Divinities. But these Divinities are simply the Prototypes of the First Race, the Fathers of their "mind-born" progeny with the "soft bones." It is these who became the Evolvers of the "Sweat-born"-an expression explained in Volume II.

"Created beings," explains the Vishnu Purána, "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 Brahmâ produces the world anew, they are the progeny of his will.”

“Collecting his mind into itself [yoga-willing], Brahmâ creates the four Orders of Beings, termed Gods, Demons, Progenitors, and Men"; Progenitors here meaning the Prototypes and Evolvers of the first Root-Race of men. The Progenitors are the Pitris, and are of Seven Classes. They are said, in exoteric mythology, to be born of "Brahmâ's side," like Eve from the rib of Adam.

Finally, the Sixth Creation is followed, and "Creation" in general closed by:

(VII) The Seventh Creation: the evolution of the Arvâksrotas Beings, "which was that of man."

The "Eighth Creation" mentioned is no Creation at all: it is a "blind," for it refers to a purely mental process, the cognition of the "Ninth Creation," which, in its turn, is an effect, manifesting in the Secondary, of that which was a "Creation" in the Primary (Prâkrita) Creation. The Eighth, then, called Anugraha, the Pratyayasarga or Intellectual Creation of the Sânkhyas, is "the creation of which we have a notion [in its esoteric aspect], or to which we give intellectual assent (Anugraha), in contradistinction to organic creation." It is the correct perception of our relations to the whole range of "Gods,” and especially of those we bear to the Kumâras, the so-called “Ninth Creation," which is in reality an aspect, or reflection, of the Sixth in our Manvantara (the Vaivasvata). "There is a ninth, the Kaumâra Creation, which is both primary and secondary," says the Vishnu Purána, the oldest of such texts. As an Esoteric text explains:

"These notions," remarks Professor Wilson, "the birth of Rudra and the saints, seem to have been borrowed from the Shaivas, and to have been awkwardly engrafted upon the Vaishnava system.” The esoteric meaning ought to have been consulted before venturing such a hypothesis. + See Sankhya Kärikâ, v. 46. p. 146.

Parashara, the Vedic Rishi, who received the Vishnu Purâna from Pulastya and taught it to Maitreya, is placed by the Orientalists at various epochs. As correctly observed, in the Hind Classical Dictionary: "Speculations as to his era differ widely, from 575 B.C. to 1391 B.C., and cannot be trusted." Quite so; but they are no more untrustworthy than any other date, as assigned by the Sanskritists, so famous in the department of arbitrary fancy.

WHO THE KUMÂRAS ARE.

493

The Kumaras, are the Dhyanis, derived immediately from the Supreme Principle, who reäppear in the Vaivasvata Manu period, for the progress of mankind.*

The translator of the Vishnu Purâna corroborates it, by remarking that "these sages live as long as Brahmâ; and they are only created by him in the First Kalpa, although their generation is very commonly, but inconsistently, introduced in the [Secondary] Vârâha, or Pâdma Kalpa." Thus, the Kumâras are, exoterically, "the creation of Rudra or Nîlalohita, a form of Shiva, by Brahmâ . . and of certain other mind-born sons of Brahmâ." But, in the Esoteric teaching, they are the Progenitors of the true spiritual Self in the physical man, the higher Prajâpatis, while the Pitris, or lower Prajâpatis, are no more than the Fathers of the model, or type of his physical form, made "in their image." Four (and occasionally five) are mentioned freely in the exoteric texts, three of the Kumâras being secret.

"The four Kumâras [are] the mind-born Sons of Brahmâ. Some specify seven."† All these seven Vaidhâtra, the patronymic of the Kumâras, the "Maker's Sons," are mentioned and described in Ishvara Krishna's Sânkhya Kárika with the Commentary of Gaudapâdâchârya (Shankarâchârya's Paraguru) attached to it. It discusses the nature of the Kumâras, though it refrains from mentioning by name all the seven Kumâras, but calls them instead the "seven sons of Brahmâ," which they are, as they are created by Brahmâ in Rudra. The list of names it gives us is: Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanâtana, Kapila, Ribhu, and Panchashikha. But these again are all aliases.

