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Purana-Kassapa. See PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA
Purana-Kāsyapa. (P. Purana-Kassapa; T. 'Od srung rdzogs byed; C. Fulanna Jiashe; J. Furannakasho; K. Puranna Kasop 富蘭那迦葉). One of the so-called "six heterodox teachers" (TĪRTHIKA) often mentioned in Buddhist sutras and criticized by the Buddha. (The other five are MASKARIN GOsĀLĪPUTRA, AJITA KEsAKAMBHALA, KAKUDA KĀTYĀYANA, SANJAYA VAIRĀtĪPUTRA, and NIRGRANTHA JNĀTĪPUTRA.) Purana-Kāsyapa is said to have propounded the view of akiriyavāda, literally "nonaction," a kind of antinomianism that denied the law of moral cause and effect (KARMAN). Purana claimed that, since there was no ultimate distinction between good and evil because actions did not have any effects, there was hence no harm in killing and stealing and no benefit in giving gifts and speaking truthfully. He also appears in accounts of the miracles the Buddha's performed at sRĀVASTĪ (i.e., the YAMAKAPRĀTIHĀRYA, or "dual miracle," and the MAHĀPRĀTIHĀRYA or "great miracle") as one of the heterodox teachers who challenges the Buddha to a miracle contest. After the Buddha defeats the tīrthikas, Purana-Kāsyapa withdraws in despair and is said to have drowned himself in Lake Anavatapta.
Purana-Kāsyapa
Purana: One of eighteen or more sacred treatises of India, legendary and allegorical in character, discussing five principal topics, viz., the creation of the universe, its destruction and renovation, the genealogy of gods and patriarchs, the reigns of the Manus, and the history of the solar and lunar races; interspersed are ethical, philosophical, and scientific observations; they are supposed to have been compiled by the poet Vyasa.
Purana (Sanskrit) Purāṇa Ancient, old, an ancient tale or legend. The 18 Hindu scriptures known today as the Puranas are ancient legends of olden times, written in verse, partly in symbolical and allegorical and partly in quasi-historical language. They are supposed originally to have been composed by Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata. A Purana is a work which has five distinguishing topics (pancha-lakshanas): 1) the creation of the universe; 2) its destruction and renovation; 3) the genealogy of gods and patriarchs; 4) the reigns of the manus, forming the periods called manvantaras; and 5) the history of the solar and lunar races of kings.
Purana: (Skr. ancient) One of 18 or more treatises, mainly cosmological, mythological, or legendary in character and composed in p.Ch.n. times. Interspersed are ethical, philosophical and scientific observations. -- K.F.L.
Puranas(Sanskrit) ::: A word which literally means "ancient," "belonging to olden times." In India the word isespecially used as a term comprehending certain well-known sacred scriptures, which popular and evenscholarly authorities ascribe to the poet Vyasa. The Puranas contain the entire body of ancient Indianmythology. They are usually considered to be eighteen in number, and each Purana, to be complete, issupposed to consist of five topics or themes. These five topics or themes are commonly enumerated asfollows: (1) the beginnings or "creation" of the universe; (2) its renewals and destructions, ormanvantaras and pralayas; (3) the genealogies of the gods, other divine beings, heroes, and patriarchs; (4)the reigns of the various manus; and (5) a resume of the history of the solar and lunar races. Practicallynone of the Puranas as they stand in modern versions contains all these five topics, except perhaps theVishnu-Purana, probably the most complete in this sense of the word; and even the Vishnu-Puranacontains a great deal of matter not directly to be classed under these five topics. All the Puranas alsocontain a great deal of symbolical and allegorical writing.
purana ::: legend and apologue; the Puranas: [a class of sacred writings written in an easy form of Sanskrit (more modem than that of the Veda and Vedanta) composed of legends, apologues, etc.].
purana ::: n. --> One of a class of sacred Hindoo poetical works in the Sanskrit language which treat of the creation, destruction, and renovation of worlds, the genealogy and achievements of gods and heroes, the reigns of the Manus, and the transactions of their descendants. The principal Puranas are eighteen in number, and there are the same number of supplementary books called Upa Puranas.
puranas. ::: a number of ancient scriptures attributed to the sage Vyasa that teach spiritual principles and practices through stories about sacred historical personages which often include their teachings given in conversations
purana &
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. Purana-Kāsyapa (T. 'Od srung rdzogs byed; C. Fulanna jiashe 富蘭那迦葉)
3. In the Mahabharata and the Puranas, the second member of the Triad, the embodiment of sattva-guna, the preserving and restoring power. This power has manifested in the world as the various incarnations of Vishnu, generally accepted as being ten in number. Vishnu"s heaven is Vaikuntha, his consort Lakshmi and his vehicle Garuda. He is portrayed as reclining on the serpent-king Sesa and floating on the waters between periods of cosmic manifestation. The holy river Ganga is said to spring from his foot. (A; V. G.; Dow)” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
Abhimanin, Abhimani (Sanskrit) Abhimānin, Abhimānī [from abhi towards + the verbal root man to think, reflect upon] Longing for, thinking upon; name of an Agni, eldest son of Brahma. By Svaha, Abhimanin had three sons of surpassing brilliancy: Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi, the personifications of the three fires that produced our earth and humanity (VP 1:10). Abhimanin, his three sons, and their 45 sons constitute the mystic 49 fires of the Puranas and the Esoteric Philosophy.
According to the Vedas and Puranas was famous for being the first to produce the sacred triad of fires by the friction of two sticks as many finger-breadths long as there are syllables in the Gayatri, and made of the wood of the asvattha tree (the tree of wisdom). This legend is full of occult meaning hid under archaic allusions. Pururavas is a generalized name for the human monad which in imbodiment is at once the son of divine wisdom and spirit, and of space or mystic earth. The triad of sacred fires are the fire of spirit or inspiration and intuition, the fire of intellect, and the fires of matter or space; and the union of these three into the one generalized fire of the human constitution forms in a sense the field of self-consciousness as well as of the self-conscious ego itself.
Adbhitanya [possibly corruption of Sanskrit adbhutama or adbhutva from adbhuta marvelous, wonderful] In the Vishnu-Purana (3:2), adbhuta is the name of the Indra of the ninth manvantara. Commentary quoted by Blavatsky refers to the first continent once “inhabited by the Sons of Sveta-dwipa [the White Island], the blessed, and Adbhitanya, east and west, the first, the one and the pure . . .” (SD 2:319). Another name for this land or primevally inhabited part of the earth is Adi-varsha.
Adikrit or Adikartri (Sanskrit) Ādikṛt, Ādikartṛ [from ādi first + kṛt doing (kartṛ doer, author, producer) from the verbal root kṛ to do, make, accomplish] The first produced or evolved, synonymous with adikara. In Hindu mythology, the creator; in the Puranas, the personified aspect of the formative or cosmically generative force, which in its root is eternal but periodic in its manifestations. During periods of manifestation adikrit is personified as Vishnu or Brahma (VP 6:4); during periods of rest it is represented as sleeping upon the ocean of space in the form of Vishnu. The term applies to any universe or hierarchy, great or small, whether a cluster of galaxies, a solar system, a planet, or a human being.
Adima (Sanskrit) Ādima In the Siva-Purana, the first man created by Siva, who with Heva is the ancestor of present humanity (IU 1:590, 579n).
Agneyastra (Sanskrit) Āgneyāstra [from āgneya fiery weapon from agni fire + astra missile weapon, arrow] Fiery weapon; one of the magic weapons used by some of the gods and heroes of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. The Vishnu-Purana (3:8) recounts that the agneyastra was given by the sage Aurva to his disciple King Sagara. A magic weapon said to have been “wielded by the adept-race (the fourth), the Atlanteans” (TG 9), and to have been built of “seven elements” (SD 2:629). It can signify a weapon of fiery character used in physical warfare, or on a cosmic scale can denote the employment of a force of nature by an intelligent being either for offensive or defensive purposes. In archaic thought fire, in its abstract sense, is almost equivalent to spirit, and permeates the sevenfold nature of the universe.
Agnishvatta (Sanskrit) Agniṣvātta [from agni fire + the verbal root svad to sweeten, taste] Tasted or sweetened by fire; one of the higher of the seven classes of pitris or progenitors spoken of in the Puranas as those “devoid of fire.” They are thus popularly represented as grihasthas or householders who in previous births failed to keep up their domestic fires and to offer burnt sacrifices, etc. In contrast, the pitris “possessed” of fire are the barhishads, those who kept up their household fires (cf VP 1:10).
Ahan (Sanskrit) Ahan Day (ahan, ahas are base forms of some of the grammatical cases of ahan). In the Vishnu-Purana (1:5), one of the four bodies of Brahma: “Jyotsna (dawn), Ratri (night), Ahan (day), and Sandhya (evening)” which are “invested by the three qualities” (triguna). Esoterically this has “a direct bearing upon the seven principles of the manifested Brahma, or universe, in the same order as man. Exoterically, it is only four principles” (SD 2:58n). Hence only four bodies of Brahma are mentioned in the Puranas.
Aindriyaka (Sanskrit) Aindriyaka [from indriya sense, power; belonging to Indra] In the Puranas, the creations of Brahma are variously enumerated as six, seven, and nine. Aindriyaka represents the organic creation involving the evolution or unfolding of the senses (cf VP 1:5).
Air One of the four primary elements which also include fire, water, and earth. It does not denote the earth’s atmosphere, since ordinary air is a particular gas, and the gaseous state is only one of the conditions of matter — it might be called the air division or air condition of earth, since earth denotes physical matter. The primary elements have secondary derivatives, and these have again other derivatives. In the first round only one element was developed, fire; in the second round the elements were fire and air; in the third, water was added; in the fourth, earth; and ether will appear in the fifth round. Fire is spoken of as the One, air as the Two, water as the Three, earth as the Four. Air is the Father, the creative element. The Vishnu-Purana describes the attributes of air: it corresponds to the sense of touch, and gives bulk.
Ajita (Sanskrit) Ajita [from a not + the verbal root ji to conquer, triumph] The invisible, unsurpassed; in the Vayu-Purana, the highest of twelve gods, named jayas, who were created by Brahma to aid him at the beginning of the manvantara. But because they neglected his directives, Brahma “cursed” them to be born in each succeeding manvantara until the seventh, the Vaivasvata-manvantara (cf VP 1:15; n2, p. 26). These twelve jayas are the Hindu equivalent of the twelve great gods of Greco-Roman mythology. Because of their all-permeant character, on a lower scale these divinities are identical with the manasa, the jnana-devas, the rudras, and other classes of manifested deities. In these lower manifestations of their functions, they are identical with those dhyani-chohanic groups which “refuse to incarnate,” spoken of in The Secret Doctrine.
Ajīvaka. [alt. AjīvakA; Ajīvika]. (T. 'Tsho ba can; C. Xieming waidao; J. Jamyo gedo; K. Samyong oedo 邪命外道) In Sanskrit and PAli, "Improper Livelihood"; one of the major early sects of Indian wandering religious (sRAMAnA) during the fifth century BCE. Makkhali GosAla (S. MASKARIN GOsALĪPUTRA) (d. c. 488 BCE), the leader of the Ajīvakas, was a contemporary of the Buddha. No Ajīvaka works survive, so what little we know about the school derives from descriptions filtered through Buddhist materials. Buddhist explications of Ajīvaka views are convoluted and contradictory; what does seem clear, however, is that the Ajīvakas adhered to a doctrine of strict determinism or fatalism. The Ajīvakas are described as believing that there is no immediate or ultimate cause for the purity or depravity of beings; all beings, souls, and existent things are instead directed along their course by fate (niyati), by the conditions of the species to which they belong, and by their own intrinsic natures. Thus, attainments or accomplishments of any kind are not a result of an individual's own action or the acts of others; rather, according to those beings' positions within the various stations of existence, they experience ease or pain. Makkhali GosAla is portrayed as advocating a theory of automatic purification through an essentially infinite number of transmigrations (saMsArasuddhi), by means of which all things would ultimately attain perfection. The Buddha is said to have regarded Makkhali GosAla's views as the most dangerous of heresies, which was capable of leading even the divinities (DEVA) to loss, discomfort, and suffering. BUDDHAGHOSA explains the perniciousness of his error by comparing the defects of Makkhali's views to those of the views of two other heretical teachers, Purana Kassapa (S. Purana KAsyapa) (d. c. 503 BCE), another Ajīvaka teacher, and AJITA-Kesakambala, a prominent teacher of the LOKAYATA (Naturalist) school, which maintained a materialist perspective toward the world. Purana asserted the existence of an unchanging passive soul that was unaffected by either wholesome or unwholesome action and thereby denied the efficacy of KARMAN; Ajita advocated an annihilationist theory that there is no afterlife or rebirth, which thereby denied any possibility of karmic retribution. Makkhali's doctrine of fate or noncausation, in denying both action and its result, was said to have combined the defects in both those systems of thought.
All theses various “creations” mentioned in the Puranas represent stages of evolutionary production, following each other in regular serial order, and thus unfolding into manifestation what lay originally latent in the seed out of which these various stages arise. Thus the reference in the Vishnu-Purana, for example, by analogical reasoning can apply either to a universe, solar system, planetary chain, or to the developmental history of earth and its inhabitants.
Also the name of an ancient Aryan sage, a Kshatriya, who through continuous religious austerities and philosophical meditation, became a rishi, and whose name was given to the pole star. In the Puranas, the son of Uttanapada, who was raised to the pole star by Vishnu.
Ambhamsi (Sanskrit) Ambhāṃsi [from ambhas water, from the verbal root bhā to shine] Water; in the Vedas the celestial waters and also a synonym for gods, but in the Brahmanas and Puranas the four orders of beings that variously “shine” or flourish: deva-manushyah (gods and men), pitris (fathers or manes), and asuras (demons, not-gods). This is “because they are all the product of waters (mystically), of the Akasic Ocean . . . If the student of Esoteric philosophy thinks deeply over the subject he is sure to find out all the suggestiveness of the term Ambhamsi, in its manifold relations to the Virgin in Heaven, to the Celestial Virgin of the Alchemists, and even to the ‘Waters of Grace’ of the modern Baptist” (SD 1:458n).
Amrita (Sanskrit) Amṛta [from a not + mṛta dead from the verbal root mṛ to die] Immortality; the water of life or immortality, the ambrosial drink or spiritual food of the gods. According to the Puranas, Ramayana, and Mahabharata, amrita is the elixir of life produced during the contest between the devas and asuras when churning the “milky sea” (the waters of life). It has been stolen many times, but as often recovered, and it is still preserved carefully in devaloka.
Amsamsavatara (Sanskrit) Aṃśāṃśāvatāra [from aṃśāṃśā (aṃśa + aṃśa) portion of a portion, fragment + avatāra descent from ava-tṝ to cross over down, descend] The descent of a part of a part; applied to the numerous manifestations of Vishnu and Brahma; in the Vishnu-Purana more particularly to Krishna and to the “actions he performed as a part of a part [amsamsavatara] of the Supreme, upon the earth” (5:1). An avatara or so-called divine descent is never a “descent” or incarnation of the wholeness or entirety of a divinity, but only of a part of it; so that every avatara involves a descent only of a part of a part, and hence, strictly speaking, may be called an amsamsavatara. Obviously, the greater the avatara, the greater in influence though not necessarily of form is the amsa or portion which descends (cf MB Adiparvan 7).
Ananta-sesha (Sanskrit) Ananta-śeṣa [from an not + anta end + the verbal root śiṣ to leave remainders] Endless sishtas or remainders; name of the serpent of eternity described in the Puranas as the seat or carrier of the divine Vishnu during the periodical pralayas of the universe. It is thus infinite time itself, figurated as the great seven-headed serpent on which rests Vishnu, the manvantaric Logos when the Logos sinks into pralayic inactivity. This compound signifies the ever-continuing sishtas (spiritual cosmic seeds or residues) carried over from manvantara to manvantara through the intervening pralaya, and thus through eternity. It is on this endless aggregate of cosmic sishtas that Vishnu the cosmic Logos reclines, the thread of logoic consciousness being thus passed from manvantara to manvantara through the pralaya. Just as Vishnu in theosophy is a generalizing term for all the innumerable interblending hierarchies of beings and things which are unfolded during manvantara, so during pralaya Vishnu stands for the same aggregate of hierarchies conceived of as resting on the karmic remainders or “sleeping” webs of substance left over from the previous manvantara. See also SESHA
Anda-kataha (Sanskrit) Aṇḍa-kaṭāha [from aṇḍa egg + kaṭāha cauldron, semi-spheroidal container, from the verbal root kaṭ to rain, encompass] Shell of an egg; in the Vishnu-Purana (2:4, 7) used for the encompassing shell of the world egg.
Another dvipa mentioned in the Puranas, Saka-dvipa, has not yet come into existence and is now mainly under the floors of the oceans. It may be called the sixth continent. Both Sveta-dvipa and Saka-dvipa have been confused by some writers with the islands called Ruta and Daitya, which have both disappeared: Ruta between 800 and 900 thousand years ago, and the smaller Daitya at a much later date but still several hundred thousand years ago. Ruta and Daitya were remnants of the fourth or Atlantean continent.
Antariksha, Antariksha (Sanskrit) Antarīkṣa, Antarikṣa [from antar within, interior + īkṣa from the verbal root īkṣ to behold, see] The mid-region; the firmament or space between earth and heaven, the abode of apsaras (nymphs), gandharvas (celestial musicians), and yakshas (nature sprites of many types) along with the mythical wish-granting cow of plenty, Kamadhenu. In the Vedas, antariksha is the middle or second of three lokas (spheres) usually enumerated as bhur, bhuvar, and svar. Above these rise in serial order the four higher lokas of the ordinary Brahmanical hierarchy. Hierarchically, taking the bhurloka as the physical sphere, bhuvarloka or antariksha corresponds with the astral plane. In the Vishnu-Purana (3:3), Antariksha is named as the Vyasa (arranger of the Veda) in the 13th dvapara yuga in the Vaivasvata manvantara, our present world cycle.
Anugraha, Anugrahana (Sanskrit) Anugraha, Anugrahaṇa [from anu-grah to support, uphold, foster, treat kindly] Favor, kindness, promoting or favoring a good object. In the Vishnu-Purana (1:5) applied to the eighth creation (in the Matsya and other Puranas to the fifth creation), the period of formative development “which possesses both the qualities of goodness and darkness.” In Sankhya philosophy anugraha-sarga is the creation or formation of “the feelings or mental conditions.”
A number of hymns in the Rig-Veda are attributed to Angiras, and in one of his births he is famed for his supreme virtue and as an expounder of brahma-vidya (divine or transcendental wisdom). In the Vayu-Purana and elsewhere in Puranic literature some of the descendants of Angiras were said to be Kshattriya by birth and Brahmins by calling (VP 4:8n p.39).
Aparinamin (Sanskrit) Apariṇāmin [from a not + pari around, about + the verbal root nam to bend, turn, change] Unchanging; used in connection with Purusha and prakriti or pradhana, when regarded in their fundamental essence of continuous spiritual substance. In the Puranas, for example, Purusha (spirit per se) is called both avyaya (imperishable, undecaying) and aparinamin (immutable, unchanging); while prahana or prakriti (matter in its elemental state) is vyaya (perishable) and parinamin (subject to change) (cf VP 1:2; SD 1:582). However, when Purusha and prakriti are regarded from the standpoint of the periods of manifestation, their aspects become mayavi (illusory), and hence in their interblending actions subject to the modifications of manvantaric evolution.
“applied in days of old to the highest Gurus in India. There were many Vyasas in Aryavarta; one was the compiler and arranger of the Vedas; another, the author of the Mahabharata — the twenty-eighth Vyasa or revealer in the order of succession — and the last one of note was the author of Uttara Mimansa, the sixth school or system of Indian philosophy. He was also the founder of the Vedanta system. His date, as assigned by Orientalists . . . is 1,400 b.c., but this date is certainly too recent. The Puranas mention only twenty-eight Vyasas, who at various ages descended to the earth to promulgate Vedic truths — but there were many more” (TG 367).
Apsaras (Sanskrit) Apsaras [from ap water + saras flowing from the verbal root sṛ to flow, glide, blow (as of wind)] Moving in the waters; a class of feminine divinities known as celestial water nymphs, whose location is commonly placed in the sky between the clouds rather than in the waters of earth, although they are often described as visiting earth. These fairy-like wives of the gandharvas (celestial musicians) can change their shape at will, often appearing as aquatic birds. In Manu they are held to be the creations of the seven manus, but in the Puranas and the Ramayana their origin is attributed to the churning of the cosmic waters, and it is said that neither gods nor asuras would have them for wives. Since mythologically they were common to all, they are called Sumadatmajas (self-willed pleasurers) — 35 million of them, of whom Kama, god of love, is lord and king. One of their roles is to act as temptresses to those too ardent for divine status. Only the individual who can withstand the perfumed entreaties of the apsarasas is worthy of full enlightenment. In the Yajur-Veda the apsarasas are called sunbeams because of their connection with the gandharva who personifies the sun.
Apsaras ::: Sri Aurobindo: “The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
apsaras ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
Apsaras ::: “The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
Aruna (Sanskrit) Aruṇa [from the verbal root ṛ to move, rise, tend towards] Reddish-brown, ruddy (the color of morning as opposed to the darkness of night); dawn personified, sometimes represented as the charioteer of the sun. In the Ramayana, Aruna is the father of the fabulous bird Jatayu, king of the vultures, slain by Ravana. In the Vishnu-Purana, Aruna is one of the two sons of Kasyapa by Vinata; called Suparna, he is “king of the feathered tribes, and the remorseless enemy of the serpent race” (1:21).
Arundhati-nyaya: The star Arundhati is rarely visible to the naked eye; to point it out, therefore, some very big star near it is shown at first as Arundhati; then it is rejected and a smaller star is pointed out as Arundhati and so on till the actual Arundhati is located. This method of leading from the gross to the more subtle is called Arundhati-nyaya. This method is followed specially in Indian philosophy where in the beginning men are goaded to have faith in the lower form of worship with the help of Agamas and Tantras; then guided to the Bhakti method or the dualistic religion of the Puranas; then, again, to the rigour of the Smritis, and finally, to the non-dual (Advaita) Vedanta of the Upanishads and Ajati-vada. (Compare this with the Bhramara-kita-nyaya which is a direct meditation on the Absolute at one stretch without any such preliminary stages of religion as in the case of the former.)
Arvaksrotas (Sanskrit) Arvāksrotas [from arvāk downwards + srotas stream] Those beings in which the current or stream of nutriment tends downwards. The creation of man, the seventh creation of Brahma in the Vishnu-Purana. These seven creations, which “did not occur on this globe, wherever else they may have taken place” (SD 2:162), refer to different stages of evolution in the earlier periods of a globe-manvantara, as well as of a chain-manvantara. See also TIRYAKSROTAS
As the eldest son of Brahma, Abhimanin represents the cosmic Logos, the first force produced in the universe at its evolution, the fire of cosmic creative desire. His three sons, according to the Vayu-Purana, stand for three different aspects of Agni (fire): Pavaka is the electric fire, Pavamana the fire produced by friction, and Suchi the solar fire. Interpreted on the cosmic and human planes, these three fires are “Spirit, Soul, and Body, the three great Root groups, with their four additional divisions” (SD 2:247). They are said to have been cursed by the sage Vasishtha to be born again and again (cf BP 4:24,4; SD 2:247-8).
As universal space, it is also known as Aditi, in which lies inherent the eternal and continuously active ideation of the universe producing its ever-changing aspects on the planes of matter and objectivity; and from this ideation radiates the First Logos. This is why the Puranas state that akasa has but one attribute, namely sound, for sound is but the translated symbol of logos (speech) in its mystic sense. Akasa as primordial spatial substance is thus the upadhi (vehicle) of divine thought. Further, it is the playground of all the intelligent and semi-intelligent forces in nature, the fountainhead of all terrestrial life, and the abode of the gods.
Atma-vidya (Sanskrit) Ātmavidyā [from ātma self + vidyā knowledge] Knowledge of the self; the highest form of spiritual-divine wisdom, because the fundamental or essential self is a flame or spark of the kosmic self. “Of the four Vidyas — out of the seven branches of Knowledge mentioned in the Puranas — namely, ‘Yajna-Vidya’ (the performance of religious rites in order to produce certain results); ‘Maha-Vidya,’ the great (Magic) knowledge, now degenerated into Tantrika worship; ‘Guhya-Vidya,’ the science of Mantras and their true rhythm or chanting, of mystical incantations, etc. — it is only the last one, ‘Atma-Vidya,’ or the true Spiritual and Divine wisdom, which can throw absolute and final light upon the teachings of the three first named. Without the help of Atma-Vidya, the other three remain no better than surface sciences, geometrical magnitudes having length and breadth, but no thickness. They are like the soul, limbs, and mind of a sleeping man: capable of mechanical motions, of chaotic dreams and even sleep-walking, of producing visible effects, but stimulated by instinctual not intellectual causes, least of all by fully conscious spiritual impulses. A good deal can be given out and explained from the three first-named sciences. But unless the key to their teachings is furnished by Atma-Vidya, they will remain for ever like the fragments of a mangled text-book, like the adumbrations of great truths, dimly perceived by the most spiritual, but distorted out of all proportion by those who would nail every shadow to the wall” (SD 1:168-9).
Avyaktanugrahana (Sanskrit) Avyaktānugrahaṇa [from avyakta unmanifested + anugrahaṇa the fifth or eighth creation of the Puranas] The unmanifested period of formative development, applied to parabrahman and mulaprakriti conjointly (SD 1:521-2).
Bhagavata: An adorer of Bhagavan or Vishnu as God. The Bhagavatam is the name of a Purana, regarded by th Vaishnavas as their scripture.
bhagavata (Bhagavat, Bhagawata) ::: 1. the Bhagavata Purana [one of the eighteen Puranas], the law of the vaishnava dispensation of adoration and love. ::: 2. [a worshipper of Bhagavan].
Bhagavata Purana (Sanskrit) Bhāgavata Purāṇa One of the most celebrated and popular of the 18 principal Puranas, especially dedicated to the glorification of Vishnu-Krishna, whose history is given in the tenth book. It consists of 12 books or skandhas, of 18,000 slokas, and is narrated by Suka, the son of Vyasa, to King Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna, one of the Pandava brothers and hero of the Bhagavad-Gita.
Bhavishya Purana (Sanskrit) Bhaviṣya Purāṇa [from bhaviṣya about to come to pass, future] One of the 18 principal Puranas, extant copies containing 7,000 slokas. While the original of this work is said to have been a revelation of future events by Brahma, it in main part is a treatise on various religious rites and observances, although containing other matter closely recalling portions of the Laws of Manu. Its chief deity is Siva.
Bhrigu (Sanskrit) Bhṛgu [from bhrajj to be hot, brilliantly glowing, or bhrāj to be shining] One of the most celebrated of the Vedic rishis (sages), regarded as the ancestor of the Bhargavas, enumerated as one of the ten primeval maharshis created by the first manu; he is also regarded as one of the seven or ten prajapatis (progenitors) of mankind and other beings, “which is equivalent to identifying him with one of the creative gods, placed by the Puranas in Krita Yug, or the first age, that of purity” (TG 57). Some hymns in the Rig-Veda are attributed to him. The planet Sukra (Venus) is associated with Bhrigu, being one of its names, and Bhrigu is often a term designating the equivalent of Friday, which is consecrated to the planet Venus. Venus is also sometimes called the son of Bhrigu.
Bhutadi: Tamasa Ahamkara, according to Vishnu Purana.
Bhutasarga (Sanskrit) Bhūtasarga [from bhūta has been + sarga creation, production] Elemental creation; the second of the seven creations or emanations, popularly given in the Hindu Puranas as mahat-tattva, bhutasarga, indriya or aindriyaka, mukhya, tairyagyonya or tiryaksrota, urdhvasrotas, and arvakstrotas. Bhutasarga cosmically is the first differentiation of universal indiscrete substance, or primordial akasa, the first stage of the differentiation of the pre-cosmic elements; the word bhutasarga itself suggests that this differentiation is according to seeds or germs (bhutas) reappearing anew from the preceding cosmic manvantara. “In astronomical and Cosmogonical language this Creation relates to the first stage of cosmic-life, the Fire-Mist Period after its Chaotic stage, when atoms issue from Laya” (SD 1:453).
Bhuvana (Sanskrit) Bhuvana [from the verbal root bhū to become] A living being; man, mankind; the world; the earth — all as being living entities. Also Rudra in the Vishnu-Purana. When used in conjunction with 14 (chaturdasa-bhuvanas), the reference is to the 14 lokas.
Blavatsky suggests that there was a succession of Kapilas; but that the Kapila who slew King Sagara’s 60,000 progeny was the founder of the Sankhya philosophy as stated in the Puranas. Further, the Sankhya philosophy may have been brought down and taught by the first, and written out by the last, Kapila, the great sage and philosopher of the kali yuga (cf SD 2:571-2).
Bopadeva, Vopadeva (Sanskrit) Bopadeva Author of several Sanskrit works, according to some author or collator of the Bhagavata-Purana.
BP - Bhagavata Purana
Purana-Kassapa. See PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA
Purana-Kāsyapa. (P. Purana-Kassapa; T. 'Od srung rdzogs byed; C. Fulanna Jiashe; J. Furannakasho; K. Puranna Kasop 富蘭那迦葉). One of the so-called "six heterodox teachers" (TĪRTHIKA) often mentioned in Buddhist sutras and criticized by the Buddha. (The other five are MASKARIN GOsĀLĪPUTRA, AJITA KEsAKAMBHALA, KAKUDA KĀTYĀYANA, SANJAYA VAIRĀtĪPUTRA, and NIRGRANTHA JNĀTĪPUTRA.) Purana-Kāsyapa is said to have propounded the view of akiriyavāda, literally "nonaction," a kind of antinomianism that denied the law of moral cause and effect (KARMAN). Purana claimed that, since there was no ultimate distinction between good and evil because actions did not have any effects, there was hence no harm in killing and stealing and no benefit in giving gifts and speaking truthfully. He also appears in accounts of the miracles the Buddha's performed at sRĀVASTĪ (i.e., the YAMAKAPRĀTIHĀRYA, or "dual miracle," and the MAHĀPRĀTIHĀRYA or "great miracle") as one of the heterodox teachers who challenges the Buddha to a miracle contest. After the Buddha defeats the tīrthikas, Purana-Kāsyapa withdraws in despair and is said to have drowned himself in Lake Anavatapta.
Purana-Kāsyapa
Purana: One of eighteen or more sacred treatises of India, legendary and allegorical in character, discussing five principal topics, viz., the creation of the universe, its destruction and renovation, the genealogy of gods and patriarchs, the reigns of the Manus, and the history of the solar and lunar races; interspersed are ethical, philosophical, and scientific observations; they are supposed to have been compiled by the poet Vyasa.
Purana (Sanskrit) Purāṇa Ancient, old, an ancient tale or legend. The 18 Hindu scriptures known today as the Puranas are ancient legends of olden times, written in verse, partly in symbolical and allegorical and partly in quasi-historical language. They are supposed originally to have been composed by Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata. A Purana is a work which has five distinguishing topics (pancha-lakshanas): 1) the creation of the universe; 2) its destruction and renovation; 3) the genealogy of gods and patriarchs; 4) the reigns of the manus, forming the periods called manvantaras; and 5) the history of the solar and lunar races of kings.
Purana: (Skr. ancient) One of 18 or more treatises, mainly cosmological, mythological, or legendary in character and composed in p.Ch.n. times. Interspersed are ethical, philosophical and scientific observations. -- K.F.L.
Puranas(Sanskrit) ::: A word which literally means "ancient," "belonging to olden times." In India the word isespecially used as a term comprehending certain well-known sacred scriptures, which popular and evenscholarly authorities ascribe to the poet Vyasa. The Puranas contain the entire body of ancient Indianmythology. They are usually considered to be eighteen in number, and each Purana, to be complete, issupposed to consist of five topics or themes. These five topics or themes are commonly enumerated asfollows: (1) the beginnings or "creation" of the universe; (2) its renewals and destructions, ormanvantaras and pralayas; (3) the genealogies of the gods, other divine beings, heroes, and patriarchs; (4)the reigns of the various manus; and (5) a resume of the history of the solar and lunar races. Practicallynone of the Puranas as they stand in modern versions contains all these five topics, except perhaps theVishnu-Purana, probably the most complete in this sense of the word; and even the Vishnu-Puranacontains a great deal of matter not directly to be classed under these five topics. All the Puranas alsocontain a great deal of symbolical and allegorical writing.
Brahmanda Purana (Sanskrit) Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa One of the 18 principal Hindu Puranas, so named because it contains an account of Brahmanda (the Egg of Brahma), and therefore of future cosmic ages as revealed by Brahma. It consists of 12,200 slokas.
Brahman is both masculine and neuter, and therefore has two meanings. In the masculine (Brahma) it is the evolving energy of the cosmic egg, as distinguished from the neuter (Brahman). Brahma is the vehicle or sheath of Brahman. The Vishnu-Purana says that Brahma in its totality has essentially the aspect of prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (mulaprakriti), and also the aspects of spirit and of time. “Brahma, as ‘the germ of unknown Darkness,’ is the material from which all evolves and develops ‘as the web from the spider, as foam from the water,’ etc. This is only graphic and true, if Brahma the ‘Creator’ is, as a term, derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahma ‘expands’ and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance” (SD 1:83). Again,
Brahma-Vaivarta Purana (Sanskrit) Brahma-Vaivarta Purāṇa The metamorphosis of Brahma; one of the 18 principal Hindu Puranas, dealing with Brahma in the form of the avatara Krishna and containing prayers and invocations addressed to Krishna, with narratives about his love for Radha, the gopis, etc.
buddha. (T. sangs rgyas; C. fo; J. butsu/hotoke; K. pul 佛). In Sanskrit and PAli, "awakened one" or "enlightened one"; an epithet derived from the Sanskrit root √budh, meaning "to awaken" or "to open up" (as does a flower) and thus traditionally etymologized as one who has awakened from the deep sleep of ignorance and opened his consciousness to encompass all objects of knowledge. The term was used in ancient India by a number of different religious groups, but came to be most strongly associated with followers of the teacher GAUTAMA, the "Sage of the sAKYA Clan" (sAKYAMUNI), who claimed to be only the most recent of a succession of buddhas who had appeared in the world over many eons of time (KALPA). In addition to sAkyamuni, there are many other buddhas named in Buddhist literature, from various lists of buddhas of the past, present, and future, to "buddhas of the ten directions" (dasadigbuddha), viz., everywhere. Although the precise nature of buddhahood is debated by the various schools, a buddha is a person who, in the far distant past, made a previous vow (PuRVAPRAnIDHANA) to become a buddha in order to reestablish the dispensation or teaching (sASANA) at a time when it was lost to the world. The path to buddhahood is much longer than that of the ARHAT-as many as three incalculable eons of time (ASAMKHYEYAKALPA) in some computations-because of the long process of training over the BODHISATTVA path (MARGA), involving mastery of the six or ten "perfections" (PARAMITA). Buddhas can remember both their past lives and the past lives of all sentient beings, and relate events from those past lives in the JATAKA and AVADANA literature. Although there is great interest in the West in the "biography" of Gautama or sAkyamuni Buddha, the early tradition seemed intent on demonstrating his similarity to the buddhas of the past rather than his uniqueness. Such a concern was motivated in part by the need to demonstrate that what the Buddha taught was not the innovation of an individual, but rather the rediscovery of a timeless truth (what the Buddha himself called "an ancient path" [S. purAnamArga, P. purAnamagga]) that had been discovered in precisely the same way, since time immemorial, by a person who undertook the same type of extended preparation. In this sense, the doctrine of the existence of past buddhas allowed the early Buddhist community to claim an authority similar to that of the Vedas of their Hindu rivals and of the JAINA tradition of previous tīrthankaras. Thus, in their biographies, all of the buddhas of the past and future are portrayed as doing many of the same things. They all sit cross-legged in their mother's womb; they are all born in the "middle country" (madhyadesa) of the continent of JAMBUDVĪPA; immediately after their birth they all take seven steps to the north; they all renounce the world after seeing the four sights (CATURNIMITTA; an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a mendicant) and after the birth of a son; they all achieve enlightenment seated on a bed of grass; they stride first with their right foot when they walk; they never stoop to pass through a door; they all establish a SAMGHA; they all can live for an eon if requested to do so; they never die before their teaching is complete; they all die after eating meat. Four sites on the earth are identical for all buddhas: the place of enlightenment, the place of the first sermon that "turns the wheel of the dharma" (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANA), the place of descending from TRAYASTRIMsA (heaven of the thirty-three), and the place of their bed in JETAVANA monastery. Buddhas can differ from each other in only eight ways: life span, height, caste (either brAhmana or KsATRIYA), the conveyance by which they go forth from the world, the period of time spent in the practice of asceticism prior to their enlightenment, the kind of tree they sit under on the night of their enlightenment, the size of their seat there, and the extent of their aura. In addition, there are twelve deeds that all buddhas (dvAdasabuddhakArya) perform. (1) They descend from TUsITA heaven for their final birth; (2) they enter their mother's womb; (3) they take birth in LUMBINĪ Garden; (4) they are proficient in the worldly arts; (5) they enjoy the company of consorts; (6) they renounce the world; (7) they practice asceticism on the banks of the NAIRANJANA River; (8) they go to the BODHIMAndA; (9) they subjugate MARA; (10) they attain enlightenment; (11) they turn the wheel of the dharma; and (12) they pass into PARINIRVAnA. They all have a body adorned with the thirty-two major marks (LAKsAnA; MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA) and the eighty secondary marks (ANUVYANJANA) of a great man (MAHAPURUsA). They all have two bodies: a physical body (RuPAKAYA) and a body of qualities (DHARMAKAYA; see BUDDHAKAYA). These qualities of a buddha are accepted by the major schools of Buddhism. It is not the case, as is sometimes suggested, that the buddha of the mainstream traditions is somehow more "human" and the buddha in the MAHAYANA somehow more "superhuman"; all Buddhist traditions relate stories of buddhas performing miraculous feats, such as the sRAVASTĪ MIRACLES described in mainstream materials. Among the many extraordinary powers of the buddhas are a list of "unshared factors" (AVEnIKA[BUDDHA]DHARMA) that are unique to them, including their perfect mindfulness and their inability ever to make a mistake. The buddhas have ten powers specific to them that derive from their unique range of knowledge (for the list, see BALA). The buddhas also are claimed to have an uncanny ability to apply "skill in means" (UPAYAKAUsALYA), that is, to adapt their teachings to the specific needs of their audience. This teaching role is what distinguishes a "complete and perfect buddha" (SAMYAKSAMBUDDHA) from a "solitary buddha" (PRATYEKABUDDHA) who does not teach: a solitary buddha may be enlightened but he neglects to develop the great compassion (MAHAKARUnA) that ultimately prompts a samyaksaMbuddha to seek to lead others to liberation. The MahAyAna develops an innovative perspective on the person of a buddha, which it conceived as having three bodies (TRIKAYA): the DHARMAKAYA, a transcendent principle that is sometimes translated as "truth body"; an enjoyment body (SAMBHOGAKAYA) that is visible only to advanced bodhisattvas in exalted realms; and an emanation body (NIRMAnAKAYA) that displays the deeds of a buddha to the world. Also in the MahAyAna is the notion of a universe filled with innumerable buddha-fields (BUDDHAKsETRA), the most famous of these being SUKHAVATĪ of AmitAbha. Whereas the mainstream traditions claim that the profundity of a buddha is so great that a single universe can only sustain one buddha at any one time, MahAyAna SuTRAs often include scenes of multiple buddhas appearing together. See also names of specific buddhas, including AKsOBHYA, AMITABHA, AMOGHASIDDHI, RATNASAMBHAVA, VAIROCANA. For indigenous language terms for buddha, see FO (C); HOTOKE (J); PHRA PHUTTHA JAO (Thai); PUCH'o(NIM) (K); SANGS RGYAS (T).
Calf Generally in ancient symbology the calf stood for the earth. The Puranic allegory “which shows ‘the Rishis milking the earth, whose calf was Soma, the Moon,’ has a deep cosmographical meaning; for it is neither our earth which is milked, nor was the moon, which we know, the calf. . . . in every Purana, the calf changes name. In one it is Manu Swayambhuva, in another Indra, in a third the Himavat (Himalayas) itself, while Meru was the milker” (SD 1:398 & n). See also COW
Chandravansa (Sanskrit) Candravaṃśa [from candra moon + vaṃśa lineage, race] Also Chandravamsa. The lunar race; one of the two great royal dynasties of ancient India. As related in the Vishnu-Purana, Soma (the moon), the child of the rishi Atri, gave birth to Budha (Mercury) who married Ila, daughter of the other great royal dynasty, the Suryavansa (solar race). Her descendants, Yadu and Puru, founded the two great branches of the Chandravansa (named respectively Yadava and Paurava). The last important scion of the race of Yadu was the avatara Krishna. In the race of Puru were born Pandu and Dhritarashtra — parents respectively of the Pandavas and Kurus, the heroes of the Mahabharata enumerated in the Bhagavad-Gita (ch 1). “In Occultism, man is called a solar-lunar being, solar in his higher triad, and lunar in his quaternary. Moreover, it is the Sun who imparts his light to the Moon, in the same way as the human triad sheds its divine light on the mortal shell of sinful man. Life celestial quickens life terrestrial” (TG 76).
Chos kyi 'byung gnas. (Chokyi Jungne) (1700-1774). Tibetan Buddhist scholar recognized as the eighth TAI SI TU incarnation, remembered for his wide learning and his editorial work on the Tibetan Buddhist canon. He traveled extensively throughout his life, maintaining strong relationships with the ruling elite of eastern Tibet and the Newar Buddhists of the Kathmandu Valley. Born in the eastern Tibetan region of SDE DGE, Chos kyi 'byung gnas was recognized as a reincarnate lama (SPRUL SKU) by the eighth ZHWA DMAR, from whom he received his first vows. He would go on to study with KAḤ THOG Rigs 'dzin Tshe dbang nor bu (1698-1755), from whom he learned about GZHAN STONG ("other emptiness"). At the age of twenty-one, he accompanied several important Bka' brgyud hierarchs, the Zhwa dmar and the twelfth KARMA PA, to Kathmandu, a journey that was to have a profound impact on the young Si tu's life. He returned to eastern Tibet in 1724, where he was received favorably by the king of Sde dge, Bstan pa tshe ring (Tenpa Tsering, 1678-1738). Under the latter's patronage, Chos kyi 'byung gnas founded DPAL SPUNGS monastery in 1727, which became the new seat for the Si tu lineage (they are sometimes called the Dpal spungs si tu). Between the years 1731 and 1733, he undertook the monumental task of editing and correcting a new redaction of the BKA' 'GYUR section of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, to be published at the printing house of Sde dge. Although in his day Tibetan knowledge of Indian linguistic traditions had waned, Chos kyi 'byung gnas devoted much of his later life to the study of Sanskrit grammar and literature, which he had first studied with Newar panditas during his time in Kathmandu. He sought out new Sanskrit manuscripts in order to establish more precise translations of Sanskrit works already translated in the Tibetan canon; he is esteemed in Tibet for his knowledge of Sanskrit grammar. In addition to his prolific scholarly work, Chos kyi 'byung gnas was an accomplished painter as well as a gifted physician, much sought after by the aristocracy of eastern Tibet. In 1748, he visited Nepal once again, where he translated the SvayambhupurAna, the legends concerning the SVAYAMBHu STuPA, into Tibetan. He was received amicably by the rulers JayaprakAsamalla (1736-1768) of Kathmandu, Ranajitamalla (1722-1769) of what is now Bhaktapur, and PṛthvīnArAyana sAha, who would unify the Kathmandu Valley under Gorkhali rule several decades later. Chos kyi 'byung gnas' collected writings cover a vast range of subjects including lengthy and detailed diaries and an important history of the KARMA BKA' BRGYUD sect coauthored by his disciple Be lo Tshe dbang kun khyab (Belo Tsewang Kunkyap, b. 1718). He is retrospectively identified as an originator of what would become known as Khams RIS MED movement, which gained momentum in early nineteenth century Sde dge.
Council, 1st. The term translated as "council" is SAMGĪTI, literally "recitation," the word used to describe the communal chanting of the Buddha's teaching. The term suggests that the purpose of the meeting was to recite the TRIPItAKA in order to codify the canon and remove any discrepancies concerning what was and was not to be included. The first Buddhist council is said to have been held in a cave at RAJAGṚHA shortly after the Buddha's passage into PARINIRVAnA, although its historicity has been questioned by modern scholars. There are numerous accounts of the first council and much scholarship has been devoted to their analysis. What follows draws on a number of sources to provide a general description. The accounts agree that, in the SAMGHA, there was an elderly monk named SUBHADRA, a former barber who had entered the order late in life. He always carried a certain animus against the Buddha because when Subhadra was a layman, the Buddha supposedly refused to accept a meal that he had prepared for him. After the Buddha's death, Subhadra told the distraught monks that they should instead rejoice because they could now do as they pleased, without the Buddha telling them what they could and could not do. MAHAKAsYAPA overheard this remark and was so alarmed by it that he thought it prudent to convene a meeting of five hundred ARHATs to codify and recite the rules of discipline (VINAYA) and the discourses (SuTRA) of the Buddha before they became corrupted. With the patronage of King AJATAsATRU, a meeting was called. At least one arhat, GAVAMPATI, declined to participate, deciding instead to pass into nirvAna before the council began. This led to an agreement that no one else would pass into nirvAna until after the conclusion of the council. At the time that the council was announced, ANANDA, the Buddha's personal attendant and therefore the person who had heard the most discourses of the Buddha, was not yet an arhat and would have been prevented from participating. However, on the night before the council, he fortuitously finished his practice and attained the status of arhat. At the council, MahAkAsyapa presided. He interrogated UPALI about the rules of discipline (PRATIMOKsA) of both BHIKsUs and BHIKsUnĪs. He then questioned Ananda about each of the discourses the Buddha had delivered over the course of his life, asking in each case where and on whose account the discourse had been given. In this way, the VINAYAPItAKA and the SuTRAPItAKA were established. (In many accounts, the ABHIDHARMAPItAKA is not mentioned, but in others it is said the abhidharmapitaka was recited by MahAkAsyapa or by Ananda.) Because of his extraordinary powers of memory, Ananda was said to be able to repeat sixty thousand words of the Buddha without omitting a syllable and recite fifteen thousand of his stanzas. It was at the time of his recitation that Ananda informed the council that prior to his passing the Buddha told him that after his death, the saMgha could disregard the minor rules of conduct. Since he had neglected to ask the Buddha what the minor rules were, however, it was decided that all the rules would be maintained. Ananda was then chastised for (1) not asking what the minor rules were, (2) stepping on the Buddha's robe while he was sewing it, (3) allowing the tears of women to fall on the Buddha's corpse, (4) not asking the Buddha to live for an eon (KALPA) or until the end of the eon although the Buddha strongly hinted that he could do so (see CAPALACAITYA), and (5) urging the Buddha to allow women to enter the order. (There are several versions of this list, with some including among the infractions that Ananda allowed women to see the Buddha's naked body.) The entire vinayapitaka and sutrapitaka was then recited, which is said to have required seven months. According to several accounts, after the recitation had concluded, a group of five hundred monks returned from the south, led by a monk named PurAna. When he was asked to approve of the dharma and vinaya that had been codified by the council, he declined, saying that he preferred to remember and retain what he had heard directly from the mouth of the Buddha rather than what had been chanted by the elders. PurAna also disputed eight points of the vinaya concerning the proper storage and consumption of food. This incident, whether or not it has any historical basis, suggests that disagreements about the contents of the Buddha's teaching began to arise shortly after his death.
Daitya: A class of mighty beings in whom the diabolical quality predominates; the demons of Hindu Puranas; giant.
Daitya(s), Daiteya(s) (Sanskrit) Daitya-s, Daiteya-s Descendants of Diti. If Aditi is understood as mulaprakriti, or virtually cosmic space, so Diti, the nether pole of the former, may be understood as the aggregate of the prakritis. Cosmically, daityas are titans, often called asuras, whose role is that of urgers of evolutionary progress for all things, as contrasted with the incomparably slower, but unceasing, evolutionary inertia of the vast cosmic powers. Terrestrially, they are the titans and giants of the fourth root-race. According to the Hindu Puranas, these daityas are demons and enemies of the ceremonial sacrifice and ritualistic ceremonies; but according to the secret meaning hid under these stories, some of the daityas were the forwards-looking and impulse-providing intellectual entities striving against the inertia or deadweight of human nature.
daksa (Daksha) ::: [Ved.]: strength generally; mental power; the power of judgment, discernment, discrimination; Daksa: a god, master of the works of unerring right discernment. [Purana]: one of the Prajapatis, the original progenitors.
