Viraj (Sanskrit). The Hindu Logos in the Puranas; the male Manu, created in the female portion of Brahma’s body (Vach) by that god. Says Manu: " Having divided his body into two parts, the lord (Brahma) became with the one half a male and with the other half a female; and in her he created Viraj". The Rig -Veda makes Viraj spring from Purusha, and Purusha spring from Viraj. The latter is the type of all male beings, and Vach, Sata-rupa (she of the hundred forms), the type of all female forms.

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

Viraj (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root viraj to be illustrious, shine forth]

Sovereign, splendid; in Hindu mythology, the son of Brahma who on analogical lines becomes Manu. In the Laws of Manu Brahma divides his body into male and female parts and in the female part (Vach) creates Viraj, who is also Brahma, the type of all male beings, as Vach is the type of female beings. "Manu declares himself created by Viraj, or Vaiswanara, (the Spirit of Humanity), which means that his Monad emanates from the never resting Principle in the beginning of every new Cosmic activity: that Logos or Universal Monad (collective Elohim) that radiates from within himself all those Cosmic Monads that become the centres of activity -- progenitors of the numberless Solar systems as well as of the yet undifferentiated human monads of planetary chains as well as of every being thereon" (SD 2:311). A verse in the Rig-Veda (10:205) has Viraj spring from Purusha, and Purusha spring from Viraj.

Viraj is comparable in some aspects to the Egyptian Horus and equivalent to the Third Logos.

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

Vach-Viraj vac-viraj (Sanskrit) The feminine aspect or alter ego of Brahma, the creator, when considered as the Second Logos emanating the Third Logos or Viraj.

(See also: Vach-Viraj, vac-viraj, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Hanuman Chalisa (Hindi: हनुमान चालीसा Forty chaupais on Hanuman) is Tulsidas' most famous and read piece of literature apart from the Ramacharitamanasa, a poem primarily praising Hanuman. Although it is not one of his best poems, it has gained enormous popularity among the modern-day Hindus. Many of them recite it as a prayer every week, generally on Tuesdays. Hanuman Chalisa - Text. दोहा श्र ...

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• Hanuman Chalisa - Text

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Shruti Vedas Rig Veda Sama Veda Yajur Veda Atharva Veda Brahmanas Aranyakas Upanishads Smriti Itihāsas Mahābhārata Bhagavad Gītā Ramayana Puranas (List) Tantras Sutras (List) Stotras Ashtavakra Gita Git ...

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Brahma Viraj. (Sanskrit) The same: Brahma separating his body into two halves, male and female, creates in them Vach and Viraj. In plainer terms and esotericlly Brahma the Universe, differentiating, produced thereby material nature, Viraj, and spiritual intelligent Nature, Vach - which is the Logos of Deity or the manifested expression of the eternal divine Ideation.

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

Brahma-Viraj (Sanskrit) The energic aspect of Brahma; for when Brahma separates himself into male and female halves, this androgynous or semi-androgynous cosmic power produces Vach and Viraj. Now as Vach, although feminine in gender, as a noun really represents the logoic aspect of Brahma, Viraj, although masculine in gender, as a noun represents the perpetually active and energic forces of manifested nature in and through which vibrates the unceasing activity of the logoic Vach.

(See also: Brahma-Viraj, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Brahma-Vach-Viraj (Sanskrit) Brahma in both his feminine and masculine aspects; the manifested Logos or hermaphrodite creative deity.

See also BRAHMA-VIRAJ {SD 2:125-7; BCW 10:351}

(See also: Brahma-Vach-Viraj, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Manasa or Manaswin (Sanskrit). "The efflux of the divine mind," and explained as meaning that this efflux signifies the manasa or divine sons of Brahma-Viraj. Nilakantha who is the authority for this statement, further explains the term "manasa" by manomatrasarira. These Manasa are the Arupa or incorporeal sons of the Prajapati Viraj, in another version. But as Arjuna Misra identifies Viraj with Brahma, and as Brahma is Mahat, the universal mind, the exoteric blind becomes plain. The Pitris are identical with the Kumara, the Vairaja, the Manasa-Putra (mind sons), and are finally identified with the human "Egos".

