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Siddha Yoga - (Sanskrit) "Yoga of perfected attainment, or of supernatural powers."
A term used in the Tirumantiram and other Saiva scriptures to describe the yoga which is the way of life of adepts after attaining of Parasiva. Siddha yoga involves the development of magical or mystical powers, or siddhis, such as the eight classical powers. It is a highly advanced yoga which seeks profound transformation of body, mind and emotions and the ability to live in a flawless state of God Consciousness.
The highly accomplished practices of certain alchemists.
See: siddha yogi, siddhi.
Yogatattva Upanishad - (Sanskrit) Scripture of 142 verses based on Advaita Vedanta and yoga practices, ca 1400.
Islam - The religion founded by Prophet Muhammed in Arabia about 625 ce. Islam connotes submission to Allah, the name for God in this religion.
Adherents, known as Moslems, follow the "five pillars" found in their scripture, the Koran: faith in Allah, praying five times daily facing Mecca, giving of alms, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and pilgrimage. One of the fastest growing religions, Islam has over one billion followers, mostly in the Middle East, Pakistan, Africa, China, Indochina, Russia and neighboring countries.
See: Koran, Mohammed.
Chatvaras - Chatvaras or Chatvarah catvaras, catvarah (Sanskrit) (nominative plural of chatur four)
The four; frequently used to represent the four kumaras usually mentioned in Hindu scriptures: Sanatkumara, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanatana.
Abortion - The deliberate termination of pregnancy. From the earliest times, Hindu tradition and scriptures condemn the practice, except when the mother''s life is in danger. It is considered an act against rita and ahimsa. Hindu mysticism teaches that the fetus is a living, conscious person, needing and deserving protection (a Rig Vedic hymn [7.36.9, RvP, 2469] begs for protection of fetuses).
The Kaushitaki Upanishad (3.1 UpR, 774) describes abortion as equivalent to killing one''s parents. The Atharva Veda (6.113.2 HE, 43) lists the fetus slayer, brunaghni, among the greatest of sinners (6.113.2).
The Gautama Dharma Shastra (3.3.9 HD, 214) considers such participants to have lost caste.
The Sushruta Samhita, a medical treatise (ca 100), stipulates what is to be done in case of serious problems during delivery (Chikitsasthana Chapter, Mudhagarbha), describing first the various steps to be taken to attempt to save both mother and child. "If the fetus is alive, one should attempt to remove it from the womb of the mother alive..." (sutra 5). If it is dead, it may be removed. In case the fetus is alive but cannot be safely delivered, surgical removal is forbidden for "one would harm both mother and offspring. In an irredeemable situation, it is best to cause the miscarriage of the fetus, for no means must be neglected which can prevent the loss of the mother" (sutras 10-11).
Amshaspands - Amshaspands (Pahlavi) Also Amshaspends. The seven bright and glorious ones, Pahlavi version of the Avestic Amesha-Spenta. They refer to the six attributes of Ahura Mazda, both in the spiritual and mental worlds.
The first three -- Vohu-Man (Bahman), Asha-Vahishta (Ordibehesht), and Khshathra-Vayria (Shahrivar) -- are the three aspects of truth. Spenta-Armaiti (Spandar-Maz or Esphand), Haurvata (Khordad), and Ameretat (Amordad) are reflections of the first male trinity in the mental world. The total sum of the six is kherad (intellect), man''s liberating force, which is not to be mistaken as Ahura Mazda, the supreme creator.
The Amshaspands in ancient Persian theology bore the same general relation to the universe that the seven or ten prajapatis have in the Hindu scriptures, or that the seven or ten Sephiroth have in the Hebrew Qabbalah.
See also Amesha-Spenta.
Puranas - Hindu scriptures consisting of myths, legends, and historical events; also occasionally used by those in the New Age movement.
Upanishad - ("sitting near"): a type of scripture representing the concluding portion of the revealed literature of Hinduism, hence the designation Vedanta for the teachings of these sacred works; cf. Aranyaka, Brahmana, Veda
Trikashasana - (Sanskrit) "Three teachings." Also, Trikashastra.