The exoteric four are Sanatkumâra, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanâtana; and the esoteric three Sana, Kapila, and Sanatsujâta. Special attention is once more drawn to this class of Dhyân Chohans, for herein lies the mystery of generation and heredity hinted at in the Commentary on Stanza VII, in treating of the Four Orders of Angelic Beings. Volume II explains their position in the Divine Hierarchy. Meanwhile, let us see what the exoteric texts say about them.

They say little; and to him who fails to read between the linesnothing. "We must have recourse, here, to other Puranas for the elucidation of this term," remarks Wilson, who does not suspect for one

• They may indeed mark a "special" or extra "creation," since it is they who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human shells of the two first Root-Races, and a great portion of the Third Root-Race, create, so to speak, a new race; that of thinking, self-conscious and divine

men.

+ Hindú Classical Dictionary.

moment that he is in the presence of the Angels of Darkness," the mythical "great enemy" of his Church. Therefore, he contrives to "elucidate" no more than that "these [Divinities] declining to create progeny, [and thus rebelling against Brahmâ], remained, as the name of the first [Sanatkumâra] implies, ever boys, Kumâras; that is, ever pure and innocent, whence their creation is called the Kaumâra." The Puranas, however, may afford a little more light. "Being ever as he was born, he is here called a youth; and hence his name is well known as Sanatkumâra." In the Shaiva Purânas, the Kumâras are always described as Yogins. The Kurma Purana, after enumerating them, says: "These five, O Brâhmans, were Yogins, who acquired entire exemption from passion." They are five, because two of the Kumâras fell.

seven

So untrustworthy are some translations of the Orientalists that in the French translation of the Hari Vamsha, it is said: "The seven Prajapati, Rudra, Skanda (his son) and Sanatkumâra proceeded to create beings." Whereas, as Wilson shows, the original is: "These created progeny; and so did Rudra, but Skanda and Sanatkumâra, restraining their power, abstained (from creation)." The "four orders of beings" are referred to sometimes as Ambhâmsi, which Wilson renders as "literally Waters," and believes it "a mystic term." It is one, no doubt; but he evidently failed to catch the real Esoteric meaning. "Waters" and "Water" stand as the symbol for Âkâsha, the "Primordial Ocean of Space," on which Nârâyana, the self-born Spirit, moves, reclining on that which is its progeny. "Water is the body of Nara; thus we have heard the name of Water explained. Since Brahmâ rests on the Water, therefore he is termed Nârâyana.”‡ "Pure, Purusha created the Waters pure." At the same time Water is the Third Principle in material Kosmos, and the third in the realm of the Spiritual: Spirit of Fire, Flame, Âkâsha, Ether, Water, Air, Earth, are the cosmic, sidereal, psychic, spiritual and mystic principles, preeminently occult, on every plane of being. "Gods, Demons, Pitris and Men," are the four orders of beings to whom the term Ambhâmsi is applied, because they are all the product of Waters (mystically), of the Âkâshic Ocean, and of the Third principle in Nature.

In the Vedas it is a synonym of Gods. Pitris and Men on Earth are the

Linga Purána, Prior Section, lxx. 174.

+ See Manu, I. 10.

‡ See Linga, Vâyu and Märkandeya Purânas.

THE "VIRGIN ASCETICS."

495

transformations or rebirths of Gods and Demons (Spirits) on a higher plane. Water is, in another sense, the feminine principle. Venus Aphrodite is the personified Sea, and the Mother of the God of Love, the Generatrix of all the Gods, as much as the Christian Virgin Mary is Mare, the Sea, the Mother of the Western God of Love, Mercy and Charity. If the student of Esoteric Philosophy thinks deeply over the subject, he is sure to find out all the suggestiveness of the term Ambhâmsi, in its manifold relations to the Virgin in Heaven, to the Celestial Virgin of the Alchemists, and even to the "Waters of Grace" of the modern Baptist.

