We are reminded in King’s _Gnostics and their Remains_ that the Greek
language had but one word for _vowel_ and _voice_. This has led the
uninitiated to many erroneous interpretations. On the simple knowledge,
however, of this well‐known fact a comparison may be attempted, and a
flood of light thrown upon several mystic meanings. Thus the words, so
often used in the _Upanishads_ and the _Purânas_, “Sound” and “Speech,”
may be collated with the Gnostic “Vowels” and the “Voices” of the Thunders
and Angels in _Revelation_. The same will be found in _Pistis Sophia_, and
other ancient Fragments and MSS. This was remarked even by the matter‐of‐
fact author of the above mentioned work.
Through Hippolytus, an early Church Father, we learn what Marcus—a
Pythagorean rather than a Christian Gnostic, and a Kabalist most
certainly—had received in mystic revelation. It is said that Marcus had it
revealed unto him that:
The _seven heavens_(1326) ... sounded each one vowel, which, all
combined together, formed a single doxology, “the _sound_ whereof
being carried down [from these seven heavens] to earth, becomes
the creator and parent of all things that be on earth.”(1327)
Translated from the Occult phraseology into still plainer language this
would read: The Sevenfold Logos having differentiated into seven Logoi, or
Creative Potencies (Vowels), these (the Second Logos, or “Sound”) created
all on Earth.
Assuredly one who is acquainted with Gnostic literature can hardly help
seeing in St. John’s _Apocalypse_, a work of the same school of thought.
For we find John saying:
Seven thunders uttered their voices ... [and] I was about to write
... [but] I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up
those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them
not.(1328)
The same injunction is given to Marcus, the same to all other _semi_ and
_full_ Initiates. The very sameness of the expressions used, and of the
underlying ideas, always betrays a portion of the Mysteries. We must
always seek for more than one meaning in every mystery allegorically
revealed, especially in those in which the number seven and its
multiplication seven by seven, or forty‐nine, appear. Now when, in _Pistis
Sophia_, the Rabbi Jesus is requested by his disciples to reveal to them
the “Mysteries of the Light of his Father”—_i.e._, of the Higher Self
enlightened by Initiation and Divine Knowledge—Jesus answers:
Do ye seek after these mysteries? No mystery is more excellent
than they; which shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights,
unto the place of Truth and Goodness, unto the place where there
is neither male nor female, neither form in that place but Light,
everlasting, not to be uttered. Nothing therefore is more
excellent than the mysteries which ye seek after, _saving only the
mystery of the seven Vowels and their forty and nine Powers_, and
their numbers thereof. And no name is more excellent than all
these (Vowels).(1329)
As says the Commentary, speaking of the “Fires”:
_The Seven Fathers and the Forty‐nine Sons blaze in Darkness, but they are
the Life and Light and the continuation thereof through the Great Age._
Now it becomes evident that, in every Esoteric interpretation of exoteric
beliefs expressed in allegorical forms, there is the same underlying
idea—the basic number _seven_, the compound of _three_ and _four_,
preceded by the divine _three_ ([triangle]) making the perfect number
_ten_.
Also, these numbers apply equally to divisions of time, to cosmography,
metaphysical and physical, as well as to man and everything else in
visible Nature. Thus these seven Vowels with their forty‐nine Powers are
identical with the three and the seven Fires of the Hindûs and their
forty‐nine Fires; identical with the numerical mysteries of the Persian
Simorgh; identical with those of the Jewish Kabalists. The latter,
dwarfing the numbers (their mode of “blinds”), made the duration of each
successive Renewal, or what we call in Esoteric parlance Round, 1,000
years only or of the seven Renewals of the Globe 7,000 years, instead of,
as is more likely, 7,000,000,000, and assigned to the total duration of
the Universe 49,000 years only.(1330)
Now, the Secret Doctrine furnishes a key which reveals to us on the
Indisputable grounds of comparative analogy that Garuda, the allegorical
and monstrous half‐man and half‐bird—the Vâhana or vehicle on which
Vishnu, as Kâla or “Time,” is shown to ride—is the origin of all such
allegories. He is the Indian Phœnix, the emblem of cyclic and periodical
time, the “Man‐lion” (Sinha), of whose representations the so‐called
Gnostic gems are so full.(1331)
Over the seven rays of the lion’s crown, and corresponding to
their points, stand often the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet,
ΑΕΗΙΟΥΩ, testifying to the Seven Heavens.(1332)
This is the Solar Lion and the emblem of the Solar Cycle, as Garuda(1333)
is that of the Great Cycle, the Mahâ Kalpa, coëternal with Vishnu, and
also, of course, the emblem of the Sun and Solar Cycle. This is shown by
the details of the allegory. At his birth, Garuda, on account of his
“dazzling splendour,” is mistaken for Agni, the God of Fire, and was
thence called Gaganeshvara, “Lord of the Sky.” Its representation as
Osiris, on the Abraxas (Gnostic) gems, and by many heads of allegorical
monsters, with the head and beak of an eagle or a hawk—both solar
birds—denotes Garuda’s solar and cyclic character. His son is Jatâyu, the
cycle of 60,000 years. As well remarked by C. W. King:
Whatever its primary meaning [of the gem with the solar lion and
vowels] it was probably imported in its present shape from India
(that true fountain head of Gnostic iconography).(1334)
The mysteries of the seven Gnostic Vowels, uttered by the Thunders of St.
