Chapter ii
. of _Genesis_; and he does so correctly, guided, as he probably was, by learned Kabalists. The Protestants are certainly wrong in their contention, for angels _are_ mentioned in the Pentateuch under the word _tsaba_, which means “hosts” of angels. In the Vulgate the word is translated _ornatus_, meaning the “sidereal army,” the _ornament_ also of the sky—kabalistically. The biblical scholars of the Protestant Church, and the _savants_ among the materialists, who failed to find “angels” mentioned by Moses, have thus committed a serious error. For the verse reads:
Thus the heaven and the earth were finished and all the host of them,
the “host” meaning “the army of stars and angels”; the last two words being, it seems, convertible terms in Church phraseology. A Lapide is cited as an authority for this; he says that
_Tsaba_ does not mean _either one_ or the other but “_the one and the other_,” or both, _siderum ac angelorum_.
If the Roman Catholics are right on this point, so are the Occultists when they claim that the angels worshipped in the Church of Rome are none else than their “Seven Planets,” the Dhyân Chohans of Buddhistic Esoteric Philosophy, or the Kumâras, “the mind‐born sons of Brahmâ,” known under the patronymic of Vaidhâtra. The identity between the Kumâras, the Builders or cosmic Dhyân Chohans, and the Seven Angels of the Stars, will be found without one single flaw if their respective biographies are studied, and especially the characteristics of their chiefs, Sanat‐Kumâra (Sanat Sujâta), and Michael the Archangel. Together with the Kabirim (Planets), the name of the above in Chaldæa, they were all “_divine_ Powers” (Forces). Fuerot says that the name Kabiri was used to denote the _seven_ sons of יצדיק meaning Pater Sadic, Cain, or Jupiter, or again of Jehovah. There are seven Kumâras—four exoteric and three secret—the names of the latter being found in the _Sânkhya Bhâshya_, by Gaudapâdâchârya.(605) They are all “Virgin Gods,” who remain eternally pure and innocent and decline to create progeny. In their primitive aspect, these Âryan seven “mind‐born sons” of God are not the regents of the planets, but dwell far beyond the planetary region. But the same mysterious transference from one character or dignity to another is found in the Christian Angel‐scheme. The “Seven Spirits of the Presence” attend perpetually on God, and yet we find them under the same names of Mikael, Gabriel, Raphael, etc., as “Star‐regents” or the informing deities of the seven planets. Suffice it to say that the Archangel Michael is called “the invincible virgin combatant” as he “refused to create,”(606) which would connect him with both Sana Sujâta and the Kumâra who is the God of War.
The above has to be demonstrated by a few quotations. Commenting upon St. John’s “Seven Golden Candlesticks,” Cornelius a Lapide says:
These seven lights relate to the seven branches of the candlestick by which were represented the seven [principal] planets in the temples of Moses and Solomon ... or, better still, to the seven principal Spirits, commissioned to watch over the salvation of men and churches.
St. Jerome says:
In truth the candlestick with the seven branches was the type of the world and its planets.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Roman Catholic doctor writes:
I do not remember having ever met in the works of saints or philosophers a denial that the planets are guided by spiritual beings.... It seems to me that it may be proved to demonstration that the celestial bodies are guided by some intelligence, either directly by God, or by the mediation of angels. But the latter opinion seems to be far more consonant with the order of things asserted by St. Denys to be without exception, that everything on earth is, as a rule, governed by God through intermediary agencies.(607)
And now let the reader recall what the Pagans say of this. All the classical authors and philosophers who have treated the subject, repeat with Hermes Trismegistus, that the seven Rectors—the planets including the sun—were the associates, or the co‐workers, of the Unknown All represented by the Demiurgos—commissioned to contain the Cosmos—our planetary world—within seven circles. Plutarch shows them representing “the circle of the celestial worlds.” Again, Denys of Thracia and the learned Clemens of Alexandria both describe the Rectors as being shown in the Egyptian temples in the shape of mysterious wheels or spheres always in motion, which made the Initiates affirm that the problem of perpetual motion had been solved by the celestial wheels in the Initiation Adyta.(608) This doctrine of Hermes was that of Pythagoras and of Orpheus before him. It is called by Proclus “the God‐given” doctrine. Iamblichus speaks of it with the greatest reverence. Philostratus tells his readers that the whole sidereal court of the Babylonian heaven was represented in the temples
In globes made of sapphires and supporting the golden images of their respective gods.
The temples of Persia were especially famous for these representations. If Cedrenus can be credited
The Emperor Heraclius on his entry into the city of Bazaeum was struck with admiration and wonder before the immense machine fabricated for King Chosroes, which represented the night‐sky with the planets and all their revolutions, with the angels presiding over them.(609)
It was on such “spheres” that Pythagoras studied Astronomy in the _adyta arcana_ of the temples to which he had access. And it was there on his Initiation, that the eternal rotation of those spheres—“the mysterious wheels” as they are called by Clemens and Denys, and which Plutarch calls “world‐wheels”—demonstrated to him the verity of what had been divulged to him, namely, the heliocentric system, the great secret of the Adyta. All the discoveries of modern astronomy, like all the secrets that can be revealed to it in future ages, were contained in the secret observatories and Initiation Halls of the temples of old India and Egypt. It is in them that the Chaldæan made his calculations, revealing to the world of the profane no more than it was fit to receive.
We may, and shall be told, no doubt, that Uranus was unknown to the ancients, and that they were forced to reckon the sun amongst the planets and as their chief. How does anyone know? Uranus is a modern name; but one thing is certain: the ancients had a planet, “a mystery planet,” that they never named and that the highest Astronomus, the Hierophant, alone could “confabulate with.” But this seventh planet was not the sun, but the hidden Divine Hierophant, who was said to have a crown, and to embrace within its wheel “seventy‐seven smaller wheels.” In the archaic secret system of the Hindus, the sun is the visible Logos “Sûrya”; over him there is another, the divine or heavenly Man—who, after having established the system of the world of matter on the archetype of the Unseen Universe, or Macrocosm, conducted during the Mysteries the heavenly Râsa Mandala; when he was said:
To give with his right foot the impulse to _Tyam_ or Bhûmi [Earth] that makes her rotate in a double revolution.
What says Hermes again? When explaining Egyptian Cosmology he exclaims:
Listen, O my son ... the Power has also formed seven agents, who contain within their circles the material world, and whose action is called destiny.... When all became subject to man, the Seven, willing to favour human intelligence, communicated to him their powers. But as soon as man knew their true essence and his own nature, he desired to penetrate within and beyond the circles and thus break their circumference by usurping the power of him who has dominion over the Fire [Sun] itself; after which, having robbed one of the Wheels of the Sun of the sacred fire, he fell into slavery.(610)
It is _not_ Prometheus who is meant here. Prometheus is a symbol and a personification of the whole of mankind in relation to an event which occurred during its childhood, so to say—the “Baptism by Fire”—which is a mystery within the great Promethean Mystery, one that may be at present mentioned only in its broad general features. By reason of the extraordinary growth of human intellect and the development in our age of the fifth principle (Manas) in man, its rapid progress has paralysed spiritual perceptions. It is at the expense of wisdom that intellect generally lives, and mankind is quite unprepared in its present condition to comprehend the awful drama of human disobedience to the laws of Nature and the subsequent Fall, as a result. It can only be hinted at in its place.
SECTION XXXVII. THE SOULS OF THE STARS—UNIVERSAL HELIOLATRY.
In order to show that the Ancients have never “mistaken stars for Gods,” or Angels and the sun for the highest Gods and God, but have worshipped only the Spirit of all, and have reverenced the minor Gods supposed to reside in the sun and planets—the difference between these two worships has to be pointed out. Saturn, “the Father of Gods” must not be confused with his namesake—the planet of the same name with its eight moons and three rings. The two—though in one sense identical, as are, for instance, physical man and his soul—must be separated in the question of worship. This has to be done the more carefully in the case of the seven planets and their Spirits, as the whole formation of the universe is attributed to them in the Secret Teachings. The same difference has to be shown again between the stars of the Great Bear, the Riksha and the Chitra Shikhandina, “the bright‐crested,” and the Rishis—the mortal Sages who appeared on earth during the Satya Yuga. If all of these have been so far closely united in the visions of the seers of every age—the bible seers included—there must have been a reason for it. Nor need one go back so far as into the periods of “superstition” and “unscientific fancies” to find great men in our epoch sharing in them. It is well known that Kepler, the eminent astronomer, in common with many other great men who believed that the heavenly bodies ruled favourably or adversely the fates of men and nations—fully credited besides this the fact that all heavenly bodies, even our own earth, are endowed with living and thinking souls.
