“Creation Stories: The Cosmogony Account from the Buddhist Tantras,” posted on Dec. 25, 2013, gave an account of the arising of the cosmos from luminosity or clear light (prabhāsvara, ‘od gsal). This was likened to the actual moment of manifestation described in the Book of Dzyan, stanza 3, verse 3: “Darkness radiates light.” The next verse of the Book of Dzyan, stanza 3, verse 4, says: “Then the three fall into the four.” This, too, is paralleled in the known Buddhist tantras. In their practice manuals, called sādhanas, the fourfold cosmos is visualized as being generated from a triangular source. Yet, neither the arising of the cosmos from light, nor the three falling into the four are part of the more widely known cosmogony accounts coming from the Buddhist sūtras. These things are found only in the Buddhist tantras, referred to as the Books of Kiu-te in Theosophical writings.

To review, the Book of Dzyan is said by H. P. Blavatsky to be “the first volume of the Commentaries upon the seven secret folios of Kiu-te, and a Glossary of the public works of the same name.” (“The Secret Books of ‘Lam-rim’ and Dzyan,” Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 14, p. 422). The name Kiu-te is a phonetic rendering of the Tibetan word, rgyud sde, which designates the Buddhist tantras. An interesting comment about these books was made by the clairvoyant, C. W. Leadbeater, obviously referring to the seven secret folios of Kiu-te as the original of the Book of Dzyan. Some of his clairvoyant observations have been questioned by other Theosophists. This comment is here given for what it is worth, making no claims for it, other than to say that it is suggestive:

“The original of The Book of Dzyan is in the hands of the august Head of the Occult Hierarchy, and has been seen by none. None knows how old it is, but it is rumoured that the earlier part of it (consisting of the first six stanzas), has an origin altogether anterior to this world, and even that it is not a history, but a series of directions—rather a formula for creation than an account of it.” (Talks on the Path of Occultism, Volume II: The Voice of the Silence, by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater,1926, p. 329)

The Buddhist tantra practice manuals describe what is called the generation stage, or creation stage, or development stage, which precedes the completion stage. In the generation stage, an idealized cosmos in the form of a particular tantra maṇḍala is visualized. The maṇḍala is the residence of the particular tantra deity, such as Kālacakra. The visualization begins with the generation of the cosmos. The tantra sādhana texts give directions for this. So they do indeed give a formula for creation.

In these texts creation begins with a triangular source, called the dharmodaya, the “origin of the dharmas,” within the infinite realm of space (anantākāśā-dhātu). The dharmas, often translated as phenomena, are the elements of existence that make up the cosmos in the Buddhist world-view. The dharmodaya is described as a triangle (trikoṇa). Book of Dzyan, stanza 3, verse 4, is given with some annotations in The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 66, as follows: “4. (Then) the three (triangle) fall into the four (quaternary).” Blavatsky’s following commentary discusses the use of geometrical figures in ancient scriptures, but it does not explain the triangle and its role in cosmogony. Later, however, in the meetings of the Blavatsky Lodge, Blavatsky explained the role of the triangle in cosmogony at length. These discussions were taken down in shorthand and partly published in Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, two parts, 1890 and 1891, and more fully in The Secret Doctrine Commentaries, 2010, and again in The Secret Doctrine Dialogues, 2014.

There in her comments on stanza 2, verse 3, Blavatsky said: “[T]he Point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos, the Manifested Logos is the Triangle. Pythagoras speaks of the never manifested Monad which lives in solitude and darkness; when the hour strikes it radiates from itself ONE, the first number. This number descending, produces TWO, the second number, and TWO, in its turn, produces THREE, forming a triangle, the first complete geometrical figure in the world of form. It is this ideal or abstract triangle which is the Point in the Mundane Egg, which, after gestation, and in the third remove, will start from the Egg to form the Triangle.” (Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, p. 83).

Further, in her comments on stanza 3, verse 3, Blavatsky said: “. . . the Triangle is the first perfect geometrical figure. As stated by Pythagoras, and also in the Stanza, the Ray (the Pythagorean Monad ) descending from ‘no-place’ (Aloka), shoots like a falling star through the planes of non-being into the first world of being, and gives birth to Number One; then branching off, to the right, it produces Number Two; turning again to form the base-line it begets Number Three, and thence ascending again to Number One, it finally disappears therefrom into the realms of non-being as Pythagoras shows.” (Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, p. 106).

The Buddhist tantra sādhanas had long been kept secret from those who had not received the required initiation. In recent years some of these have been published in English and thus made widely available. The full sādhana of the Guhyasamāja-tantra as arranged by Tsongkhapa for the Gelugpa tradition became available in 2019 in an excellent translation by Artemus B. Engle in the book, Guhyasamāja Practice in the Ārya Nāgārjuna System, Volume One, The Generation Stage. It instructs that the meditator should begin by visualizing from emptiness the vajra ground, and “at the center is a white, triangular entity-source with its large flat surface facing upward and its narrow tip embedded [in the vajra ground] below.” (p. 571). The triangular dharmodaya is here translated as the triangular entity-source. The extensive commentary on this sādhana, written by Tsongkhapa’s disciple Khedrup Je, became available in a full English translation by Yael Bentor and Penpa Dorjee in 2024 as Ocean of Attainments: The Creation Stage of the Guhyasamāja Tantra according to Khedrup Jé. Here the dharmodaya is translated as the source of phenomena. The translators summarize the practice:

“Here begins the actual creation of the ‘creation stage.’ After the entire world and its inhabitants—the yogi’s ordinary environment—are dissolved into emptiness, the ground of wisdom and the potential for all, the meditators begin to create the enlightened world of the maṇḍala.” (p. 97). “Next, Tsongkhapa’s Guhyasamāja Sādhana instructs to meditate on the ‘source of phenomena,’ which, as its name indicates, is the ground of all things. The source of phenomena is visualized as a triangular pyramid, standing on a point with its wide side pointing upward, empty inside, obviously indicating birth.” (p. 98). “The entire maṇḍala, with its celestial mansion and deities, that will be visualized in the sādhana is contained within the source of phenomena.” (p. 99).

So the three in “the three fall into the four” were explained by Blavatsky as a triangle, the first geometrical figure, and the only one possible to begin the manifestation process. Likewise in the Buddhist tantra sādhanas, teaching the creation stage, the first thing to arise in the visualization of the manifestation process is a dharmodaya in the shape of a triangle. From this triangle arises the four planes of existence, in Theosophical terminology, or the spheres of the four elements in Buddhist tantra terminology. Thus the three fall into the four, and actual manifestation occurs.

As said by Blavatsky, commenting on Book of Dzyan, stanza 2, verse 4: “[T]he Triangle, or the Three becomes the Four. . . . It is explained further on in the Secret Doctrine that practically there are only four planes belonging to the planetary chains. The three higher planes are absolutely Arupa [formless] and outside our comprehension.” (Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, p. 90).

In the Guhyasamāja sādhana, from a lotus inside the triangular dharmodaya, there appear sequentially an air or wind maṇḍala, a fire maṇḍala, a water maṇḍala, and an earth maṇḍala. Khedrup Je in his commentary briefly gives the correspondence between the successive appearance of the maṇḍalas of the four elements in the manifestation of the cosmos and the sequential visualization of them in the sādhana. The Panchen Lama Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen gives these in much more detail in his summary of Khedrup Je’s commentary, translated into English by Yael Bentor and Penpa Dorjee and published in 2019 as The Essence of the Ocean of Attainments. The section headings provide a good summary: “Meditation on the Ground of Wisdom in Correspondence with the Empty Eon That Follows the Dissolution of the Previous World,” pp. 95-98, and “Visualization of the Vajra Ground and Meditating on the Celestial Mansion in Correspondence with the Evolution of the Subsequent World,” pp. 105-108.

Very interesting is the section on the evolution of sentient beings in correspondence to the visualization of the maṇḍala. As Artemus Engle explains in Guhyasamāja Practice in the Ārya Nāgārjuna System, p. 244, the maṇḍala “deities that are produced through [an act of] devotion” (called “specially visualized deities” by Yael Bentor) correspond to the human beings of the first kalpa or eon. This is the “self-born” humanity of the first root-race described in The Secret Doctrine. In Buddhist sādhanas the deities are normally generated from a seed-syllable, followed by a symbol, and then the deity. But these deities in the Guhyasamāja sādhana appear spontaneously without being generated from a seed-syllable. As the sādhana says: “Merely by [an act of] devotion, the thirty-two deities appear in their complete form, instantly and simultaneously, upon those cushions.” (Engle, p. 577). So they are said to be like the human beings of the first kalpa, who were born spontaneously (upapāduka, rdzus te skye ba) (Engle, p. 243, fn. 799).

The source text giving the correspondences between the generation of the cosmos and of human beings to the generation stage visualizations taught in the Guhyasamāja sādhana, preceded by the destruction of the previous cosmos, is the Vyavastholi (referred to as Formulating the Sādhana or Formulating the Guhyasamāja Sādhana in the books by Yael Bentor). This brief text has not yet been translated into English, although we have the very helpful 2016 edition prepared by Kimiaki Tanaka, Samājasādhana-Vyavastholi of Nāgabodhi/Nāgabuddhi: Introduction and Romanized Sanskrit and Tibetan Texts (and the important philological notes thereon by Péter-Dániel Szánto, “Early Exegesis of the Guhyasamāja: Philological Notes on the Vyavastholi of Nāgabuddhi”). Tsongkhapa wrote a rather extensive commentary on it, also not yet translated into English. However, Tsongkhapa also wrote another commentary on the Guhyasamāja sādhana that includes quite a bit of information on these correspondences. It has been translated into English by Yael Bentor as Fulfilling the Bee’s Hope, included in her 2024 book, The Cosmos, the Person, and the Sādhana: A Treatise on Tibetan Tantric Meditation, With a Translation of Master Tsongkhapa’s Fulfilling the Bee’s Hope. This book has an extensive introduction that also draws heavily upon Tsongkhapa’s commentary on the Vyavastholi.

Here, p. 60, Yael Bentor summarizes what the Vyavastholi does: “Nāgabuddhi’s Formulating the Guhyasamāja Sādhana . . . points to correlations between the sādhana and stages of the evolution and destruction of the world—as well as the death, intermediate state, and rebirth of the inhabitants of the world. Nāgabuddhi describes the stages of the destruction and evolution of the world in relation to the dissolution of the meditator’s ordinary environment and the creation of the celestial mansion of the mandala.”

Tsongkhapa in Fulfulling the Bee’s Hope says, p. 158: “. . . the object to which this meditation corresponds, the formation of the physical world, is explained in Formulating the Guhyasamāja Sādhana. How does [the meditation here] correspond [to the evolution of the physical world]? The meditation on the wind mandala corresponds to the evolution of the wind mandala on the ground of ordinary existence [during the evolution of the physical world], and likewise do the three other mandalas [of fire, water, and earth].”

Tsongkhapa describes the dissolution of the previous world, when seven suns succesively arise and completely incinerate it (p. 154). Then how the world re-arises from a wind that comes about through the shared karma of the living beings of the previous world, producing the air, water, and earth maṇḍalas and the oceans and mountains (p. 156). Then how the world is re-populated, when beings from the highest heaven (which, being formless, had escaped the incineration of the world of form) are reborn in the next lower heaven, and so on until the whole world including the hell realms below it are re-populated (p. 159). All this exactly follows, and is taken from, the Buddhist Abhidharma texts and the Abhidharma account given in the Yogācāra-bhūmi.

Here in our continent, Jambudvīpa, the beings of the first eon (kalpa) are described by Tsongkhapa as follows (pp. 159-160): “(1) they are adorned with features similar to the major and minor marks of a buddha, (2) their lifespan may be infinite, (3) their faculties are complete, (4) they can travel in the sky by means of miraculous powers, (5) being free of dependence on physical food, they subsist solely on delight, (6) there being no distinction between day and night [no sun and moon], their bodies can illuminate with a light of their own, and (7) their birth is miraculous.” This is like the description of the ethereal first root-race humanity given in The Secret Doctrine, the spontaneously generated “self-born” (Book of Dzyan, stanza 5, verse 20, stanza 6, verse 23, and stanza 7, verse 25, all in volume 2).

Tsongkhapa then recounts how their bodies gradually become coarser and coarser (pp. 160-161). Now they can no longer travel in the sky by means of miraculous powers, and their bodies no longer radiate a light of their own. Eventually, these once sexless beings develop sex organs, some male and some female. Such is the beginning of sexual reproduction as we now know it. This is the separation of the sexes described in The Secret Doctrine as occurring in the third root-race (Book of Dzyan, stanza 8, verse 31). Again, all of the above exactly follows, and is taken from, the Buddhist Abhidharma texts and the Abhidharma account given in the Yogācāra-bhūmi.

