Assurbanipal (Chald.). The Sardanapalus of the Greeks, "the greatest of the Assyrian Sovereigns, far more memorable on account of his magnificent patronage of learning than of the greatness of his empire", writes the late G. Smith, and adds: "Assurbanipal added more to the Assyrian royal library than all the kings who had gone before him".

As the distinguished Assyriologist tells us in another place of his "Babylonian and Assyrian Literature" (Chald. Account of Genesis) that "the majority of the texts preserved belong to the earlier period previous to B.C. 1600", and yet asserts that "it is to tablets written in his (Assurbanipal’s) reign (B.C. 673) that we owe almost all our knowledge of the Babylonian early history", one is well justified in asking, "How do you know?"

(See also: Assurbanipal , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

A Theosophical definition of Asrama :

Asrama

(Sanskrit) A word derived from the root sram, signifying "to make efforts," "to strive"; with the particle a, which in this case gives force to the verbal root sram.

Asrama has at least two main significations.

1. The first is that of a college or school or a hermitage, an abode of ascetics, etc.; whereas the second meaning signifies a period of effort or striving in the religious life or career of a Brahmana of olden days. These periods of life in ancient times in Hindustan were four in number: the first, that of the student or brahmacharin;
2. second, the period of life called that of the grihastha or householder  - the period of married existence when the Brahmana took his due part in the affairs of men, etc.; third, the vanaprastha, or period of monastic seclusion, usually passed in a vana, or wood or forest, for purposes of inner recollection and spiritual meditation; and fourth, that of the bhikshu or religious mendicant, meaning one who has completely renounced the distractions of worldly life and has turned his attention wholly to spiritual affairs.

Brahmasrama. In modern esoteric or occult literature, the compound term Brahmasrama is occasionally used to signify an initiation chamber or secret room or adytum where the initiant or neophyte is striving or making efforts to attain union with Brahman or the inner god.

See also: Asrama , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Asana :

Asana according to Theosophy

(Sanskrit) "A word derived from the verbal root as, signifying "to sit quietly." Asana, therefore, technically signifies one of the peculiar postures adopted by Hindu ascetics, mostly of the hatha yoga school. Five of these postures are usually enumerated, but nearly ninety have been noted by students of the subject.

A great deal of quasi-magical and mystical literature may be found devoted to these various postures and collateral topics, and their supposed or actual psychological value when assumed by devotees; but, as a matter of fact, a great deal of this writing is superficial and has very little indeed to do with the actual occult and esoteric training of genuine occultists. One is instinctively reminded of other quasi-mystical practices, as, for instance, certain genuflections or postures followed in the worship of the Christian Church, to which particular values are sometimes ascribed by fanatic devotees.

Providing that the position of the body be comfortable so that the mind is least distracted, genuine meditation and spiritual and actual introspection can be readily and successfully attained by any earnest student without the slightest attention being paid to these various postures. A man sitting quietly in his armchair, or lying in his bed at night, or sitting or lying on the grass in a forest, can more readily enter the inner worlds than by adopting and following any one or more of these various asanas, which at the best are physiological aids of relatively small value." (See also Samadhi)

See also: Asana , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Heaven and Hell :

Heaven and Hell

Every ancient exoteric religion taught that the so-called heavens are divided into steps or grades of ascending bliss and purity; and the so-called hells into steps or grades of increasing purgation or suffering. Now the esoteric doctrine or occultism teaches that the one is not a punishment, nor is the other strictly speaking a reward.

The teaching is, simply, that each entity after physical death is drawn to the appropriate sphere to which the karmic destiny of the entity and the entity's own character and impulses magnetically attract it. As a man works, as a man sows, in his life, that and that only shall he reap after death. Good seed produces good fruit; bad seed, tares  - and perhaps even nothing of value or of spiritual use follows a negative and colorless life.

After the second death, the human monad "goes" to devachan  - often called in theosophical literature the heaven-world. There are many degrees in devachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest.