Le Couturier’s opinion is worthy of notice in this relation:
We are too inclined to criticize unsparingly everything concerning astrology and its ideas; nevertheless our criticism, to be one, ought at least to know, lest it should be proved aimless, what those ideas in truth are. And when among the men we thus criticize, we find such names as those of Regiomontanus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, etc., there is reason why we should be careful. Kepler was an astrologer by profession, and became an astronomer in consequence. He was earning his livelihood by genethliac figures, which, indicating the state of the heavens at the moment of the birth of individuals, were a means to which everyone resorted for horoscopes. That great man was a believer in the principles of astrology, without accepting all its foolish results.(611)
But astrology is nevertheless proclaimed as a sinful science, and together with Occultism is tabooed by the Churches. It is very doubtful, however, whether mystic “star worship” can be so easily laughed down as people imagine—at any rate by Christians. The hosts of Angels, Cherubs and Planetary Archangels are identical with the minor Gods of the Pagans. As to their “great Gods,” if Mars has been shown—on the admission of even the enemies of the Pagan astrologers—to have been regarded by the latter simply as the personified strength of the one highest impersonal Deity, Mercury being personified as its omniscience, Jupiter as its omnipotency, and so on, then the “superstition” of the Pagan has indeed become the “religion” of the masses of the civilized nations. For with the latter, Jehovah is the synthesis of the seven Elohim, the eternal centre of all those attributes and forces, the Alei of the Aleim, and the Adonai of the Adonim. And if with them Mars is now called St. Michael, the “_strength_ of God,” Mercury Gabriel, the “omniscience and fortitude of the Lord,” and Raphael “the blessing or healing power of God,” this is simply a change of names, the characters behind the masks remaining the same.
The Dalai‐lama’s mitre has seven ridges in honour of the seven chief Dhyâni Buddhas. In the funeral ritual of the Egyptians the defunct is made to exclaim:
Salutation to you, O Princes, who stand in the presence of Osiris.... Send me the grace to have my sins destroyed, as you have done for the seven spirits who follow their Lord!(612)
Brahmâ’s head is ornamented with seven rays, and he is followed by the seven Rishis, in the seven Svargas. China has her seven Pagodas; the Greeks had their seven Cyclopes, seven Demiurgi, and the Mystery Gods, the seven Kabiri, whose chief was Jupiter‐Saturn, and with the Jews, Jehovah. Now the latter Deity has become chief of all, the highest and the one God, and his old place is taken by Mikael (Michael). He is the “Chief of the Host” (_tsaba_); the “Archistrategus of the Lord’s army”; the “Conqueror of the Devil”—Victor diaboli—and the “Archisatrap of the Sacred Militia,” he who slew the “Great Dragon.” Unfortunately astrology and symbology, having no inducement to veil old things with new masks, have preserved the real name of Mikael—“that was Jehovah”—Mikael being the Angel of the face of the Lord,(613) “the guardian of the planets,” and the living image of God. He represents the Deity in his visits to earth, for as it is well expressed in Hebrew, he is one מיכאל, who is as God, or who is like unto God. It is he who cast out the serpent.(614)
Mikael, being the regent of the planet Saturn, is—_Saturn_.(615) His mystery‐name is Sabbathiel, because he presides over the Jewish Sabbath, as also over the astrological Saturday. Once identified, the reputation of the Christian conqueror of the devil is in still greater danger from further identifications. Biblical angels are called Malachim, the messengers between God (or rather _the gods_) and men. In Hebrew מכאל Malach, is also “a King,” and Malech or Melech was likewise Moloch, or again Saturn, the Seb of Egypt, to whom _Dies Saturni_, or the Sabbath, was dedicated. The Sabæans separated and distinguished the planet Saturn from its God far more than the Roman Catholics do their angels from their stars; and the Kabalists make of the Archangel Mikael the patron of the seventh work of magic.
In theological symbolism ... Jupiter [the Sun] is the risen and glorious Saviour, and Saturn, God the Father, or the Jehovah of Moses,(616)
says Éliphas Lévi, who _ought_ to know. Jehovah and the Saviour, Saturn and Jupiter, being thus one, and Mikael being called the living image of God, it does seem dangerous for the Church to call Saturn, Satan—_le dieu mauvais_. However, Rome is strong in casuistry and will get out of this as she got out of every other identification, with glory to herself and to her own full satisfaction. Nevertheless all her dogmas and rituals seem like so many pages torn out from the history of Occultism, and then distorted. The extremely thin partition that separates the Kabalistic and Chaldæan Theogony from the Roman Catholic Angelology and Theodicy is now confessed by at least one Roman Catholic writer. One can hardly believe one’s eyes in finding the following (the passages italicized by us should be carefully noticed):
One of the most characteristic features of our Holy Scriptures is _the calculated discretion used in the enunciation of the mysteries less directly useful to salvation_.... Thus, beyond those “myriads of myriads” of angelic creatures just noticed(617) and all these prudently elementary divisions, there are certainly many others, whose very names have not yet reached us.(618) “For,” excellently says St. John Chrysostom, “there are doubtless, (_sine dubio_,) many other _Virtues_ [celestial beings] whose denominations we are yet far from knowing.... The nine orders are not by any means the only populations in heaven, where, on the contrary, _are to be found numberless tribes_ of inhabitants infinitely varied, and of which it would be impossible _to give the slightest idea_ through human tongue.... Paul, who _had learned their names_, reveals to us their existence.” (_De Incomprehensibili Natura Dei_, Bk. IV.)....
It would thus amount _to a gross mistake to see merely errors_ in the Angelology of the Kabalists and Gnostics, so severely treated by the Apostle of the Gentiles, for his imposing censure reached _only their exaggerations and vicious interpretations_, and still more, _the application of those noble_ titles _to the miserable personalities of demoniacal usurpers_.(619) Often nothing so resemble each other as _the language of the judges and that of the convicts_ [of saints and Occultists]. One has to penetrate deeply into this _dual_ study [of creed and profession] and what is still better, _to trust blindly to the authority of the tribunal_ [the Church of Rome, of course] to enable oneself to seize precisely the point of the error. The _Gnosis_ condemned by St. Paul remains, nevertheless, for him as for Plato the supreme knowledge of all truths, and of the _Being par excellence_, ὁ ὄντως ὤν (_Republ._ Bk. VI). The Ideas, _types_, ἀρχὰι of the Greek philosopher, the _Intelligences_ of Pythagoras, the _aeons_ or _emanations_, the occasion of so much reproach to the first heretics, the Logos or Word, Chief of these Intelligences, the _Demiurgos_, the architect of the world under his father’s direction [of the Pagans], the unknown God, the _En‐soph_, or the _It of the Infinite_ [of the Kabalists], the angelical periods,(620) the _seven_ spirits, the Depths of _Ahriman_, the World’s _Rectors_, the _Archontes_ of the air, the _God of this world_, the _pleroma_ of the intelligences, down to _Metatron_ the angel of the Jews, _all this is found word for word, as so many truths, in the works of our greatest doctors, and in St. Paul_.(621)
If an Occultist, eager to charge the Church with a numberless series of plagiarisms were to write the above, could he have written more strongly? And have we, or have we not, the right, after such a complete confession, to reverse the tables and to say of Roman Catholics and others what is said of the Gnostics and Occultists. “They used our expressions and rejected our doctrines.” For it is not the “promoters of the false Gnosis”—who had all those expressions from their archaic ancestors—who helped themselves to Christian expressions, but verily the Christian Fathers and Theologians, who helped themselves to our nest, and have tried ever since to soil it.
