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Vedic Hinduism - Religion of the India''s Aryan invaders (1500-800 BCE), the sacred text of which is the Vedas
Maharishi Parashara - One of the fathers of Vedic astrology. Author of the text which is the basis for the most commonly used astrological system in India
Pitta - The biological fire humor. Used in Ayurvedic medical typing
Akta - Akta (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root aj to drive, propel; also from the verbal root anj to smear, bedaub, anoint)
Propelling force; also anointed. Linked with both christos (anointed) and Visvakarman (Tvashtri), divine artist and architect in Vedic literature personifying the cosmic formative force or energy of the Logos (SD 2:101&n).
Shulba Shastra - (Sanskrit) Practical manuals giving the measurements and procedures for constructing the sites of Vedic yajna rites.
A division of the Kalpa Vedanga (Veda limb on rituals), these sutras employ sophisticated geometry and are India''s earliest extant mathematical texts. Shulba means "string or cord," denoting the use of string for measuring.
See: Vedanga.
Vayu - Vayu (Sanskrit) Air; one of the five cosmic elements. Personified, the god and sovereign of the air and the king of the gandharvas. Agni, Vayu, and Surya formed the primeval Vedic Trimurti: " ''Agni (fire) whose place is on earth; Vayu (air, or one of the forms of Indra), whose place is in the air; and Surya (the sun) whose place is in the air'' [celestial spaces]. (Nirukta.)
In esoteric interpretation, these three cosmic principles, correspond with the three human principles, Kama, Kama-Manas and Manas, the sun of the intellect" (TG 361). These three deities in this connection are three manifestations of cosmic fohat, guided and directed by cosmic mahat.
In later mythology Vayu is the father of Hanuman, the monkey-king who aids Rama in the Ramayana. The allegory of Hanuman becoming the son of Vayu by Anjuna (an ape-like monster) refers to the first glimmering of mind coming into the highest apes through the miscegenation of unevolved late third root-race and early fourth root-race humans with certain simians, themselves the descendants of a previous and parallel origin during an earlier time of the third root-race.
Atharva Veda - (Sanskrit) From "Atharva," the name of the rishi said to have compiled this fourth Veda. The Atharva consists of 20 books and 720 hymns. Considered the last Veda recorded, it consists of mostly original hymns (rather than replications from the Rig Veda). It is known as the Veda of prayer, in recognition of its abundant magical charms and spells. It also contains many Agama-like cosmological passages that bridge the earlier Vedic hymns and formulas with the metaphysics of the Upanishads.
See: Vedas.
Hindu - General term designating the religion of India and its various movements including Vedic Hinduism, Brahmanism, and Bhakti Hinduism.
Tat - Tat, Tad (Sanskrit) That; used by Vedic and archaic Hindu writers to describe the unutterable Principle or boundless All, from which all in a universe springs, in contrast to idam (this), the manifested universe. The old sages would ask their disciples, "Kas twam asi?" (who are you?); and then would tell them, "Tat twam asi" (That [the Boundless] you are). The ancient wisdom teaches as one of its fundamental postulates, that we are inseparable parts of the universe, and therefore we have all within us, whether active or latent, that the universe contains.
Ayurveda - (Sanskrit) "Science of life." A holistic system of medicine and health native to ancient India. This sacred Vedic science is an Upaveda of the Atharva Veda. Three early giants in this field who left voluminous texts are Charaka, Sushruta and Vagbhata.
Ayurveda covers many areas, including:
chikitsa, general medicine,
shalya, surgery,
dehavritti, physiology,
nidana, diagnosis,
dravyavidya, medicine and pharmacology,
agada tantra, antidote method,
stritantra, gynecology,
pashu vidya, veterinary science,
kaumara bhritya, pediatrics, 1
urdhvanga, diseases of the organs of the head,
bhuta vidya, demonology, 1
rasayana, tonics, rejuvenating,
vajikarana, sexual rejuvenation.
Among the first known surgeons was Sushruta (ca 600 bce), whose Sushruta Samhita is studied to this day. (Hippocrates, Greek father of medicine, lived two centuries later.) The aims of ayurveda are ayus, "long life," and arogya, "diseaselessness," which facilitate progress toward ultimate spiritual goals. Health is achieved by balancing energies (especially the doshas, bodily humors) at all levels of being, subtle and gross, through innumerable methods, selected according to the individual''s constitution, lifestyle and nature. Similar holistic medical systems are prevalent among many communities, including the Chinese, American Indians, Africans and South Americans.