What becomes of the entity, on the other hand, the lower human soul, that is so befouled and weighted with earth thought and the lower instincts that it cannot rise? There may be enough in it of the spirit nature to hold it together as an entity and enable it to become a reincarnating being, but it is foul, it is heavy; its tendency is consequently downwards. Can it therefore rise into a heavenly felicity? Can it go even into the lower realms of devachan and there enjoy its modicum of the beatitude, bliss, of everything that is noble and beautiful? No. There is an appropriate sphere for every degree of development of the ego-soul, and it gravitates to that sphere and remains there until it is thoroughly purged, until the sin has been washed out, so to say.

These are the so-called hells, beneath even the lowest ranges of devachan; whereas the arupa heavens are the highest parts of the devachan. Nirvana is a very different thing from the heavens. (See also Kama-Loka, Avichi, Devachan, Nirvana)

See also: Heaven and Hell , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Elementaries :

Elementaries

"Properly, the disembodied souls of the depraved; these souls having at some time prior to death separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for immortality" (Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky).

Strictly speaking, the word "elementaries" should be used as H. P. Blavatsky defines it in this quotation from her. But in modern theosophical literature the word has come to signify more particularly the phantoms or eidola of disembodied persons, these phantoms or eidola really being the kama-rupic shades, with especial application to the cases of grossly materialistic ex-humans whose evil impulses and appetites still inhering in the kama-rupic phantom draw these phantoms to physical spheres congenial to them. They are a real danger to psychical health and sanity, and literally haunt living human beings possessing tendencies akin to their own. They are soulless shells, but still filled with energies of a depraved and ignoble type.

Their destiny of course is like that of all other pretas or bhutas  - ultimate disintegration; for the gross astral atoms composing them slowly dissolve through the years after the manner of a dissolving column of smoke or a wisp of dark cloud on a mountainside.

See also: Elementaries , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Inner Round In theosophical literature, the passage of the ten classes or hosts of monads through all the globes comprising a planetary chain. An inner round begins on the highest globe and continues its progress around and through them all, concluding the cycle again at the globe from which it first started. The same journey is undergone by the spiritual monad after death.

Such a complete circuit of the life-waves on each and every one of the globes of a planetary chain is termed a planetary round or chain-round, whereas the complete passage of a life-wave on one globe before going to the next succeeding globe is termed a globe-round; seven or twelve of these globe-rounds comprise one planetary round. Each life-wave makes seven cycles on each globe, which are termed root-races.

See also ROUND

(See also: Inner Round , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Bon (Tibetan) (possible variation of bod Tibet, or an ancient word meaning invoker)

Also pon and bhon. The Tibetan religion before the introduction of Buddhism in the latter half of the 8th century. The priest and adherents of Bon are called Bonpos (bon po), the ancient invokers for the pre-Buddhist and non-Buddhist kings and nobles of Tibet.

The Bon religion, which survives today, seems based on at least four sources:

1)    the ancient folk religions of the Tibetan people;

2)    the tradition of the ancient "invokers";

3)    a conscious competition with Buddhism in terms of doctrine, texts, institutions, pantheon, and ritual; and

4)    a number of non-Tibetan influences, including Hindu, Iranian, Central Asian, and other elements.

Bon has been influenced by Buddhism to the extent that it has its own Kanjur and Tanjur, its own monks and monasteries, and its own "Buddha," Shen-rab (gshen rab). All existing Bon literature was produced after the introduction of Buddhism, and shows the influence of and competition with Buddhism. Bon has also influenced Tibetan Buddhism, especially the Nyingmapa and Kargyupa sects.

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

Square In theosophical literature, occasionally used to represent the quaternary, the four lower principles of nature or of man, the triangle standing for the upper triad, the three higher principles in the sevenfold classification. the Logos "is the apex of the Pythagorean triangle. When the triangle is complete it becomes the Tetraktis, or the Triangle in the Square, and is the dual symbol of the four-lettered Tetragrammaton in the manifested Kosmos, and of its radical triple RAY in the unmanifested, or its noumenon" (SD 2:24).