The words above quoted will explain much to those who are searching for truth and for truth only. They will show the origin of certain rites in the Church inexplicable hitherto to the simple‐minded, and will give the reason why such words as “Our Lord the Sun” were used in prayer by Christians up to the fifth and even sixth century of our era, and embodied in the Liturgy, until altered into “Our Lord, the God.” Let us remember that the early Christians painted Christ on the walls of their subterranean necropolis, as a shepherd in the guise of, and invested with all the attributes of Apollo, driving away the wolf, Fenris, who seeks to devour the Sun and his Satellites.
SECTION XXXVIII. ASTROLOGY AND ASTROLATRY.
The books of Hermes Trismegistus contain the exoteric meaning, still veiled for all but the Occultist, of the Astrology and Astrolatry of the Khaldi. The two subjects are closely connected. Astrolatry, or the adoration of the heavenly host, is the natural result of only half‐ revealed Astrology, whose Adepts carefully concealed from the non‐ initiated masses its Occult principles and the wisdom imparted to them by the Regents of the Planets—the “Angels.” Hence, divine Astrology for the Initiates; superstitious Astrolatry for the profane. St. Justin asserts it:
From the first invention of the hieroglyphics it was not the vulgar, but the distinguished and select men who became initiated in the secrecy of the temples into the science of every kind of Astrology—even into its most abject kind: that Astrology which later on found itself prostituted in the public thoroughfares.
There was a vast difference between the Sacred Science taught by Petosiris and Necepso—the first Astrologers mentioned in the Egyptian manuscripts, believed to have lived during the reign of Ramses II. (Sesostris)(622)—and the miserable charlatanry of the quacks called Chaldæans, who degraded the Divine Knowledge under the last Emperors of Rome. Indeed, one may fairly describe the two as the “high ceremonial Astrology” and “astrological Astrolatry.” The first depended on the knowledge by the Initiates of those (to us) immaterial Forces or Spiritual Entities that affect matter and guide it. Called by the ancient Philosophers the Archontes and the Cosmocratores, they were the types or paradigms on the higher planes of the lower and more material beings on the scale of evolution, whom we call Elementals and Nature‐Spirits, to whom the Sabæans bowed and whom they worshipped, without suspecting the essential difference. Hence the latter kind when not a mere pretence, degenerated but too often into Black Magic. It was the favourite form of popular or exoteric Astrology, entirely ignorant of the apotelesmatic principles of the primitive Science, the doctrines of which were imparted only at Initiation. Thus, while the real Hierophants soared like Demi‐Gods to the very summit of spiritual knowledge, the _hoi polloi_ among the Sabæans crouched, steeped in superstition—ten millenniums back, as they do now—in the cold and lethal shadow of the valleys of matter. Sidereal influence is dual. There is the physical and physiological influence, that of exotericism; and the high spiritual, intellectual, and moral influence, imparted by the knowledge of the planetary Gods. Bailly, speaking with only an imperfect knowledge of the former, called Astrology, so far back as the eighteenth century, “The very foolish mother of a very wise daughter”—Astronomy. On the other hand, Arago, a luminary of the nineteenth century, supports the reality of the sidereal influence of the Sun, Moon and Planets. He asks:
Where do we find lunar influences refuted by arguments that science would dare to avow?
But even Bailly, having, as he thought, put down Astrology as publicly practised, dares not do the same with the real Astrology. He says:
Judiciary Astrology was at its origin the result of a profound system, the work of an enlightened nation that would wander too far into the mysteries of God and Nature.
A Scientist of a more recent date, a member of the Institute of France, and a professor of History, Ph. Lebas, discovers (unconsciously to himself) the very root of Astrology in his able article on the subject in the _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de France_. He well understands, he tells his readers, that the adhesion to that Science of such a number of highly intellectual men should be in itself a sufficient motive for believing that all Astrology is not folly:
While proclaiming in politics the sovereignty of the people and of public opinion can we admit, as heretofore, that mankind allowed itself to be radically deceived in this only: that an absolute and gross absurdity reigned in the minds of whole nations for so many centuries without being based on anything save—on one hand human imbecility, and on the other charlatanry? How for fifty centuries and more can most men have been either dupes or knaves? ... Even though we may find it impossible to decide between and separate the realities of Astrology from the elements of invention and empty dreaming in it, ... let us, nevertheless, repeat with Bossuet and all modern philosophers, that “nothing that has been dominant could be absolutely false.” Is it not true, at all events, that there is a physical reaction on one another among the planets? Is it not again true, that the planets have an influence on the atmosphere, and consequently at any rate a mediate action on vegetation and animals? Has not modern science demonstrated now these two points beyond any doubt?... Is it any less true that human liberty of action is not absolute: that all is bound, that all weighs, planets as the rest, on each individual will; that Providence [_or Karma_] acts on us and directs men through those relations that it has established between them and the visible objects and the whole universe?... Astrolatry, in its essence, is nothing but that; we are bound to recognise that an instinct superior to the age they lived in guided the efforts of the ancient Magi. As to the materialism and annihilation of human moral freedom with which Bailly charges their theory (Astrology), the reprobate has no sense whatever. All the great astrologers admitted, without one single exception, that man could react against the influence of the stars. This principle is established in the Ptolemœian _Tetrabiblos_, the true astrological Scriptures, in chapters ii. and iii. of book i.(623)
Thomas Aquinas had corroborated Lebas in anticipation; he says:
The celestial bodies are _the cause of all that happens in this sublunary world_, they act indirectly on human actions; but not all the effects produced by them are unavoidable.(624)
The Occultists and Theosophists are the first to confess that there is white and black Astrology. Nevertheless, Astrology has to be studied in both aspects by those who wish to become proficient in it; and the good or bad results obtained do not depend upon the principles, which are the same in both kinds, but in the Astrologer himself. Thus Pythagoras, who established the whole Copernican system by the Books of Hermes 2,000 years before Galileo’s predecessor was born, found and studied in them the whole Science of divine Theogony, of the communication with, and the evocation of, the world’s Rectors—the Princes of the “Principalities” of St. Paul—the nativity of each Planet and of the Universe itself, the formulæ of incantations and the consecration of each portion of the human body to the respective Zodiacal sign corresponding to it. All this cannot be regarded as childish and absurd—still less “devilish”—save by those who are, and wish to remain, tyros in the Philosophy of the Occult Sciences. No true thinker—no one who recognises the presence of a common bond between man and visible, as well as invisible, Nature—would see in the old relics of Archaic Wisdom—such as the _Petemenoph Papyrus_, for instance—“childish nonsense and absurdity,” as many Academicians and Scientists have done. But upon finding in such ancient documents the application of the Hermetic rules and laws, such as
The consecration of one’s hair to the celestial Nile; of the left temple to the living Spirit in the sun, and in the right one to the spirit of Ammon,
he will endeavour to study and comprehend better the “laws of correspondences.” Nor will he disbelieve in the antiquity of Astrology on the plea that some Orientalists have thought fit to declare that the Zodiac was not very ancient, being only the invention of the Greeks of the Macedonian period. For this statement, besides having been shown to be entirely erroneous by a number of other reasons, may be entirely disproved by facts relating to the latest discoveries in Egypt, and by the more accurate readings of hieroglyphics and inscriptions of the earliest dynasties. The published polemics on the contents of the so‐called “Magic” Papyri of the Anastasi collection indicate the antiquity of the Zodiac. As the _Lettres à Lettrone_ say: The papyri discourse at length upon the four bases or
Foundations of the world, the identity of which it is impossible, according to Champollion, to mistake, as one is forced to recognise in them the Pillars of the World of St. Paul. It is they who are invoked with the gods of all the celestial zones, quite analogous, once more, to the _Spiritualia nequitiæ in cælestibus_ of the same Apostle.(625)
That invocation was made in the proper terms ... of the formula, reproduced far too faithfully by Jamblichus for it to be possible to refuse him any longer the merit of having transmitted to posterity the ancient and primitive spirit of the Egyptian Astrologers.(626)
As Letronne had tried to prove that all the genuine Egyptian Zodiacs had been manufactured during the Roman period, the Sensaos mummy is brought forward to show that:
All the Zodiacal monuments in Egypt were chiefly astronomical. Royal tombs and funereal rituals are so many tables of constellations and of their influences for all the hours of every month.
