Purana Dictionary

Sripada (Sanskrit) [from sri holy one + pada foot]

The Lord's foot; the supposed impression of the Buddha's foot; also the name of several men.

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

Universal Pralaya.

See MAHAPRALAYA

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

Zim or Zikum (Chaldean) The spirit of the deep; spirit-substance, primordial matter. In later Babylonian theology, applied to the spirit present in both gods and men. Also the name of one of the seven gods represented as each producing a man, referring to the fashioning of man by the different classes of pitris.

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

Vibhuti.

See VIBHUTAYAH

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Sulanuth (Hebrew) A monster in the sea described as being ordered by God "to come up and go into Egypt . . . and she had long arms, ten cubits in length . . . and she went upon the roofs and uncovered the rafting and cut them . . . and stretched forth her arm into the house and removed the lock and the bolt and opened the houses of Egypt . . . and the swarm of animals destroyed the Egyptians" (Jasher 80:19-20). Possible model of Bulwer-Lytton's Dweller on the Threshold (cf IU 1:325).

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

Trividya (Sanskrit) [from tri three + vidya knowledge, science]

The three knowledges or sciences; the three fundamental axioms in mysticism: "(a) the impermanency of all existence, or Anityata; (b) suffering and misery of all that lives and is, or Dukha [duhkhata]; and (c) all physical, objective existence as evanescent and unreal as a water-bubble in a dream, or Anatmata" (TG 344).

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

Unborn Applied to the Logos, particularly to the First Logos, which radiates directly from the divine monad; also to kama, signifying not ordinary desire but cosmic love, born from the heart of Brahma; in another sense, Krishna as representing the Logos, or imbodying its ray. The Sanskrit word is aja, connected words are self-born and atman-bhu or atma-bhu.

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

Tsang bTsan (Tibetan) Strength, might; used particularly as an equivalent for nyingpo or alaya, the world-soul. Alaya is used mainly in the Mahayana contemplative schools of Northern Buddhism, being equivalent of mulaprakriti in its essence as the root or substance of all things; hence alaya is likewise equivalent frequently to akasa, especially in the mystical sense.

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

Tsulma' (Chaldean) A shadow, image; used in the Qabbalah in connection with the neshamah and ruah: during the last seven days of man's life, it is said, every night the neshamah goes up from a person and the tsulma' is no more shown; when the tsulma' goes away the ruah goes with it (Zohar i 117a, Crem ed). The Hebrew equivalent is tselem (shade or shadow, hence a likeness or image of a being or thing), corresponding more or less both to the human model-body or linga-sarira, and to the mayavi-rupa or higher image of a human being, sent forth at will.

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

Three Faces Generally refers to the Hindu Trimurti -- the three-faced deity known as Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; but also refers to the Qabbalistic Faces or Heads: the Long Face (Macroprosopus), the first Sephirah; the Short Face (Microprosopus), the lower nine Sephiroth; and the White Face (or White Head), from which the other two faces originate. The three Faces have a close analog in the three persons of the Christian Trinity in the original form of the procession -- Father, Holy Ghost, and Son -- and whether Faces or Persons, they are the three veils, masks, or personae of the one godhead: one in three, and three in one. There are similar triads in other mystically religious systems. "There are two Faces, one in Tushita (Devachan) and one in Myalba (earth); and the Highest Holy unites them and finally absorbs both" (TG 333).

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

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)

Tiahuanaco A region near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca on the borders of Peru and Bolivia, the site of cyclopean ruins of vast edifices whose age is unknown. The lake is 12,500 feet above sea level, and owing to its altitude the district is capable of sustaining only a scanty population, yet it was evidently the seat of a great civilization in prehistoric times when the climate appears to have been far milder. Within a comparatively recent period, geologically speaking, the Andes have risen to their present height.

Opinions are sharply divided as to the age of the monuments, ten to fifty thousand years having been suggested. Blavatsky inclines to a greater age, suggesting that these remarkable works were erected by people of Lemurian stock, but who actually then were of Atlantean racial connection, and who had inherited at least fragments of the pre-Atlantean-Lemurian tradition.