As to the cross inside of the square, "The philosophical cross, the two lines running in opposite directions, the horizontal and the perpendicular, the height and breadth, which the geometrizing Deity divides at the intersecting joint, and which forms the magical as well as the scientific quaternary, when it is inscribed within the perfect square, is the basis of the occultists. Within its mystical precinct lies the master-key which opens the door of every science, physical as well as spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of life circumscribes the four points of the cross, which represent in succession birth, life, death, and immortality. Everything in this world is a trinity completed by the quaternary." (IU 1:508). The squaring of the circle is a cosmogonic and mystical mystery indeed.

See also QUATERNARY

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

Tala (Sanskrit) Lower or inferior portions of a series, inferior world; also a chasm, abyss, floor. All these ideas suggest lower or inferior planes. Often used in conjunction with loka (place, world). The talas stand for the material aspects or substance-principles of the different worlds which are the cosmic universe, in contrast with the lokas which suggest the spiritual aspect of the universe.

The number of loka-talas is generally given as seven, though the number varies, all the seven lokas and seven talas interblending and interworking to form the universe and all its various hierarchies. The seven talas are generally given in theosophical writings as atala, vitala, sutala, rasatala, talatala, mahatala, and patala.

Because the lokas are more particularly the spheres of spiritual and intellectual character, and the talas the spheres of vehicular or more substantial character, it has been customary in Indian literature to speak of the lokas as heavens and the talas as hells -- neither heavens nor hells bearing the shades of meaning attached to them in Christian theology. Every substantial globe is considered a hell; our own earth, for instance, bhurloka-patala, is so considered. All these talas are in the last analysis rising or descending realms forming the astral light which is not one sole restricted realm or sphere.

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

Arrhetos (Gnostic) Ineffable, unspeakable or, as used in Greek mystical philosophy, not to be divulged. Connected with the Greek Mysteries and of constant occurrence in Greek mystical literature dating from earliest times. Whatever was considered too holy, too sacred, or improper from every aspect to divulge to the public whether in speech or writing, was called arrheton (neuter). The word was taken over by the Gnostic sects and signified among other matters the sevenfold nature of the one formative Logos, the first cosmic hebdomad or septenary (this name of the ineffable is composed of seven letters in the Greek).

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

Berosus (Chald.). A priest of the Temple of Belus who wrote for Alexander the Great the history of the Cosmogony, as taught in the Temples, from the astronomical and chronological records preserved in that temple. The fragments we have in the soi-disant translations of Eusebius are certainly as untrustworthy as the biographer of the Emperor Constantine - of whom he made a saint (!!) - could make them.

The only guide to this Cosmogony may now be found in the fragments of the Assyrian tablets, evidently copied almost bodily from the earlier Babylonian records; which, say what the Orientalists may, are undeniably the originals of the Mosaic Genesis, of the Flood, the tower of Babel, of baby Moses set afloat on the waters, and of other events. For, if the fragments from the Cosmogony of Berosus, so carefully re-edited and probably mutilated and added to by Eusebius, are no great proof of the antiquity of these records in Babylonia - seeing that this priest of Belus lived three hundred years after the Jews were carried captive to Babylon, and they may have been borrowed by the Assyrians from them - later discoveries have made such a consoling hypothesis impossible.

 It is now fully ascertained by Oriental scholars that not only "Assyria borrowed its civilization and written characters from Babylonia," but the Assyrians copied their literature from Babylonian sources. Moreover, in his first Hibbert lecture, Professor Sayce shows the culture both of Babylonia itself and of the city of Eridu to have been of foreign importation; and, according to this scholar, the city of Eridu stood already "6,000 years ago on the shores of the Persian gulf," i.e., about the very time when Genesis shows the Elohim creating the world, sun, and stars out of nothing.

(See also: Berosus , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

A Theosophical definition of Om - Aum :

Om - Aum

A word considered very holy in the Brahmanical literature.