Thus the genethliac tables themselves prove that they are far older than the period assigned to their origin; all the Zodiacs of the sarcophagi of later epochs being simple reminiscences of the Zodiacs belonging to the mythological [archaic] period.
Primitive Astrology was as far above modern judiciary Astrology, so‐ called, as the guides (the Planets and Zodiacal signs) are above the lamp‐ posts. Berosus shows the sidereal sovereignty of Bel and Mylitta (Sun and Moon), and only “the twelve lords of the Zodiacal Gods,” the “thirty‐six Gods Counsellors” and the “twenty‐four Stars, judges of this world,” which support and guide the Universe (our solar system), watch over mortals and reveal to mankind its fate and their own decrees. Judiciary Astrology as it is now known, is correctly denominated by the Latin Church the
Materialistic and pantheistic prophesying by the objective planet itself, independently of its Rector [the Mlac of the Jews, the ministers of the Eternal commissioned by him to announce his will to mortals]; the ascension or conjunction of the planet at the moment of the birth of an individual deciding his fortune and the moment and mode of his death.(627)
Every student of Occultism knows that the heavenly bodies are closely related during each Manvantara with the mankind of that special cycle; and there are some who believe that each great character born during that period has—as every other mortal has, only in a far stronger degree—his destiny outlined within his proper constellation or star, traced as a self‐prophecy, an anticipated autobiography, by the indwelling Spirit of that particular star. The human Monad in its first beginning is that Spirit, or the Soul of that star (Planet) itself. As our Sun radiates its light and beams on every body in space within the boundaries of its system, so the Regent of every Planet‐star, the Parent‐monad, shoots out from itself the Monad of every “pilgrim” Soul born under its house within its own group. The Regents are esoterically seven, whether in the Sephiroth, the “Angels of the Presence,” the Rishis, or the Amshaspends. “The One is no number” is said in all the esoteric works.
From the Kasdim and Gazzim (Astrologers) the noble primitive science passed to the Khartumim Asaphim (or Theologians) and the Hakamim (or scientists, the Magicians of the lower class), and from these to the Jews during their captivity. The Books of Moses had been buried in oblivion for centuries, and when re‐discovered by Hilkiah had lost their true sense for the people of Israel. Primitive Occult Astrology was on the decline when Daniel, the last of the Jewish Initiates of the old school, became the chief of the Magi and Astrologers of Chaldæa. In those days even Egypt, who had her wisdom from the same source as Babylon, had degenerated from her former grandeur, and her glory had begun to fade out. Still, the science of old had left her eternal imprint on the world, and the seven great Primitive Gods reigned for ever in the Astrology and in the division of time of every nation upon the face of the earth. The names of the days of our (Christian) week are those of the Gods of the Chaldæans, who translated them from those of the Âryans; the uniformity of these antediluvian names in every nation, from the Goths back to the Indians, would remain inexplicable, as Sir W. Jones thought, had not the riddle been explained to us by the invitation made by the Chaldæan oracles, recorded by Porphyry and quoted by Eusebius:
To carry those names first to the Egyptian and Phœnician colonies, then to the Greeks, with the express recommendation that each God should be invoked only on that day that had been called by his name....
Thus Apollo says in those oracles: “I must be invoked on the day of the _sun_; Mercury after his directions, then Chronos [Saturn], then Venus, and do not fail to call seven times each of those gods.”(628)
This is slightly erroneous. Greece did not get her astrological instruction from Egypt or from Chaldæa, but direct from Orpheus, as Lucian tells us.(629) It was Orpheus, as he says, who imparted the Indian Sciences to nearly all the great monarchs of antiquity; and it was they, the ancient kings favoured by the Planetary Gods, who recorded the principles of Astrology—as did Ptolemus, for instance. Thus Lucian writes:
The Bœotian Tiresias acquired the greatest reputation in the art of predicting futurity.... In those days divination was not as slightly treated as it is now; and nothing was ever undertaken without previous consultation with diviners, whose oracles were all directed by astrology.... At Delphos the virgin commissioned to announce futurity was the symbol of the Heavenly Virgin, ... and Our Lady.
On the sarcophagus of an Egyptian Pharaoh, Neith, mother of Ra, the heifer that brings forth the Sun, her body spangled with stars, and wearing the solar and lunar discs, is equally referred to as the “Heavenly Virgin” and “Our Lady of the Starry Vault.”
Modern judiciary Astrology in its present form began only during the time of Diodorus, as he apprises the world.(630) But Chaldæan Astrology was believed in by most of the great men in History, such as Cæsar, Pliny, Cicero—whose best friends, Nigidius Figulus and Lucius Tarrutius, were themselves Astrologers, the former being famous as a prophet. Marcus Antonius never travelled without an Astrologer recommended to him by Cleopatra. Augustus, when ascending the throne, had his horoscope drawn by Theagenes. Tiberius discovered pretenders to his throne by means of Astrology and divination. Vitellius dared not exile the Chaldæans, as they had announced the day of their banishment as that of his death. Vespasian consulted them daily; Domitian would not move without being advised by the prophets; Adrian was a learned Astrologer himself; and all of them, ending with Julian (called the _Apostate_ because he would not become one), believed in, and addressed their prayers to, the Planetary “Gods.” The Emperor Adrian, moreover, “predicted from the January calends up to December 31st, every event that happened to him daily.” Under the wisest emperors Rome had a School of Astrology, wherein were secretly taught the occult influences of the Sun, Moon, and Saturn.(631) Judiciary Astrology is used to this day by the Kabalists; and Éliphas Lévi, the modern French Magus, teaches its rudiments in his _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_. But the key to ceremonial or ritualistic Astrology, with the teraphim and the urim and thummim of Magic, is lost to Europe. Hence our century of Materialism shrugs its shoulders and sees in Astrology—a pretender.
Not all scientists scoff at it, however, and one may rejoice in reading in the _Musée des Sciences_(632) the suggestive and fair remarks made by Le Couturier, a man of science of no mean reputation. He thinks it curious to notice that while the bold speculations of Democritus are found vindicated by Dalton,
The reveries of the alchemists are also on their way to a certain rehabilitation. They receive renewed life from the minute investigations of their successors, the chemists; a very remarkable thing indeed is to see how much modern discoveries have served to vindicate, of late, the theories of the Middle Ages from the charge of absurdity laid at their door. Thus, if, as demonstrated by Col. Sabine, the direction of a piece of steel, hung a few feet above the soil, may be influenced by the position of the moon, whose body is at a distance of 240,000 miles from our planet, who then could accuse of extravagance the belief of the ancient astrologers [or the modern, either] in the influence of the stars on human destiny.(633)
SECTION XXXIX. CYCLES AND AVATARAS.
We have already drawn attention to the facts that the record of the life of a World‐Saviour is emblematical, and must be read by its mystic meaning, and that the figures 432 have a cosmic evolutionary significance. We find these two facts throwing light on the origin of the exoteric Christian religion, and clearing away much of the obscurity surrounding its beginnings. For is it not clear that the names and characters in the Synoptical Gospels and in that of St. John are not historical? Is it not evident that the compilers of the life of Christ, desirous to show that the birth of their Master was a cosmic, astronomical, and divinely‐ preördained event, attempted to coördinate the same with the end of the secret cycle, 4,320? When facts are collated this answers to them as little as does the other cycle of “thirty‐three solar years, seven months, and seven days,” which has also been brought forward as supporting the same claim, the soli‐lunar cycle in which the Sun gains on the Moon one solar year. The combination of the three figures, 4, 3, 2, with cyphers according to the cycle and Manvantara concerned, was, and is, preëminently Hindu. It will remain a secret even though several of its significant features are revealed. It relates, for instance, to the Pralaya of the races in their periodical dissolution, before which events a special Avatâra has always to descend and incarnate on earth. These figures were adopted by all the older nations, such as those of Egypt and Chaldæa, and before them were current among the Atlanteans. Evidently some of the more learned among the early Church Fathers who had dabbled, whilst Pagans, in temple secrets, knew them to relate to the Avatâric or Messianic mystery, and tried to apply this cycle to the birth of their Messiah; they failed because the figures relate to the respective ends of the Root‐Races and not to any individual. In their badly‐directed efforts, moreover, an error of five years occurred. Is it possible, if their claims as to the importance and universality of the event were correct, that such a vital mistake should have been allowed to creep into a chronological computation preördained and traced in the heavens by the finger of God? Again, what were the Pagan and even Jewish Initiates doing, if this claim as to Jesus be correct? Could they, the custodians of the key to the secret cycles and Avatâras, the heirs of all the Âryan, Egyptian, and Chaldæan wisdom, have failed to recognise their great “God‐Incarnate,” one with Jehovah,(634) their Saviour of the latter days, him whom all the nations of Asia still expect as their Kalki Avatâra, Maitreya Buddha, Sosiosh, Messiah, etc.?
