Chapter 13
To ascertain such disputed questions, one has to look into and study well the Chinese sacred and historical records--a people whose era begins nearly 4,600 years back (2697 B.C.). A people so accurate, and by whom some of the most important inventions of modern Europe and its so much boasted modern science were anticipated--such as the compass, gunpowder, porcelain, paper, printing, &c.--known and practiced thousands of years before these were rediscovered by the Europeans, ought to receive some trust for their records. And from Lao-tze down to Hiouen-Thsang their literature is filled with allusions and references to that island and the wisdom of the Himalayan adepts. In the "Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese," by the Rev. Samuel Beal, there is a chapter "On the TIAN-TA'I School of Buddhism" (pp. 244-258) which our opponents ought to read. Translating the rules of that most celebrated and holy school and sect in China founded by Chin-che-K'hae, called Che-chay (the Wise One), in the year 575 of our era, when coming to the sentence which reads "That which relates to the one garment (seamless) worn by the GREAT TEACHERS OF THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS, the school of the Haimavatas" (p. 256), the European translator places after the last sentence a sign of interrogation, as well he may. The statistics of the school of the "Haimavatas," or of our Himalayan Brotherhood, are not to be found in the general census records of India. Further, Mr. Beal translates a rule relating to "the great professors of the higher order who live in mountain depths remote from men," the Aranyakas, or hermits.
So, with respect to the traditions concerning this island, and apart from the (to them) historical records of this preserved in the Chinese and Tibetan sacred books, the legend is alive to this day among the people of Tibet. The fair island is no more, but the country where it once bloomed remains there still, and the spot is well known to some of the "great teachers of the Snowy Mountains," however much convulsed and changed its topography by the awful cataclysm. Every seventh year these teachers are believed to assemble in SCHAM-BHA-LA, the "Happy Land." According to the general belief it is situated in the north-west of Tibet. Some place it within the unexplored central regions, inaccessible even to the fearless nomadic tribes; others hem it in between the range of the Gangdisri Mountains and the northern edge of the Gobi desert, south and north, and the more populated regions of Khoondooz and Kashmir, of the Gya-Pheling (British India), and China, west and east, which affords to the curious mind a pretty large latitude to locate it in. Others still place it between Namur Nur and the Kuen-Lun Mountains, but one and all firmly believe in Scham-bha-la, and speak of it as a fertile fairy-like land once an island, now an oasis of incomparable beauty, the place of meeting of the inheritors of the esoteric wisdom of the god-like inhabitants of the legendary island.
In connection with the archaic legend of the Asian Sea and the Atlantic Continent, is it not profitable to note a fact known to all modern geologists-that the Himalayan slopes afford geological proof that the substance of those lofty peaks was once a part of an ocean floor?
Note IV.
We have already pointed out that, in our opinion, the whole difference between Buddhistic and Vedantic philosophies was that the former was a kind of Rationalistic Vedantism, while the latter might be regarded as transcendental Buddhism. If the Aryan esotericism applies the term jivatma to the seventh principle--the pure and per se unconscious spirit--it is because the Vedanta, postulating three kinds of existence--(1) the paramarthika (the true, the only real one), (2) the vyavaharika (the practical), and (3) the pratibhasika (the apparent or illusory life)--makes the first life or jiva, the only truly existent one. Brahma, or the ONE'S SELF, is its only representative in the universe, as it is the universal Life in toto, while the other two are but its "phenomenal appearances," imagined and created by ignorance, and complete illusions suggested to us by our blind senses. The Buddhists, on the other hand, deny either subjective or objective reality even to that one Self-Existence. Buddha declares that there is neither Creator nor an Absolute Being. Buddhist rationalism was ever too alive to the insuperable difficulty of admitting one absolute consciousness, as in the words of Flint, "wherever