A name for Kashmir Saivism based on its various philosophical triads including: Siva, Shakti and Nara (bound soul); Pati, pashu and pasha; three energies: highest (para), lowest (apara), and in-between (parapara); and three sets of scriptures.
See: Kashmir Saivism.
Lila - Lila (Sanskrit) Sport, diversion, pastime; in Hindu scriptures the acts of divinity, such as the creation or emanation of worlds, are called lila.
Mahabharata - (Sanskrit) "Great Epic of India."
The world''s longest epic poem. It revolves around the conflict between two royal families, the Pandavas and Kauravas, and their great battle of Kurukshetra near modern Delhi in approximately 1424 bce. Woven through the plot are countless discourses on philosophy, religion, astronomy, cosmology, polity, economics and many stories illustrative of simple truths and ethical principles. The Bhagavad Gita is one section of the work. The Mahabharata is revered as scripture by Vaishnavites and Smartas.
See: Bhagavad Gita, Itihasa.
Rig Veda - (Sanskrit) "Veda of verse (rik)."
The first and oldest of the four Veda compendia of revealed scriptures (shruti), including a hymn collection (Samhita), priestly explanatory manuals (Brahmanas), forest treatises (Aranyakas) elaborating on the Vedic rites, and philosophical dialogs (Upanishads). Like the other Vedas, the Rig Veda was brought to earth consciousness not all at once, but gradually, over a period of perhaps several thousand years.
The oldest and core portion is the Samhita, believed to date back, in its oral form, as far as 8,000 years, and to have been written down in archaic Sanskrit some 3,000 years ago. It consists of more than 10,000 verses, averaging three or four lines (riks), forming 1,028 hymns (suktas), organized in ten books called mandalas. It embodies prayerful hymns of praise and invocation to the Divinities of nature and to the One Divine. They are the spiritual reflections of a pastoral people with a profound awe for the powers of nature, each of which they revered as sacred and alive. The rishis who unfolded these outpourings of adoration perceived a wellordered cosmos in which dharma is the way of attunement with celestial worlds, from which all righteousness and prosperity descends.
The main concern is man''s relationship with God and the world, and the invocation of the subtle worlds into mundane existence. Prayers beseech the Gods for happy family life, wealth, pleasure, cattle, health, protection from enemies, strength in battle, matrimony, progeny, long life and happiness, wisdom and realization and final liberation from rebirth.
The Rig Veda Samhita, which in length equals Homer''s Iliad and Odyssey combined, is the most important hymn collection, for it lends a large number of its hymns to the other three Veda Samhitas (the Sama, Yajur and Atharva). Chronologically, after the Samhitas came the Brahmanas, followed by the Aranyakas, and finally the Upanishads, also called the Vedanta, meaning "Veda''s end."
See: Rig Veda, shruti, Vedas.
Yama-niyama - (Sanskrit) "Restraints-observances."
The first two of the eight limbs of raja yoga, constituting Hinduism''s fundamental ethical codes, the yamas and niyamas are the essential foundation for all spiritual progress. They are codified in numerous scriptures including the Shandilya and Varuha Upanishads, Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Gorakshanatha, the Tirumantiram of Tirumular and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. All the above texts list ten yamas and ten niyamas, with the exception of Patanjali''s classic work, which lists only five of each.