Dawn Frequently denotes the beginning of a new cycle, of greater or less extent. Venus-Lucifer is called the luminous son of morning or of manvantaric dawn; and the builders are the luminous sons of manvantaric dawn. In Greek mythology Apollo (the sun) has two daughters, Hilaira and Phoebe (evening twilight and dawn); Eos is the dawn, as is Aurora in Latin. In Hindu mythology, the wife of Surya (the sun) is Ushas (dawn), and she is also his mother. In the Vishnu-Purana, Brahma, for purposes of world formation, assumes four bodies — dawn, night, day, and evening twilight. Man is said to come from the body of dawn, for dawn signifies light, the intelligence of the intellect of the universe often called mahat, the ultimate progenitor, and indeed the final cosmic goal, of the Hierarchy of Light of which the human hierarchy is a small portion. See also SANDHI
devakridanudarsanam ::: as watching the sports of the gods. [Bhagavata Purana]
Devapi (Sanskrit) Devāpi [from deva god + āpi friend] Friend of the god; a rishi mentioned in the Rig-Veda as the son of Rishti-shena. In the Mahabharata and the Puranas he is described as a son of King Pratipa of the Kurus, who resigns his kingdom and retires into the woods, where he is still alive, awaiting with the sage Maru, at Kalapa or Katapa, the coming of Maitreya Buddha, the avatara who will come at the close of the kali yuga, according to legend.
Devasarga (Sanskrit) Devasarga [from deva divine + sarga emanation, emission, creation] Divine emanation or emission; the creation of the gods, the last of the first series of creations enumerated in the Vishnu-Purana. It “has a universal reference; namely, the Evolutions in general, not specifically to our Manvantara; but the latter begins with the same over and over again, showing that it refers to several distinct Kalpas. For it is said ‘at the close of the past (Padma) Kalpa the divine Brahma awoke from his night of sleep and beheld the universe void.’ Then Brahma is shown going once more over the ‘seven creations’ in the secondary stage of evolution, repeating the first three on the objective plane” (SD 1:454).
Devata (Sanskrit) Devatā [from deva divine being] A divine or spiritual being; a generalizing term, often identical with deva. In the plural, a class of celestial beings that waged war with the daityas, according to the Puranas.
Devi Bhagavata Purana. See BHAGAVATA PURANA
Ekaneka-Svarupa (Sanskrit) Ekānekasvarūpa [from eka one + aneka not one, many + svarūpa one’s own form or shape] Single yet manifold in one’s own form; applied in the Puranas to Brahma: although the aspect is single yet it manifests in multiform expressions. Applicable to the various manifestations of the Logos despite its individuality and transcendency, and indeed on smaller scales applicable to any monadic individuality, such as that of a human being.
Eternity [from Latin aeternus, aeviternus from aevum an age] Originally eternity signified time divided into endless cycles stretching from the indefinite past through the present into the indefinite future, comprised within encompassing frontierless duration. Eternity therefore is the abstract sum total of endlessly cyclical time periods. As used in The Secret Doctrine, eternity often means a kosmic mahakalpa or manifestation period; thus the seven eternities means seven kosmic periods equivalent to 100 Years of Brahma or 311,040,000,000,000 human years. Even in the Hindu Vishnu-Purana, immortality, which is given as a definition of eternity, means merely “existence to the end of the Kalpa” (2:8). Occasionally used as a synonym for duration.
“ . . . ‘From that period forward, living creatures were engendered by sexual intercourse. Before the time of Daksha, they were variously propagated — by the will, by sight, by touch, and by Yoga-power’ ” [quotes from the Vishnu-Purana] (SD 2:182-3).
Fulanna Jiashe 富蘭那迦葉. See PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA
Furannakasho 富蘭那迦葉. See PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA
Ganga (Sanskrit) Gaṅgā The Ganges, the sacred river of India. The Puranas and old tales of India represent the goddess Ganga transforming herself into a river and then flowing from the toe of Vishnu. She is said to have been brought from heaven by the prayers of Bhagiratha to purify the ashes of the 60,000 sons of King Sagara who had been consumed by the angry glance of the sage Kapila.
Garuda Purana (Sanskrit) Garuḍa Purāṇa One of the 18 principal Puranas of ancient India, relating principally to the birth of Garuda from Vinata.
“Having evolved himself from the soul of the world, once separated from the first cause, he evaporates with, and emanates all nature out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with it; Brahma and the universe form one Being, each particle of which is in its essence Brahma himself, who proceeded out of himself” (q SD 1:380n). The Vishnu-Purana explains that created beings “although they are destroyed (in their individual forms) at the periods of dissolution, yet being affected by the good or evil acts of former existences, are never exempted from their consequences. And when Brahma produces the world anew, they are the progeny of his will . . .” (q SD 1:456n).
Havyavahana (Sanskrit) Havyavāhana The fire of the gods; the sacrificial fire which receives offerings to the gods. In the Puranas, Suchi, the solar fire, is made its parent.
Hrada (Sanskrit) Hrāda According to a legend in the Puranas, there was in the night of time a war between the gods and the asuras or daityas, beings who opposed ritualism and dogma, which lasted one divine year. On this occasion the gods were defeated by the daityas under the leadership of Hrada.
Ida or Ila (Sanskrit) Iḍā, Iḷā Refreshment, flow; the goddess of sacred speech, similar to Vach; in the Rig-Veda called the instructress of Manu, instituting the rules for the performing of sacrifices. The Satapatha-Brahmana represents Ida as arising from a sacrifice which Manu had performed for the purpose of obtaining offspring. Although claimed by the gods Mitra and Varuna, she became the wife of Manu, giving birth to the race of manus. In the Puranas, she is daughter of Vaivasvata-Manu, wife of Budha (wisdom), and mother of Pururavas. In some accounts she is born a woman, becomes a man named Sudyumna, then rebecomes a woman before finally becoming a man again. This refers to the androgynous third root-race, as well as to the later part of the second root-race.
Idaspati (Sanskrit) Iḍaspati [from iḍ a refreshing draught, libation + pati lord, master] Lord of libations; applied to Brihaspati in the Rig-Veda; also to Pushan, a Vedic deity; in the Puranas applied to Vishnu, particularly in his aspect of Narayana (the mover on the waters).
Ila ::: [Ved.]: the goddess of the Truth-vision; a faculty of the rtam representing truth-vision or revelation; the highest Word, premier energy of the Truth-Consciousness; she who is the direct revealing vision in knowledge and becomes in that knowledge the spontaneous self attainment of the Truth of things in action, result and experience. [Puranas]: Mother of the Lunar dynasty.
In ancient Hindustan there were two principal dynasties of kings, as given in the epics and the Puranas, named the Suryavansa (the Solar Dynasty) and the Chandravansa (the Lunar Dynasty). The former was said to have been descended from the sun through Ikshvaku, who according to mythology was the son or grandson of the sun, Vaivasvata-Manu, the progenitor of our present humanity. The Chandravansa was said to have sprung from Atri, the maharshi (great rishi), whose son again was Soma or the moon, whence the name lunar given to the dynasty.
In Manu (1:35) Vasishtha is enumerated as one of the ten prajapatis, the patriarchs produced by Manu-Svayambhuva for the peopling of the earth. In the Mahabharata he is regarded as the family priest of the Suryavansa (solar race), and also as one of the seven great rishis associated with the seven stars of the Great Bear. In the Puranas, Vasishtha is represented as one of the arrangers of the Vedas in a dvapara yuga of a certain chatur yuga, and as the father of seven celebrated sons.
In the Puranas, Agni is variously a rishi of the fourth manvantara, the name of a kalpa, and also a star. See also FIRE.
In the Puranas, Agnishtoma is given as the seventh son of Manu Chakshusa, the sixth manu descended from the first manu, Svayambhuva (cf VP 1:177).
In the Puranas, Kama is the king and lord of the apsarases. He is pictured armed with a bow and arrows: the bow is often represented to be of sugar cane, the bowstring a line of bees, and each arrow is tipped with a distinct flower which is devoted to, and supposed to preside over, one of the senses. He is also often represented as a handsome youth riding on a parrot and attended by nymphs, one of whom bears his banner displaying the Makara, or a fish on a red background.
In the Puranas seven creations are enumerated, the third being called indriya, or organic evolution. See also AINDRIYAKA
In the Puranas, the agnishvattas are identified with the seasons, and are spoken of as one of the classes of deities presiding over the cyclic divisions of the year.
In the Puranas the apsarasas are sometimes divided into two classes, the daivika (divine or belonging to the devas), hence highly ethereal beings, and the laukika [from loka worldly], belonging to the worlds of manifestation, such as a physical plane. Considered apart from mythologic references, the apsarasas bear a strong resemblance to the undines of medieval Europe, nature forces and elementals appurtenant to all ten ranges of their hierarchical distribution, from the spiritual to the grossly material and physical. Every one of the seven or ten cosmic elements (bhutas) or principles (tattvas) has its own class of inhabitants.
In the Linga-Purana, Siva is said to take repeated births, in one kalpa possessing a white complexion, in another that of a black color, in still another that of a red color, after which he becomes four youths of a yellow color. This allegory is an ethnological account of the different races of mankind and their varying types and colors (cf SD 1:324).
In the Mahabharata and the Puranas, the second member of the Triad, the embodiment of sattva-guna, the preserving and restoring power. This power has manifested in the world as the various incarnations of Vishnu, generally accepted as being ten in number. Vishnu’s heaven is Vaikuntha, his consort Lakshmi and his vehicle Garuda. He is portrayed as reclining on the serpent-king Sesa and floating on the waters between periods of cosmic manifestation. The holy river Ganga is said to spring from his foot. (A; V. G.; Dow)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
In the plural, used in the Mahabharata and Puranas for a class of mythological beings closely allied with the gandharvas and kinnaras. Naras are described as being “Centaurs, men with the limbs of horses and human bodies” (SD 2:65n).
“In the popular belief, semi-divine beings, shades of saints, inconsumable by fire, impervious to water, who dwell in Tapo-loka with the hope of being translated into Satya-loka — a more purified state which answers to Nirvana. The term is explained as the aerial bodies or astral shades of ‘ascetics, mendicants, anchorites, and penitents, who have completed their course of rigorous austerities.’ [Vishnu-Purana, Wilson, 2:229] Now in esoteric philosophy they are called Nirmanakayas, Tapo-loka being on the sixth plane (upward) but in direct communication with the mental plane. The Vairajas are referred to as the first gods because the Manasaputras and the Kumaras are the oldest in theogony, as it is said that even the gods worshipped them (Matsya Purana); those whom Brahma ‘with the eye of Yoga beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the gods of gods’ (Vayu Purana)” (TG 358).
“In the Rig Veda Indra is the highest and greatest of the Gods, and his Soma-drinking is allegorical of his highly spiritual nature. In the Puranas Indra becomes a profligate, a regular drunkard on the Soma juice, in the terrestrial way” (SD 2:378). Indra corresponds with the cosmic principle mahat and in the human constitution with its reflection, manas, in its dual aspect. At times he is connected with buddhi; at others he is dragged down by kama, the desire principle.
In the theosophical scheme of rounds and races, the fifth manvantara of the Puranas refers to the first half or descending arc of the third round of our present planetary chain, and the fifth manu, Raivata, to the root-manu of this third round; further, the passage of the life-waves through each round of all the globes of the planetary chain — i.e. from globe A to globe G — consists of two “manvantaras,” and thus it is that the first half or descending arc of the third round is the fifth of these manvantaras. Moreover, just as in the third root-race on this globe in our present fourth round the manasaputras incarnated in the then relatively intellectually senseless humanity to awaken its self-conscious mind, so in their own way and on their own planes did the abhutarajasas act. In the descending arc of the third round they played the same part, albeit in a more diffuse and less active way, that they later did in the early part of the third root-race of the fourth round on this globe, when the human vehicles were evolutionally ready for a more intensive incarnation.
In the Vamana-Purana, ahimsa is personified as the wife of Dharma, whose offspring, Nara and Narayana (epithets of Arjuna and Krishna respectively), pointed the way to spiritual enlightenment.
“In the Vayu Purana’s account of Daksha’s sacrifice, moreover, it is said to have taken place in the presence of creatures born from the egg, from the vapour, vegetation, pores of the skin, and, finally only, from the womb.
In the Vedas, where neither Brahma nor Siva is known under these names, the trinity usually consists of Agni (fire), Vayu (air), and Surya (sun), the originants of the terrestrial, atmospheric, and heavenly fire respectively. The Padma-Purana states that in the beginning the great Vishnu desiring to produce the whole world, became threefold, in himself the creator, preserver, and destroyer. In order to produce the world, the supreme spirit emanated from the right side of his body, himself, as Brahma; then, to preserve the universe, he produced from the left side of his body, Vishnu; and to destroy the world he produced from the middle of his body the eternal Siva.
In the Vishnu-Purana, Kimpurusha is one of the nine khandas (portions) into which the earth is divided, described as the region between the mountains Himachala and Hemakuta; occasionally therefore called Kimpurusha-varsha.
In the world of matter, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are each personified by earth, water, and fire, i.e., each of these divinities combines in itself these three elements, one predominating when the divinity manifests one of its three fundamental gunas. “In Indian Puranas it is Vishnu, the first, and Brahma, the second logos, or the ideal and practical creators, who are respectively represented, one as manifesting the lotus, the other as issuing from it” (SD 1:381n). But Brahma, for instance, because of the significance of expansion inherent in the name, could equally well be looked upon as the source of Vishnu, manifesting as the cosmic waters or Second Logos. This perhaps is the reason why in this Trimurti, Brahma is called the emanator or evolver, and Vishnu the sustainer or preserver.
In works such as the Hindu Puranas, the fires are personified in Agni-Abhimani and his 48 descendants, each one of which might likewise be called a brother of Abhimani, each being a particular representation or aspect of fire. The term is also applied to the Dioscuri and kabiri.
“It is this vibratory Force, which, when aimed at an army from an Agni Rath fixed on a flying vessel, a balloon, according to the instructions found in Ashtar Vidya, reduced to ashes 100,000 men and elephants, as easily as it would a dead rat. It is allegorised in the Vishnu Purana, in the fable about the sage Kapila whose glance made a mountain of ashes of King Sagara’s 60,000 sons, and which is explained in the esoteric works, and referred to as the Kapilaksha — ‘Kapila’s Eye’ ” (SD 1:563).
Jambu-dvipa (Sanskrit) Jambu-dvīpa [from jambu rose-apple tree (a gigantic tree said to flourish on Mount Meru) + dvīpa continent, continental island] The middle of the seven dvipas or continents enumerated in the geography of the Puranas and the Mahabharata, which relate that Mount Meru rises from the center of Jambu-dvipa. This dvipa was divided into nine varshas (parts or divisions): 1) Bharata, or India situated south of the Himalayas, the southernmost division; 2) Kimpurusha; 3) Hari-varsha; 4) Ila-vrita, the central varsha containing Mount Meru; 5) Ramyaka; 6) Hiran-maya; 7) Uttara-Kuru; 8) Bhadrasva, east of Ila-vrita; 9) Ketu-mala, west of the central varsha. Each varsha was apportioned to one of his nine sons by Agnidhra, king of Jambu-dvipa.
Janardana (Sanskrit) Janārdana [from the verbal root jan to be born, come forth + the verbal root ard to move, agitate] The adored of mankind, exciting or agitating men, besought by mortals; in the Puranas, the one cosmic intelligent life, manifesting in the threefold aspect of fashioner, preserver, and regenerator (Brahma, Vishnu, Siva). Also applied to Krishna in his avataric manifestation of Vishnu.
Janarloka (Sanskrit) Janarloka [from jan to be born + loka world, place] Also janoloka. Birth-world, world of pious men or saints; the third, counting downwards, of the seven lokas (principles or planes of a hierarchy), its tala (element or matter side) being sutala. Exoterically said to extend beyond the solar system, the abode of the kumaras belonging to a high plane, but one nevertheless inferior to those living in taparloka. The siddhas (saints, pious men) are stated to have their spiritual dwellings or rest periods in janarloka. There too, according to the Puranas, animals destroyed in the general kosmic conflagration are born again (SD 1:371).
Jatayu (Sanskrit) Jaṭāyu King of the vultures, steed of Vishnu and other gods, son of Aruna and Syeni according to the Mahabharata; or son of Garuda according to the Ramayana. Jatayu promised his aid to Rama, and when the demon-king Ravana was carrying off Rama’s wife Sita, the king of birds gave pursuit, but was mortally wounded after a furious battle with Ravana. In the Puranas, when Rama’s father, King Dasaratha, went to the ecliptic to recover Sita from Sani (Saturn), his chariot was consumed by a glance from Sani’s eye, but Jatayu caught the falling king and saved him.
Jaya (Sanskrit) Jaya [from the verbal root ji to conquer] Conquering, winning, victorious. As a noun, conquest, victory, hence a favorite proper name, applied to gods and goddesses, Arjuna, the sun, etc. In the Puranas, the jayas are the twelve great gods (or twelve great hierarchies of beings) created by Brahma to assist him in his work of creation in the very beginning of the kalpa. Also termed chhandajas — those born of their own will or svabhava, in human and other form. Being lost in samadhi they neglected to create, and therefore they were cursed to be born repeatedly in each manvantara until the seventh. They are called respectively: Ajitas, Tushitas, Satyas, Haris, Vaikunthas, Sadhyas, and Adityas. They are equivalent to the manasaputras or reincarnating egos.
Kalapa (Sanskrit) Kalāpa A place mentioned in the Vayu-Purana, said to be on the northern side of the Himalayas, hence in Tibet. The Matsya-Purana has it that from Kalapa (spelled Katapa) in due course will issue forth the Kalki-avatara.
Kalikaraka (Sanskrit) Kalikāraka Strife-maker; a name of Narada, the divine rishi. In the Puranas, Narada is the first Adversary in individual human form, “the opposing Power required by the equilibrium and harmony of things in Nature — like Shadow to throw off still brighter the Light, like Night to bring into greater relief the Day, and like cold to make one appreciate the more the comfort of heat . . .” (SD 1:411).
Kaliya, Kaliya-naga (Sanskrit) Kāliya, Kāliya-nāga A serpent-king with five heads whose mouths vomited fire and smoke which devastated the country around, said to have lived in a deep pool of the Yamuna River. The Puranas relate that Krishna, one of the avataras of Vishnu, in his childhood overcame this serpent, then let him retreat into the ocean with his wives and offspring. This mythical monster symbolizes human passions, the river or water being a symbol of matter.
Kandu (Sanskrit) Kaṇḍu In the Puranas, a sage and yogi whose holiness and pious austerities awakened the jealousy of the gods. Kamadeva, as lord of the gods, sent one of his apsarasas, Pramlocha, to tempt the sage. He lived with her for several centuries, which seemed to him only as one day. Finally the sage, returning to his senses, repudiated her and chased her away, whereupon she gave birth to a daughter, Marisha, in an extraordinary manner. Blavatsky compares this legend to the temptation of Merlin by Vivien, and Sarah’s temptation of Pharaoh in the Old Testament (SD 2:174-5&n).
Kapila is also one of the three secret kumaras who are the progenitors of the true spiritual self in the physical human being. In many of the old writings Kapila is also symbolic of cosmic spirit, or of the individual spiritual self who represents the highest state reached on earth. Hence the Puranas and the Ramayana relate that Sagara’s 60,000 sons were reduced to ashes by a mere glance of Kapila’s eye. This allegory symbolizes the personifications of human emotions, both passional and mental, being completely reduced to inactivity by the spiritual wisdom and purity of the sage — here the personification of wisdom itself.
Kapilaksha (Sanskrit) Kapilākṣa Kapila’s eye; an allegorical name for certain spiritual and intellectual powers evoking vibratory forces which neutralize and bend to their will all the lower human mentations and emotions. In the Puranas, Ramayana, and other Hindu works, the sage Kapila’s very glance made a mountain of ashes of King Sagara’s 60,000 sons, who were the personifications of the human mental and emotional attributes.
Kashaya-vastra (Sanskrit) Kaṣāya-vastra Red-colored cloth; in the Puranas, the rishi Vaisishtha was asked by the gods to bring the sun, Surya, to satyaloka. The sun told him the worlds would be destroyed if he left, but the sage offered to place his kashaya-vastra in place of the sun’s disk, which he did. This red-colored cloth is the visible body of the sun. Blavatsky comments that “the ascetic’s dress being, as all know, dyed expressly into a red-yellow hue, a colouring matter with pinkish patches on it, rudely representing the vital principle in man’s blood, — the symbol of the vital principle in the sun, or what is now called chromosphere” (BCW 5:157).
Kasi-khanda (Sanskrit) Kāśi-khaṇḍa The section of the Skanda-Purana treating of the city of Benares, India.
kavim puranam anusasitaram sarvasya dhataram ::: the seer, the Ancient of Days, the Master and ruler who sets in their place all beings and things. [Gita 8.9]
Kavyavahana (Sanskrit) Kavyavāhana [from kavya a class of pitris + vāhana vehicle, carrier] The vehicle or carrier of the kavyas, the transmitter of kavya influence or power. It often stands for the intellectual fire or vitality of the solar pitris. In Hinduism this conception becomes the sacrificial fire which receives and translates offerings to the pitris. In the Puranas, pavaka (electric fire) is made parent to kavyavahana, but it is not the coarse electric substance of prithivi (the physical world), but the electric vivifying vitality of mind or intelligence.
Krauncha-dvipa (Sanskrit) Krauñca-dvīpa According to the Puranas, the fifth of the seven dvipas (continents or islands) which make up the world. Esoterically these seven dvipas represent, among other things, our globe and its six invisible companion globes. Jambu-dvipa represents our globe D, while Plaksha, Salmala, Kusa, Krauncha, Saka, and Pushkara represent the six higher and invisible globes of our planetary chain. These dvipas also correspond to the geographical continents of the seven great root-races and even to the dry-land divisions of the earth during the period of one root-race. Hence Krauncha-dvipa, as the fifth, would correspond to our fifth root-race continent.
Krishnadvaipayana: The famous Vyasa, the war of the Mahabharata, eighteen Puranas, and the compiler the Vedas.
Kumaras (Sanskrit) Kumāra-s [from ku with difficulty + māra mortal] Mortal with difficulty; often used for child or youth; and philosophically, pure spiritual beings, unself-conscious god-sparks uninvolved with matter who, destined by evolution to pass through the realms of matter, become mortal, i.e., material, only with difficulty because of their lofty spirituality. They are the classes of arupa or solar pitris, along with the agnishvattas and manasaputras. Of all the seven great divisions of dhyani-chohans, there is none with which humanity is more concerned than with the kumaras, the mind-born sons of Brahma-Rudra or Siva, the inveterate destroyer of human passions: “it is they who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human shells of the two first Root-races, and a great portion of the Third Root-race — create, so to speak, a new race: that of thinking, self-conscious and divine men” (SD 1:456-7). In the Puranas their number varies, given as seven, four, and five. They are often called the Four, because Sanaka, Sanada, Sanatana, and Sanat-Kumara are the names of four important groups of kumaras as they spring from the fourfold mystery. The three secret names of the seven are variously given: Sana, Sanat-Sujata, and Kapila; or Kapila, Ribhu, and Panchasikha; or Jata, Vodhu, and Panchasikha, all of which are but aliases. The patronymic name of the kumaras is Vaidhatra [from vidhatri a title of Brahma as creator of the universe].
Kurma-avatara (Sanskrit) Kūrma-avatāra The Tortoise avatara; a descent of Vishnu, the sustainer of life, in the form of a tortoise. In the Puranas, a portion of cosmic Vishnu descended as the kurma to restore to mankind the mystic nectar (amrita), the essence of life and truth, as well as other holy and precious things needful to humanity, which had been lost. Vishnu ordered the gods to churn the sea of milk that they might procure once more these precious things, and he promised to become the tortoise on which the mountain Mandara as a churning stick should rest. Out of the sea of churned milk arose the 14 precious things, and with these the gods won their authority over the demons once more. Cosmically this churning of the sea of milk relates to a period before the earth’s formation, the sea of milk being the expanse of space populated by the nebulae and diffuse star-stuff, the seeds and substance of future worlds and their hierarchies.
Kurma Purana (Sanskrit) Kūrma Purāṇa [from kūrma tortoise] One of the 18 principal Hindu Puranas, so named because it deals with the avataric incarnation of Vishnu in the form of a tortoise. The scripture was recited by Janardana (Vishnu) in the regions under the earth to Indradyumna and the rishis in the proximity of Sakra. It tells about the Lakshmi Kalpa, and treats of the objects of life: duty, wealth, pleasure, and liberation.
Kusa-dvipa (Sanskrit) Kuśa-dvīpa One of the seven dvipas (island-continents) into which the globe is divided, according to the occult geography of the Puranas. It was said to be surrounded by a sea of liquefied butter. Cosmically, one of the globes of the earth planetary chain.
Lanka (Sanskrit) Laṅkā The ancient name of the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The third root-race ended its career in that part of a continent which later became the Lanka of the Atlanteans. In the Ramayana it is described as of gigantic extent and magnificence, “with seven broad moats and seven stupendous walls of stone and metal.” Its foundation is attributed to Visvakarman, who built it for Kuvera, the king of the demons, from whom it was taken by Ravana, the great foe of Rama, hero of the Ramayana. The Bhagavata-Purana shows Lanka or Ceylon as primarily the summit of Mount Meru, which was broken off by Vayu, god of the wind, and hurled into the ocean.
Limbs The Qabbalah speaks of the limbs of Microprosopus, of ’Adam Qadmon (the Heavenly Man), and of the Sephiroth. In Hindu writings, especially the Puranas, the beings created from the limbs of Brahma remain without progeny, whereas his mind-born sons become the creators. In Egyptian mythology Osiris-Ptah or Ra creates his own limbs by creating the gods destined to personify his phases.
Linga Purana (Sanskrit) Liṅga Purāṇa One of the 18 principal Puranas, in which Siva, supposed to be present in the Agni-linga (great fiery phallus) gives an account of the formation of the worlds and the objects of life. It also contains mythologic accounts of Siva’s incarnations as avataras.
Lokaloka (Sanskrit) Lokāloka [from loka world + aloka unworld] The world and that which is not the world, the world and the invisible worlds, the inner ranges of being. In the mythological geography of the Puranas, said to be the belt or circle of mountains surrounding the outermost of the seven seas and dividing the visible or manifest world from the invisible or unmanifest worlds, often called the region of darkness (darkness here signifying merely nonvisible).
Madhu (Sanskrit) Madhu An asura; in the Mahabharata and the Puranas, Madhu and Kaitabha sprang from the ear of Vishnu while he was asleep at the end of a kalpa. Brahma was also lying asleep on the lotus springing from Vishnu’s navel, and the two asuras were on the point of slaying Brahma, when Vishnu awoke and slew them — hence he was called Kaitabhajit and Madhusudana. The Harivansa relates that the bodies of the asuras were cast into the sea and produced an immense amount of marrow, out of which Narayana formed the earth. Krishna also killed a demon named Madhu.
Madhyamikas (Sanskrit) Mādhyamika-s Belonging to the middle way; a sect mentioned in the Vishnu-Purana, probably at first a sect of Hindu atheists. A school of the same name was founded later in Tibet and China, and as it adopted some of the esoteric principles taught by Nagarjuna, one of the great founders of the esoteric Mahayana system, it had certain elements of esoteric truth. But because of its tendency by means of thesis and antithesis to reduce everything into contrary categories, and then to deny both, it may be called a school of Nihilists for whom everything is an illusion and an error in the world of thought, in the subjective as well as in the objective universe. This school is a good example of the danger of wandering too far in mere intellectual disquisition from the fundamental bases of the esoteric philosophy, for such merely brain-mind activity will infallibly lead to a philosophy of barren negation.
Mahat-tattva (Sanskrit) Mahat-tattva The first of the seven creations or emanations, the primordial self-evolution of that which had to become manifested cosmic mahat, the universal mind or infinite intellect — the collective hosts and aggregates of spiritual intelligences such as Brahma, the manus, the dhyani-chohans, etc. The Puranas enumerate the other six creations as 2) bhutasarga; 3) indriya or aindriyaka; 4) mukhya; 5) tairyagyonya or tiryaksrotas; 6) urdhvasrotas; and 7) arvaksrotas.
Manasa-dhyanis (Sanskrit) Mānasa-dhyāni-s [from mānasa mental, intelligent from manas mind + dhyāni-s class of pitris from dhyāni meditation] The agnishvatta pitris, the givers of manas (mind) and intellectual consciousness to man; those solar and lunar pitris or dhyanis who incarnated by irradiation from themselves in the mentally senseless forms of semi-ethereal flesh of third root-race mankind. In the Puranas, considered the highest of the pitris (fathers of mankind). The agnishvattas or manasa-dhyanis are intimately connected evolutionally and in occult cosmology with the sun, and are hence often called the solar ancestors of mankind. They are, in fact, one of the several classes of monads springing directly from mahat who provided man with his intellect, mind, and sense of individual moral responsibility.
maruts. :::belonging to the warrior caste, they are restless, warlike young men feared by everyone; the Brahmanda Purana explains that the seven groups of seven Maruts dwell respectively in seven spheres known as the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the Seven Seers &
Maskarin Gosālīputra. (P. Makkhali Gosāla; T. Kun tu rgyu gnag lhas kyi bu; C. Moqieli Jushelizi; J. Magari Kusharishi; K. Malgari Kusarija 末伽梨拘賖梨子) (d. c. 488 BCE). In Sanskrit, "Maskarin, Who Was Born in a Cow Shed"; the name of an ĀJĪVAKA teacher (and the sect's founder, according to some sources) who was a contemporary of the Buddha. Because no Ājīvaka texts have survived, information about the school's doctrines must be derived from Buddhist and JAINA sources. According to Jaina accounts, Maskarin Gosālīputra was a disciple of MAHĀVĪRA but eventually left the Jaina fold. Maskarin Gosālīputra subsequently founded his own school of wandering religious (sRAMAnA) called the Ājīvakas and was notorious for denying the doctrine of moral cause and effect (KARMAN). As his rivals describe his teachings, he asserted that there is no immediate or ultimate cause for the purity or depravity of beings; instead, beings are directed along their course by destiny or fate (niyati). Thus attainments or accomplishments of any kind are not a result of an individual's own action or the acts of others; rather, those beings experience ease or pain according to their positions within the various stations of existence. Maskarin Gosālīputra is portrayed as advocating a theory of automatic purification through an essentially infinite number of transmigrations (saMsārasuddhi), during which all beings would ultimately attain perfection. The Buddha is said to have regarded Makkhali Gosālīputra's views as the most dangerous of heresies, because they were capable of leading even the divinities (DEVA) to loss, discomfort, and suffering. He is one of the so-called six heterodox teachers (TĪRTHIKA) often mentioned in Buddhist sutras and criticized by the Buddha. The other five are PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA, AJITA KEsAKAMBHALA, KAKUDA KĀTYĀYANA, SANJAYA VAIRAtĪPUTRA, and NIRGRANTHA-JNĀTĪPUTRA.
Matsya-avatara (Sanskrit) Matsya-avatāra The Fish-avatara; a descent of Vishnu, the cosmic sustainer of life, in the form of a fish — mystically not physically — in order to lead to safety from the deluge King Satyavrata and certain rishis, so that the seeds of hierarchical life might not perish from the earth. The Matsya-Purana is particularly descriptive of this incarnation.
Matsya Purana (Sanskrit) Matsya Purāṇa One of the 18 principal Hindu Puranas, said to have been communicated to the seventh manu, Vaivasvata, by Vishnu in the form of a fish (matsya). It consists of over 14,000 slokas, but many of its chapters duplicate the Vishnu- and Padma-Puranas, and much of its material is drawn from the Mahabharata.
Mayamoha (Sanskrit) Māyāmoha The intoxication of illusion; the form assumed by Vishnu in order to deceive ascetic daityas who were becoming too holy through austerities and hence too dangerous in power, according to the Vishnu-Purana.
Mjolnir (Icelandic) [from mjoll meal, flour from mala, mola to grind, crush, mill] Also Miolnir. The hammer of Thor, the Thunderer in Norse mythology, a gift to the god from the dwarfs Brock (mineral kingdom) and Sindri (vegetation), sons of Ivaldi, the lunar life cycle. It is at once the instrument of creation and destruction, being the emblem of marriage on one hand and the weapon whereby the giants (cycles of material life) are destroyed. It is the magic mill which creates all things — gold, salt, happiness, peace, etc. — as well as grinding up all substance and recycling it for future use in worlds to come. Blavatsky likens the hammer of Thor to the fire weapon agneyastra of the Hindu Puranas and Mahabharata (TG 215).
Mukhya (Sanskrit) Mukhya As an adjective, first or primary. In the Puranas, seven creations of Brahma are enumerated, the fourth being called Mukhya, or the fundamental formation, production, or emanation of perceptible beings and things — the evolution or emanation of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. This creation is called primary (mukhya), and not secondary, because it relates to the primordial cosmic emanative activities. As such, although the fourth in certain enumerations, it is considered the first as productive of the rupa worlds below. The powers, prakritis, and vikaras beginning with these rupa worlds are alluded to as the secondary emanation.
Naga-dvipa (Sanskrit) Nāga-dvīpa The island of the dragons; one of the seven divisions of Bharata-varsha or India, according to the Puranas. The nagas were an historical people, but now unknown. “When the Brahmans invaded India they ‘found a race of wise men, half-gods, half-demons,’ says the legend, men who were the teachers of other races and became likewise the instructors of the Hindus and the Brahmans themselves. Nagpur is justly believed to be the surviving relic of Nagadwipa. Now Nagpur is virtually in Rajputana, near Oodeypore, Ajmere, etc. And is it not well known that there was a time when Brahmans went to learn Secret Wisdom from the Rajputs? Moreover a tradition states that Apollonius of Tyana was instructed in magic by the Nagas of Kashmere” (TG 222-3).
Nagarajas (Sanskrit) Nāgarāja-s Serpent or dragon kings; the guardian spirits of lakes and rivers, shown in Buddhist chronicles as having been converted to Buddhism, becoming arhats from yogis. Outside of meaning initiates or adepts, nagas were likewise an actual people who inhabited Naga-dvipa, one of the seven divisions of Bharata-varsha or India, according to the Puranas.
Naimittika Pralaya and Naimittika Manvantara (Sanskrit) Naimittika-pralaya, -manvantara [from naimittika occasional, unusual, due to external cause from nimitti] Occasional dissolution or manifestation; in Hindu literature, pralayas or manvantaras which are unusual or occasional because occurring at wide intervals, either of time or circumstance, especially those separated by Brahma’s Days and Nights. A naimittika pralaya occurs when Brahma slumbers: it is the destruction of all that lives and has form, but not of the substance, which remains more or less in statu quo till the new dawn after that Night of Brahma. At the end of a Day of Brahma there occurs what is called in the Puranas a recoalescence of the universe, called Brahma’s “contingent or naimittika recoalescence or pralaya,” because Brahma is this universe itself. A naimittika pralaya is thus similar to the bhaumika or planetary pralaya (cf SD 1:371-2, 376-7).
“Narada is here, there, and everywhere; and yet, none of the Puranas gives the true characteristics of this great enemy of physical procreation. Whatever those characteristics may be in Hindu Esotericism, Narada — who is called in Cis-Himalayan Occultism Pesh-Hun, the ‘Messenger,’ or the Greek Angelos — is the sole confidant and the executor of the universal decrees of Karma and adi-Budh a kind of active and ever incarnating logos, who leads and guides human affairs from the beginning to the end of the Kalpa.
Nara (Sanskrit) Nara [cf Sanskrit nṛ, Zend nar, Greek aner Latin nero] A man; in the Mahabharata and the Puranas, sometimes used as an equivalent for cosmic Purusha — the primordial universal Man, or the hierarchical essence pervading the solar system often associated with Narayana, both being considered as cosmic rishis. The Bhagavad-Gita makes a poetic identification of Arjuna or the human monad with Nara, and Krishna or the Logos with Narayana — this distinction showing the same suggestive difference in the human sphere that exists between Nara and Narayana in the cosmic.
Narasimha-avatara (Sanskrit) Narasiṃha-avatāra also Nṛsiṃha. The man-lion avatara; a descent of Vishnu, the sustainer of life, in the form of a man-lion in order to deliver the earth from the demon Hiranyakasipu, a despoiler of the world. These various avataras, when considered in their order of appearance, present a picture of evolutionary progress from lower to higher avataric imbodiments. They are usually reckoned as ten in number, yet one or more of the Puranas reckon the avataric imbodiments as 22, having in mind the occult meaning behind all cosmic or geologic avataric appearances. As the Bhagavata-Purana states, innumerable are the imbodiments (in avataric form) of Vishnu, for they are like the rivulets emanating from a lake of inexhaustible power. Rishis, manus, gods, sons of manus, prajapatis are therefore all emanations or portions of Vishnu.
Nirmathya (Sanskrit) Nirmathya [from nir out of + the verbal root math to produce fire by friction from wood] “The sacred fire produced by the friction of two pieces of wood — the ‘fire’ called Pavamana in the Puranas” (TG 231).
“nowhere shows Yama ‘as having anything to do with the punishment of the wicked.’ As king and judge of the dead, a Pluto in short, Yama is a far later creation. One has to study the true character of Yama-Yami throughout more than one hymn and epic poem, and collect the various accounts scattered in dozens of ancient works, and then he will obtain a consensus of allegorical statements which will be found to corroborate and justify the Esoteric teaching, that Yama-Yami is the symbol of the dual Manas, in one of its mystical meanings. For instance, Yama-Yami is always represented of a green colour and clothed with red, and as dwelling in a palace of copper and iron. Students of Occultism know to which of the human ‘principles’ the green and the red colours, and by correspondence the iron and copper, are to be applied. The ‘twofold-ruler’ — the epithet of Yama-Yami — is regarded in the exoteric teachings of the Chino-Buddhists as both judge and criminal, the restrainer of his own evil doings and the evil-doer himself. In the Hindu epic poems Yama-Yami is the twin-child of the Sun (the deity) by Sanjna (spiritual consciousness); but while Yama is the Aryan ‘lord of the day,’ appearing as the symbol of spirit in the East, Yami is the queen of the night (darkness, ignorance) ‘who opens to mortals the path to the West’ — the emblem of evil and matter. In the Puranas Yama has many wives (many Yamis) who force him to dwell in the lower world (Patala, Myalba, etc., etc.); and an allegory represents him with his foot lifted, to kick Chhaya, the handmaiden of his father (the astral body of his mother, Sanjna, a metaphysical aspect of Buddhi or Alaya). As stated in the Hindu Scriptures, a soul when it quits its mortal frame, repairs to its abode in the lower regions (Kamaloka or Hades). Once there, the Recorder, the Karmic messenger called Chitragupta (hidden or concealed brightness), reads out his account from the Great Register, wherein during the life of the human being, every deed and thought are indelibly impressed — and, according to the sentence pronounced, the ‘soul’ either ascends to the abode of the Pitris (Devachan), descends to a ‘hell’ (Kamaloka), or is reborn on earth in another human form” (TG 376).
Oannes (Assyrian-Babylonian) A deity, half man, half fish, who rose every day from the Persian Gulf and taught the people wisdom, the arts and sciences, agriculture, etc. Identified with the deity Ea and also called Dagon (Dāḡôn) and Annedotus. A somewhat similar story is related in the Sanskrit Hari-Purana about Vishnu during his Matsya-avatara (fish incarnation).
'Od srung rdzogs byed. See PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA
One of the original ideas symbolized in archaic pantomimic dancing was the representation of the planets revolving around the sun. The Vishnu-Purana recounts that the dance was created by Krishna when, during his boyhood among the gopas or herds-people of Mathura, he taught it to the gopis (herdswomen). Its base-figure was the circling of many around one who remained in the center, and the Purana touches upon a mystery in the statement that Krishna, although dancing with each one in the circle, yet all the time remained in the center.
One portion of the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad-Gita, contains the teachings given by Krishna to Arjuna as his guide and spiritual instructor, teachings which are the quintessence of the highest yoga. The details of Krishna’s life are symbolically given in the Puranas.
Padma Purana (Sanskrit) Padma Purāṇa The Lotus-Purana; one of the Hindu Puranas which contains an account of the period when the world was “as a golden lotus (padma).” The scripture, considered to be the second in importance of the 18 principle Puranas, consists of 55,000 slokas, and is divided into five books (khandas) treating of the creation, the earth, heaven (svarga), and patala, while the fifth book is a supplementary section.
Parasara (Sanskrit) Parāśara The Vedic rishi called the narrator of the Vishnu-Purana, also considered the writer of some of the hymns of the Rig-Veda. His commentaries on the Dharmasastras are often cited in The Secret Doctrine. He is said to be the father of Vyasa, who was the arranger of the Vedas.
pauranika (Pauranic, Puranic) ::: [relating to the Puranas].
pitarah (Pitris) ::: Fathers, Manes; Fathers who have gone before and discovered the supraphysical worlds. [Puranas]: Ancestors to whom the tarpana is given. ::: pitrn [accusative plural], to the divinised Ancestors. [Gita 9.25]
Plaksha-dvipa (Sanskrit) Plakṣa-dvīpa According to the Puranas, the second of the seven dvipas, the continents or islands which make up our world. Esoterically these seven dvipas represent our globe and its six invisible companion globes: jambu-dvipa represents globe D, while plaksha, salmala, kusa, krauncha, saka, and pushkara represent the six invisible globes of our planetary chain. These dvipas also correspond to the geographical continents of the seven great races and to the land divisions of the earth during the period of one root-race.
Pratisarga (Sanskrit) Pratisarga [from prati forwards, towards + the verbal root sṛj to flow forth, appear in manifestation] In Sankhya philosophy, the intellectual evolution of the universe; the secondary or continued creation out of primordial matter. In abstract philosophy, also applied to the portion of a Purana which treats of the opposite phase of cosmic rhythm, the destruction as well as the renovation of the universe. Pratisarga thus may be used both as a creation or dissolution.
Pratyayasarga (Sanskrit) Pratyayasarga [from pratyaya understanding, discriminative comprehension, equivalent to buddhi + sarga that which is produced or brought forth, creation] Used especially in Sankhya philosophy for the evolutionary formation or development from buddhi, commonly rendered as intellectual creation, equivalent to the eighth (or fifth) evolutional stage in development or creation in the Vishnu-Purana, called anugraha.
Pulastya (Sanskrit) Pulastya An ancient rishi, regarded as one of the mind-born sons of Brahma and the medium through which some at least of the Puranas were given to mankind. It is stated that he received the Vishnu-Purana from Brahma and then communicated it through Maitreya. He is also said to be the father of all the serpents, initiates, and nagas, and of other symbolical beings.
purana ::: legend and apologue; the Puranas: [a class of sacred writings written in an easy form of Sanskrit (more modem than that of the Veda and Vedanta) composed of legends, apologues, etc.].
purana ::: n. --> One of a class of sacred Hindoo poetical works in the Sanskrit language which treat of the creation, destruction, and renovation of worlds, the genealogy and achievements of gods and heroes, the reigns of the Manus, and the transactions of their descendants. The principal Puranas are eighteen in number, and there are the same number of supplementary books called Upa Puranas.
puranas. ::: a number of ancient scriptures attributed to the sage Vyasa that teach spiritual principles and practices through stories about sacred historical personages which often include their teachings given in conversations
purana &
Puranic Anglicized adjective of Purana.
puranic ::: a. --> Pertaining to the Puranas.
Purani: “The ‘Dwarf’ here brings to our mind the Vamana—‘The divine Dwarf’, an incarnation of Vishnu who measured the three worlds—the material, the vital and the mental—in his three steps. In the Rig Veda there is a symbolic reference to this which is enlarged as usual, in the Puranas.”“Savitri”—An Approach and a Study
Puranna Kasop 富蘭那迦葉. See PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA
Pururavas (Sanskrit) Purūravas In Hindu philosophical mysticism and epic literature, the son of Budha, regent of the planet Mercury and equivalent to cosmic wisdom. Budha is given as the son of Soma, the moon, and Ila or Ida, the ethereal earth. Pururavas is an extremely occult character, mentioned both in the Vedas and Puranas. In the Vedas he seems to be connected with the functions of the sun, Surya, while according to later writers he is one of the ten belonging to the class of visvadevas. His cosmic functions are those belonging to the realms of mahat or cosmic mind, and therefore Pururavas is that faculty of cosmic intelligence which guides cosmic evolution and directs it. The visvadevas are entities whose fields of activity are the intermediate region of our universe.
purusah puranah sanatana ::: ancient soul of long standing, sempiternal in being.
Pushkara-dvipa (Sanskrit) Puṣkara-dvīpa Blue lotus flower; in the Puranas, the seventh of the seven dvipas (continents or islands) of which the world is composed; or the seventh globe of the planetary chain.
Ribhu (Sanskrit) Ṛbhu Clever, skillful, inventive; applied to Indra, Agni, and the adityas in the Rig-Veda. As a noun, an artist, smith, builder. Also the name of three semi-divine beings, Ribhu, Vaja, and Vibhvan, the name of the first being applied to the three; “thought by some to represent the three seasons of the year, and celebrated for their skill as artists; they are supposed to dwell in the solar sphere, and are the artists who formed the horses of Indra, the carriage of the Asvins, and the miraculous cow of Brihaspati; they made their parents young, and performed other wonderful works; they are supposed to take their ease and remain idle for twelve days (the twelve intercalary days of the winter solstice) every year in the house of the Sun. (Agohya); after which they recommence working; when the gods heard of their skill, they sent Agni to them with the one cup of their rival Tvashtri, the artificer of the gods, bidding the Ribhus construct four cups from it; when they had successfully executed this task, the gods received the Ribhus amongst themselves and allowed them to partake of their sacrifices; they appear generally as accompanying Indra, especially at the evening sacrifice” (M-Wms Dict). In the Puranas, Ribhu is a son of Brahman, while Sankaracharya’s guru enumerates him as one of the seven kumaras (SD 1:457).
Rishabha (Sanskrit) Ṛṣabha Power, strength, excellence; the second zodiacal sign, Taurus the Bull; in the Vedas and Upanishads, often used to mean pranava or Aum. Abbreviated as rii, it is the second of the seven notes of the Hindu musical scale. According to the Bhagavata-Purana, the first teacher of the Jain doctrines in India; the first Jain Tirthakara (tirthankara) or arhat.
Rishi-yogis (Sanskrit) Ṛṣi-yogin-s Adepts in yoga; these adepts of the Puranas acquired divine powers through self-exertion.
Rohit (Sanskrit) Rohit Red; a female deer, hind. In the Puranas Vach, the female aspect of Brahma, assumes the form of a rohit in order to escape the amorous pursuits of her father, Brahma, who nevertheless transformed himself for that purpose into a buck or red deer (rohita), Brahma’s color being red.
Rudra ::: "fierce, violent"; [Ved.]: the Divine as master of our evolution by violence and battle, the deva or Deity ascending in the cosmos; [Puranas]: the Terrible one, the God of might and wrath, a member of the divine Triad [trimurti], expressive of the destructive process in the cosmos.
Sadhya (Sanskrit) Sādhya [from the verbal root sādh to finish, complete, subdue, master] To be fulfilled, completed, attained; to be mastered, won, subdued. As a plural noun, a class of the gana-devatas (divine beings), specifically the jnana-devas (gods of wisdom). In the Satapatha-Brahmana of the Rig-Veda their world is said to be above the sphere of the gods, while Yaska (Nirukta 12:41) gives their locality as in Bhuvarloka. In The Laws of Manu (3:195), the sadhyas are represented as the offspring of the pitris called soma-sads who are offspring of Viraj; hence they are children of the lunar ancestors (pitris), evolved after the gods and possessing natures more fully unfolded; while in the Puranas they are the sons of Sadhya (a daughter of Daksha) and Dharma — hence called sadhyas — given variously as 12 or 17 in number. These various manners of describing the ancestry of the sadhyas originated in different ways of envisioning their origin. In later mythology they are superseded by the siddhas, the difference between sadhyas and siddhas being in many respects slight. Their mythological names are given as Manas, Mantri, Prana, Nara, Pana, Vinirbhaya, Naya, Dansa, Narayana, Vrisha, and Trabhu. Two of the names are two of the theosophic seven human principles — manas and prana; while Nara and Narayan, are other aspects of man, human or cosmic. Blavatsky terms the sadhyas divine sacrificers, “the most occult of all” the classes of the dhyanis (SD 2:605) — the reference being to the manasaputras, those intellectual beings who sacrificed themselves in order to quicken the fires of human intelligence during the third root-race. “The names of the deities of a certain mystic class change with every Manvantara” (SD 2:90); thus they are called ajitas, tushitas, satyas, haris, vaikuntas, adityas, and rudras. The key to the various names given to these higher beings lies in the composite nature of each one of them. In every manvantara and in each minor cycle of a manvantara, every being unfolds another aspect of itself, just as mankind unfolds new but latent powers and senses in each age. Special names were often given to each of the sevenfold, tenfold, or twelvefold aspects of these high beings.
Saharakshas (Sanskrit) Saharakṣas Strength preserving; commonly explained as the fire of the asuras or the sacrificial fire which receives the offerings to the rakshasas. In the Puranas, pavamana — the fire which is produced by friction — is represented as the parent of saharakshas.