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

Vach (Sanskrit). To call Vach "speech" simply, is deficient in clearness.

Vach is the mystic personification of speech, and the female Logos, being one with Brahma, who created her out of one-half of his body, which he divided into two portions; she is also one with Viraj (called the "female" Viraj) who was created in her by Brahma. In one sense Vach is "speech" by which knowledge was taught to man; in another she is the "mystic, secret speech" which descends upon and enters into the primeval Rishis, as the "tongues of fire" are said to have "sat upon" the apostles.

For, she is called "the female creator ", the "mother of the Vedas ", etc., etc. Esoterically, she is the subjective Creative Force which, emanating from the Creative Deity (the subjective Universe, its "privation ", or ideation) becomes the manifested "world of speech ", i.e., the concrete expression of ideation, hence the "Word" or Logos. Vach is "the male and female" Adam of the first chapter of Genesis, and thus called "Vach-Viraj" by the sages. (See Atharva Veda.) She is also "the celestial Saraswati produced from the heavens ", a "voice derived from speechless Brahma" (Mahabharata); the goddess of wisdom and eloquence. She is called Sata-rupa, the goddess of a hundred forms.

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

Brahma-Vach Brahma-Vac (Sanskrit) The female aspect of Brahma; in another sense, the two aspects of the manifested Brahma working in union or conjointly, the energic and the vehicular, constantly interblending and cooperating. The Vach aspect therefore may be considered the female side of the cosmic Logos.

See also BRAHMA-VIRAJ

(See also: Brahma-Vach Brahma-Vac, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Vairaja(s) (Sanskrit) [from viraj widely shining one]

A class of gods emanating from Brahma in his aspect of creator collectively as Viraj, the Third Logos; hence, the celestial beings immediately derived from Viraj. Identified with the kumaras and the manasaputras, as well as the agnishvattas. They are the hierarchies of cosmic conscious and self-conscious dhyani-chohans who spring forth directly from the Third Logos, and furnish the intellectual background and vital urge of the hierarchies of beings who later produce the manifested universe from the ideation emanating from the Third Logos and the vairajas.

"In the popular belief, semi-divine beings, shades of saints, inconsumable by fire, impervious to water, who dwell in Tapo-loka with the hope of being translated into Satya-loka -- a more purified state which answers to Nirvana. The term is explained as the aerial bodies or astral shades of 'ascetics, mendicants, anchorites, and penitents, who have completed their course of rigorous austerities.' [Vishnu-Purana, Wilson, 2:229]

Now in esoteric philosophy they are called Nirmanakayas, Tapo-loka being on the sixth plane (upward) but in direct communication with the mental plane. The Vairajas are referred to as the first gods because the Manasaputras and the Kumaras are the oldest in theogony, as it is said that even the gods worshipped them (Matsya Purana); those whom Brahma 'with the eye of Yoga beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the gods of gods' (Vayu Purana)" (TG 358).

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

Apava (Sanskrit) Lit. "He who sports in the Water". Another aspect of Narayana or Vishnu and of Brahma combined, for Apava, like the latter, divides himself into two parts, male and female, and creates Vishnu, who creates Viraj, who creates Manu. The name is explained and interpreted in various ways in Brahmanical literature.

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

Men knew him as the Dweller in Darkness, that brother of the Old Ones called Nyogtha, the Thing that should not be. He can be summoned to Earth's surface through certain secret caverns and fissures, and sorcerers have seen him in Syria and below the black tower of Leng; from the Thang Grotto of Tartary he has come ravening to bring terror and destruction among the pavilions of the great Khan. Only by the looped cross, by the Vach-Viraj incantation and by the Tikkoun elixir may he be driven back to the nighted caverns of hidden foulness where he dwe ...

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Nyogtha, Nyogtha - Nyogtha in the mythos, Nyogtha - Reference

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Apava (Sanskrit) (from Ap water)

Water-mover; associated with Narayana, "he who moves in or on the waters of space," and hence with Vishnu and Brahma. In the Harivamsa, Apava performed the office of Brahma: dividing himself into male and female he produced Vishnu, who produced Viraj, who in turn brought the first manu, Manu Svayambhuva, into being. This manu then brought forth the ten prajapatis, the progenitors of the manifested world (cf VP 1:7). In the Mahabharata, a name of the prajapati Vasishtha.