The yamas are the ethical restraints; the niyamas are the religious practices. Because it is brief, the entire code can be easily memorized and reviewed daily by the spiritual aspirant. Here are the ten traditional yamas and ten niyamas.
yamas:
ahimsa: "Noninjury." Not harming others by thought, word, or deed.
satya: "Truthfulness." Refraining from lying and betraying promises.
asteya: "Nonstealing." Neither stealing, nor coveting nor entering into debt.
brahmacharya: (Sanskrit) "Divine conduct." Controlling lust by remaining celibate when single, leading to faithfulness in marriage.
kshama: (Sanskrit) "Patience." Restraining intolerance with people and impatience with circumstances.
dhriti: "Steadfastness." Overcoming nonperseverance, fear, indecision and changeableness.
daya: "Compassion." Conquering callous, cruel and insensitive feelings toward all beings.
arjava: "Honesty, straightforwardness." Renouncing deception and wrongdoing.
mitahara: "Moderate appetite." Neither eating too much nor consuming meat, fish, fowl or eggs.
shaucha: "Purity." Avoiding impurity in body, mind and speech. -
niyamas
Bhagavata Purana - n (Sanskrit) Also known as Srimad Bhagavatam, a work of 18,000 stanzas. A major Purana and primary Vaishnava scripture, from oral tradition, written down ca 800. It provides the stories of all incarnations of Vishnu, filled with the bhakti, inner current of devotion.
See: Purana.
Scripture - "A writing."
A sacred text or holy book having authority for a given sect or religion.
See: shastra, smriti, shruti.
Lila - Lila (Sanskrit) Sport, literally; or pastime. In the orthodox Hindu Scriptures it is explained that "the acts of the divinity are lila ", or sport.
Shrauta Shastra - (Sanskrit) "Texts on the revelation."
Refers to scriptures or teachings that are in agreement with the Vedas.
A specific group of texts of the Kalpa Vedanga, and part of the essential study for Vedic priests. The Shrauta Shastras offer explanation of the yajna rituals.
See: Vedanga.
Vedas - Vedas (Sanskrit). The "revelation". the scriptures of the Hindus, from the root vid, "to know ", or "divine knowledge". They are the most ancient as well as the most sacred of the Sanskrit works.
The Vedas on the date and antiquity of which no two Orientalists can agree, are claimed by the Hindus themselves, whose Brahmans and Pundits ought to know best about their own religious works, to have been first taught orally for thousands of years and then compiled on the shores of Lake Manasa-Sarovara (phonetically, Mansarovara) beyond the Himalayas, in Tibet. When was this done? While their religious teachers, such as Swami Dayanand Saraswati, claim for them an antiquity of many decades of ages, our modern Orientalists will grant them no greater antiquity in their present form than about between 1,000 and 2,000 B.C.
As compiled in their final form by Veda-Vyasa, however, the Brahmans themselves unanimously assign 3,100 years before the Christian era, the date when Vyasa flourished. Therefore the Vedas must be as old as this date. But their antiquity is sufficiently proven by the fact that they are written in such an ancient form, of Sanskrit, so different from the Sanskrit now used, that there is no other, work like them in the literature of this eldest sister of all the known languages, as Prof. Max Muller calls it. Only the most learned of the Brahman Pundits can read the Vedas in their original. It is urged that Colebrooke found the date 1400 B.c. corroborated absolutely by a passage which he discovered, and which is based on astronomical data.
But if, as shown unanimously by all the Orientalists and the Hindu Pundits also, that
(a) the Vedas are not a single work, nor yet any one of the separate Vedas; but that each Veda, and almost every hymn and division of the latter, is the production of various authors; and that
(b) these have been written (whether as sruti, "revelation ", or not) at various periods of the ethnological evolution of the Indo-Aryan race, then - what does Mr. Colebrooke’s discovery prove? Simply that the Vedas were finally arranged and compiled fourteen centuries before our era; but this interferes in no way with their antiquity.
