This is part of an ongoing glossary of terms relating to the Book of Dzyan.

The term ākāśa, now usually translated as “space,” has been understood in quite different ways in the Sanskrit texts. Its meanings range from the “sky,” to the fifth element “ether,” to a near ultimate cosmic principle, to nothing more than empty space. It occurs in the Book of Dzyan as “a shoreless sea of fire” (stanza 3, verse 7), where it is a near ultimate cosmic principle. It cannot be the ultimate cosmic principle termed “space” in the esoteric Senzar Catechism or Occult Catechism, because ākāśa is described as a radiation from this source.¹ The various meanings of ākāśa found in various Indian systems of thought will first be given in brief, and then in more detail.

In common everyday usage, ākāśa typically refers to the “sky.” In somewhat more technical usage, ākāśa may refer to “ether” as the fifth of the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and ether), much like the ether posited by science until it was largely disproved by the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887. As the fifth element, ākāśa is often joined with a word for “element,” bhūta or dhātu. Thus, bhūtākāśa, the element ākāśa, or ākāśa-dhātu, the ākāśa element. As a near ultimate cosmic principle, ākāśa may refer to the first thing to emanate from the ultimate cosmic principle, such as in the non-dualistic Hindu Advaita Vedānta system. Or it may refer to a near ultimate cosmic principle that did not emanate from anything, but is one among other eternal cosmic principles, such as in the pluralistic Hindu Vaiśeṣika system. As neither an element nor as a near ultimate cosmic principle, ākāśa may refer only to empty space, such as in the Buddhist Madhyamaka system.

In the Book of Dzyan as reported by H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, ākāśa is a near ultimate cosmic principle that is the first thing to emanate from the ultimate cosmic principle. It is “the radiation of Mūlaprakṛiti” (The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 10), which is “pre-cosmic root substance,” “that aspect of the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature” (S.D. 1.15). Book of Dzyan, stanza 3, verse 7: “Bright Space Son of Dark Space . . . turns the upper into a shoreless sea of fire.”² Commentary: “The ‘Sea of Fire’ is then the Super-Astral (i.e., noumenal) Light, the first radiation from the Root, the Mūlaprakṛiti, the undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter” (S.D. 1.75). “Mūlaprakṛiti, . . . the primordial substance, . . . is the source from which Ākāśa radiates” (S.D. 1.35). It is defined by Blavatsky: “Ākāśa—the astral light—can be defined in a few words; it is the Universal Soul, the Matrix of the Universe, the ‘Mysterium Magnum’ from which all that exists is born by separation or differentiation. It is the cause of existence; it fills all the infinite Space; is Space itself, in one sense, or both its Sixth and Seventh principles” (SD 2.511-512).” Thus, as summarized by Blavatsky: “The whole range of physical phenomena proceeds from the Primary of Ether—Ākāśa, as dual-natured Ākāśa proceeds from undifferentiated Chaos, so-called, the latter being the primary aspect of Mūlaprakṛiti, the root-matter and the first abstract Idea one can form of Parabrahman” (S.D. 1.536).

In the Hindu Vedānta system, ākāśa is a near ultimate cosmic principle that is the first thing to emanate from the ultimate cosmic principle, brahman, the ultimate reality. All schools of Vedānta are based on the Upaniṣads. The Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.1.1 says: “From that [brahman], verily, from this self [ātman], ākāśa arose; from ākāśa, air; from air, fire; from fire, water; from water, earth; from earth, plants, from plants, food; from food, the person” (brahma . . . tasmād vā etasmād ātmana ākāśaḥ sambhūtaḥ | ākāśād vāyuḥ | vāyor agniḥ | agner āpaḥ | adbhyaḥ pṛthivī | pṛthivyā oṣadhayaḥ | oṣadhībhyo annam | annāt puruṣaḥ). Yet there are passages in the Vedas and Upaniṣads in which ākāśa (or the sometimes synonymous vyoman) is used to designate brahman, the ultimate reality. Thus, the next most authoritative Vedānta text, the Brahma-sūtras, says that brahman is ākāśā (1.1.22), followed by saying that brahman is prāṇa (1.1.23), and brahman is jyotis, “light” (1.1.24), the commentators adding that this ākāśā must be distinguished from ākāśa as an element (bhūta-ākāśa). However, this text is understood as saying only that this ākāśa is brahman in one sense. Since ākāśa describes an aspect of brahman it may be used to designate brahman. This is made clear where Taittirīya Upaniṣad 1.6.2 says “brahman whose body is ākāśa ” (ākāśa-śarīram brahma).

