Theosophical Glossary Print

7/29/2019 Theosophical Glossary Print

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GLOSSARY 343

tomism was taught with regard to the nature of all Buddhas. Bodhibeing the characteristic of a Buddhaa distinction was made bet weenessential Bodhi as the attribute of the Dharmakya, i.e. , e ssentialbody; reflected Bodhi as the attribute of Sambhogakya; andpractical Bodhi as t he at tribute of Nirmnakya. Buddha combiningin himself t hese three conditions of exi stence, was said to be living atthe same t ime in three different spheres. Now, this shows how greatlymisunderstood is the purely pantheistical and philosophical teaching.

Without stopping to enquire how even a Dharmakya vesture can haveany attribute in Nirvna, which state is shown, in philosophicalBrahmanism as much as in Buddhism, to be absolutely devoid of anyattribute as conceived by human finite thoughtit will be su fficient topoint to the following:() the Nirmnakya ves ture is preferred by theBuddhas of Compassion to that of the Dharmakya state, preciselybecause the latter precludes him who attains it from anycommunication or relation with the finite, i.e. , with humanity; () i t isnot Buddha (Gautama, the mortal man, or any other personal Buddha)who lives u biquitously in three different s pheres, at t he same time,but Bodhi, the universal and abstract principle of divine wisdom,symbolised in philosophy by di-Buddha. I t is the latter that i subiquitous because i t is the universal essence o r p rinciple. It is Bodhi, orthe spirit of Buddhaship, which, having resolved itself into itsprimordial homogeneous essence and merged into it, as Brahm (theuniverse) merges into Parabrahm, t he ABSOLUTENESS that is meantunder the name of essential Bodhi. For the Nirvanee, or DhyaniBuddha, must be supposedby living in Arpadhtu, the formless state,and in Dharmakyato be that essential Bodhi itself. It is theDhyni Bodhisattvas, the primordial rays of t he universal Bodhi, wholive in reflected Bodhi in Rpadhtu, or the world of subjectiveforms; and it i s the Nirmnakyas (plural) who upon ceasing theirlives of practical Bodhi, in the enlightened or Buddha forms,remain voluntarily in the Kmadhtu (the world of desire), whether inobjective forms on earth or i n subjective states i n its sphere (t he secon dBuddhakshetra). This they do in order to watch over, protect and helpmankind. Thus, it is neither one Buddha who is meant, nor anyparticular avatar of the collective Dhyni Buddhas, bu t ver ily di-Bodhi the first Logos, whose primordial ray is Mahbuddhi, theUniversal Soul, A LAYA , whose flame is ub iquitous, and whose i nfluencehas a d ifferent sphere in each of the three f orms of exi stence, because,once again, it i s Universal B eing itself or the reflex of t he Absolute .Hence, if it is philosophical to speak of Bodhi, which as DhyniBuddha rules in the domain of the spiritual (fourth Buddhakshetra or

region of Buddha); and of the


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Dhyni Bodhisattvas ruling in the third Buddhakshetra or thedomain of ideation; and even of the Mnushi Buddhas, who are in thesecond Buddhakshetra as Nirmnakyasto apply the idea of a unityin trinity to three personalities is highly unphilosophical.

Trishn (Sk. ). The fourth Nidna; spiritual love.Trishla (Sk. ). The t rident of Shiva.Trisuparna (Sk. ). A certain portion of the Veda , af ter thoroughly

studying which a Brhman is also called a Trisuparna.Trithemius . An abbot of t he Spanheim Benedictines, a very learned

Kabbalist and adept in the Secret Sciences, the friend and instructor ofCornelius Agrippa.

Triton (Gr .). The san of Poseidon and Amphitrite, whose body fromthe waist upwards was that of a man and whose lower limbs were thoseof a dolphin. Triton belongs i n esoteric interpretation to the group offish symbolssuch as Oannes (Dagon), the Matsya or F ish-avatar , andthe Pisces , as adopted in the Christian symbolism. The dolphin is aconstellation called by the Greeks Capricornus , an d the latter i s th eIndian Makra . It has thus an anagrammatical significance, and itsinterpretation is en tirely occult a nd mystical, and is kn own only to theadvanced students of Esoteric Philosophy. S uffice to say that i t i s asphysiological as i t i s spiritual and mystical. (See Secret Doctrine II., pp.

an d .)Trividha Dvra (Sk. ). Lit. , the t hree gat es, which are body, mouth,

and mind; or purity of body, purity of speech, purity of t houghtthethree vi rtues requisite for becoming a Buddha.

Trividy (Sk. ). Lit. , the three knowledges or sciences. These arethe three fundamental axioms in mysticism( a) the impermanency ofall existence, or Anitya ; ( b) suffering and misery o f all that l ives an d is,or Dukha ; and ( c) al l p hysical, ob jective existence as ev anescent an dunreal as a water-bubble in a dream, or Antm .

Trivikrama (Sk. ).An epithet of V ishnu used in the Rig Veda inrelation to the t hree s teps of Vishnu. The first step he t ook on earth,in the form of Agni; the second in the atmosphere, in the form of Vyu,god of the ai r; and the t hird in the sky, in the shape of Srya, the sun.

Triyna (Sk. ). The three vehicles across Sansrathe ocean ofbirths, deaths, and rebirthsare the vehicles cal led Sravaka, PratyekaBuddha and Bodhisattva , or t he three degrees of Y ogaship. The termTriyna is also used to denote the three schools of mysticismtheMahyna, Madhyimyna and Hinayna schools; of which the first isthe Greater, the second the Middle, and the last t he LesserVehicle. All and every system between the Greater and the LesserVehicles are co nsidered useless. Therefore the Pratyeka


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Buddha is made to correspond with the Madhyimyna. For, asexplained, this (the Pratyeka Buddha state) refers to him who lives al lfor himself and very little for others, occup ying the middle of thevehicle, filling it al l and leaving no room for o thers. Such is t he selfishcandidate for Nirvna.