Saka-dvipa (Sanskrit) Śāka-dvīpa According to the Puranas, the sixth of the seven dvipas (continents or islands) which compose the globe. Esoterically these seven dvipas, among other things, represent our globe and its six invisible companion globes. Jambu-dvipa represents globe D, while plaksha, salmala, kusa, krauncha, saka, and pushkara represent the six higher and invisible globes of our planetary chain. These dvipas also correspond to the geographical continents of the seven great races, and even to the dry-land divisions of the earth during the period of one root-race. Some portions of America, Africa, and Central Asia, with the Gobi region, will have a part in the building of future continental dvipas (SD 2:404).
Saka (Sanskrit) Saka Applied to intellect or cosmic wisdom in the Vishnu-Purana, mystically and philosophically identical with cosmic mahat. Esoterically, the aggregate or synthesis of certain manifesting divine principles unfolding or emanating themselves through spirit into and throughout the web of Being. Hence saka is equivalent also to what the Chinese referred to as the Dragon of Wisdom — the synthesis of all the manifesting deities in any cosmic unit — and to the cosmic Logos.
Salmala, Salmali-dvipa (Sanskrit) Śālmala-, Śālmali-, Śālmalī-dvīpa According to the Puranas, the third of the seven dvipas (continents or islands) which compose the world. Esoterically these dvipas, among other things, represent our globe and its six invisible companion globes. Jambu-dvipa represents globe D, while plaksha, salmala, kusa, krauncha, saka, and pushkara represent the six invisible globes of our planetary chain. These dvipas also correspond to the geographical continents of the seven root-races appearing in serial order, and even to the dry-land divisions of the earth during the period of any one root-race.
SāmaNNaphalasutta. (S. srāmanyaphalasutra; C. Shamenguo jing; J. Shamongakyo; K. Samun'gwa kyong 沙門果經). In Pāli, the "Discourse on the Fruits of Mendicancy," the second sutta of the DĪGHANIKĀYA (a separate DHARMAGUPTAKA recension appears as the twenty-seventh sutra in the Chinese translation of the DĪRGHĀGAMA; another unidentified recension also is included in the Chinese translation of the EKOTTARĀGAMA). The patricide king AJĀTAsATRU (P. Ajātasattu) and the physician JĪVAKA visit the Buddha dwelling at Jīvaka's mango grove, Ambavana. Impressed by the silence and discipline of the Buddha's disciples gathered there, Ajātasatru thinks that it would be good if his own son, Udayabhadra (P. Udāyibaddha), were to join such an assembly of mendicants. He asks the Buddha about the benefits of mendicancy here and now, such that men would put aside worldly pursuits and join the Buddhist order. According to the Pāli recension, he states that he had already put this question to six other famous recluses of the day-namely, PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA, MASKARIN GOsĀLĪPUTRA, AJITA KEsAKAMBALA, KAKUDA KĀTYĀYANA, NIRGRANTHA-JNĀTĪPUTRA, and SANJAYA VAIRĀtĪPUTRA (P. Purana Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambala, Pakudha Kaccāyana, Nigantha Nātaputta and SaNjaya Belattiputta)-but received no satisfactory answer. In response to the king's query, the Buddha describes the immediate benefits of mendicancy from the most mundane to the most exalted. He notes that even a servant or householder who becomes a mendicant receives the honor of kings. Moreover, the mendicant is free of taxation and the burden of supporting a family and learns control of the senses, mindfulness (SMṚTI, P. sati) and contentment. Being content, the mendicant becomes glad and calm, which provide the foundation for attaining the four meditative absorptions (DHYĀNA, P. JHĀNA). Higher than any of these and on the basis of having mastered the four meditative absorptions, the mendicant can develop the six higher knowledges or supranormal powers (ABHIJNĀ, P. abhiNNā), which culminate in enlightenment and liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Upon hearing this discourse, Ajātasatru expressed regret at having murdered his father and took refuge in the Buddha. After the king's departure, the Buddha noted to his disciples that were it not for the fact that the king had murdered his father, he would have attained the stage of stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA) then and there.
Sambhala(Sanskrit) ::: A place-name of highly mystical significance. Many learned occidental Orientalists haveendeavored to identify this mystical and unknown locality with some well-known modern district ortown, but unsuccessfully. The name is mentioned in the Puranas and elsewhere, and it is stated that out ofSambhala will appear in due course of time the Kalki-Avatara of the future. The Kalki-Avatara is one ofthe manifestations or avataras of Vishnu. Among the Buddhists it is also stated that out of Sambhala willcome in due course of time the Maitreya-Buddha or next buddha.Sambhala, however, although no erudite Orientalist has yet succeeded in locating it geographically, is anactual land or district, the seat of the greatest brotherhood of spiritual adepts and their chiefs on earthtoday. From Sambhala at certain times in the history of the world, or more accurately of our own fifthroot-race, come forth the messengers or envoys for spiritual and intellectual work among men.This Great Brotherhood has branches in various parts of the world, but Sambhala is the center or chieflodge. We may tentatively locate it in a little-known and remote district of the high tablelands of centralAsia, more particularly in Tibet. A multitude of airplanes might fly over the place without "seeing" it, forits frontiers are very carefully guarded and protected against invasion, and will continue to be so until thekarmic destiny of our present fifth root-race brings about a change of location to some other spot on theearth, which then in its turn will be as carefully guarded as Sambhala now is.
Sambhala, Shambhala (Sanskrit) Śambhala A mystical and unknown locality, mentioned in the Puranas and elsewhere, from which will appear in due course the Kalki-avatara of Vishnu. Sometimes spelled Shambala. Buddhists state that out of Sambhala will come the next buddha, Maitreya. Sambhala
Samika (Sanskrit) Śamīka In the Vishnu-Purana Parasara tells his disciple Maitreya that at the end of the kali yuga Maitreya will teach to Samika the whole of the Purana as it has just been related to him. Hence Samika represents some sage to come in the far future.
sanatanam purusam puranam ::: [to the everlasting ancient purusa].
SaNjaya Vairātīputra. [alt. SaMjayin Vairātīputra] (P. SaNjaya/SaNcaya Belatthiputta; T. Smra 'dod kyi bu mo'i bu yang dag rgyal ba can; C. Shansheye Piluozhizi; J. Sanjaya Birateishi; K. Sansaya Pirajija 刪闍耶毘羅胝子). One of the so-called "six heterodox teachers" often mentioned in Buddhist sutras, whose views and/or practices were criticized by the Buddha, along with PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA, MASKARIN GOsĀLĪPUTRA, AJITA KEsAKAMBALA, KAKUDA KĀTYĀYANA, and NIRGRANTHA-JNĀTĪPUTRA. SaNjaya was a skeptic who doubted the possibility of knowledge and the validity of logic. On questions such as the presence of a world beyond the visible world, the nature of the postmortem condition, and whether actions done in this life had effects in the next, he found the four traditional answers-affirmation, negation, partial affirmation and partial negation, and neither affirmation or negative-to each be unacceptable, and therefore gave evasive answers when asked such speculative questions. The Buddha's two foremost disciples, sĀRIPUTRA and MAHĀMAUDGALYĀYANA, were originally disciples of SaNjaya before encountering the teachings of the Buddha. They are said to have each taken 250 of SaNjaya's followers with them when they abandoned him for the Buddha. Upon hearing the news of their departure, SaNjaya vomited blood and fainted.
Sanjna, Samjna (Sanskrit) Sañjñā, Saṃjñā [from sam wholly, completely + the verbal root jñā to know] Full knowledge, understanding, comprehension; mystically, spiritual consciousness. According to the Puranas, the daughter of Visvakarman and wife of Surya (the sun). In the Vishnu-Purana (3:2) Sanjna, “ ‘unable to endure the fervours of her lord,’ gave him her chhaya (shadow, image, or astral body), while she herself repaired to the jungle to perform religious devotions, or Tapas. The Sun, supposing the ‘chhaya’ to be his wife begat by her children, like Adam with Lilith — an ethereal shadow also, as in the legend, though an actual living female monster millions of years ago” (SD 2:174). This refers to the creation of the first root-race, the “chhaya-birth, or that primeval mode of sexless procreation, the first-race having eased out, so to say, from the body of the Pitris . . .” (ibid).
Sankha-dvipa (Sanskrit) Śaṅkha-dvīpa Spoken of in the Puranas as one of the nine divisions of Bharata-varsha or India. Blavatsky identifies it with the Poseidonis of Plato’s Atlantis, which Solon declared to have reached its end some 9,000 years before his time. All the history given in the Puranas about Sankha-dvipa and Sankhasura is geographically and ethnologically Plato’s Atlantis in Hindu dress. The Puranic account speaks of the island as still existing.
Sanskrit, on the other hand, “was really the sacred language of the Brahmanas and held more or less private or secret by them. The Sanskrit even in those ancient times was the vehicle for the archaic Wisdom-teachings of the Aryan peoples of India, such as the Vedas, and the Puranas, and the Upanishads, and the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. But Pali was one of several other languages of culture in ancient India, all which were of so-called Prakrit character, although very little is known about these other literary languages. Pali has survived to the present time because . . . it became the linguistic vehicle in which were enshrined the teachings of Buddhism, i.e., of Southern Buddhism, much as Latin has survived because enshrining the teachings of early medieval Christianity. Just as there were in ancient Italy many other Italic tongues, each one having its literary or cultured form, and likewise its popular idiom, so was it in ancient India.
Sapta-dvipa (Sanskrit) Sapta-dvīpa [from sapta seven + dvīpa island, continent] The seven islands or continents of the world as described in the Vishnu-Purana. Esoterically, the seven great continental systems each one lasting many millions of years, which come successively into existence as the respective homes of the seven root-races. On a greater scale they also may represent the seven globes of the planetary chain.
Sarasvati (Saraswati) ::: "she of the stream, of the flowing movement"; [Ved.]: the streaming current and the word of inspiration of the Truth; the goddess of the Word; [Puranas]: the Muse and goddess of wisdom, learning and the arts and crafts.
sarvani vijnana-vijrmbhitani ::: all things are self-deployings of the Divine Knowledge. [cf. Visnu Purana 2.12.39]
sāstṛ. (P. satthar; T. ston pa; C. shi; J. shi; K. sa 師). In Sanskrit, "teacher"; referring to any teacher and a common epithet for the Buddha, who is often referred to as the "teacher of gods and men [or princes and people]" (sāstā devamanusyānām; see discussion in the conclusion to DEVA, s.v.). Among the various terms for a teacher in Buddhist literature, including GURU, ĀCĀRYA, and UPĀDHYĀYA, sāstṛ was a term of particular respect. In early Buddhist literature, it seems to have been reserved exclusively for the Buddha and past buddhas and not for disciples (sRĀVAKA) of the Buddha; thus, whenever the term "teacher" appears, it typically refers to the Buddha himself. To recognize the Buddha as the true teacher and to declare him as such is regarded as a central determinant of Buddhist identity. Outside the Buddhist community, the term was also used to refer to the so-called "six heterodox teachers," such as PuRAnA KĀsYAPA.
Savarna (Sanskrit) Savarṇā The feminine being substituted by Saranyu for herself as a wife or alter ego of the sun. She is said to have given birth to Manu, and is called in later legend Chhaya (shadow). Saranyu (the quick, the fleet) is the Vedic character for the Sanjna of the Puranas. Saranyu is represented in legend as being the wife of Vivasvat (the sun) and mother of the two Asvins. The legend of this substitution has reference to cosmological mysteries, for the consort of the sun, for purposes of production of the hierarchies of living beings in the solar kingdom, must be that portion of the solar entity which is capable of productive power, and not of the higher parts of the sun’s entity. Thus Saranyu stands for the solar intellect or mind, while Savarna would be a fit prakriti-companion for the generative power of the sun.
Shechinah is equivalent to Devamatri or Aditi — mother of the gods; to Vach; the music of the spheres of Pythagoras; and the Holy Ghost in the Christian Trinity. Shechinah is always regarded as feminine in the Qabbalah, “And so it is considered in the exoteric Puranas, for Shekinah is no more than Sakti — the female double or lining of any god, in such case. And so it was with the early Christians whose Holy Spirit, was feminine, as Sophia was with the Gnostics. But in the transcendental Chaldean Kabala or ‘Book of Numbers,’ ‘Shekinah’ is sexless, and the purest abstraction, a State, like Nirvana, not subject or object or anything except an absolute Presence.
Siddhas (Sanskrit) Siddha-s [from the verbal root sidh to attain] Perfected one, one who has attained relative perfection in this manvantara through self-devised efforts lasting through many imbodiments towards that end. A buddha is in this sense at times called a siddha. Generally, a hierarchy of dhyani-chohans who, according to Hindu mythology, inhabit the space between the earth and heaven (bhuvar-loka); the Vishnu-Purana states that there are 88,000 of them occupying the regions of the sky north of the sun and south of the seven rishis (the Great Bear). In later mythology they are confused with or take the place of the sadhyas, but in the Vedas the siddhas are those who are possessed from birth of superhuman powers — the eight siddhis — as also of knowledge and indifference to the world (Svetasvatara-Upanishad).
Sisumara (Sanskrit) Śiśumāra [from śiśu child + māra killer] The child-killer; a group of stars and constellations said to resemble a dolphin, porpoise, or tortoise; held to be a form of Vishnu, and often considered as a representation of the great circle of time. As an imaginary belt, a symbolic representation of the celestial sphere, or a theoretical revolving zone or belt within which move the celestial bodies — which are the bodies of spiritual entities. This constellation has the “Cross placed on it by nature in its division and localisation of stars, planets and constellations. Thus in the Bhagavat Purana V., xxx., it is said that ‘at the extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed toward the South and whose body is in the shape of a ring (Circle), Dhruva (the ex-pole star) is placed; and along that tail are the Prajapati, Agni, Indra, Dharma, etc.; and across its loins the Seven Rishis.’ This is then the first and earliest Cross and Circle, into the formation of which enters the Deity (symbolized by Vishnu), the Eternal Circle of Boundless Time, Kala, on whose plane lie crossways all the gods, creatures, and creations born in Space and Time; — who, as the philosophy has it, all die at the Mahapralaya” (SD 2:549).
Sisupala (Sanskrit) Śiśupāla Child-protector; a son of Damaghosha (King of Chedi), Krishna’s great enemy, slain by him at the sacrifice of Yudhishthira. The Vishnu-Purana states that Sisupala was in a former existence the unrighteous but valiant monarch of the daityas, Hiranyakasipu, who was killed by the avatara Nara-simha (the man-lion). He was next the ten-headed Ravana, the giant king of Lanka, and was killed by Rama. After this he was born as Sisupala. “This parallel evolution of Vishnu (spirit) with a Daitya, as men, may seem meaningless, yet it gives us the key not only to the respective dates of Rama and Krishna, but even to a certain psychological mystery” (SD 2:225n).
Skanda Purana (Sanskrit) Skanda Purāṇa One of the 18 principal Hindu Puranas consisting of several samhitas and khandas. The most celebrated of the latter is the Kasi-khanda, in which the temples of Kasi (Benares) are exalted, and legends concerning Kasi are related. In this Purana Skanda (Karttikeya, the god of war) narrates the events of the Tatpurusha Kalpa, embroidered with many tales.
sramana. (P. samana; T. dge sbyong; C. shamen; J. shamon; K. samun 沙門). In Sanskrit "renunciant," "mendicant," or "recluse," a term used in ancient India to refer to male religious of a number of different itinerant sects, including Buddhism, often associated with the warrior (KsATRIYA) caste, which challenged the hegemony of the brāhmana priests and mainstream Brahmanical religion deriving from the Vedas. Whereas the Brahmanical tradition traces itself back to a body of literature centered on the Vedas, the sramana movements instead derive from historical persons who all flourished around the sixth century BCE. Six different sramana groups are mentioned in the SĀMANNAPHALASUTTANTA of the DĪGHANIKĀYA, each representing different trends in Indian thought, including antinomianism (PuRAnA-KĀsYAPA); fatalism (MASKARIN-GOsĀLĪPUTRA of the ĀJĪVAKA school); materialism (AJITA-KEsAKAMBALA of the LOKĀYATA school); atomism (KAKUDA-KĀTYĀYANA); and agnosticism (SANJAYA-VAIRĀtĪPUTRA); the sixth group is the JAINA tradition of NIRGRANTHA JNĀTĪPUTRA, also known as MAHĀVĪRA, with which Buddhism shares many affinities. These six are typically referred to in Buddhist materials as the six "heterodox teachers" (TĪRTHIKA) and are consistently criticized by the Buddha for fostering wrong views (MITHYĀDṚstI). Some scholars suggest that these groups were loosely associated with a third phase in the development of pan-Indian religion called the āranyaka (forest dwellers) movement, where the highly specialized fire rituals (HOMA) set forth in the Brāhmanas for the propitiation of Vedic gods gave way to a more internalized form of spiritual praxis. These itinerant asetics or wanders were also called PARIVRĀJAKA (P. paribbājaka; "those who go forth into homelessness"), in direct contrast to the householders (GṚHASTHA) whose behavior was governed by the laws set down in dharmasāstras. Because so many of the beliefs and practices emblematic of the sramana movement have no direct Vedic antecedents, however, other scholars have proposed that the sramana groups may instead exemplify the resurfacing in Indian religion of aboriginal elements that had long been eclipsed by the imported rituals and beliefs that the Āryans brought with them to India. These doctrines, all of which have their parallels in Buddhism, include rebirth and transmigration (e.g., PUNARJANMAN); notions that actions have effect (e.g., KARMAN); asceticism (TAPAS, DHUTAnGA) and the search for ways of behavior that would not bind one to the round of SAMSĀRA; and liberation (MOKsA, VIMOKsA) as the goal of religious practice. In Buddhism, sramana is also used generically to refer to all monks, including the Buddha, whose epithets include sramana Gautama and Mahāsramana, "Great Renunciant." The term often occurs in the compound sramanabrāhmana (P. samanabrāhmana), "recluses and brāhmanas." This compound has a range of meanings. In some cases, it refers simply to those who practice and benefit from the Buddha's teachings. In other cases, it refers to non-Buddhist religious practitioners. In the edicts of AsOKA, the term is used to refer to those who are worthy of respect and offerings, with sramana taken to mean Buddhist monks (and possibly other ascetics) and brāhmana taken to mean brāhmana priests. The term sramana should be carefully distinguished from sRĀMAnERA (s.v.), a novice monk.
Sri Aurobindo: "Finally, we have the goddess Dakshina who may well be a female form of Daksha, himself a god and afterwards in the Purana one of the Prajapatis, the original progenitors, — we have Dakshina associated with the manifestation of knowledge and sometimes almost identified with Usha, the divine Dawn, who is the bringer of illumination. I shall suggest that Dakshina like the more famous Ila, Saraswati and Sarama, is one of four goddesses representing the four faculties of the Ritam or Truth-consciousness, — Ila representing truth-vision or revelation, Saraswati truth-audition, inspiration, the divine word, Sarama intuition, Dakshina the separative intuitional discrimination.” *The Secret of the Veda
srimad bhagavat. ::: one of the main 18 Puranas, dealing with the avataras of Vishnu, especially and in great detail with the life of Lord Krishna
Suryavansa (Sanskrit) Sūryavaṃśa [from sūrya sun + vaṃśa race, lineage] The solar race; the race or lineage whose founder was said to be descended from the sun, just as the origin of the other great lineage, the Chandravansa, was attributed to the moon. The king who founded the suryavansa, Ikshvaku, was the son of Vaivasvata-Manu who sprang from the sun; he reigned at Ayodhya at the beginning of the second or treta yuga. The two branches of the suryavansa were the dynasty of Mithila, founded by a younger son of Ikshvaku, and that of Ayodhya, in which branch the avatara Rama was born, whose exploits are recounted in the Ramayana. The Vishnu-Purana enumerates the members of the Ayodhya dynasty, which amounts to about a hundred rulers. Several Rajput tribes still claim to belong to this race.
Sveta-dvipa (Sanskrit) Śveta-dvīpa The white island; the abode of the blessed in the Puranas, also called the abode of Vishnu, Mount Meru, and the island inhabited by the mahayogis. “All the Avatars of Vishnu are said to come originally from the White Island. According to Tibetan tradition the White Island is the only locality which escapes the general fate of other dwipas and can be destroyed by neither fire nor water, for — it is the ‘eternal land’ ” (SD 2:408n).
Tairyagyonya (Sanskrit) Tairyagyonya [from tiryañc crooked, curved] “Of beings with crooked digestive canals,” i.e., of animal origin. In the Puranas seven creations of living beings are enumerated, the fifth being called tiryaksrotas or tairyagyonya (animal evolution).
Tara-daitya (Sanskrit) Tāra-daitya A daitya or danava described in the Puranas as practicing such severe spiritual and intellectual tapas as a yogi, that the gods feared lest he surpass them; therefore he was slain by Vishnu.
Tara, Taraka (Sanskrit) Tārā, Tārakā The wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter). The Puranas relate that Soma, the moon, carried Tara off with him, which brought about the great war in heaven between the gods and the asuras. Brahma put an end to the war and had Tara restored to Brihaspati. She then gave birth to a son, Budha (esoteric wisdom), whom she claimed was the son of Soma.
“That the story is an allegory 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” (SD 2:571).
The Agni- or Agneya-Purana is so named because Agni imparted to the sage Vasishtha the twofold knowledge of Brahman: that acquired through study of the “word,” the Vedas; and that higher apprehension attained through mystical contemplation (cf VP preface lviii; also 6:5).
The Puranas also refer to will-born progeny, termed chhandajas.
The Puranas ingeniously interweave allegory with cosmic facts and far later human events. “Puranic astronomy, with all its deliberate concealment and confusion for the purpose of leading the profane off the real track, was shown even by Bentley to be a real science; and those who are versed in the mysteries of Hindu astronomical treatises, will prove that the modern theories of the progressive condensation of nebulae, nebulous stars and sun, with the most minute details about the cyclic progress of asterisms — far more correct than Europeans have even now — for chronological and other purposes, were known in India to perfection.
The Brahmanas and Puranas generally reckon twelve adityas. In a preceding manvantara they were called tushitas, but when the end of the cycle was near they entered the “womb of Aditi, that we may be born in the next Manwantara; for, thereby, we shall again enjoy the rank of gods.” Hence in the present seventh manvantara, they are known as adityas (VP 1:15). When the pralaya (dissolution) of the world comes, twelve suns will appear (MB 3:3, 26; Dict Hind 3). The twelve adityas are the twelve great gods of the Hindu pantheon; also, the twelve signs of the zodiac or twelve months of the year.
“The Demons, so called in the Puranas, are very extraordinary devils when judged from the standpoint of European and orthodox views about these creatures, since all of them — Danavas, Daityas, Pisachas, and the Rakshasas — are represented as extremely pious, following the precepts of the Vedas, some of them even being great Yogis. But they oppose the clergy and Ritualism, sacrifices and forms — just what the full-blown Yogins do to this day in India — and are no less respected for it, though they are allowed to follow neither caste nor ritual; hence all those Puranic giants and Titans are called Devils” (SD 1:415).
The invariable form of the Puranas is of a dialogue between an exponent or teacher and an inquirer or disciple, interspersed with the dialogues and observations of other individuals. In addition to the Puranas there are 18 subordinate Upa-puranas. The Puranas are popularly classified in India under three categories corresponding to the gunas sattva, rajas, and tamas. Those in which the quality of sattva (purity) prevails are: the Vishnu, Naradiya, Bhagavata, Garuda, Padma, and Varaha Puranas, also called the Vaishnava-Puranas. Those in which rajas (passion) are said to prevail, relating chiefly to the god Brahma, are the Brahma, Brahmanda, Brahma-vaivarta, Markandeya, Bhavishya, and Vamana Puranas. Those in which tamas (inertia) is said to prevail, relating chiefly to the god Siva, are the Matsya, Kurma, Linga, Siva, Skanda, and Agni Puranas.
The original idea of Oceanus parallels that contained in the Hindu Puranas concerning the various oceans and islands which surround the earth. Oceanus at first was the ocean of space, which the Hebrews called the waters of space, surrounding all celestial bodies. The reference is likewise to the invisible realms and spheres which mystical thought often grouped under the idea of an environing as well as interpenetrating system of fluid spheres or worlds, the meaning behind the oceans and islands of the Puranas. Ancient Greek mythology states that on the banks of Oceanus are the abodes of the dead, making clear that the reference is not to physical geography but to secret teaching dealing with both the Overworld and the Underworld, with the invisible spheres, planes, and realms of the universe.
"The real source of knowledge is the Lord in the heart; ‘I am seated in the heart of every man and from me is knowledge," says the Gita; the Scripture is only a verbal form of that inner Veda, of that self-luminous Reality, it is sabdabrahma: the mantra, says the Veda, has risen from the heart, from the secret place where is the seat of the truth, sadanâd rtasya, guhâyâm. That origin is its sanction; but still the infinite Truth is greater than its word. Nor shall you say of any Scripture that it alone is all-sufficient and no other truth can be admitted, as the Vedavadins said of the Veda, nânyad astîti vâdinah. This is a saving and liberating word which must be applied to all the Scriptures of the world. Take all the Scriptures that are or have been, Bible and Koran and the books of the Chinese, Veda and Upanishads and Purana and Tantra and Shastra and the Gita itself and the sayings of thinkers and sages, prophets and Avatars, still you shall not say that there is nothing else or that the truth your intellect cannot find there is not true because you cannot find it there. That is the limited thought of the sectarian or the composite thought of the eclectic religionist, not the untrammelled truth-seeking of the free and illumined mind and God-experienced soul. Heard or unheard before, that always is the truth which is seen by the heart of man in its illumined depths or heard within from the Master of all knowledge, the knower of the eternal Veda.” Essays on the Gita*
“The real source of knowledge is the Lord in the heart; ‘I am seated in the heart of every man and from me is knowledge,’ says the Gita; the Scripture is only a verbal form of that inner Veda, of that self-luminous Reality, it is sabdabrahma: the mantra, says the Veda, has risen from the heart, from the secret place where is the seat of the truth, sadanâd rtasya, guhâyâm. That origin is its sanction; but still the infinite Truth is greater than its word. Nor shall you say of any Scripture that it alone is all-sufficient and no other truth can be admitted, as the Vedavadins said of the Veda, nânyad astîti vâdinah. This is a saving and liberating word which must be applied to all the Scriptures of the world. Take all the Scriptures that are or have been, Bible and Koran and the books of the Chinese, Veda and Upanishads and Purana and Tantra and Shastra and the Gita itself and the sayings of thinkers and sages, prophets and Avatars, still you shall not say that there is nothing else or that the truth your intellect cannot find there is not true because you cannot find it there. That is the limited thought of the sectarian or the composite thought of the eclectic religionist, not the untrammelled truth-seeking of the free and illumined mind and God-experienced soul. Heard or unheard before, that always is the truth which is seen by the heart of man in its illumined depths or heard within from the Master of all knowledge, the knower of the eternal Veda.” Essays on the Gita
“The real source of knowledge is the Lord in the heart; ‘I am seated in the heart of every man and from me is knowledge,’ says the Gita; the Scripture is only a verbal form of that inner Veda, of that self-luminous Reality, it is sabdabrahma: the mantra, says the Veda, has risen from the heart, from the secret place where is the seat of the truth, sadanâdrtasya, guhâyâm. That origin is its sanction; but still the infinite Truth is greater than its word. Nor shall you say of any Scripture that it alone is all-sufficient and no other truth can be admitted, as the Vedavadins said of the Veda, nânyadastîtivâdinah. This is a saving and liberating word which must be applied to all the Scriptures of the world. Take all the Scriptures that are or have been, Bible and Koran and the books of the Chinese, Veda and Upanishads and Purana and Tantra and Shastra and the Gita itself and the sayings of thinkers and sages, prophets and Avatars, still you shall not say that there is nothing else or that the truth your intellect cannot find there is not true because you cannot find it there. That is the limited thought of the sectarian or the composite thought of the eclectic religionist, not the untrammelled truth-seeking of the free and illumined mind and God-experienced soul. Heard or unheard before, that always is the truth which is seen by the heartof man in its illumined depths or heard within from the Master of all knowledge, the knower of the eternal Veda.” Essays on the Gita
The rudras are highly intellectual and spiritual entities, having through previous evolutionary periods attained self-consciousness by individually passing through the equivalent of the human kingdom. The rudras represent an aggregate of entities in the primary formation of worlds, as well as the intellectually informing principles of man. They are mythologically said to be at war with the shadowy entities and powers of the lower spheres, and hence are sometimes spoken of as the destroyers of outward forms. The Vishnu-Purana states that “at the end of a thousand periods of four ages, which complete a day of Brahma, the earth is almost exhausted. The eternal Avyaya (Vishnu) assumes then the character of Rudra (the destroyer, Siva) and re-unites all his creatures to himself. He enters the Seven rays of the Sun and drinks up all the waters of the globe; he causes the moisture to evaporate, thus drying up the whole Earth. . . . Thus fed with abundant moisture the seven solar rays become seven suns by dilation, and they finally set the world on fire. Hari, the destroyer of all things, who is ‘the flame of time, Kalagni,’ finally consumes the Earth. Then Rudra, becoming Janardana, breathes clouds and rain” (6:3).
The second hierarchy of the manus, the dhyani-chohans or fully self-conscious devas, who are the original producers of form (rupas), appear at this stage of cosmic emanational evolution. In the Vishnu-Purana these beings are called chitrasikandinas (bright-crested), the seven rishis who are the informing souls of the seven principal stars of the Great Bear. These seven rishis represent hierarchies of spiritual beings who preside over and guide the septenary stages of the evolution of the cosmos.
“The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system: e.g., even in the exotericism of the Puranas. But such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain; in the bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical sign and glyphs. The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane, however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form. But modern science believes not in the ‘soul of things,’ and hence will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony. It is useless to say that the system in question is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals. That it is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of Seers whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify the traditions passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. That for long ages, the ‘Wise Men’ of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives in learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions — so obtained as to stand as independent evidence — of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences” (SD 1:272-3).
These kumaras are sometimes also called rudras, adityas, gandharvas, asuras, maruts, and vedhas. The seven kumaras — both as groups and as aggregated individuals — are intimately connected with the dhyani-buddhas who watch over the seven rounds of our planetary chain. The four groups of kumaras generally spoken of are connected equally intimately with the four celestial bodhisattvas of the four globes of our round, and by correspondence with the four completed root-races of our earth. They are identical with the angels of the seven planets, and their name shows their connection with the constellation Makara or Capricorn. Makara is connected with the birth of the spiritual microcosm, and the death or dissolution of the physical universe (its passage into the realm of the spiritual) as are the kumaras. Mara is the god of darkness, the Fallen one, and death, i.e., death of every physical thing; but through the karmic lessons learned also the quickener of the birth of the spiritual. The kumaras are connected also with the sage Narada. An allegory in the Puranas says that the kumaras, the first progeny of Brahma, were without desire or passion, inspired with the holy wisdom, and undesirous of progeny. They refused to create, but were compelled later on to complete divine man by incarnating in him. The barhishads or lunar pitris formed the “senseless” astral-physical humanity of the early root-races. Those beings possessing the living spiritual fire were the agnishvattas or solar pitris. The sons of Brahma, the kumaras, being originally themselves unconscious (in our sense) could be of no use in supplying the mental and kamic principles, as they did not possess them: they had attained no individual karmic elevation in merit of their own as had the agnishvattas. The perfection of the kumaras was passive and negative (nirguna). The kumaras eventually “sacrifice” themselves by incarnating in mankind, thus corresponding to the manasaputras and fallen angels cast into hell (material spheres, our earth).
The senses belong to the third of seven creations mentioned in the Puranas, the first three constituting a group known as the prakrita creations: 1) mahat-tattva creation; 2) bhuta or bhutasarga; and 3) indriya or aindriyaka. These three are not so much senses as the three first or elemental prakrita creations of the cosmos, representing the first three stages of the development of manifestation after a solar pralaya. Nevertheless, as analogy is nature’s rule throughout, these creations are equally applicable to the human senses, applying to the generalized development of sense function and sense apparatus more than to the sense organs themselves. The last of the three is, in its human application, a modified form of ahankara, the conception of the egoistic and mayavi “I” in man, the reflection of the spiritual ego or monad; and this third creation is also termed the organic creation or creation of the senses.
“The seven Stanzas given in this volume represent the seven terms of this abstract formula. They refer to, and describe the seven great stages of the evolutionary process, which are spoken of in the Puranas as the ‘Seven Creations,’ and in the Bible as the ‘Days’ of Creation” (SD 1:20-1).
The smritis were a system of oral teaching, passing from one generation of recipients to the succeeding generation, as was the case with the Brahmanical books before they were imbodied in manuscript. The Smartava-Brahmanas are, for this reason, considered by many to be esoterically superior to the Srauta-Brahmanas. In its widest application, the smritis include the Vedangas, the Sutras, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Puranas, the Dharma-sastras, especially the works of Manu, Yajnavalkya, and other inspired lawgivers, and the ethical writing or Niti-sastras; whereas the typical example of the sruti are the Vedas themselves considered as revelations.
"The triple principle was doubly recognised, first in the threefold divine principle answering to the later Sachchidananda, the divine existence, consciousness and bliss, and secondly in the threefold mundane principle, Mind, Life, Body, upon which is built the triple world of the Veda and Puranas.” *The Secret of the Veda
“The triple principle was doubly recognised, first in the threefold divine principle answering to the later Sachchidananda, the divine existence, consciousness and bliss, and secondly in the threefold mundane principle, Mind, Life, Body, upon which is built the triple world of the Veda and Puranas.” The Secret of the Veda
“The ‘very old Book’ is the original work from which the many volumes of Kiu-ti were complied. Not only this latter and the Siphrah Dzeniouta but even the Sepher Jezirah, the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabbalists to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of Shu-king, China’s primitive Bible, the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Puranas in India, and the Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that one small parent volume. Tradition says, that it was taken down in Senzar, the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our) race; for there was a time when its language (the Sen-zar) was known to the Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as easily as the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn, from the sages of the 3rd Race, the Manushis, who learnt it direct from the Devas of the 2nd and 1st Races. . . . The old book, having described Cosmic Evolution and explained the origin of everything on earth, including physical man, after giving the true history of the races from the First down to the Fifth (our) race, goes no further” (SD 1:xliii).
The Vishnu-Purana says of the kali yuga that the barbarians will be masters of the banks of the Indus, of Chandrabhaga and Kasmira, that “there will be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth — kings of churlish spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness. They will inflict death on women, children, and cows; they will seize upon the property of their subjects, and be intent upon the wives of others; they will be of unlimited power, their lives will be short, their desires insatiable. . . . People of various countries intermingling with them, will follow their example; and the barbarians being powerful (in India) in the patronage of the princes, while purer tribes are neglected, the people will perish (or, as the Commentator has it, ‘The Mlechchhas will be in the centre and the Aryas in the end.’) Wealth and piety will decrease until the world will be wholly depraved. Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigations; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification. . . . a man if rich will be reputed pure; dishonesty (anyaya) will be the universal means of subsistence, weakness the cause of dependence, menace and presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be devotion; mutual assent, marriage; fine clothes, dignity. He who is the strongest will reign; the people, unable to bear the heavy burthen, Khara bhara (the load of taxes) will take refuge among the valleys. . . . Thus, in the Kali age will decay constantly proceed, until the human race approaches its annihilation (pralaya). . . . When the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine being which exists, of its own spiritual nature . . . shall descend on Earth . . . (Kalki Avatar) endowed with the eight superhuman faculties. . . . He will re-establish righteousness on earth, and the minds of those who live at the end of Kali Yuga shall be awakened and become as pellucid as crystal. The men who are thus changed . . . shall be the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita age, the age of purity. As it is said, ‘When the sun and moon and the lunar asterism Tishya and the planet Jupiter are in one mansion, the Krita (or Satya) age shall return’ ” (SD 1:377-8). See also YUGA.
Through and from Brahman derive the various cosmic Brahmas, the expansion of the One into the many. Brahman does not put forth evolution itself nor create, but exhibits various aspects of itself by means of emanative evolution. The Hindu Puranas say that Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are the primordial energies of Brahman, the divine neuter. There is a clear distinction between the impersonal, supreme, all-pervading, immanent, beginningless, and endless cosmic principle, whose essence is consciousness-life-substance, and the various Brahmas; for these latter are the periodic manifestations of the highest energies flowing forth at the beginning of each manvantara from the neuter Brahman, and into which these various Brahmas are ingathered again when the cosmic cycle reaches its close and pralaya ensues.
Tiryaksrotas (Sanskrit) Tiryaksrotas [from tiryak horizontal, lying crosswise, crooked + srotas stream, current] Those animals in which the digestive canals are involved or crooked; according to the Puranas, the fifth of the seven creations of living beings by Brahma, the creation of sacred animals. “The esoteric meaning of the expression ‘animals’ is the germs of all animal life including man. Man is called a sacrificial animal, and an animal that is the only one among animal creation who sacrifices to the gods. Moreover, by the ‘sacred animals,’ the 12 signs of the zodiac are often meant in the sacred texts . . .” (SD 1:446n).
Tortoise In China, a favorite symbol, and Confucius regarded it as sacred; in India the same veneration is given to it, for in one of the preceding manvantaras Vishnu is said in the Puranas to have taken the form of a tortoise to uphold the earth and its beings; his second avatara is called the Tortoise or Kurma avatara.
Toyambudhi (Sanskrit) Toyāmbudhi [from toya river + ambudhi ocean] The collector or receptacle of rivers; “a country in the northern part of which lay the ‘White Island’ ” (TG 336) or Sveta-dvipa — one of the seven islands or continents spoken of in the Puranas.
Tvashtri (Sanskrit) Tvaṣṭṛ The divine artist and carpenter of the gods, father of the gods and of the sacred creative fire, and therefore equivalent to the Greek cosmic Demiurge. Maker of divine weapons, such as Indra’s Thunderbolt, and teacher of the ribhus or adityas, he was considered as the great patron of initiates. The Tvashtri of the Vedas is synonymous with the Visvakarman of the Puranas. Many of the functions ascribed in Hindu legend to Tvashtri are reminiscent of similar functions ascribed to the Greek Hephaestos or Latin Vulcan.
Urdhvasrotas (Sanskrit) Ūrdhvasrotas [from ūrdhva upwards, straight + srotas current, channel, canal] Those whose digestive organs or life-currents are upright. In the Puranas, the sixth of the seven creations of Brahma, or emanations of living beings, being the emanation or spiritual beings or dhyanis. “These (divinities) are simply the prototypes of the First Race, the fathers of their ‘mind-born’ progeny with the soft bones. It is these who became the Evolvers of the ‘Sweat-born’ . . .” (SD 1:456). These creations or stages in evolutionary development refer especially to globe D, but have a cosmic significance likewise when the reference is to cosmic time periods.
Vaijayanti (Sanskrit) Vaijayantī A flag, banner; the masculine noun vaijayanta refers specifically to the emblem of Indra. In the Puranas, used as the name of a magical necklace of Vishnu, “imitated by certain Initiates among the temple Brahmans. It is made of five precious stones, each symbolizing one of the five elements of our Round; namely, the pearl, ruby, emerald, sapphire and diamond, or water, fire, earth, air and ether, called ‘the aggregate of the five elemental rudiments’ — the word ‘powers’ being, perhaps, more correct than ‘rudiments’ ” (TG 358).
Vallabhacharya was born in the forest of Champaranya in 1479. At an early age he began traveling to propagate his doctrines, and at the court of Krishna-deva, king of Vijaya-nagara, succeeded so well in his controversies with the Saivas, according to the reports of his followers, that many Vaishnavas chose him as their chief. He then went to other parts of India, and finally settled at Benares, where he composed 17 works, the most important of which were commentaries on the Vedanta- and Mimansa-Sutras and another on the Bhagavata-Purana, on which this sect seems in the main to base their doctrines. He left 84 disciples. He taught a non-ascetic view of religion and deprecated all self-mortification as dishonoring the body which contained a portion of the supreme spirit. His emphasis on human affections and emotions seems at times to fringe closely the frontiers of licentiousness.
Varaha-avatara (Sanskrit) Varāha-avatāra The boar-avatara; a descent of Vishnu in the form of a boar, to deliver the world from the demon Hiranyaksha — the ruler of the fifth region of Patala (the nether world) — who had carried the earth into the lower regions of his spheres. The contest between Vishnu in this form and Hiranyaksha took place beneath the water, according to the Puranas; Vishnu emerged victorious and raised the earth from the deep. This legend, among several other interpretations, may refer to the risings and sinkings of continents.
Varsha (Sanskrit) Varṣa [from the verbal root vṛṣ to rain] A division of the earth as separated off by mountain ranges; nine are enumerated in the Puranas: Kuru, Hiranmaya, Ramyaka, Ilavrita, Hari, Ketumala, Bhadrasva, Kimnara, and Bharata.
Varuna ::: "he of the Wideness", [Ved.]: the deva as the all-pervading Vastness and purity of the Divine supporting and perfecting the world, he represents the ethereal purity and oceanic wideness of the infinite Truth; [Purana]: the deity of the waters; [in the Gita called chief among the peoples of the sea].
Veda: The highest authority among the Aryans of India; it is held that this was never written by anyone and it is, therefore, free from the imperfections to which human productions are subject. When it is forgotten, it is reproduced by Rishis by doing meditation. As the sounds forming the text of the Veda occur in the same order and are pronounced in the same manner, it is said to be eternal; it teaches who and what Brahman is, and how He should be worshipped. Smritis, Itihasas and Puranas only amplify its teaching. It is the most ancient, authentic scripture of the Hindus.
vijnanavijrmbhitani ::: self-deployings of the Divine Knowledge [vijnana]. [Visnu Purana 2.12.39]
Vishnu Purana and Bhagavata Purana&
Vishnu Purana (Sanskrit) Viṣṇu Purāṇa One of the most celebrated of the 18 principal Puranas, conforming more than any other to the definition of pancha-lakshana (five distinguishing marks) assigned as being the character of a complete Purana by Amara-Simha, an ancient Sanskrit lexicographer. It consists of six books: the first treats of the creation of the universe from cosmic prakriti, and the peopling of the world by the prajapatis or spiritual ancestors; the second book gives a list of kings with many geographical and astronomical details; the third treats of the Vedas and caste; the fourth continues the chronicle of dynasties; the fifth gives the life of Krishna; and the sixth book describes the dissolution of the world, and the future re-issuing of the world after pralaya.
Vishnu has many names and is presented in many different forms in Hindu writings. Riding on Garuda, the allegorical monstrous half-man and half-bird, Vishnu is the symbol of Kala (duration), and Garuda the emblem of cyclic and periodical time. Vishnu as the sun represents the male principle, which vivifies and fructifies all things. The Puranas call Ananta- Sesha a form of Vishnu on which the universe sleeps during pralaya. In the allegorical Vaivasvata-Manu deluge, Vishnu in the shape of a fish towing the ark of salvation represents the divine spirit as a concrete cosmic principle and also as the preserver and generator, or giver of life. In the Rig-Veda Vishnu is a manifestation of the solar energy and strides through the seven regions of the universe in three steps. The Vedic Vishnu is not the prominent god of later times.
Vishnu (Sanskrit) Viṣṇu [from the verbal root viṣ to enter, pervade] The sustainer or preserver; the second of the three gods of the Hindu Trimurti or Triad. Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu together are infinite space, of which the gods, rishis, manus, and all in the universe are simply the manifestations, qualities, and potencies. Vishnu is called the eternal deity, and in the Mahabharata and the Puranas he is declared to be the imbodiment of sattva-guna, the quality of mercy and goodness, which displays itself as the preserving power in the self-existent, all-pervading spirit. His symbol is the chakra (circle). He is identical with the Hindu Idaspati (master of the waters) and with the Greek Poseidon and Latin Neptune.
Visnu (Vishnu) ::: [Ved.]: the all-pervading godhead, the deva or Deity evoking the powers of the ascent; [Puranas]: a member of the divine Triad [trimurti], expressive of the conservative process in the cosmos, the preserver.
Vodhu (Sanskrit) Voḍhu The sixth of the seven kumaras as enumerated in the Uttara-kanda of the Padma-Purana. The seven are Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana, Sanat-kumara, Jata, Vodhu, and Pancha-sikha.
VP - Vishnu Purana
With Buddhists, ignorance, one of the three roots of vice. In the Vishnu-Purana, infatuation personified as the offspring of Brahma.
“With regard to the origin of Rudra, it is stated in several Puranas that his (spiritual) progeny, created in him by Brahma, was not confined to either the seven Kumaras or the eleven Rudras, etc., but ‘comprehends infinite numbers of beings in person and equipments like their (virgin) father. Alarmed at their fierceness, numbers, and immortality, Brahma desires his son Rudra to form creatures of a different and mortal nature.’ Rudra refusing to create, desists, etc., hence Rudra is the first rebel” (SD 2:613n).
Yuga(s) (Sanskrit) Yuga Age; an age of the world, of which there are four — satya yuga, treta yuga, dvapara yuga, and kali yuga — which proceed in succession during the manvantaric cycle. Each yuga is preceded by a period called in the Puranas, sandhya (twilight, transition period, dawn) and followed by another period of like duration often called sandhyansa (a portion of twilight). Each of these transition periods is one-tenth of its yuga. The group of four yugas is first computed by the divine years or years of the gods — each such year being equal to 360 years of mortal men. Thus we have, in divine years:
KEYS (10k)
6 Vishnu Purana
4 Bhagavat Purana
2 Sri Ramakrishna
1 Bhagavata Purana
1 Sri Ramana Maharshi
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
6 Vishnu Purana
6 Shantha N. Nair
4 Sri Aurobindo
4 H.H.Wilson
4 Bhagavat Purana
2 Sri Swami Sivananda
2 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Sacred Texts
2 Periyar
2 James G. Lochtefeld
2 Horace H. Wilson
1:The idea of thou and I is a fruit of the soul's ignorance. ~ Bhagavat Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
2:Man is like an ignorant spectator of a drama played on the stage. ~ Bhagavat Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
3:First of the elements, universal Being, Thou hast created all and preservest all and the universe is nothing but Thy form. ~ Vishnu Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
4:Hail to Thee, to Thee, Spirit of the Supreme Spirit, Soul of souls, to Thee, the visible and invisible, who art one with Time and with the elements. ~ Vishnu Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
5:Thou who art the soul of all things, Thy universal diffusion witnesses to Thy power and goodness. It is in thee, in others, in all creatures, in all worlds. ~ Vishnu Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
6:I salute It, this supreme Deity, which is beyond the senses, which mind and speech cannot define and which can be discerned only by the mind of the true sage. ~ Vishnu Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
7:Thou art the sun, the stars, the planets, the entire world, all that is without form or endowed with form, all that is visible or invisible, Thou art all these. ~ Vishnu Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
8:Therefore, considering with a firm heart the way of the spirit, renounce the trust which made you see something durable in the cause of joy and sorrow and return into calm. ~ Bhagavat Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
9:It is the Blessed One, the sole Being, thou sayest, who dwells in every soul: whence then come the misery and sorrow to which he is condemned by his presence in the heart of the soul of man? ~ Bhagavat Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
10:And in this world, always a work of Illusion, men whose intelligence is troubled by desire, greed, envy and error, are rolled through different states with the idea that these states are real. ~ Bhagavata Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
11:Victory to the Essence of all wisdom, to the unmoving, to the Imperishable! Victory to the Eternal, to the essence of visible and invisible beings, to Him who is at the same time the cause and the effect of the universe. ~ Vishnu Purana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
12:All scriptures-the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras-seek Him alone & no one else, only that one Satchidananda. That which is called Satchidananda Brahman in the Vedas is called Satchidananda Shiva in the Tantra. Again it is He alone who is called Satchidananda Krishna in Purana ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
13:37 - Some say Krishna never lived, he is a myth. They mean on earth; for if Brindavan existed nowhere, the Bhagavat (6) could not have been written. - Sri Aurobindo
Does Brindavan exist anywhere else than on earth?
The whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifested here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. This is an indispensable condition for the manifestation. And the importance of the manifestation will always depend on the origin of the thing manifested.
In the world of the gods there is an ideal and harmonious Brindavan of which the earthly Brindavan is but a deformation and a caricature.
Those who are developed inwardly, either in their senses or in their minds, perceive these realities which are invisible (to the ordinary man) and receive their inspiration from them.
So the writer or writers of the Bhagavat were certainly in contact with a whole inner world that is well and truly real and existent, where they saw and experienced everything they have described or revealed.
Whether Krishna existed or not in a human form, living on earth, is only of very secondary importance (except perhaps from an exclusively historical point of view), for Krishna is a real, living and active being; and his influence has been one of the great factors in the progress and transformation of the earth.
