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So, with respect to the traditions concerning this island, and apart
from the (to them) historical records of this preserved in the Chinese
and Tibetan sacred books, the legend is alive to this day among the
people of Tibet. The fair island is no more, but the country where it
once bloomed remains there still, and the spot is well known to some of
the "great teachers of the Snowy Mountains," however much convulsed and
changed its topography by the awful cataclysm. Every seventh year these
teachers are believed to assemble in SCHAM-BHA-LA, the "Happy Land."
According to the general belief it is situated in the north-west of
Tibet. Some place it within the unexplored central regions,
inaccessible even to the fearless nomadic tribes; others hem it in
between the range of the Gangdisri Mountains and the northern edge of
the Gobi desert, south and north, and the more populated regions of
Khoondooz and Kashmir, of the Gya-Pheling (British India), and China,
west and east, which affords to the curious mind a pretty large latitude
to locate it in. Others still place it between Namur Nur and the
Kuen-Lun Mountains, but one and all firmly believe in Scham-bha-la, and
speak of it as a fertile fairy-like land once an island, now an oasis of
incomparable beauty, the place of meeting of the inheritors of the
esoteric wisdom of the god-like inhabitants of the legendary island.

In connection with the archaic legend of the Asian Sea and the Atlantic
Continent, is it not profitable to note a fact known to all modern
geologists-that the Himalayan slopes afford geological proof that the
substance of those lofty peaks was once a part of an ocean floor?

Note IV.

We have already pointed out that, in our opinion, the whole difference
between Buddhistic and Vedantic philosophies was that the former was a
kind of Rationalistic Vedantism, while the latter might be regarded as
transcendental Buddhism. If the Aryan esotericism applies the term
jivatma to the seventh principle--the pure and per se unconscious
spirit--it is because the Vedanta, postulating three kinds of
existence--(1) the paramarthika (the true, the only real one), (2) the
vyavaharika (the practical), and (3) the pratibhasika (the apparent or
illusory life)--makes the first life or jiva, the only truly existent
one. Brahma, or the ONE'S SELF, is its only representative in the
universe, as it is the universal Life in toto, while the other two are
but its "phenomenal appearances," imagined and created by ignorance, and
complete illusions suggested to us by our blind senses. The Buddhists,
on the other hand, deny either subjective or objective reality even to
that one Self-Existence. Buddha declares that there is neither Creator
nor an Absolute Being. Buddhist rationalism was ever too alive to the
insuperable difficulty of admitting one absolute consciousness, as in
the words of Flint, "wherever there is consciousness there is relation,
and wherever there is relation there is dualism." The ONE LIFE is
either "MUKTA" (absolute and unconditioned), and can have no relation to
anything nor to any one; or it is "BADDHA" (bound and conditioned), and
then it cannot be called the absolute; the limitation, moreover,
necessitating another deity as powerful as the first to account for all
the evil in this world. Hence, the Arahat secret doctrine on cosmogony
admits but of one absolute, indestructible, eternal, and uncreated
UNCONSCIOUSNESS (so to translate) of an element (the word being used for
want of a better term) absolutely independent of everything else in the
universe; a something ever present or ubiquitous, a Presence which ever
was, is, and will be, whether there is a God, gods, or none, whether
there is a universe, or no universe, existing during the eternal cycles
of Maha Yugs, during the Pralayas as during the periods of Manvantara,
and this is SPACE, the field for the operation of the eternal Forces and
natural Law, the basis (as Mr. Subba Row rightly calls it) upon which
take place the eternal intercorrelations of Akasa-Prakriti; guided by
the unconscious regular pulsations of Sakti, the breath or power of a
conscious deity, the theists would say; the eternal energy of an
eternal, unconscious Law, say the Buddhists. Space, then, or "Fan,
Bar-nang" (Maha Sunyata) or, as it is called by Lao-tze, the "Emptiness,"
is the nature of the Buddhist Absolute. (See Confucius' "Praise of the
Abyss.") The word jiva, then, could never be applied by the Arahats to
the Seventh Principle, since it is only through its correlation or
contact with matter that Fo-hat (the Buddhist active energy) can
develop active conscious life; and that to the question "how can
unconsciousness generate consciousness?" the answer would be: "Was the
seed which generated a Bacon or a Newton self-conscious?"

Note V.

