Introduction and links to related topics Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.
Brahmanas - Brahmanas (Sanskrit) Hindu Sacred Books. Works composed by, and for Brahmans. Commentaries on those portions of the Vedas which were intended for the ritualistic use and guidance of the "twice-born (Dwija) or Brahmans.
Brahmana - Brahmana (Sanskrit) Also Brahman, Brahmin. As a noun, a member of the highest of the four orthodox Hindu castes during the Vedic and post-Vedic periods. The other three Hindu castes are Kshattriya, Vaisya, and Sudra.
Originally an individual became a Brahmana through personal merit and initiation, but gradually priestcraft by degrees entered in, so that the son of a Brahmana became a Brahmana by right or family protection first, then by that of descent. The rights of blood-descent in time replaced the nobler rights of genuine merit, and thus arose the rigid cast of the Brahmanas. Blavatsky says that a true Brahmana is one who has become a dvija (twice-born or initiate) and one "whose seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the moon-plant (Soma),'' and who is a ''Trisuparna'' ("three-leaved or -winged" or active in the highest three principles)
, for he has understood the secret of the Vedas" (SD 1:209-10). Dvija and trisuparna, although still used in India, are used merely by courtesy and ancient custom; in archaic ages the titles were properly borne, because merited, and were descriptive rather than complimentary.
A second meaning as a noun is one of the portions of Vedic literature containing rules for the proper chanting and usage of the mantras or hymns at sacrifices, and explanations in detail of what these sacrifices are, illustrated by legends and old stories. These Brahmanas are "pre-eminently occult works, hence used purposely as blinds. They were allowed to survive for public use and property only because they were and are absolutely unintelligible to the masses. Otherwise they would have disappeared from circulation as long ago as the days of Akbar" (SD 1:68).
Though the Brahmanas are the oldest scholastic treatises on the primitive hymns, they themselves require a key for a proper understanding of them which Orientalists have hitherto failed to secure. Since the time of Gautama Buddha, the keys to the Brahmanical secret code have been in the possession of initiates alone, who guard their treasure with extreme and jealous care. There are indeed few, if any, individuals of the present-day Brahmanical cast in India who are even conscious that such keys exists; although no small number of them, possibly, have intimations or intuitions that a secret wisdom has been lost which is uniformly understood to have been in the possession of the ancient Indian rishis.
Brahmana is also the adjectival form for the two uses given above.
See also CHATUR-VARNA
Kimpurusha - Kimpurusha kimpurusa (Sanskrit) Also kimpurusha.
"What sort of a man?"; according to the Brahmanas, an evil being resembling a man. In later times, identified with kinnaras, beings in which the figure of a man and of an animal are combined. One class of celestial beings regarded as attendants of Kubera.
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.
Aranyaka - Aranyaka (Sanskrit) (from aranya forest-like from aranya wilderness, forest)
Forest-born; a hermit or holy man who dwells in the forest during the process of becoming a genuine spiritual yogi. Aranyakas (plural) are a class of Vedic treatises of a mystical nature attached to the Brahmanas and closely associated with the Upanishads. They were called such either because they were written in the solitude of the wilderness or because they were intended for study and contemplation by those who had retired from the world to lead the life of spiritual recluses. The Aranyakas are ritualistic, treating of special ceremonies either omitted or dealt with only in part in the Brahmanas, and hence are considered to be supplemental to the latter.
Only four Aranyakas are presently known to exist: the Aitareya (Rig-vedic) forming part of the Aitareya-Brahmana; the Kausitaki (Rig-vedic) whose third and final chapter is the Kanusitaki Upanishad; the Taittiriya, of ten books, belonging to the Yajur-Veda; and the Brihad (Yajur-Veda) which forms a part of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad attached to the Satapatha-Brahmana.
Brihad-aranyaka - Brihad-aranyaka or -aranya Upanishad (Sanskrit) (from brihad great + aranyaka produced in a forest)
A celebrated Upanishad, forming the last five prapathakas (sections) of the Satapatha-Brahmana -- one of the most important of the Brahmanas -- attributed to Yajnavalkya. The title refers to this class of highly mystical and metaphysical literary work supposed to have been thought out by sages while retired in the solitudes of mountain and forest. Aranyaka is closely associated with Upanishad, and often used interchangeably with it; thus this work is often called Brihad-Upanishad or Brihad-aranyaka-upanishad.
Veda - (Sanskrit) "Wisdom." Sagely revelations which
comprise Hinduism''s most authoritative scripture. They, along with the Agamas, are shruti, "that which is heard."
The Vedas are a body of dozens of holy texts known
collectively as the Veda, or as the four Vedas: Rig, Yajur,
Sama and Atharva. In all they include over 100,000
verses, as well as additional prose. The knowledge
imparted by the Vedas is highly mystical or
superconscious rather than intellectual. Each Veda has
four sections: Samhitas (hymn collections), Brahmanas
(priestly manuals), Aranyakas (forest treatises) and
Upanishads (enlightened discourses). The Samhitas and
Brahmanas (together known as the karmakanda, "ritual
section") detail a transcendent-immanent Supreme-Being
cosmology and a system of worship through fire ceremony
and chanting to establish communication with the Gods.