8 June 1960
(6 The story of Krishna, as related in the Bhagavat Purana.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.60-61),#KEYS
14:64 Arts
1. Geet vidya: art of singing.
2. Vadya vidya: art of playing on musical instruments.
3. Nritya vidya: art of dancing.
4. Natya vidya: art of theatricals.
5. Alekhya vidya: art of painting.
6. Viseshakacchedya vidya: art of painting the face and body with color
7. Tandulakusumabalivikara: art of preparing offerings from rice and flowers.
8. Pushpastarana: art of making a covering of flowers for a bed.
9. Dasanavasanangaraga: art of applying preparations for cleansing the teeth, cloths and painting the body.
10. Manibhumikakarma: art of making the groundwork of jewels.
11. Aayyaracana: art of covering the bed.
12. Udakavadya: art of playing on music in water.
13. Udakaghata: art of splashing with water.
14. Citrayoga: art of practically applying an admixture of colors.
15. Malyagrathanavikalpa: art of designing a preparation of wreaths.
16. Sekharapidayojana: art of practically setting the coronet on the head.
17. Nepathyayoga: art of practically dressing in the tiring room.
18. Karnapatrabhanga: art of decorating the tragus of the ear.
19. Sugandhayukti: art of practical application of aromatics.
20. Bhushanayojana: art of applying or setting ornaments.
21. Aindrajala: art of juggling.
22. Kaucumara: a kind of art.
23. Hastalaghava: art of sleight of hand.
24. Citrasakapupabhakshyavikarakriya: art of preparing varieties of delicious food.
25. Panakarasaragasavayojana: art of practically preparing palatable drinks and tinging draughts with red color.
26. Sucivayakarma: art of needleworks and weaving.
27. Sutrakrida: art of playing with thread.
28. Vinadamurakavadya: art of playing on lute and small drum.
29. Prahelika: art of making and solving riddles.
30. Durvacakayoga: art of practicing language difficult to be answered by others.
31. Pustakavacana: art of reciting books.
32. Natikakhyayikadarsana: art of enacting short plays and anecdotes.
33. Kavyasamasyapurana: art of solving enigmatic verses.
34. Pattikavetrabanavikalpa: art of designing preparation of shield, cane and arrows.
35. Tarkukarma: art of spinning by spindle.
36. Takshana: art of carpentry.
37. Vastuvidya: art of engineering.
38. Raupyaratnapariksha: art of testing silver and jewels.
39. Dhatuvada: art of metallurgy.
40. Maniraga jnana: art of tinging jewels.
41. Akara jnana: art of mineralogy.
42. Vrikshayurvedayoga: art of practicing medicine or medical treatment, by herbs.
43. Meshakukkutalavakayuddhavidhi: art of knowing the mode of fighting of lambs, cocks and birds.
44. Sukasarikapralapana: art of maintaining or knowing conversation between male and female cockatoos.
45. Utsadana: art of healing or cleaning a person with perfumes.
46. Kesamarjanakausala: art of combing hair.
47. Aksharamushtikakathana: art of talking with fingers.
48. Dharanamatrika: art of the use of amulets.
49. Desabhashajnana: art of knowing provincial dialects.
50. Nirmitijnana: art of knowing prediction by heavenly voice.
51. Yantramatrika: art of mechanics.
52. Mlecchitakutarkavikalpa: art of fabricating barbarous or foreign sophistry.
53. Samvacya: art of conversation.
54. Manasi kavyakriya: art of composing verse
55. Kriyavikalpa: art of designing a literary work or a medical remedy.
56. Chalitakayoga: art of practicing as a builder of shrines called after him.
57. Abhidhanakoshacchandojnana: art of the use of lexicography and meters.
58. Vastragopana: art of concealment of cloths.
59. Dyutavisesha: art of knowing specific gambling.
60. Akarshakrida: art of playing with dice or magnet.
61. Balakakridanaka: art of using children's toys.
62. Vainayiki vidya: art of enforcing discipline.
63. Vaijayiki vidya: art of gaining victory.
64. Vaitaliki vidya: art of awakening master with music at dawn.
~ Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger, Sexual Secrets,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:The idea of thou and I is a fruit of the soul’s ignorance. ~ Bhagavat Purana, #NFDB
2:Man is like an ignorant spectator of a drama played on the stage. ~ Bhagavat Purana, #NFDB
3:First of the elements, universal Being, Thou hast created all and preservest all and the universe is nothing but Thy form. ~ Vishnu Purana, #NFDB
4:There is only one real knowledge: that which helps us to be free. Every other type of knowledge is mere amusement. —VISHNU PURANA, ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
5:Hail to Thee, to Thee, Spirit of the Supreme Spirit, Soul of souls, to Thee, the visible and invisible, who art one with Time and with the elements. ~ Vishnu Purana, #NFDB
6:Thou who art the soul of all things, Thy universal diffusion witnesses to Thy power and goodness. It is in thee, in others, in all creatures, in all worlds. ~ Vishnu Purana, #NFDB
7:I salute It, this supreme Deity, which is beyond the senses, which mind and speech cannot define and which can be discerned only by the mind of the true sage. ~ Vishnu Purana, #NFDB
8:Thou art the sun, the stars, the planets, the entire world, all that is without form or endowed with form, all that is visible or invisible, Thou art all these. ~ Vishnu Purana, #NFDB
9:There is actual mention in the Samhita and Brahmana literature of a work called Purana. ~ PL Bhargava, quoted in S. Talageri, The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993) [2], #NFDB
10:Therefore, considering with a firm heart the way of the spirit, renounce the trust which made you see something durable in the cause of joy and sorrow and return into calm. ~ Bhagavat Purana, #NFDB
11:The (hymns of the) Atharvangiras are the bees, the Itihasa-Purana is the flower. ~ Chandyoga Upanishad. III 4-1., quoted in S. Talageri, The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993), #NFDB
12:It is the Blessed One, the sole Being, thou sayest, who dwells in every soul: whence then come the misery and sorrow to which he is condemned by his presence in the heart of the soul of man? ~ Bhagavat Purana, #NFDB
13:And in this world, always a work of Illusion, men whose intelligence is troubled by desire, greed, envy and error, are rolled through different states with the idea that these states are real. ~ Bhagavata Purana, #NFDB
14:Victory to the Essence of all wisdom, to the unmoving, to the Imperishable! Victory to the Eternal, to the essence of visible and invisible beings, to Him who is at the same time the cause and the effect of the universe. ~ Vishnu Purana, #NFDB
15:The Shiva Puranas are Shiva Purana, Linga Purana, Kurma Purana, Markandeya Purana, Skanda Purana, and Varaha Purana. ~ Shantha N. Nair, in "Echoes of Ancient Indian Wisdom: The Universal Hindu Vision and Its Edifice (1 January 2008)", p. 266, #NFDB
16:The Vasihnva Puranas are Vishnu Purana, Naradiya Purana, Vamana Purana, Matsya Purana, Garuda Purana, and Shrimat Bhagavata Purana. ~ Shantha N. Nair, in "Echoes of Ancient Indian Wisdom: The Universal Hindu Vision and Its Edifice (1 January 2008)", p. 266, #NFDB
17:The Brahma Puranas that glorify Brahma are Brahma Purana, Bhavishya Purana, Agni Purana, Brahmavaivarta Purana, Brahmanda Purana, and Padma Purana. ~ Shantha N. Nair, in "Echoes of Ancient Indian Wisdom: The Universal Hindu Vision and Its Edifice (1 January 2008)", p. 266, #NFDB
18:The Srimad Bhagavatam is the very essence of all the Vedanta literature. One who has enjoyed the nectar of its rasa never has any desire for anything else. ~ Rūpagosvāmī (2003), in Twelfth canto of Bhagavat Purana (12.13.15), in The Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu of Rūpa Gosvāmin, p. 65, #NFDB
19:If god is the root cause for our degradation destroy that god. If it is religion destroy it. If it is Manu Darma, Gita, or any other Mythology (Purana), burn them to ashes. If it is temple, tank, or festival, boycott them. Finally if it is our politics, come forward to declare it openly. ~ Periyar, #NFDB
20:The Narada or Naradiya Purana is where Narada has described the duties which were observed in Vrihat Kalpa, that is called Naradiya, having twenty five thousand stanzas....It is communicated by Narada to the rishis in Naimisharanya, on the Gomati River. ~ H.H.Wilson, in Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840), pp. 31-32, #NFDB
21:Most of the puranas are highly sectarian as is the Shiva Purana, which is one of the longer and larger puranas. It gives an exhaustive account Shiva’s mythic deeds – many of which have become the common mythic currency for many traditional Hindus – as well as instructions for how, where, and when Shiva is to be worshipped. ~ James G. Lochtefeld, in "Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism: N-Z (2002)", p. 637, #NFDB
22:This work opens the eyes of the world blinded by ignorance. As the sun dispels darkness, so does Bharata by its exposition of religion, duty, action, contemplation, and so forth. As the full moon by shedding soft light helps the buds of the lotus to open, so this Purana by its exposition expands the human intellect. The lamp of history illumines the ‘whole mansion of the womb of Nature.’ —Vyasa ~ R K Narayan, #NFDB
23:Linga Purana, listed eleven in the order of composition, enunciates many rituals in the text with legends and stories that date back to a hoary period. It gives details of Shiva Puja and has two parts – the first part is said to be ‘Poorva Bhaga’ and the other ‘Uttara Bhaga'. It has 180 chapters in the first part and 55 in the second. The language of the Purana is difficult. ~ B.K. Chaturvedi, in Linga Purana, p. 7 (Preface)., #NFDB
24:The Puranas are post-Vedic texts which typically contain a complete narrative of the history of the Universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of the kings, heroes and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology and geography. There are 18 canonical Puranas, divided into three categories, each named after a deity: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. There are also many other works termed Purana, known as 'Upapuranas. ~ Sacred Texts, in Hinduism, #NFDB
25:But, Narada, this Purana can save a lost man, fetch him back to the path of light and truth: because it has deep enchantment in it, for the Lord Vishnu dwells in this arcane Purana, he speaks through it. He who describes the maya of the Lord Vishnu, the Antaryamin, transcends that maya. Why, even he who listens with devotion to the Bhagavatam is purified of his sins, and finds his way back to the Lord,’ said Brahma,” Suka said to the king. ~ Ramesh Menon, #NFDB
26:According to Puranas, there are five characteristic features or subjects dealt with in each Maha Purana and these are: Sarga – the process of creation of Universe; Pratisarga – the periodical process of destruction and creation; Manvantara – the various eras; Vamsa – the histories of the solar and lunar dynasties; and Vamsanucharita – the royal lineage. ~ Shantha N. Nair, in "Echoes of Ancient Indian Wisdom: The Universal Hindu Vision and Its Edifice (1 January 2008)", p. 266, #NFDB
27:Linga Purana is where Maheshwara, present in the Agni Linga, explained {the objects of life) virtue, wealth, pleasure, and final liberation at the end of the Agni Kalpa, and this Purana, consists of eleven thousand stanzas. It is said to have been originally composed by Brahma and the primitive Linga is a pillar of radiance, in which Maheswara is present. ~ Horace H. Wilson, in Works:¬Vol. ¬6 : ¬The Vishṅu Purāṅa: a system of Hindu mythology ..., Volume 6 (1864), p. LXVii-LXViii, #NFDB
28:Brahmananda Purana, has declared in twelve thousand two hundred verses, the magnificence of the egg of Brahma, and in which an account of the future Kalpa is contained, as was revealed by Brahma. It is usually considered to be in much the same predicament as Skanda, no longer procurable in a collective body, but represented by a variety of Khandas and Mahatmyas, professing to be derived from it. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, p. liv, #NFDB
29:The knowers of ancient things call this Purana Brahma Vaivarta because in it Brahman (I Khanda [chapter]) and the Universe (II Khanda) are unfolded by Krishna. The actual structure of the Brahma and the Prakriti khandas, is a further corroboration that in the word ‘Brahma-Vivarta’ what is meant is Brahman and not Brahma. It is the Purana of manifested Brahmin, which seems to be comprehensive of all topics of the Purana. ~ Swami Parmeshwaranand, in Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Puranas, Volume 1, p. 223, #NFDB
30:As explained by David Frawley, “Dravidian history does not contradict Vedic history either. It credits the invention of the Tamil language, the oldest Dravidian tongue, to the rishi Agastya, one of the most prominent sages in the Rig Veda. Dravidian kings historically have called themselves Aryans and trace their descent through Manu (who in the Matsya Purana is regarded as originally a south Indian king). Apart from language, moreover, both north and south India share a common religion and culture.” 2 ~ Stephen Knapp, #NFDB
31:Markandeya Purana is that in which, commencing with the story of birds that were acquainted with right and wrong, everything is narrated fully by Markandeya, as it was explained by holy sages, in reply to the question of the Muni. It contains nine thousand verses, This is called from its being, in the first instance, narrated by Markendaya Muni, and, in the second instance place by certain fabulous birds. ~ Horace H. Wilson, in "Works:¬Vol. ¬6 : ¬The Vishṅu Purāṅa: a system of Hindu mythology ..., Volume 6 (1864)}, p. Liii, #NFDB
32:In 1879 the Bengali scholar S.M. Tagore compiled a more extensive list of ruby colors from the Purana sacred texts: ‘like the China rose, like blood, like the seeds of the pomegranate, like red lead, like the red lotus, like saffron, like the resin of certain trees, like the eyes of the Greek partridge or the Indian crane…and like the interior of the half-blown water lily.’ With so many gorgeous descriptive possibilities it is curious that in English the two ancient names for rubies have come to sound incredibly ugly. ~ Victoria Finlay, #NFDB
33:Reading, to a man devoid of wisdom, is like a mirror to the blind; hence, for those who have understanding, Śāstras are only a potter to the knowledge of the truth.
"'This is known; this must be known,"--he wishes to hear everything. If one lives for a thousand celestial years he cannot reach the end of the Śāstras.
The Śāstras are numerous; life is brief; and there are tens of millions of obstacles; therefore the essence should be understood,--like the swan taking the milk in the water.
The Garuda Purana - XVI - 78-84 ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
34:Vamana Purana is that in which the four faced Brahma taught the three objects of existence, as subservient to the account of the greatness of Trivikrama, which treats also of the Shiva Kalpa, and which consists of ten thousand stanzas. It contains an account of the dwarf incarnation of Vishnu; but it is related by Pulastya to Narada, and extends to but about seven thousand stanzas. Its contents can scarcely establish its claim to the character of a Purana. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, P. xivii, #NFDB
35:Bhavishya Purana is the Purana in which Brahma, having described the greatness of the sun, explained to Manu the existence of the world, and the characters of all created things, in the course of the Aghora Kalpa, the stories being for the most part of the events of a future period. It contains fourteen thousand five hundred stanzas. This Purana, as the name implies should be a book of prophesies, foretelling what will be (bhavishyat), as the Matsya Purana intimates. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, P.xxxix, #NFDB
36:The Purana carry on propaganda in favour of a particular deity or a place sacred to that deity, and are sectarian. … The Vayu, Brahmanda, Matsya, and the Vishnu Puranas give ancient royal genealogies. The original Puranas existed long before the Christian era, were revised and modified in later times and chapters on Hindu rites and customs were added to them. They attempted to being Vaishnavism and Saivism within the orthodoxy and combined new doctrines with Vedic rituals, ... ~ R. K. Dwivedi, et all, in A history of the Guptas, political & cultural {1985), p. 122, #NFDB
37:Vishnu Purana is one of the eighteen traditional puranas, which were an important genre of smriti text, and the repository of much of traditional Indian mythology... Most of the puranas are highly sectarian as is the Vishnu Purana which is focused on the worship of Vishnu. It gives an exhaustive account of Vishnu’s mystic deeds – many of which have become the common mythic currency for many traditional Hindus – as well as instructions for how, where, and when Vishnu is to be worshipped. ~ James G. Lochtefeld, in Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism: N-Z (2002), p. 760, #NFDB
38:In India we have two different systems. One we call history; history takes note of the facts. Another we call purana, mythology; it takes note of the truth. We have not written histories about Buddha, Mahavira or Krishna, no. That would have been dragging something immensely beautiful into the muddy unconsciousness of humanity. We have not written histories about these people, we have written myths. What is a myth? A myth is a parable, a parable that only points to the moon but says nothing about it—a finger pointing to the moon, an indication, an arrow, saying nothing. ~ Osho, #NFDB
39:If the Purana written by Vyasa were still existing, then it would be honoured as a “Sruti”. In the absence of this Purana and the one written by Lomaharshana, the eighteen Puranas that still exist cannot all be given the same place of honour; among them, the Vishnu and the Bhagwata Purana composed by accomplished yogis are definitely more precious and we must recognise that the Markandeya Purana written by a sage devoted to spiritual pursuits is more profound in Knowledge than either the Shiva or the Agni Purana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, in "Sri Aurobindo Writings in Bengali Translated into English"., #NFDB
40:Radha’s elevated status, her role as a cosmic queen equal to or superior Krishna giving her a central role in the cosmogony in the Brahma Vivarta Purana...As creator of the universe we find Radha playing a role that is extremely atypical of her earlier history, the role of a mother. In the Brahma Vaivarta Purana, however, she is often called by names that suggest that her motherly role, vis-à-vis the created world. She is called mother of Vishnu, mother of the world, and mother of all. ~ David R. Kinsley, in Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (19 June 1988), p. 93, #NFDB
41:The 18 Mahapuranas (great Puranas), as the origins of the Puranas, may have overlapped to some extent with the Vedas, but their composition stretched forward into the 4th-5th centuries,... the earliest parts of the Puranic genealogies are either entirely or partly w:Mythicalmythical. The oldest of the Puranas are the Matsya, Vayu and the Brahmanda and for our purposes, the Vishnu Purana, somewhat later than the first three … the Vedic link also goes back to the earlier statement that the itihasa-purana was the fifth Veda. ~ Upinder Singh, in A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the ..., p. 22, #NFDB
42:The Srimad Bhagavatam teaches nine primary forms of bhakti, as explained by Prahlada as:(1) śravaṇa ("listening" to the scriptural stories of Kṛṣṇa and his companions), (2) kīrtana ("praising," usually refers to ecstatic group singing), (3) smaraṇa ("remembering" or fixing the mind on Viṣṇu), (4) pāda-sevana (rendering service), (5) arcana (worshiping an image), (6) vandana (paying homage), (7) dāsya (servitude), (8) sākhya (friendship), and (9) ātma-nivedana (complete surrender of the self). ~ Bhagavata Purana (from Bhagavata Purana, 7.5.23-24) quoted in Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of Rāgānugā Bhakti Sādhana, p. 133, #NFDB
43:The Garuda Purana is one of the Vishnu Puranas. It is in the form of a dialog between Vishnu and Garuda, the King of Birds... Portions of the Garuda Purana are used by some Hindus as funeral liturgy…. The Garuda Purana starts with the details of the afterlife. The final part of this text is an appeal to self-knowledge as the key to liberation, going beyond austerities and study of the texts: "The fool, not knowing that the truth is seated in himself, is bewildered by the Shastras,--a foolish goatherd, with the young goat under his arm, peers into the well." ~ Sacred Text, in The Garuda Purana Translated by Ernest Wood and S.V. Subrahmanyam (1911), #NFDB
44:One who visits Ayodhya the way enjoined sheds all one’s sins and finds one’s abode in the House of Hari (Hari-mandira). Likewise, ‘for one who takes bath in the Svargadvara and visits the Rama temple (Ramalaya) nothing remains to be done here and he has fulfilled his duty. ~ Skanda Purana II, Vaisnava-khanda (2) Badarikasrama-Mahatmya (3) . I.24. (The Ayodhya-Mahatmya refers to Ramajanmasthana once, Janmasthana twice, and Janmabhumi twice. Paying a visit (pradarsana) to the same is said to be infinitely meritorious. Skanda Purana, Ayodhya-Mahatmya.) Quoted from Narain, Harsh (1993). The Ayodhya temple-mosque dispute: Focus on Muslim sources. Delhi: Penman Publishers. [1], #NFDB
45:infine l'antichissima sapienza indiana dice: "È Maya, il velo ingannatore, che avvolge gli occhi dei mortali e fa loro vedere un mondo del quale non può dirsi né che esista, né che non esista; perché ella rassomiglia al sogno, rassomiglia al riflesso del sole sulla sabbia, che il pellegrino da lontano scambia per acqua; o anche rassomiglia alla corda gettata a terra, che egli prende per un serpente" (Questi paragoni si trovano ripetuti in luoghi innumerevoli dei Veda e dei Purana). Ma ciò che tutti costoro pensavano, e di cui parlano, non è altro se non quel che anche noi ora, appunto, consideriamo: il mondo come rappresentazione, sottomesso al principio della ragione. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
46:Brahma had decreed that demon Daruka would not die at the hands of a man, beast, or god. This left him vulnerable only to attacks by women. The devas, tormented by Daruka, sought the aid of the goddess Parvati, who immersed herself in the poison locked in Shiva’s throat and transformed into Kali, the dark one. When she returned to Mount Kailas after killing the demon, her skin was black, her eyes red, her teeth like fangs, her tongue blood smeared. She hardly looked like a wife. Shiva laughed. Hurt, the goddess performed austerities, bathed in a river, and transformed into Gauri, the bright one. Her golden skin, shapely eyes, pearllike teeth, and smile aroused Shiva. He embraced her and they made love. Shiva Purana, Linga Purana ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
47:Soon the heavens will burst and torrential rains will flood the earth. The sea will rise and submerge the land. When this happens collect the seed of every plant and a pair of every animal and wait for me on a boat with your wife.’ Realizing this was no ordinary fish, but Vishnu himself, Satyavrata did as he was told. The great fish appeared before him, bigger than before, with a horn on its head. Satyavrata tied his boat to the horn with Adi Sesha as the rope. The fish then towed the boat through the great deluge to the only piece of dry land, the peak of Mount Mandara. There Satyavrata and his wife waited for the waters to recede. With the seed of every plant and a pair of all animals he would establish the new world. (Bhagavata Purana) ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
48:Kurma Purana is that in which Janardhana, in the form of a tortoise, in the regions under the earth, explained the objects of life – duty, wealth, pleasure, and liberation - in communication with Indradyumna and the Rishis in the proximity of Sakra, which refers to the Lakshmi Kalpa, and contains seventeen thousand stanzas. The first chapter of the Purana gives an account of itself. Suta the narrator says: “This most excellent Kurma Purana is the fifteenth. Samhitas are fourfold, from the variety of the collections. The Brahmi, Bhagavathi, Sauri, and Vaishnavi (Matrika goddess, are well known to the four Sanhitas [religious character] which confer virtue, wealth, pleasure, and liberation…]]. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, p. xlix., #NFDB
49:Admittedly, the Vedas are a defective source of history. As religious books, they only deal with historical data in passing. But that has never kept the invasionist school from treating the Vedas as the only source of ancient Indian history, to the neglect of the legitimate history books, the ItihAsa-PuraNa literature, i.e. the Epics and the Puranas. It is like ignoring the historical Bible books (Exodus, Joshua, Chronicles, Kings) to draw ancient Israelite history exclusively from the Psalms, or like ignoring the historians Livius, Tacitus and Suetonius to do Roman history on the basis of the poet Virgil. What would be dismissed as “utterly ridiculous” in Western history is standard practice in Indian history. ~ Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan., #NFDB
50:Skanda Purana is that in which the six faced deity (Skanda) has related the events of the Tatpurusha Kalpa, enlarged with many tales, and subservient to the duties taught by Maheshwara. It is a said to contain eighty-one thousand one hundred stanzas. In a collective form it is not noteable, but in fragments in the shape of Samhitas, Khandas [chapters], and Mahtmyas; the most celebrated of these portions in Hindustan is the Kali Khanda, a very minute description of temples of Shiva in or adjacent to Benares, mixed with directions for worshipping Mahehwara, and a great variety of legends explanatory on its merits, and of the holiness of Kashi. Many of them are puerile and uninteresting, but some are of a higher character. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, p. xlv-xlvi, #NFDB
51:Matsya Purana is that in which, for the sake of promulgating the Vedas, Vishnu, in the beginning of the Kalpa related to Manu the story of Narasimha and the events of seven Kalpas, that O, sages know to be the Matsya containing twenty thousand stanzas...the subjects of the Purana were communicated by Vishnu, in the form of a fish to Manu. The Purana, after the usual prologue open with the account of the Matsya or ‘fish’ Avatars of Vishnu, in which he preserves a king named Manu, with the seeds of all things, in an ark, from the waters of the inundation which in the season of Pralaya overspreads the world. This story is told in the Mahabharata, with reference to the Matsya as its authority; from which it might be inferred that the Purana was prior to the poem. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, P.li, #NFDB
52:Padma Purana is that which contains an account of the period when the world was a golden lotus (padma)), and of all the occurrences of that time, is therefore called Padma by the wise. It contains fifty five thousand stanzas. The second Purana in the usual lists is always Padma, a very voluminous work, containing according to its own statement, as well as of other authorities fifty-five thousand slokas; an amount not far from the truth. These are divided amongst five books or Khandas: 1. Srishti Khanda, or section on creation; 2. the Bhumi Khanda, description of the earth; 3. the Swarga Khanda, chapter on heaven; 4. the Patala Khanda, chapters on regions below the earth; and 5. The Uttara Khanda, last or supplementary chapter. There is also current a sixth division, the Kriya Yoga Sara, a treatise on the practice of devotion. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, p. xviii, #NFDB
53:Brahma Purana is the whole of which was formerly repeated by Brahma to Marichi and contains ten thousands stanzas. In all the lists of Puranas, Brahma Purana is placed at the head of the series, and is thence sometimes also entitled to Adi or ‘First’ Purana. It is also designated as Saura, as it is in great part appropriated to the worship of Surya, the ‘sun’. There is a supplementary or concluding section called the Brahmottara Khanda, which contains about three thousand more; but there is every reason to conclude that this a distinct and unconnected work...The immediate narrator of the Brahma Purana is Lomaharshana, who communicates it to the Rishis or sages assembled at Naimisharanya, as it was originally revealed by Brahma, not to Marichi as the Matsya affirms, but to Daksha, another of the patriarchs: hence the denomination of the Brahma Purana. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, P.xvi, #NFDB
54:Markandeya Purana along with Bhagavat Purana is considered to be quite a celebrated work. Ranked seventh in the list of Puranas, probably one of the oldest works, its recitation is believed to free one from taints of sin. Named after the sage Markandeya, who acquired its knowledge from Brahma, the creator, its narration starts with sage Jaimini (author of Mimamsa sutras) approaching the wise birds (Dronaputras appearing as birds residing in the Himalayas) to get answers at the behest of Markandeya. Initially the Purana gets answers to the five basic questions: How was Vishnu born as a mortal? How Draupadi became the wife of five Pandavas? Why did Balabadra undertake the penance (pilgrimage) for having committed brahmanicide (killing of Brahmins) and why were the children of Draupadi destroyed so unceremoniously? These questions cover the whole gamut of ancient history, logic, morality, astronomy and so forth. ~ B.K. Chaturvedi (2004), in Markandeya Purana, Preface, #NFDB
55:The cyclopedial character of the Agni Purana, as it is now described, excludes it from any legitimate claims to be regarded as a Purana, and proves that its origin cannot be remote. It is subsequent to the Itihasas; to the chief works on grammar, rhetoric, and medicine; and to the introduction of the Tantrika worship of Devi. When this latter took place is yet far from determined, but there is every probability that it dates long after the beginning of our era. The materials of the Agni Purana are however, no doubt of some antiquity. The medicine of Sushruta is considerably older than the ninth century; and the grammar of Panini probably precedes Christianity. The chapters on archery and arms, and on regal administration, are also distinguished by an entirely Hindu character, and must have been written long anterior to the Mohammedan invasion. So far the Agni Purana is valuable, as embodying and preserving relics of antiquity, although compiled at a more recent date. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, p. xxxviii, #NFDB
56:conquered heaven when the time was bad for the devas, who waited to reattack until the time became propitious for them. When the time was propitious for the devas, Bali advised his asuras to desist until time turned again in their favor. Though little solid evidence exists for any of these speculative interpretations of the story of Bali and Vamana, we can gain through them some of the mythic savor of the deva-asura struggle, a contest that is as eternal as the seasonal shifting of the stars in the sky. Above all this celestial competition reside the Seven Rishis, and above them sits the Pole Star, who is known as Dhruva (The Firm, Fixed One). Chapter 22 of the Brahmanda Purana explains how, presided over by Dhruva and inspired by the celestial air known as the Pravaha Vayu, the sun takes up water and the moon showers it down in a torrential current which flows through celestial conduits called nadis. The sun provides heat to the world, and the moon provides coolness. It is no coincidence that this macrocosmic cycle is replicated within the human body, where the “sun” and “moon” are also nadis, ethereal vessels (much like the ~ Robert E Svoboda, #NFDB
57:Varaha Purana is that in which the glory of the great Varaha is predominant, as it was revealed to Earth by Vishnu, in connection, wise Munis, with the ManAva Kalpa, and which contains twenty-four thousand verses...It is narrated by Vishnu as Muni or in the boar incarnation, to the personified Earth. Sumantu, a Muni observed :”The divine Varaha in former times expounded a Purana, for the purpose of solving the perplexity of Earth.”... Like the Linga Purana, it is a religious manual, almost wholly occupied with forms of prayer, and rules for devotional observances, addressed to Vishnu; interspersed with legendary illustrations, most of which are peculiar to itself; though some are taken from the common and ancient stock; many of them, rather incompatibly with the general scope of compilation, relate to the history of Shiva and Durga. A considerable portion of the work is devoted to descriptions. In the sectarianism of the Varaha Purana there is no leaning to the particular adoration of Krishna, nor are the Rathyatra or Janmshtami included amongst the observances enjoined. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, p. xlv, #NFDB
58:Vaishampayana said, “I shall recount the entire history, that which was composed by the great-souled maharshi Vyasa, whose powers are infinite and who is worshipped in all the worlds. This contains 100,000 sacred shlokas, composed by Satyavati’s son, Vyasa, of infinite powers. The learned man who recites it to others and also those who hear its recital attain the world of Brahma and become the equals of the gods. This is equal to the Vedas. It is sacred and supreme. It is the best of all that can be heard. It is a purana worshipped by the rishis. It contains all the useful instructions on artha and kama. This immensely sacred history makes the mind desire to attain salvation. The learned man who recites Krishna’s33 Veda to those who are noble, generous, truthful and faithful, will attain great fortune. Even sins like the killing of embryos in wombs are destroyed. On hearing it, the most evil is freed from the most evil of sins. This history, called jaya, should be heard by those who wish to attain victory. On hearing it, a king can bring the entire world under his subjugation and defeat all his enemies. This is the best way to obtain a son and the great path to ensure welfare. It should be heard several times by heirs apparent and their wives. ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, #NFDB
59:Does rough weather choose men over women? Does the sun beat on men, leaving women nice and cool?' Nyawira asked rather sharply. 'Women bear the brunt of poverty. What choices does a woman have in life, especially in times of misery? She can marry or live with a man. She can bear children and bring them up, and be abused by her man. Have you read Buchi Emecheta of Nigeria, Joys of Motherhood? Tsitsi Dangarembga of Zimbabwe, say, Nervous Conditions? Miriama Ba of Senegal, So Long A Letter? Three women from different parts of Africa, giving words to similar thoughts about the condition of women in Africa.'
'I am not much of a reader of fiction,' Kamiti said. 'Especially novels by African women. In India such books are hard to find.'
'Surely even in India there are women writers? Indian women writers?' Nyawira pressed. 'Arundhati Roy, for instance, The God of Small Things? Meena Alexander, Fault Lines? Susie Tharu. Read Women Writing in India. Or her other book, We Were Making History, about women in the struggle!'
'I have sampled the epics of Indian literature,' Kamiti said, trying to redeem himself. 'Mahabharata, Ramayana, and mostly Bhagavad Gita. There are a few others, what they call Purana, Rig-Veda, Upanishads … Not that I read everything, but …'
'I am sure that those epics and Puranas, even the Gita, were all written by men,' Nyawira said. 'The same men who invented the caste system. When will you learn to listen to the voices of women? ~ Ng g wa Thiong o,#NFDB
60:37 - Some say Krishna never lived, he is a myth. They mean on earth; for if Brindavan existed nowhere, the Bhagavat (6) could not have been written. - Sri Aurobindo
Does Brindavan exist anywhere else than on earth?
The whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifested here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. This is an indispensable condition for the manifestation. And the importance of the manifestation will always depend on the origin of the thing manifested.
In the world of the gods there is an ideal and harmonious Brindavan of which the earthly Brindavan is but a deformation and a caricature.
Those who are developed inwardly, either in their senses or in their minds, perceive these realities which are invisible (to the ordinary man) and receive their inspiration from them.
So the writer or writers of the Bhagavat were certainly in contact with a whole inner world that is well and truly real and existent, where they saw and experienced everything they have described or revealed.
Whether Krishna existed or not in a human form, living on earth, is only of very secondary importance (except perhaps from an exclusively historical point of view), for Krishna is a real, living and active being; and his influence has been one of the great factors in the progress and transformation of the earth.
8 June 1960
(6 The story of Krishna, as related in the Bhagavat Purana.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.60-61),#NFDB
61:64 Arts
1. Geet vidya: art of singing.
2. Vadya vidya: art of playing on musical instruments.
3. Nritya vidya: art of dancing.
4. Natya vidya: art of theatricals.
5. Alekhya vidya: art of painting.
6. Viseshakacchedya vidya: art of painting the face and body with color
7. Tandulakusumabalivikara: art of preparing offerings from rice and flowers.
8. Pushpastarana: art of making a covering of flowers for a bed.
9. Dasanavasanangaraga: art of applying preparations for cleansing the teeth, cloths and painting the body.
10. Manibhumikakarma: art of making the groundwork of jewels.
11. Aayyaracana: art of covering the bed.
12. Udakavadya: art of playing on music in water.
13. Udakaghata: art of splashing with water.
14. Citrayoga: art of practically applying an admixture of colors.
15. Malyagrathanavikalpa: art of designing a preparation of wreaths.
16. Sekharapidayojana: art of practically setting the coronet on the head.
17. Nepathyayoga: art of practically dressing in the tiring room.
18. Karnapatrabhanga: art of decorating the tragus of the ear.
19. Sugandhayukti: art of practical application of aromatics.
20. Bhushanayojana: art of applying or setting ornaments.
21. Aindrajala: art of juggling.
22. Kaucumara: a kind of art.
23. Hastalaghava: art of sleight of hand.
24. Citrasakapupabhakshyavikarakriya: art of preparing varieties of delicious food.
25. Panakarasaragasavayojana: art of practically preparing palatable drinks and tinging draughts with red color.
26. Sucivayakarma: art of needleworks and weaving.
27. Sutrakrida: art of playing with thread.
28. Vinadamurakavadya: art of playing on lute and small drum.
29. Prahelika: art of making and solving riddles.
30. Durvacakayoga: art of practicing language difficult to be answered by others.
31. Pustakavacana: art of reciting books.
32. Natikakhyayikadarsana: art of enacting short plays and anecdotes.
33. Kavyasamasyapurana: art of solving enigmatic verses.
34. Pattikavetrabanavikalpa: art of designing preparation of shield, cane and arrows.
35. Tarkukarma: art of spinning by spindle.
36. Takshana: art of carpentry.
37. Vastuvidya: art of engineering.
38. Raupyaratnapariksha: art of testing silver and jewels.
39. Dhatuvada: art of metallurgy.
40. Maniraga jnana: art of tinging jewels.
41. Akara jnana: art of mineralogy.
42. Vrikshayurvedayoga: art of practicing medicine or medical treatment, by herbs.
43. Meshakukkutalavakayuddhavidhi: art of knowing the mode of fighting of lambs, cocks and birds.
44. Sukasarikapralapana: art of maintaining or knowing conversation between male and female cockatoos.
45. Utsadana: art of healing or cleaning a person with perfumes.
46. Kesamarjanakausala: art of combing hair.
47. Aksharamushtikakathana: art of talking with fingers.
48. Dharanamatrika: art of the use of amulets.
49. Desabhashajnana: art of knowing provincial dialects.
50. Nirmitijnana: art of knowing prediction by heavenly voice.
51. Yantramatrika: art of mechanics.
52. Mlecchitakutarkavikalpa: art of fabricating barbarous or foreign sophistry.
53. Samvacya: art of conversation.
54. Manasi kavyakriya: art of composing verse
55. Kriyavikalpa: art of designing a literary work or a medical remedy.
56. Chalitakayoga: art of practicing as a builder of shrines called after him.
57. Abhidhanakoshacchandojnana: art of the use of lexicography and meters.
58. Vastragopana: art of concealment of cloths.
59. Dyutavisesha: art of knowing specific gambling.
60. Akarshakrida: art of playing with dice or magnet.
61. Balakakridanaka: art of using children's toys.
62. Vainayiki vidya: art of enforcing discipline.
63. Vaijayiki vidya: art of gaining victory.
64. Vaitaliki vidya: art of awakening master with music at dawn.
~ Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger, Sexual Secrets,#NFDB
40 Yoga
38 Integral Yoga
22 Hinduism
2 Psychology
1 Poetry
1 Philosophy
1 Occultism
1 Mythology
35 Sri Ramakrishna
32 Sri Aurobindo
22 Vyasa
10 Nolini Kanta Gupta
7 A B Purani
6 The Mother
5 Swami Krishnananda
4 George Van Vrekhem
3 Sri Ramana Maharshi
3 Satprem
2 Mahendranath Gupta
34 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
22 Vishnu Purana
7 Talks
7 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
6 The Secret Doctrine
5 The Study and Practice of Yoga
5 The Secret Of The Veda
4 Vedic and Philological Studies
4 Preparing for the Miraculous
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
3 Essays On The Gita
3 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
3 Essays Divine And Human
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
2 The Life Divine
2 Letters On Yoga II
2 Agenda Vol 01
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Gadadhar was seven years old when his father died. This incident profoundly affected him. For the first time the boy realized that life on earth was impermanent. Unobserved by others, he began to slip into the mango orchard or into one of the cremation grounds, and he spent hours absorbed in his own thoughts. He also became more helpful to his mother in the discharge of her household duties. He gave more attention to reading and hearing the religious stories recorded in the Puranas. And he became interested in the wandering monks and pious pilgrims who would stop at Kamarpukur on their way to Puri. These holy men, the custodians of India's spiritual heritage and the living witnesses of the ideal of renunciation of the world and all-absorbing love of God, entertained the little boy with stories from the Hindu epics, stories of saints and prophets, and also stories of their own adventures. He, on his part, fetched their water and fuel and
served them in various ways. Meanwhile, he was observing their meditation and worship.
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The Christian missionaries gave the finishing touch to the process of transformation. They ridiculed as relics of a barbarous age the images and rituals of the Hindu religion. They tried to persuade India that the teachings of her saints and seers were the cause of her downfall, that her Vedas, Puranas, and other scriptures were filled with superstition. Christianity, they maintained, had given the white races position and power in this world and assurance of happiness in the next; therefore Christianity was the best of all religions. Many intelligent young Hindus became converted. The man in the street was confused. The majority of the educated grew materialistic in their mental outlook. Everyone living near Calcutta or the other strong-holds of Western culture, even those who attempted to cling to the orthodox traditions of Hindu society, became infected by the new uncertainties and the new beliefs.
But the soul of India was to be resuscitated through a spiritual awakening. We hear the first call of this renascence in the spirited retort of the young Gadadhar: "Brother, what shall I do with a mere bread-winning education?"
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Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, the right-hand man of Keshab and an accomplished Brahmo preacher in Europe and America, bitterly criticized Sri Ramakrishna's use of uncultured language and also his austere attitude toward his wife. But he could not escape the spell of the Master's personality. In the course of an article about Sri Ramakrishna, Pratap wrote in the "Theistic Quarterly Review": "What is there in common between him and me? I, a Europeanized, civilized, self-centred, semi-sceptical, so-called educated reasoner, and he, a poor, illiterate, unpolished, half-idolatrous, friendless Hindu devotee? Why should I sit long hours to attend to him, I, who have listened to Disraeli and Fawcett, Stanley and Max Muller, and a whole host of European scholars and divines? . . . And it is not I only, but dozens like me, who do the same. . . . He worships Siva, he worships Kali, he worships Rama, he worships Krishna, and is a confirmed advocate of Vedantic doctrines. . . . He is an idolater, yet is a faithful and most devoted meditator on the perfections of the One Formless, Absolute, Infinite Deity. . . . His religion is ecstasy, his worship means transcendental insight, his whole nature burns day and night with a permanent fire and fever of a strange faith and feeling. . . . So long as he is spared to us, gladly shall we sit at his feet to learn from him the sublime precepts of purity, unworldliness, spirituality, and inebriation in the love of God. . . . He, by his childlike bhakti, by his strong conceptions of an ever-ready Motherhood, helped to unfold it [God as our Mother] in our minds wonderfully. . . . By associating with him we learnt to realize better the divine attributes as scattered over the three hundred and thirty millions of deities of mythological India, the gods of the Puranas."
The Brahmo leaders received much inspiration from their contact with Sri Ramakrishna. It broadened their religious views and kindled in their hearts the yearning for God-realization; it made them understand and appreciate the rituals and symbols of Hindu religion, convinced them of the manifestation of God in diverse forms, and deepened their thoughts about the harmony of religions. The Master, too, was impressed by the sincerity of many of the Brahmo devotees. He told them about his own realizations and explained to them the essence of his teachings, such as the necessity of renunciation, sincerity in the pursuit of one's own course of discipline, faith in God, the performance of one's duties without thought of results, and discrimination between the Real and the unreal.
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-melting love of the Purana. Twenty hours out of twenty-four he would speak without out rest or respite. He gave to all his sympathy and enlightenment, and he touched them with that strange power of the soul which could not but melt even the most hardened. And people understood him according to their powers of comprehension.
^The word is generally used in the text to denote one devoted to God, a worshipper of the Personal God, or a follower of the path of love. A devotee of Sri Ramakrishna is one who is devoted to Sri Ramakrishna and follows his teachings. The word "disciple", when used in connexion with Sri Ramakrishna, refers to one who had been initiated into spiritual life by Sri Ramakrishna and who regarded him as his guru.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Sri Mahendra Nath Gupta, familiary known to the readers of the Gospel by his pen name M., and to the devotees as Master Mahashay, was born on the 14th of July, 1854 as the son of Madhusudan Gupta, an officer of the Calcutta High Court, and his wife, Swarnamayi Devi. He had a brilliant scholastic career at Hare School and the Presidency College at Calcutta. The range of his studies included the best that both occidental and oriental learning had to offer. English literature, history, economics, western philosophy and law on the one hand, and Sanskrit literature and grammar, Darsanas, Puranas, Smritis, Jainism, Buddhism, astrology and Ayurveda on the other were the subjects in which he attained considerable proficiency.
He was an educationist all his life both in a spiritual and in a secular sense. After he passed out of College, he took up work as headmaster in a number of schools in succession Narail High School, City School, Ripon College School, Metropolitan School, Aryan School, Oriental School, Oriental Seminary and Model School. The causes of his migration from school to school were that he could not get on with some of the managements on grounds of principles and that often his spiritual mood drew him away to places of pilgrimage for long periods. He worked with some of the most noted public men of the time like Iswar Chandra Vidysgar and Surendranath Banerjee. The latter appointed him as a professor in the City and Ripon Colleges where he taught subjects like English, philosophy, history and economics. In his later days he took over the Morton School, and he spent his time in the staircase room of the third floor of it, administering the school and preaching the message of the Master. He was much respected in educational circles where he was usually referred to as Rector Mahashay. A teacher who had worked under him writes thus in warm appreciation of his teaching methods: "Only when I worked with him in school could I appreciate what a great educationist he was. He would come down to the level of his students when teaching, though he himself was so learned, so talented. Ordinarily teachers confine their instruction to what is given in books without much thought as to whether the student can accept it or not. But M., would first of all gauge how much the student could take in and by what means. He would employ aids to teaching like maps, pictures and diagrams, so that his students could learn by seeing. Thirty years ago (from 1953) when the question of imparting education through the medium of the mother tongue was being discussed, M. had already employed Bengali as the medium of instruction in the Morton School." (M The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda Part I. P. 15.)
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An appropriate allusion indeed! Bhagavata, the great scripture that has given the word of Sri Krishna to mankind, was composed by the Sage Vysa under similar circumstances. When caught up in a mood of depression like that of M, Vysa was advised by the sage Nrada that he would gain peace of mind only qn composing a work exclusively devoted to the depiction of the Lord's glorious attributes and His teachings on Knowledge and Devotion, and the result was that the world got from Vysa the invaluable gift of the Bhagavata Purana depicting the life and teachings of Sri Krishna.
From the mental depression of the modem Vysa, the world has obtained the Kathmrita (Bengali Edition) the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna in English.
0 1958-08-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Evidently the gods of the Puranas are a good deal worse than human beings, as we saw in that film the other day1 (and that story was absolutely true). The gods of the Overmind are infinitely more egocentric the only thing that counts for them is their power, the extent of their power. Man has in addition a psychic being, so consequently he has true love and compassionwherein lies his superiority over the gods. It was very, very clearly expressed in this film, and its very true.
The gods are faultless, for they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint; it is their godly way. But if one looks at it from a higher point of view, if one has a higher vision, a vision of the whole, they have fewer qualities than man. In this film, it was proved that through their capacity for love and self-giving, men can have as much power as the gods, and even morewhen they are not egoists, when they can overcome their egoism.
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(Concerning; the Agenda of August 9, 1958, on the gods of the Puranas)
The gods of the Puranas are merciless gods who respect only power and have nothing of the true love, charity or profound goodness that the Divine has put into the human consciousness and which compensate psychically for all the outer defects. They themselves have nothing of this, they have no psychic.1 The Puranic gods have no psychic, so they act according to their power. They are restrained only when their power is not all-powerful, thats all.
But what does Anusuya represent?2
She is a portrait of the ideal woman according to the Hindu conception, the woman who worships her husb and as a god, which means that she sees the Supreme in her husband. And so this woman was much more powerful than all the gods of the Puranas precisely because she had this psychic capacity for total self-giving; and her faith in the Supremes presence in her husb and gave her a much greater power than that of all the gods.
The story narrated in the film went like this: Narada, as usual, was having fun. (Narada is a demigod with a divine position that is, he can communicate with man and with the gods as he pleases, and he serves as an intermediary, but then he likes to have fun!) So he was quarrelling with one of the goddesses, I no longer recall which one, and he told her (Ah, yes! The quarrel was with Saraswati.) Saraswati was telling him that knowledge is much greater than love (much greater in that it is much more powerful than love), and he replied to her, You dont know what youre talking about! (Mother laughs) Love is much more powerful than knowledge. So she challenged him, saying, Well then, prove it to me.I shall prove it to you, he replied. And the whole story starts there. He began creating a whole imbroglio on earth just to prove his point.
0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont know how to put it. To me, those gods always seemed (not those described in the Puranas, theyre different well, not so very different!) but the way Theon presented them, they seemed just like a bunch of marshmallows! Its not that they had no powerthey had a lot of power, but they lacked that psychic flame.
And to Theon, the God of the Jews and Christians was an Asura. This Asura wanted to be unique; and so he became the most terrible despot imaginable. Anatole France said the same thing (I now know that Anatole France had never read Theons story, but I cant imagine where he picked this up). Its in The Revolt of the Angels. He says that Satan is the true God and that Jehovah, the only God, is the monster. And when the angels wanted Satan to become the one and only God, Satan realized he was immediately taking on all Jehovahs failings! So he refused: Oh, nothank you very much! Its a wonderful story, and in exactly the same spirit as what Theon used to say. The very first thing I asked Anatole France (I told you I met him oncemutual friends introduced us), the first thing I asked him was, Have you ever read The Tradition? He said no. I explained why I had asked, and he was interested. He said his source was his own imagination. He had caught that idea intuitively.
02.01 - The World War, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Those that have stood against this Dark Force and its over-shadowing menaceeven though perhaps not wholly by choice or free-will, but mostly compelled by circumstancesyet, because of the stand they have taken, now bear the fate of the world on their shoulders, carry the whole future of humanity in their march. It is of course agreed that to have stood against the Asura does not mean that one has become sura, divine or godlike; but to be able to remain human, human instruments of the Divine, however frail, is sufficient for the purpose, that ensures safety from the great calamity. The rule of life of the Asura implies the end of progress, the arrest of all evolution; it means even a reversal for man. The Asura is a fixed type of being. He does not change, his is a hardened mould, a settled immutable form of a particular consciousness, a definite pattern of qualities and activitiesgunakarma. Asura-nature means a fundamental ego-centricism, violent and concentrated self-will. Change is possible for the human being; he can go downward, but he can move upward too, if he chooses. In the Puranas a distinction has been made between the domain of enjoyment and the domain of action. Man is the domain of action par excellence; by him and through him evolve new and fresh lines of activity and impulsion. The domain of enjoyment, on the other hand, is where we reap the fruits of our past Karma; it is the result of an accumulated drive of all that we have done, of all the movements we have initiated and carried out. It is a status of being where there is only enjoyment, not of becoming where there can be development and new creation. It is a condition of gestation, as it were; there is no new Karma, no initiative or change in the stuff of the consciousness. The Asuras are bhogamaya purusha, beings of enjoyment; their domain is a cumulus of enjoyings. They cannot strike out a fresh line of activity, put forth a new mode of energy that can work out a growth or transformation of nature. Their consciousness is an immutable entity. The Asuras do not mend, they can only end. Man can certainly acquire or imbibe Asuric force or Asura-like qualities and impulsions; externally he can often act very much like the Asura; and yet there is a difference. Along with the dross that soils and obscures human nature, there is something more, a clarity that opens to a higher light, an inner core of noble metal which does not submit to any inferior influence. There is this something More in man which always inspires and enables him to break away from the Asuric nature. Moreover, though there may be an outer resemblance between the Asuric qualities of man and the Asuric qualities of the Asura, there is an intrinsic different, a difference in tone and temper, in rhythm and vibration, proceeding as they do, from different sources. However cruel, hard, selfish, egocentric man may be, he knows, he admitsat times, if hot always, at heart, if not openly, subconsciously, if not wholly consciously that such is not the ideal way, that these qualities are not qualifications, they are unworthy elements and have to be discarded. But the Asura is ruthless, because he regards ruthlessness as the right thing, as the perfect thing, it is an integral part of his swabhava and swadharma, his law of being and his highest good. Violence is the ornament of his character.
