, and Commentaries.

491.

The word “eternity,” by which Christian theologians interpret the term “for ever and ever,” does not exist in the Hebrew tongue. “Oulam,” says Le Clerc, only imports a time when beginning or end is not known. It does not mean “infinite duration,” and the term “for ever,” in the Old Testament, only signifies a “long time.” Nor is the word “eternity” used in the Christian sense in the Purânas. For in Vishnu Purâna, it is clearly stated that by “eternity” and “immortality” only “existence to the end of the Kalpa” is meant. (Book II. chap. viii.)

492.

Orphic Theogony is purely Oriental and Indian in its spirit. The successive transformations it has undergone, have now separated it widely from the spirit of ancient Cosmogony, as may be seen by comparing it even with Hesiod's Theogony. Yet the truly Âryan Hindû spirit breaks forth everywhere in both the Hesiodic and Orphic systems. (See the remarkable work of James Darmesteter, “Cosmogonies Âryennes,” in his Essais Orientaux.) Thus the original Greek conception of Chaos is that of the Secret Wisdom Religion. In Hesiod, therefore, Chaos is infinite, boundless, endless and beginningless in duration, an abstraction and a visible presence at the same time, Space filled with darkness, which is primordial matter in its pre-cosmic state. For in its etymological sense, Chaos is Space, according to Aristotle, and Space is the ever Unseen and Unknowable Deity, in our philosophy.

493.

The manifested Spirit: Absolute, Divine Spirit is one with absolute Divine Substance; Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti are one in essence. Therefore, Cosmic Ideation and Cosmic Substance, in their primal character, are one also.

494.

Sepher Yetzirah, Chap. I. Mishna ix.

495.

Ibid. It is from “Arba” that Abram is derived.

496.

Zohar, I. 2a.

497.

Sepher Yetzirah, Mishna ix. 10.

498.

Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection.

499.

Plato, Timæus.

500.

Suidas, sub voc. “Tyrrhenia.” See Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 309, 2nd ed.

501.

The reader will understand that by “years” is meant “ages,” not mere periods of 13 lunar months each.

502.

See the Greek translation by Philon Byblius.

503.

Cory, Op. cit., p. 3.

504.

Isis Unveiled, I. 342.

505.

Mithras was regarded among the Persians as the theos ek petras—the God from the rock.

506.

Bordj is called a fire-mountain, a volcano: therefore it contains fire, rock, earth and water; the male, or active, and the female, or passive, elements. The myth is suggestive.

507.

Op. cit., I. 156.

508.

Henry Pratt, M.D., New Aspects of Life.

509.

Siphrah Dtzenioutha, i. 16.

510.

Damascius, in his Theogony, calls it Dis, “the disposer of all things.” Cory, Ancient Fragments, p. 314.

511.

Isis Unveiled, I. 341.

512.

“Migration of Abraham,” 32.

513.

With the Greeks, the River-Gods, all of them the Sons of the Primeval Ocean—Chaos, in its masculine aspect—were the respective ancestors of the Hellenic races. For them the Ocean was the Father of the Gods; and thus in this connection they had anticipated the theories of Thales, as rightly observed by Aristotle. (Metaph. I. 3-5.)

514.

xxvi. 5.

515.

Isis Unveiled, I. 133-4.

516.

The Spirit, or hidden voice of the Mantras; the active manifestation of the latent force, or Occult potency.

517.

Orthography of the Archaic Dictionary.

518.

We do not mean the current or accepted Bible, but the real Jewish Scripture, now kabatistically explained.

519.

See Genesis, ii. 4.

520.

It is “unutterable” for the simple reason that it is non-existent. It never was either a name, or any word at all, but an idea that could not be expressed. A substitute was created for it in the century preceding our era.

521.

The Cosmic Tabernacle of Moses, erected by him in the Desert, was square, representing the four Cardinal Points and the four Elements, as Josephus tells his readers. (Antiq. I. viii. ch. xxii.) The idea was taken from the pyramids in Egypt, and also in Tyre, where the pyramids became pillars. The Genii, or Angels, have their abodes in these four points respectively.

522.

Isaac Myer's Qabbalah, published 1888, p. 415.

523.

As, for instance, in Vishnu Purâna, Bk. I.

524.

Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, lvi.

525.

Spirit History of Man, p. 88.

526.

Movers, Phoinizer, 268.

527.