See: doshas.
Pingala - Pingala (Sanskrit). The great Vedic authority on the Prosody and chhandas of the Vedas. Lived several centuries B.C.
Gayatri - One of the most sacred Vedic Mantras; goddess.
Brihaspati - (Sanskrit) "Lord of Prayer." Vedic preceptor of the Gods and Lord of the Word, sometimes identified with Lord Ganesha. Also names a great exponent of Saiva Siddhanta (ca 900).
See: Ganesha. called mahakutumba.
See: extended family, joint family.
Agni - Agni (Sanskrit). The God of Fire in the Veda; the oldest and the most revered of Gods in India. He is one of the three great deities: Agni, Vayu and Surya, and also all the three, as he is the triple aspect of fire; in heaven as the Sun; in the atmosphere or air (Vayu), as Lightning; on. earth, as ordinary Fire. Agni belonged to the earlier Vedic Trimurti before Vishnu was given a place of honour and before Brahma and Siva were invented.
Ghee - (Sanskrit) Hindi for clarified butter; ghrita in Sanskrit. Butter that has been boiled and strained. An important sacred substance used in temple lamps and offered in fire ceremony, yajna. It is also used as a food with many ayurvedic virtues.
See: yajna.
Shanmukha Gayatri - (Sanskrit) A Vedic Gayatri chant, the Savitri Gayatri modified to address Lord Karttikeya as Shanmukha "He of six faces."
Vyasa - Vyasa (Sanskrit) One who expands or amplifies, an interpreter or revealer;
"applied in days of old to the highest Gurus in India. There were many Vyasas in Aryavarta; one was the compiler and arranger of the Vedas; another, the author of the Mahabharata -- the twenty-eighth Vyasa or revealer in the order of succession -- and the last one of note was the author of Uttara Mimansa, the sixth school or system of Indian philosophy. He was also the founder of the Vedanta system. His date, as assigned by Orientalists . . . is 1,400 B.C., but this date is certainly too recent. The Puranas mention only twenty-eight Vyasas, who at various ages descended to the earth to promulgate Vedic truths -- but there were many more" (TG 367).
Visvakarman - Visvakarman (Sanskrit) The omnificent, the all-worker; in the Rig-Veda, the highest and oldest of the cosmic architects, and hence the father, initiator, or teacher of the hierarchies of later gods under him. As a collective name, he corresponds in many respects to the Greek cosmocratores, in some to the Third Logos. He is spoken of as the divine artist and carpenter, the architect of the universe, the creative god, father of the creative fire, the builder and artificer of the gods, and the great patron of initiates.
"The Secret Doctrine teaches that ''He who is the first to appear at Renovation will be the last to come before Re-absorption (pralaya).'' Thus the logoi of all nations, from the Vedic Visvakarma of the Mysteries down to the Saviour of the present civilised nations, are the ''Word'' who was ''in the beginning'' (or the reawakening of the energising powers of Nature) with the One Absolute. Born of Fire and Water, before these became distinct elements, It was the ''Maker'' (fashioner or modeller) of all things . . . who finally may be called, as he ever has been, the Alpha and the Omega of manifested Nature" (SD 1:470).
In the Rig-Veda, Visvakarman is said to sacrifice himself to himself. This refers, among other things, to the fact that when manvantara opens, in order for its vast content of worlds and hierarchies to appear, the originating entities must -- because of karmic mandate or impulse -- themselves form the beginnings of things from themselves, thus sacrificing themselves to themselves so that the cosmos may appear in manifestation. Another significance of the statement is the reference to the spiritual resurrection at the end of the manvantara or, in the case of man, to the choice to be spiritual rather than material, to rise self-consciously from material existence into the one Life. "Then he ascends into heaven indeed; where, plunged into the incomprehensible absolute Being and Bliss of Paranirvana, he reigns unconditionally, and whence he will re-descend again at the next ''coming,'' which one portion of humanity expects in its dead-letter sense as the second advent, and the other as the last ''Kalki Avatar'' " (SD 1:268).
His mother Yoga-Siddha (striving to become one with the inner god) and his daughter Sanjna (spiritual consciousness) show his mystic character, for no actual mother or daughter is here intended, but the ideas of human spiritual and intellectual reformation taking place within himself from yoga-siddha, from which is brought forth the spiritual consciousness which is the fruit or daughter of perfect achievement.