The outrages committed by Spain in America, the oppression of the Christians by Imperial Rome, the brutal treatment of Christians by Christians themselves (the inquisition, that is to say) or the misdeeds of Imperialists generally were wrong and, in many cases, even inhuman and unpardonable. But when we compare with what Nazi Germany has done in Poland or wants to do throughout the world, we find that there is a difference between the two not only in degree, but in kind.One is an instance of the weakness of man, of his flesh being frail; the other illustrates the might of the Asura, his very spirit is unwilling. One is undivine; the other antidivine, positively hostile. They who cannot discern this difference are colour-blind: there are eyes to which all deeper shades of colour are black and all lighter shades white.
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All the ancient legends about a principle and a personalityof Denial and Ignorance, of an Everlasting Nayrefer to this fact of a descending consciousness, a Fall. The Vedantic my, spoken of sometimes as the Dark Mother, seems to be the personification of the lower Overmind, Jehovah and Satan of the Hebrews, Olympians and Titans of the Greeks, Ahriman and Ahura Mazda of old Iran, the sons of Diti and Aditi the Indian Puranas speak of, are powers and personalities of consciousness when it has descended entirely into the mind and the vital where the division is complete. These lower reaches have completely lost the unitary consciousness; still there are beings even here that have succeeded in maintaining it as a memory or an aspiration, although in a general way the living reality of the oneness is absent. It is significant that the term asura which came to mean in classical and mythological ages a + sura, not-god, the Titan, had originally a different connotation and etymology, asu + ra, one having force or strength, and was used as a general attri bute of all the gods. The degradation in the sense of the word is a pointer to the spiritual Fall: Satan was once Lucifer, the bringer or bearer of light. We may mention in this connection that these beings of which we are speaking, dwelling in unseen worlds, are of two broad categories(1) beings that are native to each plane and immutably confined and bound to that plane, and (2) those that extend their existence through many or all planes and assume on each plane the norm and form appropriate to that plane. But this is a problem of individual destiny with which we are not concerned at present.
We were speaking of the descent into the Vital, the domain of dynamism, desire and hunger. The Vital is also the field of some strong creative Powers who follow, or are in secret contact with the line of unitary consciousness, who are open to influences from a deeper or higher or subtler consciousness. Along with the demons there is also a line of daimona, guardian angels, in the hierarchy of vital beings. Much of what is known as aesthetic or artistic creation derives its spirit from this sphere. Many of the gods of beauty and delight are denizens of this heaven. Gandharvas and Kinnaras are here, Dionysus and even Apollo perhaps (at least in their mythological aspectin their occult reality they properly belong to the Overmind which is the own home of the gods), many of the angels, seraphs and cherubs dwell here. In fact, the mythological heaven for the most part can be located in this region.
1.01 - Maitreya inquires of his teacher (Parashara), #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.01 - MASTER AND DISCIPLE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
(To Kedar) "You must have heard about the tremendous power of faith. It is said in the Purana that Rma, who was God Himself - the embodiment of Absolute Brahman - had to build a bridge to cross the sea to Ceylon. But Hanuman, trusting in Rama's name, cleared the sea in one jump and reached the other side. He had no need of a bridge.
(All laugh)
1.01 - Our Demand and Need from the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Sankhya although it explains the created world by the double principle of Purusha and Prakriti; nor is it Vaishnava Theism although it presents to us Krishna, who is the Avatara of Vishnu according to the Puranas, as the supreme Deity and allows no essential difference nor any actual superiority of the status of the indefinable relationless Brahman over that of this Lord of beings who is the Master of the universe and the Friend of all creatures. Like the earlier spiritual synthesis of the Upanishads this later synthesis at once spiritual and intellectual avoids naturally every such rigid determination as would injure its universal
Our Demand and Need from the Gita
1.01 - The Ideal of the Karmayogin, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Upanishad, Darshana, Purana, Tantra, nor could it reject the
Bible or the Koran; but its real, most authoritative scripture is in the heart in which the Eternal has His dwelling. It is in our inner spiritual experiences that we shall find the proof and source of the world's Scriptures, the law of knowledge, love and conduct, the basis and inspiration of Karmayoga.
1.020 - The World and Our World, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
These assumptions have led to the conclusion that the object exists independently of its being perceived, and the universe was created much earlier than the creation of the human individual. This theory gets confirmation from the expositions in the Puranas, the Epics, etc., wherein we are told that God created the world. He did not create man first; man is perhaps the last of creation. Even in the Aittareya Upanishad, on which perhaps the Panchadasi, etc., take their stand, we are given to understand that man was not the first creation, and that perhaps nothing perceiving was ever existent. Nothing perceiving, nothing thinking, nothing willing, conscious, ever existed except that One which willed Itself to be many, and the world was so created, etc., is the doctrine.
Basing themselves on this scriptural proclamation, exponents tell us that there is a distinction between what they call Ishvara srishti and jiva srishti the creation of God and the creation of the individual. There are two kinds of creation. Ikshanadi-praveshanta srishtir ishana kalpita; jagradadi-vimokshantah samsaro jiva-kalpitah - says the Panchadasi, in a famous passage. The meaning of passage has reference to the Aittareya Upanishad and such other relevant passages in other Upanishads, and makes out that God willed to be many, and manifested Himself as this vast creation, projected individualities, and entered the individual by an immanence of His own nature. This is another way of describing the traditional process of creation through divine manifestations usually known as Ishvara, Hiranyagarbha and Virat all of which are precedent to individual manifestations, and prior to the existence of human beings. But there is also what is known as 'individual's creation'. A lot of detail about it is given in the Panchadasi, especially in its fourth chapter called Dvaita Vivek how duality-consciousness arose at all, and how perceptions can bind us, though they need not necessarily bind us.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
Markandeya Purana describes him as sick with fear and hoping for peace.272
It would serve no purpose to dwell on the naturalistic interpretations of this myth; the victory over
1.02 - Prayer of Parashara to Vishnu, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.02 - The Divine Teacher, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Kurukshetra may be something more than a dramatic fiction. In the Mahabharata Krishna is represented both as the historical character and the Avatar; his worship and Avatarhood must therefore have been well established by the time - apparently from the fifth to the first centuries B.C. - when the old story and poem or epic tradition of the Bharatas took its present form. There is a hint also in the poem of the story or legend of the Avatar's early life in Vrindavan which, as developed by the Puranas into an intense and powerful spiritual symbol, has exercised so profound an influence on the religious mind of
India. We have also in the Harivansha an account of the life of
1.037 - Preventing the Fall in Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The reason is simple. In the practice of yoga the whole being is active and, therefore, it starts waking up every blessed thing in this world whatever may be sleeping anywhere. Even invisible forces, even distant elements may feel that some strange activity is going on in some part of the universe. We must have heard in the Epics and Puranas that even the gods are distressed by the tapas of yogis. It means that the meditative activity of a sincere seeker can tell upon even very far and distant regions like the heavens, and not merely the corners of the earth. But our ordinary little work that is going on in a shop, a factory or an office may not be felt at all in such regions. The reason is that these ordinary activities are shallow; they are not deep enough. They do not touch the bottom of things, and therefore the reactions set up are also mild.
But in yoga, what actually moves is the very root of our being. Our soul itself is yearning in the aspiration for the Ultimate Reality. It is not a function of a part of the psychological organs like mentation, intellection, egoism, etc. It is every blessed thing that is in us that becomes active, and we may say there is a sort of conscription of every part of our personality in this warfare called the practice of yoga. Every individual is harnessed into the army. Everyone is a soldier when this war takes place. There is no civilian at all in the practice of yoga; everyone is active like an army man everyone, and no one is excluded. Every part of the personality becomes roused, and we can imagine what reactions this can set up. You may ask me why they should set up reactions. Can this noble activity called yoga not be carried on without any adverse reactions.
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Avirati is a sudden flare-up of buried desires in a very vehement manner, pouncing on anything and everything that is in front. It may be even an inanimate object it may be a fountain pen, a wristwatch, a transistor, or it may be a donkey. It does not matter what it is, because the desire that has been kept suppressed for years together wants only an immediate satisfaction, even through the silliest object possible. This condition of avirati (avirati means the absence of virati, which is the same as rati) attachment, affection, craving, and longing for the smallest satisfaction available will completely divert the attention of the mind from the original ideal. Even a little stream can draw the entire mass of water of a large river with a force that can burst all boundaries and devastate everything that is around. This is what we call 'the fall' in yoga. When a person reaches this state, he has fallen. We talk of a fall and hear of these things happening in the Epics and Puranas, where the mind has come back to the original condition from where it wanted to rise; only it is in a worse state.
All of these virulent flare-ups are to be guarded against before they actually happen. It is better to prevent the rise of a disease by prophylactics, etc., rather than to try to treat the disease when it has already come up in a violent form. This is only to present before the mind of the seeker the possibilities of impediments and the nature of the difficulties that may arise. The teacher also prescribes methods of remedying them in a proper manner.
1.03 - Measure of time, Moments of Kashthas, etc., #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.03 - The Human Disciple, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
actual language of the epic does not justify and, if pressed, would turn the straightforward philosophical language of the Gita into a constant, laborious and somewhat puerile mystification. The language of the Veda and part at least of the Puranas is plainly symbolic, full of figures and concrete representations of things that lie behind the veil, but the Gita is written in plain terms and professes to solve the great ethical and spiritual difficulties which the life of man raises, and it will not do to go behind this plain language and thought and wrest them to the service of our fancy. But there is this much of truth in the view, that the setting of the doctrine though not symbolical, is certainly typical, as indeed the setting of such a discourse as the Gita must necessarily be if it is to have any relation at all with that which it frames. Arjuna, as we have seen, is the representative man of a great world-struggle and divinely-guided movement of men and nations; in the Gita he typifies the human soul of action brought face to face through that action in its highest and most violent crisis with the problem of human life and its apparent incompatibility with the spiritual state or even with a purely ethical ideal of perfection.
Arjuna is the fighter in the chariot with the divine Krishna as his charioteer. In the Veda also we have this image of the human soul and the divine riding in one chariot through a great battle to the goal of a high-aspiring effort. But there it is a pure figure and symbol. The Divine is there Indra, the Master of the
1.03 - VISIT TO VIDYASAGAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"What Brahman is cannot he described. All things in the world - the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, the six systems of philosophy - have been defiled, like food that has been touched by the tongue, for they have been read or uttered by the tongue. Only one thing has not been defiled in this way, and that is Brahman. No one has ever been able to say what Brahman is."
VIDYASAGAR (to his friends): "Oh! That is a remarkable statement. I have learnt something new today."
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"As for what has been said in the Vedas and the Puranas, do you know what it is like?
Suppose a man has seen the ocean, and somebody asks him, 'Well, what is the ocean like?' The first man opens his mouth as wide as he can and says: 'What a sight! What tremendous waves and sounds!' The description of Brahman in the sacred books is like that. It is said in the Vedas that Brahman is of the nature of Bliss - It is Satchidananda.
1.045 - Piercing the Structure of the Object, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
This condition of prakriti or pradhana the mulaprakriti, as it is called becomes the cause of the first manifestation in the process of evolution. This first form of manifestation, cosmologically, is called mahat in the terminology of the Samkhya. This is a Sanskrit word which practically means what is known as cosmic intellect or universal intelligence. This is, in the language of the Puranas and the Epics, the condition of the Creator or Brahma wherein all individualities are brought together into a single universal point of view. There are no various points of view there; there is only one point of view, and that is the cosmic point of view. Here, everything is directly experienced without the instrumentality of the senses. There is not even this mind as we see it in our own personal individuality. It is pure intelligence, subtly manifest in cosmic sattva, which is the first manifestation of prakriti. .
Then the Samkhya tells us that there is a gradual solidification or concretisation of this state, and there is manifest a tendency to self-affirmation of a cosmic nature which is called ahamkara. This ahamkara is not the egoism of the human being, but it is a logical presupposition of the manifestation of variety. It is purely a logical 'x' without which we cannot explain anything that is manifest subsequently, but it has no connection whatsoever with the pride or the individual egoism of the human beings that we see usually. Sometimes these states of prakriti, mahat and ahamkara, mentioned in the Samkhya, are identified with the principles of Ishvara, Hiranyagarbha and Virat which are mentioned in the Vedanta doctrine.
1.04 - ADVICE TO HOUSEHOLDERS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
At dawn some of the devotees were up. They saw the Master, naked as a child, pacing up and down the room, repeating the names of the various gods and goddesses. His voice was sweet as nectar. Now he would look at the Ganges, now stop in front of the pictures hanging on the wall and bow down before them, chanting all the while the holy names in his sweet voice. He chanted: "Veda, Purana, Tantra; Gita, Gayatri; Bhagavata, Bhakta, Bhagavan." Referring to the Gita, he repeated many times, "Tagi, tagi, tagi."
Now and then he would say: "O Mother, Thou art verily Brahman, and Thou art verily akti. Thou art Purusha and Thou art Prakriti. Thou art Virat. Thou art the Absolute, and Thou dost manifest Thyself as the Relative. Thou art verily the twenty-four cosmic principles."
1.04 - Narayana appearance, in the beginning of the Kalpa, as the Varaha (boar), #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.04 - The Divine Mother - This Is She, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
I shall relate an interesting account of the Mother's diplomacy in this field of tennis. There used to be friendly tournaments under the Mother's supervision. Once my partner and I had reached the finals and were to face a younger pair who were known to be the Mother's favourites. Gods, goddesses especially, have their chosen ones, if the Puranas are to be believed, and they always win. Of course we are to assume that there are larger purposes which we cannot guess, behind the seeming partialities. The Mother broached the topic of the game to Sri Aurobindo and asked me naively how we were going to fare, what would be our tactics, etc., etc. I would not be caught so easily. Then she employed a familiar strategy, "You know they are a very good pair; you have no chance against them." Thus she went on battering me. Sri Aurobindo listened to it with an amused smile. When, finishing my duty, I was going for the game, I asked Champaklal to plead to Sri Aurobindo on our behalf. The play started, there was quite a crowd. The Mother was watching with keen interest. The upshot was that we lost sadly and badly. Curiously enough, we missed even simple shots. On my return in the evening, I told Champaklal of our ignoble defeat. Later on, Sri Aurobindo himself enquired and learning from Champaklal about the result, he enjoyed the joke and laughed aloud. I did not know what gave him so much amusement. Failure of his own force? Did he give force at all? Success of the Mother's favourites? The Mother, however, in her turn, gave a long report of the game. She said, "Oh, they became so nervous! I tried all the while to make them steady, but of no use. They missed even simple shots!" I made no outer comment but was inwardly muttering, "What chance could we have if you had already decided our doom as Krishna that of the Kauravas?" Doom is the word, in a deeper sense too, for as I have hinted, I became inordinately attached to tennis and neglected even my duty. It was like an old love that had revived with all its insensate passion and I had to receive persistent psychological beating from the Mother before I could get rid of this folly. Sri Aurobindo once wrote to me, "Never! [forsake you] But beat a lot." The beating came mostly from the Mother.
Let me illustrate. I shall restrict myself to the field of tennis. After Sri Aurobindo's passing I thought of giving up tennis for good. The Mother said, "Why? You will play with me." Every day I went to the tennis ground and she called me for a game. This led to the revival of my old passion which had been arrested due to Sri Aurobindo's illness. I was not satisfied with merely playing a few games with the Mother. Besides, as I had no regular duty to bind me, I began to indulge in it with abandon. Suddenly the Mother stopped playing with me and for many days at a stretch, I was mystified. Every day I waited, hoping to be called; she would call many others, but ignore me. The contrast was too flagrant. I felt rather humiliated. Curiously enough, whenever I had stopped playing at other times, she gave me a chance. The apparent connection between the two made me suspect that she wanted me to give up playing with others except with herself. As to how she knew which day I had played or abstained from playing, that was no riddle to anyone who knew her well. But I could not give up the game so easily. Also, I thought, "Why should I give it up? What's wrong with it? It is a good pleasant exercise!" Moreover, I wanted to be quite sure of my suspicion and continued playing till I found that there was a clear connection. She called me only when I had not played with others. This "cutting" became so painful to me and palpable to others that I thought of not going to the courts while she played, but some force dragged me there, not exactly in expectation of a game but so as not to give in to my sense of pride and prestige. I observed that she took note of my presence and I was one of the referees during her play. I also thought, "If she had some accident while playing (an accident did happen later) and I was not there? What account should I give to Sri Aurobindo in my inner communion with him? I must swallow my amour-propre."
1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The immediate or at any rate the earliest known successors of the Rishis, the compilers of the Brahmanas, the writers of theUpanishads give a clear & definite answer to this question.The Upanishads everywhere rest their highly spiritual & deeply mystic doctrines on the Veda.We read in the Isha Upanishad of Surya as the Sun God, but it is the Sun of spiritual illumination, of Agni as the Fire, but it is the inner fire that burns up all sin & crookedness. In the Kena Indra, Agni & Vayu seek to know the supreme Brahman and their greatness is estimated by the nearness with which they touched him,nedistham pasparsha. Uma the daughter of Himavan, the Woman, who reveals the truth to them is clearly enough no natural phenomenon. In the Brihadaranyaka, the most profound, subtle & mystical of human scriptures, the gods & Titans are the masters, respectively, of good and of evil. In the Upanishads generally the word devah is used as almost synonymous with the forces & functions of sense, mind & intellect. The element of symbolism is equally clear. To the terms of the Vedic ritual, to their very syllables a profound significance is everywhere attached; several incidents related in the Upanishads show the deep sense then & before entertained that the sacrifices had a spiritual meaning which must be known if they were to be conducted with full profit or even with perfect safety. The Brahmanas everywhere are at pains to bring out a minute symbolism in the least circumstances of the ritual, in the clarified butter, the sacred grass, the dish, the ladle. Moreover, we see even in the earliest Upanishads already developed the firm outlines and minute details of an extraordinary psychology, physics, cosmology which demand an ancient development and centuries of Yogic practice and mystic speculation to account for their perfect form & clearness. This psychology, this physics, this cosmology persist almost unchanged through the whole history of Hinduism. We meet them in the Puranas; they are the foundation of the Tantra; they are still obscurely practised in various systems of Yoga. And throughout, they have rested on a declared Vedic foundation. The Pranava, the Gayatri, the three Vyahritis, the five sheaths, the five (or seven) psychological strata, (bhumi, kshiti of the Vedas), the worlds that await us, the gods who help & the demons who hinder go back to Vedic origins.All this may be a later mystic misconception of the hymns & their ritual, but the other hypothesis of direct & genuine derivation is also possible. If there was no common origin, if Greek & Indian separated during the naturalistic period of the common religion supposed to be recorded in the Vedas it is surprising that even the little we know of Greek rites & mysteries should show us ideas coincident with those of Indian Tantra & Yoga.
When we go back to the Veda itself, we find in the hymns which are to us most easily intelligible by the modernity of their language, similar & decisive indications. The moralistic conception of Varuna, for example, is admitted even by the Europeans. We even find the sense of sin, usually supposed to be an advanced religious conception, much more profoundly developed in prehistoric India than it was in any other old Aryan nation even in historic times. Surely, this is in itself a significant indication. Surely, this conception cannot have become so clear & strong without a previous history in the earlier hymns. Nor is it psychologically possible that a cult capable of so advanced an idea, should have been ignorant of all other moral & intellectual conceptions reverencing only natural forces & seeking only material ends. Neither can there have been a sudden leap filled up only by a very doubtful henotheism, a huge hiatus between the naturalism of early Veda and the transcendentalism of the Vedic Brahmavada admittedly present in the later hymns. The European interpretation in the face of such conflicting facts threatens to become a brilliant but shapeless monstrosity. And is there no symbolism in the details of the Vedic sacrifice? It seems to me that the peculiar language of the Veda has never been properly studied or appreciated in this connection. What are we to say of the Vedic anxiety to increase Indra by the Soma wine? Of the description of Soma as the amritam, the wine of immortality, & of its forces as the indavah or moon powers? Of the constant sense of the attacks delivered by the powers of evil on the sacrifice? Of the extraordinary powers already attri buted to the mantra & the sacrifice? Have the neshtram potram, hotram of the Veda no symbolic significance? Is there no reason for the multiplication of functions at the sacrifice or for the subtle distinctions between Gayatrins, Arkins, Brahmas? These are questions that demand a careful consideration which has never yet been given for the problems they raise.
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Even this confirmation may not be sufficient. For although the new version may have the immense superiority of a clear depth & simplicity supported & confirmed by a minute & consistent scientific experimentation, although it may explain rationally & simply most or all of the passages which have baffled the older & the newer, the Eastern & the Western scholars, still the confirmation may be discounted as a personal test applied in the light of a previous conclusion. If, however, there is a historical confirmation as well, if it is found that Veda has exactly the same psychology & philosophy as Vedanta, Purana, Tantra & ancient & modern Yoga & all of them indicate the same Vedic results which we ourselves have discovered in our experience, then we may possess our souls in peace & say to ourselves that we have discovered the meaning of Veda; its true meaning if not all its significance. Nor need we be discouraged, if we have to disagree with Sayana & Yaska in the actual rendering of the hymns no less than with the Europeans. Neither of these great authorities can be held to be infallible. Yaska is an authority for the interpretation of Vedic words in his own age, but that age was already far subsequent to the Vedic & the sacred language of the hymns was already to him an ancient tongue. The Vedas are much more ancient than we usually suppose. Sayana represents the scholarship & traditions of a period not much anterior to our own. There is therefore no authoritative rendering of the hymns. The Veda remains its own best authority.
But all this triple labour is a work of great responsibility, minute research and an immense & meticulous industry. Meanwhile I hold myself justified in opening the way by a purely hypothetical entrance into the subject, suggesting possibilities for the present rather than seeking to enforce a settled opinion. There is a possible theory that may be proposed, certain provisional details of it that may be formulated. A few initial stones may be laid down to help in crossing by a convenient ford this great stream of the Veda.
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(3) Corresponding to Mahas is Maharloka or Mahi Dyaus, the great heavens (pure Buddhi or Vijnana, the ideal world). The Pranava in its three essentialities rules over the three supreme worlds, the Satyaloka (divine being), Tapoloka (divine Awareness & Force), Anandaloka (divine Bliss) of the Puranas, which constitute Amritam, immortality or the true kingdom of heaven of the Vedic religion. These are the Vedic sapta dhamani & the seven different movements of consciousness to which they correspond are the sapta sindhu of the hymns.
(4) According to the Vedanta, man has five koshas or sheaths of existence, the material (Annamaya), vital (Pranamaya), mental (Manomaya) which together make up the aparardha or lower half of our conscious-being; the ideal (vijnanamaya) which links the lower to the parardha or higher half; the divine or Anandamaya in which the divine existence (Amrita) is concentrated for communion with our lower human being. These are the pancha kshitis, five earths or rather dwelling places of the Veda. But in Yoga we speak usually of the five koshas but the sapta bhumis, seven not five. The Veda also speaks of sapta dhamani.
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One of the greatest deities of the Vedic Pantheon is a woman, Gna,a feminine power whether of material or moral nature,whether her functions work in the subjective or the objective. The Hindu religion has always laid an overpowering stress on this idea of the woman in Nature. It is not only in the Purana that the Woman looms so large, not only in the Shakta cult that she becomes a supreme Name. In the Upanishads it is only when Indra, in his search for the mysterious and ill-understood Mastering Brahman, meets with the Woman in the heaven of thingstasminn evakashe striyam ajagama UmamHaimavatim, In that same sky he came to the Woman, Uma, daughter of Himavan,that he is able to learn the thing which he seeks. The Stri, the Aja or unborn Female Energy, is the executive Divinity of the universe, the womb, the mother, the bride, the mould & instrument of all joy & being. The Veda also speaks of the gnah, the Women,feminine powers without whom the masculine are not effective for work & formation; for when the gods are to be satisfied who support the sacrifice & effect it, vahnayah, yajatrah, then Medhatithi of the Kanwas calls on Agni to yoke them with female mates, patnivatas kridhi, in their activity and enjoyment. In one of his greatest hymns, the twenty-second of the first Mandala, he speaks expressly of the patnir devanam, the brides of the Strong Ones, who are to be called to extend protection, to brea the a mighty peace, to have their share the joy of the Soma wine. Indrani, Varunani, Agnayi,we can recognise these goddesses and their mastering gods; but there are threein addition to Mother Earthwho seem to stand on a different level and are mentioned without the names of their mates if they have any and seem to enjoy an independent power and activity. They are Ila,Mahi&Saraswati, the three goddesses born of Love or born of Bliss, Tisro devir mayobhuvah.
Saraswati is known to us in the Purana,the Muse with her feet on the thousand leaved lotus of the mind, the goddess of thought, learning, poetry, of all that is high in mind and its knowledge. But, so far as we can understand from the Purana, she is the goddess of mind only, of intellect & imagination and their perceptions & inspirations. Things spiritual & the mightier supra-mental energies & illuminations belong not to her, but to other powers. Well, we meet Saraswati in the Vedas;and if she is the same goddess as our Puranic & modern protectress of learning & the arts, the Personality of the Intellect, then we have a starting pointwe know that the Vedic Rishis had other than naturalistic conceptions & could call to higher powers than the thunder-flash & the storm-wind. But there is a difficultySaraswati is the name of a river, of several rivers in India, for the very name means flowing, gliding or streaming, and the Europeans identify it with a river in the Punjab. We must be careful therefore, whenever we come across the name, to be sure which of these two is mentioned or invoked, the sweet-streaming Muse or the material river.
The first passage in which Saraswati is mentioned, is the third hymn of the first Mandala, the hymn of Madhuchchhanda Vaisvamitra, in which the Aswins, Indra, the Visve devah and Saraswati are successively invokedapparently in order to conduct an ordinary material sacrifice? That is the thing that has to be seen,to be understood. What is Saraswati, whether as a Muse or a river, doing at the Soma-offering? Or is she there as the architect of the hymn, the weaver of the Riks?
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What is Mah or Mahas?The word means great, embracing, full, comprehensive. The Earth, also, because of its wideness & containing faculty is called mahi,just as it is called prithivi, dhara, medini, dharani, etc. In various forms, the root itself, mahi, mahitwam, maha, magha, etc, it recurs with remarkable profusion and persistence throughout the Veda. Evidently it expressed some leading thought of the Rishis, was some term of the highest importance in their system of psychology. Turning to the Purana we find the term mahat applied to some comprehensive principle which is supposed itself to be near to the unmanifest, avyaktam but to supply the material of all that is manifest and always to surround, embrace and uphold it. Mahat seems here to be an objective principle; but this need not trouble us; for in the old Hindu system all that is objective had something subjective corresponding to it and constituting its real nature. We find it explicitly declared in the Vishnu Purana that all things here are manifestations of vijnana, pure ideal knowledge, sarvani vijnanavijrimbhitaniideal knowledge vibrating out into intensity of various phenomenal existences each with its subjective reason for existence and objective case & form of existence. Is ideal knowledge then the subjective principle of mahat? If so, vijnanam and the Vedic mahas are likely to be terms identical in their philosophical content and psychological significance. We turn to the Upanishads and find mention made more than once of a certain subjective state of the soul, which is called Mahan Atma, a state into which the mind and senses have to be drawn up as we rise by samadhi of the instruments of knowledge into the supreme state of Brahman and which is superior therefore to these instruments. The Mahan Atma is the state of the pure Brahman out of which the vijnana or ideal truth (sattwa or beness of things) emerges and it is higher than the vijnana but nearer us than the Unmanifest or Avyaktam (Katha: III.10, 11,13 & VI.7). If we understand by the Mahan Atma that status of soul existence (Purusha) which is the basis of the objective mahat or mahati prakriti and which develops the vijnanam or ideal knowledge as its subjective instrument, then we shall have farther light on the nature of Mahas in the ancient conceptions. We shall see that it is ideal knowledge, vijnanam, or is connected with ideal knowledge.
But we have first one more step in our evidence to notice,the final & conclusive link. In the Taittiriya Upanishad we are told that there are three vyahritis, Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, but the Rishi Mahachamasya insisted on a fourth, Mahas. What is this fourth vyahriti? It is evidently some old Vedic idea and can hardly fail to be our maho arnas. I have already, in my introduction, outlined briefly the Vedic, Vedantic & Puranic system of the seven worlds and the five bodies. In this system the three vyahritis constitute the lower half of existence which is in bondage to Avidya. Bhurloka is the material world, our dwelling place, in which Annam predominates, in which everything is subject to or limited by the laws of matter & material consciousness. Bhuvar are the middle worlds, antariksha, between Swar & Bhur, vital worlds in which Prana, the vital principle predominates and everything is subject to or limited by the laws of vitality & vital consciousness. Swarloka is the supreme world of the triple system, the pure mental kingdom in which manasei ther in itself or, as one goes higher, uplifted & enlightened by buddhipredominates & by the laws of mind determines the life & movements of the existences which inhabit it. The three Puranic worlds Jana, Tapas, Satya,not unknown to the Vedaconstitute the Parardha; they are the higher ranges of existence in which Sat, Chit, Ananda, the three mighty elements of the divine nature predominate respectively, creative Ananda or divine bliss in Jana, the power of Chit (Chich-chhakti) or divine Energy in Tapas, the extension [of] Sat or divine being in Satya. But these worlds are hidden from us, avyaktalost for us in the sushupti to which only great Yogins easily attain & only with the Anandaloka have we by means of the anandakosha some difficult chance of direct access. We are too joyless to bear the surging waves of that divine bliss, too weak or limited to move in those higher ranges of divine strength & being. Between the upper hemisphere & the lower is Maharloka, the seat of ideal knowledge & pure Truth, which links the free spirits to the bound, the gods who deliver to the gods who are in chains, the wide & immutable realms to these petty provinces where all shifts, all passes, all changes. We see therefore that Mahas is still vijnanam and we can no longer hesitate to identify our subjective principle of mahas, source of truth & right thinking awakened by Saraswati through the perceptive intelligence, with the Vedantic principle of vijnana or pure buddhi, instrument of pure Truth & ideal knowledge.
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But he is more than that; he is tuvijata, urukshaya. Uru, we shall find in other hymns, the Vast, is a word used as equivalent to Brihat to describe the ideal level of consciousness, the kingdom of ideal knowledge, in its aspect of joyous comprehensive wideness and capacity. It is clearly told us that men by overcoming & passing beyond the two firmaments of Mind-invitality, Bhuvar, & mind in intellectuality, Swar, arrive in the Vast, Uru, and make it their dwelling place. Therefore Uru must be taken as equivalent to Brihat; it must mean Mahas. Our Vedic Varuna, then, is a dweller in Mahas, in the vastness of ideal knowledge. But he is not born there; he is born or appears first in tuvi, that is, in strength or force. Since Uru definitely means the Vast, means Mahas, means a particular plane of consciousness, is, in short, a fixed term of Vedic psychology, it is inevitable that tuvi thus coupled with it and yet differentiated, must be another fixed term of Vedic psychology & must mean another plane of consciousness. We have found the meaning of Mahas by consulting Purana & Vedanta as well as the Veda itself. Have we any similar light on the significance of Tuvi? Yes. The Puranas describe to us three worlds above Maharloka,called, respectively, in the Puranic system, Jana, Tapas and Satya. By a comparison with Vedantic psychology we know that Jana must be the world of Ananda of which the Mahajana Atma is the sustaining Brahman as the Mahan Atma is the sustaining Brahman of the vijnana, and we get this light on the subject that, just as Bhur, Bhuvah, Swar are the lower or human half of existence, the aparardha of the Brahmanda, (the Brahma-circle or universe of manifest consciousness), and answer objectively to the subjective field covered by Annam, Prana & Manas, just as Mahas is the intermediate world, link between the divine & human hemispheres, and corresponds to the subjective region of Vijnana, so Jana, Tapas & Satya are the divine half of existence, & answer to the Ananda with its two companion principles Sat andChit, the three constituting the Trinity of those psychological states which are, to & in our consciousness, Sacchidananda,God sustaining from above His worlds. But why is the world of Chit called Tapoloka? According to our conceptions this universe has been created by & in divine Awareness by Force, Shakti, or Power which [is] inherent in Awareness, Force of Awareness or Chit Shakti that moves, forms & realises whatever it wills in Being. This force, this Chit-shakti in its application to its work, is termed in the ancient phraseology Tapas. Therefore, it is told us that when Brahma the Creator lay uncreative on the great Ocean, he listened & heard a voice crying over the waters OM Tapas! OM Tapas! and he became full of the energy of the mantra & arose & began creation. Tapas & Tu or Tuvi are equivalent terms. We can see at once the meaning. Varuna, existing no doubt in Sat, appears or is born to us in Tapas, in the sea of force put out in itself by the divine Awareness, & descending through divine delight which world is in Jana, in production or birth by Tapas, through Ananda, that is to say, into the manifest world, dwells in ideal knowledge & Truth and makes there Ritam or the Law of the Truth of Being his peculiar province. It is the very process of all creation, according to our Vedic&Vedantic Rishis. Descending into the actual universe we find Varuna master of the Akash or ether, matrix and continent of created things, in the Akash watching over the development of the created world & its peoples according to the line already fixed by ideal knowledge as suitable to their nature and purposeya thatathyato vihitam shashwatibhyah samabhyah and guiding the motion of things & souls in the line of theritam. It is in his act of guidance and bringing to perfection of the imperfect that he increases by the law and the truth, desires it and naturally attains to it, has the spriha & the sparsha of the ritam. It is from his fidelity to ideal Truth that he acquires the mighty power by which he maintains the heavens and orders its worlds in their appointed motion.
Such is his general nature and power. But there are also certain particular subjective functions to which he is called. He is rishadasa, he harries and slays the enemies of the soul, and with Mitra of pure discernment he works at the understanding till he brings it to a gracious pureness and brightness. He is like Agni, a kavih, one of those who has access to and commands ideal knowledge and with Mitra he supports and upholds Daksha when he is at his works; for so I take Daksham apasam. Mitra has already been described as having a pure daksha. The adjective daksha means in Sanscrit clever, intelligent, capable, like dakshina, like the Greek . We may also compare the Greek , meaning judgment, opinion etc & , I think or seem, and Latin doceo, I teach, doctrina etc. As these identities indicate, Daksha is originally he who divides, analyses, discerns; he is the intellectual faculty or in his person the master of the intellectual faculty which discerns and distinguishes. Therefore was Mitra able to help in making the understanding bright & pure,by virtue of his purified discernment.
1.04 - What Arjuna Saw - the Dark Side of the Force, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
purusham Puranam, this is he who for ever creates ... he who
keeps the world always in existence, for he is the guard-
1.04 - Yoga and Human Evolution, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The whole burden of our human progress has been an attempt to escape from the bondage to the body and the vital impulses. According to the scientific theory, the human being began as the animal, developed through the savage and consummated in the modern civilised man. The Indian theory is different. God created the world by developing the many out of the One and the material out of the spiritual. From the beginning, the objects which compose the physical world were arranged by Him in their causes, developed under the law of their being in the subtle or psychical world and then manifested in the gross or material world. From kraa to skma, from skma to sthla, and back again, that is the formula. Once manifested in matter the world proceeds by laws which do not change, from age to age, by a regular succession, until it is all withdrawn back again into the source from which it came. The material goes back into the psychical and the psychical is involved in its cause or seed. It is again put out when the period of expansion recurs and runs its course on similar lines but with different details till the period of contraction is due. Hinduism regards the world as a recurrent series of phenomena of which the terms vary but the general formula abides the same. The theory is only acceptable if we recognise the truth of the conception formulated in the Vishnu Purana of the world as vijna-vijmbhitni, developments of ideas in the Universal Intelligence which lies at the root of all material phenomena and by its indwelling force shapes the growth of the tree and the evolution of the clod as well as the development of living creatures and the progress of mankind. Whichever theory we take, the laws of the material world are not affected. From aeon to aeon, from kalpa to kalpa Narayan manifests himself in an ever-evolving humanity which grows in experience by a series of expansions and contractions towards its destined self-realisation in God. That evolution is not denied by the Hindu theory of yugas. Each age in the Hindu system has its own line of moral and spiritual evolution and the decline of the dharma or established law of conduct from the Satya to the Kaliyuga is not in reality a deterioration but a detrition of the outward forms and props of spirituality in order to prepare a deeper spiritual intensity within the heart. In each Kaliyuga mankind gains something in essential spirituality. Whether we take the modern scientific or the ancient Hindu standpoint the progress of humanity is a fact. The wheel of Brahma rotates for ever but it does not turn in the same place; its rotations carry it forward.
The animal is distinguished from man by its enslavement to the body and the vital impulses. Aany mtyu, Hunger who is Death, evolved the material world from of old, and it is the physical hunger and desire and the vital sensations and primary emotions connected with the pra that seek to feed upon the world in the beast and in the savage man who approximates to the condition of the beast. Out of this animal state, according to European Science, man rises working out the tiger and the ape by intellectual and moral development in the social condition. If the beast has to be worked out, it is obvious that the body and the pra must be conquered, and as that conquest is more or less complete, the man is more or less evolved. The progress of mankind has been placed by many predominatingly in the development of the human intellect, and intellectual development is no doubt essential to self-conquest. The animal and the savage are bound by the body because the ideas of the animal or the ideas of the savage are mostly limited to those sensations and associations which are connected with the body. The development of intellect enables a man to find the deeper self within and partially replace what our philosophy calls the dehtmaka-buddhi, the sum of ideas and sensations which make us think of the body as ourself, by another set of ideas which reach beyond the body, and, existing for their own delight and substituting intellectual and moral satisfaction as the chief objects of life, master, if they cannot entirely silence, the clamour of the lower sensual desires. That animal ignorance which is engrossed with the cares and the pleasures of the body and the vital impulses, emotions and sensations is tamasic, the result of the predominance of the third principle of nature which leads to ignorance and inertia. That is the state of the animal and the lower forms of humanity which are called in the Purana the first or tamasic creation. This animal ignorance the development of the intellect tends to dispel and it assumes therefore an all-important place in human evolution.
But it is not only through the intellect that man rises. If the clarified intellect is not supported by purified emotions, the intellect tends to be dominated once more by the body and to put itself at its service and the lordship of the body over the whole man becomes more dangerous than in the natural state because the innocence of the natural state is lost. The power of knowledge is placed at the disposal of the senses, sattva serves tamas, the god in us becomes the slave of the brute. The disservice which scientific Materialism is unintentionally doing the world is to encourage a return to this condition; the suddenly awakened masses of men, unaccustomed to deal intellectually with ideas, able to grasp the broad attractive innovations of free thought but unable to appreciate its delicate reservations, verge towards that reeling back into the beast, that relapse into barbarism which was the condition of the Roman Empire at a high stage of material civilisation and intellectual culture and which a distinguished British statesman declared the other day to be the condition to which all Europe approached. The development of the emotions is therefore the first condition of a sound human evolution. Unless the feelings tend away from the body and the love of others takes increasingly the place of the brute love of self, there can be no progress upward. The organisation of human society tends to develop the altruistic element in man which makes for life and battles with and conquers aany mtyu. It is therefore not the struggle for life, or at least not the struggle for our own life, but the struggle for the life of others which is the most important term in evolution,for our children, for our family, for our class, for our community, for our race and nation, for humanity. An ever-enlarging self takes the place of the old narrow self which is confined to our individual mind and body, and it is this moral growth which society helps and organises.
1.053 - A Very Important Sadhana, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
There are various other methods of svadhyaya. It depends upon the state of ones mind how far it is concentrated, how far it is distracted, what these desires are that have remained frustrated inside, what the desires are that have been overcome, and so on. The quality of the mind will determine the type of svadhyaya that one has to practise. If nothing else is possible, do parayana of holy scriptures the Sundara Kanda, the Valmiki Ramayana or any other Ramayana, the Srimad Bhagavata Maha Purana, the Srimad Bhagavadgita, the Moksha Dharma Parva of the Mahabharata, the Vishnu Purana, or any other suitable spiritual text. It has to be recited again and again, every day at a specific time, in a prescribed manner, so that this sadhana itself becomes a sort of meditation because what is meditation but hammering the mind, again and again, into a single idea? Inasmuch as abstract meditations are difficult for beginners, these more concrete forms of it are suggested. There are people who recite the Ramayana or the Srimad Bhagavata 108 times. They conduct Bhagvat Saptaha. The purpose is to bring the mind around to a circumscribed form of function and not allow it to roam about on the objects of sense.
The mind needs variety, no doubt, and it cannot exist without variety. It always wants change. Monotonous food will not be appreciated by the mind, and so the scriptures, especially the larger ones like the Epics, the Puranas, the Agamas, the Tantras, etc., provide a large area of movement for the mind wherein it leisurely roams about to its deep satisfaction, finds variety in plenty, reads stories of great saints and sages, and feels very much thrilled by the anecdotes of Incarnations, etc. But at the same time, with all its variety, we will find that it is a variety with a unity behind it. There is a unity of pattern, structure and aim in the presentation of variety in such scriptures as the Srimad Bhagavata, for instance. There are 18,000 verses giving all kinds of detail everything about the cosmic creation and the processes of the manifestation of different things in their gross form, subtle form, causal form, etc. Every type of story is found there. It is very interesting to read it. The mind rejoices with delight when going through such a large variety of detail with beautiful comparisons, etc. But all this variety is like a medical treatment by which we may give varieties of medicine with a single aim. We may give one tablet, one capsule, one injection, and all sorts of things at different times in a day to treat a single disease. The purpose is the continued assertion that God is All, and the whole of creation is a play of the glory of God.
The goal of life in every stage of its manifestation is the vision of God, the experience of God, the realisation of God that God is the Supreme Doer and the Supreme Existence. This is the principle that is driven into the mind again and again by the Srimad Bhagavata Maha Purana or such similar texts. If a continued or sustained study of such scriptures is practised, it is purifying. It is a tapas by itself, and it is a study of the nature of ones own Self, ultimately. The word sva is used here to designate this process of study svadhyaya. Also, we are told in one sutra of Patanjali, tad drau svarpe avasthnam (I.3), that the seer finds himself in his own nature when the vrittis or the various psychoses of the mind are inhibited. The purpose of every sadhana is only this much: to bring the mind back to its original source.
1.05 - Vishnu as Brahma creates the world, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.06 - Origin of the four castes, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.06 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"God reveals Himself in the form which His devotee loves most. His love for the devotee knows no bounds. It is written in the Purana that God assumed the form of Rama for His heroic devotee, Hanuman.
Vedantic Non-dualism
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The kathak recited the life of Prahlada from the Purana. Its substance was as follows: Hiranyakasipu, Prahlada's father, was king of the demons. He bore great malice toward God and put his own son through endless tortures for leading a religious life. Afflicted by his father, Prahlada prayed to God, "O God, please give my father holy inclinations."
At these words the Master wept. He went into an ecstatic mood. Afterwards he began to talk to the devotees.
1.07 - Bridge across the Afterlife, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
Gods in the Puranas. For she was here not only in a human
body, she had also to take upon her or rather into her the
1.07 - Note on the word Go, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is only one other passage we have now left for examination but it is of considerable importance & interest. It is in the hymn ascribed to the son of Madhuchchhanda, though very probably it isMadhuchchhandas own, the eleventh hymn and the fifth verse. Twam Valasya gomato apavar adrivo bilam, Twam deva abibhyushas tujyamanasa avishuh. Thou, O dweller on the mountain, didst uncover the lair of Vala the luminous, Thee the gods entered unfearing & protected. Indra, the dweller on the mountain of being, he who established in Swarga looks ever upward, has, to assist the strivings of man, uncovered the lair of Vala the luminous. Who is Vala the luminous? Does gomat mean the fellow who has the cows & is Vala a demon of cloud or darkness afflicted with the cow-stealing propensities, the Titanic bovi-kleptomania attributed by tradition to the Panis? He is, I suggest, one of the Titans who deny a higher ascent to man, a Titan who possesses but withholds & hides the luminous realms of ideal truth from man,interposing the hiranmayam patram of the Isha Upanishad, the golden cover or lid, by which the face of truth is concealed, satyasyapihitam mukham. Tat twam Pushan apavrinu, cries the Vedantic sage, using the same word apavri, but he calls to Surya, not to Indra, because he seeks the possession of the Vedanta, the sight of the rupam kalyanatamam which belongs to those who can meet Surya in his own home. The Vedic seer, at an earlier stage of the struggle, is satisfied with the minor conquests of Indra. He does not yet rise to those heights where Indra working in the mind is no longer a supreme helper, but may even be, as the Puranas tell us, an obstacle and an opponentbecause activity of mind even the highest, so long as it is not abandoned and overpassed, interferes with a yet higher attainment. It is only by rejecting Indra that we can dwell with Surya in his luminous halls, Tena tyaktena bhunjithah. Nevertheless the conquest over Bala is for humanity in its present stage a great conquest, and when & because it is accomplished the other gods can enter safely into the mental force & work in it, fearless because protected by Indras victorious might. For he is now Balabhid; he has pierced Bala & is no longer liable to that fear which overtook him when Vritra only had been overthrowna fear due to his perceiving the immensity of the task that still remained & the more formidable enemies beyond. We shall come again to Bala & the Titans & the meaning of these divine battles,viryani yani chakara prathamani vajri.
All the passages I have quoted proceed from the hymns of Madhuchchhanda son of Viswamitra, the opening eleven hymns of the Rigveda. This seer is one of the deepest & profoundest of the spirits chosen as vessels & channels of the divine knowledge of the Veda, one of those who least loses the thing symbolised in the material symbol, but who tends rather to let the symbol disappear in that which it symbolises. The comparison of the maker of beautiful images to the milch cow & Indra to the milker is an example of his constant tendency the word gavam is avoided with sudugham, so that the idea of milking or pressing forth may be suggested without insisting on the material image of the cow, & in goduhe, the symbol of the cow melts away into the thing symbolised, knowledge, light, illumination. A comparison with Medhatithi son of Kanwa brings out the difference. In Madhuchchhandas hymns the materialist rendering is often inapplicable & even when applicable yields a much poorer sense than the symbolic renderingbecause the seer is little concerned with the symbol except as the recognised means of suggesting things supramaterial. But Medhatithi is much concerned with the symbol & not indifferent to the outer life; in his hymns the materialist rendering gives us a good sense without excluding the symbolic, but often the symbolic has to be sought for & if we did not know the true Vedic tradition from Madhuchchhanda we could not gather it unaided from Medhatithi. The son of Viswamitra is deeply concerned with knowledge & with immortality & rapture as its attendant circumstances & conditions, the son of Kanwa, though not indifferent to knowledge, with the intoxication of the wine of immortality & its outpouring in mortal life & action. To use Vedic symbolism, one is a herder of kine, the other a herder of horses; Madhuchchhandas totem is the meditative cow, Medhatithis the rapid & bounding horse. There is a great calm, depth & nobility in the first eleven hymns, a great verve, joy, energy & vibrant force in the twelve that follow.
1.07 - Production of the mind-born sons of Brahma, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.08 - Origin of Rudra: his becoming eight Rudras, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Are we then to conclude that the reverence for the Vedas & the belief in the continued authority of the Vedas is really no more than an ancient superstition or a tradition which has survived its truth? Those who know the working of the human mind, will be loth to hasten to that conclusion. Great masses of men, great nations, great civilisations have an instinct in these matters which seldom misleads them. In spite of forgetfulness, through every misstatement, surviving all cessation of precise understanding, something in them still remembers their origin and holds fast to the vital truth of their being. According to the Europeans, there is a historical truth at the basis of the old persistent tradition, but a historical truth only, a truth of origin, not of present actuality. The Vedas are the early roots of Indian religion, of Indian civilisation; but they have for a long time past ceased to be their present foundation or their intellectual substance. It is rather the Upanishads & the Puranas that are the living Scriptures of mediaeval and modern Hinduism. But if, as we contend, the Upanishads & the Puranas only give us in other language, later symbols, altered forms of thought the same religious truths that we find differently stated in the Rigveda, this shifting of the immediate point of derivation will make no real difference. The waters we drink are the same whether drawn at their clear mountain sources or on their banks in the anchorites forest or from ghats among the faery temples and fantastic domes of some sacred city.The Hindus belief remains to him unshaken.
