Of the many verses from the “Book of Dzyan” found in The Secret Doctrine, one is said to have been translated from the Chinese translation of the Book of Dzyan rather than from the Senzar original. This is because, as explained by Blavatsky: “Verse 1 of Stanza VI is of a far later date than the other Stanzas, though still very ancient. The old text of this verse, having names entirely unknown to the Orientalists would give no clue to the student.” (The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 32, footnote). “This stanza is translated from the Chinese text, and the names, as the equivalents of the original terms, are preserved. The real esoteric nomenclature cannot be given, as it would only confuse the reader.” (S.D., vol. 1, p. 136, fn.). This verse is, as found where the stanzas are given altogether before the individual verses are commented on (S.D., vol. 1, p. 32):
‘By the power of the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge—Kwan-Yin—the “triple” of Kwan-shai-Yin, residing in Kwan-yin-Tien, Fohat, the Breath of their Progeny, the Son of the Sons, having called forth, from the lower abyss, the illusive form of Sien-Tchang and the Seven Elements:’
This verse, as found further on with Blavatsky’s commentary, has slight changes of punctuation and capitalization, two added glosses in parentheses, and the changed spelling Sien-Tchan (S.D., vol. 1, p. 136):
‘By the power of the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge, Kwan-Yin, the “Triple” of Kwan-Shai-Yin, residing in Kwan-Yin-Tien, Fohat, the breath of their progeny, the Son of the Sons, having called forth from the lower abyss (chaos), the illusive form of Sien-Tchan (our Universe) and the seven elements:—’
The spellings Kwan-yin and Kwan-shai-yin were adopted from Samuel Beal’s 1871 book, A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese. This book was written before there was any system of standardized transcription of Chinese characters. Later the Wade-Giles system came into widespread use. Thus, in the 1978 edition of The Secret Doctrine, edited by Boris de Zirkoff, these names were changed to the Wade-Giles transcription: Kuan-yin and Kuan-shih-yin. More recently the pinyin system has become standard, in which these names are transcribed as: Guanyin and Guanshiyin. For ease of comparison, I will here use the spellings from Beal that are used in The Secret Doctrine.
Both here in Blavatsky’s commentary on this verse and later in her section “On Kwan-shi-yin and Kwan-yin” (S.D., vol. 1, pp. 470-473), Kwan-yin and Kwan-shai-yin (or Kwan-shi-yin) are distinguished from each other, Kwan-yin being regarded as female, and Kwan-shai-yin being regarded as male. This idea comes from a passage in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, letter number 59, written in 1883:
‘A great mistake is also made by Beal, who says: “This name (Avalokiteswara) in Chinese took the form of Kwan-shai-yin, and the divinity worshipped under that name (was) generally regarded as a female.” (374). Kwan-shai-yin—or the universally manifested voice is active—male; and must not be confounded with Kwan-yin, or Buddhi the Spiritual Soul (the sixth Pr.) and the vehicle of its “Lord.” It is Kwan-yin that is the female principle or the manifested passive, manifesting itself “to every creature in the universe, in order to deliver all men from the consequences of sin”—as rendered by Beal, this once quite correctly (383), while Kwan-shai-yin, the “Son identical with his Father” is the absolute activity, hence—having no direct relation to objects of sense is—Passivity.’
Regardless of however correct these ideas may be, of male and female principles in nature, Beal was not mistaken about the names. The writer of this Mahatma letter (probably Blavatsky)1 misunderstood the sentence from Beal’s Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, p. 374, understanding it as saying that Kwan-shai-yin, as distinguished from Kwan-yin, was generally regarded as a female. In fact, as Beal was fully aware,2 Kwan-yin and Kwan-shai-yin are synonyms, one being merely the fuller form of the other. They are both translations of the same Avalokitasvara, i.e., Avalokiteśvara. Thus, they have been used as synonyms from the time they were first coined in the early centuries of the Common Era up to the present. During this time, Avalokiteśvara transformed from a male to a female in China. But he/she has always been referred to equally as Kwan-yin or Kwan-shai-yin, whether first as a male or later as a female. Although there was a change of gender, it is not the case that the male was called Kwan-shai-yin and the female was called Kwan-yin. Kwan-yin, “Observer of the Sounds,” is only an abbreviation of Kwan-shai-yin, “Observer of the Sounds of the World.” I have called attention to this and explained it more fully in my 2013 piece, “Avalokiteśvara, Kuan-yin, and Kuan-shih-yin” (http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/avalokitesvara-kuan-yin-and-kuan-shih-yin/).