Tsanagi-Tsanami ( Jap .). A kind of creative god in Japan.Tsien-Sin (Chin .). The Heaven of Mind, Universal Ideation and

Mahat, when applied to the plane of differentiation Tien-Sin ( q.v. )when referring to the Absolute.

Tsien-Tchan (Ch .). The universe of form and matter.Tsi-tsai (Chin .). The Sel f-Existent or t he Unknown Darkness, the

root of Wuliang Sheu , Boundless Age, all Kabbalistic terms, whichwere used in China ages before the Hebrew Kabbalists adopted them,borrowing them from Chaldea and Egypt.

Tubal-Cain (Heb .). T he Biblical Kabir, an instructor of everyartificer in brass and iron, the son of Zillah and Lamech; one with theGreek Hephstos or Vulcan. His brother Jabal, the son of Adah and theco-uterine brother of J abal, one the father of t hose who handle theharp and organ, and the other t he father of such as h ave cat tle, arealso Kabiri: for, as shown by Strabo, it is t he Kabiri (or C yclopes in onesense) who made the harp for Kronos and the trident for Poseidon,while some of t heir other brothers were instructors in agriculture.Tubal-Cain (or Thubal-Cain) is a w ord used in the Master-Mason'sdegree in the ritual and ceremonies of the Freemasons.

Tullia (Lat .). A daughter of Cicero, in whose tomb, as claimed byseveral alchemists, was found burning a perpetual lamp, placed theremore than a thousand years previously.

Tum , or Toom The Brothers of the Tum, a very ancient school ofInitiation in Northern India in the days of B uddhist per secution. TheTum B'hai have now become the Aum B'hai, spelt, however,

differently at pre sent, both schools having merged into one. The firstwas composed of Kshatriyas, the second of Brahmans. The wordTum has a d ouble meaning, that of darkness (absolute darkness),which as absolute is higher than the highest and purest of lights, and asense resting on the mystical greeting among Initiates, Thou art thou,thyself, equivalent t o saying Thou art on e with the In finite an d the

All.Turya (Sk. ). A state of t he deepest t rancethe fourth state of t he

Traka Rja Yoga, one that corresponds with tm, and on this earthwith dreamless sleepa caus al condition.

Turya Avasth (Sk. ). Almost a Nirvnic state in Samdhi, which


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is i tself a beatific st ate of the contemplative Yoga beyond this p lane. Acondition of t he higher T riad, quite distinct ( though still inseparable)from the conditions of Jagrat (waking), Svapna (dreaming), andSushupti (sleeping).

Tushita (Sk. ). A class of gods of great purity in the Hindu Pantheon.In exoteric or p opular N orthern Buddhism, it is a D eva-loka, a cel estialregion on the material plane, where all t he Bodhisattvas ar e reborn ,before they descend on this earth as future Buddhas.

Tyndarus (Gr .). King of Lacedmon the fabled husband of Leda, themother of Castor and Pollux and of Helen of Troy.

Typhus (Gr .). A famous giant, who had a hundred heads like thoseof a serpent or dragon, and who was the reputed father of the Winds, asSiva was that of the Marutsalso winds. He made war against thegods, and is identical with the Egyptian Typhon.

Typhon (Eg .). An aspect or s hadow of Osiris. Typhon is not, asPlutarch asserts, the distinct E vil Principle or t he Satan of t he Jews;but r ather t he lower cosmic principles of the divine body of Osiris,the god in themOsiris being the personified universe as an ideation,and Typhon as that same universe in its material realization. The t wo inone are Vishnu-Siva. The true meaning of the Egyptian myth is thatTyphon is the terrestrial and material envelope of Osiris, who is theindwelling spirit t hereof. In chapter of the Ritual (Book of theDead), Typhon is described as Set, formerly called Thoth.Orientalists find themselves greatly perplexed by discovering Set-Typhon addressed in some papyri as a great and good god, and inothers as the embodiment of evil. But is not Siva, one of the HinduTrimrti , described in some places as the best and most bountiful ofgods, an d at o ther t imes, a dark, b lack, d estroying, t errible andfierce god? Did not Loki, t he Scandinavian Typhon, after havingbeen described in earlier t imes as a beneficent being, as t he god of fire,the p residing genius of t he p eaceful domestic h earth, suddenly lose cas teand become forthwith a power of evil, a cold-hell Satan and a demon ofthe worst kind? There is a good reason for such an invariabletransformation. So long as these dual gods, symbols of good andnecessary evil, of l ight an d darkness, keep closely allied, i.e. , stand for acombination of differentiated human qualities, or of t he element theyrepresentthey are simply an embodiment of the average personal god.No sooner, however, are t hey separated into two entities, each with itstwo characteristics, t han they become respectively the two oppositepoles of good and evil, of light and darkness; they become in short, twoindependent an d distinct en tities or rat her personalities . I t i s only by

dint of s ophistry that t he Churches have succeeded to this day inpreserving in the minds of the


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few the Jewish deity in his primeval integrity. Had they been logicalthey would have separated Christ from Jehovah, light and goodnessfrom darkness and badness. And this was what happened to OsirisTyphon;but no Orientalist has understood it, and thus their perplexitygoes on increasing. Once acceptedas in the case of the Occultistsasan integral part o f Osiris, just as A hriman is an inseparable part o f

Ahura Mazda, and the Serpent of Genesis the dark aspect of theElohim, blended into our Lord Godevery difficulty in the nature ofTyphon disappears. Typhon is a later name of Set, later but ancientasearly in fact a s the fourth Dynasty; for in the Ritual one reads: OTyphon-Set! I i nvoke t hee, terrible, invisible, all-powerful god of gods,thou who destroyest and renderest desert. Typhon belongs mostdecidedly to the same symbolical category as Siva the Destroyer, andSaturnthe dark god. In the Book of the Dead , Set, in his b attle withThoth (wisdom)who is his spiritual counterpartis emasculated asSaturn-Kronos was and Ouranos before him. As Siva is closelyconnected with the bull Nandian aspect of Brahm-Vishnu, thecreative and preserving powersso is Set-Typhon allied with the bull

Apis, both bulls being sacred to, and As Typhon was originally worshipped as an upright stone , the p hallus, so

is Siva to this day represented and worshipped as a l ingham. Siva isSaturn. Indeed, Typhon-Set seems to have served as a prototype formore t han one god of the later r itualistic cycle, including even the godof the Jew s, some of his ritualistic observances having passed bodily intothe code of laws and the can on of religious rites of the ch osen people.