To our European readers, deceived by the phonetic similarity, it must
not be thought that the name "Brahman" is identical in this connection
with Brahma or Iswara, the personal God. The Upanishads--the Vedanta
Scriptures--mention no such God, and one would vainly seek in them any
allusions to a conscious deity. The Brahman, or Parabrahm, the absolute
of the Vedantins, is neuter and unconscious, and has no connection with
the masculine Brahma of the Hindu Triad, or Trimurti. Some Orientalists
rightly believe the name derived from the verb "Brih," to grow or
increase, and to be in this sense the universal expansive force of
Nature, the vivifying and spiritual principle or power spread throughout
the universe, and which, in its collectivity, is the one Absoluteness,
the one Life and the only Reality.

--H.P. Blavatsky




Septenary Division in Different Indian Systems


We give below in a tabular form the classifications, adopted by
Buddhist and by Vedantic teachers, of the principles in man:--

Classification in Vedantic Classification in
Esoteric Buddhism Classification Taraka Raja Yoga

(1.) Sthula sarira Annamaya kosa Sthulopadhi

(2.) Prana
Pranamaya kosa
(3.)The Vehicle
of Prana

(4.) Kama rupa
(a) Volitions Manomaya kosa
(5.) Mind/& feelings &c. Sukshmopadhi
(b) Vignanam Vignanamayakosa

(6.) Spiritual Soul Anandamayakosa Karanopadhi

(7.) Atma Atma Atma

From the foregoing table it will be seen that the third principle in the
Buddhist classification is not separately mentioned in the Vedantic
division as it is merely the vehicle of prana. It will also be seen
that the fourth principle is included in the third kosa (sheath), as the
said principle is but the vehicle of will-power, which is but an energy
of the mind. It must also be noticed that the Vignanamayakosa is
considered to be distinct from the Manomayakosa, as a division is made
after death between the lower part of the mind, as it were, which has a
closer affinity with the fourth principle than with the sixth and its
higher part, which attaches itself to the latter, and which is, in fact,
the basis for the higher spiritual individuality of man.

We may also here point out to our readers that the classification
mentioned in the last column is for all practical purposes connected
with Raja Yoga, the best and simplest. Though there are seven
principles in man, there are but three distinct Upadhis (bases), in each
of which his Atma may work independently of the rest. These three
Upadhis can be separated by an adept without killing himself. He cannot
separate the seven principles from each other without destroying his
constitution.

--T.S.




The Septenary Principle in Esotericism


Since the exposition of the Arhat esoteric doctrine was begun, many who
had not acquainted themselves with the occult basis of Hindu philosophy
have imagined that the two were in conflict. Some of the more bigoted
have openly charged the Occultists of the Theosophical Society with
propagating rank Buddhistic heresy; and have even gone to the length of
affirming that the whole Theosophic movement was but a masked Buddhistic
propaganda. We were taunted by ignorant Brahmins and learned Europeans
that our septenary divisions of Nature and everything in it, including
man, are arbitrary and not endorsed by the oldest religious systems of
the East. It is now proposed to throw a cursory glance at the Vedas,
the Upanishads, the Law-Books of Manu, and especially the Vedanta, and
show that they too support our position. Even in their crude
exotericism their affirmation of the sevenfold division is apparent.
Passage after passage may be cited in proof. And not only can the
mysterious number be found traced on every page of the oldest Aryan
Sacred Scriptures, but in the oldest books of Zoroastrianism as well;
in the rescued cylindrical tile records of old Babylonia and Chaldea, in
the "Book of the Dead" and the Ritualism of ancient Egypt, and even in
the Mosaic books--without mentioning the secret Jewish works, such as
the Kabala.

The limited space at command forces us to allow a few brief quotations
to stand as landmarks and not even attempt long explanations. It is no
exaggeration to say that upon each of the few hints now given in the
cited Slokas a thick volume might be written.

From the well-known hymn To Time, in the Atharva-Veda (xix. 53):

"Time, like a brilliant steed with seven rays,
Full of fecundity, bears all things onward.

"Time, like a seven-wheeled, seven-naved car moves on,
His rolling wheels are all the worlds, his axle
Is immortality...."