As may be seen, Tsongkhapa brings in the standard Buddhist cosmogony account as given in the Abhidharma texts in correspondence to the generation stage practices of the Guhyasamāja sādhana. However, the triangular dharmodaya from which the maṇḍalas of the four elements are generated in the sādhana is not found in the Abhidharma account. Similarly, the triangular dharmodaya in the Buddhist tantra sādhana account does not arise from luminosity or clear light (prabhāsvara, ‘od gsal), which is the origin of the cosmos in the Buddhist tantra account of cosmogony described in a previous post (http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/creation-stories-the-cosmogony-account-from-the-buddhist-tantras/, see also: http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/prabhasvara-in-the-canonical-texts-and-in-cosmogony/). So we have three differing Buddhist accounts of cosmogony:

1. The standard Buddhist account as summarized from the Buddhist sūtras in the Abhidharma-kośa and its auto-commentary (http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/creation-stories-the-cosmogony-account-from-the-abhidharmakosa/), or in the Yogācāra-bhūmi (http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/creation-stories-the-cosmogony-account-from-the-yogacarabhumi/). The cosmos arises from the collective karma or actions of living beings in the form of a primordial wind (vāyu). There is no mention either of luminosity/clear light (prabhāsvara, ‘og gsal) or of the triangular source (dharmodaya).

2. The account from the Buddhist tantras as summarized in four verses from the Svādhiṣṭhāna-prabheda that were often quoted in other tantric texts (http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/creation-stories-the-cosmogony-account-from-the-buddhist-tantras/). The cosmos arises from luminosity or clear light (prabhāsvara, ‘od gsal), with no mention of a triangular source (dharmodaya).

3. The account from Buddhist tantra practice texts, called sādhanas. An idealized cosmos is visualized as arising from a triangular source (dharmodaya), with no mention of luminosity/clear light. Later in the Guhyasamāja sādhana, however, the principal deity at the center of the maṇḍala is dissolved into luminosity/clear light, from which this deity re-arises in the following phase of the sādhana.

These three differing accounts need not be seen as mutually contradictory. When speaking in broad, general terms, the Buddhist tantras say that the cosmos arises from luminosity or clear light (prabhāsvara, ‘od gsal). More specifically, the Buddhist tantra practice texts give directions for visualizing the generation of an idealized cosmos from a triangular source (dharmodaya). Taking the Guhyasamāja practice texts as a model, elaborate correspondences are given to the generation of the cosmos taught in the Buddhist Abhidharma texts, including its arising from the collective karma of living beings in the form of a primordial wind (vāyu). The visualized generation of an idealized cosmos in Buddhist tantra practice texts is presented as being closely parallel to the actual generation of the cosmos as described in the Buddhist Abhidharma texts.

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The “Book of Dzyan,” stanza 3, verse 3, as found in The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 64, describes how the world-egg comes into manifestation:

3. “Darkness” radiates light, and light drops one solitary ray into the waters, into the mother deep. The ray shoots through the virgin-egg; the ray causes the eternal egg to thrill, and drop the non-eternal (periodical) germ, which condenses into the world egg.

In her commentary on this verse, H. P. Blavatsky gave a reference to the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, describing the world-egg. However, this reference was misunderstood by her. She wrote, pp. 65-66:

“The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements (ether, fire, air, water), “four ready, three secret.” It may be found stated in Vishnu Purâna, where elements are translated “Envelopes” and a secret one is added: “Aham-kâra ” (see Wilson’s Vishnu Purâna, Book I., p. 40). The original text has no “Aham-kâra;” it mentions seven Elements without specifying the last three (see Part II. on “The Mundane Egg”).”

In fact, the Viṣṇu Purāṇa does specify the last three envelopes, Sanskrit āvaraṇa. Moreover, it does not add a secret one, ahaṃkāra. This latter misunderstanding was based on a note by the editor, Fitzedward Hall, to Horace Hayman Willson’s translation here, vol. 1, p. 40: “† The word ahaṁkára is supplied to the original by the translator. The commentary is silent.” The sentence that this note refers to is: “And this egg was externally invested by seven natural envelopes; or by water, air, fire, ether, and Ahaṁkára,† the origin of the elements, each tenfold the extent of that which it invested; next came the principle of Intelligence; and, finally, the whole was surrounded by the indiscrete Principle: resembling, thus, the cocoa-nut, filled interiorly with pulp, and exteriorly covered by husk and rind.”

The note by Hall means only that the word ahaṃkāra was supplied by Willson to show what “the origin of the elements” refers to. The phrase, “the origin of the elements,” Sanskrit bhūtādi, is a standard term used in Sanskrit writings for ahaṃkāra. This is because in the Sāṃkhya philosophy the subtle elements, tanmātra, come from ahaṃkāra, and the great elements, mahā-bhūta, come from the subtle elements. So ahaṃkāra is the origin of the elements. Thus, no secret envelope was added called ahaṃkāra.

We can now see that the last three envelopes are indeed specified in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, namely, “the origin of the elements” known as ahaṃkāra, “the principle of Intelligence,” Sanskrit buddhi, and “the indiscrete Principle,” Sanskrit avyakta, a synonym of pradhāna. This is clear in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, at 1.2.58-59, and parallel passages in other purāṇas leave no possible doubt about these last three envelopes. For example, Vāyu Purāṇa 1.1.44-45, 4.75-77; Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa 1.1.3.32-34; Kūrma Purāṇa 1.4.42-44; Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa 45.67-69; etc.

We may wonder what led Blavatsky to misunderstand the text that she referred to. The first sentence of the quote from her given above may explain this. She wrote: “The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements (ether, fire, air, water), “four ready, three secret.”” The phrase, “four ready, three secret,” apparently relates to what is given later in the “Book of Dzyan,” in stanza 6, verse 3: “Of the Seven — first one manifested, six concealed, two manifested, five concealed; three manifested, four concealed; four produced, three hidden; four and one tsan revealed, two and one half concealed; six to be manifested, one laid aside. Lastly, seven small wheels revolving; one giving birth to the other.” It is possible that Blavatsky understood the “Book of Dzyan” here in stanza 3, verse 3, to teach that only four elements were manifested at this stage of evolution, and three remained secret. This could have led her to misunderstand the Viṣṇu Purāṇa reference to mean the same.

Of the whole process of the manifestation of the cosmos described in the “Book of Dzyan,” this verse, stanza 3, verse 3, describes the actual moment that manifestation begins: “Darkness radiates light.” This verse goes on to briefly describe how the world-egg comes into manifestation: “. . . the non-eternal germ, which condenses into the world-egg.” The next verse, stanza 3, verse 4, brings in reference to the number seven:

4. Then the three fall into the four. The radiant essence becomes seven inside, seven outside. The luminous egg, which in itself is three, curdles and spreads in milk-white curds throughout the depths of mother, the root that grows in the depths of the ocean of life.

Regarding “the three fall into the four,” Blavatsky describes the role of the triangle, “the three,” at great length in the meetings that were published as Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, and more fully as The Secret Doctrine Commentaries, and again as The Secret Doctrine Dialogues. The number seven is not here specifically applied to the world-egg, but apparently does apply to it. In the section of The Secret Doctrine that Blavatsky referred readers to in her commentary quoted above, “The Mundane Egg,” she wrote, vol. 1, p. 365: “. . . the Egg gives birth to the four elements within the fifth, Ether, and is covered with seven coverings, which become later on the seven upper and the seven lower worlds.” In answer to a question about this verse, “Why is the radiant essence here spoken of as seven inside and seven outside?” she replied, “Because it has seven principles on the plane of manifestation and seven principles on the plane of non-manifestation.” (The Secret Doctrine Commentaries, p. 222).

Among known texts, our most detailed source on the world-egg is the account given in the various purāṇas. They are consistent in describing the egg, apparently corresponding to the earth element, as enveloped by seven coverings: water, fire, air, ākāśa (ether or space), bhūtādi (the origin of the elements) or ahaṃkāra (the principle of self-consciousness), mahat (the “great” principle) or buddhi (the principle of intelligence), and avyakta (the unmanifest) or pradhāna (primary substance). If we wish to consider the world-egg as consisting of seven principles, it would be possible to count the earth element as the first principle, and not count the last listed envelope or covering. This is because the unmanifest, avyakta, also known as primary substance, pradhāna, is all-pervasive. That is, the other ones are all included in it. So it is not really an envelope or covering. If we wish to apply Blavatsky’s statement, “four ready, three secret,” it would be possible to regard the last three as what she calls “blinds,” substitutes for the real ones that cannot be given.

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Verse 4 of the first stanza from the “Book of Dzyan” given in H. P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine begins by saying “the seven ways to bliss were not.” This verse, as found at the beginning of The Secret Doctrine, then as commented on in the body of The Secret Doctrine, then as found in the first draft Secret Doctrine Wurzburg Manuscript, is:

4. The seven ways to bliss were not. The great causes of misery were not, for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them.

4. The seven ways to bliss (Moksha or Nirvana) were not. The great causes of misery (Nidana and Maya) were not, for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them.

4. The seven Ways to Bliss (Moksha, or Nirvana) — were not. The great causes of Misery (Nidana and Maya) — were not, for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them.

Blavatsky in her commentary does not say what the seven ways to bliss are (vol. 1, pp. 38-39). When she was later asked what are the seven ways to bliss, she replied: “They are certain faculties of which the student will know more when he goes deeper into occultism.” (Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, p. 25). In the unedited transcript of her reply at the Blavatsky Lodge, she said “they are practically faculties . . .” In reply to the next question (omitted in the edited book), “Then the seven ways are not actually mentioned?” she said, “No, they are not mentioned in The Secret Doctrine, are they? They are not, I should say not.” (Secret Doctrine Commentaries, p. 46; or Secret Doctrine Dialogues, p. 46). Her concluding “I should say not” suggests that she did not intend to give them.

Indeed, in her article, “The Mystery of Buddha,” she said about the Buddha revealing a part of the secret teachings that he should not have: “In His anxiety to make away with the false Gods, He revealed in the ‘Seven Paths to Nirvana’ some of the mysteries of the Seven Lights of the Arupa (formless) World. A little of the truth is often worse than no truth at all.” (H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 14, p. 388). She goes on to speak of “His new doctrine, which represented the outward dead body of the Esoteric Teaching without its vivifying Soul, . . . “

The seven lights of the arūpa world are referred to in verse 6 of stanza 5 of the “Book of Dzyan”: “Thus were formed the Arupa and the Rupa (the Formless World and the World of Forms): from one light seven lights; from each of the seven, seven times seven lights.” In her commentary on this, she wrote (vol. 1, p. 133): “To the highest [world], we are taught, belong the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do communicate with their progeny of the Earth; which progeny is indissolubly linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the nature of those great Beings, who furnish us with the respective invisible elements in us.” 

Elsewhere Blavatsky made reference to the highest class of nirvāṇis, “the Nirvāṇīs ‘without remains’—the pure Arūpa, the formless Breaths” (Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 14, p. 436). Similarly, she wrote in her commentary on verse 4 of stanza 5 of the “Book of Dzyan” (vol. 1, p. 120): “The ‘Divine World’—the countless Lights lit at the primeval Light—the Buddhis, or formless divine Souls, of the last Arupa (formless) world; . . .” This allows us to think that the seven ways to bliss may pertain to faculties of the seven different classes or orders of spiritual beings that each person is connected with by way of their inner principles. But we do not know.

Blavatsky always tried to annotate the stanzas from the “Book of Dzyan” with reference to known books, to help give them credibility by showing exoterically available echoes of the hitherto secret teachings. After glossing “bliss” in “the seven ways to bliss” by giving “Moksha or Nirvana” in parentheses, she further gives other forms of the word Nirvana in a footnote: “Nippang in China; Neibban in Burmah; . . .” (vol. 1, p. 38). The “Neibban in Burmah” leads us to a book that she quoted elsewhere, The Life or Legend of Gaudama: The Buddha of the Burmese, by P. Bigandet. We know that she used the 1880 third edition in two volumes rather than the 1858 first edition or the 1866 second edition in one volume, because she quotes the book by page number in a couple places (Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 4, p. 7, and vol. 5, p. 249 fn.), and these page numbers match the third edition (the pagination was unchanged for the 1911-1912 fourth edition).

This book has a section titled, “The Seven Ways to Neibban,” vol. 2, pp. 189-239 (1st ed., pp. 285-316; 2nd ed., pp. 431-481). Bigandet was a missionary rather than an orientalist, so he was not concerned to provide references to his sources. The main part of his book is a translation of a Burmese translation made in 1773 of an obscure book written in Pali on the life of the Buddha. The author of the Burmese translation states the name of his book at the end, transcribed phonetically by Bigandet as Malla-linkara-wouttoo (vol. 2, p. 151). From this, we may deduce that the title is Mālālaṅkāra-vatthu. But the “The Seven Ways to Neibban” is an abridged translation of a different book, added by Bigandet to supplement the account of the life of the Buddha with an account of the teachings of the Buddha. Bigandet tells us only that it “was composed at first in the Siamese language at Bangkok, and has been subsequently translated into Burmese” (vol. 2, p.191).