John, can be unriddled only by the primeval and original Occultism of
Âryâvarta, brought into India by the primeval Brâhmans, who had been
_initiated in Central Asia_. And this is the Occultism we study and try to
explain, as much as is possible, in these pages. Our doctrine of seven
Races, and seven Rounds of life and evolution around our Terrestrial Chain
of Spheres, may be found even in _Revelation_.(1335) When the seven
“Thunders,” or “Sounds,” or “Vowels”—one meaning out of the seven for each
such vowel relates directly to our own Earth and its seven Root‐Races in
each Round—“had uttered their voices,” but had forbidden the Seer to write
them, and made him “seal up those things,” what did the Angel, “standing
upon the sea and upon the earth,” do?
He lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for
ever and ever, ... that there _should be time no longer_: but in
the days of the voice of the _seventh_ angel, when he shall begin
to sound, the mystery of God [of the Cycle] should be
finished.(1336)
This means, in Theosophic phraseology, that when the Seventh Round is
completed, then Time will cease. “There shall be time no longer”—very
naturally, since Pralaya shall set in and there will remain no one on
Earth to keep a division of time, during that periodical dissolution and
arrest of conscious life.
Dr. Kenealy and others believed that the calculations of the cyclic seven
and forty‐nine were brought by the Rabbins from Chaldæa. This is more than
likely. But the Babylonians, who had all those cycles and taught them only
at their great initiatory mysteries of astrological Magic, got their
wisdom and learning from India. It is not difficult, therefore, to
recognize in them our own Esoteric Doctrine. In their secret computations,
the Japanese have the same figures in their cycles. As to the Brâhmans,
their _Purânas_ and _Upanishads_ are good proof of it. The latter have
passed entirely into Gnostic literature; and a Brâhman needs only to read
_Pistis Sophia_(1337) to recognize his forefathers’ property, even to the
phraseology and similes used. Let us compare. In _Pistis Sophia_ the
disciples say to Jesus:
Rabbi, reveal unto us the mysteries of the Light [_i.e._, the
“Fire of Knowledge or Enlightenment”], ... forasmuch as we have
heard thee saying that there is another baptism of _smoke_, and
another baptism of the Spirit of Holy Light [_i.e._ the Spirit of
Fire].(1338)
As John says of Jesus:
I indeed baptize you with water; ... but he shall baptize you with
the Holy Ghost and with fire.
The real significance of this statement is very profound. It means that
John, a non‐initiated ascetic, can impart to his disciples no greater
wisdom than the Mysteries connected with the plane of Matter, of which
Water is the symbol. His Gnosis was that of exoteric and ritualistic
dogma, of dead‐letter orthodoxy;(1339) while the wisdom which Jesus, an
Initiate of the Higher Mysteries, would reveal to them, was of a higher
character, for it was the “Fire” Wisdom of the true Gnosis or _real_
Spiritual Enlightenment. One was Fire, the other the Smoke. For Moses, the
Fire on Mount Sinai and the Spiritual Wisdom; for the multitudes of the
“people” below, for the profane, Mount Sinai in (through) Smoke, _i.e._,
the exoteric husks of orthodox or sectarian ritualism.