Who of the Bible-worshippers knows the origin of the ez oraza ) sent into the wilderness as an atonement? Do they know that agesbefore t he exodus of Moses the goat was sacred to Typhon, and that itis over t he head of that Typhonic goat that the Egyptians confessedtheir sins, after which the animal was turned into the desert? And

Aaron shall take the scapegoat (Azzel) head of the live goat, and confess over h im all t he iniquities of t hechildren of Israel . . . and shall send him away . . . into the wilderness(Levit ., xvi.). And as the goat of the Egyptians made an atonement withTyphon, so the goat of the Israelites made an atonement b efore theLord ( Ibid ., v. ). Thus, if one only remembers that everyanthropomorphic creative god was with the philosophical ancients theLife-giver and the Death-dealerOsiris and Typhon, Ahura Mazdaand Ahriman, etc., etc.it will be easy for him to comprehend theassertion made b y the Occultists, that Typhon was but a symbol for thelower quaternary, the ever conflicting an d turbulent principles of


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differentiated chaotic matter, whether in the Universe or i n Man, whileOsiris symbolized the higher s piritual triad. Typhon is acc used in theRitual of being one who steals reason from the soul. Hence, he isshown fighting with Osiris and cutting him into fourteen (twice seven)pieces, after which, left without h is cou nterbalancing power of go odand light, he remains steeped in evil and darkness. In this way t he fabletold by Plutarch becomes comprehensible as an allegory. He assertsthat, overcome in his fight with Horus, Typhon fled seven days on anass, and escaping begat t he boys Ierosolumos and Ioudaios. Now asTyphon was worshipped at a later period under the form of an ass, andas the name of the ass is AO, or (phonetically) IAO, the vowelsmimicking the braying of the animal, it becomes evident t hat Typhonwas purposely blended with the name of the Jewish God, as the twonames of Judea and Jerusalem, begotten by Typhonsufficientlyimply.

Twashtri (Sk. ). The same as V ishwakarman, the divine artist, thecarpenter and weapon-maker of the gods. (See Vishwakarman.)

Tzaila (Heb .). A rib; see Genesis for t he myth of the creation of thefirst woman from a rib of Adam, the first man. I t i s curious that noother myth describes anything like t his rib process, except the H ebrewBible. Other similar Hebrew words are Tzela, a fall, and Tzelem, the

image of G od. Inman remarks that the ancient Jews were fond ofpunning conceits, and sees one herethat Adam fell , on account of awoman , whom God made in his image , from a fall in the man's side.[w.w.w.]

Tzelem (Heb .). An image, a shadow. The shadow of the physical bodyof a man, also the as tral body Linga Sharra . (See Tzool-mah.)

Tzim-tzum (Kab .). Expansion and contraction, or, as some Kabbalistsexplain itthe cen trifugal and centripetal energy.

Tziruph (Heb )A set of combinations and permutations of the Hebrewletters designed to shew analogies and preserve secr ets. For example, inthe form called Atbash, A and T were substitutes, B and Sh, G and R,etc. [w.w.w.]

Tzool-mah (Kab .). Lit. , shadow. It i s stated in the Zohar (I. , a,i. fo l. a, col. .), that d uring the last s even nights of a mans l ife,the Neshczmah , his spirit, leaves him and the shadow, tzool-mah , acts n olonger, his body casting no shadow; and when the tzool-mah disappearsentirely, t hen Ruach and Nephesh the soul and lifego with it. It hasbeen often urged that in Kabbalistic philosophy there were but t hree,and, with the Body, Guff , four p rinciples. It can be easi ly shown thereare seven, and several subdivisions more, for t here ar e the u pper an dthe lower Neshamah (the dual Manas); Ruach , Spirit or


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Buddhi; Nephesh (Kma) which has no light from her own substance,but is associated with the Guff , Body; Tzelem , Phantom of the Image;and D'yooknah , Shadow of the Phantom Image, or Myvi Rpa . Thencome the Zurath , Prototypes, an d Tab-nooth , Form; and finally,Tzurah , The highest Principle (tman) which remains above, etc.,etc. (See M yer's Qabbalah , pp. et. seq .)

Tzuphon (Heb .). A name for Boreas, the Northern Wind, whichsome of the old Israelites deified and worshipped.

Tzurah (Heb .). The divine prototype in the Kabbalah . In Occultism itembraces tm-Buddhi-Manas, the Highest T riad; t he eternal divineIndividual . The p lural is tzurath .

Tzure (Heb .). Almost t he same as the above: the prototype of theImage tzelem ; a Kabbalistic term used in reference to the so-calledcreation of the divine and the human Adam, of which the Kabala (orKabbalah ) has four t ypes, agreeing with the root-races of m en. The

Jewish Occultists knew of no Adam and, refusing to recognisfirst human race Humanity with Its Adam, spoke only of primordialsparks.


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UU. The twenty-first letter of the Latin alphabet, which has no

equivalent i n Hebrew. As a number, however, it i s considered verymystical bo th by the Pythagoreans and the Kabbalists, as it i s theproduct of x . T he latter con sider i t t he most sacred of t he oddnumbers, as is the sum of the numerical value of the Divine Nameaeie , or eiea , or ag ain aheihe thus (read backward, aheihe ):

he i he a + + + = .