In any case, the teachings of “The Seven Ways to Neibban” can be traced, since the Siamese and Burmese Buddhist sources are all derived from the Pali Buddhist sources. The most famous and most widely read Pali book on Buddhism is the Visuddhi-magga, “The Path of Purification.” That book is largely structured around seven purifications that are listed in the Ratha-vinīta-sutta, “The Relay Chariots,” sutta no. 24 of the Majjhima-nikāya. These seven purifications were helpfully summarized by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi in a note to their complete translation of the Majjhima-nikāya as The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (note 288, pp. 1213-1214, referring to p. 242, paragraph 9):

“In brief, “purification of virtue” (sīlavisuddhi) is the unbroken adherence to the moral precepts one has undertaken, explained by Vsm [Visuddhi-magga] with reference to the moral training of a bhikkhu as the “fourfold purification of virtue.” “Purification of mind” (cittavisuddhi) is the overcoming of the five hindrances through the attainment of access concentration and the jhānas. “Purification of view” (diṭṭhivisuddhi) is the understanding that defines the nature of the five aggregates constituting a living being. “Purification by overcoming doubt” (kankhāvitaraṇavisuddhi) is the understanding of conditionality. “Purification by knowledge and vision of what is the path and what is not the path” (maggāmaggañāṇadassanavisuddhi) is the correct discrimination between the false path of the ecstatic, exhilarating experiences and the true path of insight into impermanence, suffering, and not self. “Purification by knowledge and vision of the way” (paṭipadāñāṇadassanavisuddhi) comprises the ascending series of insight knowledges up to the supramundane paths. And “purification by knowledge and vision” (ñāṇadassanavisuddhi) is the supramundane paths.”

These seven purifications can be delineated as:

1. sīla-visuddhi, “purification of virtue,”

2. citta-visuddhi, “purification of mind,”

3. diṭṭhi-visuddhi, “purification of view,”

4. kaṅkhāvitaraṇa-visuddhi, “purification by overcoming doubt,”

5. maggāmagga-ñāṇa-dassana-visuddhi, “purification by knowledge and vision of what is the path and what is not the path,”

6. paṭipadā-ñāṇa-dassana-visuddhi, “purification by knowledge and vision of the way,”

7. ñāṇa-dassana-visuddhi, “purification by knowledge and vision.”

The seven distinct parts into which the author of “The Seven Ways to Neibban” divided his book were condensed into six articles in the abridged translation by Bigandet (see p. 191). These six articles are titled by Bigandet as:

1. Of the Precepts

2. Of Meditation and its various Degrees

3. Of the Nature of Beings

4. Of the Cause of the Form and of the Name, or of Master and Spirit

5. Of the True Meggas or Ways to Perfection

6. Of the Progress in Perfect Science

The seven purifications, then, can be seen to be “The Seven Ways to Neibban” of Bigandet’s abridged translation. “The Seven Ways to Neibban” are directly based on the teachings of the Visuddhi-magga. The four arūpa worlds are indeed among the many subjects taught in the Visuddhi-magga, being the subject of its short chapter ten, “The Immaterial States,” pp. 321-336 of Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli’s translation. Thus they are also found in “The Seven Ways to Neibban,” pp. 208-212. However, there is no mention of lights, whether seven or otherwise. As we recall, Blavatsky’s statement was that “He revealed in the ‘Seven Paths to Nirvana’ some of the mysteries of the Seven Lights of the Arupa (formless) World.” We must therefore wonder if the teaching of the mere existence of the fourfold arūpa world is where the Buddha is alleged to have revealed more than he should have, only suggesting some of the mysteries of the seven lights of that world.

When Blavatsky was instructed to bring out hitherto secret teachings in the form of stanzas from the “Book of Dzyan,” the seven lights of the arūpa world were openly referred to, as were the seven times seven lights formed from each of these seven. The seven orders of purely divine spirits belonging to the arūpa world were also openly referred to, as were the many classes or orders of spiritual beings belonging to the rūpa worlds that each person is connected with. But the seven ways to bliss were not delineated. Other than the hint that “They are certain faculties of which the student will know more when he goes deeper into occultism,” we are left on our own to determine what these seven ways are. We have in the known Buddhist texts a listing of the seven ways to nirvāṇa as the seven purifications. But if we regard the seven ways to bliss as “practically faculties” or “certain faculties,” then the seven purifications do not seem to be the seven ways to bliss referred to in the verse from the “Book of Dzyan.”

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The Book of Dzyan is said to be “the first volume of the Commentaries upon the seven secret folios of Kiu-te, and a Glossary of the public works of the same name” (Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 14, p. 422). As is now known, the Books of Kiu-te (rgyud sde) are the Tibetan Buddhist tantras. A standard part of their practice is the Vajrasattva mantra. I have now completed a long-promised article on “The Vajrasattva Mantra: Sanskrit Edition and English Translation.” It is 38 pages. Only the beginning part of it is likely to be of interest to most readers. The rest provides extensive sources.

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David, thank you for culling together a considerable amount of valuable Buddhist material.

No other collection of sources in the world’s literature can come close to the Buddhist, for such a rich array of oral tradition. And, the congruence of Buddhism and Theosophy, especially with the issue of self versus Self should be all the more reason to pursue this direction, for it teaches us that the Dweller at the Threshold is our lower self, which must be snuffed out, as another Buddhist textbook, the Voice of the Silence, proclaims.

These Buddhist records would indicate previous accounts going back over periods of what can only be described as a historicity of previous Buddhas, i.e., a primitive Buddhism tradition, which would have attracted a reason for such record-keeping in the first place. Buddhist statements within that line indicate there were previous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and that would indicate, from a theosophical standpoint, previous root-races of civilizations going back probably millions of years.

It is safe to say, much has probably been lost to us from the past. Probably equal to if not second best would be the Hermetic or Trismegistic material. Statements handed down to us from ancient historians state the Hermetic literature was vast indeed but looking at what has come down to us is paltry to what we should have. The interventions of early Christian writers and recorders did not help maintain that literature, due to their intervention of their own anthropomorphic rewrites which would tend to beg the question whether certain material was Hermetic at all and may have, due to that fact, been ignored or thrown out. The vast amount of Greek and Roman literature having been destroyed, much of it probably due to the Libraries at Alexandria, Egypt would lay bear the fact that certain parts of humanity do not care much about preserving past literary output.

Perhaps the Hindu purāṇas would be a third best, however due to the obvious rearrangement of that literature and its metaphorical and allegorical tellings, no doubt clearly mixed with historical indications, it will take a team of dedicated researchers an extensive period of time to sort it all out, reserved for the future. I believe all the purāṇas came down to us from one very large mahāpurāṇa. But, the time for sorting out the purāṇic conundrum is long past.

One thing is clear, based on the Buddhist oral traditions: We are dealing with the passing down through the ages by observers, indications of inspection from the past, millions of years ago and long before paleontological science has given us any hint of it. Dig deeper!

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            The separation of the sexes is a distinctive teaching of the Book of Dzyan on anthropogenesis. It is said to have occurred millions of years ago, in the third root-race. Stanza 7, verse 22, as given in The Secret Doctrine, says: “. . . First male-female, then man and woman.” Stanza 8, verse 31: “The animals separated the first. They began to breed. The two-fold man separated also. He said: ‘Let us as they; let us unite and make creatures.’ They did.”

            Such an idea is completely foreign to modern thought, whether scientific, historical, or anthropological. It is also completely foreign to Christian religious thought. However, it is fully orthodox in Buddhist religious thought. Buddhism has not much concerned itself with cosmogony and anthropogony, so there are comparatively few Buddhist texts on these subjects. The ones we have, fortunately, are consistent with each other on these teachings. These teachings were given by the Buddha himself, not by some later Buddhist teacher, so they are authoritative for all schools of Buddhism. The texts quoted below come from several different schools of Buddhism.

            The Buddhist texts say that humanity descended from higher realms, from various “heavens,” rather than evolved from apes as modern anthropology posits. So humans were more ethereal then, and slowly became more dense as they started to eat, and what they ate also became more and more dense. At one stage of this process of densification the separation of the sexes occurred.

            Thus the Pāli Aggañña-sutta from the Theravāda school of Buddhism, called by its first translators the Buddhist book of Genesis, says (translated by Maurice Walshe):

“And these beings set to and fed on this rice, and this lasted for a very long time. And as they did so, their bodies became coarser still, and the difference in their looks became even greater. And the females developed female sex-organs, and the males developed male organs.”¹

            The Sanskrit *Loka-prajñapti-sūtra from the Dharmaguptaka school of Buddhism, found in the Dīrghāgama collection as preserved in its Chinese translation, says (translated by Shohei Ichimura):

“So the sentient beings began to harvest the new form of rice and subsist on it. Then their physical forms became coarse and crude, with the advent of male and female sexual organs.”²

            The Mahā-vastu from the Lokottaravādin branch of the Mahāsāṅghika school of Buddhism, found in their Vinaya collection, says (translated by J. J. Jones):

“Then, monks, after the disappearance of the creeping-plant, those beings lived on a very long time feeding on the rice which was without powder or husk, but was just fragrant grain. And from the time that they did so, the distinguishing characteristics of female and male appeared among them.”³

            The three preceding sources are traditionally regarded as giving the words of the Buddha. The following three sources give this teaching as presented by later Buddhist writers.

            The Abhidharma-kośa-bhāṣya, giving the teachings of the Sarvāstivāda school of Buddhism as summarized by Vasubandhu, says (translated by Louis de La Vallee Poussin and Lodrö Sangpo):⁴

“These creepers disappeared and then fields of huskless rice [śāli ] grew, uncultivated and unplanted: this rice, a coarse sustenance, produced waste: sentient beings then developed organs of excretion and sexual organs; they then took different forms.”

            The Yogācāra-bhūmi, giving the teachings of the Yogācāra school of Buddhism compiled by Maitreya (so Chinese tradition) or Asaṅga (so Tibetan tradition), says (translated by Yūichi Kajiyama):⁵

“Then, they gaze at each other eye to eye, and they become enamored. Then, because of their karma conducive to either femaleness or maleness, some of them acquire female organs and others male organs, and they transgress by means of copulation (dvaya-dvaya-samāpatti).”

            The Mahā-saṃvartanī-kathā, giving the teachings of the Sāṃmatīya school of Buddhism as put into verse form by Sarva-rakṣita, says (summarized by its editor, Kiyoshi Okano):⁶

“3.1.8 As people continuously ate rice, the male organ and female organ appeared in their bodies. The difference between men and women arose for the first time.”

            There are a number of other Buddhist texts that give this teaching, but these should suffice to show that it is a standard and fully orthodox Buddhist teaching found throughout Buddhism.

Notes:

1. The Long Discourses of the Buddha, p. 411. Boston: Wisdom Publications,1987. Maurice Walshe adds a note after the phrase “the females developed female sex-organs”: “As noted above, these beings were previously sexless. DA says ‘those who were women in a previous life.’” DA stands for the Dīgha Nikāya commentary by Buddhaghosa. The Aggañña-sutta is found in the Dīgha Nikāya, Pali Text Society edition, Vol. III, this passage on p. 88. The first translators of this text were T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys Davids, in Dialogues of the Buddha, Part III, 1921, this passage on p. 85.

2. The Canonical Book of the Buddha’s Lengthy Discourses, Volume III, p. 297. BDK America, 2018.

3. The Mahāvastu, Volume I, p. 288. London: Luzac & Company, 1949.

4. Abhidharmakośa-Bhāṣya of Vasubandhu, Volume II, p. 1106. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2012. The 1988 translation by Poussin and Leo M. Pruden reads (Volume II, p. 488): “This creeper disappeared and then rice grew, unworked and unseeded: this rice, a coarse food, gave forth waste: beings then developed organs of excretion and sexual organs; they then took different forms.”

5. “Buddhist Cosmology as Presented in the Yogācārabhūmi,” in Wisdom, Compassion, and the Search for Understanding, ed. Jonathan A. Silk, p. 196. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2000.

6. “A Summary of the Mahāsaṃvartanīkathā,” in Pāsādikadānaṁ: Festschrift für Bhikkhu Pāsādika, ed. Martin Straube, et al., p. 329. Marburg: Indica et Tibetica Verlag, 2009.

