A Wisdom Archive on Buddhism in Numbers

Asoka (Sanskrit). A celebrated Indian king of the Morya dynasty which reigned at Magadha. There were two Asokas in reality, according to the chronicles of Northern Buddhism, though the first Asoka - the grand father of the second, named by Prof. Max Muller the "Constantine of India", was better known by his name of Chandragupta.
 
It is the former who was called, Piadasi (Pali) "the beautiful", and Devanam-piya "the beloved of the gods", and also Kalasoka; while the name of his grandson was Dharmasoká - the Asoka of the good law- - on account of his devotion to Buddhism. Moreover, according to the same source, the second Asoka had never followed the Brahmanical faith, but was a Buddhist born.
 
 It was his grandsire who had been first converted to the new faith, after which he had a number of edicts inscribed on pillars and rocks, a custom followed also by his grandson. But it was the second Asoka who was the most zealous supporter of Buddhism; he, who maintained in his palace from 60 to 70,000 monks and priests, who erected 84,000 totes and stupas throughout India, reigned 36 years, and sent missions to Ceylon, and throughout the world.
 
The inscriptions of various edicts published by him display most noble ethical sentiments, especially the edict at Allahahad, on the so-called "Asoka’s column ", in the Fort. The sentiments are lofty and poetical, breathing tenderness for animals as well as men, and a lofty view of a king’s mission with regard to his people, that might be followed with great success in the present age of cruel wars and barbarous vivisection.

 
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Upanishad (Sanskrit) [from upa according to + ni down + the verbal root sad to sit]
 
Following or according to the teachings which were received when sitting down; esoteric doctrine. "Literary works in which the rahasya -- a Sanskrit word meaning esoteric doctrine or mystery -- is imbodied. The Upanishads belong to the Vedic cycle and are regarded by orthodox Brahmans as a portion of the Sruti or ''Revelation.'' It was from these wonderful quasi-esoteric and very mystical works that was later developed the highly philosophical and profound system called the Vedanta" (OG 179).
 
The Upanishads belong to the third division of the Vedas and are appended to the Brahmanas. The number of Upanishads hitherto known is about 170, though probably only a score are now complete without evident marks of excision or interpolation. These Upanishads belong to different periods of antiquity, some being of a much later date than others. Although the Upanishads are usually considered by modern scholars to be as a whole of later date than the Brahmanas, the original Upanishads were composed in an antiquity which anteceded that of the Brahmanas, and are probably coeval with the composition of the Vedas themselves.
 
"The Upanishads must be far more ancient than the days of Buddhism, as they show no preference for, nor do they uphold, the superiority of the Brahmans as a caste. On the contrary, it is the (now) second caste, the Kshatriya, or warrior class, who are exalted in the oldest of them. As stated by Professor Cowell in Elphinstone''s History of India -- ''they breathe a freedom of spirit unknown to any earlier work except the Rig-Veda . . . The great teachers of the higher knowledge and Brahmans are continually represented as going to Kshatriya Kings to become their pupils.'' The ''Kshatriya Kings'' were in the olden times, like the King-Hierophants of Egypt, the receptacles of the highest divine knowledge and wisdom, the Elect and the incarnations of the primordial divine Instructors -- the Dhyani Buddhas or Kumaras. There was a time, aeons before the Brahmans became a caste, or even the Upanishads were written, when there was on earth but one ''lip,'' one religion and one science, namely, the speech of the gods, the Wisdom-Religion and Truth. This was before the fair fields of the latter, overrun by nations of many languages, became overgrown with the weeds of intentional deception, and national creeds invented by ambition, cruelty and selfishness, broke the one sacred Truth into thousands of fragments" (TG 354).
 
Thirteen of the principal Upanishads are: Aitareya, Kaushitaki, Kena, Taittiriya, Maitri, Katha, Brihadaranyaka, Prasna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Isa, Chhandogya, and Svetasvatara.

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

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Word In religious and philosophical usage, a translation of the Greek logos or Latin verbum. Its meaning here is that of reason manifested, employed mainly in a cosmogonic sense. "The esoteric meaning of the word Logos (speech or word, Verbum) is the rendering in objective expression, as in a photograph, of the concealed thought. The Logos is the mirror reflecting divine mind, and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the esse of that Universe. As the Logos reflects all in the Universe of Pleroma, so man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in his Universe, the Earth" (SD 2:25). This word was chosen because human thought, or immanent conscious intelligence or mind, manifests itself through words. It is familiar to Christians through the opening verse of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (1:1, 14). In the former quotation the meaning is entirely cosmogonic; in the latter, it has been diminished to signify the innate Word or divinity in man, which when in full control of the human adept can, by a stretch of metaphor, mean that the innate Christ, Buddha, or god in man so controls the human personality as to have become the latter, and thus to manifest among men.
 