The Aranyakas and Upanishads (the jnanakanda,
"knowledge section") outline the soul''s evolutionary
journey, providing yogic-philosophic training and
propounding a lofty, nondual realization as the destiny of
all souls. The oldest portions of the Vedas are thought to
date back as far as 6,000 bce, written down in Sanskrit in
the last few millennia, making them the world''s most
ancient scriptures.
See: Aranyaka, Brahmana, shruti,
Upanishad, Vedanga.
Yajna - (Sanskrit) "Worship; sacrifice."
One of the most central Hindu concepts - sacrifice and surrender through acts of worship, inner and outer.
1) A form of ritual worship especially prevalent in Vedic times, in which oblations - ghee, grains, spices and exotic woods - are offered into a fire according to scriptural injunctions while special mantras are chanted.
The element fire, Agni, is revered as the divine messenger who carries offerings and prayers to the Gods.
The ancient Veda Brahmanas and the Shrauta Shastras describe various types of yajna rites, some so elaborate as to require hundreds of priests, whose powerful chanting resounds for miles. These major yajnas are performed in large, open-air structures called yagashala.
Domestic yajnas, prescribed in the Grihya Shastras, are performed in the family compound or courtyard. Yajna requires four components, none of which may be omitted: dravya, sacrificial substances; tyaga, the spirit of sacrificing all to God; devata, the celestial beings who receive the sacrifice; and mantra, the empowering word or chant.
While puja (worship in temples with water, lights and flowers) has largely replaced the yajna, this ancient rite still continues, and its specialized priestly training is carried on in schools in India.
Yajnas of a grand scale are performed for special occasions, beseeching the Gods for rain during drought, or for peace during bloody civil war. Even in temples, yajna has its Agamic equivalent in the agnikaraka, the homa or havana ceremony, held in a fire pit (homakunda) in an outer mandapa of a temple as part of elaborate puja rites.
2) Personal acts of worship or sacrifice. Life itself is a jivayajna.
The Upanishads suggest that one can make "inner yajnas" by offering up bits of the little self into the fires of sadhana and tapas until the greater Self shines forth.
The five daily yajnas, pancha mahayajna, of the householder (outlined in the Dharma Shastras) ensure offerings to rishis, ancestors, Gods, creatures and men. They are as follows.
brahma yajna: (also called Veda yajna or rishi yajna) "Homage to the seers." Accomplished through studying and teaching the Vedas.
deva yajna: "Homage to Gods and elementals." Recognizing the debt due to those who guide nature, and the feeding of them by offering ghee and uncooked grains into the fire. This is the homa sacrifice.
pitri yajna: "Homage to ancestors." Offering of cakes (pinda) and water to the family line and the progenitors of mankind.
bhuta yajna: "Homage to beings." Placing food-offerings, bali, on the ground, intended for animals, birds, insects, wandering outcastes and beings of the invisible worlds. ("Let him gently place on the ground [food] for dogs, outcastes, svapachas, those diseased from sins, crows and insects" Manu Dharma Shastras 3.92).
manushya yajna: "Homage to men." Feeding guests and the poor, the homeless and the student. Manushya yajna includes all acts of philanthropy, such as tithing and charity. The Vedic study is performed in the morning.
The other four yajnas are performed just before taking one''s noon meal. Manu Dharma Shastras (3.80) states, "Let him worship, according to the rule, the rishis with Veda study, the devas with homa, the pitris with shraddha, men with food, and the bhutas with bali."
Mystics warn that all offerings must be tempered in the fires of kundalini through the power of inner yajna to be true and valuable, just as the fire of awareness is needed to indelibly imprint ideas and concepts on one''s own akashic window.
See: dharma, havana, homa, puja, sacrifice.
Ambhamsi - Ambhamsi (Sanskrit) (from ambhas water, from the verbal root bha 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).
Smartava - Smartava (Sanskrit) [from smriti tradition from the verbal root smri to remember]
A follower of Sankaracharya and the Advita Vedantic doctrines.
According to Blavatsky "this sect, founded by Sankaracharya, (which is still very powerful in Southern India) is now almost the only one to produce students who have preserved sufficient knowledge to comprehend the dead letter of the Bhashyas. The reason of this is that they alone, I am informed, have occasionally real Initiates at their head in their mathams, as for instance, in the ''Sringa-giri,'' in the Western Ghauts of Mysore. On the other hand, there is no sect in that desperately exclusive caste of the Brahmins, more exclusive than is the Smartava; and the reticence of its followers to say what they may know of the Occult sciences and the esoteric doctrine, is only equalled by their pride and learning" (SD 1:271-2). What the original Hebrew Qabbalists were -- qabbalah itself meaning tradition or traditional knowledge handed down from generation to generation of adepts -- was exactly what the Smartava-Brahmanas were.
Traditional teaching holds that truth is preserved far more clearly by oral transmission of knowledge than by its reduction to writing, whether openly or disguisedly expressed, which latter is called sruti in India, involving the static delivery of the written word without the atmosphere and life accompanying the traditional handing on of knowledge orally.
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