Pralaya (Sanskrit). A period of obscuration or repose - planetary, cosmic or universal - the opposite of Manvantara (S. D., I. 370.).

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

Lalita Vistara (Sanskrit). A celebrated biography of Sakya Muni, the Lord Buddha, by Dharmarakcha, A.D. 308.

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Athenagoras (Ancient Greek) A Platonic philosopher of Athens, who wrote a Greek Apology for the Christians in A.D. 177, addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, to prove that the accusations brought against them, namely that they were incestuous and ate murdered children, were untrue.

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Aymar, Jacques. A famous Frenchman who had great success in the use of the Divining Rod about the end of the 17th century; he was often employed in detecting criminals; two M.D’s of the University of Paris, Chauvin and Garnier reported on the reality of his powers. See Colquhoun on Magic.

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Avarasaila Sangharama (Sanskrit). Lit., the School of the Dwellers on the western mountain. A celebrated Vihara (monastery) in Dhana-kstchaka, according to Eitel, "built 600 B.C., and deserted A.D. 600".

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Adi-Sanat (Sanskrit). Lit., "First Ancient". The term corresponds to the Kabalistic "ancient of days", since it is a title of Brahma - called in the Zohar the Atteekah d’Atteekeen, or "the Ancient of the Ancients", etc.

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Panini (Sanskrit). A celebrated grammarian, author of the famous work called Paniniyama; a Rishi, supposed to have received his work from the god Siva. Ignorant of the epoch at which he lived, the Orientalists place his date between 600 B.C. and 300 A.D.

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Dabar (Hebrew, Jewish) D

(a) B

(a) R (im), meaning the "Word", and the "Words" in the Chaldean Kabbala, Dabar and Logoi. (See Sec.Doct. I. p. 350, and "Logos", or "Word".)

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Gemara (Hebrew, Jewish) The latter portion of the Jewish Talmud, begun by Rabbi Ashi and completed by Rabbi Mar and Meremar, about 300 A.D.  Lit., to finish. It is a commentary on the Mishna.

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Betyles (Phœn.). Magical stones. The ancient writers call them the "animated stones" ; oracular stones, believed in and used both by Gentiles and Christians. (See S.D. II. p. 342).

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Adam (Hebrew, Jewish). In the Kabalah Adam is the "only-begotten", and means also "red earth". (See "Adam-Adami" in the S.D. II p. 452.) It is almost identical with Athamas or Thomas, and is rendered into Greek by Didumos, the "twin" - Adam, "the first", in chap. 1 of Genesis, being shown, "male-female."

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Chaturyoni (Sanskrit) Written also tchatur-yoni. The same as Karmaya or "the four modes of birth" - four ways of entering on the path of Birth as decided by Karma:

(a) birth from the womb, as men and mammalia

(b) birth from an egg, as birds and reptiles;

(c) from moisture and air-germs, as insects; and

(d) by sudden self-transformation, as Bodhisattvas and Gods (Anupadaka).

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Atlantide (Ancient Greek) The ancestors of the Pharaohs and the forefathers of the Egyptians, according to some, and as the Esoteric Science teaches. (See S.D., Vol. II., and Esoteric Buddhism.) Plato heard of this highly civilized people, the last remnant of which was submerged 9,000 years before his day, from Solon, who had it from the High Priests of Egypt. Voltaire, the eternal scoffer, was right in stating that "the Atlantide (our fourth Root Race) made their appearance in Egypt It was in Syria and in Phrygia, as well as Egypt, that they established the worship of the Sun." Occult philosophy teaches that the Egyptians were a remnant of the last Aryan Atlantide.

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Philo Judeus. A Hellenized Jew of Alexandria, and a very famous historian and writer; born about 30 B.C, died about 45 A.D. He ought thus to have been well acquainted with the greatest event of the 1st century of our era, and the facts about Jesus, his life, and the drama of the Crucifixion.

And yet he is absolutely silent upon the subject, both in his careful enumeration of the then existing Sects and Brotherhoods in Palestine and in his accounts of the Jerusalem of his day. He was a great mystic and his works abound with metaphysics and noble ideas, while in esoteric knowledge he had no rival for several ages among the best writers.

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Proclus (Ancient Greek). A Greek writer and mystic philosopher, known as a Commentator of Plato, and surnamed the Diadochus. He lived in the fifth century, and died, aged 75, at Athens A.D. 485. His last ardent disciple and follower and the translator of his works was Thomas Taylor of Norwich, who, says Brother Kenneth Mackenzie, "was a modern mystic who adopted the pagan faith as being the only veritable faith, and actually sacrificed doves to Venus, a goat to Bacchus and designed to immolate a bull to Jupiter" but was prevented by his landlady.

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Philo-Judaeus. A Hellenized Jew of Alexandria, a famous historian and philosopher of the first century, born about the year 30 B. C., and died between the years 45 and 50 A. D. Philo's symbolism of the Bible is very remarkable. The animals, birds, reptiles, trees, and places mentioned in it are all, it is said, "allegories of conditions of the soul, of faculties, dispositions, or passions; the useful plants were allegories of virtues, the noxious of the affections of the unwise and so on through the mineral kingdom; through heaven, earth and stars; through fountains and rivers, fields and dwellings; through metals, substances, arms, clothes, ornaments, furniture, the body and its parts, the sexes, and our outward condition."