But in the last century a new scholarship has invaded the country, the scholarship of aggressive & victorious Europe, which for the first time denies the intimate connection and the substantial identity of the Vedas & the later Scriptures. We ourselves have made distinctions of Jnanakanda & Karmakanda, Sruti & Smriti, but we have never doubted that all these are branches of a single stock. But our new Western Pandits & authorities tell us that we are in error. All of us from ancient Yajnavalkya to the modern Vaidika have been making a huge millennial mistake. European scholarship applying for the first time the test of a correct philology to these obscure writings has corrected the mistake. It has discovered that the Vedas are of an entirely different character from the rest of our Hindu development. For our development has been Pantheistic or transcendental, philosophical, mystic, devotional, sombre, secretive, centred in the giant names of the Indian Trinity, disengaging itself from sacrifice, moving towards asceticism. The Vedas are naturalistic, realistic, ritualistic, semi-barbarous, a sacrificial worship of material Nature-powers, henotheistic at their highest, Pagan, joyous and self-indulgent. Brahma & Shiva do not exist for the Veda; Vishnu & Rudra are minor, younger & unimportant deities. Many more discoveries of a startling nature, but now familiar to the most ignorant, have been successfully imposed on our intellects. The Vedas, it seems, were not revealed to great & ancient Rishis, but composed by the priests of a small invading Aryan race of agriculturists & warriors, akin to the Greeks & Persians, who encamped, some fifteen hundred years before Christ, in the Panjab.
With the acceptance of these modern opinions Hinduism ought by this time to have been as dead among educated men as the religion of the Greeks & Romans. It should at best have become a religio Pagana, a superstition of ignorant villagers. Itis, on the contrary, stronger & more alive, fecund & creative than it had been for the previous three centuries. To a certain extent this unexpected result may be traced to the high opinion in which even European opinion has been compelled to hold the Vedanta philosophy, the Bhagavat Gita and some of the speculationsas the Europeans think themor, as we hold, the revealed truths of the Upanishads. But although intellectually we are accustomed in obedience to Western criticism to base ourselves on the Upanishads & Gita and put aside Purana and Veda as mere mythology & mere ritual, yet in practice we live by the religion of the Puranas & Tantras even more profoundly & intimately than we live by & realise the truths of the Upanishads. In heart & soul we still worship Krishna and Kali and believe in the truth of their existence. Nevertheless this divorce between the heart & the intellect, this illicit compromise between faith & reason cannot be enduring. If Purana & Veda cannot be rehabilitated, it is yet possible that our religion driven out of the soul into the intellect may wither away into the dry intellectuality of European philosophy or the dead formality & lifeless clarity of European Theism. It behoves us therefore to test our faith by a careful examination into the meaning of Purana & Veda and into the foundation of that truth which our intellect seeks to deny [but] our living spiritual experience continues to find in their conceptions. We must discover why it is that while our intellects accept only the truth of Vedanta, our spiritual experiences confirm equally or even more powerfully the truth of Purana. A revival of Hindu intellectual faith in the totality of the spiritual aspects of our religion, whether Vedic, Vedantic, Tantric or Puranic, I believe to be an inevitable movement of the near future.
There has already been, indeed, a local movement towards the rehabilitation of the Veda. Swami Dayananda, the founder of the Arya Samaj, preached a monotheistic religion founded on a new interpretation of the sacred hymns. But this important attempt, successful & vigorous in the Panjab, is not likely to comm and acceptance among the more subtle races of the south & east. It was based like the European rendering on a system of philology,the Nirukta of Yaska used by the scholastic ingenuity & robust faith of Dayananda to justify conclusions far-reaching & even extravagant, to which it is difficult to assent unless we are offered stronger foundations.Moreover, by rejecting the authority of all later Scriptures and scouting even the Upanishads because they transcend the severity of his monotheistic teaching, Dayananda cut asunder the unity of Hindu religion even more fatally than the Europeans & by the slenderness of vision & the poverty of spiritual contents, the excessive simplicity of doctrine farther weakened the authority of this version for the Indian intellect. He created a sect & a rendering, but failed to rehabilitate to the educated mind in India the authority of the Vedas. Nevertheless, he put his finger on the real clue, the true principle by which Veda can yet be made to render up its long-guarded secret. A Nirukta, based on a wider knowledge of the Aryan tongues than Dayananda possessed, more scientific than the conjectural philology of the Europeans, is the first condition of this great recovery. The second is a sympathy & flexibility of intelligence capable of accepting passively & moulding itself to the mentality of the men of this remote epoch.
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Nevertheless existence is not simple in its infinite oneness. Matter is prithivi, tanu or tanva (terra), a wide yet formal extension of being; but behind matter and containing it is a term of being, not formal though instrumentally creative of form, measuring & containing it, mind, mati or manas. Mind itself is biune in movement, modified mind working in direct relation to material life (anu, the Vedantic prana) and moulding itself to its requirements in order to seize and enjoy it, and pure mind above and controlling it. For each of these three subjective principles there must exist in the nature of things an objective world in which it fulfils its tendencies and in which beings of that particular order of consciousness can live and manifest themselves. The three worlds, tribhuvana, trailokya are called in Vedic terminology, Bhu, the material world, Bhuvar, the intermediate world and Swar, the pure blissful mental world,Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, earth, the lower heavens and paradise, are the three sacred & mighty vyahritis of the Veda, and the great Vedic formula OM Bhur Bhuvah Swah expressive of our manifest existence triply founded in matter, mind-in-sense & vital movement and pure mind, still resounds in the Indian consciousness & comes with a solemnity, ill-understood but felt, to the descendants of the ancient Rishis. They persist in later belief as three inferior worlds of the Purana, constituents of the aparardha, or lower hemisphere of conscious existence, in which the Vedantic principles of matter, life & mind, anna, prana and manas severally predominate and determine the conditions of existence. Bhuvar & Swar are the two heavens, the double firmament, ubhe rodasi so frequently mentioned in the sacred verses.
But why, it might be asked, should each subjective order or stratum of consciousness necessarily involve the co-existence of a corresponding order of beings & objective world-stratum? For the modern mind, speculative & introspective like the Vedic, is yet speculative within the limits of sensational experience and therefore unable to believe in, even if it can conceive of existence, least of all of an objective existence under conditions different from those [with] which we are familiar and of which our senses assure us. We may therefore admit the profundity & subtlety of the subjective distinction, but we shall be apt to regard the belief in objective worlds & beings unseen by our senses as either an early poetic fancy or a crude superstition of savages. But the Vedic mentality, although perfectly rational, stood at the opposite pole of ideas from the modern and its subjective consciousness admitted a class of experiences which we reject and cut short the moment they begin to present themselves by condemning them as hallucinations. The idea of modern men that the ancients evolved their gods by a process of poetic imagination, is an error due to inability to understand an alien mentality & unwillingness to investigate from within those survivals of it which still subsist though with difficulty under modern conditions. Encouraging this order of phenomena, fostering & developing carefully the states of mind in which they were possible and the movements of mind & sense by which they were effected, the Vedic Rishis saw and communed with the gods and threw themselves into the worlds of which they had the conception. They believed in them for the same reason that Joan of Arc believed in her saints & her voices, Socrates in his daemon or Swedenborg in his spirits, because they had constant experience of them and of the validity both of the experiences and of the instruments of mind & sense by which they were maintained in operation. They would have answered a modern objector that they had as good a proof of them as the scientist has of the worlds & the different orders of life revealed to his optical nerve by microscope & telescope. Some of them might even question whether these scientific discoveries were not optical illusions due to the excitation of the nerve by the instruments utilised! We may, similarly, get rid of the Vedic experiences, disbelieve and discount them, saying that they missed one essential instrument of truth, the sceptical distrust of their instruments,but we cannot argue from them in the minds that received them a childish irrationality or a savage superstition. They trusted, like us, their experience, believed their mind & senses and argued logically from their premisses.
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Saraswati, a name familiar to the religious conceptions of the race from our earliest eras, & of incessant occurrence in poetic phraseology and image, is worshipped yearly even at the present day in all provinces of the peninsula no less than those many millenniums ago in the prehistoric dawn of our religion and literature. Consistently, subsequent to the Vedic times, she has been worshipped everywhere & is named in all passages as a goddess of speech, poetry, learning and eloquence. Epic, Purana and the popular imagination know her solely as this deity of speech & knowledge. She ranks therefore in the order of religious ideas with the old Hellenic conceptions of Pallas, Aphrodite or the Muses; nor does any least shadow of the material Nature-power linger to lower the clear intellectuality of her powers and functions. But there is also a river Saraswati or several rivers of that name. Therefore, the doubt suggests itself: In any given passage may it not be the Aryan river, Saraswati, which the bards are chanting? even if they sing of her or cry to her as a goddess, may it not still be the River, so dear, sacred & beneficent to them, that they worship? Or even where she is clearly a goddess of speech and thought, may it not be that the Aryans, having had originally no intellectual or moral conceptions and therefore no gods of the mind and heart, converted, when they did feel the need, this sacred flowing River into a goddess of sacred flowing song? In that case we are likely to find in her epithets & activities the traces of this double capacity.
For the rest, Sayana in this particular passage lends some support [to] this suggestion of Saraswatis etymological good luck; for he tells us that Saraswati has two aspects, the embodied goddess of Speech and the figure of a river. He distributes, indeed, these two capacities with a strange inconsistency and in his interpretation, as in so many of these harsh & twisted scholastic renderings, European & Indian, of the old melodious subtleties of thought & language, the sages of the Veda come before us only to be convicted of a baffling incoherence of sense and a pointless inaptness of language. But possibly, after all, it is the knowledge of the scholar that is at fault, not the intellect of the Vedic singers that was confused, stupid and clumsy! Nevertheless we must consider the possibility that Sayanas distribution of the sense may be ill-guided, & yet his suggestion about the double role of the goddess may in itself be well-founded. There are few passages of the ancient Sanhita, into which these ingenuities of the ritualistic & naturalistic interpretations do not pursue us. Our inquiry would protract itself into an intolerable length, if we had at every step to clear away from the path either the heavy ancient lumber or the brilliant modern rubbish. It is necessary to determine, once for all, whether the Vedic scholars, prve ntan uta, are guides worthy of trustwhe ther they are as sure in taste & insight as they are painstaking and diligent in their labour,whether, in a word, these ingenuities are the outcome of an imaginative licence of speculation or a sound & keen intuition of the true substance of Veda. Here is a crucial passage. Let us settle at least one side of the account the ledger of the great Indian scholiast.
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This explanation of vjebhir vjinvat leads at once to the figurative sense of maho arnas. Arnas or samudra is the image of the sea, flood or stream in which the Vedic seers saw the substance of being and its different states. Sometimes one great sea, sometimes seven streams of being are spoken of by the Rishis; they are the origin of the seven seas of the Purana. It cannot be doubted that the minds of the old thinkers were possessed with this image of ocean or water as the very type & nature of the flux of existence, for it occurs with a constant insistence in the Upanishads. The sole doubt is whether the image was already present to the minds of the primitive Vedic Rishis. The Europeans hold that these were the workings of a later imagination transfiguring the straightforward material expressions & physical ideas of the Veda; they admit no real parentage of Vedantic ideas in the preexistent Vedic notions, but only a fictitious derivation. I hold, on the contrary, that Vedantic ideas have a direct & true origin & even a previous existence in the religion & psychology of the Vedas. If, indeed, there were no stuff of high thinking or moral sensibility in the hymns of the Vedic sages, then I should have no foundation to stand upon and no right to see this figure in the Vedic arnas or samudra. But when these early minds,early to us, but not perhaps really so primitive in human history as we imagine,were capable of such high thoughts & perceptions as these three Riks bear on their surface, it would be ridiculous to deny them the capacity of conceiving these great philosophical images & symbols. A rich poetic imagery expressing a clear, direct & virgin perception of the facts of mind and being, is not by any means impossible, but rather natural in these bright-eyed sons of the morning not yet dominated in their vision by the dry light of the intellect or in their speech & thought by the abstractions & formalities of metaphysical thinking. Water was to them, let us hold in our hypothesis, the symbol of unformed substance of being, earth of the formed substance. They even saw a mystic identity between the thing symbolised & the symbol.
What then is maho arnas? Is it the great sea of general being, substance of general existence out of which the substance of thought & speech are formed? It is possible; but such an interpretation is not entirely in consonance with the context of this passage. The suggestion I shall advance will therefore be different. Mahas, as a neuter adjective, means great,maho arnas, the great water; but mahas may be equally a noun and then maho arnas will mean Mahas the sea. In some passages again, mahas is genitive singular or accusative plural of a noun mah; maho arnas may well be the flowing stream or flood of Mah, as in the expression vasvo arnavam, the sea of substance, in a later Sukta.We are therefore likely to remain in doubt unless we can find an actual symbolic use of either word Mah or Mahas in a psychological sense which would justify us in supposing this Maho Arnas to be a sea of substance of knowledge rather than vaguely the sea of general substance of being. For this is the significance which alone entirely suits the actual phraseology of the last Rik of the Sukta. We find our clue in the Taittiriya Upanishad. It is said there that there are three recognised vyahritis of the Veda, Bhur, Bhuvar, Swah, but the Rishi Mahachamasya affirmed a fourth. The name of this doubtful fourth vyahriti is Mahas. Now the mystic vyahritis of the Veda are the shabdas or sacred words expressing objectively the three worlds, subjectively mentalised material being, mentalised vital being & pure mental being, the three manifest states of our phenomenal consciousness. Mahas, therefore, must express a fourth state of being, which is so much superior to the other three or so much beyond the ordinary attainment of our actual human consciousness that it is hardly considered in Vedic thought a vyahriti, whatever one or two thinkers may have held to the contrary. What do we know of this Mahas from Vedantic or later sources? Bhuh, Bhuvah, Swar of the Veda rest substantially upon the Annam, Prana, Manas, matter, life & mind of the Upanishads. But the Upanishads speak of a fourth state of being immediately aboveManas, preceding it therefore & containing it, Vijnanam, ideal knowledge, and a fifth immediately above Vijnanam, Ananda or Bliss. Physically, these five are the pancha kshitayah, five earths or dwelling-places, of the Rig Veda and they are the pancha koshas, five sheaths or bodies of the Upanishads. But in our later Yogic systems we recognise seven earths, seven standing grounds of the soul on which it experiences phenomenal existence. The Purana gives us their names [the names of the two beyond the five already mentioned], Tapas and Satya, Energy&Truth. They are the outward expressions of the two psychological principles, Self-Awareness &Self-Being (Chit&Sat) which with Ananda, Self-Bliss, are the triune appearance in the soul of the supreme Existence which the Vedanta calls Brahman. Sat, Chit & Ananda constitute to Vedantic thought the parardha or spiritual higher half [of] our existence; in less imaginative language, we are in our supreme existence self-existence, self-awareness & self-delight. Annam, Prana & Manas constitute to Vedantic thought the aparardha or lower half; again, in more abstract speech, we are in our lower phenomenal existence mind, life & matter. Vijnana is the link; standing in ideal knowledge we are aware, looking upward, of our spiritual existence, looking downward, we pour it out into the three vyahritis, Bhur, Bhuvah & Swar, mental, vital & material existence, the phenomenal symbols of our self-expression. Objectively vijnana becomes mahat, the great, wide or extended state of phenomenal being,called also brihat, likewise signifying vast or great,into which says the Gita, the Self or Lord casts his seed as into a womb in order to engender all these objects & creatures. The Self, standing in vijnanam or mahat, is called the Mahan Atma, the great Self; so that, if we apply the significance [of] these terms to the Vedic words mah, mahas, mahi, mahn, then, even accepting mahas as an adjective and maho arnas in the sense of the great Ocean, it may very well be the ocean of the ideal or pure ideative state of existence in true knowledge which is intended, the great ocean slumbering in our humanity and awakened by the divine inspiration of Saraswati. But have we at all the right to read these high, strange & subtle ideas of a later mysticism into the primitive accents of the Veda? Let us at least support for a while that hypothesis. We may very well ask, if not from the Vedic forefa thers, whence did the Aryan thinkers get these striking images, this rich & concrete expression of the most abstract ideas and persist in them even after the Indian mind had rarefied & lifted its capacity to the height of the most difficult severities & abstractions known to any metaphysical thinking? Our hypothesis of a Vedic origin remains not only a possible suggestion but the one hypothesis in lawful possession of the field, unless a foreign source or a later mixed ideation can be proved. At present this later ideation may be assumed, it has not been & cannot be proved. The agelong tradition of India assigns the Veda as the source & substance of our theosophies; Brahmana, Aranyaka, Upanishad & Purana as only the interpretation & later expression; the burden of disproof rests on those who negative the tradition.
Vjebhir vjinvat and maho arnas are therefore fixed in their significance. The word vashtu in the tenth Rik offers a difficulty. It is equivalent to vahatu, says the Brahmana; to kmayatu, says Sayana; but, deferring to the opinion of the Brahmana, he adds that it means really kmayitw vahatu. Undoubtedly the root va means in classical Sanscrit to desire; but from the evidence of the classical Sanscrit we have it established that in more ancient times its ordinary meaning must have been to subdue or control; for although the verb has lost this sense in the later language, almost all its derivatives bear that meaning & the sense of wish, will or desire only persists in a few of them, va, wish and possibly va, a woman. It is this sense which agrees best with the context of the tenth rik and is concealed in the vahatu of the Brahmanas. There is no other difficulty of interpretation in the passage.
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In Saraswati we have a deity with subjective functions the first desideratum in our enquiry. Still, there is a doubt, a difficulty. Saraswati of the Epics & Puranas, Saraswati, as she is worshipped today throughout India is, no doubt, a purely subjective goddess and presides only over intellectual and immaterial functions. She is our Lady of Speech, the Muse, the goddess of Poetry, Art and Learning. Saraswati, the flowing, is also the name of more than one river in modern India, but especially of the sacred stream in upper India supposed to join secretly in their confluence the waters of theGanges and Yamuna and form with them the holy Triveni or triple braid of waters in which the ceremonial ablution of the devotee is more potent than at almost any other Indian place of pilgrimage and gives the richest spiritual fruit to the believing pilgrim. But in our modern religious ideas there is no real connexion, except of name, between the goddess and the river. In the Veda also there is a Saraswati who is the goddess of speech; in the Veda also there seems to be an ancient river Saraswati, although this stream is placed by Vedic scholars in the Panjab and not in the vicinity of Prayaga and Ayodhya. Were these two deities,for every river and indeed every natural object was to the Vedic Rishis a divine being,the same goddess Saraswati? Sayana accepts, even in this passage, their identity; she is, he tells us, [].1 If this identity were accepted, we would have to ask ourselves by what process of subjective metamorphosis a material Panjab river came to be the deity of Speech, the female power of Brahma, the Muse and tutelar goddess of scholar and poet. Or was not rather the goddess of speech eponymous of the river and subsequently imaged in it by the Vedic symbolists? But before we descend to these ulterior questions, we must first know for certain whether Sayana is right in his identification of the river and the Muse. First of all, are they the same in this passage? secondly, are they the same in any passage of the Veda? It is to the first question alone that we need address ourselves for the present; for on its solution depends the whole purport, value and helpfulness of these three Riks for the purposes of our enquiry into the sense and secret of the Vedas.
Blank in MS; in his commentary on the passage under discussion, Sayana describes Saraswati as: dvividh . . . vigrahavaddevat nadrp ca.Ed.
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When we look carefully at the passage before us, we find an expression which strikes one as a very extraordinary phrase in reference to a god of lightning and rain. Indryhi, says Madhuchchhanda, dhiyeshito viprajtah. On any ordinary acceptance of the meaning of words, we have to render this line, Come, O Indra, impelled by the understanding, driven by the Wise One. Sayana thinks that vipra means Brahmin and the idea is that Indra is moved to come by the intelligent sacrificing priests and he explains dhiyeshito, moved to come by our understanding, that is to say, by our devotion. But understanding does not mean devotion and the artificiality of the interpretation is apparent.We will, as usual, put aside the ritualistic & naturalistic traditions and see to what the natural sense of the words themselves leads us. I question the traditional acceptance of viprajta as a compound of vipra & jta; it seems tome clearly to be vi prajtah, driven forward variously or in various directions. I am content to accept the primary sense of impelled for ishita, although, whether we read dhiy ishito with the Padapatha, or dhiy shito, it may equally well mean, controlled by the understanding; but of themselves the expressions impelled & driven forward in various paths imply a perfect control.We have then, Come, O Indra, impelled (or controlled, governed) by the understanding and driven forward in various paths. What is so driven forward? Obviously not the storm, not the lightning, not any force of material Nature, but a subjective force, and, as one can see at a glance, a force of mind. Now Indra is the king of Swar and Swar in the symbolical interpretation of the Vedic terms current in after times is the mental heaven corresponding to the principle of Manas, mind. His name means the Strong. In the Puranas he is that which the Rishis have to conquer in order to attain their goal, that which sends the Apsaras, the lower delights & temptations of the senses to bewilder the sage and the hero; and, as is well known, in the Indian system of Yoga it is the Mind with its snares, sensuous temptations & intellectual delusions which is the enemy that has to be overcome & the strong kingdom that has to be conquered. In this passage Indra is not thought of in his human form, but as embodied in the principle of light or tejas; he is harivas, substance of brightness; he is chitrabhnu, of a rich & various effulgence, epithets not easily applicable to a face or figure, but precisely applicable to the principle of mind which has always been supposed in India to be in its material element made of tejas or pure light.We may conclude, therefore, that in Indra, master of Swarga, we have the divine lord of mental force & power. It is as this mental power that he comes sutvatah upa brahmni vghatah, to the soul-movements of the chanter of the sacred song, of the holder of the nectar-wine. He is asked to come, impelled or controlled by the understanding and driven forward by it in the various paths of sumati & snrit, right thinking & truth. We remember the image in the Kathopanishad in which the mind & senses are compared to reins & horses and the understanding to the driver. We look back & see at once the connection with the function demanded of the Aswins in the preceding verses; we look forward & see easily the connection with the activity of Saraswati in the closing riks. The thought of the whole Sukta begins to outline itself, a strong, coherent and luminous progression of psychological images begins to emerge.
Brahmni, says Sayana, means the hymnal chants; vghatah is the ritwik, the sacrificial priest. These ritual senses belong to the words but we must always inquire how they came to bear them. As to vghat, we have little clue or evidence, but on the system I have developed in another work (the Origins of Aryan Speech), it may be safely concluded that the lost roots vagh & vgh, must have conveyed the sense of motion evident in the Latin vagus & vagari, wandering & to wander & the sense of crying out, calling apparent in the Latin vagire, to cry, & the Sanscrit vangh, to abuse, censure. Vghat may mean the sacrificial priest because he is the one who calls to the deity in the chant of the brahma, the sacred hymn. It may also mean one who increases in being, in his brahma, his soul, who is getting vja or substance.
1.08 - THE MASTERS BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"The rishis followed the path of jnna. Therefore they sought to realize Brahman, the Indivisible Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. But those who follow the path of devotion seek an Incarnation of God, to enjoy the sweetness of bhakti. The darkness of the mind disappears when God is realized. In the Purana it is said that it was as if a hundred suns were shining when Rama entered the court. Why, then, weren't the courtiers burnt up? It was because the brilliance of Rama was not like that of a material object. As the lotus blooms when the sun rises, so the lotus of the heart of the people assembled in the court burst into blossom."
As the Master uttered these words, standing before the devotees, he suddenly fell into an ecstatic mood. His mind was withdrawn from external objects. No sooner did he say, "the lotus of the heart burst into blossom", than he went into deep samdhi. He stood motionless, his countenance beaming and his lips parted in a smile.
1.098 - The Transformation from Human to Divine, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Here, there is another interesting feature which one can notice. These experiences of encounter, or the presentations of delight or invitations, etc., which the sutra mentions, are not necessarily super-physical. They can also be physical. That is, even in this very physical world we may have such experiences, if our practice is intense enough. We will not be able to discover the secret behind the experiences in our life, and may like to pass them over as casual occurrences of the social life of a person. The experiences that we pass through in life even in this physical life, in this very life itself may be the reactions of our practice. The denizens which the sutra speaks of may press themselves forward through the physical counterparts of this very existence itself. They need not necessarily be ethereal beings as the Puranas speak of, such as Indra, etc.
These personalities which the Puranas speak of do not necessarily come when we jump from the physical level to the higher level. They can press themselves into action even in this very level, so that we may not go to the higher realm at all. As a result, there can be very convenient situations and comfortable experiences of the senses as well as the ego, whose essential nature cannot easily be discovered. We will not know what is happening to us. We will only take it as a common presentation or an unusual experience of life. There is nothing usual in this world; everything is very peculiar. Everything has a novel character. Even these so-called usual experiences of our life even my sitting here and your listening to me is a very strange coordination of factors which are universal in their nature. They are not simply to be taken for an ordinary, simple social experience of human beings.
There is nothing which is not universal in life. Everything is a universal expression. Even a leaf that moves in a tree has a universal background behind it. Even the littlest of our experiences and the smallest of the deeds that we perform everything, for the matter of that is a symbol or an index of a universal pressure that is exerted from behind, which is invisible to the senses and incomprehensible to the ego. The yoga philosophy and psychology opens up before our mind a new world of perception and a new interpretation of values a system of an entirely new type of appreciation of things so that we will be able to discover new meaning even in the common and ordinary experiences of life. Even if we see a dog on the road, it is not an ordinary experience that is happening; we will begin to see a new meaning behind it. A cat crossing in front of us is not an ordinary experience. A wisp of breeze is not ordinary. Everything is extraordinary in this life. This meaning of an extraordinary significance present behind even ordinary experiences in life will be opened up only to a discriminative understanding.
1.09 - Legend of Lakshmi, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.09 - Saraswati and Her Consorts, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Life, Body, upon which is built the triple world of the Veda and Puranas. But the full number ordinarily recognised is seven.
This figure was arrived at by adding the three divine principles to the three mundane and interpolating a seventh or link-principle which is precisely that of the Truth-consciousness, Ritam Brihat, afterwards known as Vijnana or Mahas. The latter term means the Large and is therefore an equivalent of Brihat. There are other classifications of five, eight, nine and ten and even, as it would seem, twelve; but these do not immediately concern us.
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the sevenfold substance of the ocean of being which appears to us formulated in the seven worlds enumerated by the Puranas.
It is their full flow in the human consciousness which constitutes the entire activity of the being, his full treasure of substance, his full play of energy. In the Vedic image, his cows drink of the water of the seven rivers.
1.09 - Sri Aurobindo and the Big Bang, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
imaged and set forth in the symbols of the Puranas. 24
In this view the ancient Hindu concept of pralaya, or
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the Puranas. 26
Multiple universes and typal worlds
1.1.05 - The Siddhis, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Siddhis, but recognised them as a part, though not the most important part of Yogic accomplishment, and used them with an abundant and unhesitating vigour. They are recognised in our sacred books, formally included in Yoga by so devotional a Purana as the Bhagawat, noted and some of their processes carefully tabled by Patanjali. Even in the midnight of the Kali great Siddhas and saints have used them more sparingly, but with power and effectiveness. It would be difficult for many of them to do otherwise than use the siddhis since by the very fact of their spiritual elevation, these powers have become not exceptional movements, but the ordinary processes of their thought and action. It is by the use of the siddhis that the Siddhas sitting on the mountains help the world out of the heart of their solitude and silence. Jesus Christ made the use of the siddhis a prominent feature of his pure, noble and spiritual life, nor did he hesitate to communicate them to his disciples - the laying of hands, the healing of the sick, the ashirvada, the abhishap, the speaking with many tongues were all given to them. The day of Pentecost is still kept holy by the Christian Church. Joan of Arc used her siddhis to liberate France. Socrates had his siddhis, some of them of a very material nature. Men of great genius are usually born with some of them and use them unconsciously. Even in natures far below the power and clarity of genius we see their occasional or irregular operation. The West, always avid of knowledge, is struggling, sadly hampered by misuse and imposture, to develop them and gropes roughly for the truth about them in the phenomena of hypnotism, clairvoyance, telepathy, vouched for by men and women of great intellectuality and sincerity. Returning
Eastwards, where only their right practice has been understood, the lives of our saints northern and southern are full of the record of Siddhis. Sri Ramakrishna, whose authority is quoted against
1.10 - The descendants of the daughters of Daksa married to the Rsis, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.10 - The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Hindu writings, in Veda, Purana and even philosophical reasoning and illustration as an ocean. The Veda speaks of two oceans, the upper and the lower waters. These are the ocean of the subconscient, dark and inexpressive, and the ocean of the superconscient, luminous and eternal expression but beyond the human mind. Vamadeva in the last hymn of the fourth Mandala speaks of these two oceans. He says that a honeyed wave climbs up from the ocean and by means of this mounting wave which is the Soma (amsu) one attains entirely to immortality; that wave or that Soma is the secret name of the clarity (ghr.tasya, the symbol of the clarified butter); it is the tongue of the gods; it is the nodus (nabhi) of immortality.
Samudrad urmir madhuman udarad, upamsuna sam amr.tatvam anat.;
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This Vedic imagery throws a clear light on the similar symbolic images of the Puranas, especially on the famous symbol of Vishnu sleeping after the pralaya on the folds of the snake
Ananta upon the ocean of sweet milk. It may perhaps be objected that the Puranas were written by superstitious Hindu priests or poets who believed that eclipses were caused by a dragon eating the sun and moon and could easily believe that during the periods of non-creation the supreme Deity in a physical body went to sleep on a physical snake upon a material ocean of real milk and that therefore it is a vain ingenuity to seek for a spiritual meaning in these fables. My reply would be that there is in fact no need to seek for such meanings; for these very superstitious poets have put them there plainly on the very surface of the fable for everybody to see who does not choose to be blind. For they have given a name to Vishnu's snake, the name Ananta, and
Ananta means the Infinite; therefore they have told us plainly enough that the image is an allegory and that Vishnu, the allpervading Deity, sleeps in the periods of non-creation on the coils of the Infinite. As for the ocean, the Vedic imagery shows us that it must be the ocean of eternal existence and this ocean of eternal existence is an ocean of absolute sweetness, in other words, of pure Bliss. For the sweet milk (itself a Vedic image) has, evidently, a sense not essentially different from the madhu, honey or sweetness, of Vamadeva's hymn.
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Thus we find that both Veda and Purana use the same symbolic images; the ocean is for them the image of infinite and eternal existence. We find also that the image of the river or flowing current is used to symbolise a stream of conscious being. We find that Saraswati, one of the seven rivers, is the river of inspiration flowing from the Truth-consciousness. We have the right then to suppose that the other six rivers are also psychological symbols.
But we need not depend entirely on hypothesis and inference, however strong and entirely convincing. As in the hymn of Vamadeva we have seen that the rivers, ghr.tasya dharah., are there not rivers of clarified butter or rivers of physical water, but psychological symbols, so we find in other hymns the same compelling evidence as to the image of the seven rivers. For this purpose I will examine one more hymn, the first Sukta of the third Mandala sung by the Rishi Vishwamitra to the god Agni; for here he speaks of the seven rivers in language as remarkable and unmistakable as the language of Vamadeva about the rivers of clarity. We shall find precisely the same ideas recurring in quite different contexts in the chants of these two sacred singers.
1.10 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES (II), #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The great King Harischandra of the Purana was the embodiment of generosity. No one ever went away from him empty-handed. Now, the sage Viswamitra, wanting to test the extent of the king's charity, extracted from him a promise to grant any boon that he might ask. Then the sage asked for the gift of the sea-girt world, of which Harischandra was king. Without the slightest hesitation the king gave away his kingdom. Then Viswamitra demanded the auxiliary fee, which alone makes charity valid and meritorious. The kathak continued his recitation: Viswamitra said to the king: "O King, you have given away the entire world, which was your kingdom. It now belongs to me; you cannot claim any place here. But you may live in Benares, which belongs to iva. I shall lead you there with your wife Saibya, and Rohitasva, your son. There you can procure the auxiliary fee that you owe me." The royal family, accompanied by the sage, reached Benares and visited the temple of iva.
At the very mention of iva, the Master went into spiritual mood and repeated the holy name several times indistinctly.
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When was this traditional honour first lost or at least tarnished and the ancient Scripture relegated to the inferior position it occupies in the thought of Shankaracharya? I presume there can be little doubt that the chief agent in this work of destruction was the power of Buddhism. The preachings of Gautama and his followers worked against Vedic knowledge by a double process. First, by entirely denying the authority of the Veda, laying a violent stress on its ritualistic character and destroying the general practice of formal sacrifice, it brought the study of the Veda into disrepute as a means of attaining the highest good while at the same time it destroyed the necessity of that study for ritualistic purposes which had hitherto kept alive the old Vedic studies; secondly, in a less direct fashion, by substituting for a time at least the vernacular tongues for the old simple Sanscrit as the more common & popular means of religious propaganda and by giving them a literary position and repute, it made a general return to the old generality of the Vedic studies practically impossible. For the Vedas were written in an ancient form of the literary tongue the real secret of which had already been to a great extent lost even to the learned; such knowledge of it as remained, subsisted with difficulty by means of a laborious memorising and a traditional scholarship, conservative indeed but still slowly diminishing and replacing more & more real knowledge by uncertainty, disputed significance and the continuously increasing ingenuities of the ritualist, the grammarian and the sectarian polemical disputant. When after the fall of the Buddhistic Mauryas, feeble successors of the great Asoka, first under Pushyamitra and his son and afterwards under the Guptas, Hinduism revived, a return to the old forms of the creed and the old Vedic scholarship was no longer possible. The old pre-Buddhistic Sanscrit was, to all appearance, a simple, vigorous, living language understood though not spoken by the more intelligent of the common people just as the literary language of Bengal, the language of Bankim Chandra, is understood by every intelligent Bengali, although in speech more contracted forms and a very different vocabulary are in use. But the new Sanscrit of the revival tended to be more & more a learned, scholarly, polished and rhetorical tongue, certainly one of the most smooth, stately & grandiose ever used by human lips, but needing a special & difficult education to understand its grammar, its rhetoric, its rolling compounds and its long flowing sentences. The archaic language of the Vedas ceased to be the common study even of the learned and was only mastered, one is constrained to believe with less & less efficiency, by a small number of scholars. An education in which it took seven years to master the grammar of the language, became inevitably the grave of all true Vedic knowledge. Veda ceased to be the pivot of the Hindu religion, and its place was taken by the only religious compositions which were modern enough in language and simple enough in style to be popular, the Puranas. Moreover, the conception of Veda popularised by Buddhism, Sanscrit as the more common & popular means of religious propaganda and by giving them a literary position and repute, it made a general return to the old generality of the Vedic studies practically impossible. For the Vedas were written in an ancient form of the literary tongue the real secret of which had already been to a great extent lost even to the learned; such knowledge of it as remained, subsisted with difficulty by means of a laborious memorising and a traditional scholarship, conservative indeed but still slowly diminishing and replacing more & more real knowledge by uncertainty, disputed significance and the continuously increasing ingenuities of the ritualist, the grammarian and the sectarian polemical disputant. When after the fall of the Buddhistic Mauryas, feeble successors of the great Asoka, first under Pushyamitra and his son and afterwards under the Guptas, Hinduism revived, a return to the old forms of the creed and the old Vedic scholarship was no longer possible. The old pre-Buddhistic Sanscrit was, to all appearance, a simple, vigorous, living language understood though not spoken by the more intelligent of the common people just as the literary language of Bengal, the language of Bankim Chandra, is understood by every intelligent Bengali, although in speech more contracted forms and a very different vocabulary are in use. But the new Sanscrit of the revival tended to be more & more a learned, scholarly, polished and rhetorical tongue, certainly one of the most smooth, stately & grandiose ever used by human lips, but needing a special & difficult education to understand its grammar, its rhetoric, its rolling compounds and its long flowing sentences. The archaic language of the Vedas ceased to be the common study even of the learned and was only mastered, one is constrained to believe with less & less efficiency, by a small number of scholars. An education in which it took seven years to master the grammar of the language, became inevitably the grave of all true Vedic knowledge. Veda ceased to be the pivot of the Hindu religion, and its place was taken by the only religious compositions which were modern enough in language and simple enough in style to be popular, the Puranas. Moreover, the conception of Veda popularised by Buddhism, a Scripture of ritual and of animal sacrifice, persisted in the popular mind even after the decline of Buddhism and the revival of great philosophies ostensibly based on Vedic authority. It was under the dominance of this ritualistic conception that Sayana wrote his great commentary which has ever since been to the Indian Pundit the one decisive authority on the sense of Veda. The four Vedas have definitely taken a subordinate place as karmakanda, books of ritual; and to the Upanishads alone, in spite of occasional appeals to the text of the earlier Scriptures, is reserved that aspect of spiritual knowledge & teaching which alone justifies the application to any human composition of the great name of Veda.
But in spite of this great downfall the ancient tradition, the ancient sanctity survived. The people knew not what Veda might be; but the old idea remained fixed that Veda is always the fountain of Hinduism, the standard of orthodoxy, the repository of a sacred knowledge; not even the loftiest philosopher or the most ritualistic scholar could divest himself entirely of this deeply ingrained & instinctive conception. To complete the degradation of Veda, to consummate the paradox of its history, a new element had to appear, a new form of intelligence undominated by the ancient tradition & the mediaeval method to take possession of Vedic interpretation. European scholarship which regards human civilisation as a recent progression starting yesterday with the Fiji islander and ending today with Haeckel and Rockefeller, conceiving ancient culture as necessarily primitive culture and primitive culture as necessarily half-savage culture, has turned the light of its Comparative Philology & Comparative Mythology on the Veda. The result we all know. Not only all vestige of sanctity, but all pretension to any kind of spiritual knowledge or experience disappears from the Veda. The old Rishis are revealed to us as a race of ignorant and lusty barbarians who drank & enjoyed and fought, gathered riches & procreated children, sacrificed and praised the Powers of Nature as if they were powerful men & women, and had no higher hope or idea. The only idea they had of religion beyond an occasional sense of sin and a perpetual preoccupation with a ritual barbarously encumbered with a mass of meaningless ceremonial details, was a mythology composed of the phenomena of dawn, night, rain, sunshine and harvest and the facts of astronomy converted into a wildly confused & incoherent mass of allegorical images and personifications. Nor, with the European interpretation, can we be proud of our early forefa thers as poets and singers. The versification of the Vedic hymns is indeed noble and melodious,though the incorrect method of writing them established by the old Indian scholars, often conceals their harmonious construction,but no other praise can be given. The Nibelungenlied, the Icelandic Sagas, the Kalewala, the Homeric poems, were written in the dawn of civilisation by semi-barbarous races, by poets not superior in culture to the Vedic Rishis; yet though their poetical value varies, the nations that possess them, need not be ashamed of their ancient heritage. The same cannot be said of the Vedic poems presented to us by European scholarship. Never surely was there even among savages such a mass of tawdry, glittering, confused & purposeless imagery; never such an inane & useless burden of epithets; never such slipshod & incompetent writing; never such a strange & almost insane incoherence of thought & style; never such a bald poverty of substance. The attempt of patriotic Indian scholars to make something respectable out of the Veda, is futile. If the modern interpretation stands, the Vedas are no doubt of high interest & value to the philologist, the anthropologist & the historian; but poetically and spiritually they are null and worthless. Its reputation for spiritual knowledge & deep religious wealth, is the most imposing & baseless hoax that has ever been worked upon the imagination of a whole people throughout many millenniums.
1.11 - Legend of Dhruva, the son of Uttanapada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.11 - The Kalki Avatar, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
of the Avatars dates from the Puranas, in other words from
a traditional view that saw the evolution of the cosmos as
1.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"There are two schools of thought: the Vednta and the Purana. According to the Vednta this world is a 'framework of illusion', that is to say, it is all illusory, like a dream. But according to the Purana, the books of devotion, God Himself has become the twenty-four cosmic principles. Worship God both within and without.
"As long as God keeps the awareness of 'I' in us, so long do sense-objects exist; and we cannot very well speak of the world as a dream. There is fire in the hearth; therefore the rice and pulse and potatoes and the other vegetables jump about in the pot. They jump about as if to say: 'We are here! We are jumping!' This body is the pot. The mind and intelligence are the water. The objects of the senses are the rice, potatoes, and other vegetables. The 'I-consciousness' identified with the senses says, 'I am jumping about.' And Satchidananda is the fire.
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
not the lesser Swarga of the Puranas or the lesser Brahmaloka of
the Mundaka Upanishad, its world of the sun's rays to which the
1.12 - Dhruva commences a course of religious austerities, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.12 - The Divine Work, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
of the Bhagavata Purana, "I desire not the supreme state with
all its eight siddhis nor the cessation of rebirth; may I assume
1.12 - THE FESTIVAL AT PNIHTI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"The Truth established in the Vedas, the Puranas, and the Tantras is but one Satchidananda. In the Vedas It is called Brahman, in the Puranas It is called Krishna, Rma, and so on, and in the Tantras It is called iva. The one Satchidananda is called Brahman, Krishna, and iva."
The devotees were silent.
1.13 - Posterity of Dhruva, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.13 - THE MASTER AND M., #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The Master returned to his room. After bowing to the Divine Mother, he clapped his hands and chanted the sweet names of God. A number of holy pictures hung on the walls of the room. Among others, there were pictures of Dhruva, Prahlada, Kli, Radha-Krishna, and the coronation of Rma. The Master bowed low before the pictures and repeated the holy names. Then he repeated the holy words, "Brahma-tm-Bhagavan; Bhagavata-Bhakta-Bhagavan; Brahma-akti, akti-Brahma; Veda, Purana, Tantra, Git, Gayatri." Then he said: "I have taken refuge at Thy feet, O Divine Mother; not I, but Thou. I am the machine and Thou art the Operator", and so on.
Master extols Narendra
--
MASTER: "Yes, there is only One without a second. The Vedas speak of It as 'Om Satchidananda Brahma', the Puranas as 'Om Satchidananda Krishna,' and the Tantra as 'Om Satchidananda iva'.
"The Chitakti, as Mahamaya, has deluded all with ignorance. It is said in the Adhytma Rmyana that when the rishis saw Rma, they prayed to Him in these words only: 'O
1.14 - Descendants of Prithu, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.14 - INSTRUCTION TO VAISHNAVS AND BRHMOS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Therefore one should not show disrespect to any religion or religious opinion. It is God alone who is called Satchidananda Brahman in the Vedas, Satchidananda Krishna in the Puranas, and Satchidananda iva in the Tantras. It is one and the same Satchidananda.
"There are different sects of Vaishnavas. That which is called Brahman in the Vedas is called lekh-Niranjan by one Vaishnava sect. 'lekh' means That which cannot be pointed out or perceived by the sense-organs. According to this sect, Radha and Krishna are only two bubbles of the lekh.
1.14 - The Supermind as Creator, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
0:All things are self-deployings of the Divine Knowledge. Vishnu Purana.1
1:A PRINCIPLE of active Will and Knowledge superior to Mind and creatrix of the worlds is then the intermediary power and state of being between that self-possession of the One and this flux of the Many. This principle is not entirely alien to us; it does not belong solely and incommunicably to a Being who is entirely other than ourselves or to a state of existence from which we are mysteriously projected into birth, but also rejected and unable to return. If it seems to us to be seated on heights far above us, yet are they the heights of our own being and accessible to our tread. We can not only infer and glimpse that Truth, but we are capable of realising it. We may by a progressive expanding or a sudden luminous self-transcendence mount up to these summits in unforgettable moments or dwell on them during hours or days of greatest superhuman experience. When we descend again, there are doors of communication which we can keep always open or reopen even though they should constantly shut. But to dwell there permanently on this last and highest summit of the created and creative being is in the end the supreme ideal for our evolving human consciousness when it seeks not self-annulment but self-perfection. For, as we have seen, this is the original Idea and the final harmony and truth to which our gradual self-expression in the world returns and which it is meant to achieve.
1.15 - The world overrun with trees; they are destroyed by the Pracetasas, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.16 - Inquiries of Maitreya respecting the history of Prahlada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.17 - Legend of Prahlada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.17 - M. AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"It is said in the Purana that God, in His Incarnation as the Sow, lived happily with His young ones even after the destruction of Hiranyksha. As the Sow, He nursed them and forgot all about His abode in heaven. At last iva killed the sow body with his trident, and God, laughing aloud, went to His own abode."
In the afternoon Bhavanath arrived. Rkhl , M., Harish, and other devotees were in the room.
1.17 - The Seven-Headed Thought, Swar and the Dashagwas, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Not that the names given them by the Purana need be those which the Vedic tradition would have given.
The Seven-Headed Thought, Swar and the Dashagwas 175 the Truth and as singing the hymn to Indra. According as the
--
Observe that in the Puranas the Yugas, moments, months, etc. are all symbolic and it is stated that the body of man is the year.
178
--
Chit-Tapas and Ananda; their base is Swar of the Veda, Mahar of the Upanishads and Puranas, the world of Truth.4 These four together make the fourfold fourth world and are described in the Rig Veda as the four supreme and secret seats, the source of the "four upper rivers". Sometimes, however, this upper world seems to be divided into two, Swar the base, Mayas or the divine beatitude the summit, so that there are five worlds or births of the ascending soul. The three other rivers are the three lower powers of being and supply the principles of the three lower worlds.
This secret well of honey is drunk by all those who are able to see Swar and they pour out its billowing fountain of sweetness in manifold streams together, tam eva visve papire svardr.so bahu sakam sisicur utsam udrin.am. These many streams poured out together are the seven rivers poured down the hill by Indra after slaying Vritra, the rivers or streams of the Truth, r.tasya dharah.; and they represent, according to our theory, the seven principles of conscious being in their divine fulfilment in the Truth and
In the Upanishads and Puranas there is no distinction between Swar and Dyaus; therefore a fourth name had to be found for the world of Truth, and this is the Mahar discovered according to the Taittiriya Upanishad by the Rishi Mahachamasya as the fourth Vyahriti, the other three being Swar, Bhuvar and Bhur, i.e. Dyaus, Antariksha and Prithivi of the Veda.
The Seven-Headed Thought, Swar and the Dashagwas 179
1.18 - Hiranyakasipu's reiterated attempts to destroy his son, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.18 - M. AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Weeping, I prayed to the Mother: 'O Mother, reveal to me what is contained in the Vedas and the Vednta. Reveal to me what is in the Purana and the Tantra.' One by one She has revealed all these to me.
"Yes, She has taught me everything. Oh, how many things she has shown me! One day She showed me iva and akti everywhere. Everywhere I saw the comunion of iva and akti. iva and akti existing in all living things-men, animals, trees, plants. I saw them in the communion of all male and female elements.
1.18 - The Human Fathers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is to be noted that the Puranas distinguish specifically between two classes of Pitris, the divine Fathers, a class of deities, and the human Ancestors, to both of whom the pin.d.a is offered. The Puranas, obviously, only continue in this respect the original Vedic tradition.
188
1.19 - Dialogue between Prahlada and his father, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.19 - THE MASTER AND HIS INJURED ARM, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Process of negation and affirmation & God Himself has become everything MASTER: "God alone is the Master, and again, He is the Servant. This attitude indicates Perfect Knowledge. At first one discriminates, 'Not this, not this', and feels that God alone is real and all else is illusory. Afterwards the same person finds that it is God Himself who has become all this-the universe, maya, and the living beings. First negation and then affirmation. This is the view held by the Puranas. A vilwa-fruit, for instance, includes flesh, seeds, and shell. You get the flesh by discarding the shell and seeds. But if you want to know the weight of the fruit, you cannot find it if you discard the shell and seeds. Just so, one should attain Sarchidananda by negating the universe and its living beings. But after the attainment of Satchidananda one finds that Satchidananda Itself has become the universe and the living beings. It is of one substance that the flesh and the shell and seeds are made, just like butter and buttermilk.
The world does not exist apart from God
1.19 - The Victory of the Fathers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Agni, Satya, Tapas and Jana of the Puranas, which correspond to these three infinities of the Deva and each fulfils in its own way the sevenfold principle of our existence: thus we get the series of thrice seven seats of Aditi manifested in all her glory by the opening out of the Dawn of Truth.3 Thus we see that the achievement of the Light and Truth by the human fathers is also an ascent to the Immortality of the supreme and divine status, to the first name of the all-creating infinite Mother, to her thrice seven supreme degrees of this ascending existence, to the highest levels of the eternal hill (sanu, adri).
This immortality is the beatitude enjoyed by the gods of which Vamadeva has already spoken as the thing which Agni has to accomplish by the sacrifice, the supreme bliss with its thrice seven ecstasies (I.20.7). For he proceeds; "Vanished the darkness, shaken in its foundation; Heaven shone out (rocata dyauh., implying the manifestation of the three luminous worlds of Swar, divo rocanani); upward rose the light of the divine Dawn; the
1.200-1.224 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Maharshi has been looking into the Siva Purana this day. He says:
Siva has the transcendental and immanent aspects as represented by
12.09 - The Story of Dr. Faustus Retold, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In our Puranas too we see whenever and wherever the Rishis assemble and start doing tapasya, the hostiles they are called rakshasasrush in, try to break their tapasya, even kill them. The akshasas are the embodiments of the dark forces, agents and armies of the Devil himself. The Rishis had to seek refuge in the help of the gods, that is to say, take refuge in the strength and sincerity of their souls, that is the only way to safety and security, to the achievement of their goal.