In Alchemy it symbolizes the twenty-one days necessary for thetransmutation of baser m etals into silver.

Uasar (Eg .). The same as Osiris, the latter name being Greek. Uasar isdescribed as the Egg-born , like Brahm. He is the egg-sprung Erosof Aristophanes, whose creative energy brings al l things i nto existence;the demiurge who made and animates the world, a being who is a sortof personification of Amen, the invisible god, as Dionysos is a linkbetween mankind and the Zeus Hypsistos (The Great Dionysiak Myth ,Brown). Isis i s called Uasi , as sh e i s t he Sakti of Osiris, his female asp ect,both symbolizing the creating, en ergising, vital forces o f nature in itsaspect of male an d female deity.

Uchchaih-Sravas (Sk. ). The model-horse; one of the fourteenprecious things or Jewels produced at the Churning of the Ocean by thegods. The white horse of Indra, called the Rj of horses.

Uchncha , a lso Buddhchncha (Sk. ). Explained as a p rotuberance onBuddha's cranium, forming a hair-tuft. This curious description is

given by the O rientalists, varied by another w hich states that Uchnichawas originally a conical or flame-shaped hair t uft on the crown of aBuddha, in later ages r epresented as a f leshy excrescence on the skullitself. T his ought t o read quite the reverse; f or esot eric philosophywould say: Originally an orb with the third eye in it, which degeneratedlater in the human race into a fleshy protuberance, to disappeargradually, l eaving in its place b ut an occasional flame-coloured aura,perceived only through clairvoyance, and when the exuberance ofspiritual energy causes t he (now concealed) t hird eye to radiate itssuperfluous magnetic power. At this period of our racial development, itis of course the Buddhas or Initiates alone who enjoy in full thefaculty of the t hird eye, as i t is more o r l ess atrophied in everyone el se.


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Udna (Sk ) Extemporaneous speeches; also Stras. In philosophy theterm applies to the physical organs of speech, such as tongue, mouth,voice, etc. In sacred literature i n general, it is t he n ame of those Straswhich contain extemporaneous di scourses, in distinction to the Strasthat contain only that subject matter which is introduced by questionsput to Gautama the Buddha and his replies.

Udayana (Sk. ). Modern Peshawer. The classic land of sorcery ,according to Hiouen-Thsang.

Udayana Rj (Sk. ). A king of Kausmbi, called Vatsarj, who wasthe first to have a statue of Buddha made before his death; inconsequence of which, say the Roman Catholics , who build statues of

Madonnas and Saints at every street cornerhe became the ori ginatorof Buddhist IDOLATRY .Udra Rmaputra (Sk. ). Udra, the son of Rma. A Brahman ascetic,

who was for some years the Guru of Gautama Buddha.Udumbara (Sk. ). A lotus of gigantic size, sacred to Buddha: the Nila

Udumbara or blue lotus, regarded as a supernatural omen when everit b lossoms, for i t f lowers but on ce every three t housand years. Onesuch, it is said, burst forth before t he birth of Gautama, another, near alake at t he foot of the H imalayas, in the fourteenth century, just beforethe birth of Tsong-kha-pa, etc., etc. The same is said of the Udumbaratree ( ficus glomerata ) b ecause i t f lowers at i ntervals o f l ong centuries, asdoes also a kind of cactus, which blossoms only at extra ordinaryaltitudes and opens at midnight.

Ullambana (Sk. ). T he festival o f al l souls, t he prototype of AllSouls' Day in Christian lands. It is held in China on the seventh moonannually, when both Buddhist an d Tauist p riests read masses, t orelease the souls of those who died on land or sea from purgatory,scatter r ice to feed Prtas [ classes o f demons ever h ungry and thirsty],consecrate domestic ancestral shrines,. . . . . recite Tantras . . .accompanied by magic finger-play (mdra) to comfort t he ancestralspirits of s even generations in Nraka (a kind of purgatory or KmaLoka ). The author of the Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary thinks t hat t his i sthe old Tibetan (Bhon) Gtorma ritual engrafted upon Confucianancestral worship, owing to Dhamaraksha translating the UllambanaStra and introducing it i nto China. The said Stra is certainly aforgery, as it gi ves t hese ri tes on the authority of Skyamuni Buddha,and supports i t b y the alleged experiences o f h is principal disciples,

nanda being said to have appeased Pretas by food offercorrectly stated by Mr. Eitel, the whole theory, with the ideas ofintercessory prayers, priestly litanies and requiems, and ancestralworship, is


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entirely foreign to ancient and Southern Buddhism. And to theNorthern too, if we except t he sects of B hootan and Sikkim, of theBhon or Dugpa persuasionthe red cap s , in short. As the cer emonies of

All Saints' Day, or days, are known to ain the third century (-) , and as the same Roman Catholicceremonial and ritual for the dead, held on November nd , did notexist in those ear ly days o f Christianity, it cannot be the Chinese whoborrowed this religious custom from the Latins, but r ather t he latterwho imitated the Mongolians and Chinese.

Uller (Scand .). The go d of archery, who journeys ov er the silvery i ce-ways on skates. He is the patron of the chase during that period whenthe Sun passes over t he constellation of Sagittarius; and lives i n theHome of the Light-Elves which is in the Sun and outside of Asgard.

Ulom (Pnic .) The intelligible deity. T he objective or materialUniverse, in the theogony of Mochus. The reflection of the ever-concealed deity; the Plerma of the Gnostics.

Ulphilas (Scand .). A schoolman who made a new alphabet for theGoths in the fourth centurya union of Greek letters with the form ofthe runic alphabet, since which time the runes began to die out andtheir secret w as grad ually lost. (See Runes.) H e translated the Bibleinto Gothic, preserved in the Codex Argenteus .