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There was some controversy over whether there are three or four buddha-bodies. This question revolves primarily around the interpretation of the eighth chapter of Maitreya’s Abhisamayālaṃkāra, titled “Dharma-kāya.” The oldest available commentary, by Ārya Vimuktisena, understands this chapter to teach three kāyas, while the somewhat later commentary by Haribhadra understands this chapter to teach four kāyas. The svābhāvika-kāya spoken of in verse 1 of chapter 8 is understood by Ārya Vimuktisena to just be the dharma-kāya, simply another name for it. Haribhadra understands the svābhāvika-kāya to be distinct from the dharma-kāya, which latter he then designates as the jñānātmaka dharma-kāya, the dharma body consisting of wisdom (jñāna). He takes the svābhāvika-kāya to be the true nature (dharmatā) or emptiness (śūnyatā) of the wisdom attributes (jñāna-dharma) that the jñānātmaka dharma-kāya consists of. In accordance with this, the svābhāvika-kāya could never cease, while the jñānātmaka dharma-kāya could.

The dharma-kāya, whether understood as the svābhāvika-kāya or as the jñānātmaka dharma-kāya, is said in Abhisamayālaṃkāra 8.2-6 to consist of the many attributes (dharmas) of a buddha that pertain to a buddha’s unique wisdom (jñāna), such as the supernormal knowledges (abhijñā), the analytical knowledges (pratisaṃvid), the ten powers (daśa-bala), etc. Could these ever cease? Verse 8.8 says that a buddha’s wisdom from aspiration (praṇidhi-jñānam) always remains (sadā sthitam), and verse 8.11 says that a buddha is [all-]pervading (vyāpī) and permanent (nitya). Then comes a description of a buddha’s sambhoga-kāya or enjoyment body, verses 8.12-8.32, followed by a verse on a buddha’s nirmāṇa-kāya or emanation body, 8.33. This verse says that the nirmāṇa-kāya is the body that acts for the benefit of the world without interruption as long as worldly existence lasts (ā bhavāt). The first half of the next verse, 8.34, says that so also its activity (tathā karmâpi) [goes on] without interruption as long as cyclic existence lasts (ā saṃsāram). Ārya Vimuktisena takes “its” (asya) as referring the nirmāṇa-kāya from the preceding verse, while Haribhadra takes “its” as referring to the jñānātmaka dharma-kāya, which was described in verses 8.2-8.11. The remaining verses of the chapter, from the second half of verse 8.34 to verse 8.40, describe the twenty-seven kinds of activity of the dharma-kāya.

For Haribhadra it is the jñānātmaka dharma-kāya and its activity that lasts as long as does cyclic existence, while for Ārya Vimuktisena it is the nirmāṇa-kāya and its activity that lasts as long as does cyclic existence. We would expect the nirmāṇa-kāya or emanation body to last only until the end of the cycle of existence, as understood by Ārya Vimuktisena. Haribhadra’s understanding that the jñānātmaka dharma-kāya is what lasts only that long is based on taking “permanent” (nitya) from verse 8.11 to mean only “as long as cyclic existence lasts” (ā saṃsāram) from verse 8.34. In his commentary on 8.11, in the section of the Abhisamayālaṃkāra on the dharma-kāya where a buddha is described as being “permanent” (nitya), he explains “permanent” as: “because, existing as a continuous series for as long as cyclic existence lasts, a Blessed One does not perish” (prabandhatayâ saṃsāram avasthānena/avasthāne ca bhagavataḥ kṣayâbhāvād). Then in his commentary on 8.34, the verse in which the phrase “as long as cyclic existence lasts” (ā saṃsāram) occurs, he confirms that this applies to the dharma-kāya: “thus, like the dharma-kāya [itself], its twenty-seven-fold activity lasts as long as does cyclic existence (evaṃ dharmakāyavad asyâ saṃsāraṃ saptaviṃśati-prakāraṃ karma). For him, this is the jñānātmaka dharma-kāya, because its activity occurs on the level of conventional truth. It is the svābhāvika-kāya that describes ultimate truth.

Haribhadra’s interpretation and his four-body scheme were adopted in Tibet by the Gelugpas, while Ārya Vimuktsena’s interpretation and his three-body scheme were adopted by the Sakyapas. Tsong kha pa in his extensive commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, published in English translation as Golden Garland of Eloquence, defends Haribhadra’s interpretation of this against Ārya Vimuktisena’s. This idea might provide some support for the statement that “dharma-kāya ceased,” although I have not yet found such a statement in the Buddhist writings.

Note on sources:

John Makransky’s book, Buddhahood Embodied, is quite the most detailed study of this issue. Since his book was published in 1997, a complete English translation by Gareth Sparham of both Ārya Vimuktisena’s commentary and Haribhadra’s commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra has been published in four volumes, 2006-2012: Abhisamayālaṃkāra with Vṛtti and Ālokā. In an additional four volumes, 2008-2013, Gareth Sparham has translated Tsong kha pa’s commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, titled Golden Garland of Eloquence, in which Tsong kha pa explains why he accepted Haribhadra’s view over Ārya Vimuktisena’s. Another English translation of most of Tsong kha pa’s commentary is found in Groundless Paths, a translation by Karl Brunnholzl of Patrul Rinpoche’s two commentaries on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, which commentaries consist entirely of literal or abridged passages from Tsong kha pa’s Golden Garland. Makransky translated the relevant material in his book, and gave plenty of context. Nonetheless, we can now see these commentary passages in the full texts that they are found in.

The references to the Sanskrit text of Haribhadra’s Āloka commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, as noted by Makransky (p. 399, note 46), are p. 918, line 11, and p. 925, lines 3-4, of Unrai Wogihara’s edition, vol. 2, which I have posted here: http://www.downloads.prajnaquest.fr/BookofDzyan/Sanskrit%20Buddhist%20Texts/abhisamayalamkara_aloka_vol_2_1935.pdf.

My translations given above are from these. The first of these is commenting on 8.11, and the second of these is commenting on 8.34. In the shorter Vivṛti commentary by Haribhadra, the first of these references is found on p. 108, line 1, of Koei H. Amano’s 2000 edition, Abhisamayālaṃkāra-kārikā-śāstra-vivṛti. It has the reading avasthāne, Tibetan bzhugs kyang, for avasthānena, agreeing with Wogihara’s variant from the Calcutta manuscript of the Āloka. The second of these references is found on pp. 114-115, having somewhat different wording.

The first of these references, commenting on 8.11, is found in Sparham’s translation of Haribhadra’s Āloka on p. 254 of vol. 4. The second of these references, commenting on 8.34, is found in Sparham’s translation on p. 264 of vol. 4. Ārya Vimuktisena’s comments on these verses are found in Sparham’s translation on pp. 83 and 97-98, respectively, of vol. 4.

Tsong kha pa’s commentary on 8.11 is found in Sparham’s translation of Golden Garland, p. 194 of vol. 4, and his commentary on 8.34 is found in Sparham’s translation, p. 225 of vol. 4.

From part 1, for the reference to the original Sanskrit of the Kāya-traya-stotra, it is quoted in the Sekoddeśa-ṭīkā, Mario E. Carelli edition, 1941, pp. 57-58, and Francesco Sferra edition, 2006, p. 171.

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In the sample translation of verse 1 of the Book of Dzyan given by H. P. Blavatsky when retaining the foreign technical terms (The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 23), we find the phrase, “Dharmakaya ceased.” This is a highly unusual idea in Buddhism, as noted by Michael Lewis and reported by Ken Small. The dharma-kāya, “dharma body” or “body of dharmas,” is a kind of ultimate in Buddhism, and we would not expect it to ever “cease.” An authoritative description of it is given in the first verse of the Kāya-traya-stotra, “Praise of the Three Bodies,” attributed to Nāgārjuna. Here is the original Sanskrit and my English translation:

yo naiko nāpy anekaḥ sva-para-hita-mahā-sampad-ādhāra-bhūto

naivābhāvo na bhāvaḥ kham iva sama-raso durvibhāvya-svabhāvaḥ |

nirlepaṃ nirvikāraṃ śivam asama-samaṃ vyāpinaṃ niṣprapañcaṃ

vande pratyātma-vedyaṃ tam aham anupamaṃ dharma-kāyaṃ jinānām ||

“What is not one and not many, is the great basis of perfect benefit for self and others, is not non-existent and not existent, is of the same taste like space, whose nature is hard to be realized, is stainless, is immutable, is quiescent, is equal to the unequaled, is [all-]pervading, is without diversification, is [only] to be known inwardly, I praise that incomparable dharma-kāya of the victors.”

So could such a thing ever cease? From the descriptions and usages of it throughout the Buddhist texts, we would think not. There is, however, a Buddhist text that speaks of the dharma-kāya coming into being or arising, which of course implies that it would also cease. The Kālacakra-tantra says that the dharma-kāya comes into being or arises from the śuddha-kāya (chap. 4, verse 107: śrī-śuddhād dharma-kāyo bhavati), or from the sahaja-kāya (chap. 5, verse 89: sahaja-tanur iyaṃ dharma-kāyo babhūva), or in the closely related Hevajra-piṇḍārtha-ṭīkā, from the svābhāvika-kāya (chap. 3, verse 22: svābhāvikāt bhavet dharma). The svābhāvika-kāya or sahaja-kāya or śuddha-kāya are all synonyms for the fourth body in the four-body scheme, as opposed to the more common three-body scheme. From this fourth body comes the dharma-kāya, the third body. From this body comes the sambhoga-kāya, the second body, and from this body comes the nirmāṇa-kāya, the first body.

This teaching may perhaps find some warrant in the Ratna-gotra-vibhāga, which teaches that the dharma-kāya is twofold (chap. 1, verse 145): the completely pure (sunirmala) dharma-dhātu, and its natural outcome (tan-niṣyanda). The first is only in the range of nonconceptual wisdom (avikalpa-jñāna-gocara-viṣaya) and pertains to the dharma to be realized inwardly (pratyātmam adhigama-dharmam). The second is the cause for attaining that (tat-prāpti-hetu) first kind of dharma-kāya, which cause is the teaching (deśanā) whose methods (naya) are deep (gāmbhīrya) and varied (vaicitrya). Although the Ratna-gotra-vibhāga does not describe the second kind of dharma-kāya as coming into being or arising, that it is described as the natural outcome (niṣyanda) of the first kind would fit in with the Kālacakra-tantra’s teaching of its coming into being or arising. Of course, what comes into being or arises must cease.

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

The term parinirvāṇa, sometimes incorrectly spelled paranirvāṇa in Theosophical writings, is widely used to describe the final nirvāṇa that Gautama Buddha achieved upon his death. It forms the title of scriptures in both Pali and Sanskrit that describe the events around his passing away: Mahā-paribbāna-sutta and Mahā-parinirvāṇa-sūtra (different from the Mahāyāna Mahā-parinirvāṇa-sūtra). He is regarded as having achieved nirvāṇa under the bodhi-tree many years before his passing away. For the many years that he taught after achieving enlightenment (bodhi) or nirvāṇa, it could not be said that he had entered full or complete nirvāṇa. So two kinds of nirvāṇa were distinguished in the Buddhist texts: sopadhi-śeṣa-nirvāṇa, nirvāṇa with the remainder (śeṣa) of the personal existence (upadhi), and anupadhi-śeṣa-nirvāṇa or nirupadhi-śeṣa-nirvāṇa, nirvāṇa without the remainder of the personal existence or body. The latter is what is called parinirvāṇa, the full or complete nirvāṇa that can only occur when the body passes away.

            Grammatical note: The prefix pari, here meaning full or complete, was added to nirvāṇa to make this distinction. The word is not para-nirvāṇa. Even if it was, it could not mean beyond nirvāṇa, as sometimes understood in Theosophical writings. The reason for this can be seen in the explanation of why para-brahman cannot mean beyond brahman or Brahmā, found in the entry on para-brahman.

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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.

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            Several references to the relation between the two main Theosophical Mahatmas and the then Panchen Lama are found scattered in the Theosophical writings. Some years ago, Daniel Caldwell collected these and sent them to a few friends. The quotations given below are taken from this (adding one by Boris de Zirkoff). Note that the Panchen Lama was usually referred to in these writings as the Teshu Lama, i.e., the Tashi Lama, after his monastery at Shigatse, Tashi-lhunpo.