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

Vach vac (Sanskrit) Sound, voice, word, the mystic sound (svara) or essence of spirit of the divine creative activity, the vehicle of divine thought; and of this the Word is the manifested expression. Vach, or its equivalents in other cultures, is always considered feminine. Cosmically she is the carrier or mother of the Third Logos -- the Word or Verbum -- because of carrying perpetually within her the essence of divine thought, the First Logos; and hence Vach is the Second Logos, equivalent to the early Christian Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost -- later transmogrified into a cosmic male. In Hindu mythology Brahma separates his body into masculine and feminine, the feminine becoming Vach, in whom he creates Viraj, who is himself again Brahma. Here we have the three Logoi: Brahma, the First Logos, the divine thought; Vach, the Second Logos, the divine voice; and Viraj, the Third Logos, or the divine word, the philosophical equivalent of the Son of the Christian Trinity.

Hence Vach is associated with the work of creation, with the prajapatis. She calls forth the mayavi form of the universe out of abstract space or Chaos, of which the first cosmogonical stage are the seven cosmic elements. Mystically Vach is masculine and feminine at will, as in the Hebrew Genesis Eve is with Adam. It is through her power that Brahma produced the universe. Blavatsky points out that Brahma produced through Vach in the same way that the incomprehensible assumes a tangible form through speech, words, and numbers (cf SD 1:430). Vach through her productive powers produced what Pythagoras called the music of the spheres. The teachings of Pythagoras also speak of the hierarchies of the heavenly host as numbered and expressed in numbers. Vach is equivalent, in some aspects, to Isis, Aditi, mulaprakriti, the waters of space, chaos, and the Qabbalistic Sephirah.

"Whether as Aditi, or the divine Sophia of the Greek Gnostics, she is the mother of the seven sons: the 'Angels of the Face,' of the 'Deep,' or the 'Great Green One' of the 'Book of the Dead' " (SD 1:434). These feminine logoi are all correlations of light, sound, and ether. In many aspects Vach approaches Kwan-yin, she of the melodious voice. Sarasvati, the goddess of divine wisdom, is a later form of Vach. The Hebrew Lahgash is nearly identical in meaning with Vach as the hidden power of the mantras, the divine sound. "But Vach being also spoken of as the daughter of Daksha -- 'the god who lives in all the Kalpas' -- her Mayavic character is thereby shown: during the pralaya she disappears, absorbed in the one, all-devouring Ray" (SD 1:430-1).

Vach is also called Savitri (the generatrix), the mother of the gods and of all living. She is identical in the human range with Eve, who is also called the mother of all living. Ila or Ida is but the second repetition of Vach in a different period of cosmogony. Vach refers to the cosmic and divine theogony, while Ila refers to a later period in the earth's history when the physiological transformation of the sexes took place during the third root-race. In this last sense Vach corresponds with Eve.

Vach is often called Sandhya (twilight), also Satarupa (a hundred forms) to describe the feminine logos unfolded into the ten planes and subplanes of the universe. The cow is a symbol of Vach, for the cow has always been the emblem of the passive generative power of nature.

Vach is also mystic speech "by whom Occult Knowledge and Wisdom are communicated to man, and thus Vach is said to have 'entered the Rishis.' . . . she is called 'the mother of the Vedas,' 'since it was through her power (as mystic speech) that Brahma revealed them . . . " (SD 1:430). The Rig-Veda and Upanishads give four kinds of Vach -- vaikhari, madhyama, pasyanti, and para -- corresponding to the four cosmic principles: the physical universe, the light of the Logos, the Logos itself, and parabrahman or the infinite.

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

Sadhya (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root sadh to finish, complete, subdue, master]

To be fulfilled, completed, attained; to be mastered, won, subdued. As a plural noun, a class of the gana-devatas (divine beings), specifically the jnana-devas (gods of wisdom).

