By Blavatsky
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 . . .»
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 . . .»
The Manus
(Note: for a better understanding of what follows you
need to know the doctrine of the rounds and the root races.)
— 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 1. 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
1. 61-63) (1), the production of the latter
standing in the occult treatises as 7x7.
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. 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 7x7
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 Round. |
1st (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Swayambhuva. |
1st (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Swarochi (or) Swarotisha. |
2nd Round. |
2nd (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Uttama. |
2nd (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Thamasa. |
3rd Round. |
3rd (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Raivata. |
3rd (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Chackchuska. |
4th Round. |
4th (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Vaivasvata (our progenitor). |
4th (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Savarni. |
5th Round. |
5th (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Daksha Savarni. |
5th (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Brahma Savarni. |
6th Round. |
6th (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Dharma Savarni. |
6th (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Rudra Savarni. |
7th Round. |
7th (Root) Manu on Planet A.—Rouchya. |
7th (Seed) Manu on Planet G.—Bhoutya. |
Vaivasvata thus, though seventh in the order given, is the primitive
Root-Mann 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 Deluge
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, etc.
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 (2), 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.
The sevenfold composition of the macrocosm and
man
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 (3), has a secret meaning underlying it. This meaning can
be fully realized only by him who has a full knowledge of Prána, the ONE
LIFE, “the nave to which are attached the seven spokes of the Universal
Wheel.” (Hymn to Prána, 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”). (4)
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.
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 Avyakta,
the “unevolved evolver,” etc.?
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.
It depends on the 5th —Manas or Ahankara, the “I”— to thin the
guna, “rope,” into one thread — the sattwa; and thus by becoming one
with the “unevolved evolver,” win immortality or eternal conscious existence.
Otherwise it will be again resolved into its Mahabhautic essence; so
long as the triple-stranded rope is left unstranded, the spirit (the divine
monad) is bound by the presence of the gunas in the principles “like an animal”
(purusha pasu).
The spirit, âtman or jivatman (the 7th and 6th principles),
whether of the macro or microcosm, though bound by these gunas
during the objective manifestation of universe or man, is yet nirguna — i.e.,
entirely free from them. Out of the three producers or evolvers, Prakriti,
Buddhi and Ahankara, it is but the latter that can be caught (when
man is concerned) and destroyed when personal.
The “divine monad” is aguna (devoid of qualities), while
Prakriti, once that from passive Mula-prakriti it has become avyakta (an
active evolver) is gunavat — endowed with qualities. With the latter,
Purusha or Atman can have nought to do (of course being unable to perceive it
in its gunavatic state); with the former —or Mula-prakriti or
undifferentiated cosmic essence— it has, since it is one with it and
identical.
The Atma Bodha, or “knowledge of soul,” a tract written by the
great Sankaracharya, speaks distinctly of the seven principles in man
(see 14th verse). They are called therein the five sheaths (panchakosa) in
which is enclosed the divine monad—the Atman, and Buddhi, the 7th
and 6th principles, or the individuated soul when made distinct (through avidya,
maya and the gunas) from the supreme soul — Parabrahm.
The 1st sheath, called Ananda-maya —the “illusion of supreme
bliss”— is the manas or fifth principle of the occultists, when united
with Buddhi; the 2nd sheath is Vjnana-maya-kosa, the case or
“envelope of self-delusion,” the manas when self-deluded into the belief
of the personal “I,” or ego, with its vehicle. The 3rd, the Mano-maya
sheath, composed of “illusionary mind” associated with the organs of action
and will, is the Kamarupa and Linga-sarira combined, producing an
illusive “I” or Mayavi-rupa. The 4th sheath is called Prana-maya, illusionary
life,” our second life principle or jiv, wherein resides life,
the “breathing” sheath. The 5th kosa is called Anna-maya, or the
sheath supported by food—our gross material body.
All these sheaths produce other smaller sheaths, or six attributes or
qualities each, the seventh being always the root sheath; and the Atman
or spirit passing through all these subtle ethereal bodies like a thread, is
called the “thread-soul” or sutratman.
~ * ~
We may conclude with the above
demonstration. Verily the Esoteric doctrine may well be called in its turn the
“thread-doctrine,” since, like Sutratman or Pranatman, it passes
through and strings together all the ancient philosophical religious systems,
and, what is more, reconciles and explains them. For though seeming so unlike
externally, they have but one foundation, and of that the extent, depth, breadth
and nature are known to those who have become, like the “Wise Men of the East,”
adepts in Occult Science.
NOTES
1. 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 Manus, who
in their turn gave birth to seven other Manus (Manu, 1. 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.
2. 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!
3. 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.”
4. 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.
(The Theosophist, July 1883, p.253-256)
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