Advaita Vedānta is the non-dualistic school of Vedānta, teaching that brahman, the ultimate reality, and ātman, the self, are one. Its teachers agree with the Taittirīya Upaniṣad passage saying that from brahman, from ātman, arose ākāśa. Its founding father Śaṅkarācārya wrote a small treatise called Pañcīkaraṇa, on which his close disciple Sureśvara wrote a verse commentary (Vārttika), saying (verse 3) “from that [param brahman] arose ākāśa” (param brahma . . . tasmād ākāśam utpannam). In a non-dual system, nothing can actually arise from the one brahman as separate from it. So ākāśa arises only by way of the coming into play of māyā, the power of illusion or illusory appearance, a power possessed by brahman. In accordance with this, the later writer Vidyāraṇya in his classic Pañcadaśī wrote (chapter 13, verse 67): “The first modification [of māyā] is ākāśa” (māyāṃ . . . ādyo vikāra ākāśaḥ). In Advaita Vedānta, the whole universe is a māyā or illusory appearance superimposed on the one brahman. Nonetheless, in this sense, ākāśa is here understood as the first thing to emanate from brahman, the ultimate reality.

In the Hindu Vaiśeṣika system, ākāśa is a near ultimate cosmic principle that did not emanate from anything, but is one among other eternal cosmic principles. It is one of nine realities or ultimate substances (dravya): earth, water, fire, air, ākāśa, time (kāla), direction (dik), souls (ātman), and minds (manas) (Vaiśeṣika-sūtra 1.1.4 or 1.1.5).³ Like the other eight cosmic principles, ākāśa is eternal or permanent (nitya) (Vaiśeṣika-sūtra 2.1.28). It is unitary or one, not many (Vaiśeṣika-sūtra 2.1.29); that is, it does not consist of ultimate atoms (paramāṇu) as do the four elements, earth, water, fire, and air. Nonetheless, it is an element (bhūta), one of the five elements along with these four. It is all-pervading or omnipresent (Vaiśeṣika-sūtra 7.1.27 or 7.1.22). As such, ākāśa provides the medium in which the other four eternal elements in the pluralistic Vaiśeṣika system can combine to produce the visible cosmos.

In the Jaina system, ākāśa is a near ultimate cosmic principle that did not emanate from anything, but is one among other eternal cosmic principles. It is one of six realities or ultimate substances (dravya): souls (jīva), medium of motion (dharma), medium of rest (adharma), ākāśa, matter (pudgala), and time (kāla). These six cosmic principles are eternal. Here, ākāśa is not one of the elements, earth, water, fire, and air. Rather, it is the principle whose function is to provide room for or be a receptacle for (avagāha) the other five cosmic principles (Tattvārthādhigama-sūtra 5.18). As such, it is the “world-space” (loka-ākāśa). Beyond the world-space is “infinite space” (ananta-ākāśa), in which nothing exists (Pañcāstikāya-sāra, verses 97-103 or 90-96). Yet, as one of the six realities or ultimate substances or cosmic principles, ākāśa is real, something rather than nothing.