there is consciousness there is relation, and wherever there is relation there is dualism." The ONE LIFE is either "MUKTA" (absolute and unconditioned), and can have no relation to anything nor to any one; or it is "BADDHA" (bound and conditioned), and then it cannot be called the absolute; the limitation, moreover, necessitating another deity as powerful as the first to account for all the evil in this world. Hence, the Arahat secret doctrine on cosmogony admits but of one absolute, indestructible, eternal, and uncreated UNCONSCIOUSNESS (so to translate) of an element (the word being used for want of a better term) absolutely independent of everything else in the universe; a something ever present or ubiquitous, a Presence which ever was, is, and will be, whether there is a God, gods, or none, whether there is a universe, or no universe, existing during the eternal cycles of Maha Yugs, during the Pralayas as during the periods of Manvantara, and this is SPACE, the field for the operation of the eternal Forces and natural Law, the basis (as Mr. Subba Row rightly calls it) upon which take place the eternal intercorrelations of Akasa-Prakriti; guided by the unconscious regular pulsations of Sakti, the breath or power of a conscious deity, the theists would say; the eternal energy of an eternal, unconscious Law, say the Buddhists. Space, then, or "Fan, Bar-nang" (Maha Sunyata) or, as it is called by Lao-tze, the "Emptiness," is the nature of the Buddhist Absolute. (See Confucius' "Praise of the Abyss.") The word jiva, then, could never be applied by the Arahats to the Seventh Principle, since it is only through its correlation or contact with matter that Fo-hat (the Buddhist active energy) can develop active conscious life; and that to the question "how can unconsciousness generate consciousness?" the answer would be: "Was the seed which generated a Bacon or a Newton self-conscious?"
Note V.
To our European readers, deceived by the phonetic similarity, it must not be thought that the name "Brahman" is identical in this connection with Brahma or Iswara, the personal God. The Upanishads--the Vedanta Scriptures--mention no such God, and one would vainly seek in them any allusions to a conscious deity. The Brahman, or Parabrahm, the absolute of the Vedantins, is neuter and unconscious, and has no connection with the masculine Brahma of the Hindu Triad, or Trimurti. Some Orientalists rightly believe the name derived from the verb "Brih," to grow or increase, and to be in this sense the universal expansive force of Nature, the vivifying and spiritual principle or power spread throughout the universe, and which, in its collectivity, is the one Absoluteness, the one Life and the only Reality.
--H.P. Blavatsky
Septenary Division in Different Indian Systems
We give below in a tabular form the classifications, adopted by Buddhist and by Vedantic teachers, of the principles in man:--
Classification in Vedantic Classification in Esoteric Buddhism Classification Taraka Raja Yoga
(1.) Sthula sarira Annamaya kosa Sthulopadhi
(2.) Prana Pranamaya kosa (3.)The Vehicle of Prana
(4.) Kama rupa (a) Volitions Manomaya kosa (5.) Mind/& feelings &c. Sukshmopadhi (b) Vignanam Vignanamayakosa
(6.) Spiritual Soul Anandamayakosa Karanopadhi
(7.) Atma Atma Atma
From the foregoing table it will be seen that the third principle in the Buddhist classification is not separately mentioned in the Vedantic division as it is merely the vehicle of prana. It will also be seen that the fourth principle is included in the third kosa (sheath), as the said principle is but the vehicle of will-power, which is but an energy of the mind. It must also be noticed that the Vignanamayakosa is considered to be distinct from the Manomayakosa, as a division is made after death between the lower part of the mind, as it were, which has a closer affinity with the fourth principle than with the sixth and its higher part, which attaches itself to the latter, and which is, in fact, the basis for the higher spiritual individuality of man.
We may also here point out to our readers that the classification mentioned in the last column is for all practical purposes connected with Raja Yoga, the best and simplest. Though there are seven principles in man, there are but three distinct Upadhis (bases), in each of which his Atma may work independently of the rest. These three Upadhis can be separated by an adept without killing himself. He cannot separate the seven principles from each other without destroying his constitution.
--T.S.