The simple secret is this: There are cycles within greater cycles, which are all contained in the one Kalpa of 4,320,000 years. It is at the end of this cycle that the Kalki Avatâra is expected—the Avatâra Whose name and characteristics are secret, Who will come forth from Shamballa, the “City of Gods,” which is in the West for some nations, in the East for others, in the North or South for yet others. And this is the reason why, from the Indian Rishi to Virgil, and from Zoroaster down to the latest Sibyl, all have, since the beginning of the Fifth Race, prophesied, sung, and promised the cyclic return of the Virgin—Virgo, the constellation—and the birth of a divine child who should bring back to our earth the Golden Age.
No one, however fanatical, would have sufficient hardihood to maintain that the Christian era has ever been a return to the Golden Age—Virgo having actually entered into Libra since then. Let us trace as briefly as possible the Christian traditions to their true origin.
First of all, they discover in a few lines from Virgil a direct prophecy of the birth of Christ. Yet it is impossible to detect in this prophecy any feature of the present age. It is in the famous fourth Eclogue in which, half a century before our era, Pollio is made to ask the Muses of Sicily to sing to him about greater events.
The last era of Cumæan song is now arrived and the grand series of ages [that series which recurs again and again in the course of our mundane revolution] begins afresh. Now the Virgin Astræa returns, and the reign of Saturn recommences. Now a new progeny _descends from the celestial realms_. Do thou, chaste Lucina, smile propitious to the infant Boy who will bring to a close the present Age of Iron,(635) and introduce throughout the whole world the Age of Gold.... He shall share the life of Gods and shall see heroes mingled in society with Gods, himself be seen by them and all the peaceful world.... Then shall the herds no longer dread the huge lion, the serpent also shall die: and the poison’s deceptive plant shall perish. Come then, dear child of the Gods, great descendant of Jupiter!... The time is near. See, the world is shaken with its globe saluting thee: the earth, the regions of the sea, and the heavens sublime.(636)
It is in these few lines, called the “Sibylline prophecy about the coming of Christ,” that his followers now see a direct foretelling of the event. Now who will presume to maintain that either at the birth of Jesus or since the establishment of the so‐called Christian religion, any portion of the above‐quoted sentences can be shown as prophetic? Has the “last age”—the Age of Iron, or Kali Yuga—closed since then? Quite the reverse, since it is shown to be in full sway just now, not only because the Hindus use the name, but by universal personal experience. Where is that “new race that has descended from the celestial realms”? Was it the race that emerged from Paganism into Christianity? Or is it our present race, with nations ever red‐hot for fight, jealous and envious, ready to pounce upon each other, showing mutual hatred that would put to blush cats and dogs, ever lying and deceiving one another? Is it this age of ours that is the promised “Golden Age”—in which neither the venom of the serpent nor of any plant is any longer lethal, and in which we are all secure under the mild sway of God‐chosen sovereigns? The wildest fancy of an opium‐eater could hardly suggest a more inappropriate description, if it is to be applied to our age or to any age since the year one of our era. What of the mutual slaughter of sects, of Christians by Pagans, and of Pagans and Heretics by Christians; the horrors of the Middle Ages and of the Inquisition; Napoleon, and since his day, an “armed peace” at best—at the worst, torrents of blood, shed for supremacy over acres of land, and a handful of heathen: millions of soldiers under arms, ready for battle; a diplomatic body playing at Cains and Judases; and instead of the “mild sway of a divine sovereign” the universal, though unrecognised, sway of Cæsarism, of “might” in lieu of “right,” and the breeding therefrom of anarchists, socialists, pétroleuses, and destroyers of every description?
The Sibylline prophecy and Virgil’s inspirational poetry remain unfulfilled in every point, as we see.
The fields are yellow with soft ears of corn;
but so they were before our era:
The blushing grapes shall hang from the rude brambles, and dewy honey shall [or may] distil from the rugged oak;
but they have not thus done, so far. We must look for another interpretation. What is it? The Sibylline Prophetess spoke, as thousands of other Prophets and Seers have spoken, though even the few such records that have survived are rejected by Christian and infidel, and their interpretations are only allowed and accepted among the Initiated. The Sibyl alluded to cycles in general and to the great cycle especially. Let us remember how the Purânas corroborate the above, among others the _Vishnu Purâna_:
When the practices taught by the Vedas, and the Institutes of Law shall have nearly ceased, and the close of the Kali Yuga [the “Iron Age” of Virgil] shall be nigh, an aspect of that divine Being who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of Brahmâ and even is the beginning and the end [_Alpha and Omega_], ... shall descend upon earth: he will be born in the family of Vishnuyashas, an eminent Brâhman of Shamballah ... endowed with the eight superhuman powers. By his irresistible might he will destroy ... all whose minds are devoted to iniquity. He will then reëstablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of the [Kali] Age shall be awakened, and shall be as pellucid as crystal.(637) The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time shall be as the seeds of human beings [the Shistha, the survivors of the future cataclysm], and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita [or Satya] Yuga [the age of purity, or the “Golden Age”]. For it is said: “When the sun and moon and Tishya [asterisms] and the planet Jupiter are in one mansion the Krita Age [the Golden] shall return.”(638)
The astronomical cycles of the Hindus—those taught publicly—have been sufficiently well understood, but the esoteric meaning thereof, in its application to transcendental subjects connected with them, has ever remained a dead‐letter. The number of cycles was enormous; it ranged from the Mahâ Yuga cycle of 4,320,000 years down to the small septenary and quinquennial cycles, the latter being composed of the five years called respectively the Samvatsara, Parivatsara, Idvatsara, Anuvatsara, and Vatsara, each having secret attributes or qualities attached to them. Vriddhagarga gives these in a treatise, now the property of a Trans‐ Himâlayan Matham (or temple); and describes the relation between this quinquennial and the Brihaspati cycle, based on the conjunction of the Sun and Moon every sixtieth year: a cycle as mysterious—for national events in general and those of the Âryan Hindu nation especially—as it is important.
SECTION XL. SECRET CYCLES.
The former five‐year cycle comprehends sixty solar‐sidereal months of 1800 days, sixty‐one solar months (or 1830 days); sixty‐two lunar months (or 1860 lunations), and sixty‐seven lunar‐asterismal months (or 1809 such days).
In his _Kâla Sankalita_, Col. Warren very properly regards these years as cycles; this they are, for each year has its own special importance as having some bearing upon, and connection with, specified events in individual horoscopes. He writes that in the cycle of sixty there
Are contained five cycles of twelve years, each supposed equal to one year of the planet (Brihaspati, or Jupiter) ... I mention this cycle because I found it mentioned in some books, but I know of no nation or tribe that reckons time after that account.(639)
The ignorance is very natural, since Col. Warren could know nothing of the secret cycles and their meanings. He adds:
The names of the five cycles or Yugas are: ... (1) Samvatsara, (2) Parivatsara, (3) Idvatsara, (4) Anuvatsara, (5) Udravatsara.