It is a syllable of invocation, as well as of benediction and of affirmation, and its general usage (as elucidated in the literature treating of it, which is rather voluminous, for this word Om has attained almost divine reverence on the part of vast numbers of Hindus) is that it should never be uttered aloud, or in the presence of an outsider, a foreigner, or a non-initiate, and it should be uttered in the silence of one's mind, in peace of heart, and in the intimacy of one's "inner closet."

There is strong reason to believe, however, that this syllable of invocation was uttered, and uttered aloud in a monotone, by the disciples in the presence of their teacher. This word is always placed at the beginning of any scripture or prayer that is considered of unusual sanctity.

It is said that by prolonging the uttering of this word, both of the o and the m, with the mouth closed, the sound re-echoes in and arouses vibration in the skull, and affects, if the aspirations be pure, the different nervous centers of the body for good.

The Brahmanas say that it is an unholy thing to utter this word in any place which is unholy. It is sometimes written Aum.

See also: Om - Aum , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Seven The fundamental number of manifestation, frequently found in the different cosmogonies as well as in many religious dogmas and observances of the different ancient peoples.

Although ten was called one of the perfect numbers by the Pythagoreans, seven was unique in their series of numbers because it has all the "perfection of the Unit -- the number of numbers. For as absolute unity is uncreated, and impartite (hence number-less) and no number can produce it, so is the seven: no digit contained within the decade can beget or produce it" (SD 2:582). Seven is the number of the manifested universe, while ten or twelve is the number of the unmanifested universe.

Pythagoras taught that seven was composed of the numbers three and four, explaining that "on the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image: 'Father-Mother-Son'; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane" (ibid.). Further, seven was called by the Pythogoreans the vehicle of life for it consisted of body and spirit: the body was held to consist of four principal elements, while the spirit was in manifestation triple, comprising the monad, intellect or essential reason, and mind.

There are innumerable instances of sevening -- the seven days of the week, the seven colors of the spectrum, the seven notes of the musical scale -- while special emphasis is placed upon the seven human and cosmic principles; the seven senses (five senses now in manifestation and two more to be attained in the future through evolutionary unfolding); the seven cosmic elements; the seven root-races and seven subraces; the seven kingdoms, human and below; the seven rounds; the seven lokas and talas; the seven manifested globes of the planetary chain; the seven sacred planets; the seven racial buddhas; the seven dhyani-bodhisattvas and -buddhas; the seven Logoi; etc.

Man as well as nature is called saptaparna (seven-leaved plant), symbolized by the triangle above the square {illust}. While the senary was applied to man in all ranges from the physical to the spiritual, when completed by the atman, thus making the septenary, the latter signified the entire range of the constitution, whether of man or nature, crowned by the immortal spirit.

In Hindu literature the number seven continually appears: the saptarshis (the seven sages), the seven superior and inferior worlds, the seven hosts of deities, the seven holy cities, the seven holy islands, seas, or mountains, the seven deserts, the seven sacred trees, etc. In Greece seven was often connected with the gods and goddesses: Mars had seven attendants, seven was sacred to Pallas Athene and to Phoebus Apollo -- the latter with his seven-stringed lyre playing hymns to septenary nature as well as to the seven-rayed sun; Niobe's seven sons and seven daughters, etc.

Apart from mythological considerations, in physical life manifestations of the number seven occur continuously: "if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in nature, and it is one, as proven; if it is found controlling the evolution and involution (or death) in the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornithology, as in the Kingdoms of the Animal, mammalia and man -- why cannot it be present and acting in Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races, and mental development?" (SD 2:623n).

Seven is indeed the sacred number of life, and with the circle and the cross it forms a triad of primordial symbols of the ancient wisdom.

(See also: Seven , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Bhava (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root bhu to be, become)

Being; coming into existence, birth, production, origin; worldly existence, the world. As used in Buddhist literature, the continuity of becoming, one of the links in the twelvefold chain of causation (nidanas), therefore also birth. As the third nidana, bhava is the karmic agent which leads every new sentient being to be born in this or another mode of existence in the trailokya and gatis.

As a proper noun, the name of a deity, also applied as a title to the gods Agni, Siva, and Rudra.