Of all the seven great divisions of Dhyân Chohans, or Devas, there is none with which humanity is more concerned than with the Kumâras. Imprudent are the Christian Theologians who have degraded them into Fallen Angels, and now call them Satan and Demons; as among these heavenly denizens who "refuse to create," the Archangel Michael, the greatest patron Saint of the Western and Eastern Churches, under his double name of St. Michael and his supposed copy on earth, St. George conquering the Dragon, has to be given one of the most prominent places.

The Kumâras, the Mind-born Sons of Brahmâ-Rudra, or Shiva, mystically the howling and terrific destroyer of human passions and physical senses, which are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the growth of the inner eternal man, are the progeny of Shiva, the Mahayogî, the great patron of all the Yogis and Mystics of India.

Shiva-Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the Preserver; and both are the Regenerators of spiritual as well as of physical Nature. To live as a plant, the seed must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity, the passions and senses of man must die before his body does. "That to live is to die and to die is to live," has been too little understood in the West. Shiva, the Destroyer, is the Creator and the Saviour of Spiritual Man, as he is the good gardener of Nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to call to life the perceptions of the spiritual, man.

The Kumâras, themselves then, being the "virgin ascetics," refuse to create the material being Man. Well may they be suspected of a direct connection with the Christian Archangel Michael, the "virgin combatant" of the Dragon Apophis, whose victim is every Soul united too loosely to its immortal Spirit, the Angel who, as shown by the Gnos

tics, refused to create just as the Kumâras did. Does not that patron Angel of the Jews preside over Saturn (Shiva or Rudra), and the Sabbath, the day of Saturn? Is he not shown of the same essence with his Father (Saturn), and called the Son of Time, Cronus, or Kâla, a form of Brahmâ (Vishnu and Shiva)? And is not Old Time of the Greeks, with its scythe and sand-glass, identical with the Ancient of Days of the Kabalists; the latter "Ancient" being one with the Hindû Ancient of Days, Brahmâ, in his triune form, whose name is also Sanat, the Ancient? Every Kumâra bears the prefix of Sanat and Sana. And Shanaishchara is Saturn, the planet Shani, the King Saturn, whose Secretary in Egypt was Thot-Hermes the first. They are thus identified both with the planet and the God (Shiva), who are, in their turn, shown to be the prototypes of Saturn, who is the same as Bel, Baal, Shiva, and Jehovah Sabbaoth, the Angel of the Face of whom is Mikael-, "who [is] as God." He is the patron, and guardian. Angel of the Jews, as Daniel tells us; and, before the Kumâras were degraded, by those who were ignorant of their very name, into Demons and Fallen Angels, the Greek Ophites, the occultly inclined predecessors and precursors of the Roman Catholic Church after its secession and separation from the primitive Greek Church, had identified Michael with their Ophiomorphos, the rebellious and opposing spirit. This means nothing more than the reverse aspect, symbolically, of Ophis, the Divine Wisdom or Christos. In the Talmud, Mikael is "Prince of Water" and the chief of the Seven Spirits, for the same reason that one of his many prototypes, Sanatsujâta, the chief of the Kumâras, is called Ambhâmsi, "Waters," according to the commentary on Vishnu Purána. Why? Because the Waters is another name of the Great Deep, the Primordial Waters of Space, or Chaos, and also means Mother, Ambâ, meaning Aditi and Akâsha, the Celestial Virgin-Mother of the visible Universe. Furthermore, the "Waters of the Flood" are also called the "Great Dragon," or Ophis, Ophiomorphos.

The Rudras will be noticed in their septenary character of "FireSpirits" in the "Symbolism" attached to the Stanzas in Volume II. There we shall also consider the Cross (3+4) under its primeval and later forms, and shall use for purposes of comparison the Pythagorean numbers side by side with Hebrew metrology. The immense importance of the number seven will thus become evident, as the root number of Nature. We shall examine it from the standpoint of the Vedas and