Solar deity - Hindu mythology

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Solar deity, Solar deity - Chinese mythology, Solar deity - Examples, Solar deity - Hindu mythology, Solar deity - Missing sun, List of solar deities, Phoenix, Solar barge, Solar chariot, Stonehenge, Trundholm Sun Chariot

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Solar deity - Hindu mythology: Encyclopedia II - Solar deity - Hindu mythology

In the Vedas, numerous hymns are dedicated to Surya, the Sun personified, and Savitar, "the impeller", a solar deity either identified with or associated with Surya. Even the Gayathri mantra, which is regarded as one of the most sacred of the Hindu hymns is dedicated to the sun god. The Adityas are a group of solar deities, from the Brahmana period numbering twelve. The Mahabharata describes its warrior hero Karna as being the son of Kunti and the Sun God. The Ramayana has its protagonist Ram as being from the Raghu Vam ...

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Solar deity - Hindu mythology

Solar deity - Hindu mythology: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Chaos

Chaos (Greek) (from chaino to gape, yawn open)

"The earth was without form and void," says Genesis in describing the first stages of cosmogony. In Greek mythology contains the same idea of the primordial emptiness and formlessness which precedes the rebirth of a universe after pralaya. It was the vacant and spiritual space which existed before the creation of the universe or of the world; from it proceeded Darkness and Night.

Chaos is "chaotic" only in the sense that its constituents are unformed and unorganized; it is the kosmic storehouse of all the latent or resting seeds from former manvantaras. It means space -- not the Boundless, parabrahman-mulaprakriti, but the space of any particular hierarchy descending into manifestation. In one sense it is the condition of a solar system or planetary chain during its pralaya, containing all the elements in an undifferentiated state. Aether and chaos are the two principles immediately posterior to the first principle.

Various terms more or less synonymous are akasa, the universal egg (from which Brahma issued as light), the virgin egg, the virgin mother, the immaculate root (fructified by the ray), the primeval deep, the abyss, the great mother. The divine ray and chaos are father-mother or cosmic fire and water. Chaos-Theos-Cosmos are the triple deity or all-in-all. Chaos was personified in Egypt by the goddess Neith, who is the Father-Mother of the Stanzas of Dzyan, the akasa of the Hindus, the svabhavat of the northern Buddhists, and the Icelandic ginnungagap.

Solar deity - Hindu mythology: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Olympus

Olympus (Greek) The abode of the great gods in Grecian mythology in Homer and Hesiod. Such heavenly abodes are usually associated with mountains, such as the Hindu Meru, the Greek Atlas, and the Hebrew Sinai; in this case the name was given to the summit of the range dividing Macedonia from Thessaly, but there were other mountains called Olympus. Later philosophers, perhaps more mystically minded, placed Olympus in the zenith, as the abode of the divinities.

There were many Olympuses, the references in story occasionally being to the higher globes of the earth-chain, and in a cosmic sense the higher planes of the solar system. At one time in Greek legend both the gods and their abode had a character of voluptuousness, comparable wit the Hebrew Eden (which means "delight"), the heaven of Indra, or the abode of the Arabian houris; but this was when degeneracy had set in and the people had forgotten the significance of the deities, and lost the key enabling them to interpret the myths and allegories forming their respective mythologic religions.

Although in Greek mythology the gods are said to dwell on Olympus, three of the main Olympian divinities, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades (or Pluto), had their habitats respectively in what may be called heaven or the inmost world of spirit, the cosmic spaces or the waters of space, and the underworld of the universe. Yet these three same divinities, because of their permeant cosmic forces or energies, and strictly on the law of analogical reasoning, had the same functions and occupy the same relative places in the minor forms of their respective manifestations: as, Zeus in the sky, Poseidon in the oceans of the globe, and Hades or Pluto in the underworld of our earth. Or again, the twelve great gods of the Mediterranean peoples may be considered to be the twelve main cosmic and intelligent powers whose all-permeant nature and activity is as apparent in the universe itself as in every atom or minor division thereof.

In the mystic language of ancient time, a holy mountain universally signified a school of esoteric teaching. Just as a mountain on earth raises its summits towards the free heaven, and therefore mystically towards spirit and the gods, so in the ancient esoteric schools the training and the initiations conducted raised the neophytes or initiants towards the spirit, both cosmically and inner, and hence likewise towards the gods.

See also PARNASSUS

(See also: Olympus, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Solar deity - Hindu mythology: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Vulcan

Vulcan [from Latin Vulcanus]

Astronomers at times have suspected the existence of a planet nearer the sun than Mercury, basing this upon perturbations of more than one kind observed in connection with Mercury and its orbit. Long ago the name Vulcan was suggested for this planet. It has been recorded that on March 26, 1859, a body was seen to be making a transit across the solar disk, yet nothing has been seen of this body since that time, although search has been made for it.

Theosophy teaches that there is a planet, at present generally invisible to human scrutiny, closer to the sun than Mercury, and that it became generally invisible to human sight during the third root-race, after the fall of mankind into physical generation. The ancients spoke of seven sacred planets, and the sun was often enumerated as a substitute or blind for this planet.