Cory, Ancient Fragments, 240.

528.

Vishnu Purâna, Bk. I. Ch. iv., Fitzedward Hall's rendering.

529.

Just as Mûlaprakriti is known only to Îshvara, the Logos, as he is called by T. Subba Row.

530.

Franck, Die Kabbala, 126.

531.

Philo, Quæst. et Solut.

532.

Franck, Op. cit., 153.

533.

The “Seven Angels of the Face,” with the Christians.

534.

Philosophumena, vi. 42.

535.

The Kabbalah Unveiled, 47.

536.

Qabbalah, 233.

537.

p. 79.

538.

Arnobius, VI. xii.

539.

We employ the term as one accepted and sanctioned by use, and therefore more comprehensible to the reader.

540.

See Dunlap, Sôd: the Mysteries of Adoni, 23.

541.

With the ancient Jews, as shown by Le Clerc, the word Oulom meant simply a time whose beginning or end was not known. The term “Eternity,” properly speaking, did not exist in the Hebrew tongue with the meaning applied by Vedântins to Parabrahman, for instance.

542.

Zohar, Part I. fol. 20a.

543.

In the Indian Pantheon the double-sexed Logos is Brahmâ, the Creator, whose seven “Mind-born” Sons are the primeval Rishis—the Builders.

544.

Says Rabbi Simeon: “Oh, companions, companions, man as an emanation was both man and woman, as well on the side of the ‘Father’ as on the side of the ‘Mother.’ And this is the sense of the words: ‘And Elohim spake, Let there be Light, and it was Light’; ... and this is the two-fold man.” (Auszüge ans dem Sohar, 13, 15.) Light, then, in Genesis, stood for the Androgyne Ray, or “Heavenly Man.”

545.

Zohar, iii. 290.

546.

Op. cit., ii. 261.

547.

ix. 1.

548.

Chaldean Account of Genesis, 62, 63.

549.

The Seven Swans that are believed to descend from Heaven on Lake Mânsarovara, are in the popular fancy the Seven Rishis of the Great Bear, who assume that form to visit the locality where the Vedas were written.

550.

See Petronius, Satyricon, cxxxvi.

551.

Progress of Religious Ideas, I. 17 et seq.

552.

iii. 165.

553.

Ch. liv. 3.

554.

Ch. xxii. 1.

555.

Ch. xlii. 13.

556.

Ch. liv. 1, 2; ch. lxxvii. i.

557.

Vishnu Purâna, I. 39.

558.

Op. cit., ibid.

559.

Ch. xvii. 50, 51.

560.

Ch. xlii. 13.

561.

Ch. lxxx. 9.

562.

See Max Müller's “Our Figures.”

563.

A Kabalist would be rather inclined to believe that as the Arabic cifron was taken from the Indian sunyan, nought, so the Jewish Kabalistic Sephiroth (Sephrim) were taken from the word cipher, not in the sense of emptiness, but in that of creation by number and degrees of evolution. And the Sephiroth are 10 or [circle split by vertical line].

564.

See King's Gnostics and their Remains, 370 (2nd ed.).

565.

De Vita Pithag.

566.

The year of his birth is given as 608 b.c.

567.

That is to say 332 b.c.

568.

Metaphysics, vii., F.

569.

Euterpe, 75, 76.

570.

De Cultu Egypt.

571.

xxi. 5 et seq.

572.

II Kings, xviii. 4.

573.

Supra, pp. 386, 387.

574.

III. 124.

575.

Movers, Phoinizer, 282.

576.

See Isis Unveiled, I. 56.

577.

Weber, Akad-Vorles, 213, et seq.

578.

The Chinese seem to have thus anticipated Sir William Thomson's theory that the first living germ had dropped to the earth from some passing comet. Query: Why should this be called scientific and the Chinese idea a superstitious, foolish theory?

579.

Compare Movers, Phoinizer, 268.

580.

His triadic Goddesses are Sati and Anouki.

581.

Ptah was originally the god of Death, of Destruction, like Shiva. He is a Solar God only by virtue of the Sun's fire killing as well as vivifying. He was the national God of Memphis, the radiant and “fair-faced” God.

582.

Book of Numbers.

583.

Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, I. Pref. lxxxiv-v.

584.