Three main types of pre-Inca constructions exist: the buildings made of enormous polygonal stones, the Tiahuanaco style, and the pre-Inca roads and aqueducts. Markham, in The Incas of Peru, speaking of Tiahuanaco, writes: "The city covered a large area, built by highly skilled masons, and with the use of enormous stones. One 36 ft. by 7 ft. weighs 170 tons, another is 26 ft. by 16 by 6. Apart from the monoliths of ancient Egypt, there is nothing to equal this in any other part of the world . . . The point next in interest to the enormous size of the stones is the excellence of the workmanship. The lines are accurately straight, the angles correctly drawn, the surfaces true planes . . . Not less striking are the statues with heads adorned with curiously shaped head-dresses . . . There is ample proof of the very advanced stage reached by the builders in architectural art."

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

Wheel Perpetual gyratory motion; a vortex, a center of revolving force. Matter is not only motion itself in low ranges of the cosmos, but has likewise many modes of motion, although not in the sense in which this phrase was used in the 19th century.

Lord Kelvin's vortex-atoms illustrate the point, for he showed that many of the properties attributed to atoms could be represented by regarding atoms as vortices in a frictionless, incompressible fluid. More recent analysis of the atom has failed to resolve it into anything more than electric particles whose properties are functions of their motions. "Atoms are called 'Vibrations' in Occultism . . . " (SD 2:633). Fohat traces spiral lines and forms wheels or centers of force around which primordial cosmic matter expands and contracts and passes through stages of consolidation ending in globes, and later through stages of etherealization. Vortical motion is a universal law, as seen in the stellar universe and in the electronic constitution of the physical atom, giving a fuller meaning to the word cycle.

Wheel, cycle, globes, and revolutions all pertain to the same fundamental conception of whirling, revolving, or gyratory motion of beings and substances; and as no motion can take place except in matter, space, and time, the whirlings and revolutions of beings and things include likewise the time periods or cyclic returns of beings and events throughout duration. Wherever there is a whirling or turning, whether of matter or of an event in time, it is because it is a being or thing which is active in reproducing itself in cyclic events (cf Ezekiel 1:15-21). This is one of the archaic ways of understanding what is now called the principle of Relativity. Indeed, so intimate and entangled are the actor and the act -- the being and its movements in time -- that it is not always easy to distinguish the actor inherent and moving from the effects in space and time of such movement; so that when we speak of a cycle of time we are perforce obliged to conceive of a moving entity producing the cycle, albeit the moving entity may not be visible to us and indeed may be incomprehensible. Hence, the frequent and often perplexing usage of wheel or wheelings found in ancient occult writings.

See also WINGED WHEEL; GLOBE, WINGED

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

Subrace Used to distinguish the major or root-races from the minor races which are offshoots from the mother-race (ML 83). In a planetary chain, there are seven rounds in a manvantara (period of activity) and root-races during each round; further that there are seven subraces in every root-race, and septenary offshoots from the subraces.

Because of the successive divisions into septenary units, it is at times difficult to determine just what subrace may be intended by a writer, and careful study is needed. The length of a subrace is given as approximately 210,000 years (SD 2:435) -- and here no qualifying adjective appears to define which subrace is intended; on the same page the present European race is referred to as a family race of approximately 30,000 years.

As to the position of humanity in regard to the fifth root-race: "we are in the mid-point of our sub-race of the Fifth Root Race -- the acme of materiality in each . . ." (SD 1:610). This is interpreted by de Purucker as meaning "the middle point of the fourth of any cyclical series: for instance, the fourth Primary Subrace; the fourth subrace of the fourth primary subrace of the fifth root-race" (Fund 281). Thus we have at present nearly reached the middle period of the fifth root-race, and are therefore in our fourth primary subrace, but in a smaller sub-subrace which is the fifth of its own cycle.

Ancient mythologies often designated an individual as standing for a race as its eponym, thus the legend of Latona and Niobe, whose sons and daughters were slain by Apollo, may be interpreted as Latona standing for the Lemurian races, while Niobe stands for the Atlantean race, her seven sons and seven daughters personifying the seven subraces or branches of the fourth race (SD 2:771).