Ulp (Sk. ). A daughter of Kauravya, King of the Ngas in Ptla (t henether world, or more correctly, the Antipodes, America). Exoterically,she was t he daughter of a king or ch ief of an aboriginal tribe of t heNgas, or Nagals (ancient adepts) in pre-historic AmericaMexicomost l ikely, or Uruguay. She was married to Arjuna, the disciple ofKrishna, whom every tradition, oral and written, shows t ravelling fivethousand years ago to Ptla (t he Antipodes). The Purnic t ale is bas edon a historical fact. Moreover, Ulpi, as a name, has a Mexican ring init, like A tlan, Aclo, etc.

Um-Kany (Sk. ). Lit. , Virgin of Light; a title ill-befitting itspossessor, as it was that of Durg Kl, the goddess or female aspect ofSiva. Human flesh was offered to her every autumn; and, as Durg, shewas the patroness of t he once murderous Thugs of I ndia, and thespecial goddess of Tntrika sorcery. But in days o f old it was not as it isnow. The earliest mention of the title Um-Kany is found in theKena -Upanishad ; in it t he now blood-thirsty Kl, was a b enevolentgoddess, a being of light and goodness, who brings about reconciliationbetween Brahm and the gods. She is Saraswati and she is Vch. Inesoteric symbology, K l is the dual type of the dual soulthe divineand the human, the light and the dark soul of man.


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Umbra (Lat .). The shadow of an earth-bound spook. The ancientLatin races d ivided man (in esoteric t eachings) into seven principles, asdid every old system, and as Theosophists do now. They believed thatafter d eath Anima , the pure divine soul, ascended to heaven, a place o fbliss; Manes (the Kma Rpa) descended into Hades (Kma Loka); andUmbra (or as tral double, the Linga Sharra ) remained on earth hoveringabout i ts t omb, because t he at traction of physical, objective matter an daffinity to its earthly body kept it within the places which that body hadimpressed with its emanations. Therefore, they said that n othing butthe astral image of the defunct could be seen on earth, and even thatfaded out with the disintegration of the last particle of the body whichhad been so long its dwelling.

Una (Sk. ). Something underlying; subordinate; secondary also, andmaterial.

Undines (Lat .). Water nymphs and spooks. One of the four principalkinds of el emental s pirits, which are Salamanders (fire), Sylphs (air),Gnomes (earth), and Undines (water).

Updna (Sk. ). Material Cause; as f lax is the cau se of linen.Updna Kranam (Sk. ). The material cause of an effect.Updhi (Sk. ). Basis; t he vehicle, car rier o r b earer o f something less

material than itself: as the human body is the updhi of i ts s pirit, etherthe updhi of light, etc., etc.; a m ould; a d efining or l imiting substance.

Upadvpas (Sk. ). The root (underlying) o f islands; dry land.Upanishad (Sk. ). Translated as eso teric doctrine, o r i nterpretation

of the Vedas by the Vednta methods. The third division of the Vedasappended to the Brhmanas and regarded as a portion of Sruti orrevealed word. T hey are, however, as records, far o lder t han theBrhmanas the exception of the tw o, still extant, attached to the Rig-Veda of the Aitareyins. The term Upanishad is explained by the Hindupundits as that which destroys ignorance, and thus produces

liberation of the spirit, through the knowledge of the supreme thoughhidden truth; the same, therefore, as that which was hinted at by Jesus,when he is made to say, And ye shall know the truth, and the truthshall make you free ( John viii. ). It i s from these treatises o f t heUpanishads themselves the echo of the primeval Wisdom-Religionthat the Vednta system of philosophy has been developed. (SeeVednta.) Yet old as the Upanishads may be, the Orientalists will notassign to the oldest of them more than an antiquity of years B.C.The accepted number of these treatises is , though now no morethan about t wenty are left u nadulterated. They treat of ver y abstruse,metaphysical questions, such as t he origin of t he Universe; the natureand the


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essence of the Unmanifested Deity and the manifested gods theconnection, primal and ultimate, of spirit an d matter; the universalityof mind and the nature of the human Soul and Ego.

The Upanishads must be far more ancient than the days of Buddhism,as they show no preference for, nor d o they uphold, the superiority ofthe Brahmans as a cas te. On the contrary, it is the (now) second caste,the Kshatriya, or warrior cl ass, who are exal ted in the oldest of them. Asstated by Professor Cowell in Elphinstone's History of In dia theybreathe a f reedom of spirit unknown to any ear lier work except the RigVeda. . . The great teachers of t he higher knowledge and Brahmans ar econtinually represented as going to Kshatriya Kings to become their

pupils . The Kshatriya Kings were in the olden times, like the KingHierophants of Egypt, the receptacles of the highest divine knowledgeand wisdom, the Elect and the incarnations of t he primordial divineInstructorsthe Dhyni Buddhas or Kumras. There was a time, onsbefore the Brahmans became a caste, or even the Upanishads werewritten, when there was on earth but one lip, one religion and onescience, namely, the speech of the gods, the Wisdom-Religion andTruth. This was before t he fair fields of the latter, overrun by nations ofmany languages, became overgrown with the weeds of intentionaldeception, and national creeds invented by ambition, cruelty andselfishness, broke the one sacred Truth into thousands of fragments.

Upanita. (Sk. ). One who is invested with the Brahmanical thread; lit. ,brought to a spiritual teacher or Guru.

Uparati (Sk ) Absence o f outgoing desires; a Yoga state.Upsaka (Sk. ). Male chelas or rather devotees. Those who without

entering the priesthood vow to preserve the principal commandments.Upsik (Sk. ). Female ch elas or d evotees.Upasruti (Sk. ). According to Orientahists a supernatural voice which

is heard at n ight r evealing the secrets of t he future. According to theexplanation of Occultism, the voice of any person at a distancegenerally one vers ed in the mysteries of esoteric t eachings or an adeptendowed with the gift of projecting both his voice an d astral image t oany person whatsoever, regardless of distance. The upasruti may revealthe secrets of the future, or may only inform the person it addresses ofsome prosaic fact o f t he present; yet i t will still be an upasruti thedouble or t he echo of the voice of a living man or woman.