Cosmogonically, theosophy considers the universe and all in it, from its first divine appearance to its last material modification, as being in toto as well as in all manifested details an emanation from the universal mind. This emanation takes place at the beginning of a manvantara in three separate stages or degrees: the First or unmanifest Logos; the Second or manifest-unmanifest Logos; and finally the Third or manifest Logos. Logos is applicable to these three stages because each is the manifesting of the wisdom in its divine predecessor, each stage carrying within itself, on the principle of the emanational scheme, the attributes or qualities of its predecessors. The Second Logos has invariably been considered feminine, and the Third Logos is regarded as the creative power.
 
Corresponding to the three Logoi in the Hindu scheme are Brahman, Brahma, and Isvara emanating originally from parabrahman-mulaprakriti. In the highly philosophical visioning of Mahayana Buddhism is adi-buddha, mahabuddhi, and the celestial buddha, occasionally indirectly called dharmakaya. On a scale of less magnitude, Hindu thought has developed the triad Brahma, the emanator or original emanation; Vishnu, the supporter or sustainer, a feminine characteristic nevertheless; and Siva at once the regenerator and producer in the sense of destroying but to regenerate. Still a third Hindu scheme is found in the series of paramatman, mahabuddhi or alaya, and mahat or cosmic creative mind.
 
A somewhat similar usage in the Qabbalah is Meimra, or ''imrah (word, particularly from divinity) [both from Hebrew verbal root amar to say, speak, use words]. One of the Stanzas of Dzyan refers to the Army of the Voice, which is explained to be "the prototype of the ''Host of the Logos,'' or the ''word'' of the Sepher Jezirah, called in the Secret Doctrine ''the One Number issued from No-Number'' -- the One Eternal Principle" (SD 1:94).
 
See also LOGOS

 
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Upanishad (Sanskrit). Translated as "esoteric doctrine ", or interpretation of the Vedas by the Vedanta methods.
 
The third division of the Vedas appended to the Brahmanas and regarded as a portion of Sruti or "revealed" word. They are, however, as records, far older than the Brahmanas the exception of the two, still extant, attached to the Rig -Veda of the Aitareyins.
 
The term Upanishad is explained by the Hindu pundits as "that which destroys ignorance, and thus produces liberation" of the spirit, through the knowledge of the supreme though hidden truth; the same, therefore, as that which was hinted at by Jesus, when he is made to say, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free " (John viii. 32). It is from these treatises of the Upanishads - themselves the echo of the primeval Wisdom-Religion?that the Vedanta system of philosophy has been developed. (See "Vedanta".)
 
Yet old as the Upanishads may be, the Orientalists will not assign to the oldest of them more than an antiquity of 600 years B.C. The accepted number of these treatises is 150, though now no more than about twenty are left unadulterated. They treat of very abstruse, metaphysical questions, such as the origin of the Universe; the nature and the essence of the Unmanifested Deity and the manifested gods the connection, primal and ultimate, of spirit and matter ; the universality of mind and the nature of the human Soul and Ego.
 
The Upanishads must be far more ancient than the days of Buddhism, as they show no preference for, nor do they uphold, the superiority of the Brahmans as a caste. On the contrary, it is the (now) second caste, the Kshatriya, or warrior class, who are exalted in the oldest of them. As stated by Professor Cowell in Elphinstone’s History of India -  - "they breathe a freedom of spirit unknown to any earlier work except the Rig Veda. . . The great teachers of the higher knowledge and Brahmans are continually represented as going to Kshatriya Kings to become their pupils." The " Kshatriya Kings" were in the olden times, like the King Hierophants of Egypt, the receptacles of the highest divine knowledge and wisdom, the Elect and the incarnations of the primordial divine Instructors - the Dhyani Buddhas or Kumaras.
 
There was a time, eons before the Brahmans became a caste, or even the Upanishads were written, when there was on earth but one "lip ", one religion and one science, namely, the speech of the gods, the Wisdom-Religion and Truth. This was before the fair fields of the latter, overrun by nations of many languages, became overgrown with the weeds of intentional deception, and national creeds invented by ambition, cruelty and selfishness, broke the one sacred Truth into thousands of fragments.

 
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Yeheedah (Hebrew, Jewish). Lit., "Individuality "; esoterically, the highest individuality or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, when united in one.
 