In the early Buddhist Abhidharma teachings as systematized by the Sarvāstivādins of Kashmir, called the Vaibhāṣikas, ākāśa is one of three uncompounded or unconditioned dharmas among the seventy-five dharmas that make up the cosmos. Besides uncompounded ākāśa, defined as anāvṛti, “that which does not obstruct” (Abhidharma-kośa 1.5d), there is the ākāśa element, ākāśa-dhātu, defined as a chidra, a “hole or cavity or delimited space” (Abhidharma-kośa 1.28a). The ākāśa element is not counted as a dharma, while the uncompounded ākāśa is. The dharmas are real or really existent (dravyasat), whether the seventy-two compounded (saṃskṛta) dharmas or the three uncompounded (asaṃskṛta) dharmas, since a single ultimate reality is not posited. As one of the three uncompounded or unconstructed dharmas, along with two kinds of cessation (nirodha), i.e., nirvāṇa, ākāśa was not produced by anything else. It is omnipresent (sarvagata) and eternal or permanent (nitya). To show that ākāśa is something real and not nothing more than empty space, as it was understood by their co-religionist Sautrāntikas, the Vaibhāṣika Sarvāstivādins cite what Gautama Buddha said to a Brahmin inquirer in this scriptural passage: “On what, Gautama sir, is earth supported? Earth, O Brahmin, is supported on the water disk. On what, Gautama sir, is the water disk supported? It is supported on air. On what, Gautama sir, is air supported? It is supported on ākāśa. On what, Gautama sir, is ākāśa supported? You go too far, great Brahmin; you go too far, great Brahmin. Akāśa, O Brahmin, is unsupported, is without a support.” (Abhidharma-kośa-vyākhyā on chapter 1, verse 5, at end).⁴ Moreover, they say that ākāśa is all that remains during the ages (kalpa) after the world is destroyed (Abhidharma-kośa-bhāṣya on chapter 3, verse 90). Thus, in the pluralistic Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma system, ākāśa is an uncompounded, eternal or permanent cosmic principle that did not emanate from anything, yet it is not the ultimate reality.

The distinction between ākāśa as an uncompounded dharma and ākāśa as an element is not always maintained, like it is in the Abhidharma-kośa. For example, the Pitṛ-putra-samāgama-sūtra quoted in the Śikṣā-samuccaya (Bendall edition, p. 249) describes the ākāśa element (ākāśa-dhātu) as indestructible (akṣaya), stable (sthira), unmoving (acala), and like the uncompounded nirvāṇa element (asaṃskṛta nirvāṇa-dhātu), as all-pervading (sarvatra-anugata). This description is clearly of the uncompounded ākāśa, yet it is called the ākāśa element (ākāśa-dhātu). The reason for this is that the term dhātu, used in the Abhidharma-kośa and elsewhere to distinguish ākāśa as an element, is not co-extensive with the more specific term for the elements. The four elements, earth, water, fire, and air, are termed the “great elements” (mahā-bhūta). So it is possible for ākāśa to be a dhātu, yet not a mahā-bhūta. Here in the Pitṛ-putra-samāgama-sūtra, even nirvāṇa is called a dhātu.

In the Mahāyāna Buddhist Yogācāra system, ākāśa is one of six or eight uncompounded or unconditioned dharmas among the hundred dharmas that make up the cosmos.⁵ As such, it is the same as the uncompounded ākāśa taught by the Sarvāstivadins, described above. That is, it is an uncompounded, eternal or permanent cosmic principle that did not emanate from anything, yet it is not the ultimate reality.

In the Mahāyāna Buddhist Madhyamaka system, ākāśa is the mere empty space that things are within and that is within things, such as the space in a room. The Madhyamaka system’s founding father Nāgārjuna says in his Ratnāvalī, chapter 1, verse 99ab: “Because it is merely the absence of form (rūpa), ākāśa is merely a name” (rūpasyâbhāva-mātratvād ākāśaṃ nāma-mātrakam).⁶ Nāgarjuna’s spiritual son Āryadeva in his Caryā-melāpaka-pradīpa tells us that ākāśa is not an element, and that its function is to provide room for all existing things (ākāśaṃ . . . na mahā-bhūtam . . . avakāśa-dānāt ākāśaṃ sarva-bhāvānām).⁷ Commenting on Āryadeva’s Catuḥ-śataka (chapter 9, verse 5), the Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka writer Candrakīrti says that ākāśa is merely a name (nāmadheya-mātra) of something that does not really exist (avastusat), a nothing (akiṃcana).⁸ Since Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka is the prevailing view in Tibetan Buddhism, ākāśa is understood in the same way there. Tsong kha pa, founder of the dominant Gelugpa order, says in his Legs bshad gser phreng that ākāśa has no inherent nature (svabhāva) and describes it as “a mere representation of a mere absence of obstructive contact or impediment.”⁹ Thus, in the Buddhist Madhyamaka system, ākāśa is nothing more than empty space.