See also ROOT-RACE

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

Adbhitanya (possibly corruption of Sanskrit adbhutama or adbhutva from adbhuta marvelous, wonderful)

In the Vishnu-Purana (3:2), adbhuta is the name of the Indra of the ninth manvantara. Commentary quoted by Blavatsky refers to the first continent once "inhabited by the Sons of Sveta-dwipa (the White Island)

, the blessed, and Adbhitanya, east and west, the first, the one and the pure . . ." (SD 2:319). Another name for this land or primevally inhabited part of the earth is Adi-varsha.

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

Ajita (Sanskrit) (from a not + the verbal root ji to conquer, triumph)

The invisible, unsurpassed; in the Vayu-Purana, the highest of twelve gods, named jayas, who were created by Brahma to aid him at the beginning of the manvantara. But because they neglected his directives, Brahma "cursed" them to be born in each succeeding manvantara until the seventh, the Vaivasvata-manvantara (cf VP 1:15; n2, p. 26). These twelve jayas are the Hindu equivalent of the twelve great gods of Greco-Roman mythology. Because of their all-permeant character, on a lower scale these divinities are identical with the manasa, the jnana-devas, the rudras, and other classes of manifested deities. In these lower manifestations of their functions, they are identical with those dhyani-chohanic groups which "refuse to incarnate," spoken of in The Secret Doctrine.

Also the name of the second of the 24 Tirthankaras or Jain teachers.

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Anda-kataha (Sanskrit) (from anda egg + kataha cauldron, semi-spheroidal container, from the verbal root kat to rain, encompass)

Shell of an egg; in the Vishnu-Purana (2:4, 7) used for the encompassing shell of the world egg.

(See also: Anda-kataha , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Prachetasas, Prachetasah pracetasas, pracetasah (Sanskrit) [from pra before + chetas mind, understanding]

The preeminently intelligent ones; the ten prachetasas were sons of Prachinabarhis and (according to the Vishnu-Purana) Savarna, the daughter of the ocean -- although Savarna is stated elsewhere to be the wife of the sun. They refer historically and physiologically to the latter portions of the second root-race and to the first portions of the third root-race. The reference here is to the inspiring evolutional influence on the early human races brought about by the union or marriage of the mind-born sons of Brahma (manasaputras) with the early sweat-born and egg-born portions of the human race. Thenceforth the human race became truly intelligent and self-conscious. As nature repeats itself, they also represent the rishis of the early fifth root-race, standing for the adepts of the right-hand path.

The adepts of the left-hand path or the Atlantean sorcerers were called trees in ancient India, although trees likewise symbolized adepts of any kind. Hence, "When Vishnu Purana narrates that 'the world was overrun with trees,' while the Prachetasas -- who 'passed 10,000 years of austerity in the vast ocean' -- were absorbed in their devotions, the allegory relates to the Atlanteans and the adepts of the early Fifth Race -- the Aryans. Other 'trees (adept Sorcerers) spread, and overshadowed the unprotected earth; and the people perished . . . unable to labour for ten thousand years.' Then the sages, the Rishis of the Aryan race, called Prachetasas, are shown 'coming forth from the deep' [symbol of wisdom and of occult learning]

, and destroying by the wind and flame issuing from their mouths, the iniquitous 'trees' and the whole vegetable kingdom; until Soma (the moon), the sovereign of the vegetable world, pacifies them by making alliance with the adepts of the Right Path, to whom he offers as bride Marisha, 'the offspring of the trees' " (SD 2:495). This is an allegory of the struggle between the Sons of Light and the Sons of the Dark Wisdom.

Daksha is the son of the prachetasas and Marisha. In connection with the legend concerning the birth of Marisha, the "Sweat-born," Daksha represents the earliest egg-born human races, those of the first portion of the third root-race. All these archaic allegories of ancient peoples are applicable, mutatis mutandis, to different periods of time, when cyclical events, under karmic government, reproduce themselves with more or less completeness. Thus it is that the prachetasas are sometimes referred to in connection with a later, Atlantean period.