--down to Manu, "the first and the seventh man," the Vedas, the
Upanishads, and all the later systems of philosophy teem with allusions
to this number. Who was Manu, the son of Swayambhuva? The secret
doctrine tells us that this Manu was no man, but the representation of
the first human races evolved with the help of the Dhyan-Chohans (Devas)
at the beginning of the first Round. But we are told in his Laws (Book
I. 80) that there are fourteen Manus for every Kalpa or "interval from
creation to creation" (read interval from one minor "Pralaya" to
another) and that "in the present divine age there have been as yet
seven Manus." Those who know that there are seven Rounds, of which we
have passed three, and are now in the fourth; and who are taught that
there are seven dawns and seven twilights, or fourteen Manvantaras;
that at the beginning of every Round and at the end, and on and between
the planets, there is "an awakening to illusive life," and "an awakening
to real life," and that, moreover, there are "root-Manus," and what we
have to clumsily translate as the "seed-Manus"--the seeds for the human
races of the forthcoming Round (a mystery divulged but to those who have
passed the 3rd degree in initiation); those who have learned all that,
will be better prepared to understand the meaning of the following. We
are told in the Sacred Hindu Scriptures that "the first Manu produced
six other Manus (seven primary Manus in all), and these produced in
their turn each seven other Manus" (Bhrigu I. 61-63),* the production of
the latter standing in the occult treatises as 7 x 7. Thus it becomes
clear that Manu--the last one, the progenitor of our Fourth Round
Humanity--must be the seventh, since we are on our fourth Round, and
that there is a root-Manu on globe A and a seed-Manu on globe G. Just
as each planetary Round commences with the appearance of a "Root-Manu"
(Dhyan-Chohan) and closes with a "Seed-Manu," so a root-and a seed-Manu
appear respectively at the beginning and the termination of the human
period on any particular planet.

-------
* The fact that Manu himself is made to declare that he was created by
Viraj and then produced the ten Prajapatis, who again produced seven
Menus, who in their turn gave birth to seven other Manus (Manu, I.
33-36), relates to other still earlier mysteries, and is at the same
time a blind with regard to the doctrine of the Septenary chain.
---------

It will be easily seen from the foregoing statement that a Manu-antaric
period means, as the term implies, the time between the appearance of
two Manus or Dhyan-Chohans: and hence a minor Manu-antara is the
duration of the seven races on any particular planet, and a major
Manu-antara is the period of one human round along the planetary chain.
Moreover, that, as it is said that each of the seven Manus creates 7 x 7
Manus, and that there are 49 root-races on the seven planets during each
Round, then every root-race has its Manu. The present seventh Manu is
called "Vaivasvata," and stands in the exoteric texts for that Manu who
represents in India the Babylonian Xisusthrus and the Jewish Noah. But
in the esoteric books we are told that Manu Vaivasvata, the progenitor
of our fifth race--who saved it from the flood that nearly exterminated
the fourth (Atlantean)--is not the seventh Manu, mentioned in the
nomenclature of the Root, or primitive Manus, but one of the 49
"emanated from this 'root'--Manu."

For clearer comprehension we here give the names of the 14 Manus in
their respective order and relation to each Round:--

1st 1st (Root) Manu on Planet A.-Swayambhuva
Round. 1st (Seed) Manu on Planet G.-Swarochi
(or)Swarotisha

2nd 2nd (R.) M. on Planet A.-Uttama
Round 2nd (S.) M. " " G.-Thamasa

3rd 3rd (R.) M. " " A.-Raivata
Round 3rd (S.) M. " " G.-Chackchuska

4th 4th (R.) M. " " A.-Vaivasvata (our progenitor)
Round 4th (S.) M. " " G.-Savarni

5th 5th (R.) M. " " A.-Daksha Savarni
Round 5th (S.) M. " " G.-Brahma Savarni

6th 6th (R.) M. on Planet A.-Dharma Savarni
Round 6th (S.) M. " " G.-Rudra Savarni

7th 7th (R.) M. " " A.-Rouchya
Round 7th (S.) M. " " G.-Bhoutya

Vaivasvata thus, though seventh in the order given, is the primitive
Root-Manu of our fourth Human Wave (the reader must always remember that
Manu is not a man but collective humanity), while our Vaivasvata was but
one of the seven Minor Manus who are made to preside over the seven
races of this our planet. Each of these has to become the witness of
one of the periodical and ever-recurring cataclysms (by fire and water
in turn) that close the cycle of every root-race. And it is this
Vaivasvata--the Hindu ideal embodiment called respectively Xisusthrus,
Deukalion, Noah, and by other names--who is the allegorical man who
rescued our race when nearly the whole population of one hemisphere
perished by water, while the other hemisphere was awakening from its
temporary obscuration.