Quite the reverse; for, as an offset to Mr. Colebrooke’s passage, there is a learned article, written on purely astronomical data by Krishna Shastri Godbole (of Bombay), which proves as absolutely and on the same evidence that the Vedas must have been taught at least 25,000 years ago. (See Theosophist, Vol. II., p. 238 et seq., Aug., 1881.) This statement is, if not supported, at any rate not contradicted by what Prof. Cowell says in Appendix VII., of Elphinstone’ History of India: "
There is a difference in age between the various hymns, which are now united in their present form as the Sanhita of the Rig Veda; but we have no data to determine their relative antiquity, and purely subjective criticism, apart from solid data, has so often failed in other instances, that we can trust but little to any of its inferences in such a recently opened field of research as Sanskrit literature. [ a fourth part of the Vaidik literature is as yet in print, and very little of it has been translated into English (1866).] The still unsettled controversies about the Homeric poems may well warn us of being too confident in our judgments regarding the yet earlier hymns of the Rig -Veda. . . . When we examine these hymns . . . they are deeply interesting for the history of the human mind, belonging as they do to a much older phase than the poems of Homer or Hesiod." The Vedic writings are all classified in two great divisions, exoteric and esoteric, the former being called Karma-Kanda, "division of actions or works ", and the Jnana Kanda, "division of (divine) knowledge", the Upanishads (q.v.) coming under this last classification. Both departments are regarded as Sruti or revelation.
To each hymn of the Rig -Veda, the name of the Seer or Rishi to whom it was revealed is prefixed. It, thus, becomes evident on the authority of these very names (such as Vasishta, Viswamitra, Narada, etc.), all of which belong to men born in various manvantaras and even ages, that centuries, and perhaps millenniums, must have elapsed between the dates of their composition.
Varna - The four varnas are as follows. - brahmin
(brahmana): "Mature, evolved soul." Scholarly,
pious souls of exceptional learning. Hindu scriptures
traditionally invest the brahmin class with the
responsibility of religious leadership, including
teaching and priestly duties. - kshatriya:
"Governing; endowed with sovereignty." Lawmakers
and law enforcers and military, also known as
rajanya. - vaishya: "Landowner, merchant."
Businessmen, financiers, industrialists; employers.
Those engaged in business, commerce and
agriculture. - shudra: (Sanskrit) "Worker, servant."
Skilled artisans and laborers. It is in keeping with
varna dharma that sons are expected to follow the
occupation of their father, as that is the occupation
that was chosen prior to birth.
- jati: "Birth; position assigned by birth; rank, caste,
family, race, lineage." Jati, more than varna, is the
specific determinant of one''s social community.
Traditionally, because of rules of purity each jati is
excluded from social interaction with the others,
especially from interdining and intermarriage. In
modern times there is also a large group (oneseventh
of India''s population in 1981) outside the
four varnas. These are called scheduled classes,
untouchables, jatihita ("outcaste"), chandalas (specifically those who handle corpses) and harijan, a
name given by Mahatma Gandhi, meaning "children
of God." "Untouchable" jatis included the nishada
(hunter), kaivarta (fisherman) and karavara (leather
worker).
The varna dharma system - despite its widespread
discrimination against harijans, and the abuse of
social status by higher castes - ensures a high
standard of craftsmanship, a sense of community
belonging, family integrity and religio-cultural
continuity. Caste is not unique to Hinduism and
India. By other names it is found in every society.
The four varnas, or classes, and myriad jatis,
occupational castes, or guilds, form the basic
elements of human interaction.
See: dharma, Dharma
Shastras, jati.
Yama - Yama (Hebrew, Jewish). The personified third root-race in Occultism.
In the Indian Pantheon Yama is the subject of two distinct versions of the myth. In the Vedas he is the god of the dead, a Pluto or a Minos, with whom the shades of the departed dwell (the Kamarupas in Kamaloka).
A hymn speaks of Yama as the first of men that died, and the first that departed to the world of bliss (Devachan). This, because Yama is the embodiment of the race which was the first to be endowed with consciousness (Manas), without which there is neither Heaven nor Hades. Yama is represented as the son of Vivaswat (the Sun). He had a twin-sister named Yami, who was ever urging him, according to another hymn, to take her for his wife, in order to perpetuate the species. The above has a very suggestive symbolical meaning, which is explained in Occultism. As Dr. Muir truly remarks, the Rig -Veda - the greatest authority on the primeval myths which strike the original key-note of the themes that underlie all the subsequent variations - 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 hand maiden 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. The student of Esoteric philosophy will easily recognise the bearings of the allegories.
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