I may dwell here upon a characteristic feature in the matter of rakshasas, they are a special type of hostile force. Rakshasas are well known for their greed for human flesh, the flesh of animals is the usual food for animals that take flesh excepting perhaps the Royal Bengal Tiger, even then it is said they do so only when compelled, but for the rakshasas the human fleshnara mansais a supreme delicacy; sweet, very sweet indeed it is to the tongue of the rakshasa. But is it really sweet? Is there a special reason for such a predilection in them for human flesh? Here is an explanation. It occurs to me that human flesh is really sweet; the human body has been sweetened because it contains something which the other animals do not have, it is precisely the thing that we were talking about just now, because the human body enshrines a soul, and the soul is the source of all sweetness. Thus, since the body holds the soul in it, the body itself becomes sweet by contact or infusion. The rakshasas have come to know of it, that is to say, not the soul but the sweetness that the soul induces in the material flesh. There must be some truth in the suggestion. Consequently a rishi's body must be all the more appetising to the rakshasa, for it must contain a larger store of sweetness, a rishi's body enshrining a larger and greater soul in view of his rishihood.
1.20 - Visnu appears to Prahlada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.21 - A DAY AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"According to the Puranas, the bhakta and the Bhagavan are two separate entities. 'I'
am one and 'You' are another. The body is a plate, as it were, containing the water of mind, intelligence, and ego. Brahman is like the sun. It is reflected in the water.
--
(To M.) "This is for you. All scriptures-the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras-seek Him alone and no one else, only that one Satchidananda. That which is called Satchidananda Brahman in the Vedas is called Satchidananda Shiva in the Tantra. Again it is He alone who is called Satchidananda Krishna in the Puranas."
The Master was told that now and then Ram cooked his own food at home.
1.21 - Families of the Daityas, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.22 - ADVICE TO AN ACTOR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
God, the scripture, and the devotee are identical "Keshab conducted the prayer that evening at the bathing-ghat on the river. After the worship I said to him: 'It is God who manifests Himself, in one aspect, as the scriptures; therefore one should worship the sacred books, such as the Vedas, the Puranas, and the Tantras. In another aspect He has become the devotee. The heart of the devotee is God's drawing-room. One can easily find one's master in the drawing-room. Therefore, by worshipping His devotee, one worships God Himself.'
"Keshab and his followers listened to my words with great attention. It was a full-moon night. The sky was flooded with light. We were seated in the open court at the top of the stairs leading to the river. I said, 'Now let us all chant, "Bhagavata-Bhakta-Bhagavan." '
1.22 - Dominion over different provinces of creation assigned to different beings, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
1.240 - 1.300 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Maharshi: Yes, in the Upanishads, the Suta Samhita (Skanda Purana),
Bhagavata, Bharata and other works.*
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Maharshi: Yes, in the Upanishads, the Suta Samhita (Skanda Purana),
Bhagavata, Bharata and other works.*
--
The Puranas which record this incident have also said that Siva had previously saved the Devas and the universe by consuming the poison halahala at the time of churning the ocean of milk. He, who could save the world from the deadly poison and lead the sages to emancipation, had also wandered nude amongst their women. Their actions are incomprehensible to ordinary intellects. One must be a
Jnani to understand a Jnani or Isvara.
--
Three persons came on a short visit; the eldest of them asked: There is one process of creation mentioned in the Upanishads and another in Puranas. Which of them is true?
M.: They are many, and meant to indicate that the creation has a cause and a creator should be posited so that one might seek the cause. The emphasis is on the purpose of the theory and not on the process of creation. Moreover, the creation is perceived by someone. There are no objects without the subject, i.e., the objects do not come and tell you that they are, but it is you who says that there are the objects.
1.25 - ADVICE TO PUNDIT SHASHADHAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"He who is described in the Vedas is also described in the Tantras and the Puranas. All of them speak about the one Satchidananda. The Nitya and the Lila are the two aspects of the one Reality. It is described in the Vedas as 'Om Satchidananda Brahman', in the Tantras as 'Om Satchidananda iva', the ever-pure iva, and in the Puranas as 'Om Satchidananda Krishna'. All the scriptures, the Vedas, the Puranas, and the Tantras, speak only of one Satchidananda. It is stated in the Vaishnava scripture that it is Krishna Himself who has become Kli."
Sri Ramakrishna went to the porch for a few minutes and then returned. As he was going out, Vishvamvhar's daughter, six or seven years old, saluted him. On returning to the room, the Master began talking to the little girl and her companions, who were of the same age.
1.26 - FESTIVAL AT ADHARS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
M: "That is why you attract people so much. Sir, I have a question to ask. There are two opinions in the scriptures. According to one, Purana, Krishna is Chidatma, the Absolute, and Radha is Chitakti, Its Divine Power; but according to another, Krishna Himself is Kli; the Primordial Energy."
MASTER: "This second view is held in the Devi Purana. According to it, Kli Herself has become Krishna; But what difference does it make? God is infinite, and infinite are the ways to reach Him."
M. remained speechless with wonder for a few moments and then said: "Oh, now I understand. As you say, the important thing is to climb to the roof. Our goal will be achieved if we can accomplish it by following any of the means-a rope or a pole."
--
M: "He knows how to sing the stories of the Purana. He sings melodiously about the life of Prahlada and the nativity of Sri Krishna."
MASTER: "Is that so? That day I looked into his eyes. They had an inward look. I asked him whether he meditated a great deal, but he sat with his eyes cast down and didn't answer. Then I said to him, 'Look here, don't strain yourself too much.' "
1.27 - AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Therefore I salute both. It is written in the Chandi: 'The Divine Mother is the good fortune of the blessed and the ill fortune of the unlucky.' (To Bhavanath) Is that mentioned in the Vishnu Purana?"
BHAVANATH (smiling): "I don't know, sir. The devotees from Konnagar did not understand your samdhi and were about to leave the room."
1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
The Puranas which record this incident have also said that Siva had previously saved the Devas and the universe by consuming the poison halahala at the time of churning the ocean of milk. He, who could save the world from the deadly poison and lead the sages to emancipation, had also wandered nude amongst their women. Their actions are incomprehensible to ordinary intellects. One must be a
Jnani to understand a Jnani or Isvara."
--
Three persons came on a short visit; the eldest of them asked: There is one process of creation mentioned in the Upanishads and another in Puranas. Which of them is true?
M.: They are many, and meant to indicate that the creation has a cause and a creator should be posited so that one might seek the cause. The emphasis is on the purpose of the theory and not on the process of creation. Moreover, the creation is perceived by someone. There are no objects without the subject, i.e., the objects do not come and tell you that they are, but it is you who says that there are the objects.
1.3.2.01 - I. The Entire Purpose of Yoga, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
are the basis of the sevenfold world of the Puranas (Satyaloka,
Tapas, Jana, Mahar, Swar, Bhuvar & Bhur).
1.35 - The Tao 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I also studied all varieties of Asiatic philosophy, especially with regard to the practical question of spiritual development, the Sufi doctrines, the Upanishads, the Sankhra, Veda and Vedanta, the Bhagavad-Gita and Purana, the Dammapada, and many other classics, together with numerous writings on the Tantra and Yoga of such men as Patanjali, Vivekananda, etc., etc. Not a few of these teachings are as yet wholly unknown to scholars. I made the scope of my studies as comprehensive as possible, omitting no school of thought however unimportant or repugnant.
I made a critical examination of all these teachers in the light of my practical experience. The physiological and psychological uniformity of mankind guaranteed that the diversity of expression concealed a unity of significance. This discovery was confirmed, furthermore, by reference to Jewish, Greek, and Celtic traditions. One quintessential truth was common to all cults, from the Hebrides to the Yellow Sea; and even the main branches proved essentially identical. It was only the foliage that exhibited incompatibility.
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Someone remarked: It is said that they get mukti unasked who live or die within a radius of 30 miles round Arunachala. It is also admitted that only by jnana is liberation obtained. The Purana also remarks that Vedanta Vijnana is difficult to get. So mukti is difficult. But life or death round about the Hill bestows mukti so easily. How can it be?
M.: Siva says, By My command. Those who live here need no initiation, diksha, etc., but get mukti.. Such is the comm and of Siva.
D.: The Purana also says that those who are born here are Sivas group of followers, such as ghosts, spirits, disembodied beings, etc.
M.: So it is said of other kshetras as well, e.g., Tiruvarur, Chidambaram.
1.450 - 1.500 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Someone remarked: It is said that they get mukti unasked who live or die within a radius of 30 miles round Arunachala. It is also admitted that only by jnana is liberation obtained. The Purana also remarks that Vedanta Vijnana is difficult to get. So mukti is difficult. But life or death round about the Hill bestows mukti so easily. How can it be?
M.: Siva says, "By My command." Those who live here need no initiation, diksha, etc., but get mukti.. Such is the comm and of Siva.
D.: The Purana also says that those who are born here are Siva's group of followers, such as ghosts, spirits, disembodied beings, etc.
M.: So it is said of other kshetras as well, e.g., Tiruvarur, Chidambaram.
1915 11 26p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The experience you have described is Vedic in the real sense, though not one which would easily be recognised by the modern systems of Yoga which call themselves Vedic. It is the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine
***
1958-08-15 - Our relation with the Gods, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You will understand better what I want to tell you if I mention the gods of the Puranaslike those we saw the other day in the filmwho in many ways are, I must say, inferior to man (!) although they have infinitely more power.
There are gods of the Overmind who are the great creators of the earthuntil now. There are the gods of the Vedas who are mentioned in everything that has come down from the Rishis. And there are the gods of the Supermind, those who are going to manifest on earth, although of course they exist from all eternity on their own plane.
Here Sri Aurobindo is speaking mostly about the Vedic gods, but not exclusively nor in a very definite way. At any rate these gods are higher than the gods of the Puranas.
Here is what Sri Aurobindo tells us.
1960 06 08, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The story of Krishna, as related in the Bhagavat Purana.
***
1.rmd - Raga Basant, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Hindi O my brother, where shall I go, why should I wander? The pleasure I seek is in my very own home. My mind will not stray, for my heart is now steadfast. One day, a yearning arose in my heart, and I went with sandal shavings and essence and so many perfumes, so I could worship Brahma in the temple. But then the guru told me that the Brahma I sought dwelt in my very own heart. Wherever I went I met only water and stone -- but You remain all-pervasive and forever unchanging. I read and searched all the Vedas and the Puranas; I go to them if I do not find Him here. O my true guru, I am your handmaid, your living sacrifice, for you have cut away all my hardened doubts, all my great fears. Ramananda's lord is the all-pervasive Brahma -- a guru's word can destroy a million sins. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass
2.01 - AT THE STAR THEATRE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"The Saktas follow the Tantra, and the Vaishnavas the Purana. There is no harm for the Vaishnavas in speaking publicly of their spiritual practices. But the Saktas maintain secrecy about theirs. For this reason it is difficult to understand a Sakta.
(To Goswami) "You are all good people. How much japa you practise! How much you chant the name of Hari!"
--
(To the devotees) "God made me pass through the disciplines of various paths. First according to the Purana, then according to the Tantra. I also followed the disciplines of the Vedas. At first I practised sadhana in the Panchavati. I made a grove of tulsi-plants and used to sit inside it and meditate. Sometimes I cried with a longing Heart, 'Mother!
Mother!' Or I again, 'Rma! Rma!'
--
"I vowed to the Divine Mother that I would kill myself if I did not see God. I said to Her: 'O Mother, I am a fool. Please teach me what is contained in the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, and the other scriptures.' The Mother said to me, 'The essence of the Vednta is that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory.'The Satchidananda Brahman described in the Vedas is the Satchidananda iva of the Tantra and the Satchidananda Krishna of the Purana. The essence of the Git is what you get by repeating the word ten times. It is reversed into 'tagi', which indicates renunciation.
"After the realization of God, how far below lie the Vedas, the Vednta, the Purana, the Tantra! (To Hazra) I cannot utter the word 'Om' in samdhi. Why is that? I cannot say 'Om' unless I come down very far from the state of samdhi.
"I had all the experiences that one should have, according to the scriptures, after one's direct perception of God. I behaved like a child, like a madman, like a ghoul, and like an inert thing.
2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The Vishnu Purana
Disciple: Are the incidents related in the Purana about Krishna's life psychic representations created by the poet, or do they correspond to facts that had occurred in his life on earth?
Sri Aurobindo: From the reading itself of the Purana you can know whether the killing of the Asura is a physical fact or not. You can't take all literally, in the physical sense. There is a mixture of facts, tradition, psychic experience as well as history.
The poet is not writing history, he is writing only poetry: he may have got it from the psychic intuitive plane or from his imagination, from the psycho-mental plane or from any other.
--
Disciple: I find the Vishnu Purana very fine.
Sri Aurobindo: In the Vishnu Purana all the aspects of a Purana are nicely described. It is one of the Puranas I have gone through carefully. I wonder how it has escaped the general notice: it is magnificent poetry.
There is a very fine and humourous passage in which a disciple asks the Guru whether the king is riding the elephant, or the elephant the king?
--
Sri Aurobindo: I don't know, but he appears very real in the Purana. It is also the most anti-Buddhist Purana I believe.
Disciple: Then it must have been composed very late!
--
Sri Aurobindo: This Purana is not so early as that. All the Puranas, in fact, are post-Buddhistic. They are a part of the Brahmanic revival which came as a reaction against Buddhism in the Gupta period.
Disciple: They are supposed to have been written in or about the 3rd or 4th century A.D.
Sri Aurobindo: Most probably. In the Vishnu Purana, Buddha is regarded as an Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by name but is called Mayamoha. The reference to Buddha is very clear; it repeats "Buddhyaswa! Buddhyaswa." This Purana is a fine work.
18 JANUARY 1939
2.02 - Meeting With the Goddess, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
works of secular and religious law; (3) Purana, which are the Hindu mytho
logical and epic works par excellence; these treat of cosmogonie, theological,
2.02 - THE DURGA PUJA FESTIVAL, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Both the Vedas and the Puranas describe pure food and conduct. But what the Vedas and the Puranas ask people to shun as impure is extolled by the Tantra as good.
Master's divine madness
2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
and one only. All the Smritis, the Puranas, the Darshanas, the
Dharmashastras, the writings of Shaktas, Shaivas, Vaishnavas,
--
Maheshwara. This is what the Puranas represent as Vishnu on
the Serpent of Time & Space in the Causal Ocean & Brahma
2.03 - THE MASTER IN VARIOUS MOODS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"One can attain everything through bhakti yoga. I wept before the Mother and prayed, 'O Mother, please tell me, please reveal to me, what the yogis have realized through yoga and the jnanis through discrimination.' And the Mother has revealed everything to me. She reveals everything if the devotee cries to Her with a yearning heart. She has shown me everything that is in the Vedas, the Vednta, the Puranas, and the Tantra."
MANILAL: "And what about hathayoga?"
--
MASTER: "A person dying in Benares sees the vision of iva. iva says to him: 'This is My aspect with form, My embodiment in my. I assume this form for the sake of the devotees. Now look. I am merging in the indivisible Satchidananda!' Uttering these words, iva withdraws His form and enables the dying person to see Brahman. "The Puranas say that even a chandala endowed with love of God achieves liberation.
According to this school the name of God is enough to liberate a soul. There is no need of such things as worship, sacrifice, the discipline of Tantra, and the recitation of mantras.
2.04 - ADVICE TO ISHAN, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Names and forms are nothing but the manifestations of the power of Prakriti. Sita said to Hanuman: 'My child, in one form I am Sita, in another form I am Rma. In one form I am Indra, in another I am IndRani. In one form I am Brahma, in another, Brahmani. In one form I am Rudra, in another, Rudrani.' Whatever names and forms you see are nothing but the manifestations of the power of Chitakti. Everything is the power of Chitakti-even meditation and he who meditates. As long as I feel that I am meditating, I am within the jurisdiction of Prakriti. (To M.) Try to assimilate what I have said. One should hear what the Vedas and the Puranas say, and carry it out in life.
(To the pundit) "It is good to live in the company of holy men now and then. The disease of worldliness has become chronic in man. It is mitigated, to a great extent, in holy company.
2.04 - On Art, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
[1] In his editorial article "The Mithuna in Indian Art" (Rupam, April-July, 1925) Gangooly quotes (p. 60) the phrase "Mithunaih Vibhushayet" decorate with couples from Prasda Lakshanam, 105, Shloka 30 (Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta, 1873, p. 356). The phrase occurs in Agni Purana.
[2] In A Defence of Indian Culture, subsequently published under the title The Foundations of Indian Culture.
2.05 - VISIT TO THE SINTHI BRAMO SAMAJ, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Therefore, as long as a man is conscious of 'I' and of differentiation, he cannot speak of the attributeless Brahman and must accept Brahman with attri butes. This Brahman with attri butes has been declared in the Vedas, the Puranas, and the Tantra, to be Kli, the Primal Energy."
Way to Brahmajnana
2.08 - AT THE STAR THEATRE (II), #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The story of Sridm is narrated in the Brahma-vaivarta Purana.
Kedr, who was a government official, had been living at Dcc for sometime. He had been transferred there from Calcutta. He was a devotee of Sri Ramakrishna and had gathered together at Dcc many devotees, who came to him regularly for spiritual instruction. As one should not come empty handed to a religious man, the devotees would bring Kedr sweets and other offerings.
2.09 - On Sadhana, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Humanity is the only field of manifestation and all gains must be brought down to that plane, i.e., to the plane of the ordinary consciousness. In order to do that, the Truth and nothing else must be demanded, otherwise one gets something mental, emotional or vital and is satisfied with it. Till now, humanity has only got glimpses of the Truth, but not the Truth itself. Every spiritual movement has tended to do the same and has helped the realisation of it to a certain extent. The Vaishnavite religion wanted to bring the Truth into the vital and the aesthetic being and it remained satisfied with it. The Vaishnavites indulged themselves, you may say, spiritually, and the austerity of the effort was lost. The Vedic Rishis had the conception of the Truth but in the prevailing conditions it could not be brought down for humanity. The Upanishads have got the conception of the Truth but it is only a statement of it and there is no idea of bringing it down. Mainly, theirs is the working of the intuitive mentality. Then came the intellectual philosophies which were only intellectual and the Puranas followed.
If the Supramental is brought into the physical then it might tend to endure, because Matter, though limited, is the one thing certain on this plane. If a number of men can reach this condition, then in course of time it may become a permanent force in mankind. It would certainly bring new forces into play in the universe and change the present balance of universal forces.
2.1.03 - Man and Superman, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the Indian view it is the individual that evolves from birth to birth and the hierarchy of the vegetal, animal, human kinds [is] a fixed unchanging ladder for its ascent. A successive creation of higher and higher species is envisaged in the Upanishads as well as the Puranas and heredity affirmed as a means of conscious continuity of the human embodiment of the Spirit, but still the evolution is individual and not cosmic, spiritual not physical. Yet here too this persistent phenomenon of spiritual embodiment appearing from the bodiless Spirit and evolving back into the bodiless Spirit seems to be devoid of significance.
If stripped of their limitations the two discoveries can be regarded as complementary rather than disparate. There is evidently an evolution; Matter first manifests out of the Formless - inanimate in appearance; in Matter life manifests unconscious in appearance; in life mind manifests in the animal but instinctive and irrational in appearance; in life-mind thinking mind appears rational but yet self-ignorant in appearance, - for it seeks to know but yet does not know the secret and significance of its own existence. It is not yet undisputed but it is affirmed that in thinking man spirit is moving towards manifestation, spirit aware of itself and of its own secret and significance. Thus far at least an evolution is indisputable and we may affirm without hesitation that there is a cosmic Existence here which first achieves a material manifestation of itself or a manifestation in itself, a material formula, then on that basis a life formulation, a vital formula, on that again a mental formulation, a mind formula. It is possible that on that again it is preparing a spiritual formulation of self-affirmation and self-knowledge which will complete the emergence.
2.12 - On Miracles, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: The Puranas state that the span of life is different in different cycles. Is it a fact? For instance, Rama is said to have lived eleven thousand years.
Sri Aurobindo: That is nothing! (Laughter)
2.13 - THE MASTER AT THE HOUSES OF BALARM AND GIRISH, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Do you know who the gopis were? Ramachandra was wandering in the forest where sixty thousand rishis dwelt. They were very eager to see Him. He cast a tender glance at them. According to a certain Purana, they were born later on as the gopis of Vrindvan."
A DEVOTEE: "Sir, who may be called an antaranga?"
2.17 - THE MASTER ON HIMSELF AND HIS EXPERIENCES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"For three days I wept continuously. And He revealed to me what is in the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, and the other scriptures.
Master's vision of my
2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: In the Vishnu Purna all the aspects of Vishnu are nicely described. It is one of the Puranas I have read through carefully. I wonder how it has escaped general notice because it is magnificent poetry.
There is a humorous passage in it, where a disciple asks the Guru whether the king is on the elephant or the elephant on the king. (Laughter)
--
Sri** Aurobindo:** I don't know. But it sounds very real in the Purana, where it is placed.
It is also the most anti-Buddhist Purana.
Disciple: Then it must have been written late.
--
Sri Aurobindo: It is not so early as that; all the Puranas are posterior to Buddhism. They are a part of the Brahminical revival which came as a reaction against Buddhism in the Gupta period.
Disciple: The Puranas, even the earliest, are supposed to have been written about the 3rd or the 4th century A.D.
Sri Aurobindo: Most probably. In the Vishnu Purna, Buddha is regarded an Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by that name but is called Mayamoha. The reference to Buddha is very clear; it repeats, "Budhyaswa! Budhyaswa!" It is a fine work.
2.18 - SRI RAMAKRISHNA AT SYAMPUKUR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"It is said in the Purana that Ravana had an excess of rajas, Kumbhakarna of tamas, and Bibhishana of sattva. That is why Bibhishana was able to receive the grace of Rma.
Another characteristic of tamas is anger. Through anger one loses one's wits and cannot distinguish between right and wrong. In a fit of anger Hanuman set fire to Lanka, without thinking for a moment that the fire might also burn down the hut where Sita lived.
2.19 - THE MASTER AND DR. SARKAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "There reason withers away. God cannot be realized through scholarship. He is beyond the scriptures-the Vedas, Puranas, and Tantras. If I see a man with even one book in his hand, I call him a rajarshi though he is a Jnni. But the brahmarshi has no outer sign whatsoever.
Use of scriptures
2.20 - THE MASTERS TRAINING OF HIS DISCIPLES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"It is said in the Purana that Bhagavati, the Divine Mother, was once born as the daughter of King Himalaya. After Her birth She showed Her father Her many forms. The Lord of the mountains, after enjoying all these visions, said to the Divine Mother, 'May I have the vision of Brahman as It is described in the Vedas!' Then the Divine Mother answered, 'Father, if you want to have the vision of Brahman you must live in the company of holy men.'
"What Brahman is cannot be described in words. Somebody once said that everything in the world has been made impure, like food that has touched the tongue, and that Brahman alone remains undefiled. The meaning is this: All scriptures and holy books-the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, and so forth-may be said to have been defiled because their contents have been uttered by the tongues of men; but what Brahman is no tongue has yet been able to describe. Therefore Brahman is still undefiled. One cannot describe in words the joy of play and communion with Satchidananda. He alone knows, who has realized it."
Egotism condemned
2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: There is a story of Ajamil in the Puranas to support the efficacy of repeating the Name.
Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon the psychic being. If it is touched and wakens and throws its influence on the other parts of the nature, then Name and Kirtan have a value.
--
Disciple: That makes the conflict between the Devas and the Asuras as represented in the Puranas very realistic even for our times. Because generally the Devas used to get beaten by the Asuras and run for protection to Mahakali or Rudra or Vishnu.
Sri Aurobindo: It is only the intervention of the Divine that can become effective, for in this Hitler and Stalin affair it is the descent of the whole vital world on this earth. That is what has puzzled most people, especially the intellectuals who were thinking in terms of idealism. They never expected such a thing; and now when it has come they don't understand how it has come and what is to be done. They deny the existence of the worlds beyond the physical and so they are bound to be perplexed.
2.21 - IN THE COMPANY OF DEVOTEES AT SYAMPUKUR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Shall I tell you the truth? What will you gain by mere scholarship? The pundits hear many things and know many things-the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras. But of what avail is mere scholarship? Discrimination and renunciation are necessary. If a man has discrimination and renunciation, then one can listen to him. But of what use are the words of a man who looks on the world as the essential thing?
"What is the lesson of the Git? It is what you get by repeating the word ten times. As you repeat 'Git', 'Git', the word becomes reversed into 'tagi', 'tagi'-which implies renunciation. He alone has understood the secret of the Git who has renounced his attachment to 'woman and gold' and has directed his entire love to God. It isn't necessary to read the whole of the Git. The purpose of reading the book is served if one practises renunciation."
2.23 - Man and the Evolution, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In fact, the idea of the priority of the lower forms of life is not altogether absent in ancient thinking. Apart from mythical accounts of creation, we find already in ancient and mediaeval thought in India utterances that favour the priority of the animal over man in the time succession in a sense that agrees with the modern evolutionary conception. An Upanishad declares that the Self or Spirit after deciding on life creation first formed animal kinds like the cow and horse, but the gods, - who are in the thought of the Upanishads powers of Consciousness and powers of Nature, - found them to be insufficient vehicles, and the Spirit finally created the form of man which the gods saw to be excellently made and sufficient and they entered into it for their cosmic functions. This is a clear parable of the creation of more and more developed forms till one was found that was capable of housing a developed consciousness. In the Puranas it is stated that the tamasic animal creation was the first in time. Tamas is the Indian word for the principle of inertia of consciousness and force: a consciousness dull and sluggish and incompetent in its play is said to be tamasic; a force, a life-energy that is indolent and limited in its capacity, bound to a narrow range of instinctive impulses, not developing, not seeking farther, not urged to a greater kinetic action or a more luminously conscious action, would be assigned to the same category. The animal, in whom there is this less developed force of consciousness, is prior in creation; the more developed human consciousness, in which there is a greater force of kinetic mindenergy and light of perception, is a later creation. The Tantra speaks of a soul fallen from its status passing through many lacs of births in plant and animal forms before it can reach the human level and be ready for salvation. Here, again, there is implied the conception of vegetable and animal life-forms as the lower steps of a ladder, humanity as the last or culminating development of the conscious being, the form which the soul has to inhabit in order to be capable of the spiritual motive and a spiritual issue out of mentality, life and physicality. This is indeed the normal conception, and it recommends itself so strongly both to reason and intuition that it hardly needs debate, - the conclusion is almost unescapable.
It is against this background of a developing evolutionary process that we have to look at man, his origin and first appearance, his status in the manifestation. There are here two possibilities; either there was the sudden appearance of a human body and consciousness in the earth nature, an abrupt creation or independent automatic manifestation of reasoning mentality in the material world intervening upon a previous similar manifestation of subconscious life-forms and of living conscious bodies in Matter, or else there was an evolution of humanity out of animal being, slow perhaps in its preparation and in its stages of development, but with strong leaps of change at the decisive points of the transition. The latter theory offers no difficulty: for it is certain that changes of characteristics in the type, though not of the fundamental type itself, can be brought about in species or genus, - indeed this has already been done by man himself and its possibilities are being strikingly worked out on a small scale by experimental Science, - and it may fairly be assumed that the secretly conscious Energy in Nature could effect largescale operations of the kind and bring about considerable and decisive developments by means of its own creative conventions.
2.25 - AFTER THE PASSING AWAY, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
He and his brother disciples, filled with an ascetic spirit, devoted themselves day and night to the practice of spiritual discipline. Their one goal in life was the realization of God. They followed to their hearts' content the injunctions prescribed in the Vedas, Puranas, and Tantras for an ascetic life. They spent their time in japa and meditation and study of the scriptures. Whenever they would fail to experience the Divine Presence, they would feel as if they were on the rack. They would practise austerity, sometimes alone under trees, sometimes in a cremation ground, sometimes on the bank of the Ganges. Again, sometimes they would spend the entire day in the meditation room of the monastery in japa and contemplation; sometimes they would gather to sing and dance in a rapture of delight. All of them, and Narendra particularly, were consumed with the desire to see God. Now and then they would say to each other, "Shall we not starve ourselves to death to see God?"
Monday, February 21, 1887
--
Narendra and the other members of the math often spent their evenings on this roof. There they devoted a great deal of lime to discussion of the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, Sankaracharya, Ramanuja, and Jesus Christ, and of Hindu philosophy, European philosophy, the Vedas, the Puranas, and the Tantras.
Narendra, who had a beautiful voice, used to sing in the room o£ the "danas" and teach music to Sarat and a few others. Kali used to take lessons on the instruments. Many, many happy hours they spent together in that hall, dancing and singing.
2.25 - List of Topics in Each Talk, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
| 26-03-24 | Life-span in Puranas; Rama and Krishna; mastery over body, supramentalising the body |
| 24-04-24 | Cou's method of cure; psychic phenomena and cure; local politics |
2.3.07 - The Vital Being and Vital Consciousness, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Heavens are childish things; even the gods, says the Purana, must come down to earth and be embodied there if they want mukti, giving up the pride of their limited perfection - they must enter into the last finite if they want to reach the last infinite. A poem is not a philosophical treatise or a profession of religious faith
- it is the expression of a vision or an experience of some kind,
2.4.02 - Bhakti, Devotion, Worship, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3) Ravana, Hiranyakashipu, Shishupala were the greatest devotees of the Divine because they were capable of hostility to the Divine and so were liberated in a few livescompared with them the great Rishis and Bhaktas were very poor spiritual vessels. I am aware of the paradox about Ravana in the Purana, but let me point out that these Asuras and Rakshasas did not pretend to be disciples or worshippers of Rama or Krishna or Vishnu or use their position as disciples to get moksha by revolt they got it by being enemies and getting killed and absorbed into the Godhead.
4) Obedience to the Guru, worship of the Divine are all tommy rot and fit only for sheep, not men. To turn round furiously on the Guru or the Divine, abuse him, express contempt, challenge his sincerity, declare his actions to be wrong, foolish or a trickto assert oneself as right at every point and his judgment as mistaken, prejudiced, absurd, false, a support of devils etc. etc. is the best way of devotion and the true relation between Guru and Shishya. Disobedience is the highest respect to the Guru, anger and revolt are the noblest worship one can give to the Divine.
30.10 - The Greatness of Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is really deplorable that the ideal of vulgarity, the King of kings in expressing vulgar ideas, is an Indian. His name must needs be mentioned, for his creations are replete with vulgarity and they are spread all around like poisonous air. It is not that at present he lacks disciples and worshippers. Now who is that notability? He is our Ravi Varma. Curiously enough, his themes are mostly taken from the Puranas, that is to say, his heroes and heroines are the gods and goddesses. But what of that? He has seen them in his own light - with the eyes of an ultra-modern vulgarian. Just recollect to your memory his painting, The Descent of the Ganges.What does Mahadeva look like? He is a great wrestler like Gama or Kikkar Singh but with matted hair, wearing a tiger skin; he stands gazing at the sky with his legs apart. And the river Ganges? A film star with her hair dishevelled jumps out of an aeroplane and glides down! And colour? It is sheer gaudiness. I do not know if the vivid expression of vulgarity has attained a better perfection anywhere else than in the works of Ravi Varma. No doubt, there is a plebeian literature as well as a plebeian art which is simple to the extreme. These are the immature creations of the immature creator, who do not make a high claim to display in their creations. Neither do they have any ambition to do so. They express perfectly what they are. But in the painting of Ravi Varma there is an extravagant endeavour to display something infinitely more than what one actually possesses. So the presence of vulgarity is simply unbearable, nay, past correction.
Verily the greatness of the poet is the greatness of the inner consciousness. And the expression of his inner consciousness is the essence of his poetic creation. So long as this inner consciousness is vigilant and active in the poet, his creations and activities never suffer in manners. His creations will not be vitiated by gross touches. He alone is a great poet whose consciousness is hardly clouded, although it is said that even 'Homer nods'; to me the lesser poet is he who at times breaks through the cloud, and a non-poet is he who is ever strongly shrouded with indelible cloud.
32.04 - The Human Body, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a tradition that if the inhabitants of the other worlds - the Demons, the Giants, the Titans and even the Gods - want liberation or seek to be raised to a higher or to the highest status, then they have to come down to the earth and be born as men. In this human body alone the sadhana for ascension is possible. To use the language of the Puranas, the other worlds are the fields for enjoyment while this earth is the field for work. That means the other worlds are the regions for some definite and fixed qualities. They are typal existences. The inherent quality of any of them does not change. One's own nature or one's own accumulated actions find their manifestation. One spends and enjoys there. But to acquire new merit, to introduce a new trend in one's nature, to turn its course, one will have to accept this human body. For, as we have said at the outset, man is a combination of all the planes of creation. Therefore, the consciousness can go up and come down and can stay on any level. It can be said that in man there is, like his very spine, a stair of consciousness - the Vedic seer has spoken of the possibilities of going up as on a bamboo ladder. But the most secret mystery is this that in man there is that unique part - the divine heart-cave - which is the fount of a new sight and a new creation and which guides and gives sanction for the change and the return, and which is the open and illumined gate towards the supreme fulfilment, the highest consciousness, an immortal bridge between this world and the other worlds. All want to possess and enjoy the plenitude of the earth, and want to establish themselves in an embodied existence here on the earth. Men as well as the denizens of the other worlds - all of them are given one more and a greater opportunity. Many of them accept, some consciously, some unconsciously so that they may evolve without remaining confined to their own characteristic qualities for all time, may gain a footing on the ascending levels of consciousness and thus make a constant progress, nirarata(Rig Veda), may accept other qualities and transformation and thereby achieve the higher and the nobler existence. The human receptacle acts as a unique catalytic agent in this chemical progress.
A benediction, a divine Grace reposes on this apparently weak and perishable human body.
3.2.08 - Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The idea of a temporary Kingdom of heaven on earth is contained in the Puranas and conceived by some Vaishnava saints or poets; but it is a devotional idea, no philosophical basis is given for the expectation. I think the Tantric overcoming of imperfection is more individual, not collective.
***
3.2.4 - Sex, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The hldik akti is the Shakti of the Divine Ananda and Love taking possession of the whole being down to the vital and physical. But it is the Ananda and love of the Divine the spiritual, it cannot be turned to a human love and vital pleasure. It can have nothing to do with marriage. In your dream it was neither the divine nor the human that came, but a supernormal and supraphysical vital kma and joya being from that world intervening in the sleep and trying to take possession of what should be given only to the Divine. That is a particularly dangerous kind of intervention, so I had immediately to put you on your guard against it. It was of the nature of a supraphysical temptation such as the appearance of the Apsaras to the Tapaswis in the stories of the epics and Puranas. The other dreams were dreams of success and fame and were also of the vital plane. You need not be depressed by these ordeals in the subtle worlds; they come to all in one form or another; only you have to learn vigilance and find your way through these lesser planes to the highest, so that it may be the highest that will come down into you. When these trials come, it is a sign that you are advancing, for otherwise the Powers of these worlds, whether lesser gods or Daityas, would not take the trouble to test you.
***
33.07 - Alipore Jail, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This first phase of our life was over by the end of a month and a half. The scene now opened to still brighter prospects. As the authorities discovered that we meant no harm and were perfectly good boys, they offered us a much nicer place for our stay. It was a spacious hall divided into three compartments, with a verandah and a courtyard in front. And our daily ablutions were now to be performed outside. This second phase of our life became something truly remarkable. Outside, in court, we met everybody. Back home, in the jail, we could meet anyone we chose at any hour of the day or night. Gradually, the company began to take a particular form and shape. We formed ourselves into groups according to each one's taste and predilection. Thus the three compartments of the hall came to be divided into three distinct groups. Sri Aurobindo occupied a corner in a particular room. Hitherto he had been kept quite separate from us and this was the first time he came in our midst. In his room gathered all those who were interested in the spiritual life, in sadhana and meditation. Barin joined here. To the central section of the apartments came those who looked for some kind of mental culture, they were the more "intellectual" types. Here Upen took the lead and I too spent most of my time here because of him, The third compartment belonged to the atheists and rationalists, the so-called "practical" men, Hem Das and his chief disciple young Krishnajiban ruled here. The groups exchanged banter freely among themselves, but there was never any dearth of good feeling and friendship. It was again during this period itself that we got permission to read books, and a few volumes reached our hands. My people sent me Bacon's Essays,Shakespeare's King John- I still remember these titles - and several other titles of the type used in my college as textbooks. Some works of Vivekananda came and also the Brahmavaivarta and the Vishnu Puranas in the Basumati edition. All of these books we went through over and over again, times without number, for new books could not be had for the asking.
But questionings too began to arise: and what next? Must we rot in jail for the rest of our lives, say for ten years or perhaps twenty? And supposing some of us were to be hanged, that too did not seem to be a particularly desirable end. Barin got an idea: we must break out of jail. Our lives, he argued, were going to be wasted in any case, so why not do something worthwhile before we lost all? He consulted some of the others and began to form his plans. Even maps and charts got ready and contacts were established with co-workers outside, such as the Chandernagore group with men like Srish Ghosh at the top. The idea was to carry out the coup sometime in the evening when we were usually left at large in the pen compound of our ward. With pistols in hand, we were to rush to the compound wall. Our friends would be posted outside with their arms. From there they would throw in ropes and ladders. We would keep on shooting as we climbed up the wall and then jump on to the other side. From there we would make good our escape in carriages - there were no cars then - along a route fixed in advance and straight to the river-side. There the boats would be waiting. We would sail down the river and on to the Sunderbans and the deep jungle, as in the story of Debi Chowdhuraniof Bankim.
33.10 - Pondicherry I, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Soon after Sri Aurobindo came, he realised that a firm seat must be established here, an unshakable foundation for his sadhana and siddhi,for the path and the goal. He was to build up on the ever-shifting sands of the shore a firm and strong edifice, a Temple of God. Have we not read in the Puranas and other scriptures that whenever and wherever a sage or a Rishi sat down to his meditation and sadhana, there rushed' upon him at once a host of evil spirits to break up his work? They seemed to have a special liking for Rishi's flesh.
Those who tried most to stop Sri Aurobindo from settling down and were ever on the alert to move him from his seat were the British authorities. The British Government in India could- never accept that Sri Aurobindo had come away to French territory for carrying on his yoga. Religion and spirituality, these to them were a mere subterfuge. They thought they knew what Sri Aurobindo was - the one most dangerous man in all India, the source of all the trouble. Pondicherry was the place from where were supplied the necessary instructions and advice and perhaps even the pistols and other weapons. Here was the brain-centre of the Indian independence movement. That Sri Aurobindo had been the mainspring of Indian independence they had been told by their life-instinct, although the superficial sense in which they understood it was not obviously the whole truth.
36.07 - An Introduction To The Vedas, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
It is quite surprising that very few people in India have any acquaintance with the Vedas. Most have not been fortunate enough even to have a glimpse of this mighty work. But the fate of the Bible has been otherwise in Europe. The common run of people in India were satisfied with the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. And the learned few concerned themselves with the Upanishads and the six systems of philosophy. Even Rammohan Roy who infused the Hindus with a new spirit and light could not go beyond the domain of the Upanishads. Besides, the few who engaged themselves in a discussion of the Vedas confined themselves more to the commentaries on the Vedas than the Vedas proper. The grammar of Panini, Nirukta, the science of derivation of meanings from the roots, Mimamsa, the commentaries on the Vedas and, above all, the commentaries made by Sayana Acharya made it so difficult to understand the text of the Vedas that it looked like the peak of a mountain that could hardly be reached through deep and intricate forests. Whenever we heard the name of the Veda, we used to give wide berth to it with reverential awe. Our object here is not to discuss who or what is responsible for such a pass but simply to make a plain statement of the bare fact.
Europe made bold to launch an assault on this inaccessible fortress. There is no reason why the Europeans should have the same feeling of reverence as is aroused in our hearts at the mere mention of the Vedas. To them the Veda is but an ancient human product. They did not approach it to derive any cultural benefit from it. All that they wanted was to make themselves acquainted with the Aryan Hindus. The nebulous veil that existed round the Vedas was rent and set aside by them and they replaced it with the daylight of modern thought. We shall later on deal with what followed their rash attempt, but it must be admitted at the very outset that, inspired by their example, the Hindus mustered courage to delve into the Vedas. And what did the European scholars, freed from bias, discover? They found that the unusual reverence of the Hindus for these scriptures was simply due to the traditional superstition devoid of any rational cause. According to them, the Vedas are the first attempt of man at literature. They are a mere collection of pastoral songs comparable to the lispings of a baby. Man in his uncultured and innocent state used to feel every object infused with life and imagined spirits behind the forces Nature. Therefore he prayed to Indra and Varuna for rain, to the Sun for its rays of light. Frightened by the hurricane and storm he would implore the Maruts for safety, and harmed by the soothing beauty of Dawn he would sing her eulogy.
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Not to speak of the Upanishads, even in the Puranas, the Mahabharata and such other scriptures we come across many peculiarities worth noticing. If we just carefully study these religious books of ours, we do learn that there are many names, places, stories and legends which are but outer garments or transfigurations of some truth-principles. One or two instances will serve our purpose. According to the Puranas the name of Surya's wife samja - "consciousness". If we accept the Vedic meaning of Surra as the source of truth, then it does not become difficult for us to understand the significance of this word. Again, let us take the word "Goloka". Goloka is the dwelling-place of Vishnu. If we take the word "go" for light, the light of supernal knowledge, then devanamuparistacca gavah prativasanti vai ("The Ray-Cows dwell even above the gods") of the Mahabharata can no longer remain abstruse or ambiguous to us.
Now the legend of Savitri-Satyavan arrests our attention. The very names Savitri and Satyavan are immediately inspiring truths. In the Vedas the Truth-Sun is synonymous with Savitr. As Purusha he is Satyavan, and Savitri is his Shakti. Every aspirant is aware of the fact that it is the Truth's own faith and power that can free the Truth from the grip of Matter, Ignorance and Death. However, one may not believe that whatsoever the Puranas say must be based on some truth or other. Nevertheless, we do not hesitate to assert that at the core of the teaching of the Puranas there lies a truth-secret - a Vedic or Upanishadic realisation. The Puranas too have an esoteric meaning based on the truth of the Vedic and Upanishadic realizations which have been colourfully related in the form of stories and legends for the easy comprehension of the masses.
To be sure, the Puranas cannot be accepted as commentaries on the Vedas. No, not even the Upanishads can dare claim to be so. The Vedas alone are the proper commentaries on the Vedas. And to understand the Vedas no other book can be our guide save the Vedas. No doubt, the Upanishads stand quite close to them, and they abundantly possess the Vedic ideas. But at the same time we must know that the dissimilarities too are not negligible. The concept of Matter in the Vedas and the concept of Spirit in the Upanishads - even if we fail to find a connecting link between the two, still we can be sure that the Vedas and the Upanishads are the two principles of one spirituality. To repeat it once again, we should first endeavour to understand the easy and clear portions of the Vedas and then try to discover their more abstruse and obscure truths. And we have sought to explain to our readers that the interpretation attempted here, the spiritual interpretation, means an interpretation of the basic principle of the Veda.12
(3)
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According to the Puranas the Seers who collected these Vedic mantras are named Vedavyasas. They are as many as twenty-eight successive Vedavyasas whose successive efforts gave the Veda its present form. The last Vedavyasa who divided the Veda into four parts is Krishnadwaipayana Vedavyasa, the author of the Mahabharata. And it is said that in future there will come up another Vyasa of the name of Draunivyasa to rearrange the Veda once more.
There are indications to suppose that the mantras of the Rigveda were meant for the fire-worshippers, and the mantras of the Samaveda for the worshippers of the Sun, and those of Yajurveda for the worshippers of Vayu, the life-principle. However, we refrain at present from going into the details of the matter. In the concluding paragraphs we shall observe whether or not the classification of the Vedas has been in any way regulated by the different methods of spiritual discipline.
36.08 - A Commentary on the First Six Suktas of Rigveda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
The first group begins with the invocation of the twin Riders. Who are these Riders? According to the narration of the Puranas, the Aswinikumaras are generally known as the twin heavenly physicians. It means, they drive away disease, decay and incapacity from the being and make the life-energy pure, sound and indomitable. In other words, they are the gods of immortality. Their work is to found immortality and an eternal youth of divinity in life. Pranavayu,which is the conveyance of the divine power, has been symbolically expressed as the horses. It may be asked why they have the twin forms. Perhaps it is because the one gives knowledge, the other the energy for work. Both are the presiding deities of immortality and both of them embody the most benevolent delight. Hence they are called Subhaspati.Also they are called Purubhuja,for they bring into life the divine enjoyment in. profusion. However, the one gives much importance to the energy of work, the other to the powerful pure intelligence. Whatever may be the difference in their outlook, they are the twin faces of one and the same God. The two horsemen open the fount of that very divine exhilaration in life by which there awakes and ascends an upward flame in the being of the aspirant. As the aspirant has been the possessor of an intense diversified delight, he is now able to proceed farther and farther, higher and higher by sacrificing his lower aspiration to the higher one. It is an immortalised life-energy that makes all the realisation effective, real and beautiful. It infuses spirit and power into the intelligence. The aspirant is endowed with an occult power of hearing and is initiate with the power of mantras which expresses and manifest the Truth. That is why the twin gods are called Nasatya(the Guides on the path). They are the leaders in our spiritual adventure. They lead us speedily through the different levels of consciousness to the vast ocean of the higher truth.
The second group of riks: The spiritual delight and to immortal power of life will found themselves in a calm, pill and firmly rooted basis of the entire being. And this immortal delight will lead the spiritual practicant to the Divine Mind, to the pure Intelligence, to the realm of Indra. An ordinary man is unable to have a glimpse of the higher mind, the pure Intelligence because he is confined to the narrow limits of the lower material world and his life abounds wit restless, impure and hurtful desires. It is not by a gross inert inspiration but by a subtle inward power that the enjoyment of life must be purified and divinised. Then only the slot of the mind will be replaced by the divine Intelligence. With the divine Intelligence of Indra the aspirant enjoys a pure delight in life. It is Indra who fills the different aspects each object with a luminous truth. The inspiration surcharged with the effulgent knowledge of Indra will bring down and manifest in the aspirant the delightful truth of the Self which is the main support of the divine in the aspirant.
36.09 - THE SIT SUKTA, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
The theme of this sukta is to awaken the power of Indra with the help of his followers, the Maruts. Who are the Maruts? We find in the Puranas that Vayu (the Wind-God) in the womb of Diti(the consciousness of duality) had been divided into forty-nine parts by the Lord Indra. As a result, the Maruts, sub-divisions or various forms of Wind, came into existence. We also know that Vayu is the life-energy and Indra is the divine mental being. Ditiis the divided consciousness, the source of multiplicity. Aditimeans the undivided, indivisible and infinite consciousness. When the wave of life-energy rises into the mind and expresses itself as multiple thoughts, it turns into Maruts. In the Rigveda the God Marut has always been invoked and worshipped along with Indra. That is to say, without Indra, the mental being, the Maruts, the mental faculties, have no separate existence.
The seat of pure mind is a chariot. The chariot signifies movement and it is the emblem of the spiritual progress. The spiritual adventure of the purified mind gradually rises up. The movement of the purified mind is at- once free and vast. Division and littleness are not to be found there. It is fully illumined by the light of knowledge. The purified mind is replete with thought-powers, in other words, the Maruts. And it is the Maruts who help the mind in its march towards the Goal.
3.8.1.05 - Occult Knowledge and the Hindu Scriptures, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The first three questions are of a curious interest, the last two cover a very wide field. All except the fourth belong more or less to a kind of knowledge pursued with eager interest by a growing number of inquirers, but still looked on askance by the human mind in general, - the occult sciences. The Hindu Scriptures and books of philosophy do not as a rule handle such questions very directly or in any systematic fashion. They are concerned either with the great and central questions which have always occupied the human mind, the origin and nature of the universe, the why, whence and whither of life, the highest good and the means of attaining it, the nature of man and the destiny of the human soul and its relation with the Supreme, or else they deal with the regulation of ethics, society and the conduct of daily life. Occult knowledge has been left to be acquired by occult teaching. Nevertheless it was possessed by the ancient sages and our correspondent will find a great deal of more or less scattered information on these and cognate questions in the Veda, Upanishads and Puranas. But it is doubtful whether he would obtain a satisfactory answer to his queries in the form in which he has put them. He will find for instance a long description of invisible
452
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worlds, - invisible, that is to say, to our physical senses, - in the Vishnu Purana, but it is picturesque rather than precise. We do not think he will find much about the constituents of the worlds or the size of subtle bodies.
The form of the third question lends itself to misconception.
