Arya (n): One of noble birth or character (Sanskrit). Also, the family of Indo-European languages, therefore, the nomadic invaders who brought a language of this group into India (and Europe) between 2,000 and 1,500 BC from the northern steppes.

(See also: Arya, Hinduism, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Nativity In Christianity, the supposed birth of Jesus about the time of the winter solstice. This date is due to the labors of the 6th century Roman abbot, Dionysius Exiguus. The first year of this reckoning, which later became the accepted Christian era, is called 1 AD, and the preceding year is called by chronologers 1 BC, but others here insert a year zero.

The epoch of the birth or nativity of Jesus is generally thought to be four years too late, but one may have well-grounded suspicions that these four years themselves are far too late, and efforts by various scholars have at times been made to place the birth of Jesus in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, the son of Johannes Hyrcanus, the same Alexander having succeeded his brother Aristobolus I, as King of the Jews, in 104 BC.

Also used for the chart which is cast at the moment of a person's birth in drawing up a horoscope.

(See also: Nativity, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (500?-428 BC) A Greek scientific philosopher who lived in Athens and associated with the distinguished men of the Periclean era. Like Parmenides he denied the existence of birth or death, seeing the two processes as a mingling and unmingling.

The ultimate elements of this process are the infinite number of indivisible, imperishable particles (atoms or homoeomere), acted on and ordered by spirit or pure cosmic reason (nous, equivalent to the Hindu mahat).

He openly taught the Pythagorean astronomical ideas concerning the movement and nature of the planets, moon, sun, stars, etc., and attempted to explain all phenomena by natural causes. He "firmly believed that the spiritual prototypes of all things, as well as their elements, were to be found in the boundless ether, where they were generated, whence they evolved, and whither they returned from earth" (SD 1:158). (BCW)

(See also: Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

I Ching (Chinese) Also Yi King. The Book of Changes; also Holy Book of Mutations, these mutations being the manifestations of tao.

The text of the original treatise is from a system of eight trigrams and 64 hexagrams, composed of whole and broken lines, thus: (illust) which, by altering the positions of the whole and broken lines form the changes in the diagrams. This has been assigned by scholars to Fu-Hsi (30th century BC). The first extant commentary on it is assigned to Ching Wen, founder of the Chou dynasty in 1122 BC, and his son.

There have been many explanations offered regarding this work, called by many the Qabbalah of China: some see in it only a system of divination, a lunar calendar, phallic worship, or again the vocabulary of a tribe whose very existence had to be postulated for this purpose. Both Taoists and Confucianists regard the I Ching as the holiest of books; Confucius declared that he would like to give another 50 years of his life to its study, while the only Chinese commentator who is said to have understood it was Chu Hsi (1130-1200).

In the Hi-ts'ze (or so-called Appendices to the work) the universe is described as a living organism called T'ai-ch'i (the supreme being, or most ultimate). The processes of birth and rebirth, or the production of life, are due to the manifestations of tao by means of the yang and yin.

"To Yang belong the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9; to Yin belong the numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. There are then five celestial and five terrestrial numbers; these rows of five operate upon each other, and each number has one with which it corresponds. The sum of the celestial numbers is twenty-five. It is in accordance with these factors that the processes of the Universe are effected, and the kwei and the shen do their work" (Hi-ts'ze).

Speaking of the I Ching, Blavatsky says:

"the Stanzas given in our text . . . represent precisely the same idea. The old archaic map of Cosmogony is full of lines in the Confucian style, of concentric circles and dots. Yet all these represent the most abstract and philosophical conceptions of the Cosmogony of our Universe" (SD 1:441).

(See also: I Ching, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Orissa

Orissa is an eastern state belonging to the Indian sub-continent. The city of Bhubaneswar (temple city of India) is the state capital.

During the medieval times, the state corresponding roughly with now-a-days Orissa passed under the various names such as: Utkala, Kalinga, and Odra (Udra) Desa. The state boundaries varied from time to time and were sometimes much larger. These land names are associated with peoples. The Okkala or Utkala, the Kalinga, and the Odra or Oddaka were mentioned in literature as tribes. Ancient Greeks knew the latter two as Kalingai and Oretes. Eventually the names got identified with the territories. The land was inhabited by semi-Hinduized tribes (shabaras) in the hinterland, a group of farming Brahmins (halua brahmuna) who practised invincible Tantra method near Jajpur area (the place of Goddess Biraja), and people of other castes and trades as well. For centuries before and after the birth of Christ, Kalinga was a formidable political power, extending from the Ganga river to the Godavari river. Approximately between the 11th and 16th centuries the name was twisted; the name Odra Desa was gradually transformed into Uddisa, Udisa, or Odisa, which in English became Orissa. The language of Odisa came to be known as Oriya.