The learned Colonel might, however, have assured himself that there were “other nations” which had the same secret cycle, if he had but remembered that the Romans also had their _lustrum_ of five years (from the Hindus undeniably) which represented the same period if multiplied by 12.(640) Near Benares there are still the relics of all these cycle‐records, and of astronomical instruments cut out of solid rock, the everlasting records of Archaic Initiation, called by Sir W. Jones (as suggested by the prudent Brâhmans who surrounded him) old “back records” or reckonings. But in Stonehenge they exist to this day. Higgins says that Waltire found the barrows of tumuli surrounding this giant‐temple represented accurately the situation and magnitude of the fixed stars, forming a complete orrery or planisphere. As Colebrooke found out, it is the cycle of the _Vedas_, recorded in the _Jyotisha_, one of the Vedângas, a treatise on Astronomy, which is the basis of calculation for all other cycles, larger or smaller;(641) and the _Vedas_ were written in characters, archaic though they be, long after those natural observations, made by the aid of their gigantic mathematical and astronomical instruments, had been recorded by the men of the Third Race, who had received their instruction from the Dhyân Chohans. Maurice speaks truly when he observes that all such
Circular stone monuments were intended as durable symbols of astronomical cycles by a race who, not having, or for political reasons, forbidding the use of letters, had no other permanent method of instructing their disciples or handing down their knowledge to posterity.
He errs only in the last idea. It was to conceal their knowledge from profane posterity, leaving it as an heirloom only to the Initiates, that such monuments, at once rock observatories and astronomical treatises, were cut out.
It is no news that as the Hindus divided the earth into seven zones, so the more western peoples—Chaldæans, Phœnicians, and even the Jews, who got their learning either directly or indirectly from the Brâhmans—made all their secret and sacred numerations by 6 and 12, though using the number 7 whenever this would not lend itself to handling. Thus the numerical base of 6, the exoteric figure given by Ârya Bhatta, was made good use of. From the first secret cycle of 600—the Naros, transformed successively into 60,000 and 60 and 6, and, with other noughts added into other secret cycles—down to the smallest, an Archæologist and Mathematician can easily find it repeated in every country, known to every nation. Hence the globe was divided into 60 degrees, which, multiplied by 60, became 3,600 the “great year.” Hence also the hour with its 60 minutes of 60 seconds each. The Asiatic people count a cycle of 60 years also, after which comes the lucky seventh decad, and the Chinese have their small cycle of 60 days, the Jews of 6 days, the Greeks of 6 centuries—the Naros again. The Babylonians had a great year of 3,600, being the Naros multiplied by 6. The Tartar cycle called Van was 180 years, or three sixties; this multiplied by 12 times 12 = 144, makes 25,920 years, the exact period of revolution of the heavens.
India is the birthplace of arithmetic and mathematics; as “Our Figures,” in _Chips from a German Workshop_, by Prof. Max Müller, shows beyond a doubt. As well explained by Krishna Shâstri Godbole in _The Theosophist_:
The Jews ... represented the units (1‐9) by the first nine letters of our alphabet; the tens (10‐90) by the next nine letters; the first four hundreds (100‐400) by the last four letters, and the remaining ones (500‐900) by the second forms of the letters “kâf” (11th), “mîm” (13th), “nûn” (14th), “pe” (17th), and “sâd” (18th); and they represented other numbers by combining these letters according to their value.... The Jews of the present period still adhere to this practice of notation in their Hebrew books. The Greeks had a numerical system similar to that used by the Jews, but they carried it a little farther by using letters of the alphabet with a dash or slant‐line behind, to represent thousands (1000‐9000), tens of thousands (10,000‐90,000) and one hundred of thousands (100,000) the last, for instance, being represented by “rho” with a dash behind, while “rho” singly represented 100. The Romans represented all numerical values by the combination (additive when the second letter is of equal or less value) of six letters of their alphabet: i (= 1), v (= 5), x (= 10), c (for “centum” = 100), d (= 500), and m (= 1000): thus 20 = xx, 15 = xv, and 9 = ix. These are called the Roman numerals, and are adopted by all European nations when using the Roman alphabet. The Arabs at first followed their neighbours, the Jews, in their method of computation, so much so that they called it Abjad from the first four Hebrew letters—“alif,” “beth,” “gimel”—or rather “jimel,” that is, “jim” (Arabic being wanting in “g”), and “daleth,” representing the first four units. But when in the early part of the Christian era they came to India as traders, they found the country already using for computation the decimal scale of notation, which they forthwith borrowed literally; _viz._, without altering its method of writing from left to right, at variance with their own mode of writing, which is from right to left. They introduced this system into Europe through Spain and other European countries lying along the coast of the Mediterranean and under their sway, during the dark ages of European history. It has thus become evident that the Âryas knew well mathematics or the science of computation at a time when all other nations knew but little, if anything, of it. It has also been admitted that the knowledge of arithmetic and algebra was first introduced from the Hindus by the Arabs, and then taught by them to the Western nations. This fact convincingly proves that the Âryan civilisation is older than that of any other nation in the world; and as the _Vedas_ are avowedly proved the oldest work of that civilisation, a presumption is raised in favour of their great antiquity.(642)
But while the Jewish nation, for instance—regarded so long as the first and oldest in the order of creation—knew nothing of arithmetic and remained utterly ignorant of the decimal scale of notation—the latter existed for ages in India before the actual era.
To become certain of the immense antiquity of the Âryan Asiatic nations and of their astronomical records one has to study more than the _Vedas_. The secret meaning of the latter will never be understood by the present generation of Orientalists; and the astronomical works which give openly the real dates and prove the antiquity of both the nation and its science, elude the grasp of the collectors of ollas and old manuscripts in India, the reason being too obvious to need explanation. Yet there are Astronomers and Mathematicians to this day in India, humble Shâstris and Pandits, unknown and lost in the midst of that population of phenomenal memories and metaphysical brains, who have undertaken the task and have proved to the satisfaction of many that the _Vedas_ are the oldest works in the world. One of such is the Shâstri just quoted, who published in _The Theosophist_(643) an able treatise proving astronomically and mathematically that:
If the Post‐Vaidika works alone, the Upanishads, the Brâhmanas, etc., down to the Purânas, when examined critically carry us back to 20,000 B.C., then the time of the composition of the _Vedas_ themselves cannot be less than 30,000 B.C., in round numbers, a date which we may take at present as the age of that Book of books.(644)
And what are his proofs?
Cycles and the evidence yielded by the asterisms. Here are a few extracts from his rather lengthy treatise, selected to give an idea of his demonstrations and bearing directly on the quinquennial cycle spoken of just now. Those who feel interested in the demonstrations and are advanced mathematicians can turn to the article itself, “The Antiquity of the _Vedas_,”(645) and judge for themselves.
10. Somâkara in his commentary on the _Shesha Jyotisha_ quotes a passage from the _Satapatha Brâhmana_, which contains an observation on the change of the tropics, and which is also found in the _Sâkhâyana Brâhmana_, as has been noticed by Prof. Max Müller in his preface to _Rigveda Samhitâ_ (p. xx. foot‐note, vol. iv.). The passage is this: ... “The full‐moon night in Phâlguna is the first night of Samvatsara, the first year of the quinquennial age.” This passage clearly shows that the quinquennial age which, according to the sixth verse of the _Jyotisha_, begins on the 1st of Mâgha (January‐February), once began on the 15th of Phâlguna (February‐March). Now when the 15th of Phâlguna of the first year called Samvatsara of the quinquennial age begins, the moon, according to the _Jyotisha_, is in 3/4th of the Uttar Phâlgunî, and the sun in 1/4th of Pûrva Bhâdrapadâ. Hence the position of the four principal points on the ecliptic was then as follows:
The winter solstice in 3°29’ of Purva Bhâdrapadâ.
The vernal equinox in the beginning of Mrigashîrsha.
The summer solstice in 10 of Purva Phâlgunî.
The autumnal equinox in the middle of Jyeshtha.
The vernal equinoctial point, we have seen, coincided with the beginning of Krittikâ in 1421 B.C.; and from the beginning of Krittikâ to that of Mrigashîrsha, was, in consequence, 1421 + 26‐2/3 x 72 = 1421 + 1920 = 3341 B.C., supposing the rate of _precession_ to be 50° a year. When we take the rate to be 3°20" in 247 years, the time comes up to 1516 + 1960·7 = 3476·7 B.C.
When the winter solstice by its retrograde motion coincided after that with the beginning of Pûrva Bhâdrapadâ, then the commencement of the quinquennial age was changed from the 15th to the 1st of Phâlguna (February‐March). This change took place 240 years after the date of the above observation, that is, in 3101 B.C. This date is most important, as from it an era was reckoned in after times. The commencement of the Kali or Kali Yuga (derived from “kal,” “to reckon”), though said by European scholars to be an imaginary date, becomes thus an astronomical fact.