In the early Buddhist Sautrāntika system, ākāśa is nothing more than empty space, same as in the presumably later Madhyamaka system. A line from the Jñāna-sāra-samuccaya, verse 23, sums up the Sautrāntika view of ākāśa, saying that it is “equal to the son of a childless woman” (vandhyā-suta-samaṃ vyoma). This is a common metaphor for something that does not exist. As reported in the Abhidharma-kośa-bhāṣya on 2.55d, the Sautrāntikas define ākāśa as not real (adravya), not an existent thing (bhāva) like form (rūpa), sensation (vedanā), etc. It is the mere absence of the tangible (spraṣṭavya-abhāva-mātra), like not finding an obstacle or resistance (pratighāta) in the dark.

In the early Buddhist Theravāda system in its current form, ākāśa (Pali: ākāsa) is mere empty space.  When distinguished as the ākāsa element (ākāsa-dhātu), it refers to the mere empty space in openings, such as internally in the ear, or externally in doorways.¹⁰ It is not one of the great elements (mahā-bhūta), earth, water, fire, and air. It is merely an abstract idea, a conceptual construct (paññatti-mattā).¹¹ This is in contradistinction to the dhammas, which are real things, being established by their inherent nature (sabhāva-siddha). Since ākāsa is not even a dhamma/dharma here, it is certainly not an uncompounded dhamma/dharma, as it is in the early Buddhist Sarvāstivāda system. The Theravāda system recognizes only one uncompounded dhamma/dharma (Pali: asaṅkhata dhamma), namely, nirvāṇa (Pali: nibbāna). Outside of the Theravāda canon there is a Pali text, the Milinda-pañha, that says there are two things that do not arise from karma (Pali: kamma), nor from a cause (hetu), nor from physical change (utu): ākāsa and nibbāna.¹² But this is not mainstream Theravāda.¹³  

As may be seen from the foregoing, ākāśa in the Book of Dzyan is like ākāśa in the Hindu Advaita Vedānta system. Both the Book of Dzyan and Advaita Vedānta are non-dualistic. In both, ākāśa is a near ultimate cosmic principle that is the first thing to emanate from the ultimate cosmic principle.

Notes

1. Space is defined in the esoteric Senzar Catechism (The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 9), or the Occult Catechism (S.D., vol. 1, p. 11), or the esoteric catechism (S.D., vol. 1, p. 35). In this last place Blavatsky is commenting on the first verse of the first stanza from the “Book of Dzyan.” There the eternal parent space is described as being wrapped in her ever invisible robes. These robes are said to stand for the noumenon of undifferentiated cosmic matter, and this is said to be called mūla-prakṛti. This is described as “the source from which ākāśa radiates.” Specifically, ākāśa is said to be “the first radiation from the Root, the Mūlaprakṛiti, the undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter” (S.D. 1.75). Hence, “space” cannot be the translation of ākāśa here.

2. Book of Dzyan, stanza 3, verse 7: “Behold, oh Lanoo! The radiant child of the two, the unparalleled refulgent glory: Bright Space Son of Dark Space, which emerges from the depths of the great dark waters. It is Oeaohoo the younger, the * * * He shines forth as the son; he is the blazing Divine Dragon of Wisdom; the One is Four, and Four takes to itself Three,* and the Union produces the Sapta, in whom are the seven which become the Tridasa (or the hosts and the multitudes). Behold him lifting the veil and unfurling it from east to west. He shuts out the above, and leaves the below to be seen as the great illusion. He marks the places for the shining ones, and turns the upper into a shoreless sea of fire, and the one manifested into the great waters.”

3. The verse numbers as first given are from the Sanskrit edition and English translation of the Vaiśeṣika-sūtras prepared by Anantalal Thakur, published in Origin and Development of the Vaiśeṣika System, 2003, pp. 24-121. They are followed by the verse numbers as found in the editions and translations of the Vaiśeṣika-sūtras as commented on by Śaṅkara-miśra. Thakur’s is by far the most definitive edition and translation available today. It is based primarily on the readings found in the anonymous commentary that he published in 1957 and found in the text as commented on by Candrānanda that was published in 1961. It completely supersedes the other editions, which had long been the standard because they were the only ones available.