Also, the ancient Roman fire god, who has always been identified with the Greek Hephaestos, popularly regarded by the Latins as having his workshops under several volcanic islands, but especially under Mt. Aetna. The isle of Lemnos was always sacred to him. He is represented, as are similar divinities such as the Hindu Visvakarman or Tvashtri, as a fashioner, artificer, or architectural builder of the cosmic structure; and like his counterparts, the smith of the gods and maker of their divine weapons, lord of the constructive arts, master of a thousand handicrafts, etc. Not only was his forge in Olympus supplied with fire, anvils, and all the necessities of a blacksmith, according to the figurative stories of Greek and Latin mythology, but he was attended by automatic handmaidens whom Vulcan himself had fashioned. The deity is prominent in the Homeric poems, where he is represented as the son of Jupiter and Juno.

As the divine artificer, working both in a cosmic and microcosmic manner, legends tell that Vulcan assisted in the production of the human race. He also fashioned Pandora, and aided in the birth of Minerva -- for he opened Jupiter's head with an axe in order to allow the goddess to spring forth from the head of the father of both gods and men.

Vulcan corresponds to the theosophical fohat.

See also HEPHAESTOS

Solar deity - Hindu mythology: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Avatar, Avatara

Avatar, Avatara (Sanskrit) (from ava down + the verbal root tri to cross over, pass)

That which passes down or descends; the passing down of a celestial energy or an individualized complex of celestial energies -- a celestial being -- in order to overshadow and illuminate a human being who, at the time of such connection of divinity with matter, possesses no human soul karmically destined to be the inner master of the body thus born. "Hence an Avatara is one who has a combination of three elements in his being: an inspiring divinity; a highly evolved intermediate nature or soul, which is loaned to him and is the channel of that inspiring divinity; and a pure, clean, physical body" (OG 16).

Sankaracharya, Krishna, Lao-tzu, and Jesus were avataras in differing degrees, of somewhat differing structure. There was a divine ray which came down at the cyclic time of each of these incarnations, and the connecting link or the flame of mind was provided in each case by a member of the Hierarchy of Compassion. Krishna says, "I incarnate in period after period in order to destroy wickedness and reestablish righteousness" (BG ch 4, sl 8). Krishna here represents the Logos or logoic ray which "on our plane would be utterly helpless, inactive, and have no possible means of communication with us and our sphere, because that logoic ray lacks an intermediate and fully conscious vehicle or carrier, i.e., it lacks the intermediate or highly ethereal mechanism, the spiritual-human in us, which in ordinary man is but slightly active. An avatara takes place when a direct ray from the Logos enters into, fully inspires, and illuminates, a human being, through the intermediary of a bodhisattva who has incarnated in that human being, thereby supplying the fit, ready, and fully conscious intermediate vehicle or carrier" (Fund 276).

Blavatsky says that "rebirths may be divided into three classes: the divine incarnations called Avataras; those of Adepts who give up Nirvana for the sake of helping on humanity -- the Nirmanakayas; and the natural succession of rebirths for all -- the common law. The Avatara . . . is a descent of the manifested Deity -- whether under the specific name of Siva, Vishnu, or Adi-Buddha -- into an illusive form of individuality, an appearance which to men on this illusive plane is objective, but it is not so in sober fact. That illusive form having neither past nor future, because it had neither previous incarnation nor will have subsequent rebirths, has naught to do with Karma, which has therefore no hold on it" (BCW 14:373-4).

Vishnu as the supporter of life is the source of one line of avataras so often spoken of in Hindu legends. These ten avataras of Vishnu are: 1) Matsya the fish; 2) Kurma the tortoise; 3) Varaha the boar; 4) Narasimha the man-lion (last of animal stage); 5) Vamana the dwarf (first step toward the human form); 6) Parasu-Rama, Rama with the axe (a hero); 7) Rama-chandra, the hero of the Ramayana; 8) Krishna, son of Devaki; 9) Gautama Buddha; and 10) Kalki, the avatara who is to appear at the end of the kali yuga mounted on a white horse, inaugurating a new reign of righteousness on earth. A horse has from immemorial time been a symbol of the spiritual as well as vital energies of the inner solar orb. Hence, when the next avatara is said to come riding a white horse, the meaning is that he comes infilled with the solar light or splendor -- an avatara or manifestation of a spiritual and intellectual solar energy which will carry all before it on earth.

Brahmanical esotericism never taught that divinity descended into the animals as given in the legends. These names of different animals and men, like all zoological mythology, were chosen because of certain characteristic attributes. They actually represent ten degrees of advancing knowledge and growth in understanding -- ten degrees in the esoteric cycle -- as well as different evolutionary stages through which monads break through the lower spheres in order to express themselves on higher rungs of the evolutionary ladder of life. These names also represent the technical names given to neophytes in esoteric schools. The lowest chela was called a fish, the chela who had taken the second degree successfully was called a tortoise, and so forth, till the highest of all was called an incarnation of the sun -- a white horse in Hindu legend.

These avataric descents do not appertain solely to a race, root-race, globe, chain, or solar system, because nature repeats itself by analogy, and the same line of enlarging understanding of evolutionary development takes place in all the spheres mutatis mutandis. Thus these avataric descents can be ascribed to the solar system, the planetary chain as a whole, a globe, a root-race, and even to a subrace.

Solar deity - Hindu mythology: Encyclopedia II - Solar deity - Missing sun

The "missing sun" motif is a theme in the myths of various cultures. It may have served to explain any of several natural phenomena, including the disappearance of the sun at night (the Egyptian version of the motif described below is an example), the shorter days during the winter (for example, the Japanese one mentioned below), or even solar eclipses. Most myths following the motif involve the disappearance of a solar deity, through imprisonment, exile or death. Some other tales are similar, such as the Sumerian story of Inanna's descent into the underworld. These may have parallel themes but do not fit in th ...