INTERCHANGE OF KRITTIKÂ AND ASHVINÎ.(646)
We thus see that the asterisms, twenty‐seven in number, were counted from the Mrigashîrsha when the vernal equinox was in its beginning, and that the practice of thus counting was adhered to till the vernal equinox retrograded to the beginning of Krittikâ, when it became the first of the asterisms. For then the winter solstice had changed, receding from Phâlguna (February‐March) to Mâgha (January‐February), one complete lunar month. And, in like manner, the place of Krittikâ was occupied by Ashvinî, that is, the latter became the first of the asterisms, heading all others, when its beginning coincided with the vernal equinoctial point, or, in other words, when the winter solstice was in Pansha (December‐February). Now from the beginning of Krittikâ to that of Ashvinî there are two asterisms, or 26‐2/3°, and the time the equinox takes to retrograde this distance at the rate of 1 in 72 years is 1920 years; and hence the date at which the vernal equinox coincided with the commencement of Ashvinî or with the end of Revatî is 1920 ‐ 1421 = 499 A.D.
BENTLEY’S OPINION.
12. The next and equally‐important observation we have to record here is one discussed by Mr. Bentley in his researches into the Indian antiquities. “The first lunar asterism,” he says, “in the division of twenty‐eight was called Mûla, that is to say, the root or origin. In the division of twenty‐seven the first lunar asterism was called Jyeshtha, that is to say, the eldest or first, and consequently of the same import as the former” (_vide_ his _Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy_, p. 4). From this it becomes manifest that the vernal equinox was once in the beginning of Mûla, and Mûla was reckoned the first of the asterisms when they were twenty‐eight in number, including Adhijit. Now there are fourteen asterisms, or 180°, from the beginning of Mrigashîrsha to that of Mûla, and hence the date at which the vernal equinox coincided with the beginning of Mûla was at least 3341 + 180 × 72 = 16,301 B.C. The position of the four principal points on the ecliptic was then as given below:
The winter solstice in the beginning of Uttara Phâlgunî in the month of Shrâvana.
The vernal equinox in the beginning of Mûla in Kârttika.
The summer solstice in the beginning of Pûrva Bhâdrapadâ in Mâgha.
The autumnal equinox in the beginning of Mrigashîrsha in Vaishâkha.
A PROOF FROM THE BHAGAVAD GÎTÂ.
13. The _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, as well as the _Bhâgavata_, makes mention of an observation which points to a still more remote antiquity than the one discovered by Mr. Bentley. The passages are given in order below:
“I am the Mârgashîrsha [_viz._ the first among the months] and the spring [_viz._ the first among the seasons].”
This shows that at one time the first month of spring was Mârgashîrsha. A season includes two months, and the mention of a month suggests the season.
“I am the Samvatsara among the years [which are five in number] and the spring among the seasons, and the Mârgashîrsha among the months and the Abhijit among the asterisms [which are twenty‐eight in number].”
This clearly points out that at one time in the first year called Samvatsara, of the quinquennial age, the Madhu, that is, the first month of spring, was Mârgashîrsha, and Abhijit was the first of the asterisms. It then coincided with the vernal equinoctial point, and thence from it the asterisms were counted. To find the date of this observation: There are three asterisms from the beginning of Mûla to the beginning of Abhijit, and hence the date in question is at least 16,301 + 3/7 × 90 × 72 = 19,078 or about 20,000 B.C. The Samvatsara at this time began in Bhâdrapadâ, the winter solstitial month.
So far then 20,000 years are mathematically proven for the antiquity of the _Vedas_. And this is simply exoteric. Any mathematician, provided he be not blinded by preconception and prejudice, can see this, and an unknown but very clever amateur Astronomer, S. A. Mackey, has proved it some sixty years back.
His theory about the Hindu Yugas and their length is curious—as being so very near the correct doctrine.
It is said in volume ii. p. 131, of _Asiatic Researches_ that: “The great ancestor of Yudhister reigned 27,000 years ... at the end of the brazen age.” In volume ix. p. 364, we read:
“In the _beginning of the Cali Yuga_, in the reign of Yudhister. And Yudhister ... began his reign immediately after the flood called Pralaya.”
Here we find three different statements concerning Yudhister ... to explain these seeming differences we must have recourse to their books of science, where we find the heavens and the earth divided into _five parts_ of unequal dimensions, by circles parallel to the equator. Attention to these divisions will be found to be of the utmost importance ... as it will be found that from them arose the division of their Maha‐Yuga into its four component parts. Every astronomer knows that there is a point in the heavens called the pole, round which the whole seems to turn in twenty‐four hours; and that at ninety degrees from it they imagine a _circle_ called the _equator_, which divides the heavens and the earth into two equal parts, the north and the south. Between this circle and the pole there is another imaginary circle called the circle of _perpetual apparition_: between which and the equator there is a point in the heavens called the zenith, through which let another imaginary circle pass, parallel to the other two; and then there wants but the circle of perpetual occultation to complete the round.... No astronomer of Europe besides myself has ever applied them to the development of the Hindu mysterious numbers. We are told in the _Asiatic Researches_ that Yudhister brought Vicramâditya to reign in Cassimer, which is in the latitude of 36 degrees. And in that latitude the circle of perpetual apparition would extend up to 72 degrees altitude, and from that to the zenith there are but 18 degrees, but from the zenith to the equator in that latitude there are 36 degrees, and from the equator to the circle of perpetual occultation there are 54 degrees. Here we find the semi‐circle of 180 degrees divided into four parts, in the proportion of 1, 2, 3, 4, _i.e._, 18, 36, 54, 72. Whether the Hindu astronomers were acquainted with the motion of the earth or not is of no consequence, since the appearances are the same; and if it will give those gentlemen of _tender consciences_ any pleasure I am willing to admit that they imagined the heavens rolled round the earth, but they had observed the stars in the path of the sun to move _forward_ through the equinoctial points, at the rate of fifty‐four seconds of a degree in a year, which carried the whole zodiac round in 24,000 years; in which time they also observed that the angle of obliquity varied, so as to _extend_ or _contract_ the width of the tropics 4 degrees on each side, which rate of motion would carry the tropics from the equator to the poles in 540,000 years: in which time the Zodiac would have made twenty‐two and a half revolutions, which are expressed by the parallel circles from the equator to the poles ... or what amounts to the same thing, the north pole of the ecliptic would have moved from the north pole of the earth to the equator.... Thus the poles become inverted in 1,080,000 years, which is their Maha Yuga, and which they had divided into four unequal parts, in the proportions of 1, 2, 3, 4, for the reasons mentioned above; which are 108,000, 216,000, 324,000, and 432,000. Here we have the most positive proofs that the above numbers originated in _ancient astronomical observations_, and consequently are not deserving of those epithets which have been bestowed upon them by the Essayist, echoing the voice of Bentley, Wilford, Dupuis, etc.
I have now to show that the reign of Yudhister for 27,000 years is neither _absurd nor disgusting_, but perhaps the Essayist is not aware that there were several Yudhisters or Judhisters. In volume ii. p. 131, _Asiatic Researches_: “The great ancestor of Yudhister reigned 27,000 years at the end of the brazen or third age.” Here I must again beg your attention to this projection. This is a plane of that machine which the second gentleman thought so very clumsy; it is that of a _prolong spheroid_, called by the ancients an atroscope. Let the longest axis represent the poles of the earth, making an angle of 28 degrees with the horizon; then will the seven divisions above the horizon to the North Pole, the temple of Buddha, and the seven from the North Pole to the circle of perpetual apparition represent the fourteen Manvantaras, or very long periods of time, each of which, according to the third volume of _Asiatic Researches_, p. 258 or 259, was the reign of a Menu. But Capt. Wilford, in volume v. p. 243, gives us the following information: “The Egyptians had fourteen dynasties, and the Hindus had fourteen dynasties, the _rulers_ of which are called Menus.” ...