There is a curious piece of information in the Buddhist esoteric traditions. The exoteric or allegorical biography of Gautama Buddha shows this great Sage dying of an indigestion of “pork and rice”; a very prosaic end, indeed, with little of the solemn element in it! This is explained as an allegorical reference to his having been born in the “Boar” or Varâha Kalpa, when Vishnu assumed the form of that animal to raise the Earth out of the “Waters of Space.” Now as the Brâhmans descend direct from Brahmâ and are, so to speak, identified with him; and as they are at the same time the mortal enemies of Buddha and Buddhism, we have this curious allegorical hint and combination. The Brâhmanism of the Boar or Varâha Kalpa has slaughtered the religion of Buddha in India, swept it from its face. Therefore Buddha, who is identified with his philosophy, is said to have died from the effects of eating of the flesh of a wild hog. The very idea of one who established the most rigorous vegetarianism and respect for animal life—even to refusing to eat eggs as being vehicles of latent life—dying of an indigestion of meat, is absurdly contradictory and has puzzled more than one Orientalist. But the present explanation, however, unveils the allegory, and makes clear all the rest. The Varâha, however, is no simple Boar, but seems to have meant at first some antediluvian lacustrine animal “delighting to sport in water.” (Vâyu Purâna.)

585.

According to Colonel Wilford, the conclusion of the “Great War” took place in 1370 b.c., (Asiatic Researches, xi. 116.); according to Bentley, 575 b.c.!! We may yet hope, before the end of this century, to see the Mahâbhâratan epic proclaimed identical with the wars of the great Napoleon.

586.

See Royal Asiat. Soc. ix. 364.

587.

Bk. vi. ch. iii.

588.

In the Vedânta and Nyâya, Nimitta, from which Naimittika, is rendered as the Efficient Cause, when antithesized with Upâdâna, the Physical or Material Cause. In the Sânkhya, Pradhâna is a cause inferior to Brahmâ, or rather Brahmâ being himself a cause, is superior to Pradhâna. Hence “Incidental” is a wrong translation, and ought to be rendered, as shown by some scholars, “Ideal” Cause: even Real Cause would have been better.

589.

XII. iv, 35.

590.

Vâyu Purâna.

591.

Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, VI, iii.

592.

The chief Kumâra, or Virgin-God, a Dhyân Chohan who refuses to create. A prototype of St. Michael, who also refuses to do so.

593.

See concluding lines in Section, “Chaos: Theos: Kosmos.”

594.

Ibid., iv.

595.

This prospect would hardly suit Christian theology, which prefers an eternal, everlasting Hell for its followers.

596.

The term “Elements” must be here understood to mean not only the visible and physical elements, but also that which St. Paul calls Elements—the Spiritual, Intelligent Potencies—Angels and Demons in their manvantaric forms.

597.

When this description is correctly understood by Orientalists, in its esoteric significance, then it will be found that this cosmic correlation of World-Elements may explain the correlation of physical forces better than those now known. At any rate, Theosophists will perceive that Prakriti has seven forms, or principles, “reckoned from Mahat to Earth.” The “Waters” mean here the mystic “Mother”; the Womb of Abstract Nature, in which the Manifested Universe is conceived. The seven “zones” have reference to the Seven Divisions of that Universe, or the Noumena of the Forces that bring it into being. It is all allegorical.

598.

Vishnu Purâna, Bk. VI. Ch. iv., Wilson's mistakes being corrected and the original terms put in brackets.

599.

As it is the Mahâ, the Great, or so-called Final, Pralaya which is here described, every thing is reäbsorbed into its original One Element; the “Gods themselves, Brahmâ and the rest” being said to die and disappear during that long “Night.”

600.

The “Builders” of the Stanzas.

601.

From the Siphra Dtzenioutha, c. i. § 16 et seq.; as quoted in Myer's Qabbalah, 232-3.

602.

Compare the Siphra Dtzenioutha.

603.

Bk. I. Ch. iii.

604.

pp. 219, 221.

605.

See Jacolliot's Les Fils de Dieu, and L'Inde des Brahmes, p. 230.

606.

If this is not prophetic, what is?

607.

Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, Bk. IV. Ch. xxiv.

608.

The Matsya Purâna gives Katâpa.

609.

Vishnu Purâna, Ibid.

610.