(Dict. Christ. Biog.) All of which would strongly corroborate the idea that Philo was acquainted with the ancient Kabbala.

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Rosicrucians (Mys.). The name was first given to the disciples of a learned Adept named Christian Rosenkreuz, who flourished in Germany, circa 1460.

He founded an Order of mystical students whose early history is to be found in the German work, Fama Fraternitatis (1614), which has been published in several languages.

The members of the Order maintained their secrecy, but traces of them have been found in various places every half century since these dates. The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia is a Masonic Order, which has adopted membership in the "outer"; the Chabrath Zereh Aur Bokher, or Order of the G. D., which has a very complete scheme of initiation into the Kabbalah and the Higher Magic of the Western or Hermetic type, and admits both sexes, is a direct descendant from medieval sodalities of Rosicrucians, themselves descended from the Egyptian Mysteries.

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Ar-Abu Nasr-al-Farabi, called in Latin Alpharabius, a Persian, and the greatest Aristotelian philosopher of the age. He was born in 950 A.D., and is reported to have been murdered in 1047.

He was an Hermetic philosopher and possessed the power of hypnotizing through music, making those who heard him play the lute laugh, weep, dance and do what he liked. Some of his works on Hermetic philosophy may be found in the Library of Leyden.

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Hay-yah (Hebrew, Jewish) One of the metaphysical human "Principles". Eastern Occultists divide men into seven such Principles; Western Kabbalists, we are told, into three only - namely, Nephesh Ruach and Neshamah.

But in truth, this division is as loose and as mere an abbreviation as our "Body, Soul, Spirit ". For, in the Qabbalah of Myer (Zohar ii.,141 b., Cremona Ed. ii., fol. 63 b., col. 251) it is stated that Neshamah or Spirit has three divisions, "the highest being Ye’hee-dah (Atma) the middle, Hay-yah (Buddhi), and the last and third, the Neshamah, properly speaking (Manas) ".

Then comes Mahshabah, Thought (the lower Manas, or conscious Personality), in which the higher then manifest themselves, thus making four; this is followed by Tzelem, Phantom of the Image (Kama-rupa in life the Kamic element); D’yooq-nah, Shadow of the image (Linga Sharira, the Double); and Zurath, Prototype, which is Life - seven in all, even without the D’mooth, Likeness or Similitude, which is called a lower manifestation, and is in reality the Guf, or Body.

Theosophists of the E. S. who know the transposition made of Atma and the part taken by the auric prototype, will easily find which are the real seven, and assure themselves that between the division of Principles of the Eastern Occultists and that of the real Eastern Kabbalists there is no difference. Do not let us forget that neither the one nor the other are prepared to give out the real and final classification in their public writings.

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Alexadrian School (of Philosophers). This famous school arose in Alexandria (Egypt) which was for several centuries the great seat of learning and philosophy.

Famous for its library, which bears the name of "Alexandrian", founded by Ptolemy Soter, who died in 283 B.C., at the very beginning of his reign ; that library which once boasted of 700,000 rolls or volumes (Aulus Gellius); for its museum, the first real academy of sciences and arts ; for its world-famous scholars, such as Euclid (the father of scientific geometry), Apollonius of Perga (the author of the still extant work on conic sections), Nicomachus (the arithmetician); astronomers, natural philosophers, anatomists such as Herophilus and Erasistratus, physicians, musicians, artists, etc., etc. ; it became still more famous for its Eclectic, or the New Platonic school, founded in 193 A.D., by Ammonius Saccas, whose disciples were Origen, Plotinus, and many others now famous in history.

The most celebrated schools of Gnostics had their origin in Alexandria. Philo Judeus Josephus, lamblichus, Porphyry, Clement of Alexandria, Eratosthenes the astronomer, Hypatia the virgin philosopher, and numberless other stars of second magnitude, all belonged at various times to these great schools, and helped to make Alexandria one of the most justly renowned seats of learning that the world has ever produced.

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Thothori Nyan Tsan (Tibet, Tibetan) A King of Tibet in the fourth century. It is narrated that during his reign he was visited by five mysterious strangers, who revealed to him how he might use for his country’s welfare four precious things which had fallen down from heaven, in 331 A.D., in a golden casket and "the use of which no one knew".

These were

(1) hands folded as the Buddhist ascetics fold them;

(2) a be-jewelled Shorten (a Stupa built over a receptacle for relics);

(3) a gem inscribed with the " Aum mani padme hum" ; and ( the Zamotog, a religious work on ethics, a part of the Kanjur.

A voice from heaven then told the King that after a certain number of generations everyone would learn how precious these four things were. The number of generations stated carried the world to the seventh century, when Buddhism became the accepted religion of Tibet. Making an allowance for legendary licence, the four things fallen from heaven, the voice, and the five mysterious strangers, may be easily seen to have been historical facts. They were without any doubt five Arhats or Bhikshus from India, on their proselytising tour. Many were the Indian. sages who, persecuted in India for their new faith, betook themselves to Tibet and China.

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