See also ABHAVA

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

The Brahmanas and the Aranyakas: There are two Brahmanas to the Rig-VedaÑthe Aitareya and the Sankhayana. - The Rig-Veda, - says Max Muller, - is the most ancient book of the world. The sacred hymns of the Brahmanas stand unparalleled in the literature of the whole world; and their preservation might well be called miraculous. -

Excerpt from All About Hinduism by Sri Swami Sivananda

Read more here: » Brahmanas and Aranyakas: The Brahmanas and the Aranyakas in the Hindu Scriptures

Baresma(n) (Avestan), Barsum (Pahlavi), Barsam (Persian) (from the verbal root bares to grow upright; cf Sanskrit barh)

A wand of the Magi, who were instructed in the Vendidad to go to the tree "that is beautiful, high-growing, and mighty amongst the high-growing trees," and after an invocation, to cut off a twig, "long as a plowshare, thick as a barley-corn. The faithful one, holding it in his left hand, shall not leave off keeping his eyes upon it, whilst he is offering up the sacrifice to Ahura Mazda and to the Amesha-Spentas." To this day the Parsis use the baresman, but have replaced the twigs of the scared tree with brass wires.

Blavatsky hints that baresman is taken from the tree created by Ahura Mazda, the tree of occult and spiritual knowledge and wisdom, and so is a symbolic rod of power and wisdom, such as is often ascribed in ancient mythologies to great leaders or teachers of peoples and to high adepts. Baresman symbolically represents a branch of the tree of knowledge, known as Gaokarena in Pahlavi literature, soul healing Haoma (the extract of this tree), and Zavr (its libation). "We praise mighty Vayu, with the Haoma mixed with milk and with Baresman with the tongue of Kherad (Intellect) and the holy word, with words and deeds, with Zavr and the true spoken words" (Ram Yasht 5).

It is said in Zad-Sparam that the tree of Harwisp Tohmag (all-seed-bearing tree) was created in the sea of Farakhkard (the unbounded sea) from which all plants grow, and that the Simorgh (Saena) nests on it. When the Simorgh flies away, all the dry seeds drop into the water which the rain brings down to earth. Next to the All-seed-bearing Tree exists the tree of white Haoma (Gaokarena), the foe of decrepitude, reviver of the dead, and giver of eternal life.

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

Agastya (Sanskrit). The name of a great Rishi, much revered in Southern India; the reputed author of hymns in the Rig Veda, and a great hero in the Ramayana. In Tamil literature he is credited with having been the first instructor of the Dravidians in science, religion and philosophy. It is also the name of the star "Canopus".

(See also: Agastya , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

A Theosophical definition of Palingenesis :

Palingenesis

(Greek) A compound which means "coming again into being," or "becoming again." The meaning attached to this word is quite specific, although having a wide and general application.

The idea included in it may be illustrated, as is found in the philosophical literature of the ancients who lived around the Mediterranean Sea, by the example of the oak which produces its seed, the acorn, the acorn in its turn producing a new oak containing the same life that was passed on to it from the mother oak  - or the father oak. This transmission of an identic life in cyclical recurring phases is the specific meaning of the word palingenesis.

Thus the thought is different from the respective ideas contained in the other words connected with the doctrine of reimbodiment. Perhaps another way of stating the specific meaning would be by stating that palingenesis signifies the continuous transmission of an identic life producing at each transformation a new manifestation or result, these several results being in each case a palingenesis or "new becoming" of the same life-stream. Its specific meaning is quite different from that imbodied in the word transmigration.

See also: Palingenesis , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Mahabharata

"[The Mahabharata] is...probably the longest single poem in the world's literature. Traditionally the author of the poem was the sage Vyasa, who is said to have taught it to his pupil Vaisampayana. The latter, according to tradition, recited it in public for the first time at a great sacrifice held by King Janamejaya, the great grandson of Arjuna, one of the heroes of the story. ...the poem tells of the great civil war in the kingdom of the Kurus, in the region about the modern Delhi, then known as Kuruksetra."