The Septenary Principle in Esotericism
Since the exposition of the Arhat esoteric doctrine was begun, many who had not acquainted themselves with the occult basis of Hindu philosophy have imagined that the two were in conflict. Some of the more bigoted have openly charged the Occultists of the Theosophical Society with propagating rank Buddhistic heresy; and have even gone to the length of affirming that the whole Theosophic movement was but a masked Buddhistic propaganda. We were taunted by ignorant Brahmins and learned Europeans that our septenary divisions of Nature and everything in it, including man, are arbitrary and not endorsed by the oldest religious systems of the East. It is now proposed to throw a cursory glance at the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Law-Books of Manu, and especially the Vedanta, and show that they too support our position. Even in their crude exotericism their affirmation of the sevenfold division is apparent. Passage after passage may be cited in proof. And not only can the mysterious number be found traced on every page of the oldest Aryan Sacred Scriptures, but in the oldest books of Zoroastrianism as well; in the rescued cylindrical tile records of old Babylonia and Chaldea, in the "Book of the Dead" and the Ritualism of ancient Egypt, and even in the Mosaic books--without mentioning the secret Jewish works, such as the Kabala.
The limited space at command forces us to allow a few brief quotations to stand as landmarks and not even attempt long explanations. It is no exaggeration to say that upon each of the few hints now given in the cited Slokas a thick volume might be written.
From the well-known hymn To Time, in the Atharva-Veda (xix. 53):
"Time, like a brilliant steed with seven rays, Full of fecundity, bears all things onward.
"Time, like a seven-wheeled, seven-naved car moves on, His rolling wheels are all the worlds, his axle Is immortality...."
--down to Manu, "the first and the seventh man," the Vedas, the Upanishads, and all the later systems of philosophy teem with allusions to this number. Who was Manu, the son of Swayambhuva? The secret doctrine tells us that this Manu was no man, but the representation of the first human races evolved with the help of the Dhyan-Chohans (Devas) at the beginning of the first Round. But we are told in his Laws (Book I. 80) that there are fourteen Manus for every Kalpa or "interval from creation to creation" (read interval from one minor "Pralaya" to another) and that "in the present divine age there have been as yet seven Manus." Those who know that there are seven Rounds, of which we have passed three, and are now in the fourth; and who are taught that there are seven dawns and seven twilights, or fourteen Manvantaras; that at the beginning of every Round and at the end, and on and between the planets, there is "an awakening to illusive life," and "an awakening to real life," and that, moreover, there are "root-Manus," and what we have to clumsily translate as the "seed-Manus"--the seeds for the human races of the forthcoming Round (a mystery divulged but to those who have passed the 3rd degree in initiation); those who have learned all that, will be better prepared to understand the meaning of the following. We are told in the Sacred Hindu Scriptures that "the first Manu produced six other Manus (seven primary Manus in all), and these produced in their turn each seven other Manus" (Bhrigu I. 61-63),* the production of the latter standing in the occult treatises as 7 x 7. Thus it becomes clear that Manu--the last one, the progenitor of our Fourth Round Humanity--must be the seventh, since we are on our fourth Round, and that there is a root-Manu on globe A and a seed-Manu on globe G. Just as each planetary Round commences with the appearance of a "Root-Manu" (Dhyan-Chohan) and closes with a "Seed-Manu," so a root-and a seed-Manu appear respectively at the beginning and the termination of the human period on any particular planet.
* The fact that Manu himself is made to declare that he was created by Viraj and then produced the ten Prajapatis, who again produced seven Menus, who in their turn gave birth to seven other Manus (Manu, I. 33-36), relates to other still earlier mysteries, and is at the same time a blind with regard to the doctrine of the Septenary chain. ---------
It will be easily seen from the foregoing statement that a Manu-antaric period means, as the term implies, the time between the appearance of two Manus or Dhyan-Chohans: and hence a minor Manu-antara is the duration of the seven races on any particular planet, and a major Manu-antara is the period of one human round along the planetary chain. Moreover, that, as it is said that each of the seven Manus creates 7 x 7 Manus, and that there are 49 root-races on the seven planets during each Round, then every root-race has its Manu. The present seventh Manu is called "Vaivasvata," and stands in the exoteric texts for that Manu who represents in India the Babylonian Xisusthrus and the Jewish Noah. But in the esoteric books we are told that Manu Vaivasvata, the progenitor of our fifth race--who saved it from the flood that nearly exterminated the fourth (Atlantean)--is not the seventh Manu, mentioned in the nomenclature of the Root, or primitive Manus, but one of the 49 "emanated from this 'root'--Manu."
