Buddhi, the Sixth Principle, or Divine Soul in man. In a still higher sense, Avalokiteshvara-Kwan-Shi-Vin, referred to as the seventh Universal Principle, is the Logos perceived by the Universal Buddhi, or Soul, as the synthetic aggregate of the Dhyâni-Buddhas; and is not the "Spirit of Buddha present in the Church," but the Omnipresent Universal Spirit manifested in the temple of Kosmos or Nature. This Orientalistic etymology of Kwan and Yin is on a par with that of Yoginî, which, we are told by Mr. Hargrave Jennings, is a Sanskrit word, "in the dialects pronounced Jogi or Zogee (!), and is equivalent with Sena, and exactly the same as Duti or Dutica,” i.e., a sacred prostitute of the temple, worshipped as Yoni or Shakti.* "The books of morality [in India] direct a faithful wife to shun the society of Yogini or females who have been adored as Sacti." Nothing should surprise us after this. And it is, therefore, with hardly a smile that we find another preposterous absurdity quoted about "Budh," as being a name "which signifies not only the sun as the source of generation but also the male organ." Max Müller, in treating of "False Analogies,” says that "the most celebrated Chinese scholar of his time, Abel Rémusat . . . maintains that the three syllables I Hi Wei [in the fourteenth chapter of the Tao-te-King] were meant for Je-ho-vah":§ and again, Father Amyot "felt certain that the three persons of the Trinity could be recognized" in the same work. And if Abel Rémusat, why not Hargrave Jennings? Every scholar will recognize the absurdity of ever seeing in Budh, the "enlightened" and the "awakened,” a "phallic symbol." Kwan-Shi-Yin, then, is "the Son identical with his Father," mystically, or the Logos, the Word. He is called the "Dragon of Wisdom," in Stanza III, for all the Logoi of all the ancient religious systems are connected with, and symbolized by, serpents. In old Egypt, the God Nahbkoon, "he who unites the doubles," was represented as a serpent on human legs, either with or without arms. This was the Astral Light reuniting by its dual physiological and spiritual potency the Divine-Human to its purely Divine Monad, the Prototype in "Heaven” or Nature. It was the emblem of the resurrection of Nature; of Christ with the Ophites; and of Jehovah as the brazen serpent healing those who looked at him. The serpent was also an emblem of Christ with • Op. cit., p. 60. + Ibid. # O'Brien, Round Towers of Ireland, p. 61, quoted by Hargrave Jennings in his Phallicism, p. 246. Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 332. CRINOLINES, OR THE DRAGON-GARB? 513 the Templars, as is shown by the Templar degree in Masonry. The symbol of Knooph (Khoom also), or the Soul of the World, says Champollion, "is represented among other forms under that of a huge serpent on human legs; this reptile, being the emblem of the Good Genius and the veritable Agathodæmon, is sometimes bearded."* This sacred animal is thus identical with the serpent of the Ophites, and is figured on a great number of engraved stones, called Gnostic or Basilidean gems. It appears with various heads, human and animal, but its gems are always found inscribed with the name XNOYBIΣ (ChNOUBIS). This symbol is identical with one which, according to Jamblichus and Champollion, was called the "First of the Celestial Gods," the God Hermes, or Mercury, with the Greeks, to which God Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention of, and the first initiation of men into, Magic; and Mercury is Budh, Wisdom, Enlightenment, or “Reawakening" into the divine Science. To close, Kwan-Shi-Yin and Kwan-Yin are the two aspects, male and female, of the same principle in Kosmos, Nature and Man, of Divine Wisdom and Intelligence. They are the Christos-Sophia of the mystic Gnostics, the Logos and its Shakti. In their longing for the expression of some mysteries never to be wholly comprehended by the profane, the Ancients, knowing that nothing could be preserved in human memory without some outward symbol, have chosen the, to us, often ridiculous images of the Kwan-Yins to remind man of his origin and inner nature. To the impartial, however, the Madonnas in crinolines and the Christs in white kid gloves must appear far more absurd than the Kwan-Shi-Yin and Kwan-Yin in their dragon-garb. The subjective can hardly be expressed by the objective. Therefore, since the symbolic formula attempts to characterize that which is above scientific reasoning, and is as often far beyond our intellects, it must needs go beyond that intellect in some shape or other, or else it will fade out from human remembrance. |