Max Müller translates the name as Morya, of the Morya dynasty, to which Chandragupta belonged. (See History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature). In Matsya Purâna, chapter cclxxii, the dynasty of ten Moryas, or Maureyas, is spoken of. In the same chapter, it is stated that the Moryas will one day reign over India, after restoring the Kshattriya race many thousand years hence. Only that reign will be purely spiritual and “not of this world.” It will be the kingdom of the next Avatâra. Colonel Tod believes the name Morya, or Maurya, a corruption of Mori, a Rajpût tribe, and the commentary on the Mahâvanso thinks that some princes have taken their name Maurya from their town called Mori, or as Professor Max Müller gives it, Morya-Nâgara, which is more correct, after the original Mahâvanso. The Sanskrit Encyclopedia, Vâchaspattya, we are informed by our Brother, Devan Bâdhâdur R. Ragoonath Rao, of Madras, places Katâpa (Kalâpa) on the northern side of the Himâlayas, hence in Tibet. The same is stated in the Bhâgavata Purâna, Skanda xii.

611.

Ibid., ch. iv. The Vayu Purâna declares that Moru will reëstablish the Kshattriyas in the Nineteenth coming Yuga. (See Five Years of Theosophy, 483, art. “The Moryas and Koothoomi.”)

612.

See Dissertations Relating to Asia.

613.

Ch. lxxxi.

614.

I. 11.

615.

In the Indian Purânas, it is Vishnu, the First, and Brahmâ, the Second Logos, or the Ideal and Practical Creators, who are respectively represented, one as manifesting the Lotus, the other as issuing from it.

616.

Not the efforts, however, of the trained psychic faculties of an Initiate into Eastern Metaphysics, and the Mysteries of Creative Nature. It is the Profane of the past ages, who have degraded the pure ideal of cosmic creation into an emblem of mere human reproduction and sexual functions: it is the Esoteric Teachings, and the Initiates of the Future, whose mission it is, and will be, to redeem and ennoble once more the primitive conception, so sadly profaned by its crude and gross application to exoteric dogmas and personations, by theological and ecclesiastical religionists. The silent worship of abstract or noumenal Nature, the only divine manifestation, is the one ennobling religion of Humanity.

617.

Surely the words of the old Initiate into the primitive Mysteries of Christianity, “Know ye not ye are the Temple of God” (1 Corinth, iii. 16), could not be applied in this sense to men; though the meaning was, undeniably, so stated, in the minds of the Hebrew compilers of the Old Testament. And here is the abyss that lies between the symbolism of the New Testament and the Jewish canon. This gulf would have remained, and have ever widened, had not Christianity, especially and most glaringly the Latin Church, thrown a bridge over it. Modern Popery has now spanned it entirely, by its dogma of the two immaculate conceptions, and the anthropomorphic and, at the same time idolatrous, character it has conferred upon the Mother of its God.

618.

It was so carried only in the Hebrew Bible, and its servile copyist, Christian theology.

619.

The same idea is carried out exoterically in the incidents of the exodus from Egypt. The Lord God tempts Pharaoh sorely, and “plagues him with great plagues,” lest the king should escape punishment, and thus afford no pretext for one more triumph to his “chosen people.”

620.

Exodus, ii. 10. Even to the seven daughters of the Midianite priest, who came to draw water, and whom Moses helped to water their flock; for which service the Midian gives Moses his daughter Zipporah, or Sippara, the shining Wave, as wife. (Exod. ii. 16-21.) All this has the same secret meaning.

621.

With the Egyptians it was the resurrection in rebirth, after 3,000 years of purification, either in Devachan or the “Fields of Bliss.”

622.

Such “frog-Goddesses” may be seen at Boulak, in the Cairo Museum. For the statement about the Church-lamps and inscriptions, the learned ex-director of the Boulak Museum, M. Gaston Maspero, must be held responsible. (See his Guide au Musée de Boulaq, p. 146.)

623.

The Goddess Τρίμορφος in the statuary of Alcamenes.

624.

Ancient Mythology includes ancient Astronomy as well as Astrology. The planets were the hands pointing out, on the dial of our Solar System, the hours of certain periodical events. Thus, Mercury was the messenger, appointed to keep time during the daily solar and lunar phenomena, and was otherwise connected with the God and Goddess of Light.

625.

A caricatured and dwarfed Vedântin notion of Parabrahman containing within itself the whole Universe, as being that boundless Universe itself, and nothing existing outside of itself.

626.

Just as they are to this day in India; the bull of Shiva, and the cow representing several Shaktis or Goddesses.