Now, having the above in view, read the dialogue between the sages Nârada
and Devamata in the _Anugîtâ_,(1340) an episode from the _Mahâbhârata_,
the antiquity and importance of which one can learn in the “Sacred Books
of the East,” edited by Prof. Max Müller.(1341) Nârada is discoursing upon
the “breaths” or the “life‐winds,” as they are called in the clumsy
translations of such words as Prâna, Apâna, etc., whose full Esoteric
meaning and application to individual functions can hardly be rendered in
English. He says of this science that:
It is the teaching of the Veda, that the _fire_ verily is all the
deities, and knowledge (of it) arises among Brâhmanas, being
accompanied by intelligence.(1342)
By “fire,” says the Commentator, he means the Self. By “intelligence,” the
Occultist says, Nârada meant neither “discussion” nor “argumentation,” as
Arjuna Mishra believes, but “intelligence” truly, or the adaptation of the
_Fire of Wisdom_ to _exoteric ritualism_ for the profane. This is the
chief concern of the Brâhmans, who were the first to set the example to
other nations who thus anthropomorphized and carnalized the grandest
metaphysical truths. Nârada shows this plainly and is made to say:
The _smoke_ of that (fire) which is of excellent glory (appears)
in the shape of ... darkness [verily so!]; (its) ashes, ... [are]
passion; and ... goodness is that in connection with it, in which
the offering is thrown.(1343)
That is to say, that faculty in the disciple which apprehends the subtle
truth (the flame) which escapes heavenward, while the objective sacrifice
remains as a proof and _evidence of piety_ only to the profane. For what
else can Nârada mean by the following?
Those who understand the sacrifice understand the Samâna and the
Vyâna as the _principal_ (offering). The Prâna and Apâna are
portions of the offering, ... and between them is the _fire_. That
is the excellent seat of the Udâna as understood by Brâhmanas. As
to that which is distinct from these pairs, hear me speak about
that. Day and night are a pair, between them is the fire.... That
_which exists_ and _that which does not exist_ are a pair, between
them is the fire....(1344)
And after every such contrast Nârada adds:
That is the excellent seat of the Udâna as understood by
Brâhmanas.
Now many people do not know the full meaning of the statement that Samâna
and Vyâna, Prâna and Apâna—which are explained to be “life‐winds,” but
which we say are principles and their respective faculties and senses—are
offered up to Udâna, the _soi‐disant_ principal “life‐wind,” which is said
to act at all the joints. And so the reader who is ignorant that the word
“Fire” in these allegories means both the “Self” and the higher Divine
Knowledge, will understand nothing in this, and will entirely miss the
point of our argument, as the translator and even the editor, the great
Oxford Sanskritist, F. Max Müller, have missed the true meaning of
Nârada’s words. Exoterically, this enumeration of “life‐winds” has, of
course, the meaning, _approximately_, which is surmised in the foot‐notes,
namely:
The sense _appears_ to be this: The course of worldly life is due
to the operations of the life‐winds which are attached to the self
and lead to its manifestations as individual souls [?]. Of these,
the Samâna and Vyâna are controlled and held under check by the
Prâna and Apâna.... The latter two are held in check and
controlled by the Udâna, which thus controls all. And the control
of this, which is the control of all five, ... leads to the
supreme self.(1345)
The above is given as an explanation of the text, which records the words
of the Brâhmana, who narrates how he reached the ultimate Wisdom of
Yogism, and in this wise reached All‐knowledge. Saying that he had
“perceived by means of the self the seat abiding in the self,”(1346) where
dwells the Brahma free from all; and explaining that that indestructible
principle was entirely _beyond the perception of senses_—_i.e._, of the
five “life‐winds”—he adds that:
In the midst of all these (life‐winds) which move about in the
body and swallow up one another, blazes the Vaishvânara fire
_sevenfold_.(1347)
This “Fire,” according to Nîlakantha’s commentary, is identical with the
“I,” the Self, which is the goal of the ascetic; Vaishvânara being a word
often used for the Self. Then the Brâhmana goes on to enumerate that which
is meant by the word “sevenfold,” and says:
The nose [or smell], and the tongue [taste], and the eye, and the
skin, and the ear as the fifth, the mind, and the understanding,
these are the seven tongues of the blaze of Vaishvânara.(1348)...
Those are the seven (kinds of) fuel for me.(1349)... These are the
_seven great officiating priests_.(1350)
These seven priests are accepted by Arjuna Mishra in the sense of meaning
“the soul distinguished as so many [souls, or principles] with reference
to these several powers”; and, finally, the translator seems to accept the
explanation, and reluctantly admits that “they may mean” this; though he
himself takes the sense to mean:
The powers of hearing etc. [the physical senses, in short], which
are presided over by the several deities.
But whatever it may mean, whether in scientific or orthodox
interpretations, this passage on page 259 explains Nârada’s statements on
page 276, and shows them referring to exoteric and esoteric methods and
contrasting them. Thus the Samâna and the Vyâna, though subject to the
Prâna and the Apâna, and all the four to Udâna in the matter of acquiring
the Prânâyâma (of the Hatha Yogî, chiefly, or the lower form of Yoga), are
yet referred to as the principal offering, for, as rightly argued by K.