For clearer comprehension we here give the names of the 14 Manus in their respective order and relation to each Round:--
1st 1st (Root) Manu on Planet A.-Swayambhuva Round. 1st (Seed) Manu on Planet G.-Swarochi (or)Swarotisha
2nd 2nd (R.) M. on Planet A.-Uttama Round 2nd (S.) M. " " G.-Thamasa
3rd 3rd (R.) M. " " A.-Raivata Round 3rd (S.) M. " " G.-Chackchuska
4th 4th (R.) M. " " A.-Vaivasvata (our progenitor) Round 4th (S.) M. " " G.-Savarni
5th 5th (R.) M. " " A.-Daksha Savarni Round 5th (S.) M. " " G.-Brahma Savarni
6th 6th (R.) M. on Planet A.-Dharma Savarni Round 6th (S.) M. " " G.-Rudra Savarni
7th 7th (R.) M. " " A.-Rouchya Round 7th (S.) M. " " G.-Bhoutya
Vaivasvata thus, though seventh in the order given, is the primitive Root-Manu of our fourth Human Wave (the reader must always remember that Manu is not a man but collective humanity), while our Vaivasvata was but one of the seven Minor Manus who are made to preside over the seven races of this our planet. Each of these has to become the witness of one of the periodical and ever-recurring cataclysms (by fire and water in turn) that close the cycle of every root-race. And it is this Vaivasvata--the Hindu ideal embodiment called respectively Xisusthrus, Deukalion, Noah, and by other names--who is the allegorical man who rescued our race when nearly the whole population of one hemisphere perished by water, while the other hemisphere was awakening from its temporary obscuration.
The number seven stands prominently conspicuous in even a cursory comparison of the 11th Tablet of the Izdhubar Legends of the Chaldean account of the Deluge and the so-called Mosaic books. In both the number seven plays a most prominent part. The clean beasts are taken by sevens, the fowls by sevens also; in seven days, it is promised Noah, to rain upon the earth; thus he stays "yet other seven days," and again seven days; while in the Chaldean. account of the Deluge, on the seventh day the rain abated. On the seventh day the dove is sent out; by sevens, Xisusthrus takes "jugs of wine" for the altar, &c. Why such coincidence? And yet we are told by, and bound to believe in, the European Orientalists, when passing judgment alike upon the Babylonian and Aryan chronology they call them "extravagant and fanciful!" Nevertheless, while they give us no explanation of, nor have they ever noticed, as far as we know, the strange identity in the totals of the Semitic, Chaldean, and Aryan Hindu chronology, the students of Occult Philosophy find the following fact extremely suggestive. While the period of the reign of the 10 Babylonian antediluvian kings is given as 432,000 years,* the duration of the postdiluvian Kali-yug is also given as 432,000, while the four ages or the divine Maha-yug, yield in their totality 4,320,000 years. Why should they, if fanciful and "extravagant," give the identical figures, when neither the Aryans nor the Babylonians have surely borrowed anything from each other! We invite the attention of our occultists to the three figures given--4 standing for the perfect square, 3 for the triad (the seven universal and the seven individual principles), and 2 the symbol of our illusionary world, a figure ignored and rejected by Pythagoras.
* See "Babylonia," by George Smith, p. 36. Here again, as with the Manus and 10 Prajapatis and the 10 Sephiroths in the Book of Numbers-- they dwindle down to seven! --------
It is in the Upanishads and the Vedanta though, that we have to look for the best corroborations of the occult teachings. In the mystical doctrine the Rahasya, or the Upanishads--"the only Veda of all thoughtful Hindus in the present day," as Monier Williams is made to confess, every word, as its very name implies,* has a secret meaning underlying it. This meaning can be fully realized only by him who has a full knowledge of Prana, the ONE LIFE, "the nave to which are attached the seven spokes of the Universal Wheel." (Hymn to Prana, Atharva-Veda, XI. 4.)