Who can here mistake the fourteen very long periods of time for those which constituted the Cali Yuga of Delhi, or any other place in the latitude of 28 degrees, where the blank space from the foot of Meru to the seventh circle from the equator, constitutes the part passed over by the tropic in the next age; which proportions differ considerably from those in the latitude of 36; and because the numbers in the Hindu books differ, Mr. Bentley asserts that: “This shows what little dependence is to be put in them.” But, on the contrary, it shows with what accuracy the Hindus had _observed_ the motions of the heavens in different latitudes.
Some of the Hindus inform us that “the earth has _two spindles_ which are surrounded by _seven tiers of heavens and hells_ at the distance of _one Raju_ each.” This needs but little explanation when it is understood that the seven divisions from the equator to their zenith are called _Rishis_ or _Rashas_. But what is most to our present purpose to know is that they had given names to each of those divisions which the tropics passed over during each revolution of the Zodiac. In the latitude of 36 degrees where the Pole or Meru was nine steps high at Cassimere, they were called _Shastras_; in latitude 28 degrees at Delhi, where the Pole or Meru was seven steps high, they were called Menus; but in 24 degrees, at Cacha, where the Pole or Meru was but six steps high, they were called Sacas. But in the ninth volume (_Asiatic Researches_) Yudhister, the son of Dherma, or _Justice_, was the first of the six Sacas; the name implies the _end_, and as everything has two ends, Yudhister is as applicable to the first as to the last. And as the division on the north of the circle of perpetual apparition is the first of the Cali Yuga, supposing the tropics to be ascending, it was called the division or reign of Yudhister. But the division which immediately precedes the circle of perpetual apparition is the last of the third or _brazen age_, and was therefore called Yudhister, and as his reign preceded the reign of the other, as the tropic ascended to the Pole or Meru, he was called _the father_ of the other—“the great ancestor of Yudhister, who reigned _twenty‐seven thousand years, at the end_ of the brazen age.” (Vol. ii. _Asiatic Researches_.)
The ancient Hindus observed that the Zodiac went forward at about the rate of fifty‐four seconds a year, and to avoid greater fractions, stated it at that, which would make a complete round in 24,000 years; and observing the angle of the poles to vary nearly 4 degrees each round, stated the three numbers as such, which would have given _forty‐five rounds of the Zodiac_ to half a revolution of the poles; but finding that forty‐five rounds would not bring the northern tropic to coincide with the circle of perpetual apparition by thirty minutes of a degree, which required the Zodiac to move one sign and a half more, which we all know it could not do in less than 3,000 years, they were, in the case before us, added to the end of the _brazen age_; which lengthen the reign of _that_ Yudhister to 27,000 years instead of 24,000, but, at another time they did not alter the regular order of 24,000 years to the reign of each of these long‐winded monarchs, but rounded up the time by allowing a _regency_ to continue three or four thousand years. In volume ii. p. 134, _Asiatic Researches_, we are told that: “Paricshit, the great nephew and successor of Yudhister, is allowed without controversy to have reigned in the interval between the _brazen and earthen_, or Cali Ages, and to have died at the setting‐in of the Cali Yug.” Here we find an _interregnum_ at the _end_ of the _brazen_ age, and _before_ the setting‐in of the Cali Yug: and as there can be but one brazen or Treta Yug, _i.e._, the third age, in a Maha Yuga of 1,080,000 years: the reign of this Paricshit must have been in the second Maha Yuga, when the pole had returned to its original position, which must have taken 2,160,000 years: and this is what the Hindus call the Prajanatha Yuga. Analogous to this custom is that of some nations more modern, who, fond of even numbers, have made the common year to consist of twelve months of thirty days each, and the five days and odd measure have been represented as the reign of a little serpent biting his tail, and divided into five parts, etc.
But “Yudhister began his reign immediately _after the flood called Pralaya_,” _i.e._, at the end of the Cali Yug (or age of heat), when the tropic had passed from the pole to the other side of the circle of perpetual apparition, which coincides with the northern horizon; here the tropics or summer solstice would be again in the same parallel of north declination, at the _commencement_ of their first age, as he was at the _end_ of their _third age_, or Treta Yug, called the brazen age....
Enough has been said to prove that the Hindu books of science are not disgusting absurdities, originated in ignorance, vanity, and credulity; but books containing the most profound knowledge of astronomy and geography.
What, therefore, can induce those gentlemen of tender consciences to insist that Yudhister was a real mortal man I have no guess; unless it be that they fear for the fate of Jared and his grandfather, Methuselah?
SECTION XLI. THE DOCTRINE OF AVATARAS.
A strange story—a legend rather—is persistently current among the disciples of some great Himâlayan Gurus, and even among laymen, to the effect that Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu, has never left the terrestrial regions, though his body died and was burnt, and its relics are preserved to this day. There is an oral tradition among the Chinese Buddhists, and a written statement among the secret books of the Lamaists of Tibet, as well as a tradition among the Âryans, that Gautama BUDDHA had two doctrines: one for the masses and His lay disciples, the other for His “elect,” the Arhats. His policy and after Him that of His Arhats was, it appears, to refuse no one admission into the ranks of candidates for Arhatship, but never to divulge the final mysteries except to those who had proved themselves, during long years of probation, to be worthy of Initiation. These once accepted were consecrated and initiated without distinction of race, caste or wealth, as in the case of His western successor. It is the Arhats who have set forth and allowed this tradition to take root in the people’s mind, and it is the basis, also, of the later dogma of Lamaic reincarnation or the succession of human Buddhas.
The little that can be said here upon the subject may or may not help to guide the psychic student in the right direction. It being left to the option and responsibility of the writer to tell the facts as she _personally_ understood them, the blame for possible misconceptions created must fall only upon her. She has been taught the doctrine, but it was left to her sole intuition—as it is now left to the sagacity of the reader—to group the mysterious and perplexing facts together. The incomplete statements herein given are fragments of what is contained in certain secret volumes, but it is not lawful to divulge the details.
The esoteric version of the mystery given in the secret volumes may be told very briefly. The Buddhists have always stoutly denied that their Buddha was, as alleged by the Brâhmans, an Avatâra of Vishnu in the same sense as a man is an incarnation of his Karmic ancestor. They deny it
## partly, perhaps, because the esoteric meaning of the term “Mahâ Vishnu” is
not known to them in its full, impersonal, and general meaning. There is a mysterious Principle in Nature called “Mahâ Vishnu,” which is not the God of that name, but a principle which contains Bîja, the seed of Avatârism or, in other words, is the potency and cause of such divine incarnations. All the World‐Saviours, the Bodhisattvas and the Avatâras, are the trees of salvation grown out from the one seed, the Bîja or “Mahâ Vishnu.” Whether it be called Âdi‐Buddha (Primeval Wisdom) or Mahâ Vishnu, it is all the same. Understood esoterically, Vishnu is both Saguna and Nirguna (with and without attributes). In the first aspect, Vishnu is the object of exoteric worship and devotion; in the second, as Nirguna, he is the culmination of the totality of spiritual wisdom in the Universe—Nirvâna,(647) in short—and has as worshippers all philosophical minds. In this esoteric sense the Lord BUDDHA _was_ an incarnation of Mahâ Vishnu.
This is from the philosophical and purely spiritual standpoint. From the plane of illusion, however, as one would say, or from the terrestrial standpoint, those initiated _know_ that He was a direct incarnation of one of the primeval “Seven Sons of Light” who are to be found in every Theogony—the Dhyân Chohans whose mission it is, from one eternity (æon) to the other, to watch over the spiritual welfare of the regions under their care. This has been already enunciated in _Esoteric Buddhism_.
One of the greatest mysteries of speculative and philosophical Mysticism—and it is one of the mysteries now to be disclosed—is the _modus operandi_ in the degrees of such hypostatic transferences. As a matter of course, divine as well as human incarnations must remain a closed book to the theologian as much as to the physiologist, unless the esoteric teachings be accepted and become the religion of the world. This teaching may never be fully explained to an unprepared public; but one thing is certain and may be said now: that between the dogma of a newly‐created soul for each new birth, and the physiological assumption of a temporary animal soul, there lies the vast region of Occult teaching(648) with its logical and reasonable demonstrations, the links of which may all be traced in logical and philosophical sequence in nature.
This “Mystery” is found, for him who understands its right meaning, in the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, in the _Bhagavad Gita_,