Kalinga was already famous at the dawn of Indian history. Buddhist sources refer to the rule of King Brahmadutta in Kalinga at the time of the Buddha's death. In the 4th century BC the first Indian empire builder, Mahapadma Nanda, conquered Kalinga, but the Nanda rule was short-lived. In 260 BC the Mauryan emperor Ashoka invaded Kalinga and fought one of the greatest and most bloody wars of ancient history. He then renounced war, became a Buddhist, and preached peace and non-violence in and outside India. In the 1st century BC the Kalinga emperor Kharavela conquered vast territories that collectively came to be called the Kalinga empire.

Kalinga became a maritime power beginning in the 1st century AD, and its overseas activities culminated in the 8th century with the establishment of the Shailendra empire in Java. Orissa was ruled during the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries by the powerful Bhauma-Kara dynasty and in the 10th and 11th centuries by the Soma dynasty. The Lingaraj temple at Bhubaneshwar, the greatest Shiva monument of India, was initiated by the king Yayati.

Medieval Orissa enjoyed a golden age under the Ganga Dynasty. Its founder, Anantavarma Chodagangadeva (1078-1147), ruled from the Ganges to the Godavari with "Cuttack" city as the state capital. He began the construction of the temple of Jagannaatha (Lord of the Universe) at Puri. Narasimhadeva 1 (1238-64) built the Sun Temple (Surya Mandira) of Konarka, one of the finest and best creations of Hindu architecture all over the world. In the 13th and 14th centuries, when much of India was overrun by the Muslims, independent Orissa remained a citadel of Hindu religion, philosophy, art, and architecture. The "Veera Kalinga Putras" (brave sons of Kalinga) were the last to give up, till it was conquered by betraying.

The Gangas were succeeded by the Surya dynasty. Its first king, Kapilendradeva (1435-66), won territories from his Muslim neighbours and greatly expanded the Orissa kingdom. His successor, Purushottamadeva, maintained these gains with difficulty. The next and the last Surya king, Prataparudradeva, became a disciple of the naamayogi avataar Chaitanya mahaprabhu, the great medieval saint, and became a pacifist. After his death (1540) Orissa's power declined, and in 1568, when King Mukundadeva was killed by his own countrymen, Orissa lost its independence to the Afghan rulers of Bengal.

The Mughal emperor Akbar conquered Orissa from the Afghans in 1590-92. When the Mughal Empire fell in 1761, part of Orissa remained under the Bengal nawaabs, but the greater part was snatched by the Marathas. The Bengal sector came under British rule in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey; the Maratha sector was conquered by the British in 1803. Although after 1803 the British controlled the entire Oriya-speaking area, it continued to be administered as two units. It was not until April 1, 1936, that the British heeded calls for unification on a linguistic basis and constituted Orissa as a separate province; 26 Oriya princely states, however, remained outside the provincial administration. After the independence of India in 1947, all these princely states except Saraikela and Kharsawan (which merged with Bihar) became part of Orissa.

Geography:

The state can be broadly divided into four natural divisions: (1) the northern plateau, (2) the eastern ghats, (3) the central tract, and (4) the coastal plains. The northern plateau (in the northern part of the state) is an extension of the forest-covered, lightly settled, and mineral-rich Chot-Nagpur plateau centred in southern Bihar. The eastern ghats, extending roughly parallel to the coast, are remnants of a very ancient line of hills in eastern peninsular India; rising to heights of 3,600 feet (1,100 metres), the eastern ghats are forest-covered, provide a home for a variety of wildlife, and are populated by several tribal groups. The central tract comprises a series of plateaus and basins occupying the inland area west and north of the Eastern Ghats; the plateau areas provide scant resources, but several of the basins--notably the Kalahandi, Balangir, Hirakud, and Jharsuguda--have the soil and the irrigation facilities to support local agriculture. The coastal plains are formed of alluvial soils deposited by the many rivers flowing to the Bay of Bengal; locally the area is known as the Baleshwar Coastal Plain to the northeast, the Mahanadi delta in the centre, and the Chilika Plain to the southwest. The coastal plains are heavily populated, have extensive irrigation, and are devoted almost entirely to the growing of rice during the rainy season.