Even European Orientalists agree that all the systems in India assign to the human body: (a) an exterior or gross body (sthula-sarira); (b) an inner or shadowy body (sukshma), or linga-sarira (the vehicle), the two cemented with--(c), life (jiv or Karana sarira, "causal body").** These the occult system or esotericism divides into seven, farther adding to these--kama, manas, buddhi and atman. The Nyaya philosophy when treating of Prameyas (by which the objects and subjects of Praman are to be correctly understood) includes among the 12 the seven "root principles" (see IXth Sutra), which are 1, soul (atman), and 2 its superior spirit Jivatman; 3, body (sarira); 4, senses (indriya); 5, activity or will (pravritti); 6, mind (manas); 7, Intellection (Buddhi). The seven Padarthas (inquiries or predicates of existing things) of Kanada in the Vaiseshikas, refer in the occult doctrine to the seven qualities or attributes of the seven principles. Thus: 1, substance (dravya) refers to body or sthula-sarira; 2, quality or property (guna) to the life principle, jiv; 3, action or act (karman) to the Linga, sarira; 4, Community or commingling of properties (Samanya) to Kamarupa; 5, personality or conscious individuality (Visesha) to Manas; 6, co-inherence or perpetual intimate relation (Samuvuya) to Buddhi, the inseparable vehicle of Atman; 7, non-existence or non-being in the sense of, and as separate from, objectivity or substance (abhava)--to the highest monad or Atman.
* Upa-ni-shad means, according to Brahminical authority, "to conquer ignorance by revealing the secret spiritual knowledge." According to Monier Williams, the title is derived from the root sad with the prepositions upa and ni, and implies "something mystical that underlies or is beneath the surface."
** This Karana-sarira is often mistaken by the uninitiated for Linga-sarira, and since it is described as the inner rudimentary or latent embryo of the body, confounded with it. But the Occultists regard it as the life (body) or Jiv, which disappears at death; is withdrawn--leaving the 1st and 3rd principles to disintegrate and return to their elements. ----------
Thus, whether we view the ONE as the Vedic Purusha or Brahman (neuter) the "all-expanding essence;" or as the universal spirit, the "light of lights" (jyotisham jyotih) the TOTAL independent of all relation, of the Upanishads; or as the Paramatman of the Vedanta; or again as Kanada's Adrishta, "the unseen Force," or divine atom; or as Prakriti, the "eternally existing essence," of Kapila--we find in all these impersonal universal Principles the latent capability of evolving out of themselves "six rays" (the evolver being the seventh). The third aphorism of the Sankhya-Karika, which says of Prakriti that it is the "root and substance of all things," and no production, but itself a producer of "seven things, which produced by it, become also producers," has a purely occult meaning.
What are the "producers" evoluted from this universal root-principle, Mula-prakriti or undifferentiated primeval cosmic matter, which evolves out of itself consciousness and mind, and is generally called "Prakriti" and amulam mulam, "the rootless root," and Aryakta, the "unevolved evolver," &c.? This primordial tattwa or "eternally existing 'that,'" the unknown essence, is said to produce as a first producer, 1, Buddhi-- "intellect"--whether we apply the latter to the 6th macrocosmic or microcosmic principle. This first produced produces in its turn (or is the source of) Ahankara, "self-consciousness" and manas "mind." The reader will please always remember that the Mahat or great source of these two internal faculties, "Buddhi" per se, can have neither self-consciousness nor mind; viz., the 6th principle in man can preserve an essence of personal self-consciousness or "personal individuality" only by absorbing within itself its own waters, which have run through that finite faculty; for Ahankara, that is the perception of "I," or the sense of one's personal individuality, justly represented by the term "Ego-ism," belongs to the second, or rather the third, production out of the seven, viz., to the 5th principle, or Manas. It is the latter which draws "as the web issues from the spider" along the thread of Prakriti, the "root principle," the four following subtle elementary principles or particles--Tanmatras, out of which "third class," the Mahabhutas or the gross elementary principles, or rather sarira and rupas, are evolved-- the kama, linga, Jiva and sthula-sarira. The three gunas of "Prakriti"--the Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas (purity, passionate activity, and ignorance or darkness)--spun into a triple-stranded cord or "rope," pass through the seven, or rather six, human principles.