Upeksh (Sk. ). Lit. , Renunciation. In Yoga a state of absoluteindifference attained by self-control, the complete mastery over o ne'smental and physical feelings an d sensations.

Ur (Chald .). T he chief seat o f lunar worship; t he Babylonian citywhere


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the moon was the chief deity, and whence Abram brought the Jewishgod, who is so inextricably connected with the moon as a creative andgenerative d eity.

Urus (Gr .). In Egyptian Urhek , a serpent a nd a sacred symbol. Somesee i n it a co bra, while others say it is an asp. Cooper exp lains t hat theasp is not a u rus but a cer astes, or kind of viper, i.e. , a two-hornedviper. It i s t he ro yal serpent, wearing the pschent . . . t he naya h je . Theurus is round the disk of Horus and forms the ornament of the cap ofOsiris, besides overhanging the brows of ot her d ivinities (Bonwick).Occultism explains that the urus is the symbol of initiation and also ofhidden wisdom, as the serpent always is. The gods were all patrons ofthe hierophants and their instructors.

Uragas (Sk. ). The Ngas (serpents) dwelling in Ptla the netherworld or hell, in popular thought; the Adepts, High Priests and Initiatesof Central and South America, known to the ancient Aryans; where

Arjuna wedded the daughter of the king of the Ngas Ulpi.Nagalism or N ga-worship prevails to this day in Cuba and Hayti, andVoodooism, the chi ef branch of the former, has found its way into NewOrleans. In Mexico the ch ief sorcerers, the medicine men, are cal ledNagals to this day; just as thousands of years ago the Chaldean and

Assyrian High Priests were called Nargals , they being chiefs of the Magi

(Rab.Mag), the office held at one time by the prophet Daniel. Theword Nga , wise serpent, has beco me universal, because it i s on e ofthe few words that have survived the wreck of the first universallanguage. In South as well as in Central and North America, theaborigines use the word, from Behring Straits down to Uruguay, whereit means a ch ief, a teacher and a serpent. The very word Uragamay have reached India and been adopted through its connection, inprehistoric times, with South America an d Uruguay itself, for the namebelongs to the American Indian vernacular. The origin of t he Uragas,for all that the Orientalists know, may have been in Uruguai, as thereare legends about them which locate t heir ancestors the N gas in Ptla ,the antipodes, or America.

Uranides (Gr .). One of the names of the divine Titans, those whorebelled against Kronos, the p rototypes of the Christian fallen an gels.

Urim (Heb .). See Thummim. The Urim and Thummimoriginated in Egypt, and symbolized the Two Truths , the t wo figures ofRa and Thmei being engraved on the breastplate of the Hierophant andworn by him during the initiation ceremonies. Diodorus adds that thisnecklace of gold and precious stones was worn b y the High


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Priest when delivering judgment. Thme (plural Thmin ) means Truthin Hebrew. The Septuagint translates thummim, as Truth (Bonwick).The late Mr. Proctor, the astronomer, shows the Jewish idea deriveddirectly from the Egyptians. But Philo Judus affirms that Urim andThummim were the two small images of Revelation and Truth, putbetween the double folds of t he breastplate, and passes ov er t he latter,with its twelve st ones typifying the twelve si gns of t he Zodiac, withoutexplanation.

Urlak (Scand .). The same as Orlog ( q.v. ). Fate; an impersonalpower bestowing gifts blindly on mortals; a kind of Nemesis.

Urvas (Sk. ). A divine nymph, mentioned in the Rig-Veda , whose

beauty set the whole heaven ablaze. Cursed by the gods she descendedto earth and settled there. The loves of Purravas (the Vikrama), andthe nymph Urvasi are the subject of Klidsa's world-famous drama, theVikramorvasi .

Usanas (Sk. ). The planet Venus or S ukra; or rather the ruler andgovernor of that planet.

Ushas (Sk. ). The dawn, the daughter of hea ven; the same as the Aurora of the Latins and the of the Greeks. She is first mentioned

in the Vedas , wherein her name is also Ahan and Dyotan (theilluminator), and is a most p oetical and fascinating image. She is theever-faithful friend of men, of rich and poor, though she is bel ieved toprefer t he l atter. She sm iles u pon and visits t he dwelling of every l ivingmortal. She i s t he immortal, ever-youthful virgin, the l ight of t he poor,and the destroyer of darkness.

Uttara Mmns (Sk. ). The second of the two Mmansasthe firstbeing Prva (first) Mmns, which form respectively the fifth and sixthof the Darshanas or schools of philosophy. The Mmns are includedin the generic name of Vednta , though it i s the Uttara (by Vysa)which is really the Vednta .

Uzza (Heb .). The name of an angel who, together with Azrael,opposed, as the Zohar teaches, the creation of man by the Elohim, forwhich the l atter annihilated both.


