C. W. King:

Wliatcwr iXM pciinuT ncaainx [of the gem with the soUr lion and vowels] it probably imported ia its present shape frooi India {that true founUin bead Gnostic iconography U 4
The mysteries of the seven Gnostic Vowels, uttered by the Thnndexa of St. John, can be unriddled only by the primeval and original CXxrultism of Ar^'Svarta. brought into India by the primeval Brab- mans, who had been mfiated in Cottnti Asia. And this is the Oc- cultism we study and try to explain, as much as is possible, in these pages. Our doctrine of seven Races, and seven Rounds of life and evolution around our Terrestrial Chain of Spheres, may be found
* As confemicd by C. V. Kinf, the gnmt svthority oa Gnoatic •al^ttitic•^ thci^e "Gaortic* srr oot the work of ibc Gocstics. but ttcloofc to fre-Chrtitiso periods, sad sir tbe work of * datis" tsfjfr. cit , p. 141 1.
V King. ikiiL, p. »iS.
I The Uck of intuHtoti io Oiicntftlists and Antiqusrisos past and presrat. is remarkable. Tbtu, WftaoD, the translator of t'tsJinm /VriiM, declares ia hlft Preface that in the Garmda fikrdma he found "DO account of the birth of Oaruda." CoasideriBsr that an ■ccoont of "Creation" tn general i» given iberem. and that Caruds is coAtemal with Viahnn. the Mahi Kalpa, or Great Ufe-Cyde. bceia- oing with and ending ^^ the man^/tUing Vishna, what other account at Garuda'a birth cvuld be expected (
♦ Ihid., he. ciL
PISTXS SOPHIA.
597
even in Revelation* When the seven "Thunders/' or "Sounds," or "Vowels" — one meaning out of the seven for each such vowel relates directly to our own Earth and its seven Root-Races in each Round — "had uttered their voices," but had forbidden the Seer to write them, and made him "seal up those things/' what did the Angel, "standing upon the sea and upon the earth/* do?
He lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, . . . that there should be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God [of the Cycle] should be titiished.t
This means, in Theosophic phraseology, that when the Seventh Round is completed, then Time will cease. "There shall be time no longer" — very naturally, since Pralaya shall set in and there will remain no one on Karth to keep a division of time, during that periodical dissolution and arrest of conscious life.
Dr. Kenealy and others believed that the calculations of the cyclic seven and forty-nine were brought by the Rabbins from Chaldsea. This is more than likely. But the Babylonians, who had all those cycles and taught them only at their great initiatory mysteries of astrological Magic, got their wisdom and learning from India. It is not difficult, therefore, to recognize in them our own Esoteric Doc- trine. In their secret computations, the Japanese have the same figures in their cycles. As to the BrShmans, their Puranas and Upaniskads are good proof of it. The latter have passed entirely into Gnostic literature; and a Brahman needs only to read Pistit SophiaX to recognize his forefathers' property, even to the phraseology and similes used. I to Jesus:
Rabbi, reveal unto us the mysteries of the Light {i.e., the "Fire of Knowledge or Snlightenment"], . . . forasmuch as we have heard thee saying that there is
* Sc« Jfevetation, xvit. a and lo; aad Levtii^us, xxili. 15 tu id; Uie first posMgc sp«aldiiff of tbe "flcvca King^," of whom jfvr have goat; and the second about the "scren Sabbnlhs," etc.
t Op. at., X. 5-7.
t fVsti's Sophia is an extremely important docnment, a genome Evangel of the Gnostics, ascribed at random to Valcntinus, but much more probably a Pre-ChhAtian work as to itii onginal. A Coptic MS. of this work wa» brought back by Bruce ftom Abysslala and discovered by Scbwartzc. In the British Mosenni. quite accidectaily, and translated by hira into Latin. The text and Schwartce's version were published by Petermann in the year 1853. In the text itself the authorship of thlA Book
I is sacribed to Philip tbe Apostle, whom Jesus bids sit down and write the rc\'etation. It in genuine Mnd ought to be as canonical as any other Gospel. Unfcrtunatcly it remains to this day untranslated lato SngUsta.
598
THE SBCRHT DOCTRIJTE.
another baptism of smoke, and another baptism of the Spirit of Holy- Light the Spirit of Fire].*
As John says of Jesus :
I indeed baptize you with water; . . . but he shall baptize you with the Holjr Ghost and with 6re.