“There is beyond the Himalayas a nucleus of these Adepts, of various nationalities, and the Teshu Lama knows them, and they act together, and some of them are with him and yet remain unknown in their true character even to the average lamas—who are ignorant fools mostly. My Master [Morya] and KH [Koot Hoomi] and several others I know personally are there, coming and going, and they are all in communication with Adepts in Egypt and Syria, and even in Europe.” (H. P. Blavatsky, letter to Franz Hartmann, 1886, published in The Path, March 1896, p. 370)

“. . . my venerated GURU DEVA [Koot Hoomi] who holds a well-known public office in Tibet, under the TESHU LAMA.” (Damodar K. Mavalankar, Dâmodar and the Pioneers of the Theosophical Movement, compiled and annotated by Sven Eek, 1965, p. 340)

“. . . the Tashi Lama (whose Master of Ceremonies one of our own revered Mahatmas is).” (Henry Steel Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, Fourth Series, p. 6)

“Koot Hoomi . . . is the relic-bearer to the Teshu-Lama, an office in Thibet resembling that—say of Cardinal-Vicar, in the Roman Catholic Church. . . .” (draft copy of the “First Report” of the Society for Psychical Research on H. P. Blavatsky, October 1884, p. 16)

“Master M.: Was (or is) a high official with the Teshu Lama in Tibet, a hutuhtu, or ‘bearer (or carrier) of sacred things,’ in the sense of relics. So says Vera P. Zhelihovsky [Blavatsky’s sister], who tells of having heard this from HPB [H. P. Blavatsky] many times. See her words in Russkoy Obozreniye, VI, Nov., 1891, p. 292, footnote.” (Boris de Zirkoff, Blavatskaiana, Historical Index, vol. 3)

The nearest thing to the office described above would probably be the chöpön (mchod dpon), “head/chief/master/overseer of offerings/worship/ceremonies/religious services,” who could thus be called the master of ceremonies. Daniel Caldwell went on to note this passage from the Mahatma Letters:

“In about a week—new religious ceremonies, new glittering bubbles to amuse the babes with, and once more I will be busy night and day, morning, noon, and evening.” (The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, letter #16, 2nd edition, p. 116; 3rd edition, p. 113; chronological edition letter #68, p. 203)

This letter is undated. Daniel determined, by way of a reference in this letter saying “Olcott is on his way to Lanka,” that it was probably written June 27 or 28, 1882, since Olcott left Bombay for Sri Lanka on June 27 and arrived in Colombo on June 30.

Daniel then found a reference to a major ceremony that was held at Tashi-lhunpo starting on June 30, 1882. It is from Tibetan Buddhism: With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and in Its Relation to Indian Buddhism, by L. Austine Waddell, 1895, p. 508:

“During this feast many of the monks encamp in tents, and colossal pictures are displayed. Thus at Tashi-lhunpo the pictures are hung from the great tower named Kiku. At this festival, held there on June 30th, 1882, Lāma Ugyen Gyats’o informs us, a great picture of Dipaṁkara Buddha was displayed about a hundred feet long, in substitution for pictures of the previous days. Next day it was replaced by one of Ṣākya Muni and the past Buddhas, and the following day by one of Maitreya (Jam-pa).”

This is certainly suggestive of the Mahatma K.H. being there and acting as master of ceremonies. Of course, the officials in the Panchen Lama’s court were all Tibetans, while the Mahatma K.H. is said to be an Indian, specifically a Kashmiri. More on this in another post.

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“However, you will have to bear in mind (a) that we recognize but one element in Nature (whether spiritual or physical) outside which there can be no Nature since it is Nature itself, and which as the Akasa pervades our solar system, every atom being part of itself, pervades throughout space and is space in fact, . . . (b) that consequently spirit and matter are one, being but a differentiation of states not essences, . . . (c) that our notions of “cosmic matter” are diametrically opposed to those of western science. Perchance if you remember all this we will succeed in imparting to you at least the elementary axioms of our esoteric philosophy more correctly than heretofore.” (The Mahatma Letters, letter #11, 3rd ed., p. 63; chron. ed. letter #65, p. 168).

“Yes, as described in my letter—there is but one element and it is impossible to comprehend our system before a correct conception of it is firmly fixed in one’s mind. You must therefore pardon me if I dwell on the subject longer than really seems necessary. But unless this great primary fact is firmly grasped the rest will appear unintelligible. This element then is the—to speak metaphysically—one sub-stratum or permanent cause of all manifestations in the phenomenal universe.” (The Mahatma Letters, letter #15, 3rd ed., p. 89; chron. ed. letter #67, p. 182).

The one element, Sanskrit eka-dhātu, Tibetan khams gcig.

From the commentary on Ratnagotravibhāga, chapter 1, verse 12, E. H. Johnston edition, p. 13, followed by my English translation:

All because they do not know and do not see the one element.

vibandhaḥ punar abhūta-vastu-nimittârambaṇa-manasikāra-pūrvikā rāga-dveṣa-mohôtpattir anuśaya-paryutthāna-yogāt | anuśayato hi bālānām abhūtam atat-svabhāvaṃ vastu śubhâkāreṇa vā nimittaṃ bhavati rāgôtpattitaḥ | pratighâkāreṇa vā dveṣôtpattitaḥ | avidyâkāreṇa vā mohôtpattitaḥ | tac ca rāga-dveṣa-moha-nimittam ayathā-bhutam ārambaṇaṃ kurvatām ayoniśo-manasikāraś cittaṃ paryādadāti | teṣām ayoniśo-manasikāra-paryavasthita-cetasāṃ rāga-dveṣa-mohānām anyatama-kleśa-samudācāro bhavati | te tato nidānaṃ kāyena vācā manasā rāga-jam api karmâbhisaṃskurvanti | dveṣa-jam api moha-jam api karmâbhisaṃskurvanti | karmataś ca punar-janmânubandha eva bhavati | evam eṣāṃ bālānām anuśayavatāṃ nimitta-grāhiṇām ārambaṇa-caritānām ayoniśo-manasikāra-samudācārāt kleśa-samudayaḥ | kleśa-samudāyāt karma-samudayaḥ | karma-samudayāj janma-samudayo bhavati | sa punar eṣa sarvâkāra-kleśa-karma-janma-saṃkleśo bālānām ekasya dhātor yathā-bhūtam ajñānād adarśanāc ca pravartate |

“The obstruction [to seeing reality, tattva] is the arising of attraction, aversion, and delusion [the three main “afflictions,” or defilements, kleśa], due to the activation of a latent tendency toward the defilements, preceded by mental engagement or taking to mind as an object of thought the outward appearance of a thing, not as it really is. For, due to a latent tendency toward the defilements on the part of the spiritually immature, a thing not as it really is, i.e., not having the inherent nature of that thing, becomes an outward appearance in the form of something beautiful, due to the arising of attraction. Or in the form of something repugnant, due to the arising of aversion. Or in the form of something wrongly known, due to the arising of delusion. And for those taking as an object of thought that outward appearance resulting from attraction, aversion, and delusion, not as the thing really is, the incorrect mental engagement takes over the mind. For those whose minds are taken over by incorrect mental engagement, there comes about the manifestation or operation of any one of the defilements: attraction, aversion, or delusion. Because of that, they perform actions by body, speech, and mind, born from attraction. Also born from aversion, also born from delusion, they perform actions. And due to actions, there certainly comes about the succession of rebirths. In this way for these spiritually immature people, who have latent tendencies toward the defilements, who apprehend outward appearances, who go with them as objects of thought, due to the operation of incorrect mental engagement the defilements arise. Due to the arising of defilements, actions arise. Due to the arising of actions, (re-)births arise. This very defilement by all kinds of defilements, actions, and (re-)births occurs for the spiritually immature because they do not know and do not see the one element as it really is.”

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

“Extracts are given from the Chinese, Tibetan, and Sanskrit translations of the original Senzar Commentaries and Glosses on the Book of Dzyan— . . . Thus, were one to translate into English, using only the substantives and technical terms as employed in one of the Tibetan and Senzar versions, Verse 1 would read as follows : . . . alone Tho-og Yinsin in night of Sun-chan and Yong-grub (Parinishpanna), . . .” (The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 23).

yinsin, yin-sin, yin sin, yih-sin, yi-hsin. The word is printed as Yinsin in The Secret Doctrine 1.23; Yin-Sin in SD Würzburg, p. 143, and in SD 1.635; Yin Sin in Mahatma Letter #15 2nd ed.; Yin-sin in ML #15 3rd ed. and chron. ed.; Yih-sin in ML #59 2nd ed.; Yi-hsin in ML #59 3rd ed. and chron. ed. This Chinese word was adopted from yih-sin in Samuel Beal’s 1871 Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, pp. 373, 393, 98 fn. (the change of yih-sin to yin-sin is an obvious scribal or typographical error, mistaking an “h” for an “n”). Beal’s early spelling came to be standardized as i-hsin in the once commonly used Wade-Giles system of writing Chinese words in Roman letters, and as yixin in the now more standard pinyin system. Beal understood it as the “universally diffused essence” (pp. 11, 12, 13, 14, 29, 143-144, 340, 352, 373), and the “one form of existence” (p. 373). These phrases were used in the Mahatma letters to define it.

            This Chinese term translates the Sanskrit term eka-citta, meaning the “one mind.” The teaching of the “one mind” is presented in the Buddhist scripture known in the west as The Awakening of Faith (translated by Yoshito S. Hakeda, 1967), Sanskrit Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda, Chinese Dasheng qixin lun. It is there taught as being the all, saying that (Hakeda, p. 28): “This Mind includes in itself all states of being of the phenomenal world and the transcendental world.” Further, that (Hakeda, p. 31): “the principle of One Mind has two aspects. One is the aspect of Mind in terms of the Absolute (tathatā; Suchness), and the other is the aspect of Mind in terms of phenomena (samsara; birth and death). Each of these two aspects embraces all states of existence. Why? Because these two aspects are mutually inclusive.” The first aspect (as suchness, tathatā) is the one mind as it is in itself, described as the dharma-dhātu (“element of attributes” or “realm of phenomena”), and as being unborn and imperishable (Hakeda, p. 32). As the tathāgata-garbha (“buddha-matrix” or buddha-nature) the one mind is the ground of saṃsāra (Hakeda, p. 36), birth and death, the production and cessation of the manifested cosmos. The tathāgata-garbha has been understood by different commentators on this text as the one mind itself, the first aspect, or as production and cessation, the second aspect (Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, under yixin). The second aspect, birth and death or production and cessation, is the one mind as the ālaya-vijñāna, the storehouse consciousness (Hakeda, p. 36) or foundational consciousness. The ever-changing ālaya-vijñāna carries the seeds (bīja) of future results (phala) produced by all actions (karma), and thus produces the manifested cosmos. The cosmos, often referred to as the three worlds or the triple world (traidhātuka), operates by way of the twelvefold chain of causation or becoming (the twelve nidānas of dependent origination, pratītya samutpāda). The teaching of the one mind and its two aspects is very succinctly put in a famous statement from the Daśabhūmika-sūtra, for which we have the original Sanskrit in both prose and verse. These two Sanskrit formulations are given here, along with my English translation:

citta-mātram idaṃ yad idaṃ traidhātukam | yāny apīmāni dvādaśa bhavāṅgāni tathāgatena prabhedaśo vyākhyātāni tāny api sarvāṇy eka-citta-samāśritāni |

(Ryuko Kondo ed., p. 98; Johannes Rahder ed. has eva instead of eka, copied in the P. L. Vaidya ed.).

“This triple world is only mind. Also these twelve limbs of becoming that were explained individually by the Buddha, all those, too, are based on the one mind.”

te citta-mātra ti traidhātukam otaranti api cā bhavāṅga iti dvādaśa eka-citte |

(Rahder/Susa ed., p. 53, verse 16; Kondo ed., p. 108, verse 6; Vaidya ed., p. 87, verse 16).

“They comprehend that the triple world is only mind, and also that the twelve limbs of becoming are within the one mind.”

References: “Nor can it well be called force since the latter is but the attribute of Yin Sin (Yin Sin or the one “Form of existence,” also Adi-Buddhi or Dharmakaya, the mystic, universally diffused essence) when manifesting in the phenomenal world of senses, namely, only your old acquaintance Fohat. . . . The initiated Brahmin calls it (Yin Sin and Fohat) Brahman and Sakti when manifesting as that force.” (Mahatma Letter #15, 2nd ed. p. 90, 3rd ed. pp. 88-89, chron. ed. #67, p. 181).

“In symbology the central point is Jivatma (the 7th principle), and hence Avalokitesvara, the Kwan-Shai-yin, the manifested “Voice” (or Logos), the germ point of manifested activity; hence, in the phraseology of the Christian Kabalists, “the Son of the Father and Mother,” and agreeably to ours—”the Self manifested in Self—Yih-sin, the “one form of existence,” the child of Dharmakaya (the universally diffused Essence), both male and female. Parabrahm or “Adi-Buddha” while acting through that germ point outwardly as an active force, reacts from the circumference inwardly as the Supreme but latent Potency.” (Mahatma Letter #59, 2nd ed. p. 346, 3rd ed. pp. 340-341, chron. ed. #111, pp. 378-379).

Compare Beal’s Catena, p. 373: “So again, when the idea of a universally diffused essence (dharmakaya) was accepted as a dogmatic necessity, a further question arose as to the relation which this “supreme existence” bore to time, space, and number. And from this consideration appears to have proceeded the further invention of the several names Vairochana (the Omnipresent), Amitâbha (for Amirta [sic for Amrita]) the Eternal, and Adi-Buddha (yih-sin) the “one form of existence.””

Beal’s Catena, p. 11: “The whole of these systems again he includes within one universally diffused essence, which, for want of a better word, is called the “Heart,” but which, in fact, corresponds to the soul of the universe, the all-pervading Self or the “All in all” of pure Pantheism.”