3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
is an echo of this use in the Vishnu Purana when it is said that
Vishnu is born in the Satya Yuga as Yajna, in the Treta as the
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The Vishnu Purana tells us that Vishnu in the Satya Yuga
incarnates as Yajna, in the Treta as the conqueror and king, in the
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ideas of Veda, Purana, Tantra and every practical system in Hinduism. Agni is par excellence the warrior whom the Daityas most
dread, because he is full of the ahaituka tapas, against which,
7.16 - Sympathy, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When he rested and ate, his younger brother sat at his side and shared the meal. When the hero went to the house of his Guru to study, he learnt the four Vedas as others might learn a game or a song. Having filled his mind with the Vedas and the Puranas, he had no wish to keep the sacred words in the secrecy of his heart. He taught them to his brother.
Just as kindness loves to share good knowledge, it also loves to share good news. For example, how great was Hanuman's joy when he could give joy to others. Listen:
9.99 - Glossary, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Bharadvaja: A sage mentioned in the Purana.
Bharata: A name of Arjuna; also a name of India.
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Durvasa: A sage with a very angry disposition, described in the Purana.
Duryodhana: One of the heroes of the Mahabharata, the chief rival of the Pandava brothers.
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Kalki: The name of the next and last Incarnation, according to the Purana.
kalmi: An aquatic creeper with numerous ramifications.
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kathak: A professional reciter of stories from the Purana in an assembly.
Katyayani: A name of the Divine Mother.
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Nrisimha: (Lit., Man-lion) A Divine Incarnation mentioned in the Purana.
Nyaya: Indian Logic, one of the six systems of orthodox Hindu philosophy, founded by Gautama.
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Prahlada: A great devotee of Vishnu, whose life is described in the Purana. While a boy, he was tortured for his piety by his father, the demon King Hiranyakasipu. The Lord, in His Incarnation as Man-lion, slew the father.
Prakriti: Primordial Nature, which, in association with Purusha, creates the universe. It is one of the categories of the Samkhya philosophy.
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Purana(s): Books of Hindu mythology.
purascharana: The repetition of the name of a deity, attended with burnt offerings, oblations, and other rites prescribed in the Vedas.
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Sukracharya: A holy man described in the Purana, and the spiritual preceptor of the asuras or demons.
Sumbha and Nisumbha: Two demons slain by the Divine Mother. The story is told in the Chandi.
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Vasishtha: The name of a sage mentioned in the Purana.
Vasudeva: The father of Sri Krishna.
BOOK II. -- PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS., #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
* In the Purana it is identified with Vishnu's or Brahma's Sveta Dwipa of Mount Meru.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 367 HERMES IN ASTRONOMY AND ELSEWHERE.
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and then compare it with the same in the Puranas -- the exoteric version thereof, and the purposely
garbled account of the true Wisdom religion. In the Rig Veda Indra is the highest and greatest of the
Gods, and his Soma-drinking is allegorical of his highly spiritual nature. In the Puranas Indra becomes
a profligate, and a regular drunkard on the Soma juice, in the terrestrial way. He is the conqueror of all
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point to the secret meaning of the myth. In India we find the fact mentioned in the earliest Puranas.
The children of Surasa are the "mighty Dragons." The Vayu Purana replacing "Surasa" (of Vishnu
Purana) by Danayas or Danavas -- the descendants of Danu by the sage Kasyapa -- and those Danavas
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* He is thus named and included in the list of the Danavas in Vayu Purana; the Commentator of
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd2-1-22.htm (3 von 24) [06.05.2003 03:36:12]
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Bhagavata Purana calls him a son of Danu, but the name means also "Spirit of Humanity."
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 382 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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it out approximately only by studying the Puranas, if we will have nought to do with the Secret
teachings.
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his fanciful theories about the British islands being the "White Island," the Atala of the Puranas. This
was sheer nonsense, as the Atala is one of the seven dwipas, or islands, belonging to the nether lokas,
one of the seven regions of Patala (the antipodes). Moreover, as Wilford* shows, the Puranas place it
"on
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Sun sets,' to fight the Dev-Sefid, or white devil, the Taradaitya of the Puranas, whose abode was on
the seventh stage of the world, answering to the seventh zone of the Buddhists, or the White Island."
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those who are not initiates. For there is not a statement in the Puranas -- on the conflicting details of
which Wilford based his speculations -- which has not several meanings, and does not apply to both
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Ocean, or Ocean of milk (the ever-frozen white region) in the Vishnu (and other) Puranas (Book II ch.
iv.). And Pushkara, with its two Varshas, lies directly at the foot of Meru. For it is said that "the two
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Pushkara" (Vishnu Purana, Asiatic Researches, etc.). Geographically, then, Pushkara is America,
Northern and Southern; and allegorically it is the prolongation of Jambu-dwipa* in the middle of
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* Every name in the Puranas has to be examined at least under two aspects; geographically, and
metaphysically, in its allegorical application; e.g., Nila, the (blue) mountain which is one of the
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dominion -- the world, limited in the Puranas to our globe, the region which contains Meru only, and
again it is divided to contain Bharata-varsha (India), its best division, and the fairest, says Parasara.
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same nature as the Gods," (Vishnu Purana, Book II. ch. iv.). Wilford is inclined to see Meru in Mount
Atlas, and locates there also the Loka-lokas. Now Meru, we are told, which is the Swar-loka, the abode
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(A.R. III. 300); but he jumbled them still more. He believes that as the Brahmanda and Vayu Puranas
divide the old continent into seven dwipas, said to be surrounded by a vast ocean, beyond which lie the
--
as were those of the past. Therefore we find in the Puranas that Saka-dwipa is (or will be) a continent,
and that Sankha-dwipa, as shown in the Vayu Purana, is only "a minor island," one of the nine
divisions (to which Vayu adds six more) of Bharata Varsha. Because Sankha-dwipa was peopled by
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Indian Puranas, Greek writers, and Asiatic, Persian, and Mohammedan traditions. Wilford, who
confuses sorely the Hindu and the Mussulman legends, shows this, however, clearly. (See Vol. VIII., X.
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Asiatic Researches.) And his facts and quotations from the Puranas give direct and conclusive
evidence that the Aryan Hindus and other ancient nations were earlier navigators than the Phoenicians,
--
Surely, if the Hindu Puranas give a description of wars on continents and islands situated beyond
Western Africa in the Atlantic Ocean; if their writers speak of Barbaras and other people such as
--
Ocean) in the days of Phoenician navigation -- then their Puranas must be older than those Phoenicians
(placed at from 2,000 to 3,000 years B.C.). At any rate those traditions must have been older;* as -"In the above accounts," writes an adept, "the Hindus speak of this island as existing and in great
--
have demonstrated that the Brahmanas and Puranas, the Yathas and other Mazdean Scriptures,
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 410 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
--
whom mankind was produced" (Bhagavata Purana) is shown in the Aitareya Brahmana as pursued by
her father Brahma, who was moved by an illicit passion, and changed her into a deer. Hence Io,
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
(except the Puranas), preeminently by the Jewish Cosmogony. The last one, is that which is taught by
the Occult philosophy, as explained all along.
--
view of the statement in the Vishnu Purana, quoted by us elsewhere, that Daksha "established sexual
intercourse as the means of multiplication," only after a series of other "modes," which are all
--
continents, rather) as met with in the Puranas, namely: "The Dwipas form concentric rings, which,
separated by the ocean, surround Jambu Dvipa, which is situated in the centre" (p. 130, vol. I.), and,
--
* See Matsya Purana, which places him among the seven Prajapatis of the period.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 767 THE POWER OF NAMES.
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
"cloaking" the tenets, just as the Books of Hermes and the Puranas are Egyptian and Hindu attempts at
the same. The work was as well known in antiquity as it was during the Middle Ages. Maimonides
--
found in the Vishnu Purana, Book II., ch. xii., where, describing [[continued on following page]]
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 489 THE ONE PASSIVE DEITY.
--
left hand. When Vishnu Purana narrates that "the world was overrun with trees," while the Prachetasas - who "passed 10,000 years of austerity in the vast ocean" -- were absorbed in their devotions, the
allegory relates to the Atlanteans and the adepts of the early Fifth Race -- the Aryans. Other "trees
--
* Vishnu Purana, Book I., ch. xv.
** This is pure allegory. The waters are a symbol of wisdom and of occult learning. Hermes
--
offer a clue perhaps. In every Purana
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 498 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
--
A commentary on the Puranas says: "Ananta-Sesha is a form of Vishnu, the Holy Spirit of
Preservation, and a symbol of the Universe, on which it is supposed to sleep during the intervals of the
--
its contents, so the eye of the true philosopher reads between the lines of the Puranas the sublime
Vedic truths, and corrects the form with the help of the Vedantic wisdom. Our Orientalists, however,
--
There are many such "dark sayings" throughout Puranas, Bible and Mythology; and to the occultist
they divulge two facts: (a) that the ancients knew as well, and better, perhaps, than the moderns
--
the Healer and the Destroyer. In the Vishnu Purana, he is the god who springs from the forehead of
Brahma, who separates into male and female, and he is the parent of the Rudras or Maruts, half of
--
localisation of stars, planets and constellations. Thus in Bhagavata Purana V., xxx., it is said that "at
the extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed toward the South and whose body is in
--
nurses, as Matsya Purana shows, are presided over by Agni, or, in the au thentic words -- "The seven
Rishis are on a line with the brilliant Agni," and hence are called Agneya -- and the connection is easy
--
in the Bhagavata Purana XII., II, 2, 6, 32, and Vishnu Purana. Says the latter: "When the splendour of
Vishnu (Krishna) departed for heaven, then did the Kali Yug, during which men delight in sin, invade
--
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
--
the translator of Vishnu Purana, declares in his Preface that in the Garuda Purana he found "no
account of the birth of Garuda." Considering that an account of "Creation" in general is given therein,
--
** In other Puranas Jatayu is the son of Aruna, Garuda's brother, both the Sons of Kasyapa. But all
this is external allegory.
--
of Hiranyaksha, "whose number was 77 crores (or 770 millions) of men." (See Padma Purana.) All
such narratives are pronounced meaningless fictions and absurdities. But -- Truth is the daughter of
--
undeniably Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya philosophy, since it is so stated in the Puranas;
although one of them flatly denies the imputation without explaining its esoteric meaning. It is the
Bhagavata Purana (IX. viii., 12 and 13), which says that "the report that the sons of the King were
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The Purana is in duty bound to speak as it does. It has a dogma to promulgate and a policy to carry out
-- 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 explanation of the mystery
connected with various transcendental states of being. That the story is an allegory is seen upon its
--
this day in India (Vide Wilson's Vishnu Purana, Vol. III. p. 309). Have geologists ever calculated the
number of millenniums it has taken the sea to recede to where it is now, from Hardwar, 1,024 feet
--
the true number of years elapsed since Kapila's day is in the Puranas unmistakably, though the
translators fail to see it. And secondly -- the Kapila of the Satya, and the Kapila of the Kali-Yugas
--
very fact of Bhagavata Purana calling that Kapila -- which it showed just before as a portion of Vishnu
-- the author of Sankhya philosophy, ought to have warned the reader of a blind containing an esoteric
--
several well-known Kapilas in the Puranas. First the primeval sage, then Kapila, one of the three
"Secret" Kumaras; and Kapila, son of Kasyapa and Kadru -- the "many-headed Serpent," (See Vayu
--
by the whole range of Sanskrit literature, such as the Puranas and the laws of Manu. In these "Laws"
or "Ordinances of Manu," it is said that Brahma first creates "the ten lords of Being," the ten Prajapati
--
second is the title of the great patrons of Yogins (See "Saiva Puranas,") the Sons of, and even one
with, Rudra (Siva); a Kumara himself. It is through their connection with Man that the Kumaras are
--
In the Puranas, the number of the Kumaras changes according to the exigencies of the allegory. For
occult purposes their number is given in one place as seven, then as four, then as five. In the Kurma
--
other Puranas and sacred literature; so that the Orientalists, having to pick up the threads of connection
hither and thither, have ended by proclaiming the Kumaras "due chiefly to the fancy of the Puranic
--
All this is very puzzling to one who is unable to read and understand the Puranas except in their dead
letter sense.* Hence we find the Orientalists refusing to be puzzled, and cutting the Gordian knot of
--
previous creation or Manvantara, as expressed in the Puranas, or the pre-diluvian period as rendered
allegorically in the Bible -- in his Cosmic character.
--
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 611 THE SEPTENATE IN THE PuranaS.
his belief in an indefinite number of "primordial races of men created separately"; and remarks that,
--
texts, some still unopened, others yet unknown, as well as in all the Puranas, the numbers seven and
forty-nine (7 x 7) play a most prominent part. They are found from the Seven creations in Chapter I.,
--
material of the whole Universe. Thus the Matsya Purana has: "For the sake of promulgating the Vedas,
Vishnu, in the beginning of a Kalpa, related to Manu the story of Narasimha and the events of seven
Kalpas." Then again the same Purana shows that "in all the Manvantaras, classes of Rishis* appear by
seven and seven, and having established a code of law and morality depart to felicity" -- the Rishis
--
Vishnu" (Vish. Purana). Vishnu is the Universe; and the Universe itself is divided in the Rig Veda into
seven regions -- which ought to be sufficient authority, for the Brahmins, at all events.
--
Remembering that the Puranas insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time and Space*; and that even
the Rabbinical symbol for God is MAQOM, "Space," it becomes clear why, for purposes of a
--
Linga Puranas enumerate seven principal winds of that name, which winds are the principles of
Cosmic Space. They are intimately connected with Dhruva** (now Alpha), the Pole-Star, which is
--
not Vastubhuta," "a substance" (Vishnu Purana, Book II. ch. xii). "That which people call the highest
God is not a substance but the cause of it; not one that is here, there, or elsewhere, not what we see,
--
** Therefore it is said in the Puranas that the view of Dhruva (the polar star) at night, and of the
celestial porpoise (Sisumara, a constellation) "expiates whatever sin has been committed during the
--
The mysterious number is once more prominent in the no less mysterious Maruts. The Vayu Purana
shows, and Harivansa corroborates, that the Maruts -- the oldest as the most incomprehensible of all
--
and the Puranas, their mother, Diti -- the sister, or complement of, and a form of Aditi -- anxious to
obtain a son who would destroy Indra, is told by Kasyapa the Sage, that "if, with thoughts wholly
--
** With regard to the origin of Rudra, it is stated in several Puranas that his (spiritual) progeny,
created in him by Brahma, was not confined to either the seven Kumaras or the eleven Rudras, etc.,
--
(Linga, Vayu, Matsya, and other Puranas.)
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 614 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
--
in the Puranas, one thing is made clear: there have been and there will be seven Rishis in every RootRace (called also Manvantara in the sacred books) as there are fourteen Manus in every Round, the
"presiding gods, the Rishis and Sons of the Manus" being identical. (See Book III. ch. 1 of Vishnu
Purana.) "Six" Manvantaras are given, the Seventh being our own in the Vishnu Purana. The Vayu
Purana furnishes the nomenclature of the Sons of the fourteen Manus in every Manvantara, and the
--
[[Continued.from previous page]] of the Progenitors of mankind. All the Puranas speak of the seven
Prajapatis of this period (Round).
--
Manojava" (Mantradruma in the Bhagavata Purana). As there is a perfect analogy between the "great
Round" (Mahakalpa), each of the seven Rounds, and each of the seven great Races in every one of the
--
The same for the Septenary Division of Kosmos and human principles. The Puranas, along with other
sacred texts, teem with allusions to this. First of all, the mundane Egg which contained Brahma, or the
--
Vishnu Purana). It relates to spheres of being as much as to principles. Prithivi is not our Earth, but
the World, the Solar system, and means the broad, the Wide. In the Vedas -- the greatest of all
--
the Universal Ocean (of Space), which Brahma divides in the Puranas into seven zones, is Prithivi, the
world divided into seven principles; a cosmic division looking metaphysical enough, but, in reality,
--
* See the Puranas.
** In Vishnu Purana, Book II., chap. iv., it is stated that the EARTH, "with its continents, mountains,
oceans, and exterior shell, is fifty crores (500 millions) of yojanas in extent," to which the
--
fifty-four lakhs etc. . . . Whenever any contradictions in different Puranas occur, they have to be
ascribed . . . to differences of Kalpas and the like." "The like" ought to read "Occult meaning," which
--
(Voyage to Siberia, Vol. III., p. 19). But is all this a reason to say that when the Hindu Puranas say "a
solar year" they mean one solar day! It is the knowledge of the natural laws that make of seven the
--
Let the impartial critic compare the two accounts -- the Vishnu Purana and the Bible -- and he will
find that the "seven creations" of Brahma are at the foundation of the "week" of creation in Genesis i.
--
supernal creatures, i.e., made himself fourfold, or the manifest Quaternary (see Vishnu Purana, Book
I. ch. V.); and who, after that, is re-born in the seven Rishis, his Manasaputras, "mind-born sons," who
--
primal Progenitor -- Brahma (see Wilson's footnote in his Vishnu Purana, Vol. I., p. 102). Because
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expressed than is the four-fold Brahma in any of the Puranas. (See "Kabala Unveiled," by Mr. S. L.
Mathers, Chap. xxii., concerning the remaining members of Microprosopus).
--
Seven is also the great magic number. In the occult records the weapon mentioned in the Puranas and
the Mahabharata -- the Agneyastra or "fiery weapon" bestowed by Aurva upon his chela Sagara -- is
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
The Solar System in the Puranas ... 155
Oceans of Carbonic Acid? ... 159
--
------ARCHAIC TEACHINGS IN THE PuranaS AND GENESIS ... 251
From worm to man ... 255
--
sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Puranas in India, and the Chaldean Book of
Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that one small parent volume. Tradition says,
--
Svetasvatara Upanishad, I. 8, and Devi Bhagavata Purana. The author of the Four Lectures on the
Bhagavad Gita, says, in speaking of Mulaprakriti: "From its (the Logos') objective standpoint,
--
(lower fifth principle). It is beautifully expressed in a new translation of Vishnu Purana. "That Brahma
in its totality has essentially the aspect of Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (Mulaprakriti), and
--
to, and describe the seven great stages of the evolutionary process, which are spoken of in the Puranas
as the "Seven Creations," and in the Bible as the "Days" of Creation.
--
* It is stated in Book II., ch. viii., of Vishnu Purana: "By immortality is meant existence to the end of
the Kalpa;" and Wilson, the translator, remarks in a footnote: "This, according to the Vedas, is all that
--
"Mother of the World," as translated by Wilson (see Book I., Vishnu Purana); for Jagad Yoni (as
shown by FitzEdward Hall) is scarcely so much "the Mother of the World" or "the Womb of the
--
is explained in Vishnu Purana as: "that which is the unevolved cause, is emphatically called by the
most eminent sages Pradhana, original base, which is subtile Prakriti, viz., that which is eternal, and
--
all" (Vayu Purana); i.e., Brahma does not put forth evolution itself or create, but only exhibits various
aspects of itself, one of which is Prakriti, an aspect of Pradhana.
--
to have thoroughly comprehended the real sense of the verses in the Purana, that treat of "creation."
Therein Brahma is the cause of the potencies that are to be generated subsequently for the work of
--
stated in Vishnu Purana, where elements are translated "Envelopes" and a secret one is added: "Ahamkara" (see Wilson's Vishnu Purana, Book I., p. 40). The original text has no "Aham-kara;" it mentions
seven Elements without specifying the last three (see Part II. on "The Mundane Egg").
--
bearded. Apollo is originally bisexual, so is Brahma-Vach in Manu and the Puranas. Osiris is
interchangeable with Isis, and Horus is of both sexes. Finally St. John's vision in Revelation, that of the
--
Kumara in Vishnu Purana) will be explained in Book II. The "Sea of Fire" is then the Super-Astral
(i.e., noumenal) Light, the first radiation from the Root, the Mulaprakriti, the undifferentiated Cosmic
--
mention (in Bhagavata Purana) of a certain caste named "Hamsa" or "Hansa," which was the "one
caste" par excellence; when far back in the mists of a forgotten past there was among the Hindus only
--
terrestrial regions. Darkness generates light. See in the Puranas Brahma's "Will" or desire to create;
and in the Phoenician Cosmogony of Sanchoniathon the doctrine that Desire, [[pothos]], is the
--
shown by their contradicting each other, a different construction being found in almost every Purana
and epic poem. Read esoterically -- they will all yield the same meaning. Thus one account enumerates
--
their Shastras and Puranas, probably the latter, and in their modern translation moreover, which is
disfigured out of all recognition, by the Orientalists. It is to their philosophical systems that one has to
--
and even in the Puranas. It was a small portion of what is divulged far more fully now in the present
volumes; and even this is very incomplete and fragmentary.
--
Vidyas -- out of the seven branches of Knowledge mentioned in the Puranas -- namely, "YajnaVidya" (the performance of religious rites in order to
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
meaning. The great "Wars in Heaven," in the Puranas; the wars of the Titans, in Hesiod and other
classical writers; the "struggles," also in the Egyptian legend between Osiris and Typhon, and even
--
Light." . . . . . . (Vishnu Purana.)
Perhaps the above will be regarded as archaic nonsense, but it will be better comprehended, if the
--
distinctly male and female. It was the seventh creation, as in the Puranas, wherein man is the seventh
creation of Brahma.
--
which contain all the preceding. Panchasikha, agreeably to Bhagavata Purana (V. XX. 25-28), is one
of the seven Kumaras who go to Sveta-Dvipa to worship Vishnu. We shall see further on, what
--
Astral Light. Those unable to penetrate beyond the dead letter of the Puranas, have occasionally
confused Akasa with Prakriti, with Ether, and even with the visible Sky! It is true also that those who
--
material cause of sound" possessing, moreover, this one single property (Vishnu Purana), have
ignorantly imagined it to be "material," in the physical sense. True, again, that if the characteristics are
--
Pradhana even in the Puranas is an aspect of Parabrahmam, not an evolution, and must be the same as
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called "Eswara" Brahma, Bhava, etc. (See Linga Purana, sec. lxx. 12 et seq.; and Vayu Purana, but
especially the former Purana -- prior, section viii., 67-74). He is, in short, the "Creator" or the divine
mind in creative operation, "the cause of all things." He is
--
* The student has to note, moreover, that the Purana is a dualistic system, not evolutionary, and that, in
this respect, far more will be found, from an esoteric standpoint, in Sankhya, and even in the Manavadharma-Sastra, however much the latter differs from the former.
--
the "first-born" of whom the Puranas tell us that "Mahat and matter are the inner and outer boundaries
of the Universe," or, in our language, the negative and the positive poles of dual nature (abstract and
concrete), for the Purana adds: "In this manner -- as were the seven forms (principles) of Prakriti
reckoned from Mahat to Earth -- so at the time of pralaya (pratyahara) these seven successively reenter into each other. The egg of Brahma (Sarva-mandala) is dissolved with its seven zones (dwipa),
seven oceans, seven regions, etc." (Vishnu Purana, Book vi., ch. iv.)*
These are the reasons why the Occultists refuse to give the name of Astral Light to Akasa, or to call it
--
* No use to say so to the Hindus, who know their Puranas by heart, but very useful to remind our
Orientalists and those Westerns who regard Wilson's translations as authoritative, that in his English
translation of the Vishnu Purana he is guilty of the most ludicrous contradictions and errors. So on this
identical subject of the seven Prakritis or the seven zones of Brahma's egg, the two accounts differ
--
texts); and in vol. v., p. 198, of the same Vishnu Purana it is written, "in this manner were the seven
forms of nature (Prakriti) reckoned from Mahat to Earth" (?). Between Mahat or Maha-Buddhi and
--
stupendous and elaborate system: e.g., even in the exotericism of the Puranas. But such is the
mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied countless
--
Compare this with Vishnu Purana.
"From Pradhana (primordial substance) presided over by Kshetrajna (embodied Spirit?) proceeds the
--
end of the world; who is the root of the world, and who consists of the world." (Vish. Purana, Book L.)
This is a grand invocation, full of philosophical meaning underlying it; but, for the profane masses, as
--
sevenfold Sun and distinct from it," says Vishnu Purana (Book II., Chap. 1 1).
*** "In the same manner as a man approaches a mirror placed upon a stand, beholds in it his own
--
mirror that is there stationed" ("Vishnu Purana").
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* In "Vishnu" and other Puranas.
** See the Hermetic "Nature," "Going down cyclically into matter when she meets 'heavenly man.' "
BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
the Elements (say of fire) concealed in the Vedas, and especially in the Puranas, under allegories
comprehensible only to the Initiates. Had they no meaning, then indeed all those long legends and
--
phraseology of the Puranas, where (as in the Vayu Purana) many of the qualities of the personified
fires are explained. Thus, Pavaka is electric, or Vaidyuta, fire; Pavamana, the fire produced by friction,
--
fire of the Asuras. Now all this shows that the writers of the Puranas were perfectly conversant with
the "Forces" of Science and their correlations; moreover, with the various qualities of the latter in their
--
physical Forces, certain passages in his Puranas, if he would learn how much more his ancestors knew
than he will ever know -- unless he becomes an occultist. Let him turn to the allegory of Pururavas and
--
or else the writers of the Vedas and Puranas were no sacred writers but mystificators. That it has such
a meaning, the Hindu Occultists are a proof, and they alone are able to enlighten Science, as to why
--
Manu. The allegory is suggestive, in whatever Purana it may be read and studied.
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
* Book I. ch. II. Vishnu Purana, Fitzedward Hall's Translation.
** Vide preceding Section IX., "Life, Force, and Gravity," quotation from Anugita.
--
elephants, as easily as it would a dead rat. It is allegorised in the Vishnu Purana, in the Ramayana and
other works, in the fable about the sage Kapila whose glance made a mountain of ashes of King
--
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 587 PuranaS VERSUS ROYAL SOCIETY.
instance, the mystical signification, alchemical and transcendental, of the many imponderable
--
are thus proved unscientific. "Ether produced Sound" is said in the Puranas, and the statement is
laughed at. It is the vibrations in the air, we are corrected. And what is air? Could it exist if there were
--
the MAHAT (mind) and Prakriti of the Puranas, there is but a step. After all, the admission of this by
Science would be only the admission of a natural cause, whether it would or would not stretch its
--
And so it is considered in the exoteric Puranas, for Shekinah is no more than Sakti -- the female double
or lining of any god, in such case. And so it was with the early Christians whose Holy Spirit was
--
and Puranas. For what are the manifested "Mother," the "Father-Son-Husband" (Aditi and Daksha, a
form of Brahma, as Creators) and the "Son," -- the three "First-born" -- but simply Hydrogen, Oxygen,
--
every Hindu cosmogony in the Puranas; the practical demonstration thereof -- is in the hands of those
who will not be recognised in this century, save by the very few. The scientific possibilities of various
--
unlucky speculations in Hindu chronology and the Puranas by connecting the 4,320,000 years with
biblical chronology, simply dwarfing the figures to 4,320 years (the supposed lunar year of the
--
Hindu Puranas with the seven Manus, as well as the Chaldeo-Assyrian accounts, whose tiles mention
seven primitive men, or Adams, the real meaning of which name may be ascertained through the
--
ever green. The archaic teachings, and likewise the Puranas -- for one who understands the allegories
of the latter -- contain the same statements. Suffice, then, to us the strong probability that a people,
BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
not our Earth. Again, in every Purana, the calf changes name. In one it is Manu Swayambhuva, in
another Indra, in a third the Himavat (Himalayas) itself, while Meru was the milker. This is a deeper
--
groundwork in several personifications in the Puranas, only far more ample and philosophically
suggestive.
--
a "Son of God" too, and a God, and the mother of all the Pisachas (Padma Purana). The Demons, so
called in the Puranas, are very extraordinary devils when judged from the standpoint of European and
orthodox views about these creatures, since all of them -- Danavas, Daityas, Pisachas, and the
--
thy sacrifice cease. Mercy is the might of the righteous" (Vishnu Purana, Book i., ch. i.). Thus, every
such "sacrifice" or prayer to God for help is no better than an act of black magic. That which Parasara
--
latter defeated the Asuras. In the Vishnu Purana no interval is found between the two wars. In the
Esoteric Doctrine, one war takes place before the building of the Solar system; another, on earth, at
--
Buddha and the Daityas, in the Vishnu Purana, unless it was a fancy of Wilson himself. He also
fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in Bhagavatgita, whereas, as proved by K. T. Telang, he
--
other Puranas if the inference does, as Professor Wilson claims, in the "Vishnu Purana"; the
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Puranic texts. "I affirm," wrote the Colonel at Bombay, in 1840, "that the Puranas do not contain what
Professor Wilson has stated is contained in them . . . until such passages are produced I may be
allowed to repeat my former conclusions, that Professor Wilson's opinion, that the Puranas as now
extant are compilations made between the eighth and seventeenth centuries (A.D.!) rests solely on
--
futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable." (See Vishnu Purana, trans. by Wilson, edit. by
Fitzedward Hall, Vol. V., Appendix.)
--
and substance (rupa), the whole of this (Universe)." (Book III., ch. xvii., Vish. Purana.)
The above is quoted as an illustration of the vast field offered by the Puranas to adverse and erroneous
criticism, by every European bigot who forms an estimate of an alien religion on mere external
--
"The Puranas constantly teach incompatible doctrines! According to this passage, the Supreme being
is not the inert cause of creation only, but exercises the functions of an active providence. The
--
governs their conduct.' Incongruities, however, are as frequent in the Vedas as in the Puranas. . . . ."
Less frequent, in sober truth, than in the Mosaic Bible. But prejudice is great in the hearts of our
--
Vishnu by the defeated gods, the explanation is there, in the text of Vishnu Purana, if Orientalists
would only notice it.* There is Vishnu, as Brahma, and Vishnu in his two aspects, philosophy teaches.
--
In the Vishnu Purana this is made as plain as can be. For it is said there, that "at the conclusion of their
prayers (stotra) the gods beheld the Sovereign Deity Hari (Vishnu) armed with the conch, the discus,
--
(Genesis xii., Exodus) -- Vishnu is made in his Purana to resort to a trick no less unworthy of any
respectable god.
--
The Vishnu Purana,* like all other works of this kind, has passed at a later period into the hands of the
temple-Brahmins, and the old MSS. have, no doubt, been once more tampered with by sectarians. But
there was a time when the Puranas were esoteric works, and so they are still for the Initiates who can
read them with the key that is in their possession.
--
* Wilson's opinion that the "Vishnu Purana" is a production of our era, and that in its present form it
is not earlier than between the VIIIth and the XVIIth (!!) century, is absurd beyond noticing.
--
As the "Rig Vidhana" together with the "Brahmanda Purana" and all such works, whether describing
the magic efficacy of the Rig-Vedic Mantras or the future Kalpas, are declared by Dr. Weber and
others to be modern compilations "belonging probably only to the time of the Puranas," it is useless to
refer the reader to their mystic explanations; and one may as well quote simply from the archaic books
--
one set of names; in the Mahabharata under another set; and that the Vayu Purana makes even nine
instead of seven Rishis, by adding the names of Bhrigu and Daksha to the list. But the same occurs in
--
one of the Puranas that: "The great Architect of the World gives the first impulse to the rotatory
motion of our planetary system by stepping in turn over each planet and body." It is this action "that
--
(crude matter)" (Veda: "Vishnu Purana Commentary"); or literally: "One Pradhanika Brahma Spirit:
THAT was." The "Pradhanika Brahma Spirit" is Mulaprakriti and Parabrahmam.
In Vishnu Purana, Parasara says to Maitreya, his pupil: -- "I have thus explained to you, excellent
Muni, six creations. . . . the creation of the Arvaksrotas beings was the seventh, and was that of man."
--
The Seven Creations are found in almost every Purana. They are all preceded by what Wilson
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd1-2-13.htm (1 von 15) [06.05.2003 03:32:54]
--
In the Vishnu Purana, the whole seven periods are given, and the progressive Evolution of "SpiritSoul," and of the seven forms of matter (or principles) are shown. It is impossible to enumerate them
in this work. The reader is asked to peruse one of the Puranas.
"R. Yehudah began, it is written: 'Elohim said: Let there be a firmament, in the midst of waters. . . . .
--
Vishnu Purana and others. Thus Irenaeus writes of the Marcosians: "They maintain that first of all the
four elements, fire, water, earth and air, were produced after the image of the primary tetrad above,
--
produced cause comes by its proper nature." (Vishnu Purana.) "Seeing that the potencies of all beings
are under[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
Mahat," says Linga Purana; for the ONE (the That) is neither first nor last, but ALL. Exoterically,
however, this manifestation is the work of the "Supreme One" (a natural effect, rather, of an Eternal
--
It is on the right comprehension of this tenet in the Brahmanas and Puranas that hangs, we believe, the
apple of discord between the three Vedantin Sects: the Advaita, Dwaita, and the Visishtadvaitas. The
--
Vacuity).** In the "Vishnu Purana" it is said to proceed along, and belong to, the triple aspect of
Ahankara, translated Egotism, but meaning rather that untranslateable term the "I-AM-NESS," that
--
intermediate agents which produce effects." The sentence in Vishnu Purana: "As fragrance affects the
mind from its proximity merely, and not from any immediate operation upon mind itself, so the
--
identified with the supreme, into Prakriti or matter alone." He prefers the verse in Padma Purana: "He
who is called the male (spirit) of Prakriti . . . that same divine Vishnu entered into Prakriti." This
--
* All these sentences are quoted from "Vishnu Purana," Book I., ch. v.
** Vishnu is both Bhutesa, "Lord of the Elements, and all things," and Viswarupa, "Universal
--
Fitzedward Hall for the translation of Vishnu Purana and texts, to those used by Wilson. "Had
Professor Wilson enjoyed the advantages which are now at the comm and of the student of Indian
--
"Vishnu Purana": "The first creation was that of Mahat (Intellect), the second, of Tanmatras
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--
Supra-divine Intelligence. Therefore, when we read in Linga Purana that "the first Creation was that
of Mahat, Intellect being the first in manifestation," we must refer that (specified) creation to the first
evolution of our system or even our Earth, none of the preceding ones being discussed in the Puranas,
but only occasionally hinted at.
--
for that same reason, divine MAN on earth. And this is why we find in the Puranas: "The fifth, the
Tairyagyonya creation, was that of animals, and -(VI). The Urdhvasrotas creation, or that of divinities (Vishnu Purana Book I. chap. i.). But these
(divinities) are simply the prototypes of the First Race, the fathers of their "mind-born" progeny with
--
and secondary," says Vishnu Purana, the oldest of such texts.*** "The Kumaras," explains an esoteric
text,
--
* "Created beings" -- explains Vishnu Purana -- "although they are destroyed (in their individual
forms) at the periods of dissolution, yet being affected by the good or evil acts of former existences,
--
*** Parasara, the Vedic Rishi, who received the Vishnu Purana from Pulastya and taught it to
Maitreya, is placed by the Orientalists at various epochs. As correctly observed, in the Hindu Class.
--
Manu period, for the progress of mankind."* The commentator of the Vishnu Purana corroborates it,
by remarking that "these sages live as long as Brahma; and they are only created by him in the first
--
here, to other Puranas for the elucidation of this term," remarks Wilson, who does not suspect for one
moment that he is in the presence of the "Angels of Darkness," the mythical "great enemy" of his
--
called the "Kumara." (Book I. chap. v., Vishnu Purana.) The Puranas, however, may afford a little
more light. "Being ever as he was born, he is here called a youth; and hence his name is well known as
Sanat-Kumara" (Linga Purana, prior section LXX. 174.) In the Saiva Purana, the Kumaras are always
described as Yogins. The Kurma Purana, after enumerating them, says: "These five, O Brahmans,
were Yogins, who acquired entire exemption from passion." They are five, because two of the
--
termed Narayana" (Linga, Vayu, and Markandeya Puranas) ". . . Pure, Purusha created the Waters
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd1-2-13.htm (13 von 15) [06.05.2003 03:32:54]
--
Vishnu Purana. Why? Because the "Waters" is another name of the "Great Deep," the primordial
Waters of space or Chaos, and also means "Mother," Amba, meaning Aditi and Akasa, the Celestial
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
In the Garuda Purana - one of the many Puranas, or traditions, of Hindu lore - Garuda expounds at length on
the beginnings of the universe, the solar essence of Vishnu,
--
Garuda Purana,
Gawry,
Jaap Sahib Text (Guru Gobind Singh), #Jaap Sahib, #unset, #Zen
None can comprehend thee completely through millions of Smritis, Puranas and Shastras.86.
MUDHBHAR CHHUND. TAV PARSAD (BY YOUR GRACE)
Liber 46 - The Key of the Mysteries, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Purana Skandha VIII, Chaps. 5 - 12.) Levi therefore means in this
passage the exact contrary of what he pretends to mean. Otherwise this
r1914 03 28, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The golden Kali four-armed & weaponed, destroying the Asuras; a young man rushes at & throws his arms around her in filial love not hatred; he is spared & lifted up & carried away in her arms no longer as a young man but as a boy. Symbolic of the process of conversion from the Asuro-Rakshasic mind to the divine balabhava by the embrace of Kali. The visitation of Kali seems to be intended to save him from his Asura environment now turned hostile to him as to Prahlada. Qy. [Query] Was it in this way that the legends of the Puranas were formed?Jyotirmay Images.
2) Image of the Pashu-raid. A woman more mature of body & face than the other, fleeing with her two children. In the second image she has abandoned her children, but is seized by the hair by the younger Barbarian & is falling backward into his grasp.
Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (text), #Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
347. In the Puranas, we are told that when Uma, the Mother of the universe, incarnated Herself as the
daughter of the Himalayas, She blessed Her father with the vision of the various manifestations of the
--
591. The Vedas and the Puranas must be read and heard, but one must act according to the precepts of
the Tantras. The 'name' of Lord Hari must be uttered by the mouth and heard with the ear as well.
--
809. According to the Puranas, the devotee is separate from God. Man is one entity and He is another.
This body is like a vessel; the mind, the intellect and "the ego are, as it were, the water in it; and
--
836. The Vedas, the Tantras, the Puranas and all the sacred scriptures of the world have become
Uchchhishta as it were (i.e., defiled like the food thrown out of the mouth), because they have come out
SB 1.1 - Questions by the Sages, #Bhagavata Purana, #unset, #Zen
Talks 125-150, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: The Puranas say so. When it is said that the Heart is a cavity, penetration into it proves it to be an expanse of light. Similarly the
Hill is one of light. The caves, etc., are covered up by the Light.
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Vishnu Purana all these aspects are very finely described. The Vishnu Purana is the only Purana I have carefully read through. I wonder how it has
escaped general notice that it is also magnificent poetry.
--
SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know. But he sounds very real in the Purana. This Purana is most anti-Buddhist.
SATYENDRA: Then it must have been very late.
--
SRI AUROBINDO: This Purana is not so early as that. All the Puranas in fact are
posterior to Buddhism. They are a part of the Bramanical revival which
--
SRI AUROBINDO: Probably. In the Vishnu Purana Buddha is regarded as an
Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by
his own name but called Mayamoha. The Purana says, "Buddhasya, Buddhasya", which evidently refers to Buddha.
The principle of Tantra may be as old as the Vedas, but the known
--
Brahman has sent him down. According to the Puranas he may be in Saptaloka.
DR. MANILAL: The Puranas can't be believed! Plenty of unreasonable stories!
SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? What about the Upanishads? There are also such
--
DR. MANILAL: Then the Puranas are true?
SRI AUROBINDO: Except for the stories which are meant only to illustrate
--
DR. MANILAL: In the Puranas his boons lead sometimes to destruction.
SATYENDRA: He is also the God of destruction.
--
SRI AUROBINDO: It is the story of the Vishnu Purana where we read that it is
difficult to say whether the king is on the elephant or the elephant is on the
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 2, #Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
PURANI: Where is the history? It is more a story like the Puranas.
The topic changed. What exactly Sri Aurobindo refers to in the following is
the Eternal Wisdom, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
35) I salute It, this supreme Deity, which is beyond the senses, which mind and speech cannot define and which can be discerned only by the mind of the true sage. ~ Vishnu Purana
The Threefold Life View Similar The Divine Essence
--
14) Victory to the Essence of all wisdom, to the unmoving, to the Imperishable! Victory to the Eternal, to the essence of visible and invisible beings, to Him who is at the same time the cause and the effect of the universe. ~ Vishnu Purana
15) He who contemplates the supreme Truth, contemplates the perfect Essence; only the vision of the spirit can see this nature of ineffable perfection. ~ Buddhist Mediations from the Japanese
--
14) Victory to the Essence of all wisdom, to the unmoving, to the Imperishable! Victory to the Eternal, to the essence of visible and invisible beings, to Him who is at the same time the cause and the effect of the universe. ~ Vishnu Purana
15) He who contemplates the supreme Truth, contemplates the perfect Essence; only the vision of the spirit can see this nature of ineffable perfection. ~ Buddhist Mediations from the Japanese
--
2) Hail to Thee, to Thee, Spirit of the Supreme Spirit, Soul of souls, to Thee, the visible and invisible, who art one with Time and with the elements. ~ Vishnu Purana
3) O obscurity of obscurity, O soul of the soul, Thou art more than all and before all. All is seen in Thee and Thou art seen in all. ~ Farid-uddin-attar
--
5) First of the elements, universal Being, Thou hast created all and preservest all and the universe is nothing but Thy form. ~ Vishnu Purana
6) Sole essence of the world, Thou createst it and thou dissolvest it. Thou makest and unmakest the universe which is born again unceasingly by Thee. ~ Harivansa
--
8) Thou art the sun, the stars, the planets, the entire world, all that is without form or endowed with form, all that is visible or invisible, Thou art all these. ~ Vishnu Purana
9) Thou art also in the trees and the plants; the earth bears Thee in its flanks and gives birth to Thee as its nursling, Thee, the Lord of beings, Thee, the essence of all that exists. ~ Harivansa
--
12) Thou who art the soul of all things, Thy universal diffusion witnesses to Thy power and goodness. It is in thee, in others, in all creatures, in all worlds. ~ Vishnu Purana
13) All that is contains Thee; I could not exist if Thou wert not in me. ~ St Augustine
--
4) Man is like an ignorant spectator of a drama played on the stage. ~ Bhagavat Purana
5) The ignorant is a child. ~ Laws of Manu. II. 193
--
8) And in this world, always a work of Illusion, men whose intelligence is troubled by desire, greed, envy and error, are rolled through different states with the idea that these states are real. ~ Bhagavata Purana
9) Men direct their gaze upon fugitive appearances and the transitory brilliance of this world of the senses and they lend no attention to the immutable Reality which remains unknown to them. ~ Tadeka Shingen
--
34) Therefore, considering with a firm heart the way of the spirit, renounce the trust which made you see something durable in the cause of joy and sorrow and return into calm. ~ Bhagavat Purana
35) Action like inaction can find a place in thee; if thy body agitates itself, let thy mind be calm, let thy soul be limpid as a mountain lake. ~ Book of Golden Precepts
--
1) It is the Blessed One, the sole Being, thou sayest, who dwells in every soul: whence then come the misery and sorrow to which he is condemned by his presence in the heart of the soul of man? ~ Bhagavat Purana
2) The Eternal is in every man, but all men are not in the Eternal; there lies the cause of their suffering. ~ Ramakrishna,
--
14) The idea of thou and I is a fruit of the soul's ignorance. ~ Bhagavat Purana
15) Man understands his life only when he sees himself in each one of his kind. ~ Tolstoy
Verses of Vemana, #is Book, #unset, #Zen
The Puranas of acts are a great deep. In those acts never shall we see Siva; surely none is able to declare Siva, the destroyer of acts. Acts are vile, and vile.
p. 58
--
If we know ourselves, the Veda would be all fooling to us; a mizzling rain is all folly to the store of grain; publish thou in the world O Vema that the six sastras, and the Puranas are mere infelicity.
851
--
Have ye not heard of that men of trifling minds (entangled) confused by the intricate Five letters (Namassivaya) and five Vedas (4 Vedas and fifthly the Puranas). In the five sects, if thou consider it, Siva dwells.
p. 230
--
The original Purana is such as slays the Rakshrsas. The Bharata and others are of kin (i.e. benevolent as relations.) The Guru Purana is the destroyer of imposture.
962
--- Overview of noun purana
The noun purana has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
1. Purana ::: (a body of 18 works written between the first and 11th centuries and incorporating legends and speculative histories of the universe and myths and customary observances)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun purana
1 sense of purana
Sense 1
Purana
=> Sanskrit literature
=> literature
=> writing, written material, piece of writing
=> written communication, written language, black and white
=> communication
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun purana
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun purana
1 sense of purana
Sense 1
Purana
=> Sanskrit literature
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun purana
1 sense of purana
Sense 1
Purana
-> Sanskrit literature
=> Hastinapura
=> Purana
HAS INSTANCE=> Ramayana
=> tantra
HAS INSTANCE=> Kamasutra
=> sutra
--- Grep of noun purana
purana
Wikipedia - Agni Purana
Wikipedia - Ajamila -- Main character of a story in the Hindu text Bhagavata Purana
Wikipedia - Behula -- Protagonist in the Shiva Purana
Wikipedia - Bhagavata purana
Wikipedia - Bhagavata Purana -- Sanskrit Hindu text, one of the eighteen major Puranas, story of Krishna
Wikipedia - Bhavishya Purana -- Medieval era Sanskrit text, one of twenty major Puranas
Wikipedia - Brahmanda Purana -- Sanskrit text, one of the eighteen major Puranas
Wikipedia - Brahma Purana
Wikipedia - Brahma Vaivarta Purana
Wikipedia - Category:Characters in the Bhagavata Purana
Wikipedia - Devi Bhagavata Purana
Wikipedia - Elizabeth Puranam -- Television anchor and journalist
Wikipedia - Garuda Purana
Wikipedia - Kaliya -- Serpent in the ancient Hindu text Bhagavata Purana
Wikipedia - Kalki Purana -- narrative text in Sanskrit
Wikipedia - Kapila Purana
Wikipedia - Karapuranathar Temple -- Temple to Shiva in Salem district, Tamil Nadu, India
Wikipedia - Kurma Purana
Wikipedia - Linga Purana
Wikipedia - Mahapurana (Jainism)
Wikipedia - Markandeya Purana
Wikipedia - Matsya Purana
Wikipedia - Naradiya Purana
Wikipedia - Nilamata Purana
Wikipedia - Padma Purana
Wikipedia - Purana Kassapa
Wikipedia - Purana Mandir -- 1984 Indian Hindi-language horror film
Wikipedia - Purananuru
Wikipedia - Puranas
Wikipedia - Purana
Wikipedia - Shambara -- Character appearing in Bhagavad Purana
Wikipedia - Shiva Purana
Wikipedia - Skanda Purana -- Medieval era Sanskrit text, one of eighteen major Puranas
Wikipedia - Vamana Purana
Wikipedia - Varaha Purana
Wikipedia - Vayu Purana
Wikipedia - Vishnu Purana
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1260132.The_Bhagavata_Purana
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18213923-puranakadhamalika
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18660995-puranay-thug
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19029821-siva-purana
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/235614.Purana_Purusha_Yogiraj_Sri_Shama_Churn_Lahiree
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32602328-shiva-purana
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36086293-prem-purana
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9275734-the-puranas
https://familypedia.wikia.org/wiki/File:JATNI_PURANABAS_KI
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Cattle_in_religion#Puranas
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Puranas
auromere - links-between-vedas-upanishads-tantra-and-puranas
wiki.auroville - Puranas
Dharmapedia - Puranas
Psychology Wiki - File:Naradiyamahapuranam.jpg
Psychology Wiki - Purana
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Purana_Qila_in_Delhi_03-2016_img1.jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Puranas
Legend of Duo -- -- Marine Entertainment, Radix -- 12 eps -- Original -- Supernatural Drama Vampire Shounen Ai -- Legend of Duo Legend of Duo -- The fate of mankind is doomed in the early 21st century due to losing "purana," an essence of living force supporting all life forms. Not willing to witness the extinction of mankind, a vampire named Duo disclosed the secret of purana to humans, saving the latter from destruction. However, just like Prometheus in Greek mythology got punished for bringing fire to mankind, Duo is punished for breaking the taboo. The vampire sent to punish him is Zieg, Duo's best friend, or, more than the best friend. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- TV - Apr 21, 2005 -- 10,382 4.90
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Puranastudy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/user:Puranastudy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Puranastudy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Puranastudy
Acleris semipurpurana
Agni Purana
Ajitha purana
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Bhagha Purana Tehsil Assembly Constituency
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Devi-Bhagavata Purana
Elizabeth Puranam
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Garuda Purana
GorakhpurAnand Vihar Express
GorakhpurAnand Vihar Terminal Humsafar Express (via Barhni)
GorakhpurAnand Vihar Terminal Humsafar Express (via Basti)
Harivamsa Purana
Harivamsha Purana
Kalika Purana
Kapila Purana
Kudumbapuranam
Lakshmi Purana
MadhupurAnand Vihar Terminal Humsafar Express
Mahapurana
Mahapurana (Jainism)
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Periya Puranam
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Pseudophilautus puranappu
Purana (genus)
Purana Hala
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Purana Mandir
Purananuru
Purana pul
Purana Qila
Puranas
Shiva Purana
Shivarahasya Purana
Skanda Purana
Upapurana
Uththararama Purana Vihara, Udugampola
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Vishnudharmottara Purana
Vishnu Purana
Yatawatte Purana Vihara
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