In the Satapatha-Brahmana of the Rig-Veda their world is said to be above the sphere of the gods, while Yaska (Nirukta 12:41) gives their locality as in Bhuvarloka. In The Laws of Manu (3:195), the sadhyas are represented as the offspring of the pitris called soma-sads who are offspring of Viraj; hence they are children of the lunar ancestors (pitris), evolved after the gods and possessing natures more fully unfolded; while in the Puranas they are the sons of Sadhya (a daughter of Daksha) and Dharma -- hence called sadhyas -- given variously as 12 or 17 in number.

These various manners of describing the ancestry of the sadhyas originated in different ways of envisioning their origin. In later mythology they are superseded by the siddhas, the difference between sadhyas and siddhas being in many respects slight. Their mythological names are given as Manas, Mantri, Prana, Nara, Pana, Vinirbhaya, Naya, Dansa, Narayana, Vrisha, and Trabhu. Two of the names are two of the theosophic seven human principles -- manas and prana; while Nara and Narayan, are other aspects of man, human or cosmic. Blavatsky terms the sadhyas divine sacrificers, "the most occult of all" the classes of the dhyanis (SD 2:605) -- the reference being to the manasaputras, those intellectual beings who sacrificed themselves in order to quicken the fires of human intelligence during the third root-race. "The names of the deities of a certain mystic class change with every Manvantara" (SD 2:90); thus they are called ajitas, tushitas, satyas, haris, vaikuntas, adityas, and rudras. The key to the various names given to these higher beings lies in the composite nature of each one of them. In every manvantara and in each minor cycle of a manvantara, every being unfolds another aspect of itself, just as mankind unfolds new but latent powers and senses in each age. Special names were often given to each of the sevenfold, tenfold, or twelvefold aspects of these high beings.

In the cosmic sense the sadhyas signify the names collectively of the twelve great gods, the first twelve cosmic hierarchs emanating from Brahma, out of which flow not only the twelve cosmic planes, but the hierarchies inherent in these twelve planes. Their importance lies in the fact that they are the earliest emanations in serial order from the formative and productive Brahma-prakriti, and therefore are really the origin of all beings and things in the cosmos arranged from the beginning in the duodenary hierarchical scheme. Plato had the same thought when he spoke of Divinity forming the universe according to the number twelve. They are reminiscent of the Latin dii consentes, taken over from the ancient mystical Etruscans who stated that these twelve "agreeing or consenting divinities" form the council of Jupiter, the Latin Brahma. The twelve dii consentes consisted of six feminine and six masculine divinities, and the Etruscan theology stated that they govern not only the world, but time also, coming into existence periodically at the commencement of a world period, and passing into rest or pralaya when the world period ended -- only to reappear at the end of the succeeding world period.

Seneca in his Quaestiones Naturalis (2:41) states that there is a more sublime Council of Divinities, superior even to Jupiter and the twelve dii consentes, whose combined will and intelligence govern even the deliberations of Jupiter and the twelve great consenting gods.

See also SATYAS

(See also: Sadhya, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Brahma (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root brih to expand, grow, fructify)

The first god of the Hindu Trimurti or triad, consisting of Brahma, the emanator, evolver, and creator; Vishnu, the sustainer or preserver; and Siva, the regenerator or destroyer. Brahma is the vivifying expansive force of nature in its eternally periodic manvantaras. He stands for the spiritual evolving or developing energy-consciousness of a solar system which is also called the Egg of Brahma (brahmanda). Brahma is called the creator or Logos, but in the theosophic philosophy creator is simply an abstract term or idea, like army. In Burnouf's words:

"Having evolved himself from the soul of the world, once separated from the first cause, he evaporates with, and emanates all nature out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with it; Brahma and the universe form one Being, each particle of which is in its essence Brahma himself, who proceeded out of himself" (q SD 1:380n). The Vishnu-Purana explains that created beings "although they are destroyed (in their individual forms) at the periods of dissolution, yet being affected by the good or evil acts of former existences, are never exempted from their consequences. And when Brahma produces the world anew, they are the progeny of his will . . ." (q SD 1:456n).