^
ire^
The real significance of this statement is very profound. It means that John, a non-initiated ascetic, can impart to his disciples no greater wisdom than the Mysteries connected with the plane of Matter, of which Water is the symbol. His Gnosis was that of exo- teric and ritualistic dogma, of dead-letter orthodoxy;! while the wisdom which Jesus, an Initiate of the Higher Mysteries, would reveal to them, was of a higher character, for it was the "Fire* Wisdom of the true Gnosis or /ra/ Spiritual Enlightenment. One Fire» the other the Smoke. For Moses, the Fire on Mount Sinai and the Spiritual Wisdom: for the multitudes of the •'people" below, the profane, Mount Sinai iu (through) Smoke, i.e., the exoteric busl of orthodox or sectarian ritualistn.
Now, having the above in view, read the dialogue between the sa( N^rada and Devamata in the Anugild,X an episode from the Makrn^ bhdrata, the antiquity and importance of which one can learn in the "Sacred Books of the East," edited by Prof Max Miiller.§ NSrada is discoursing upon the "breaths" or the "life-winds/* as they are called in the clumsy translations of such words as Prina, Apdna, etc., whose full Esoteric meaning and application to individual functions can hardly be rendered in English. He says of this science that:
It is the teaching of the Veda, that the /r (of it) arises among Brdhmanas, being accompanied by intelligence. R
By "fire,*' says the Commentator, he means the Self By "intelli- gence,*' the Occultist says, Nlrada meant neither ^'discussion" not^m ''argumentation," as Arjuna Mishra believes, but *' intelligence" tmJjJH or the adaptation of the Fire of Wisdom to exoteric ritualism for the profane. This is the chief concern of the fir^hmans, who were the first to set the example to other nations who thus anthropomorphized
Ledg^y
* KInf . »p, cit„ p. MO.
^ In the Cyclr of Iiiltialion, which was very long. Water rrpresetitctl the firmt and lower Btepe lownrd purification, while triAla connected with Pire came laat. Water could regenerate the Body o( Matter; Plre aloiN, that of the Inner Spiritual Man. "
t Chop. ix.
I See the Introduction by Kishinlth Trimbak Telang, M.A.
R "Sacred Booka of the fiaat," vol. viU. p. 17b.
TROTH BETWEEN TWO CONTRASTS.
599
aud carnalized the grandest metaphysical truths. Ndrada shows this plainly and is made to say :
The smoke of that (fire) which is of excellent glory (appears) in the shape of . . darkness [verily so!]; (its) ashes, . . . [arcjpa^on; and . . . good-
ness is that in connection with it, in which the offering is thrown.*
That is to say, that faculty in the disciple which apprehends the subtle truth (the flame) which escapes heavenward, while the objective sacrifice remains as a proof and evidence of piety only to the profane. For what else can Nirada mean by the following?
Those who understand the sacriSce understand the Sam&na and the Vy&na as the principal (offering}. The Prdna and ApAna are portions of the offering, . . . and between them is Xh^ /irr. That is the excellent seat of the Udflna as under- stood by Brflfamanas. As to that which is distinct from these pairs, bear me speak about that. Day and night are a pair, between them is the &re. . . . That which e.tis/4 and (hat which does not exist are a pair, between them is the 6re. . . .t And after every such contrast Narada adds:
That is the excellent seat of the Ud&na as understood by Brdhmauaa.
Now many people do not know the full meaning of the statement that Samina and Vy^na, Frina and Apaua — ^which are explained to be "life-winds," but which we say are principles and their respective faculties and senses — are offered up to Ud^na, the soi-disant principal "life-wind/* which is said to act at all the joints. And so the reader who is ignorant that the word "Fire" in these allegories means both the "Self* aud the higher Divine Knowledge, will understand nothing in this, and \vill entirely miss the point of our argument, as the trans- lator and even the editor, the great Oxford Sanskritist, F. Max Miiller, have missed the true meaning of NSrada's words. Exoterically, this enumeration of "life-winds" has, of course, the meaning, approximately^ which is surmised in the foot-notes, namely:
The sense appears to be this: The course of worldly life is due to the operations of the life-winds which are attached to the self and lead to its manifestations as individual souls [r]. Of these, the Sam&na and Vy&na are controlled and held under check by the Pr&na and Apina. . . . The latter two are held in check and controlled by the UdAna, which thus controls all. And the control of this, which is the control of all live, . . . leads to the supreme self. J
The above is given as an explanation of the text, which records the words of the Br^mana, who narrates how he reached the ultimate Wisdom of Yogism, aud in this wise reached All-knowledge. Saying
6oo
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
that he had "perceived by means of the self the seat abiding in the self,"* where dwells the Brahma free from all; and explaining that that iodestractible principle was entirely beyond the pcruption of senses — ;>., of the five "life- winds" — he adds that:
In the midst of all these (life-winds) which move about in the body and swallow up one another, blazes the VaishTAnara fire sevenJbldA
This "Fire," according to Nilakantha^s comnientar>*, is xdenti with the "I." the Self, which is the goal of the ascetic; Vaishvftn being a word often used for the Self. Then the Brihmana gnoes on enumerate that which is meant by the word "sevenfold," and says:
The nose [or smell^ and the tongne [tasle^ and the eye, and the skin, and ear as the fif^h. the mind, and the iinders landing, these are the seven tongues uf the blaze of VaishvAnara-^ . . . Those are the seven (lands oO fuel for me-f . . . These are the sevat greai offidAiimg priesU.l
These seven priests are accepted by Aijuna Mishra in the sense of meaning "the soul distinguished as so many [souls, or principles] with reference to these several powers"; and, finally, the translator seems to accept the explanation, and reluctantly admits that "they may mean" this; though he himself takes the sense to mean:
The powers of hearing etc. [the physical senses, in shorty which are presided over by the several deities.