627.

Hence the worship of the Moon by the Hebrews.

628.

“Male and female, created he them.”

629.

Because it was too sacred. It is referred to as That in the Vedas. It is the “Eternal Cause,” and cannot, therefore, be spoken of as a “First Cause,” a term implying the absence of Cause, at one time.

630.

Pneumatologie: Des Esprits, tom. III. p. 117; “Archéologie de la Vierge Mère.”

631.

p. 23.

632.

Myer's Qabbalah, 335-6.

633.

Moreh Nebhuchim, III. xxx.

634.

See De Diis Syriis, Teraph., II. Synt. p. 31.

635.

I. i. 21.

636.

See Pausanias, viii. 35-8.

637.

Cornutus, De Natura Deorum, xxxiv. 1.

638.

The Roman Catholics are indebted for the idea of consecrating the month of May to the Virgin to the pagan Plutarch, who shows that “May is sacred to Maia (Μαῖα) or Vesta” (Aulus Gellius, sub voc. Maia), our mother-earth, our nurse and nourisher, personified.

639.

Thot-Lunus is the Budha-Soma of India, or Mercury and the Moon.

640.

Ezekiel, viii. 16.

641.

The Earth flees for her life, in the allegory, before Prithu, who pursues her. She assumes the shape of a cow, and, trembling with terror, runs away and hides even in the regions of Brahmâ. Therefore, it is not our Earth. Again, in every Purâna, the calf changes name. In one it is Manu Svâyambhuva, in another Indra, in a third the Himavat (Himâlayas) itself, while Meru was the milker. This is a deeper allegory than one may be inclined to think.

642.

His clear realization is, that the Egyptians prophesied Jehovah (!) and his incarnated Redeemer (the good serpent), etc.; even to identifying Typhon with the wicked dragon of the garden of Eden. And this passes as serious and sober science!

643.

Hathor is the infernal Isis, the Goddess preëminently of the West or the Nether World.

644.

This is from De Mirville, who proudly confesses the similarity, and he ought to know. See “Archéologie de la Vierge Mère,” in his Des Esprits, pp. 111-113.

645.

Magie, p. 153.

646.

De Mirville, Ibid., pp. 116 and 119.

647.

Hymns to Minerva, p. 19.

648.

Sermon sur la Sainte Vierge.

649.

Apoc., ch. xii.

650.

Wägner and McDowall, Asgard and the Gods, p. 86.

651.

See De Vitâ Apollionii, I. xiv.

652.

Adv. Hæres. xxxvii.

653.

Gerald Massey, The Natural Genesis, I. 340.

654.

Ch. xv.

655.

Ch. xi.

656.

De Mundi Opif., Par., pp. 30 and 419.

657.

For the same reason the division of the principles in man into seven is thus reckoned, as they describe the same circle in the higher and lower human nature.

658.

Thus the septenary division is the oldest and preceded the four-fold division. It is the root of archaic classification.

659.

In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism, the Genii are represented by four Dragons—the Mahârâjahs of the Stanzas.

660.

Op. cit., II. 312-13.

661.

Ibid., I. 321.

662.

Proclus, Tim., I.

663.

Prep. Evang., I. iii. 3.

664.

Op. cit., pp. 366-8.

665.

Job, ii.

666.

Genesis, vi.

667.

James, i. 13.

668.

James, i. 2, 12; Matth., vi. 13. See Cruden, sub voc.

669.

Padma Purâna.

670.

Vishnu Purâna, I. i.

671.

Vol. II. ch. x.

672.

See Chwolsohn, Nabathean Agriculture, II. 217.

673.