-- A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, p. 407

"The Mahabharata is the creation and expression not of a single individual mind, but of a whole people. ...The whole poem has been built like a vast national temple unrolling slowly its immense and complex idea from chanber to chamber, crowded with significant groups and sculptures and inscriptions, the grouped figures carved in divine or semi-divine proportions, a humanity aggrandised and half-uplifted to super-humanity and yet always true to the human motive and idea and feeling, the strain of the real constantly raised by the tones of the ideal, the life of this world amply portrayed but subjected to the conscious influence and presence of the powers of the worlds behind it, and the whole unified by the long embodied procession of a consistent idea worked out in the wide steps of the poetic story."

"The leading motive is the Indian idea of the Dharma. Here the Vedic notion of the struggle between the godheads of truth and light and unity and the powers of darkness and division and falsehood is brought out from the spiritual and religious and internal into the outer intellectual, ethical and vital plane. It takes there in the figure of the story a double form of a personal and a political struggle, the personal a conflict between typical and representative personalities embodying the greater ethical ideals of the Indian Dharma and others who are embodiments of Asuric egoism and self-will and misuse of the Dharma, the political a battle in which the personal struggle culminates, an international clash ending in the establishment of a new rule of righteiousness and justice, a kingdom or rather an empire of the Dharma uniting warring races and substituting for the ambitious arrogance of kings and aristocratic clans the supremacy, the calm and peace of a just and humane empire. It is the old struggle of Deva and Asura, God and Titan, but represented in the terms of human life."

-- Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL Vol.14 pp. 287-88

(See also: Mahabharata , Hinduism, Vedic Scriptures, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Ahu (Avestan) (from the verbal root ah consciousness of life; cf Sanskrit asu)

Sometimes Ahum, Akhum. The most aware and therefore best prepared to rule in the physical world. Fravashi, on the other hand, is least aware of the material world and yet is the source of awareness and closest to the source of absolute Being. According to later Pahlavi writings Ahu's task is to establish order in the human physical body; therefore it can be considered the ruler in the physical world.

Rumi, 13th century Iranian mystic poet, considers ahu (jan) conscious life, in which the immutable divine knowledge is reflected. Molavi attributes three qualities to jan: consciousness; ability to distinguish between good and evil; and an inclination towards good and resentment towards evil (Massnavi bk 6). Ferdowsi, 10th century Iranian poet, considers kherad (intellect) the preserver of ahu, the first creation and the integral part of jan.

In Mazdean literature ahu corresponds to the first of the five life-giving forces or fires namely: ahu, daena, baudha, urvan, and fravashi in the order of awareness; James Darmesteter translates them respectively as: spirit, conscience, intelligence, soul, and fravashi (Yasna 26, 4).

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

Zervan Akarana (Avestan) [from zervan time (cf Pahlavi zervam, zarvan, zurvan) + arana, akrana boundary]

Also Zeruana Akerne. Boundless spirit (BCW 4:328); in Zoroastrian literature there are two different kinds of time -- boundless time, pre-existing and ever-existing -- and finite time, which lasts for 12,000 symbolic years, the period during which the two forces of Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman are engaged in their never-ending struggle. According to the Avesta, Zervan Akarana has always existed; its glory is too exalted, its light too resplendent, for human intellect to grasp and comprehend. Its first emanation is eternal light, which becomes Ahura Mazda, the Logos; from whom emanate the six Amesha Spentas, and everything that has being, existence, and form. Another translation is "duration in a circle," the circle being the symbol for the endless, the beginningless, the unknown -- hence boundless time. Zervan Akarana is thus the Mazdean equivalent of Parabrahman or 'eyn soph.

The cycle marking the time period of the world (a fixed period, in contradistinction to boundless time) was called in the Avesta, Zervan daregho-hvadata (the sovereign time of the long period), measured as twelve periods of a thousand years, but what is generally understood in the 'Avesta' system as a thousand years, means, in the esoteric doctrine, a cycle of a duration known but to the initiates and which has an allegorical sense" (IU 2:221n).

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