From another viewpoint, he represents spiritual humanity collectively and is equivalent to Purusha, synonymous in the Epic and Puranic period with Tvashtri, he is also called Karu (worker, builder) or Takshaka (carpenter, etc.).
Romulus And Remus - The author''s name is merely old Roman "Remus". The intrusive "h" was a German grandfather''s idea to give the correct pronunciation for other Teutons. Latin names are (or were) common in Germany and Scandinavia (cf. Rommel). A permutation of the name is also seen in Arminius, a German prince who defeated the Romans in the First Century. See Amullus Silvius (also Armand, Herman, etc.). According to Jung, the twins represent the religious conviction (like Moses in the bulrushes) that one is a prince by birth and forced to live as an ordinary person until destiny reveals his true status to the world: Romulus and Remus, Remus being the poor victim of oppression, Romulus the emerging prince:
O Gemini of Latium, gentle and cruel,
Princes, wolf-suckled, born to rule:
O Gemini of Latium, gentle and cruel,
Princes, wolf-suckled, born to rule:
The one to be ground in the dust,
The other to rise as he must...
Twins in mythology and in Geminian symbolism refer to the One in its manifestational phase of self and other, as the union of opposites (Yang and Yin, Light and Darkness, Being/Non-Being, etc.). Together with his brother, Remus, Romulus founded Rome as a haven for abductors of the Sabine women. The twins, who were the sons of Mars and Vestal Priestess, Rhea Silva, were abandoned at birth and suckled by a wolf. Originally both presided over the building of Rome, but they quarreled (a parallel of Cain and Abel) over every decision. One day, while Romulus was constructing the city wall, Remus jumped over it, saying: IN HOC MODO SUPERSALIT HOSTIS MURUM ("Look how easily the enemy can leap over this wall!"). At this, Romulus shouted, "And look how easily I can kill you!" and ran him through with his sword. In this way Romulus achieved harmony without union and thereafter set the tone for Roman conquest and empire by will and force.
After his death, Romulus was transported to heaven and wassometimes identified with Mars and sometimes worshiped under the godly Sabine name, Quirinus. Quiris, lit. "spear", also referred to citizens of Cures, the Sabine town, and it eventually came as well to mean a citizen of Rome. The Quirinalia was a military holiday in honor thereof.
Furthermore, according to Jung, "Armilus begot by Satan on a block of marble, is the Anti-Messiah. Messiah ben Joseph must die in order to atone with his blood for the children of Yahweh. Messiah ben Joseph will in turn be felled by Armilus and will succumb during the conflict between Gog and Magog. Armilus will be killed in turn by Messiah ben David." Armilus = Romulus, the Antichrist. From Methodius: "Romulus, who is also Armaeleus." According to some authorities, Romulus was the product of an incubus and a salamander.
Remus, the slain geminus, is represented by the lute, whereas Romulus is the mace. This is the usual Greco-Roman view of the Gemini.
In John Puhvel''s Comparative Mythology, things take on a different color. We discover that when the Romans referred to the beginning of time, it was ''AB REMO ET ROMULO'', whereas now it''s "Romulus and Remus". Remus, it seems, is the true founder of Rome -- its sacrificial origin -- whereas Romulus is but secondary, the name meaning merely "or Roman". The twins, Rhomos and Rhomulos in Greek, are the equivalent of the twin Norse god, Ymir and the Vedic Yama and Yami.
"Romulus" in Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Upanishad - Upanishad (Sanskrit) [from upa according to + ni down + the verbal root sad to sit]
Following or according to the teachings which were received when sitting down; esoteric doctrine. "Literary works in which the rahasya -- a Sanskrit word meaning esoteric doctrine or mystery -- is imbodied. The Upanishads belong to the Vedic cycle and are regarded by orthodox Brahmans as a portion of the Sruti or ''Revelation.'' It was from these wonderful quasi-esoteric and very mystical works that was later developed the highly philosophical and profound system called the Vedanta" (OG 179).
The Upanishads belong to the third division of the Vedas and are appended to the Brahmanas. The number of Upanishads hitherto known is about 170, though probably only a score are now complete without evident marks of excision or interpolation. These Upanishads belong to different periods of antiquity, some being of a much later date than others. Although the Upanishads are usually considered by modern scholars to be as a whole of later date than the Brahmanas, the original Upanishads were composed in an antiquity which anteceded that of the Brahmanas, and are probably coeval with the composition of the Vedas themselves.
