Images de page
PDF
ePub

ern façades of King Can's palace at Uxmal. This edifice was also the residence of the pontiff.

A knowledge of antique geometric symbology makes it easy to understand these cosmic diagrams. In the centre of the figure we see a circle inscribed within the hexagon formed by the sides of two interlaced equilateral triangles.

The Egyptians held the equilateral triangle as the symbol of nature, beautiful and fruitful. In their hieroglyphs it meant "worship." For the Christians the equilateral triangle, containing the open eye of Siva, is the symbol of Deity. The Hindoos and the Chaldees regarded it as emblem of the spirit of the universe. Exoterically this central circle represents the sun, the light and life-giver of the physical world, evolved from fire and water.1

It is well known that among the ancient occultists, of all nations, the triangle with the apex upward symbolized “fire;' that with the apex downward, "water." The outer circle that circumscribes the triangles is the horizon, that apparent boundary of the material world, within which, in his daily travels, the sun seems to be tied up. Hence the name Inti-huatana, "sun's halter," given by the ancient Peruvians to the stone circles so profusely scattered over the high plateaus of the Andes, along the shores of Lake Titicaca,2 in India, Arabia, northern Africa, northern Europe, where they are known as druidical circles. Their use is still a matter of discussion for

European antiquaries. They disdain to seek in America for the explanation of the motives that prompted their erection and that of many other constructions, as well as the origin of

1 See Appendix, notes vii. and xx.

'George E. Squier, Perú: Incidents of Travels and Explorations in the Land of the Incas, chap. xx., p. 384.

Augustus Le Plongeon, A Sketch of the Ancient Inhabitants of Peru, chap. i.

customs and traditions that continue to be among them the themes for useless controversies.

The twelve scallops which surround the outer circle are the twelve houses or resting-places of the sun; that is, the twelve months of the solar year, or twelve signs of the zodiac. As to the four double rays, those nearest to the houses of the sun typify the primordial Four, direct emanations from the central sun-the four Heavenly Giants who helped in fashioning the material universe. The lower ones symbolize the four primordial substances known to modern scientists as nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, whose various combinations form the four primitive elements-fire, water, air, and earth-into which these can again be resolved.

In the Appendix the esoteric explanation of the diagram is presented as it was given by the Maya sages to their pupils in the secrecy of the mysterious recesses of their temples. It corresponds precisely to the doctrine of the cosmic evolution contained in that ancient Sanscrit book of "Dzyan," which forms the groundwork of Madame H. P. Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine." 1

The Maya colonists who carried their conceptions of cosmic evolution to India, fearing lest the meaning of this diagram, purposely made so simple by the wise men in their mother country, should not be sufficiently intelligible to the new ini

'H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. i., pp. 27-35. "Is it a mere coincidence that the name Dzyan of the archaic Indian MS., whose translation, with commentaries, Madame Blavatsky gave to the world, is a pure Maya word? To write it according to the accepted manner of writing Maya, we must replace the double consonant dz by its equivalent ɔ. We then have the word Dian, which means "to be swollen by fire." In the book Dzyan, stanza iii., § 1, we read: "The mother swells, extending from within without, like the bud of the lotus ; and § 9: "Light is cold flame, and flame is fire, and fire produces heat, which yields water; the water of life in the great mother."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

.

[ocr errors]
[graphic]
« PrécédentContinuer »