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VV. The twenty-second letter of t he Latin alphabet. Numerically it

stands for ; hence t he Roman V (with a dash) stands for ,. The Western Kabbalists have connected it with the divine Hebrew name

IHVH. The Hebrew Vau , however, being number , it is only by beingidentical with the W, that it can ever becom e a proper symbol for t hemale-female, and spirit-matter. The equivalent for t he Hebrew Vau is

YO, and in numerals . Vch (Sk. ). To call Vch speech simply, i s deficient i n clearness.Vch is the mystic personification of speech, and the female Logos ,being one with Brahm, who created her out of one-half of his body,which he divided into two portions; she is also one with Virj (calledthe female Virj) who was created in her by Brahm. In one senseVch is speech by which knowledge was taught to man; in anothershe is the mystic, secret speech which descends upon and enters intothe primeval Rishis, as the t ongues of fire are s aid to have sat uponthe ap ostles. For, she is called the female creat or, the m other of t heVedas , etc. , etc. Esoterically, she i s the su bjective Creat ive Force w hich,emanating from the Creative Deity (the subjective Universe, itsprivation, or ideation ) becomes the manifested world of speech , i.e. ,the concrete exp ression of i deation , hence the Word or Logos. Vch isthe male and female Adam of the first chapter of Genesis , and thuscalled Vch-Virj by the sages . (See Atharva Veda .) She is al so thecelestial Saraswat produced from the heavens, a voice derived fromspeechless Brahm ( Mahbhrata ); the goddess of wisdom andeloquence. She i s called Sata-rpa , the goddess of a hundred forms .

Vacuum (Lat .). The symbol of t he absolute Deity or BoundlessSpace, esoterically. Vhana (Sk. ). A vehicle, the carrier o f something immaterial andformless. All the gods and goddesses are, therefore, represented as usingvahanas to manifest themselves, which vehicles are ever symbolical. So,for instance, Vishnu has during Pralayas, Ananta the infinite (Space),symbolized by the serpent Sesha, and during the Manvantaras Garudathe gigantic half-eagle, half-man, the symbol of the great cycle; Brahmaappears as Brahm , des cending into the planes of manifestations onKlahamsa , the sw an in time or f inite eternity; Siva (phonet, Shiva )appears as the bull Nandi ; Osiris as the sacr ed bull Apis ; Indra


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travels on an elephant; Krttikeya, on a peacock; Kmadeva on Makra ,at o ther t imes a parrot; Agni, the universal (and also solar) Fire-god,who is, as al l of them are, a co nsuming Fire, manifests itself as a r amand a lamb, Aj , the unborn; Varuna, as a f ish; etc., etc., while thevehicle o f M AN is his body.

Vaibhchikas (Sk. ). The followers of the Vibhcha Shstra , an ancientschool of materialism; a philosophy that held that no mental conceptcan be formed except through direct contact between the mind, via thesenses, such as s ight, touch, taste, etc., and external objects. There areVaibhchikas, to this day, in India.

Vaidhtra (Sk. ). The same as the Kumras.

Vaidyuta (Sk. ). Electric f ire, the sam e as Pvaka , one o f the th ree fi reswhich, divided, produce f orty-nine mystic fires.Vaihara (Sk. ). The name of a cave-temple near Rjagriha, whereinto

the Lord Buddha usually retired for meditation.Vaijayant (Sk. ). The magic necklace o f Vishnu, imitated by certain

Initiates among the t emple Brahmans. It is made of five p recious stones,each symbolizing one of the five elements of our Round; namely, thepearl, ruby, emerald, sapphire an d diamond, or water, fire, earth, airand ether, called the aggregate of the five elemental rudimentstheword powers being, perhaps, more correct than rudiments.

Vaikhari Vch (Sk. ). 'That which is ut tered; one of the four f orms ofspeech.

Vaikuntha (Sk. ). One of the names of the twelve great gods, whenceVaikunthaloka , the abode of Vishnu.

Vairjas (Sk. ). In the popular b elief, semi-divine beings, shades ofsaints, inconsumable by fire, impervious to water, who dwell in Tapoloka with the hope of being translated into Satya-lokaa more purifiedstate which answers to Nirvna. The term is explained as the aerialbodies or astral shades of ascetics, mendicants, anchorites, andpenitents, who have completed their course of rigorous austerities.Now in esoteric philosophy they are called Nirmnakyas , Tapo-lokabeing on the sixth plane (upward) but in direct communication withthe mental plane. The Vairjas ar e referred to as t he first gods becausethe Mnasaputras and the Kumras are the oldest i n theogony, as i t i ssaid that even the gods worshipped them ( Matsya Purna ); those whomBrahm with the eye of Yoga beheld in the et ernal spheres, and who arethe gods of gods ( Vyu Purna ).

Vairochana (Sk. ). All-enlightening. A mystic symbol, or ra ther ageneric personification of a class of spiritual b eings described as t heembodiment of essential wisdom ( bodhi ) and absolute purity.


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They dwell in the fourth Arpa Dhtu (formless world) orBuddhakshetra , and are the first o r t he highest h ierarchy of t he fiveorthodox Dhyni Buddhas. There was a Sramana (an Arhat) of thisname (see Eitel's Sansk. Chin. Dict .) a native of Kashmir, whointroduced Buddhism into Kustan and lahoured in Tibet (in theseventh century of our er a). He was the best t ranslator of the semi-esoteric Canon of Northern Buddhism, and a contemporary of the greatSamantabhadra ( q.v. ).

Vaiskha (Sk. ). A celebrated female ascetic, born at S rvasti, andcalled Sudatta , virtuous donor. She was the mother-abbess of aVihra, or convent of female Upsiks, and is known as the builder of aVihra for Skyamuni Buddha. She is regarded as the patroness of allthe Buddhist female as cetics.

Vaisheshika (Sk. ). One of the six Darshanas or schools of philosophy,founded by Kanda. It i s called the Atomistic School, as i t t eaches theexistence of a universe of at oms of a transient ch aracter, an endlessnumber of s ouls and a fixed number of m aterial principles, by thecorrelation and interaction of which periodical cosmic evo lutions takeplace without any directing Force, save a kind of mechanical lawinherent in the at oms; a very materialistic sch ool.

Vaishnava (Sk. ). A follower of any sect recognising and worshipping

Vishnu as the one supreme God. The worshippers of Siva are calledSaivas .Vaivaswata (Sk. ). The name of the Seventh Manu, the forefather of

the post-diluvian race, or ou r own fifth humankind. A reputed son ofSrya (the Sun), he became, after having been saved in an ark (built bythe order of Vishnu) from the Deluge, the father of Ikshwku, thefounder of the solar race o f kings. (See S ryavansa.)