This doctrine is in the Chaldean Book of Numbers, which teaches a septenary division of human "principles", so-called, as does the Kabalah in the Zohar, according to the Book of Solomon (iii.,Io4a so as translated in I. Myer’s Qabbalah). At the time of the conception, the Holy "sends a d’yook-nah, or the phantom of a shadow image" like the face of a man. it is designed and sculptured in the divine tzelem, i.e., the shadow image of the Elohim. " Elohim created man in his (their) tzelem " or image, says Genesis (i. 27). It is the tzelem that awaits the child and receives it at the moment of its conception, and this tzelem is our linga sharira. "
 
The Rua’h forms with the Nephesh the actual personality of the man ", and also his individuality, or, as expressed by the Kabbalist, the combination of the two is called, if he (man) deserves it, Yeheedah. This combination is that which the Theosophist calls the dual Manas, the Higher and the Lower Ego, united to Atma-Buddhi and become one. For as explained in the Zohar (i., 205b, 206a, Brody Ed.): "Neshamah, soul (Buddhi), comprises three degrees, and therefore she has three names, like the mystery above: that is, Nephesh, Rua’h, Neshamah ", or the Lower Manas, the Higher Ego, and Buddhi, the Divine Soul. "It is also to be noted that the Neshamah has three divisions;" says Myer’s Qabbalah, "the highest is the Ye-hee-dah " - or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the latter once more as a unit; "the middle principle is Hay-yak " - or Buddhi and the dual Manas; "and the last and third, the Neshamah, properly speaking " - or Soul in general. "They manifest themselves in Ma’hshabah, thought, Tzelem, phantom of the image, Zurath, prototypes (mayavic forms, or rupas), and the D'yooknah, shadow of the phantom image.
 
The D’mooth, likeness or similitude (physical body), is a lower manifestation" (p. 392). Here then, we find the faithful echo of Esoteric science in the Zohar and other Kabbalistic works, a perfect Esoteric septenary division. Every Theosophist who has studied the doctrine sketched out first in Mr. Sinnett’s Occult World and Esoteric Buddhism, and later in the Theosophist, Lucifer, and other writings, will recognise them in the Zohar. Compare for instance what is taught in Theosophical works about the pre- and post-mortem states of the three higher and the four lower human principles, with the following from the Zohar: " Because all these three are one knot like the above, in the mystery of Nephesh, Rua’h, Neshamah, they are all one, and bound in one. Nephesh (Kama-Manas) has no light from her own substance; and it is for this reason that she is associated with the mystery of guff, the body, to procure enjoyment and food and everything which it needs.
 
Rua’h (the Spirit) is that which rides on that Nephesh (the lower soul) and rules over her and lights (supplies) her with everything she needs [ with the light of reason], and the Nephesh is the throne [ of that Ru’ah. Neshamah (Divine Soul) goes over to that Rua’h, and she rules over that Rua’h and lights to him with that Light of Life, and that Rua’h depends on the Neshamah and receives light from her, which illuminates him. . . When the ‘upper’ Neshamah ascends (after the death of the body), she goes to . . . the Ancient of the Ancient, the Hidden of all the Hidden, to receive Eternity. The Rua’h does not
[ go to Gan Eden [ because he is [ up with] Nephesh the Rua’h goes up to Eden, but not so high as the soul, and Nephesh [ animal principle, lower soul] remains in the grave below [ Kamaloka]
 
(Zohar, ii., 142a, Cremona Ed., ii., fol. 63b col. 252). It would be difficult not to recognise in the above our Atma (or the "upper" Neshamah), Buddhi (Neshamah),. Manas (Rua’h), and Kama-Manas (Nephesh) or the lower animal soul; the first of which goes after the death of man to join its integral whole, the second and the third proceeding to Devachan, and the last, or the Kamarupa, "remaining in its grave", called other wise the Kamaloka or Hades.

 
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Saphar (Hebrew, Jewish). Sepharim; one of those called in the Kabbalah -  Sepher, Saphar and Sipur, or "Number, Numbers and Numbered ", by whose agency the world was formed.

 
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Abhasvaras (Sanskrit). The Devas or "Gods" of Light and Sound, the highest of the upper three celestial regions (planes) of the second Dhyana (q.v.) A class of gods sixty-four in number, representing a certain cycle and an occult number.

 
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Arkites. The ancient priests who were attached to the Ark, whether of Isis, or the Hindu Argua, and who were seven in number, like the priests of the Egyptian Tat or any other cruciform symbol of the three and the four, the combination of which gives a male-female number. The Avgha (or ark) was the four-fold female principle, and the flame burning over it the triple lingham.

 
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Arithmomancy (Ancient Greek). The science of correspondences between gods, men, and numbers, as taught by Pythagoras.

 
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Maha Rajikas (Sanskrit). A gana or class of gods 236 in number. Certain Forces in esoteric teachings.

 
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Mantrika Sakti (Sanskrit). The power, or the occult potency of mystic words, sounds, numbers or letters in these Mantras.

 
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Matris (Sanskrit). "Mothers," the divine mothers. Their number is seven. They are the female aspects and powers of the gods.

 
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