But whatever it may mean, whether in scientific or orthodox interpre- tations, this passage on page 359 explains NSrada*s statements on page 276, and shows them referring to exoteric and esoteric methods and contrasting them. Thus the Samina and the V>-iLna, though subject to the Prina and the Apana. and all the four to Udina in the matter of acquiring the PrSuayima (of the Hatha Yogi, chiefly, or the lower form of Yoga), are yet referred to as the principal offering, for, as rightly argued by IC Trimbak Telang. their "operations are more practically important for vitalit>*"; i.r.» they are the grossest, and are offered in the sacrifice, in order that they may disappear, so to speak, in the quality of darkness of that fire or its sm4ike — mere exoteric ritualistic form. But Pr&na and Apana. though shown as subordinate
n
♦ rud,.
^•»
I la Uk astMaonkal aad comkal ksy, Xwi^namn. i> Afni. worn of Uw Son. or V1«kv*a«rm. bai In Ihv p«xcho-aiiMaph3^sksl srviboUiK U is Uk Sctf, ia Uwamttcf Boa'sepantenas, i>., both dMae aaO hwium.
\ Hen the •pcaaGcr affrwiiri tbe Mid diriae SdC
THE WISDOM OF THH DIVTNK SBUf.
6oi
(because less gross or more purified), have the Fire between them; the Self and the Secret Knowledge possessed by that Self. So for the good and evil, and for 'Uhat which exists and that which does not exist''; all these **pairs"* have Fire between them, i.e., Esoteric Knowledge, the Wisdom of the Divine Self Let those who are satisfied with the srrnokt' of the Fire remain wherein they are, that is to say within the Eg^yptian darkness of theological fictions and dead- letter interpretations.
The above is written only for the Western students of Occultism and Theosophy. The writer presumes to explain these things neither to the Hindus, who have their own Gums; nor to the Orientalists, who think they know more than all the Gums and Rishis, past and present, put together. These rather lengthy quotations and examples are necessar>', if only to point out to the student the works he has to study so as to derive benefit and learning from comparison. Let him read Pistis Sophia in the light of the Bhaeavad Gitd, the Anugifd and others; and then the statement made by Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel will become clear, and the dead-letter *'blinds" disappear at once. Read the following and compare it with the explanation from the Hindu scriptures just g^iven.
And uo Name is more excellent than all these, a Name wherein be contained all Names, and all Lights, and all the [forty-nine] Powers. Knowing that Name, if a man quits this body of matter,t no smoke {i.e., no theological delusion], J no dark- ness, nor Power, nor Ruler of the Sphere [no Personal Genius or Planetary Spirit called God] of Fate [Karma] . . . shall l>e able to hold back the Soul that knoweth that Name. . . . If he shall utter that Name unto the fire, . . . the darkness shall (lee away. . . . And if he sUhU utter that name unto . . .