It seems, then, that these names were used in this translation of the verse from the Book of Dzyan by Blavatsky in accordance with what she thought they meant. Similar is the case of the word “yih-sin” and its meanings copied from Beal’s Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, used in reference to Kwan-shai-yin, and often miscopied or misprinted as Yin-sin (see my 2019 post, “The One Mind”: http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/the-one-mind/). As may be seen elsewhere in her translations of verses from the Book of Dzyan, she adopted terms with incorrect spellings from then available books. Thus, in stanza 1, verse 9, she adopted the incorrect spelling “Anupadaka” from Emil Schlagintweit’s 1863 book, Buddhism in Tibet (see my 1995 “Book of Dzyan Research Report: Technical Terms in Stanza I: http://www.easterntradition.org/article/Book%20of%20Dzyan%20Research%20Report%201%20-%20Technical%20Terms%20in%20Stanza%201.pdf). In stanza 2, verses 1 and 5, and stanza 3, verses 10 and 12, and stanza 4, verse 5 (a total of seven occurrences), she adopted the incorrect spelling “Svâbhâvat” from F. Max Muller’s 1867 book, Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 1 (see my 2012 piece, “Why the Form Svabhavat in Theosophical Writings,” presenting Daniel Caldwell’s 2009 discovery of this: http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/why-the-form-svabhavat-in-theosophical-writings/).
Let us assume that the ideas in this verse from the Book of Dzyan are right, but the terms are wrong. If so, what terms might be used in thier place? We are told by Blavatsky that (S.D., vol. 1, p. 136 fn.):
‘The real esoteric nomenclature cannot be given, as it would only confuse the reader. The Brahmanical doctrine has no equivalent to these. Vâch seems, in many an aspect, to approach the Chinese Kwan-yin, but there is no regular worship of Vâch under this name in India, as there is of Kwan-Yin in China.’
And that (S.D., vol. 1, p. 137):
‘. . . the Hindu Vâch, the goddess of Speech, or of the Word. For Vâch—the daughter and the female portion, as is stated, of Brahmâ, one “generated by the gods”—is, in company with Kwan-Yin, with Isis (also the daughter, wife and sister of Osiris) and other goddesses, the female Logos, so to speak, the goddess of the active forces in Nature, the Word, Voice or Sound, and Speech. If Kwan-Yin is the “melodious Voice,” so is Vâch; “the melodious cow who milked forth sustenance and water” (the female principle)—“who yields us nourishment and sustenance,” as Mother-Nature. She is associated in the work of creation with the Prajâpati. She is male and female ad libitum, as Eve is with Adam. And she is a form of Aditi—the principle higher than Ether—in Akâsa, the synthesis of all the forces in Nature; thus Vâch and Kwan-Yin are both the magic potency of Occult sound in Nature and Ether—which “Voice” calls forth Sien-Tchan, the illusive form of the Universe out of Chaos and the Seven Elements.’
The early Hindu trinity from the Vedic texts, preceding the later well-known Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva, is given by Yāska in the Nirukta 7.5. It is, as translated by Lakshman Sarup in The Nighaṇṭu and the Nirukta: The Oldest Indian Treatise on Etymology, Philology, and Semantics, 1921, p. 115:
‘”There are three deities only,” say the etymologists: (1) Agni, whose sphere is earth; (2) Vāyu or Indra, whose sphere is atmosphere; (3) the sun [Sūrya], whose sphere is heaven. Of these, each receives many appellations on account of his supereminence, or the diversity of his function, just as a priest, although he is one, is called the sacrificer (hotṛ), the director of the sacrifice (adhvaryu), the possessor of the sacred lore (brahmā), and the chanter (udgātṛ).’
There is, however, another early Hindu trinity from the Vedic texts, one that does not consist of names of deities. It is: vāk (i.e., vāch), manas, and prāṇa. These have been translated as speech, mind, and breath, respectively (S. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upaniṣads), or less literally as matter, mind, and life, respectively (Vasudeva S. Agrawala, Vision in Long Darkness).3 According to Agrawala (p. 18), they correspond to Agni, Sūrya or Āditya, and Vāyu or Indra, respectively. The Upaniṣads and Brāhmaṇas say a number of different things about them, for their different functions in different contexts and applications. These are described at some length in Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.5.3-13. The opening paragraph 1.5.3 concludes with “Verily, the self consist of speech, mind and breath.” For purposes of comparison with Book of Dzyan verse 6.1 the most relevant paragraph is 1.5.7. It is, again as translated by S. Radhakrishnan:
‘7. These same are father, mother and offspring. Mind, verily, is the father. Speech is the mother. Breath is the offspring.’
As can be seen, this closely relates to the ideas found in Book of Dzyan verse 6.1. Vāch (speech) as the mother is like Kwan-yin as female, and mind (manas) as the father is like Kwan-shai-yin as male. Only the Chinese terms are wrong, as being distinguished as female and male, when they are actually synonyms. Then breath (prāṇa) as their offspring is like “Fohat, the breath of their progeny, the Son of the Sons.”