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            Mahatma letter #16 (chronological #68), the so-called “devachan letter,” refers to the “Territory of Doubt”:

“Thus, for instance, in enumerating the seven lokas of the ‘Kama-Loka’ the Avatamsaka Sutra gives as the seventh, the ‘Territory of Doubt.’ I will ask you to remember the name as we will have to speak of it hereafter.”

In the Mahatma’s answer to the next question, this phrase occurs again:

“From ‘Sukhavati’ down to the ‘Territory of Doubt’ there is a variety of Spiritual States; . . .”

Although the Mahatma asks his correspondent “to remember the name as we will have to speak of it hereafter,” we do not hear of it again in either the rest of the Mahatma letters or in the writings of the Mahatmas’ sometime amanuensis H. P. Blavatsky.

            The phrase “territory of doubt” comes from A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, translated by Samuel Beal, 1871. It occurs only once there, on page 120, according to a digital search:

“If, however, a man prepares himself to acquire merit, and prays for birth in that land [Sukhāvatī, the Paradise of Amitābha], and yet afterwards goes back and loses his faith, he shall be born, if he again turns to the true belief, in a ‘territory of doubt,’ where he shall for five hundred years neither see Buddha nor hear the Law or the Bôdhisatwas.”

It was referred to earlier in Beal’s Catena, p. 42, footnote, as the “city of doubt”:

“But if a man who reverences Buddha, and has observed the precepts, yet with less thorough purpose, die without any marks either good or bad on his person, but lies as it were in a sleep, and, awaking for a moment, thus departs, this man, not yet wholly freed from the influences of unbelief, shall be born for five hundred years in an external paradise,* and afterwards enter on his perfect reward.”

“*City of doubt, a region bordering on the true Paradise of Amitâbha.”

The idea was referred to one more time, in a passage translated in Beal’s Catena, p, 375:

“And therefore the Amitâbha Sûtra says: ‘Every faithful person ought naturally to pray for birth in that happy country (Paradise).’ . . .

“Again there is a passage which says, ‘If a man is well-rooted, yet if he doubts, the flower will not open; but if he believes, then his heart (inner self) pure and calm, opening out like the flower opens from the bud, he forthwith beholds Buddha, and comprehends (hears) the law.’”

            From these references, we can see that the idea of the territory of doubt comes from the Sukhāvatī-vyūha-sūtra, referred to as the Amitābha Sūtra. The Mahatma’s reference to this as coming from the Avataṃsaka-sūtra is not found in Beal’s book, although Beal often refers to this sūtra, and may be an error (I could not find any such thing in a digital search of this extensive sūtra translated into English by Thomas Cleary as The Flower Ornament Scripture). This idea is explained at length in the larger Sukhāvatī-vyūha-sūtra. It is that if a person has once made the wish to be reborn in sukhāvatī or devachan, but later doubts rebirth in such a place, yet “plants the roots of merit,” that person will be reborn inside a closed lotus in sukhāvatī. Thus the person will be in sukhāvatī, but will not be able to benefit from its wonderful features until, after a long time, the lotus opens. The full passage explaining this is, as translated from Sanskrit by Luis O. Gómez in The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless Light, Sanskrit and Chinese Versions of the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sutras, 1996, pp. 104-106:

Two Kinds of Rebirth in the Land of Bliss

§133.    The Blessed One said: “Now, Ajita, do you also see the dwelling of those who here in this Land of Bliss dwell inside the closed calyxes of immense lotus flowers?”

            He said: “Blessed One, I see that these human beings whose dwelling is the closed calyxes of noble lotus flowers here in the Land of Bliss enjoy dwellings like those of gods—just as the gods of the Thirty-Three or the gods of the Yama Realm live in palaces fifty leagues or a hundred leagues or five hundred leagues wide, where they play, sport, and enjoy themselves, in exactly the same manner, Blessed One, those in the closed calyxes of noble lotus flowers play, sport, and enjoy themselves in similar palaces.

§134.    “Furthermore, Blessed One, there are beings who, born miraculously, appear sitting cross-legged on the lotus flowers. What are then, Blessed One, the causes, what are the conditions, that determine who will dwell in a closed calyx, and who will be reborn miraculously to appear sitting cross-legged on open lotus flowers?”

§135.    The Blessed One said: “Those bodhisattvas in other buddha-fields, Ajita, who entertain doubts about rebirth in the Land of Bliss, but who in spite of their doubts plant the roots of merit, they will dwell inside the calyx. But those who, on the contrary, are free of doubt, who have cut through uncertainty, and who plant roots of merit in order to be reborn in the Land of Bliss, and trust in the unimpeded knowledge of blessed buddhas, believe in it, and are committed to it, they are reborn miraculously to appear here sitting cross-legged in open lotus flowers.

§136.    “Those bodhisattvas mahasattvas, Ajita, who abide in buddha-fields elsewhere in the universe, if they aspire to see Amitabha, the Tathagata, Arhat, perfect and full Buddha, if they never entertain a doubt, never hesitate regarding the unimpeded knowledge of the buddhas, and believe in their own roots of merit, they too will be reborn miraculously, appearing cross-legged on the lotus flowers, in only an instant, already possessing a body exactly like that of other beings who have been born there long before.

§137.    “Consider, Ajita, the weakness in the discernment of those who do not believe in the Buddha’s knowledge. Consider the limitations of their discernment, the deficit in their discernment, the feebleness of their discernment. For, during five hundred years, they are deprived of seeing the Buddha, of seeing the bodhisattvas, of hearing the Dharma, of speaking about the Dharma. They are deprived of the practice of the roots of merit, of accomplishing the roots of merit. And all of this only because their ideas and conceptualization have fallen prey to doubt.

§138.    “Ajita, it is as if an anointed kshatriya monarch had a prison, inlaid entirely with gold and emerald, with strings of silk cloth, garlands, and tassels hanging from the walls, with open canopies of different colors. Its walls would be covered with cotton and silk, its floors scattered over with open flowers of many kinds. The prison would be scented with excellent scents, embellished with terraced roofs and terraced pavilions, with skylights, railings, and gateways, decorated with jewels of all kinds, covered with nets of bells of gold and gems. It would have four corners, four pillars, four doors, four stairs. And the son of that king would be thrown into that prison for some misdeed. He would be bound with chains made of gold from the Jambu River. And a couch would be prepared for him there, covered with many thick woolen spreads, with cotton and wool coverlets, pleasant to touch like fine Kachilindika cloth, wrapped in covers made of Kalinga cloth, and, on top, a silk spread, with red cushions on both sides, colorful and charming. He would sit or lie on that couch. And much food and drink of various kinds, pure and excellent, would be offered to him there. What do you think, Ajita? Would the prince have there fine objects of enjoyment?”       He said: “They would be great, Blessed One.”

§139.    The Blessed One said: “What do you think, Ajita? Would he relish this food, consume it, or feel any satisfaction from it?”

            He said: “No indeed, Blessed One. On the contrary, led away by the king and thrown in that prison, he would only wish for release from there. He would seek the nobles, princes, ministers, ladies of the court, rich merchants, property owners, and lords of castles, who might release him from that prison. Furthermore, Blessed One, there would be no pleasure for that prince in that prison, nor would he be freed from there until the king would show him favor.”

§140.    The Blessed One said: “In exactly the same way, Ajita, those bodhisattvas who plant roots of merit, but have fallen prey to doubt, hesitate in their belief in the knowledge of a buddha, which is a knowledge equal to the unequalled. They may be reborn in this world called the Land of Bliss, if they have heard the Buddha’s name, and by the sheer power of a serene, trusting, mind generated by that hearing; but are not born miraculously and do not appear in that land sitting cross-legged on the lotus flowers. Rather, they dwell only in the closed calyx of the lotus flowers. Although they reside there, inside the lotus flowers, with a mental image of the palaces and the gardens of the Land of Bliss, and no excrement or urine is discharged from their bodies, no phlegm or mucus, and nothing disagreeable to the mind is found on their bodies or in their dwellings, still, for five hundred years they are deprived of seeing buddhas, hearing the Dharma, seeing bodhisattvas, speaking about and ascertaining the Dharma, and practicing any of the best virtues taught in the Dharma . Although they do not rejoice there or find satisfaction, still, when their previous transgressions have been exhausted, they then, at last, leave that calyx; and, as they leave it, they cannot tell if they are leaving from above, from below, or across.

§141.    “Consider this, Ajita. If one did not dwell inside a calyx for five hundred years, one could wait upon many hundreds of thousands of millions of trillions of buddhas during those five hundred years. One could plant an immense, innumerable, immeasurable number of roots of merit, and one could gain all the qualities of a buddha. Now, inasmuch as these bodhisattvas will miss all this by reason of their doubting, consider, Ajita, how great is the misfortune to which the doubt of a bodhisattva can lead.

§142.    “Therefore, Ajita, bodhisattvas who are free from doubts should generate this aspiration to attain awakening. And, in order to obtain quickly the capacity to confer benefit and happiness on all living beings, they should dedicate their roots of merit to rebirth in the Land of Bliss, where the Blessed One Amitabha, the Tathagata, Arhat, perfect and full Buddha dwells.”

            One must wonder if the Mahatma intended to link this territory of doubt to the gestation state that he describes as taking place after death and before the person is reborn in devachan, i.e., sukhāvatī. Certainly, being in a closed lotus bud can be compared to a gestation state, whether in the womb or between lives. Indeed, the word that Luis Gómez translates as “closed calyx” is garbha, which is also the usual Sanskrit word for “womb.” Moreover, the Mahatma writes in this letter that the gestation state is “very long,” and the Buddhist text’s “five hundred years” would suggest a very long time to its readers. When a person enters the gestation state between lives, we are told, the cast-off fourth and fifth principles consisting of lower thoughts and emotions go on their way to eventual disintegration. Doubts would naturally be part of the discarded lower thoughts that are slowly fading away while the real person, consisting of the higher principles, is in the gestation state. When the gestation state is over, like when a lotus bud opens, the person is in effect reborn in sukhāvatī, i.e., devachan.

Note on References:

The Sanskrit text of the passage quoted above as translated by Luis O. Gómez is found in the edition by F. Max Müller and Bunyiu Nanjio, Sukhāvatī-vyūha, Oxford, 1883, pp. 65-69, and in the edition by Atsuuji Ashikaga, Sukhāvatīvyūha, Kyoto, 1965, pp. 57-60. It was also translated from Sanskrit by F. Max Müller in Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts, Part II (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 49), 1894, pp. 62-65. Luis O. Gómez additionally provided a translation of it from its most widely used Chinese translation in the same book cited above, pp. 217-219.

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            Throughout Mahatma letter #16 (#68 in the chronological edition), the so-called “devachan letter,” are found several quotations from Buddhist scriptures. These come from an 1871 book titled, A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, by Samuel Beal. In this book (pp. 15-125), Beal translated what he called “The Buddhist Kosmos” (Fah-kai-on-lih-to, in his transcription of the Chinese title, p. 12), written by Jin-Ch’au, and published in 1573 C.E. The book by Jin-Ch’au includes many quotations from the Buddhist scriptures. It is usually these quotations that are given in the Mahatma letter. One of these quotations refers to the “dwelling of Māra” (Mahatma Letters, 2nd ed. pp. 106-107; 3rd ed. p. 104, chronological ed. p. 195; from Beal’s Catena, p. 90). This Māra, says the Mahatma letter, is the allegorical image of the mysterious “Planet of Death,” a sphere located “between Kama and Rupa-lokas.”

            The dwelling of Māra was referred to a few pages earlier in Beal’s Catena (p. 84) as the “abode of Māra.” The earlier quotation confirms the later quotation, that this dwelling or abode of Māra is “between the Kama Loka and the Rupa Loka” (p. 90); that is, between the kāma-dhātu or desire realm and the rūpa-dhātu or form realm. However, no such place is known in the Buddhist teachings that have become standard, such as are based on the Sanskrit Abhidharma-kośa or the Pali Abhidhammatha-saṅgaha. In the standard Buddhist teachings, the kāma-dhātu ends with the sixth of six heavens, the para-nirmita-vaśavartin heaven, after which begins the rūpa-dhātu with the first of seventeen or sixteen higher heavens, the brahma-kāyika heaven (these have been translated as “heavens” only because they are abodes of gods located above the human realm; the Sanskrit text merely calls them “places, localities,” sthāna). There is no mention of any dwelling or abode in between. Indeed, in the standard teachings Māra, the god of desire, dwells in the sixth and highest heaven of the kāma-dhātu, the desire realm, not in some sphere between the kāma-dhātu and the rūpa-dhātu. Where, then, does this teaching come from? The text translated by Beal quotes it from what Beal transcribed as the “Lau-Tan Sutra.”