The number seven stands prominently conspicuous in even a cursory
comparison of the 11th Tablet of the Izdhubar Legends of the Chaldean
account of the Deluge and the so-called Mosaic books. In both the number
seven plays a most prominent part. The clean beasts are taken by
sevens, the fowls by sevens also; in seven days, it is promised Noah,
to rain upon the earth; thus he stays "yet other seven days," and again
seven days; while in the Chaldean. account of the Deluge, on the
seventh day the rain abated. On the seventh day the dove is sent out;
by sevens, Xisusthrus takes "jugs of wine" for the altar, &c. Why such
coincidence? And yet we are told by, and bound to believe in, the
European Orientalists, when passing judgment alike upon the Babylonian
and Aryan chronology they call them "extravagant and fanciful!"
Nevertheless, while they give us no explanation of, nor have they ever
noticed, as far as we know, the strange identity in the totals of the
Semitic, Chaldean, and Aryan Hindu chronology, the students of Occult
Philosophy find the following fact extremely suggestive. While the
period of the reign of the 10 Babylonian antediluvian kings is given as
432,000 years,* the duration of the postdiluvian Kali-yug is also given
as 432,000, while the four ages or the divine Maha-yug, yield in their
totality 4,320,000 years. Why should they, if fanciful and
"extravagant," give the identical figures, when neither the Aryans nor
the Babylonians have surely borrowed anything from each other! We
invite the attention of our occultists to the three figures given--4
standing for the perfect square, 3 for the triad (the seven universal
and the seven individual principles), and 2 the symbol of our
illusionary world, a figure ignored and rejected by Pythagoras.

--------
* See "Babylonia," by George Smith, p. 36. Here again, as with the
Manus and 10 Prajapatis and the 10 Sephiroths in the Book of Numbers--
they dwindle down to seven!
--------

It is in the Upanishads and the Vedanta though, that we have to look for
the best corroborations of the occult teachings. In the mystical
doctrine the Rahasya, or the Upanishads--"the only Veda of all
thoughtful Hindus in the present day," as Monier Williams is made to
confess, every word, as its very name implies,* has a secret meaning
underlying it. This meaning can be fully realized only by him who has a
full knowledge of Prana, the ONE LIFE, "the nave to which are attached
the seven spokes of the Universal Wheel." (Hymn to Prana, Atharva-Veda,
XI. 4.)

Even European Orientalists agree that all the systems in India assign to
the human body: (a) an exterior or gross body (sthula-sarira); (b) an
inner or shadowy body (sukshma), or linga-sarira (the vehicle), the two
cemented with--(c), life (jiv or Karana sarira, "causal body").** These
the occult system or esotericism divides into seven, farther adding to
these--kama, manas, buddhi and atman. The Nyaya philosophy when
treating of Prameyas (by which the objects and subjects of Praman are to
be correctly understood) includes among the 12 the seven "root
principles" (see IXth Sutra), which are 1, soul (atman), and 2 its
superior spirit Jivatman; 3, body (sarira); 4, senses (indriya); 5,
activity or will (pravritti); 6, mind (manas); 7, Intellection
(Buddhi). The seven Padarthas (inquiries or predicates of existing
things) of Kanada in the Vaiseshikas, refer in the occult doctrine to
the seven qualities or attributes of the seven principles. Thus: 1,
substance (dravya) refers to body or sthula-sarira; 2, quality or
property (guna) to the life principle, jiv; 3, action or act (karman)
to the Linga, sarira; 4, Community or commingling of properties
(Samanya) to Kamarupa; 5, personality or conscious individuality
(Visesha) to Manas; 6, co-inherence or perpetual intimate relation
(Samuvuya) to Buddhi, the inseparable vehicle of Atman; 7,
non-existence or non-being in the sense of, and as separate from,
objectivity or substance (abhava)--to the highest monad or Atman.

-------
* Upa-ni-shad means, according to Brahminical authority, "to conquer
ignorance by revealing the secret spiritual knowledge." According to
Monier Williams, the title is derived from the root sad with the
prepositions upa and ni, and implies "something mystical that underlies
or is beneath the surface."

** This Karana-sarira is often mistaken by the uninitiated for
Linga-sarira, and since it is described as the inner rudimentary or
latent embryo of the body, confounded with it. But the Occultists
regard it as the life (body) or Jiv, which disappears at death; is
withdrawn--leaving the 1st and 3rd principles to disintegrate and
return to their elements.
----------

Thus, whether we view the ONE as the Vedic Purusha or Brahman (neuter)
the "all-expanding essence;" or as the universal spirit, the "light of
lights" (jyotisham jyotih) the TOTAL independent of all relation, of the
Upanishads; or as the Paramatman of the Vedanta; or again as Kanada's
Adrishta, "the unseen Force," or divine atom; or as Prakriti, the
"eternally existing essence," of Kapila--we find in all these impersonal
universal Principles the latent capability of evolving out of themselves
"six rays" (the evolver being the seventh). The third aphorism of the
Sankhya-Karika, which says of Prakriti that it is the "root and
substance of all things," and no production, but itself a producer of
"seven things, which produced by it, become also producers," has a
purely occult meaning.