The teaching about this trinity is further elaborated in Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa 10.5.3.1-12, in the context of cosmogony. In the beginning there was only mind (manas). As translated by Julius Eggeling in The Satapatha-Brâhmana, Part IV, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XLIII, 1897, pp. 374-380:
‘1. Verily, in the beginning this (universe) was, as it were, neither non-existent nor existent; in the beginning this (universe), indeed, as it were, existed and did not exist: there was then only that Mind.
2. Wherefore it has been said by the Rishi (Rig-veda X, 129, 1), ‘There was then neither the non-existent nor the existent;’ for Mind was, as it were, neither existent nor non-existent.’
Then manas created vāch:
‘4. That Mind created Speech. . . .’
Then vāch created prāṇa:
‘5. That Speech created the Breath. . . .’
Then prāṇa created the eye (6), the eye created the ear (7), the ear created work (8), and work created fire (10), all symbolizing the further stages of manifestation.
While we do not have the original Senzar terms used in verse 6.1 from the Book of Dzyan, and the Chinese terms given are used incorrectly, the Sanskrit terms of this early Vedic trinity, manas, vāch, and prāṇa, seem to reflect this verse’s ideas correctly.
Notes
1. That much of the Mahatma letters was written by H. P. Blavatsky, as instructed by the Mahatmas, was explained in a letter written by her in 1886 to Countess Constance Wachmeister. Most of this letter was published in The Path, vol. 7, no. 12, March, 1893, pp. 381-385, as “H. P. Blavatsky on Precipitation and Other Matters.” Most of this letter was again published in the unpaginated Introduction to The Early Teachings of the Masters, edited by C. Jinarajadasa, 1923, as “Statement by H. P. B.” The complete letter was published in The Eclectic Theosophist, no. 68, March-April 1982, pp. 6-9, as “H.P.B. to Countess Wachmeister.” These three printings can be found here in one file: http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/wp-content/uploads/Mahatma-Letters-on-writing-of-HPB-etc..pdf. After I posted these, the complete letter was again published in The Theosophist, vol. 138, no. 2, November, 2016, pp. 25-30. A key passage from this letter is: “It is very rarely that Mahatma K. H. dictated verbatim, and when He did there remained the few sublime passages found in Mr. Sinnett’s letters from Him. The rest—he would say—write so and so, and the Chela wrote . . . .”
2. In the section of Beal’s Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese titled “The Worship of Kwan-yin,” p. 383, he writes: “If written in full, the Chinese title of this Bodhisatwa would be ‘Kwan-shai-yin,’ . . .”
3. The full title of Vasudeva S. Agrawala’s book, Vision in Long Darkness, is: The Thousand-Syllabled Speech [Being a Study in Cosmic Symbolism in Its Vedic Version]: I. Vision in Long Darkness, Introduction and Analysis, Text and Translation of the Asya-Vāmīya Sūkta of Ṛishi Dīrghatamas (Ṛigveda 1.164.1-52), Varanasi: Vedāraṇyaka Ashram, 1963. There he writes, p. vii:
‘The Asya-Vāmīya Hymn is no doubt worded in the language of ancient symbolism, but if put in simple terms, it gives us valuable data of cosmogonical principles which are of essential value for modern philosophy and science; e.g.
‘(1) It inculcates the Trinitarian Basis of Creation that the whole world is constituted of a triadic pattern. There are many formulations of the threefold constituents, all under the general name of Three Brothers. We have shown them during the course of this commentary. The most important of them all for modem man is the statement in terms of Mind, Life and Matter, corresponding to Manas, Prāṇa and Vāk of Vedic terminology. (Mantras 1-4).’
p. 20:
‘The seven layers symbolised in the ritual of the building of the Fire-Altar (agnichayana) are in fact the Mind, Life and Five Gross Material Elements (Manas Prāṇa Pañcha bhūtāni). By the integration of these Seven, the Self is created (etanmayo vā ayamātmā vāṅmayo manomayaḥ prāṇamaya, ŚB. 14. 4. 3. 10), where Vāk or Śabda is the symbol of the attributes of the Pañchabhūtas.’
p. 21:
‘Here the Seven Sons are not different from the Three Brothers, and it is just a different way of looking at things. Life, Mind and Matter (Manas, Prāṇa, Vak) are the Three Brothers, and by counting the gross elements as five, they are the Seven Sons. The whole gamut of creation is comprehended by these Seven, variantly expressed in the Purāṇic language, as Mahat, Ahaṅkāra and Five Tanmātrās, called Viśeshas (Mahadādi viśeshāntāḥ, Bhāgavata, etc.).’