The main rivers are the Subarnarekha, Burabalang, Baitarani, Brahmani, Mahanadi, Rushikulya, and Vamsadhara. Notable mountain ranges are the Mahendra Hill (Giri; rising to 4,924 feet [1,501 metres]), the Malaya Hill (3,894 feet [1,187 metres]), and the Megasini (3,822 feet [1,165 metres]). Orissa's Chilika Lake is the biggest saltwater lagoon in India.€€€

(See also: Orissa, Hinduism, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Pythagoreans The school founded at Crotona, Italy in the 6th century BC by Pythagoras of Samos. Pythagoras was an initiate not only into the Mysteries of his own native state, but also into those of the ancient Orient, where he had pursued extensive studies. His special work was to translate his esoteric knowledge into terms of the Grecian thought of that period. He shows the ultimate derivation of his wisdom and consequent teaching both by the content of his philosophical doctrines and by his insistence upon purity and self-mastery in life as a prime requisite to the attainment of wisdom.

His word metempsychoses is given as meaning the transference of the soul from one body to another; whereas by its Greek etymology it should mean the various highly occult transformations undergone by the soul-ego after death, and preceding the process of reensoulment -- something of larger significant content than what the word reincarnation has mainly come to mean today, as implying merely soul-reimbodiment. It is the teaching of the various successive karmic transformations and imbodiments of a monad during its evolutionary cycle -- not only in the larger sense of cosmic destiny, but also in the smaller sense of its karmic transformations between death and the succeeding physical birth.

Pythagoras is famous for his use of numerical and geometrical keys, which he illustrated by reference to the geometrical figures, the musical scale, astronomy, etc. He is supposed to have "discovered" the Divine Section, the regular polyhedra, and the proposition relating to the square of the hypotenuse; what he did was to show that these were keys to the interpretation of mysteries. Porphyry reports that the numerals of Pythagoras were "hieroglyphical symbols by means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature of things: (Vita Pythag) or, Blavatsky adds, "the origin of the universe" (SD 1:361). His tetraktys is a gem of condensed esoteric symbolism.

The influence of his school may be traced in subsequent Greek history, inspiring such characters as Epaminondas; "It was Pythagoras who was the first to teach the heliocentric system, and who was the greatest proficient in geometry of his century. It was he also who created the word 'philosopher,' composed of two words meaning a 'lover of wisdom' -- philosophos. As the greatest mathematician, geometer and astronomer of historical antiquity, and also the highest of the metaphysicians and scholars, Pythagoras has won imperishable fame. He taught reincarnation as it is professed in India and much else of the Secret Wisdom" (TG 266).

(See also: Pythagoreans, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Kali Yuga (Sanskrit) Iron age or black age; the fourth and last of the four great yugas constituting a mahayuga (great age), the other three being the krita or satya yuga, treta yuga, and dvapara yuga. The kali yuga is the most material phase of a being's or group's evolutionary cycle. The fifth root-race is at present in its kali yuga, which is stated to have commenced at the moment of Krishna's death, usually given as 3102 BC.

The Hindus also assert that at the first moment of kali yuga there was a conjunction of all the planets. Although the kali yuga is our present profoundly materialistic age, in which only one fourth of truth prevails among humanity, making a period often called an age black with horrors, its swift momentum permits one to do more with his energies, good or bad, in a shorter time than in any other yuga. This period will be followed by the krita yuga of the next root-race.

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.