Brahman is both masculine and neuter, and therefore has two meanings. In the masculine (Brahma) it is the evolving energy of the cosmic egg, as distinguished from the neuter (Brahman). Brahma is the vehicle or sheath of Brahman. The Vishnu-Purana says that Brahma in its totality has essentially the aspect of prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (mulaprakriti), and also the aspects of spirit and of time. "Brahma, as 'the germ of unknown Darkness,' is the material from which all evolves and develops 'as the web from the spider, as foam from the water,' etc. This is only graphic and true, if Brahma the 'Creator' is, as a term, derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahma 'expands' and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance" (SD 1:83). Again,

"Here we find, as in all genuine philosophical systems, even the 'Egg' or the Circle (or Zero), boundless Infinity, referred to as It, and Brahma, the first unit only, referred to as the male god, i.e., the fructifying Principle. It is  or 10 (ten) the Decade. On the plane of the Septenary or our World only, it is called Brahma. On that of the Unified Decade in the realm of Reality, this male Brahma is an illusion" (SD 1:333).

According to the Aitareya-Brahmana, Brahma as Prajapati (lord of beings) manifests himself first of all as twelve bodies or attributes, which are represented by the twelve gods, symbolizing 1) fire; 2) the sun; 3) soma, which gives omniscience; 4) all living beings; 5) vayu, or ether; 6) death, or breath of destruction -- Siva; 7) earth; 8) heaven; 9) Agni, the immaterial fire; 10) Aditya, the immaterial and invisible sun; 11) mind; and 12) the great infinite cycle, "which is not to be stopped." Brahma in one of his phases therefore is the visible universe, every atom of which is essentially himself.

Brahma "symbolizes personally the collective creators of the World and Men -- the universe with all its numberless productions of things movable and (seemingly) immovable. He is collectively the Prajapatis, the Lords of Being; and the four bodies typify the four classes of creative powers or Dhyan Chohans . . ." (SD 2:60), these four bodies being ratri (night) associated with the creation of the asuras; ahan (day) associated with the gods; sandhya (evening twilight) associated with the pitris; and jyotsna (dawn or light) associated with the creation of men.

In the beginning Brahma was Purusha (spirit) and also prakriti (matter). It is later that he separated himself into two halves -- Brahma-Vach (female) and Brahma-Viraj (male). The term Brahma is not found in the Vedas. Blavatsky correlates Adam-Qadmon, Brahma, and Mars as symbols for primitive or initial generative and creative powers typifying water and earth; also all three are associated with the color red (cf SD 2:43, 124-5).

See also BRAHMA'S DAY

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

According to Indian tradition, the Rig-Vedic hymns were collected by Paila under the guidance of Vyāsa, who formed the Rig-Veda Samhita as we know it. According to the Śatapatha Brāhmana, the number of syllables in the Rigveda is 432,000, equalling the number of m ...

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Rigveda, Rigveda - Text, Rigveda - Books, Rigveda - Translations, Rigveda - Internal evidence, Rigveda - Hindu tradition, Rigveda - More recent Indian views, Rigveda - Editions, Rigveda - Translations, Rigveda - Bibliography

Read more here: » Rigveda: Encyclopedia II - Rigveda - Hindu tradition

Generally speaking, the Indian perception of the Rig-Veda has moved away from the original ritualistic content to a more symbolic or mystical interpretation. For example, instances of animal sacrifice are not seen as literal slaughtering but as transcendental processes. The Rigvedic view is seen to consider the universe to be infinite in size, dividing knowledge into two categories: lower (related to objects, beset with paradoxes) and higher (related to the perceiving subject, free of paradoxes). Swami Dayananda, who started the Arya Samaj and Sri Aurobindo have emphasized ...

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Rigveda, Rigveda - Text, Rigveda - Books, Rigveda - Translations, Rigveda - Internal evidence, Rigveda - Hindu tradition, Rigveda - More recent Indian views, Rigveda - Editions, Rigveda - Translations, Rigveda - Bibliography

Read more here: » Rigveda: Encyclopedia II - Rigveda - More recent Indian views