            The first step is to figure out what is the “Lau-Tan Sutra,” as transcribed by Beal. He thought (p. 90) that it might be the “Pinda-dhana Sûtra,” but no such sūtra shows up in our catalogues. Fortunately, Beal himself prepared a catalogue of the Chinese Tripiṭaka, the first ever in English, published in 1876: The Buddhist Tripiṭaka, as It Is Known in China and Japan. A Catalogue and Compendious Report. There, on p. 39, no. 6 is the Fuh-shwo-Lau-tan-king, i.e., the Lau-tan Sūtra. Several years later, in 1883, Beal’s pioneering catalogue was improved upon by Bunyiu Nanjio with his still used Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka. From Beal’s description in his catalogue, giving the translators, etc., we can see that the Lau-tan Sūtra is no. 551, pp. 138-139, in Nanjio’s catalogue: the Fo-shwo-leu-thân-kiṅ. Nanjio there tells us that it is one of three “earlier translations of No. 545 (30), i.e. the Sûtra on the record of the world, in the Dîrghâgama.” From this information, we can trace it to the now standard edition of the Chinese Tripiṭaka, the Taishō edition, which was compiled and published 1922-1934. In the 1931 Taishō catalogue, this sūtra is no. 23, the Ta leou t’an king. In the once commonly used Wade-Giles system this is written Ta lou t’an ching, or in the now more standard pinyin system, Da lou tan jing.

            The Lau-tan Sūtra, as Nanjio informed us, is an earlier translation of the thirtieth sūtra in the Dīrghāgama. The Dīrghāgama collection, originally in Sanskrit, consists of thirty sūtras in the Chinese translation. The Sanskrit Dīrghāgama was long lost, but in recent years an incomplete manuscript of it was discovered. In this manuscript, the Dīrghāgama consists of forty-seven sūtras. Unfortunately, an original Sanskrit text of the Lau-tan Sūtra is not among these (see: Jens-Uwe Hartmann, “Contents and Structure of the Dīrghāgama of the (Mūla-)Sarvāstivādins,” Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University, vol. 7, 2004, pp. 119-137, especially pp. 125-128). The Dīrghāgama is parallel to the Pali Dīgha-nikāya, which consists of thirty-four suttas or sūtras. None of these, however, provides us with a parallel to the Lau-tan Sūtra. So we still do not know the Sanskrit title of the Lau-tan Sūtra. One surmise was the Loka-dhātu Sūtra; a later surmise was the Loka-prasthāna Sūtra. The most plausible one is Loka-prajñapti Sūtra, found in an article on the related Loka-prajñapti Śāstra (Siglinde Dietz, “A Brief Survey on the Sanskrit Fragments of the Lokaprajñaptiśāstra,” Annual Memoirs of the Otani University Shin Buddhist Comprehensive Research Institute, vol. 7, 1989, p. 80). More importantly, we do not have a Sanskrit or Pali text of it to check for this “dwelling of Māra.”

            The next step, then, is to see if another text can be found that refers to the “dwelling of Māra” located between the kāma-dhātu and the rūpa-dhātu. As already said, the texts that provide the standard Buddhist teachings on cosmography do not refer to any such place, including their commentaries such as the comprehensive Chim commentary on the Abhidharmakośa recently translated from Tibetan (by Ian James Coghlan, Ornament of Abhidharma, 2018). After a fruitless search of possible candidates, such as the Divyāvadāna (five descriptions of the heavens without it), the Mūla-sarvāstivāda-vinaya-vastu (four descriptions without it, all in its Saṅgha-bheda-vastu), the Dharma-skandha (five descriptions without it in the lengthy extant Sanskrit portions), the Loka-prajñapti-śāstra (several descriptions without it, searched via its Tibetan translation, none in the extant Sanskrit fragments), etc., I came to the Mahāvastu, an old vinaya text that never made it into mainstream Buddhism. There we find two references to such a place. The Mahāvastu refers to the dwelling (bhavana) of Māra, the abode (ālaya) of Māra, that is between the kāma-dhātu and the rūpa-dhātu. Before bringing in the Mahāvastu references, it will be useful to review the passage translated by Beal and quoted in the Mahatma letter, and the supporting passage translated by Beal showing that this place is in fact between the kāma-dhātu and the rūpa-dhātu.

            The passage translated by Beal and quoted in the Mahatma letter, from Beal’s Catena, p. 90:

“The Lau-Tan Sutra says:¹ ‘Between the Kama Loka and the Rupa Loka, there is a distinct locality, the dwelling of Mâra. This Mâra, filled with passion and lust, destroys all virtuous principles, as a stone grinds corn. His palace is 6,000 yojanas square, and is surrounded by a seven-fold wall.’”

“1 Pinda-dhana Sûtra.”

            The supporting passage that is found a few pages earlier briefly describes the six heavens of the kāma-dhātu, the “World of Desires,” one by one. It is preceded by this note from the Chinese Editor on its sources: “For bodily size we follow the Kosha; for the character of the garments the Dirghâgama Sutra; for the duration of life the Kosha and Abhidharma.” After the six heavens of the kāma-dhātu and before moving on to the rūpa-dhātu, or “Rupa-loka,” it brings in the “Mâra-vasanam-Heavens,” the “abode of Mâra.” It is from Beal’s Catena, pp. 83-84:

           “10. With respect to the six heavens of the World of Desires, the size of the bodies of the ‘Four Kings,’ is half a li, the weight of their garments half a tael (ounce), and fifty years of men equal one of their days and nights; they live 500 years.

            “In the Trayastriñshas Heaven the size of the body is one li, the weight of the garments six chu (one fourth of an ounce), one night and day equal 100 years of men, and they live 1,000 of these years.

            “In the Yama Heaven, the height of the body is one li and a half, their garments three chu (scruples) in weight, one night and day equals 200 years of men, and they live 2,000 of these years.

            “In the Tusita Heaven, height two li, weight two chu, life 4,000 years, each year being 400 years of men.

            “In the Nirmâna rati Heaven, height two and a half li, weight one chu, duration of life 8,000 years, each year being equal to 800 years of men.

            “In the Parinirmita-vasavartin Heaven, the height is three li, weight of garments half a scruple, and they live 16,000 years, each year of which is equal to 1,600 years of men.

            “In the Mâra-vasanam¹-Heavens, the weight of garments is 128th of an ounce, and the years of their life 32,000.

            “In the Rupa-Ioka they use kalpas to measure the duration of life, and they wear no garments, there being no distinction of sexes.”

            “1. Mo-Io-po-seun, i.e., Mâra-vasanam, or abode of Mâra; vide Burnouf, Introd., 617.”

            This shows clearly that the dwelling or abode of Māra is a distinct locality, with its own distinct weight of garments and years of lifespan, beyond the para-nirmita-vaśavartin heaven, the highest heaven of the kāma-dhātu, and before the rūpa-dhātu. It confirms the quotation from the Lau-tan Sūtra. The later Chinese translation of the Lau-tan Sūtra as found in the Dīrghāgama has now become available in a complete English translation of the Dīrghāgama. This translation of the same passage quoted by Beal’s author differs in some ways from Beal’s translation of it, but confirms that the dwelling of Māra is a distinct locality between the para-nirmita-vaśavartin heaven and the brahma-kāyika heaven. As translated by Shohei Ichimura in The Canonical Book of the Buddha’s Lengthy Discourses, vol. 3, 2018, p. 155:

“Between Paranirmitavaśavartin Heaven and Brahmakāyika Heaven is the palace of the lord of the evil ones, Māra, an area of sixty thousand yojanas surrounded by sevenfold walls with seven railings, seven ornamental nets, and seven lines of trees, and so on, with innumerable birds singing harmoniously together, just as before.”

            Another English translation of this passage from the later Chinese translation of the Lau-tan Sūtra as found in the Dīrghāgama, made by Angela Falco Howard, is found in her partial translation of this sūtra from her 1986 book, The Imagery of the Cosmological Buddha, p. 117:

“Between the Paranirmita and Brahmā Heavens is the palace of Brahmā deva, which extends for six thousand yojanas in both directions. The palace’s walls are seven-fold with seven balustrades, seven rows of trees with seven precious bells, and countless birds singing harmoniously to each other.”

            This translation differs from the 2018 translation in the number of yojanas in extent, six thousand instead of sixty thousand, and more significantly, the palace of Brahmā rather than the palace of Māra. However, this is almost certainly a slip on the part of Howard. Later in this sūtra as translated by Howard, we see that it is indeed “Māra’s Heaven” that is between the Paranirmitavaśavartin Heaven and the Brahmā Heavens, p. 154:

“There are twelve categories of sentient beings who belong to the Kamadhātu or World of Desire. Which are they? They are [the denizens of] hell, the animals, pretas, men, asuras, the Four Heavenly Kings, [those who live in] the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, Yama Heaven, Tuṣita Heaven, Nirmāṇarati Heaven, Paranirmitavaśavartin Heaven, Māra’s Heaven. There are twenty-two categories of sentient beings who belong to the Rupadhātu or World of Form. They are [the beings living in] Brahmā’s Heaven, in the Brahmakāyika Heaven, Brahmāpurohita Heaven, . . .”

            This is in turn confirmed in Ichimura’s 2018 translation of this same passage of the Dīrghagama, vol. 3, p. 244:

“There are twelve kinds of sentient beings in the realm of desire. What are the twelve? They are (1) hell beings, (2) animals, (3) hungry ghosts, (4) humans, (5) asuras, (6) the guardian gods, (7) the Trāyastriṃśa gods, (8) the Yama gods, (9) the Tuṣita gods, (10) the Nirmāṇarati gods, (11) the Paranirmitavaśavartin gods, and (12) the evil ones (Pāpīyas). There are twenty-two kinds of sentient beings in the realm of form: (1) the Brahmakāyika gods, (2) the Brahmapurohita gods, . . .”

            Yet with all this, we were still lacking a Sanskrit original to confirm the English translations of the Chinese translations, until found in the Mahāvastu. The Mahāvastu, one of the earliest Buddhist Sanskrit texts we have, is a text from the vinaya of the long-defunct Lokottara-vādin Mahā-sāṃghika Buddhists. Two passages in this text refer to the dwelling (bhavana) of Māra, the abode (ālaya) of Māra, and show clearly that this dwelling or abode of Māra is a distinct locality between the para-nirmita-vaśavartin heaven of the kāma-dhātu and the brahmā heavens of the rūpa-dhātu. Here there can be no question, since we have the original Sanskrit. The two passages from the Mahāvastu are:

śīlena pariśuddhena cyavantaṃ paśyate naraḥ |
vimānaṃ ruciraṃ śreṣṭhaṃ apsaro-gaṇa-sevitaṃ ||
śīlena pariśuddhena cyavantaṃ paśyate naraḥ |
sumeru-mūrdhne rucire trāyastriśānam ālaye ||
śīlena pariśuddhena yāmāṃ paśyati devatāṃ |
taṃ caiva nagaraṃ divyaṃ apsarāhi parisphuṭaṃ ||
śīlena pariśuddhena tuṣitāṃ paśyati devatāṃ |
vimānāṃ paśyati teṣāṃ vicitrāṃ ratanāmayāṃ ||
śīlena pariśuddhena nirmāṇa-ratīṃ paśyati |
sunirmitāṃ deva-putrāṃ paśyati ca svalaṃkṛtāṃ ||
śīlena pariśuddhena devāṃ paśyati śobhanāṃ |
para-nirmita-vaśavartī vimāneṣu pratiṣṭhitā ||
śīlena pariśuddhena paśyate māram ālayaṃ |
maṇi-vitāna-saṃchannaṃ apsaro-gaṇa-sevitaṃ ||
śīle ābhogaṃ kṛtvāna brahmāṃ paśyati devatāṃ |
jāṃbū-nada-vimānaṃ ca maṇīhi pratimaṇḍitaṃ ||
śīlavāṃ paśyate bhikṣu devāṃ ca brahma-kāyikāṃ |
brahma-purohitāṃ devāṃ vimānehi pratiṣṭhitāṃ ||

(Le Mahâvastu, edited by É. Senart, vol. 2, 1890, pp. 359-360)

            “Through his pure morality a man can see one passing away to the highest brilliant mansion, the resort of throngs of Apsarases.

            “Through his pure morality a man can see one passing away to the bright peak of Sumeru, the abode of the Trāyastriṃśa devas.

            “Through his pure morality he can see the Yāma devas, and that celestial city which is crowded by Apsarases.

            “Because of his perfectly pure morality he sees the Tuṣita devas; he sees their bright bejewelled mansions.

            “Because of his perfectly pure morality he sees the Nirmāṇarati devas, the devas (named) Sunirmita, makers of their own adornments.

            “Because of his perfectly pure morality he sees the shining Paranirmitavaśavartin devas standing in their own mansions.

            “Because of his perfectly pure morality he sees the abode of Māra, covered with a canopy of jewels and crowded by throngs of Apsarases.

            “Through fixing his mind on morality he sees the Brahmā devas and their mansion of Jāmbūnada gold begirt with jewels.