(See also: Kali Yuga, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Yuga (Sanskrit) 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:

1. Krita or Satya Yuga . . 4,000

Sandhya . . . . . . . . 400

Sandhyansa . . . . . . 400

4,800 or 1,728,000 mortal years

2. Treta Yuga . . . . . . . 3,000

Sandhya . . . . . . . . 300

Sandhyansa . . . . . . . 300

3,600 or 1,296,000 mortal years

3. Dvapara Yuga . . . . . . 2,000

Sandhya . . . . . . . . 200

Sandhyansa . . . . . . . 200

2,400 or 864,000 mortal years

4. Kali yuga . . . . . . . 1,000

Sandhya . . . . . . . . 100

Sandhyansa . . . . . . 100

1,200 or 432,000 mortal years

Total: 12,000 a Mahayuga or 4,320,000 mortal years

Of these four yugas, our present racial period is the kali yuga (black age), often called the Iron Age, said to have commenced at the moment of Krishna's death, usually given as 3102 BC. These yugas do not affect all mankind at the same time, as some races, because of their own special cycles in running, are in one or in another of the yugas, while other races are in a different cycle. This series of 4, 3, 2, 1, with ciphers added or not according to circumstances, are among the sacred computations of archaic esotericism, which shows that all the various kinds of yugas, the small being included within the great, are each governed by the same periodic and regular series -- all of which makes calculation no easy thing.

"All races have their own cycles, which fact causes a great difference. For instance, the Fourth Sub-Race of the Atlanteans was in its Kali-Yug, when destroyed, whereas the Fifth was in its Satya or Krita Yuga. The Aryan Race is now in its Kali Yuga, and will continue to be in it for 427,000 years longer, while various 'family Races,' called the Semitic, Hamitic, etc., are in their own special cycles. The forthcoming 6th Sub Race -- which may begin very soon -- will be in its Satya (golden) age while we reap the fruit of iniquity in our Kali Yuga" (SD 2:147n).

The four yugas refer to any root-race, although indeed a root-race from its individual beginning to its individual ending is about double the length of the great yuga as set forth in the above chart. The racial yugas, however, overlap because each new great race is born at about the middle period of the parent race, although the individual length of any one race is as above stated. Thus it is that by the overlapping of the races, a race and its succeeding race may for a long time be contemporaneous on the face of the globe.

As the four yugas are a reflection in human history of what takes place in the evolution of the earth itself, and also of the planetary chain, the same scheme of yugas applies on larger scales: there exist the four yugas in the time periods of the evolution of a planetary chain, as well as in the general time period of a globe manvantara. These cosmic yugas are very much longer than the racial yugas, but the same general scheme of 4, 3, 2 applies throughout.

"The sacredness of the cycle of 4320, with additional cyphers, lies in the fact that the figures which compose it, taken separately or joined in various combinations, are each and all symbolical of the greatest mysteries in Nature. Indeed, whether one takes the 4 separately, or the 3 by itself, or the two together making 7, or again the three added together and yielding 9, all these numbers have their application in the most sacred and occult things, and record the workings of Nature in her eternally periodical phenomena. They are never erring, perpetually recurring numbers, unveiling, to him who studies the secrets of Nature, a truly divine System, an intelligent plan in Cosmogony, which results in natural cosmic divisions of times, seasons, invisible influences, astronomical phenomena, with their action and reaction on terrestrial and even moral nature; on birth, death, and growth, on health and disease. All these natural events are based and depend upon cyclical processes in the Kosmos itself, producing periodic agencies which, acting from without, affect the Earth and all that lives and breathes on it, from one end to the other of any Manvantara. Causes and effects are esoteric, exoteric, and endexoteric, so to say" (SD 2:73-4).

(See also: Yuga, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Temple of Solomon The building of this temple, according to the Bible, was first projected by King David, but on command of the Lord was not carried out by him because he had "shed much blood." David, however, assembled materials and workmen. To aid him in building the Temple, his son Solomon appealed to Hiram or Huram, King of Tyre, to send him a skillful artisan, and King Hiram sent Hiram Abif to Solomon, also workmen and additional supplies of timber.

According to the Biblical account the Temple was completely built, while according to Masonic tradition the building was left unfinished on account of the death of Hiram Abif. The temple after its completion retained its original splendor for only 33 years when the Egyptian King Shishak made war upon Rehoboam, Solomon's son, captured Jerusalem, and took away all the treasures of the temple and of the king's house. Its history is one of repeated profanation and of alternate spoilations and repairs, until finally in 588 BC it was entirely destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in the reign of Zedekiah. Yet Herodotus who, some 150 years later, visited Tyre and described the temple of Melkarth and Astoreth, does not even mention the Temple of Solomon, supporting the view that there never was such a structure actually built.