Trimbak Telang, their “operations are more practically important for
vitality”; _i.e._, they are the grossest, and are offered in the
sacrifice, in order that they may disappear, so to speak, in the quality
of darkness of that fire or its _smoke_—mere exoteric ritualistic form.
But Prâna and Apâna, though shown as subordinate (because less gross or
more purified), have the Fire between them; the Self and the Secret
Knowledge possessed by that Self. So for the good and evil, and for “that
which exists and that which does not exist”; all these “pairs”(1351) have
Fire between them, _i.e._, Esoteric Knowledge, the Wisdom of the Divine
Self. Let those who are satisfied with the _smoke_ of the Fire remain
wherein they are, that is to say within the Egyptian darkness of
theological fictions and dead‐letter interpretations.
The above is written only for the Western students of Occultism and
Theosophy. The writer presumes to explain these things neither to the
Hindûs, who have their own Gurus; nor to the Orientalists, who think they
know more than all the Gurus and Rishis, past and present, put together.
These rather lengthy quotations and examples are necessary, if only to
point out to the student the works he has to study so as to derive benefit
and learning from comparison. Let him read _Pistis Sophia_ in the light of
the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, the _Anugîtâ_ and others; and then the statement made
by Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel will become clear, and the dead‐letter
“blinds” disappear at once. Read the following and compare it with the
explanation from the Hindû scriptures just given.
And no Name is more excellent than all these, a Name wherein be
contained all Names, and all Lights, and all the [forty‐nine]
Powers. Knowing that Name, if a man quits this body of
matter,(1352) no _smoke_ [_i.e._, no theological delusion],(1353)
no darkness, nor Power, nor Ruler of the Sphere [no _Personal_
Genius or Planetary Spirit called God] of Fate [Karma] ... shall
be able to hold back the Soul that knoweth that Name.... If he
shall utter that Name unto the fire, ... the darkness shall flee
away.... And if he shall utter that name unto ... all their
Powers, nay, even unto Barbelo,(1354) and the Invisible God, and
the three triple‐powered Gods, so soon as he shall have uttered
that name in those places, they shall all be thrown one upon the
other, so that they shall be ready to melt and perish, and shall
cry aloud, O Light of every light that is in the boundless lights,
remember us also and purify us!(1355)
It is easy to see what this Light and Name are: the Light of Initiation
and the name of the “Fire‐Self,” which is no name, no action, but a
Spiritual, Ever‐living Power, higher even than the real “Invisible God,”
as this Power is Itself.
But if the able and learned author of the _Gnostics and their Remains_ has
not sufficiently allowed for the spirit of allegory and mysticism in the
fragments translated and quoted by him, in the above named work, from
_Pistis Sophia_—other Orientalists have done far worse. Having neither his
intuitional perception of the Indian origin of the Gnostic Wisdom still
less of the meaning of their “gems,” most of them, beginning with Wilson
and ending with the dogmatic Weber, have made most extraordinary blunders
with regard to almost every symbol. Sir M. Monier Williams and others show
a very decided contempt for the “Esoteric Buddhists” as Theosophists are
now called; yet no student of Occult Philosophy has ever mistaken a cycle
for a living personage and _vice versâ_, as is very often the case with
our learned Orientalists. An instance or two may illustrate the statement
more graphically. Let us choose the best known.
In the _Râmâyana_, Garuda is called “the maternal uncle of Sagara’s 60,000
sons”; and Amshumat, Sagara’s grandson, “the nephew of the 60,000 uncles”
who were reduced to ashes by the look of Kapila—the Purushottama, or
Infinite Spirit, who caused the horse which Sagara was keeping for the
Ashvamedha sacrifice to disappear. Again, Garuda’s son(1356);—Garuda being
himself the Mahâ Kalpa or Great Cycle—Jatâyu, the king of the feathered
tribe (when on the point of being slain by Râvana who carries off Sîtâ)
says, speaking of himself: “It is 60,000 years O king, that I am born”;
after which, _turning his back_ on the Sun—he dies.
Jatâyu is, of course, the cycle of 60,000 years within the Great Cycle of
Garuda; hence he is represented as his son, or nephew, _ad libitum_, since
the whole meaning rests on his being placed in the line of Garuda’s
descendants. Then, again, there is Diti, the mother of the Maruts, whose
descendants and progeny belonged to the posterity of Hiranyâksha, “whose
number was 77 crores (or 770 millions) of men,” according to the _Padma
Purâna_. All such narratives are pronounced “meaningless fictions” and
absurdities. But—truth is the daughter of time, verily; and time _will_
show.