            “The moral monk sees the devas in Brahmā’s train, and the devas who are his priests, standing in their mansions.”

(The Mahāvastu, translated by J. J. Jones, vol. 2, 1952, p. 327)

atīva cāturmahārājikānāṃ devānāṃ bhavanāni pariśuddhāni paryavadātāni abhūṣi | atīva trāyastriṃśānāṃ yāmānāṃ tuṣitānāṃ nirmāṇa-ratīṇāṃ para-nirmita-vasavartināṃ devānāṃ bhavanāni pariśuddhāni paryavadātāni abhūṣi || atīva māra-bhavanāni dhyāmāni abhūnsuḥ | durvarṇā niṣprabhāṇi dhvajāgrāṇi māra-kāyikānāṃ devānāṃ māro ca pāpīmāṃ duḥkhī durmano vipratisārī dhyāmanta-varṇo anto-śalya-paridāgha-jāto || brahma-kāyikānāṃ devānāṃ bhavanāni pariśuddhāni paryavadātāni abhūnsuḥ | śuddhāvāsānāṃ devānāṃ bhavanāni pariśuddhāni paryavadātāni abhūnsuḥ |

(Le Mahâvastu, edited by É. Senart, vol. 2, 1890, p. 163)

“The abodes of the Cāturmahārājika devas became exceeding bright and pure, and so did the abodes of the Trāyastriṃśa devas, of the Yāma devas, of the Tuṣita devas, of the Nirmāṇarati devas, and of the Paranirmitavaśavartin devas. The abodes of Māra became exceeding gloomy. The standards of Māra’s companies became dulled and without lustre. And wicked Māra became unhappy, discomfited, remorseful, dark-visaged and tortured by the sting within him. The abodes of the Brahmā devas and of the Śuddhāvāsa devas became exceeding bright and pure.”

(The Mahāvastu, translated by J. J. Jones, vol. 2, 1952, p. 158)

            The probable reason why the teaching of the dwelling of Māra between the kāma-dhātu and the rūpa-dhātu did not become standard Buddhist doctrine is that it refers to an exceptional realm of existence, not a normal realm of existence. The Mahatma letter has been describing the states after death. It explains that the dwelling of this Māra is the allegorical image of the sphere called the “Planet of Death,” where the lives doomed to destruction disappear.

“Nor must you laugh, if ever you come across Pindha-Dhana or any other Buddhist Sutra and read: ‘Between the Kama-Loka and the Rupa-Loka there is a locality, the dwelling of “Mara” (Death). This Mara filled with passion and lust, destroys all virtuous principles, as a stone grinds corn.* His palace is 7000 yojanas square, and is surrounded by a seven-fold wall,’ for you will feel now more prepared to understand the allegory.”

“* This Mara, as you may well think, is the allegorical image of the sphere called the ‘Planet of Death’ — the whirlpool whither disappear the lives doomed to destruction. It is between Kama and Rupa–Lokas that the struggle takes place.”

            Earlier in the letter the “planet of Death” is referred to for the first time. Besides the two references to it in this letter, this mysterious place is referred to only one more time in the whole of the primary Theosophical writings, only to say in reply to Sinnett’s query about it, “A question I have no right to answer.” (Mahatma letter #23, chronological #93). Then follows in this letter a lengthy description of how a person may end up there. The letter concludes with the statement that this is very rare, an exception rather than the rule.

            “Every one but that ego which, attracted by its gross magnetism, falls into the current that will draw it into the ‘planet of Death’ — the mental as well as physical satellite of our earth — is fitted to pass into a relative ‘spiritual’ condition adjusted to his previous condition in life and mode of thought. To my knowledge and recollection H.P.B. explained to Mr. Hume that man’s sixth principle, as something purely spiritual could not exist, or have conscious being in the Deva-Chan, unless it assimilated some of the more abstract and pure of the mental attributes of the fifth principle or animal Soul: its manas (mind) and memory. When man dies his second and third principles die with him; the lower triad disappears, and the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh principles form the surviving Quaternary. (Read again page 6 in Fragments of O.T.)  Thenceforth it is a ‘death’ struggle between the Upper and Lower dualities. If the upper wins, the sixth, having attracted to itself the quintessence of Good from the fifth — its nobler affections, its saintly (though they be earthly) aspirations, and the most Spiritualised portions of its mind — follows its divine elder (the 7th) into the ‘Gestation’ State; and the fifth and fourth remain in association as an empty shell — (the expression is quite correct) — to roam in the earth’s atmosphere, with half the personal memory gone, and the more brutal instincts fully alive for a certain period — an ‘Elementary’ in short. This is the ‘angel guide’ of the average medium. If, on the other hand, it is the Upper Duality which is defeated, then, it is the fifth principle that assimilates all that there may be left of personal recollection and perceptions of its personal individuality in the sixth. But, with all this additional stock, it will not remain in Kama-Loka — ‘the world of Desire’ or our Earth’s atmosphere. In a very short time like a straw floating within the attraction of the vortices and pits of the Maelstrom, it is caught up and drawn into the great whirlpool of human Egos; while the sixth and seventh — now a purely Spiritual, individual MONAD, with nothing left in it of the late personality, having no regular ‘gestation’ period to pass through (since there is no purified personal Ego to be reborn), after a more or less prolonged period of unconscious Rest in the boundless Space — will find itself reborn in another personality on the next planet. When arrives the period of ‘Full Individual Consciousness’ — which precedes that of Absolute Consciousness in the Pari-Nirvana — this lost personal life becomes as a torn out page in the great Book of Lives, without even a disconnected word left to mark its absence. The purified monad will neither perceive nor remember it in the series of its past rebirths — which it would had it gone to the ‘World of Forms’ (rupa-loka) — and its retrospective glance will not perceive even the slightest sign to indicate that it had been. The light of Samma-Sambuddh —

                        ‘. . . that light which shines beyond our mortal ken

                        The line of all the lives in all the worlds’ —

throws no ray upon that personal life in the series of lives foregone.

            “To the credit of mankind, I must say, that such an utter obliteration of an existence from the tablets of Universal Being does not occur often enough to make a great percentage. In fact, like the much mentioned ‘congenital idiot’ such a thing is a lusus naturae — an exception, not the rule.”

            It may be that this teaching of a realm between the kāma-dhātu and the rūpa-dhātu, explained here as where the lives doomed to destruction disappear, dropped away from the Buddhist teachings for the same reason that it dropped away from the Theosophical teachings: as the Mahatma said, “I have no right to answer” Sinnett’s question about this mysterious “planet of death.” In the Theosophical teachings it pertains only to exceptions, where the life was so devoid of any redeeming qualities that the principles which make up the person go to annihilation without anything left to continue on to rebirth, thus breaking the connection with the spiritual individual monad that once animated that personality. In Buddhist terms, the series of sets of skandhas that make up a person and form an unbroken causal continuum of rebirth from life to life to life is broken. This is not something that the standard Buddhist teachings speak of.

            The dwelling of Māra referred to in these early Buddhist texts, the Dīrghāgama and the Mahāvastu, would in accordance with the Theosophical explanation refer to Māra as death, mṛtyu-māra; thus the dwelling of Māra is the planet of death. This Māra is not the more usual Māra of desire whose dwelling is the para-nirmita-vaśavartin heaven at the top of the kāma-dhātu: Māra the god, deva-putra-māra, who as personified desire has sway over the whole desire realm or kāma-dhātu. The Theosophical teachings attempted to explain the allegorical Buddhist teachings in straightforward language, thus giving out for the first time what was hitherto esoteric information. The Buddhist teaching of sukhāvatī or devachan (Tibetan, bde ba can), a pure buddha-field or pure land that Buddhists could aspire to go to after death, was explained as the after-death state that most people go to. Those who do not go to that state, the exceptions, had also to be accounted for. As exceptions, it was not necessary, and apparently was not permissible, to say much about them. Nonetheless, for the explanation of the after-death states to be complete, the dwelling of Māra or the planet of death had to at least be mentioned.

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            The kalahaṃsa, written more phonetically as kalahansa, is a particular kind of haṃsa (or hansa). A haṃsa is a goose, although it has often been translated as a swan, because this is more poetic for Western readers.¹ The term is not kālahaṃsa, where the first word would be kāla, meaning both “time” and “black.” Thus, the term does not mean the goose/swan of time, or the black goose/swan. The term is kalahaṃsa, where the first word is kala, meaning soft or low (as a tone). Thus, the term means the goose whose call is soft or low in relation to the sound made by other geese. Specifically, it is the name of the gray lag goose, a more soft-spoken goose, in contradistinction to the louder bar-headed goose.

A HAṂSA IS A GOOSE, NOT A SWAN

This was shown in a 1962 monograph by Jean Philippe Vogel that has become the standard work on the subject, The Goose in Indian Literature and Art. He writes in his Introduction, pp. 1-2:

            “In Sanskrit and Pali literature we frequently meet an aquatic bird called haṃsa and this word according to European dictionaries of those languages means not only a goose but also a swan and flamingo. In translations by western scholars haṃsa is usually not rendered by ‘goose’, but either by ‘swan’ or ‘flamingo’. This preference we can well understand. In this part of the world the goose, known chiefly in its degrading domesticated state, is looked upon as a homely animal unfit to enter the exalted realm of poetry. . . .

            “If we turn to ancient India we find the goose associated with conceptions and sentiments entirely different from those of the West. For the Indians the haṃsa is the noble bird par excellence worthy of being sung by poets like Kālidāsa and figured on religious monuments. The goose is the vehicle of Brahmā the Creator. In ancient fables he is the embodiment of the highest virtues and in Buddhist jātakas we meet him reborn as the Bodhisattva, the exalted being predestined to become the Buddha Śākyamuni.

            “But are we justified in identifying the haṃsa of Indian literature with the goose? Should we not follow our predecessors, including great scholars like Böhtlingk and Kern, and rather choose the swan or the flamingo, more graceful to the western eye than a plump goose? The question is: are we really allowed to make a choice? Or does Sanskrit haṃsa mean a goose and nothing else?”

Vogel concludes his book, p. 74:

            “The conclusion of our enquiry is perfectly clear. The goose is a favourite decorative device in Indian art from the time of Aśoka to the Mogul period. From Kashmir to Ceylon it is employed to adorn religious buildings both Buddhist and Brahmanical. The swan and the flamingo, on the contrary, do not occur. The evidence of Indian art is in perfect agreement with the observations of naturalists. We may therefore be certain that the Sanskrit word haṃsa always designates the goose and nothing else.”

WAS A HAṂSA EVER A SWAN?

            According to naturalists, swans are not now found in India, except occasionally as visitors at the northern fringes of the country. The two common species of geese found in India, the very numerous bar-headed goose and the much less numerous gray lag goose, are both largely gray in color. But based on a number of references in classical Sanskrit texts to the haṃsa as being white (śveta) in color, K. N. Dave in his detailed 1985 study, Birds in Sanskrit Literature (pp. 422-447), concluded that the haṃsa was originally a swan, which must have once been found in India. This is of course plausible, going back in time farther than all the sculptures surveyed by Vogel. This would take us close to Vedic times.

            The word haṃsa is found in the most ancient Vedic text, the Ṛg-veda, several times. None of these references describe it as being white in color. On the contrary, it is described there as “dark in colour on the back (nīla-pṛṣṭha)” (Vedic Index of Names and Subjects, vol. 2, p. 497). The verse is 7.59.7.² So this would not be a swan, which is all white. In fact, this would well describe the gray lag goose, which is darker gray in color on the back than is the bar-headed goose. The gray lag goose, we recall, is the kalahaṃsa, whose call is more mellow than that of the bar-headed goose.

NOTES

1. The practice of translating haṃsa as “swan” rather than “goose” started as early as 1813, and has been widely followed ever since. See, for example:

The Megha Duta; or, Cloud Messenger: A Poem, in the Sanscrit Language, translated by Horace Hayman Wilson, 1813, annotation on verse 71: “The Rájahansa, is described as a white Gander with red legs and bill, and together with the common Goose is a favorite bird in Hindu poetry: not to shock European prejudice, I have in all cases substituted for these birds, one to which we are rather more accustomed in verse, the Swan; . . .”

Nala and Damayanti, and Other Poems, translated by Henry Hart Milman 1835, p. 121: “There the swans he saw disporting.] In the original this is a far less poetic bird, and the author must crave forgiveness for having turned his geese into swans.”

2. Ṛg-veda 7.59.7, in various translations:

May the Maruts yet unrevealed, decorating their persons, descend like black-backed swans: . . . (H. H. Wilson, 1866)

Decking the beauty of their forms in secret the swans with purple backs have flown down hither. (Ralph T. H. Griffith, 1891)

Secretly adorning their bodies, the blue-backed swans have flown hereward. (H. D. Velankar, 1963)

Surely even in secret they [the Maruts] keep preening their bodies. The dark-backed geese have flown here. (Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, 2014)

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