"The Upanishads must be far more ancient than the days of Buddhism, as they show no preference for, nor do they uphold, the superiority of the Brahmans as a caste. On the contrary, it is the (now) second caste, the Kshatriya, or warrior class, who are exalted in the oldest of them. As stated by Professor Cowell in Elphinstone''s History of India -- ''they breathe a freedom of spirit unknown to any earlier work except the Rig-Veda . . . The great teachers of the higher knowledge and Brahmans are continually represented as going to Kshatriya Kings to become their pupils.'' The ''Kshatriya Kings'' were in the olden times, like the King-Hierophants of Egypt, the receptacles of the highest divine knowledge and wisdom, the Elect and the incarnations of the primordial divine Instructors -- the Dhyani Buddhas or Kumaras. There was a time, aeons before the Brahmans became a caste, or even the Upanishads were written, when there was on earth but one ''lip,'' one religion and one science, namely, the speech of the gods, the Wisdom-Religion and Truth. This was before the fair fields of the latter, overrun by nations of many languages, became overgrown with the weeds of intentional deception, and national creeds invented by ambition, cruelty and selfishness, broke the one sacred Truth into thousands of fragments" (TG 354).
Thirteen of the principal Upanishads are: Aitareya, Kaushitaki, Kena, Taittiriya, Maitri, Katha, Brihadaranyaka, Prasna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Isa, Chhandogya, and Svetasvatara.
Vaisya - Vaisya (Sanskrit) A man who settles on the soil; also a peasant or working man. The third of the four castes into which Hindu society was divided in Vedic and post-Vedic periods. In those times it also referred to one whose occupation was that of trade as well as of agriculture.
See also CHATUR-VARNA
Gayatri Mantra - (Sanskrit)
1) Famous Vedic mantra used in puja and personal chanting. Om (bhur bhuvah svah) tat savitur varenyam, bhargo devasya dhimahi, dhiyo yo nah prachodayat. "(O Divine Beings of all three worlds,) we meditate upon the glorious splendor of the Vivifier divine. May He illumine our minds." (Rig Veda 3.62.10 VE). This sacred verse is also called the Savitri Mantra, being addressed to Savitri, the Sun as Creator, and is considered a universal mystic formula so significant that it is called Vedamatri, "mother of the Vedas."
2) Any of a class of special tantric mantras called Gayatri. Each addresses a particular Deity. The Siva Gayatri Mantra is: Tryambakam yajamahe sugandhim pushtivardhanam, urvarukamiva bandhanan mrtyormukshiya mamrtat. "We adore the fragrant three-eyed one who promotes prosperity. May we be freed from the bondage of death as a cucumber from its stalk, but not from immortality." This is a famous verse of the Yajur Veda (from Rudranamaka, or Sri Rudram), considered an essential mantra of Siva worship used in all Siva rites.
Purva-mimansa - Purva-mimansa (Sanskrit) [from purva prior + mimansa profound or striving thought or meditation from the verbal root man to think]
Inquiry into the first portion of the Veda -- the matra portion; the fifth of the six Darsanas or schools of Hindu philosophy. The school of philosophy in our days considered to be chiefly concerned with the correct interpretation of the Vedic texts; hence sometimes called the First Vedantic School.
Jaimini is reputed to be its founder, as well as the author of the Mimansa-darsana, the sutras or aphorisms which constitute its chief doctrinal authority. This school is also sometimes termed Karma-mimansa because of the doctrine advocated that by its teaching one can be more or less freed from the making of new karma.
The more advanced portion of the Mimansa is called the Vedanta, which is the present-day theosophy of Hindustan. The Vedanta, also called the Uttara-mimansa, is attributed to Vyasa, the arranger of the Vedas, as its founder.
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.
Idaspati - Idaspati (Sanskrit) (from id a refreshing draught, libation + pati lord, master)
Lord of libations; applied to Brihaspati in the Rig-Veda; also to Pushan, a Vedic deity; in the Puranas applied to Vishnu, particularly in his aspect of Narayana (the mover on the waters).
Brahmana Period - Brahmana Period One of the four periods into which Vedic literature has been divided by Orientalists.
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