Granting that there may be some historical background for the Biblical account, it is nevertheless allegorical throughout. Blavatsky compares the measurements given in the Bible with those of the Great Pyramid and the Tabernacle of Moses, all of which were constructed upon the same abstract formula derived from the number of years in the precessional cycle, and also upon integral values of pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. Moses symbolized these "under the form and measurements of the tabernacle, that he is supposed to have constructed in the wilderness. On these data the later Jewish High Priests constructed the allegory of Solomon's Temple -- a building which never had a real existence, any more than had King Solomon himself, who is simply, and as much a solar myth as is the still later Hiram Abif, of the Masons, as Ragon has well demonstrated. Thus, if the measurements of this allegorical temple, the symbol of the cycle of Initiation, coincide with those of the Great Pyramid, it is due to the fact that the former were derived from the latter through the Tabernacle of Moses" (SD 1:314-5). And she refers to "the undeniable, clear, and mathematical proofs that the esoteric foundations, or the system used in the building of the Great Pyramid, and the architectural measurements in the Temple of Solomon (whether the latter be mythical or real), Noah's ark, and the ark of the Covenant, are the same" (SD 2:465).

The key to the meaning of Solomon's Temple is given by W. Q. Judge: it

"means man whose frame is built up, finished and decorated without the least noise. But the materials had to be found, gathered together and fashioned in other and distant places. . . . Man could not have his bodily temple to live in until all the matter in and about his world had been found by the Master, who is the inner man, when found the plans for working it required to be detailed. They then had to be carried out in different detail until all the parts should be perfectly ready and fit for placing in the final structure. So in the vast stretch of time which began after the first almost intangible matter had been gathered and kneaded, the material and vegetable kingdoms had sole possession here with the Master -- man -- who was hidden from sight within carrying forward the plans for the foundations of the human temple. All of this requires many, many ages, since we know that nature never leaps. And when the rough work was completed, when the human temple was erected, many more ages would be required for all the servants, the priests, and the counselors to learn their parts properly so that man, the Master, might be able to use the temple for its best and highest purposes" (Ocean 20).

Thus David, who collected materials for the building but was not permitted actually to build the temple, represents the evolutionary and preparatory work of earlier rounds and of the earlier root-races preceding the middle of the third root-race of this round, when humanity appeared upon the scene -- Solomon, David's son -- takes up the task of the actual building of the human temple. David thus mystically may stand for the lunar or barhishad-pitris, and Solomon for the solar or agnishvatta-pitris.

According to the Old Testament, the building of the temple was completed, but it was used for its high purposes only briefly. Allegorically this was during the Golden Age of the childhood of the human race -- the building was complete only as regards childhood when the gods walked among mankind and were their divine instructors; but humanity was not yet truly human, for manas (mind) had not yet been awakened by the manasaputras of whom Hiram Abif was a type. It is here that Masonic tradition should be studied together with the Biblical account. Then with the awakening of manas, and the eating from the Tree of Knowledge and hence the power to choose between good and evil -- in other words, with the beginning of self-directed evolution, the temple was desecrated again and again. "The building of the Temple of Solomon is the symbolical representation of the gradual acquirement of the secret wisdom, or magic; the erection and development of the spiritual from the earthly; the manifestation of the power and splendor of the spirit in the physical world, through the wisdom and genius of the builder. The latter, when he has become an adept, is a mightier king than Solomon himself, the emblem of the sun or Light himself -- the light of the real subjective world, shining in the darkness of the objective universe. This is the 'Temple' which can be reared without the sound of the hammer, or any tool of iron being heard in the house while it is 'in building' " (IU 2:391).

Again, the building of a temple, sanctuary, Holy of Holies, etc., always signified in the occult language of ancient days the founding and dissemination throughout the world or a portion of mankind of a secret doctrine of nature. In a more restricted sense, the building of a temple referred to the actual establishment of an initiation center, where not only for such territory the ancient wisdom and its divine significances were taught, but disciples were trained and brought to the "new" or "second" birth, and thenceforth themselves became adepts or initiates. On these lines the building of Solomon's Temple was the inauguration and establishment of the teaching of nature's occult wisdom in Judea and surrounding territory.

(See also: Temple of Solomon, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)