Meanwhile, what could be easier than an attempt, at least, to verify
Paurânic chronology? There are many Kapilas; but the Kapila who slew king
Sagara’s progeny—60,000 men strong—was undeniably Kapila, the founder of
the Sânkhya philosophy, since it is so stated in the _Purânas_; although
one of them flatly denies the imputation without explaining its Esoteric
meaning. It is the _Bhâgavata Purâna_(1357) which says that:
The report is not true that the sons of the king were scorched by
the wrath of the sage. For how can the quality of darkness, the
product of anger, exist in a Sage whose body was goodness and who
purified the world—the earth’s dust, as it were, attributed to
heavens! How should mental perturbation distract that sage,
identified with the Supreme Spirit, who has steered here (on
earth) that solid vessel of the Sânkhya (philosophy), with the
help of which he who desires to obtain liberation crosses the
dreaded ocean of existence, that path to death?(1358)
The _Purâna_ is in duty bound to speak as it does. It has a dogma to
promulgate and a policy to carry out—that of great secrecy with regard to
mystical _divine_ truths divulged for countless ages only at Initiation.
It is not in the _Purânas_, therefore, that we have to look for an
explanation of the mystery connected with various transcendental states of
being. That the story is an allegory is seen upon its very face: the
60,000 “sons,” brutal, vicious, and impious, are the personification of
the _human passions_ that a “mere glance of the Sage”—the Self who
represents the highest state of purity that can be reached on
Earth—reduces to ashes. But it has also other significations, cyclic and
chronological meanings, a method of marking the periods when certain Sages
flourished, found also in other _Purânas_.
Now it is as well ascertained as any tradition can be, that it was at
Hardwar, or Gangâdvâra, the “door or gate of the Ganges,” at the foot of
the Himâlayas, that Kapila sat in meditation for a number of years. Not
far from the Sewalik range, the pass of Hardwar is called to this day
“Kapila’s Pass,” and the place also is named “Kapilasthen” by the
ascetics. It is there that the Ganges, Gangâ, emerging from its
mountainous gorge, begins its course over the sultry plains of India. And
it is clearly ascertained by geological survey that the tradition which
claims that the ocean washed the base of the Himâlayas ages ago, is not
entirely without foundation, for distinct traces of this still remain.
The Sânkhya Philosophy may have been _brought down_ and taught by the
first, and written out by the _last_ Kapila.
Now Sâgara is the name of the ocean, and especially of the Bay of Bengal,
at the mouth of the Ganges, to this day in India.(1359) Have Geologists
ever calculated the number of millenniums it must have taken the sea to
recede the distance it is now from Hardwar, which is at present 1,024 feet
above its level? If they had, those Orientalists who show Kapila
flourishing from the first to the ninth century A.D., might change their
opinions, if only for one of two very good reasons. Firstly, the true
number of years which have elapsed since Kapila’s day is unmistakably in
the _Purânas_, though the translators may fail to see it; and secondly,
the Kapila of the Satya, and the Kapila of the Kali Yugas, may be one and
the same _individuality_, without being the same _personality_.
Kapila, besides being the name of a personage, of the once living Sage and
the author of the Sânkhya Philosophy, is also the generic name of the
Kumâras, the celestial Ascetics and Virgins; therefore the very fact of
the _Bhâgavata Purâna_ calling _that_ Kapila—whom it had showed just
before as a portion of Vishnu—the author of the Sânkhya Philosophy, ought
to have warned the reader of a “blind” containing an Esoteric meaning.
Whether he was the son of Vitatha, as the _Harivamsha_ shows him to be, or
of any one else, the author of the Sânkhya cannot be the same as the Sage
of the Satya Yuga—at the very beginning of the Manvantara, when Vishnu is
shown _in the form of Kapila_, “imparting to all creatures true Wisdom”;
for this relates to that primordial period when the “Sons of God” taught
to the newly created men those arts and sciences, which have since been
cultivated and preserved in the sanctuaries by the Initiates. There are
several well‐known Kapilas in the _Purânas_. First the primeval Sage, then
Kapila one of the three “secret” Kumâras, and Kapila son of Kashyapa and
Kadrû—the “many‐headed serpent”(1360)—besides Kapila the great Sage and
Philosopher of the Kali Yuga. The latter, being an Initiate, a “Serpent of
Wisdom,” a Nâga, was purposely blended with the Kapilas of the former
ages.