* Compaiv with the«e *'i»irs or oppotftea,'* in the Anuglid, the "pairs" of JB/ans, In the elaborate syitem of ValcmtlQus, the most learned and profound Master of the Gnosia. As the "pairs of oppo- «itc»." innlc and fetnalr. are All derivcti from AkAftha (uudcveloped and devtioprd. diflTcrcntinted And ondlfferentiated, or Self or PrajApati!. so are the Valentiaivi "pairs" or mole and remalc .£oiia abown to emanate from Bythos, the prd^xisting rlcmal Depth, and in their Kccondary emannlioo from Ampsiii'Ouraan, or •tempitemal Depth and Silence, the nccond I_,ogos. tn the KKoteric emana- tion there are seven chief "pairs of oppoaites"; and so also in the Valeatioinn system there were fourteen, or twice seven. Epiphanius "copied one pair twice over," Mr. C. W. ICing thinks, "and thiis adds one pair to the proper fifleen." {Tfie Gnostics and their Rtmaitu, pp. 963. >64.) Here Ring falls into the opposite error; the pairs of .^Eoosare not 15 (a "blind") but 14, as the ^rx/ .£00 ia That from which others cmiinatc. Depth and Silence being tlic first and only cmanalton from Bythoa. As Hippolytiis shows: "The JV.oxiA of Valcntinnn are confessedly the rtir Kadicats of Simon (Ma^st,'* wjlh the seventh, Ftre. at their bead. And tbcfte are: Mind. Intelligence. Voice. Name. Reason and Thought, sut>ordinate to Fire, the Higher Self, or precisely the "Seven Winds" or the "Seven Priests" of AnugitA.
t Not Decesaarity at death only, tmt durinK Samfldhi or mystic trance.
) All the words and sentences between parenthetical murks are the writer's. ThiJ* is translated directly from the Latin translation. King's transtatton conforms too much to Gnostlciam as ex- plained by tbe Charcb Fathers.
6o2
THE SECRET DOCTRINH.
ftll their Powers, nay, even unto Barbelo,* and the Invisible God« and the tbm triple-powered Gods, so soon as he ahull have nttercd that name in those places they shall all be thrown one upon the other, so that they shall h« ready to melt and perish, and shall cry aloud. O Light of every light that is iu the boi lights, remember us also and purify usit
It is easy to see what this Light and Name are: the Light of tion and the name of the "Fire -Self," which is no name, no action. a Spiritual. Ever-living Power, higher even than the real •' Invisil God," as this Power is Itself.
But if the able and learned author of the Gnostics and their Remaint has not sufficiently allowed for the spirit of allegory and mysticism in the fragments translated and quoted by him, iu the above named worL from Pisih Sophia — other Orientalists have done far worse. Havixi^^ neither his intuitional perception of the Indian origin of the Gnost^H Wisdom still less of the meauiug of their "gems," most of thera. beginning with Wilson and ending with the dogmatic Weber, have made most extraordinary blunders with regard to almost every symbol. Sir M. Monier Williams and others show a very decided contempt for the "Esoteric Buddhists" as Theosophists are now called; yet do student of Occult Philosophy has ever mistaken a cycle for a living personage and vice versa, as is very often the case with our learned Orientalists. An instance or two may illustrate the statement more graphically. Let us choose the best known.
In the Ramdyana^ Garuda is called "the maternal uncle of Sagara'dH 60.000 sons"; and Amshumat, Sagara's grandson, "the nephew of the 60,000 uncles" who were reduced to ashes by the look of Kapila — the Purushottama, or Infinite Spirit, who caused the horse which Sagara was keeping for the Ashvamedha sacrifice to disappear. Agai^H Garuda's son J — Garuda being himself the Maha Kalpa or Great Cyc^™ — Jatfiyu, the king of the feathered tribe (when on the point of bcin| slain by Rdvana who carries off Sitd) says, speaking of himself: is 60,000 years O king, that I am bom" ; after which, turning his hi on the Sun — he dies. ^^
JatSyii is, of course, the cycle of 60,000 years within the Great Cyc^H of Garuda ; hence he is represented as his son, or nephew, ad libitum^ since the whole meaning re.sts on his being placed in the line of
* Bvbcto is one of the Uirce " Znvl«lbtc Coda," and, u C. W. Klug bcUeve*. Includes the ''DiviM Mothrr of th« Saviour," or rather Sophia Acliamoth {cf. PUUs Sophia, pa^. 339).
♦ F^gX- .178, 379. t In other Puranas Jatiyu is the son of Axuna, G&ruda's brother, both the sons ur KuKhyapa.
alt this is external allegory.
THB ANTIQUITY OP THE KAPILAS.
603
Garuda's descendants. Then, again, there is Diti. the mother of the Maruts, whose descendants and progeny belonged to the posterity of Hiranyaksha. ''whose number was 77 crores (or 770 millions) of men," according to the Padvia Purana. All such narratives are pronounced ** meaningless fictions" and absurdities. But — truth is the daughter of time, verily; and time will show.