One Day of Brahmâ lasts 4,320,000,000 years—multiply this by 360! The A-suras (No-gods, or Demons) are here still Suras, Gods higher in hierarchy than such secondary Gods as are not even mentioned in the Vedas. The duration of the War shows its significance, and also shows that the combatants are only the personified Cosmic Powers. It is evidently for sectarian purposes and out of odium theologicum that the illusive form Mâyâmoha, assumed by Vishnu, was attributed in later reärrangements of old texts to Buddha and the Daityas, as in the Vishnu Purâna, unless it was a fancy of Wilson himself. He also fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in the Bhagavadgîtâ, whereas, as proved by K. T. Telang, he had only confused the Buddhists and the older Chârvâka materialists. The version exists nowhere in other Purânas if the inference does, as Professor Wilson claims, in the Vishnu Purâna; the translation of which, especially of Book III. ch. xviii, where the reverend Orientalist arbitrarily introduces Buddha, and shows him teaching Buddhism to Daityas, led to another “great war” between himself and Col. Vans Kennedy. The latter charged him publicly with wilfully distorting Purânic texts. “I affirm,” wrote the Colonel at Bombay, in 1840, “that the Purânas do not contain what Professor Wilson has stated is contained in them; ... until such passages are produced I may be allowed to repeat my former conclusions that Professor Wilson's opinion, that the Purânas as now extant are compilations made between the eighth and seventeenth centuries [a.d.!], rests solely on gratuitous assumptions and unfounded assertions, and that his reasoning in support of it is either futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable.” (See Vishnu Purâna, trans. by Wilson, edit, by Fitzedward Hall, Vol. V, Appendix.)

674.

This statement belongs to the third War, since the terrestrial continents, seas and rivers are mentioned in connection with it.

675.

Vishnu Purâna, III. xvii (Wilson, Vol. III. 204-5).

676.

Book I. chap. xvii (Wilson, Vol. II. 36), in the story of Prahlâda—the Son of Hiranyakashipu, the Purânic Satan, the great enemy of Vishnu, and the King of the Three Worlds—into whose heart Vishnu entered.

677.

Ibid., I. iv (Wilson, Vol. I. 64).

678.

II Chronicles, ii. 5.

679.

“There was a day when the Sons of God came before the Lord, and Satan came with his brothers, also before the Lord.” (Job ii., Abyss., Ethiopic text.)

680.

Ibid., Vol. III. 205-7.

681.

Journal of the Royal Asiat. Society, xix. 302.

682.

Wilson's opinion that the Vishnu Purâna is a production of our era, and that in its present form it is not earlier than between the VIIIth and the XVIIth (!!) century, is absurd beyond noticing.

683.

P. 3.

684.

Ibid., p. 2.

685.

Ibid., p. 21.

686.

See The Monthly Magazine, for April, 1797.

687.

Ἤτοι μὲν πρώτιστα Χάος γ'eνετ᾽ (l. 166); γένετο being considered in antiquity as meaning: “was generated” and not simply “was.” (See Taylor's “Introd. to the Parmenides of Plato,” p. 260.)

688.

It is the confusion between the “Bound,” and the “Infinite,” that Kapila overwhelms with sarcasms in his disputations with the Brâhman Yogis, who claim in their mystical visions to see the “Highest One.”

689.

Ibid.

690.

See T. Taylor's article in his Monthly Magazine, quoted in the Platonist of Feb., 1887, edited by T. M. Johnson, F.T.S., Osceola, Missouri.

691.

Vit. Pythag., p. 47.

692.

Asgard and the Gods, 22.

693.

Vâch—the “melodious cow, who milks sustenance and Water,” and yields us “nourishment and sustenance,” as described in the Rig Veda.

694.

The Theosophist, Feb., 1887, pp. 302-3.

695.

Ibid., p. 304.

696.

The Masonic Review, June, 1886.

697.

Objective—in the world of Mâyâ, of course; still as real as we are.

698.

“In the course of cosmic manifestation, this Daiviprakriti, instead of being the Mother of the Logos, should, strictly speaking, be called his Daughter.” (“Notes on the Bhagavad Gîtâ,” op. cit., p. 305.)

699.

The wise men who, like Stanley Jevons amongst the moderns, invented a method to make the incomprehensible assume a tangible form, could only do so by resorting to numbers and geometrical figures.

700.

The Pranava, Om, is a mystic term pronounced by the Yogis during meditation; of the terms called, according to exoteric commentators, Vyâkritis, or Aum, Bhûh, Bhuvah, Svah, (Om, Earth, Sky, Heaven), Pranava is, perhaps, the most sacred. They are pronounced with breath suppressed. See Manu II. 76-81, and Mitakshara commenting on the Yâjnavâkhya-Smriti, I. 23. But the esoteric explanation goes a great deal further.

701.

“Lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ,” ibid., p. 307.

702.

It is this Trinity that is allegorized by the “Three Steps of Vishnu,” which mean—Vishnu being considered as the Infinite in exotericism—that from Parabrahman issued Mûlaprakriti, Purusha (the Logos) and Prakriti; the four forms—with itself, the synthesis—of Vâch. And in the Kabalah, Ain Suph, Shekinah, Adam Kadmon and Sephira, the four, or the three, emanations being distinct—yet One.