What are the "producers" evoluted from this universal root-principle,
Mula-prakriti or undifferentiated primeval cosmic matter, which evolves
out of itself consciousness and mind, and is generally called "Prakriti"
and amulam mulam, "the rootless root," and Aryakta, the "unevolved
evolver," &c.? This primordial tattwa or "eternally existing 'that,'"
the unknown essence, is said to produce as a first producer, 1, Buddhi--
"intellect"--whether we apply the latter to the 6th macrocosmic or
microcosmic principle. This first produced produces in its turn (or is
the source of) Ahankara, "self-consciousness" and manas "mind." The
reader will please always remember that the Mahat or great source of
these two internal faculties, "Buddhi" per se, can have neither
self-consciousness nor mind; viz., the 6th principle in man can preserve
an essence of personal self-consciousness or "personal individuality" only
by absorbing within itself its own waters, which have run through that
finite faculty; for Ahankara, that is the perception of "I," or the
sense of one's personal individuality, justly represented by the term
"Ego-ism," belongs to the second, or rather the third, production out of
the seven, viz., to the 5th principle, or Manas. It is the latter which
draws "as the web issues from the spider" along the thread of Prakriti,
the "root principle," the four following subtle elementary principles or
particles--Tanmatras, out of which "third class," the Mahabhutas or the
gross elementary principles, or rather sarira and rupas, are evolved--
the kama, linga, Jiva and sthula-sarira. The three gunas of
"Prakriti"--the Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas (purity, passionate activity,
and ignorance or darkness)--spun into a triple-stranded cord or "rope,"
pass through the seven, or rather six, human principles.

It depends on the 5th--Manas or Ahankara, the "I"--to thin the guna,
"rope," into one thread--the sattwa; and thus by becoming one with the
"unevolved evolver," win immortality or eternal conscious existence.
Otherwise it will be again resolved into its Mahabhautic essence; so
long as the triple-stranded rope is left unstranded, the spirit (the
divine monad) is bound by the presence of the gunas in the principles
"like an animal" (purusha pasu). The spirit, atman or jivatman (the 7th
and 6th principles), whether of the macro-or microcosm, though bound by
these gunas during the objective manifestation of universe or man, is
yet nirguna--i.e., entirely free from them. Out of the three producers
or evolvers, Prakriti, Buddhi and Ahankara, it is but the latter that
can be caught (when man is concerned) and destroyed when personal. The
"divine monad" is aguna (devoid of qualities), while Prakriti, once that
from passive Mula-prakriti it has become avyakta (an active evolver) is
gunavat--endowed with qualities. With the latter, Purusha or Atman can
have nought to do (of course being unable to perceive it in its
gunuvatic state); with the former--or Mula-prakriti or undifferentiated
cosmic essence--it has, since it is one with it and identical.

The Atma Bodha, or "knowledge of soul," a tract written by the great
Sankaracharya, speaks distinctly of the seven principles in man (see
14th verse). They are called therein the five sheaths (panchakosa) in
which is enclosed the divine monad--the Atman, and Buddhi, the 7th and
6th principles, or the individuated soul when made distinct (through
avidya, maya and the gunas) from the supreme soul--Parabrahm. The 1st
sheath, called Ananda-maya--the "illusion of supreme bliss"--is the
manas or fifth principle of the occultists, when united with Buddhi;
the 2nd sheath is Vjnana-maya-kosa, the case or "envelope of
self-delusion," the manas when self-deluded into the belief of the
personal "I," or ego, with its vehicle. The 3rd, the Mano-maya sheath,
composed of "illusionary mind" associated with the organs of action and
will, is the Kamarupa and Linga-sarira combined, producing an illusive
"I" or Mayavi-rupa. The 4th sheath is called Prana-maya, "illusionary
life," our second life principle or jiv, wherein resides life, the
"breathing" sheath. The 5th kosa is called Anna-maya, or the sheath
supported by food--our gross material body. All these sheaths produce
other smaller sheaths, or six attributes or qualities each, the seventh
being always the root sheath; and the Atman or spirit passing through
all these subtle ethereal bodies like a thread, is called the
"thread-soul" or sutratman.

We may conclude with the above demonstration. Verily the Esoteric
doctrine may well be called in its turn the "thread-doctrine," since,
like Sutratman or Pranatman, it passes through and strings together all
the ancient philosophical religious systems, and, what is more,
reconciles and explains them. For though seeming so unlike externally,
they have but one foundation, and of that the extent, depth, breadth and
nature are known to those who have become, like the "Wise Men of the
East," adepts in Occult Science.

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