Meanwhile, what could be easier than an attempt, at least, to verify PaurSnic chronology? There are many Kapilas; but the Kapila who slew king Sagara's progeny — 60,000 men strong — was undeniably Kapila, the founder of the SSnkhya philosophy, since it is so stated in the Puranas; although one of them flatly denies the imputation with- out explaining its Esoteric meaning. It is the Bhdgavaia Purana* which says that:
The report is not true that the sons of the king were scorched by the wrath of tlie sage. For bow can the quality of darkness, the product of anger, exist iu a Sage whose body was goodness and who purified the world — the earth's dust, as it were, attributed to heavens ! How should mental perturbation distract that sage, identified with the Supreme Spirit, who has steered here (on earth) that solid vessel of the Sdnkhya (philosophy), with the help of which he who desires to obtain liberation crosses the dreaded ocean of existence, that path to death ?t
The Purdna is in duty bound to speak as it does. It has a dogma to promulgate and a policy to carry cut — that of great secrecy with regard to mystical divine truths divulged for countless ages only at Initiation. It is not in the Puranas, therefore, that we have to look for an explana- tion of the mystery connected with various transcendental states of being. That the stor\' is an allegor\* is seen upon its very face: the 60,000 "sons,*' brutal, vicious, and impious, are the personification of the human passions that a "mere glance of the Sage" — the Self who represents the highest state of purity that can be reached on Earth — reduces to ashes. But it has also other significations, cyclic and chronological meanings, a method of marking the periods when certain Sages flourished, found also in other Puranas.
Now it is as well ascertained as any tradition can be, that it was at Hardwar, or Gangadvira, the "door or gate of the Ganges," at the foot of the HimSlayas, that Kapila sat in meditation for a number of years. Not far from the Sewalik range, the pass of Hardwar is called to this day "Kapila's Pass,*' and the place also is named "Kapilasthen" by the ascetics. It is there that the Ganges, Gangd, emerging from its mountainous gorge, begins its course over the sultry plains of India.
• UL *iij. IB, 13.
t Prom BuraonT* TmnilaUon ; lee Wilson's Vuhnu Put&na, iU. 300.
604
THK 3BCRET DOCTRINE.
And it is clearly ascertained by geological survey that the tradition which claims that the ocean washed the base of the Himalayas ages ago, is not entirely without foundation, for distinct traces of this still remain.
The SSnkhya Philosophy may have been brought down and taught by the first, and written out by the last Kapila.
Now SIgara is the name of the ocean, and especially of the Bay of Bengal, at the mouth of the Ganges, to this day in India.* Have Geologists ever calculated the number of millenniums it uiust have taken the sea to recede the distance it is now from Hardwar. which is at present 1,024 ^^^^ above its level? If they had, those OricntalisU who show Kapila flourishing from the first to the ninth century a.d.. might change their opinions, if only for one of two very good reasons. Firstly, the true number of years which have elapsed since Kapila's day is unmistakably in the Purdnas, though the translators may fail to see it; and secondly, the Kapila of the Satya, and the Kapila of the Kali Yugas, may be one and the same individnalily\ without being the same personaiiiy.
Kapila, besides being the name of a personage, of the once living Sage and the author of the Sankhya Philosophy, is also the generic name of the Kumdras, the celestial Ascetics and Virgins; therefore the verj' fact of the Bhdgavaia Purana calling thai Kapila — whom it had showed just before as a portion of Vishnu — the author of the Sankh>'a Philosophy, ought to have warned the reader of a "blind*' containing an Esoteric meaning. Whether he was the son of Vitatha. as the Hafivamsha shows him to be, or of any one else, the author of the Sankhya cannot be the same as the Sage of the Satya Yuga — at the ver3' beginning of the Manvautara, when Vishnu is shown in the form of Kapila i "imparting to all creatures true Wisdom"; for this relates to that primordial period when the "Sons of God" taught to the newly created men those arts and sciences, which have since been cultivated and preserved in the sanctuaries by the Initiates. There are several well-known Kapilas in the Purdnas, First the primeval Sage, then Kapila one of the three "secret" Kumaras, and Kapila son of Ka&h- yapa and Kadru — the "many-Leaded serpent"! — besides Kapila the great Sage and Philosopher of the Kali Yuga. The latter, being an Initiate, a "Serpent of Wisdom/' a Naga, was purposely blended with the Kapilas of the former ages.
• Wilson, ibid., p. 302. notr.
t See r^Jjrw AirjMa, which placet him lo the lUl of Uie forty renowned boos of Kuhjrap^