SECTION IX.

The Upanishads in Gnostic Literature
We are reminded in King's Gnostics and thdr Remains that the Greek language had but one word for vowel and voice. This has led the uninitiated to many erroneous interpretations. On the simple knowledge, however, of this well-known fact a comparison may be attempted, and a flood of light thrown upon several mystic meanings. Thus the words, so often used in the Upanishads and the Puranas^ *' Sound" and "Speech," may be collated with the Gnostic "Vowels" and the "Voices'* of the Thunders and Angels in Revelation. The same will be found in Pistis Sophia, and other ancient Fragments and MSS. This was remarked even by the matter-of-fact author of the above mentioned work.
Through Hippolytus, an early Church Father, we learn what Marcus — a P\'thagorean rather than a Christian Gnostic, and a Kabalist most certainly — had received in mystic revelation. It is said that Marc had it revealed unto him that:
The seven Aaaz'ens* .... sounded each one vowel, which, all combined together, formed a single doxology. "the sound whereof being carried down [from these seven heavens] to earth, becomes the creator and parent of all things that be on earth." t
Translated from the Occult phraseology into still plainer laugxiage this would read: The Sevenfold Logos having differentiated into seven Logoi. or Creative Potencies (Vowels), these (the Second Logos, or "Sound") created all on Earth.
Assuredly one who is acquainted with Gnostic literature can hardly help seeing in St. John's Apocalypse, a work of the same school of thought. For we find John saying:
^
• The " Uenvens" nir identical with " Angela," fts already sUtcd. r Pkih^^ph*kmtnA, vK 4^; quoted by King, op. cit, p. aoo.
THE SEVSN THinnJERS.
595
■
Seven thunders nttered their voices . . . [and] I was about to write . . . [but] I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.*
The same injunction is given to Marcus, the same to all other semi and /u/i Initiates. The very sameness of the expressions used, and of the underlying ideas, always betrays a portion of the Mysteries. We must always seek for more than one meaning in every mystery allegori- cally revealed, especially in those in which the number seven and its multiplication seven by seven, or forty-nine, appear. Now when, in Pis/is Sophia, tlie Rabbi Jesus is requested by his disciples to reveal to them the "Mysteries of the Light of his Father" — i.e., of the Higher Self enlightened by Initiation and Divine Knowledge — Jesus answers:
Do ye seek after these mysteries? No mystery is more excellent than they; which shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights, unto the place of Truth and Goodness, unto the place where there is neither male nor female, neither form in that place but Light, everlasting, not to be uttered. Nothing therefore is more ezccUent than the mysteries which ye seek after, saving only the mystery of the seven Vowels arid th^r forty and nine Powers, and their numbers thereof. And no name is more excellent than all these (Vowels).t
As says the Commentary, speaking of the ** Fires":
The Seveti Fa/hers ami the Forty-nine Sons blaze in Darkness^ but they are the Life and Light and the continuation thereof through the Great Age.
Now it becomes evident that, in every Esoteric interpretation of exoteric beliefs expressed in allegorical forms, there is the same uuder- l>'ing idea — the basic number seven, the compound of three siud /our, preceded by the divine three (/\') making the perfect number ten.
Also, these numbers apply equally to divisions of time, to cosmo- graphy, metaphysical and physical, as well as to man and everything else in visible Nature. Thus these seven Vowels with their forty-nine Powers are identical with the three and the seven Fires of the Hindus and their forty-nine Fires; identical with the numerical mysteries of the Persian Simorgh; identical with those of the Jewish Kabalists. The latter, dwarfing the numbers (their mode of ''blinds"), made the duration of each successive Renewal, or what we call in Esoteric parlance Round, i,ooo years only or of the seven Renewals of the Globe 7,000 years, instead of. as is more likely. 7,000,000,000, and assigned to the total duration of the Universe 49,000 years only.l
• op. dt, X. 3. 4.
t Pistis Sophia, pag. 37B; Ring, ibid., ioc. cit.
t Sec the Section on " The Chrooology of the Drlhmuu.
p.6
Now* the Secret Doctrine fc**^******^ a key which reveals to tis on the indispcEtafalc giouiKU of cndipnaCxre analog that Garnda. the alle- gOfica] and looascroas batsman and half-btrd — the Vlhana or vehicle on vhich Vishan, as KHa or ^Thne.** is shown to ride — is the ori^n of all soch allegories. He is the Indian Phcenix. the emblem of cyclic and peiiodKal time» the **Msn-lmi* (Sinha). of isHiose representations the so-called Gnootic gems are so fblL*
Over the sevcB Twet% of t^ Boa's crom, sad rwifinwiilin^ to fhexr potato, stand cftea laKwvcBVOvchortkeGcccfc aipftafacC ASmOYD, tofilNiBg to the Seven
This is the Solar lion and the emblem of the Solar Cycle, as Garada} is that of the Great Circle, the MahS Kalpa, coetemal with VMbhl and also* of coarse, the emblem of the Sun and Solar Cycle This is shown by the details of the allegory. At his birtl), Garuda, on account of his **dazzling splendoor," is mistahen for Agni, the God of Fire, and was thence called Gaganeshvara, "Lord of the Sky.'* lis rcpwM ntation as Osiris^ on the Abraxas (Gnostic) gems, and by many heads of allegorical monsters, with the head and beak of an eagle or a hawk — both solar bird&— denotes Ganida's solar and cyclic character. His son is Jatfiyn* the c>'cle of 6o»ooo years. As well remarked by