703.

Chaldean Book of Numbers. In the current Kabalah the name Jehovah replaces that of Adam Kadmon.

704.

Justin Martyr tells us that, owing to his ignorance of these four sciences, he was rejected by the Pythagoreans as a candidate for admission into their school.

705.

Diogenes Laërtius, in Vit. Pythag.

706.

31415, or π, the synthesis, or the Host unified in the Logos and the Point, called in Roman Catholicism the “Angel of the Face,” and in Hebrew, Michael, מיכאל, “who [is like unto, or the same] as God,” the manifested representation.

707.

Appearing at the beginning of Cycles, as also of every Sidereal Year, of 25,868 years. Therefore, the Kabeira or Kabarim received their name in Chaldæa, for it means the Measures of Heaven, from Kob, “measure of,” and Urim, “Heavens.”

708.

The Natural Genesis, II. 316.

709.

See Kircher's Œdipus Ægypt., II. 423.

710.

This Egyptian word Naja reminds one a good deal of the Indian Nâga, the Serpent-God. Brahmâ and Shiva and Vishnu are all crowned and connected with Nâgas—a sign of their cyclic and cosmic character.

711.

Comment. on the Yashna, 174.

712.

First Treatise, p. 59.

713.

Says the translator of Avicebron's Qabbalah of this “Sum Total”: “The letter of Kether is י (Yod), of Binah ה (Heh), together YaH, the feminine Name; the third letter, that of 'Hokhmah, is ו (Vav), making together יהו YHV of יהוה YHVH, the Tetragrammaton, and really the complete symbols of its efficaciousness. The last ה (Heh) of this Ineffable Name being always applied to the Six Lower and the last, together the Seven remaining Sephiroth.” (Myer's Qabbalah, p. 263). Thus the Tetragrammaton is holy only in its abstract synthesis. As a Quaternary containing the lower Seven Sephiroth, it is phallic.

714.

The statement will, of course, be found preposterous and absurd, and simply laughed at. But if one believes in the final submersion of Atlantis, 850,000 years ago, as taught in Esoteric Buddhism—the gradual first sinking having begun during the Eocene Age—one has also to accept the statement for the so-called Lemuria, the continent of the Third Root-Race, which was first nearly destroyed by combustion, and then submerged. As the Commentary teaches: “The First Earth having been purified by the Forty-nine Fires, her people, born of Fire and Water, could not die ...; the Second Earth [with its Race] disappeared as vapour vanishes in the air ...; the Third Earth had everything consumed on it after the Separation, and went down into the lower Deep [the Ocean]. This was twice eighty-two Cyclic Years ago.” Now a Cyclic Year is what we call a Sidereal Year, and is founded on the Precession of the Equinoxes. The length of this Sidereal Year is 25,868 years, and the period mentioned in the Commentary is, therefore, in all equal to 4,242,352 years. More details will be found in Volume II. Meanwhile, this doctrine is embodied in the “Kings of Edom.”

715.

The same reserve is found in the Talmud and in every national system of religion whether monotheistic or exoterically polytheistic. From the superb religious poem by the Kabalist Rabbi Solomon ben Yehudah Ibn Gabirol, the “Kether Malchuth,” we select a few definitions given in the prayers of Kippûr: “Thou art One, the beginning of all numbers, and the foundation of all edifices; Thou art One, and in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are lost, because they know it not. Thou art One, and Thy Unity is never diminished, never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art One, but not as an element of numeration; for Thy Unity admits not of multiplication, change or form. Thou art Existent; but the understanding and vision of mortals cannot attain to thy existence, nor determine for thee the Where, the How, and the Why. Thou art Existent, but in thyself alone, there being none other that can exist with thee. Thou art Existent, before all time and without place. Thou art Existent, and thy existence is so profound and secret that none can penetrate and discover thy secrecy. Thou art living, but within no time that can be fixed or known; Thou art living, but not by a spirit or a soul, for Thou art Thyself, the Soul of all Souls.” There is a distance between this Kabalistical Deity and the Biblical Jehovah, the spiteful and revengeful God of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, who tempted the first and wrestled with the last. No Vedântin but would repudiate such a Parabrahman!