4. pṛthivī bho gautama kutra pratiṣṭhitā | pṛthivī brāhmaṇa ap-maṇḍale pratiṣṭhitā | ap-maṇḍalam bho gautama kva pratiṣṭhitam | vāyau pratiṣṭhitam | vāyur bho gautama kva pratiṣṭhitaḥ | ākāśe pratiṣṭhitaḥ | ākāśam bho gautama kutra pratiṣṭhitam | atisarasi mahā-brāhmaṇâtisarasi mahā-brāhmaṇa | ākāśam brāhmaṇâpratiṣṭhitam anālambanam |.

This same teaching is found in the Mahāyāna text, Ratna-gotra-vibhāga, chapter 1, verse 55:

pṛthivy-ambau jalaṃ vāyau vāyur vyomni pratiṣṭhitaḥ |
apratiṣṭhitam ākāśaṃ vāyv-ambu-kṣiti-dhātuṣu || 1.55 ||

5. The Abhidharma-samuccaya, Pradhan edition, p. 12, gives eight uncompounded dharmas, including three kinds of tathatā, “suchness.” The *Mahāyāna-śata-dharma-vidyā-mukha or *Mahāyāna-śata-dharma-prakāśa-mukha-śāstra gives six uncompounded dharmas, counting only one tathatā. Otherwise the list of uncompounded dharmas is the same.

6. This verse is quoted in Candrakīrti’s Prasanna-padā commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā, chapter 21, verse 4, Louis de la Vallée Poussin’s edition, 1903-1913, p. 413, line 11.

7. From Āryadeva’s Lamp that Integrates the Practices, edited by Christian K. Wedemeyer, 2007, p. 357.

8. Candrakīrti’s Catuḥ–śataka-ṭīka, on verse number 202 in the 1914 edition by Haraprasād Śhāstrī, p. 483; verse number 205 or chapter 9, verse 5, in later editions.

9. Translation by Gareth Sparham, Golden Garland of Eloquence, vol. 1, 2008, p. 466.

10. The Dhammasaṅgaṇi, Pali Text Society edition by Edward Muller, paragraph 638, English translation as A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics, by Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids, 2nd and 3rd editions, pp. 177-178; and its Atthasālinī commentary, Pali Text Society edition by Edward Muller, paragraph 647, English translation as The Expositor, by Pe Maung Tin, p. 425. The Vibhaṅga, Pali Text Society edition by Mrs. Rhys Davids, p. 262, English translation as The Book of Analysis, by Paṭhamakyaw Ashin Thiṭṭila (Seṭṭhila), paragraph 605, and its Sammoha-Vinodanī commentary, Pali Text Society edition by A. P. Buddhadatta Thero, p. 72, English translation as The Dispeller of Illusion, by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, vol. 1, pp. 84-85.

11. “Time and Space: The Abhidhamma Perspective,” by  Y. Karunadasa, Journal of the Centre for Buddhist Studies, Sri Lanka, vol. 2, 2004, pp. 144-166.

12. The Milindapañho, Pali Text Society edition by V. Trenckner, pp. 268, 271, English translation as Milinda’s Questions, by I. B. Horner, vol. 2, pp. 86-87, 90. See also: Pali, pp. 387-388, English, vol. 2, pp. 261-262, describing the characteristics of ākāsa.

13. In The Buddhist Catechism, written by Henry S. Olcott on behalf of the Theravāda Buddhists, paragraph 327 (in the forty-fourth ed.) says: “everything has come out of Ākāsha, in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it.” In fact, this is a Theosophical doctrine, not a Theravāda doctrine. For some reason, the Theravāda teachers who reviewed the catechism at Olcott’s request before its publication did not catch this. Unfortunately, this was quoted by H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine (vol. 1, pp. 635-636). Also given there was a paraphrase of the statement that immediately preceded it in The Buddhist Catechism, “The Buddha taught that two things are causeless, viz., ‘Ākāsha’ and ‘Nirvāna’,” saying “they teach that only ‘two things are [objectively] eternal, namely Ākāśa and Nirvāṇa.’” This is the teaching of the Milinda-pañha, but is not the teaching of Theravāda Buddhism, let alone the teaching of Buddhism in general.