The prachetasas are identical with the five ministers of Chozzar (Poseidon) of the Peratae Gnostics.

(See also: Prachetasas, Prachetasa, pracetasas, pracetasah , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Amsamsavatara (Sanskrit) (from amsamsa (amsa + amsa) portion of a portion, fragment + avatara descent from ava-tri to cross over down, descend)

The descent of a part of a part; applied to the numerous manifestations of Vishnu and Brahma; in the Vishnu-Purana more particularly to Krishna and to the "actions he performed as a part of a part (amsamsavatara)

of the Supreme, upon the earth" (5:1). An avatara or so-called divine descent is never a "descent" or incarnation of the wholeness or entirety of a divinity, but only of a part of it; so that every avatara involves a descent only of a part of a part, and hence, strictly speaking, may be called an amsamsavatara. Obviously, the greater the avatara, the greater in influence though not necessarily of form is the amsa or portion which descends (cf MB Adiparvan 7).

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

Ahan (Sanskrit) Day (ahan, ahas are base forms of some of the grammatical cases of ahan). In the Vishnu-Purana (1:5), one of the four bodies of Brahma: "Jyotsna (dawn), Ratri (night), Ahan (day), and Sandhya (evening)" which are "invested by the three qualities" (triguna). Esoterically this has "a direct bearing upon the seven principles of the manifested Brahma, or universe, in the same order as man. Exoterically, it is only four principles" (SD 2:58n). Hence only four bodies of Brahma are mentioned in the Puranas.

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

Purana (Sanskrit) Ancient, old, an ancient tale or legend. The 18 Hindu scriptures known today as the Puranas are ancient legends of olden times, written in verse, partly in symbolical and allegorical and partly in quasi-historical language.

They are supposed originally to have been composed by Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata. A Purana is a work which has five distinguishing topics (pancha-lakshanas): 1) the creation of the universe; 2) its destruction and renovation; 3) the genealogy of gods and patriarchs; 4) the reigns of the manus, forming the periods called manvantaras; and 5) the history of the solar and lunar races of kings.

The invariable form of the Puranas is of a dialogue between an exponent or teacher and an inquirer or disciple, interspersed with the dialogues and observations of other individuals. In addition to the Puranas there are 18 subordinate Upa-puranas. The Puranas are popularly classified in India under three categories corresponding to the gunas sattva, rajas, and tamas. Those in which the quality of sattva (purity) prevails are: the Vishnu, Naradiya, Bhagavata, Garuda, Padma, and Varaha Puranas, also called the Vaishnava-Puranas. Those in which rajas (passion) are said to prevail, relating chiefly to the god Brahma, are the Brahma, Brahmanda, Brahma-vaivarta, Markandeya, Bhavishya, and Vamana Puranas. Those in which tamas (inertia) is said to prevail, relating chiefly to the god Siva, are the Matsya, Kurma, Linga, Siva, Skanda, and Agni Puranas.

The Puranas ingeniously interweave allegory with cosmic facts and far later human events. "Puranic astronomy, with all its deliberate concealment and confusion for the purpose of leading the profane off the real track, was shown even by Bentley to be a real science; and those who are versed in the mysteries of Hindu astronomical treatises, will prove that the modern theories of the progressive condensation of nebulae, nebulous stars and sun, with the most minute details about the cyclic progress of asterisms -- far more correct than Europeans have even now -- for chronological and other purposes, were known in India to perfection.

"If we turn to geology and zoology we find the same. What are all the myths and endless genealogies of the seven Prajapati and their sons, the seven Rishis or Manus, and of their wives, sons and progeny, but a vast detailed account of the progressive development and evolution of animal creation, one species after the other? . . ."

". . . the Puranic histories of all those men are those of our Monads, in their various and numberless incarnations on this and other spheres, events perceived by the 'Siva eye' of the ancient Seers, (the 'third eye' of our Stanzas and described allegorically. Later on, they were disfigured for Sectarian purposes; mutilated, but still left with a considerable ground-work of truth in them. Nor is the philosophy less profound in such allegories for being so thickly veiled by the overgrowth of fancy" (SD 2:253, 284).

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