Vajra (Sk. ). Lit. , diamond club or sceptre. In the Hindu works, thesceptre of Indra, similar t o the thunderbolts of Z eus, with which thisdeity, as t he god of thunder, slays his enemies. But in mysticalBuddhism, the magic sceptre o f P riest-Initiates, exorcists an d adeptsthe symbol of the possession of Siddhis or superhuman powers, wieldedduring certain ceremonies b y the priests an d theurgists. It i s al so thesymbol of Buddha's power over evil spirits or elementals. The possessorsof this wand are cal led Vajrapni (q.v. ).

Vajrchrya (Sk. ). The spiritual achrya ( guru, teacher ) of the Yogchryas, The Supreme Master of the Vajra.

Vajradhara (Sk. ). The Supreme Buddha with the NorthernBuddhists.

Vajrapni (Sk. ), or Manjushr , the Dhyni-Bodhisattva (as thespiritual reflex, or the son of the Dhyni-Buddhas, on earth) borndirectly from the subjective form of existence; a deity worshipped by theprofane


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as a go d, and by Initiates as a s ubjective Force, the real nature of whichis known only to, an d explained by, t he highest Initiates of the

Yogchrya School.Vajrasattva (Sk. ). The name of the sixth Dhyni-Buddha (of whom

there are but five in the popular Northern Buddhism)in the Yogchrya school, the latter counting seven Dhyni-Buddhas and a

many Bodhisattvasthe mind-sons of the former. Hence, theOrientalists r efer t o Vajrasattva a s a fictitious Bodhisattva.

Vallabchrya (Sk. ). The name of a mystic who was the chela(disciple) of Vishnu Swmi, and the founder of a sect of Vaishnavas . Hisdescendants are called Goswami Mahrj, and have much landed

property and numerous mandirs (temples) in Bombay. They havedegenerated into a shamefully licentious sect.Vmana (Sk. ). The fifth avatar of V ishnu, hence the name of the

Dwarf whose form was assumed by that god.Vara ( Mazd .). A term used in the Venddd , where Ahura-mazda

commands Yima to build Vara . It also signifies an enclosure o r vehicle ,an ark ( argha ), and at the same time M AN (verse ). Vara is t he vehicleof our informing Egos , i.e. the human body, the soul in which is typifiedby the exp ression a window self-shining within .

Varha (Sk. ). The boar-avatar of Vishnu; the third in number.Varna (Sk. ). Caste; lit. , colour. The four chief castes named by

Manuthe Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sdraare called Chatur-varna .

Varsha (Sk. ). A region, a plain; an y stretch of country situatedbetween t he great mountain-ranges of the earth.

Varuna (Sk ). The god of water, or marine god, but far different fromNeptune, for in the cas e of this oldest of the Vedic deities, Water meansthe Waters of Space, or t he all-investing sky, ksa , in one sense.Varuna or Ooaroona (phonetically), is cert ainly the prototype of t heOuranos of the Greeks. As Muir says: The grandest cosmical functionsare ascribed to Varuna. P ossessed of i llimitable knowledge . . . . h eupholds heaven and earth, he dwells in all worlds as sovereign ruler . . .He made the golden . . . sun to shine in the firmament. The windwhich resounds through the at mosphere is his breath. . . . Through theoperation of his laws the moon walks in brightness and the stars . . .mysteriously vanish in daylight. He knows the flight of birds in the sky,the paths of ships on the ocean, the course of t he far t ravelling wind,and beholds all the things that have been or shall be done. . . . Hewitnesses men's truth and false hood. He instructs the Rishi Vasishta in

mysteries; but his secret s an d


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those of Mitra are n ot to be reveal ed to the foolish. . . . The at tributesand functions ascribed to Varuna impart to his character a moralelevation and sanctity far s urpassing that at tributed to any other V edicdeity.

Vasishta (Sk. ). One of the primitive seven great Rishis, and a mostcelebrated Vedic sage.

Vasudeva (Sk. ). The father of K rishna. He belonged to the Ydavabranch of the Somavansa , or l unar r ace.

Vasus (Sk. ). The eight evi l deities at tendant u pon Indra. Personifiedcosmic phenomena, as their names show.

Vyu (Sk. ). Air: the god and sovereign of the ai r; one of the five st atesof matter, namely the gaseous ; one of the five elements, called, as wind,Vta . The Vishnu Purna makes Vyu King of t he Gandharvas. He isthe father of Hanumn, in the Rmyana . The trinity of the mysticgods in Kosmos closely related to each other, are Agni (fire) whoseplace i s on earth; Vyu (air, or on e of the forms of Indra), whose placeis i n the ai r; and Srya (the su n) whose p lace i s in the ai r. ( Nirukta .) I nesoteric interpretation, these three cosmic principles, correspond withthe three human principles, Kma, Kma-Manas and Manas, the sun ofthe i ntellect.

Vedan (Sk. ). The second of the five Shandhas (perceptions, s enses).The sixth Nidna.

Vednta (Sk. ). A mystic system of philosophy which has developedfrom the ef forts of generations of sages t o interpret t he secret m eaningof the Upanishads (q.v. ). It i s c alled in the Shad-Darshanas (six schoolsor systems of demonstration), Uttara Mmns , attributed to Vysa, thecompiler of t he Vedas , who is thus referred to as the founder of t heVednta. The orthodox Hindus call Vedntaa term meaning literallythe end of all (Vedic) knowledge Brahma-jnna , or pu re andspiritual knowledge of Brahm. Even if we accep t the late dates assignedto various Sanskrit schools and treatises by our Orientalists, the Vedntamust be , years old, as Vysa is said to have l ived , years B.C. If,as Elphinstone has it i n his History of I ndia , t he Brahmanas are theTalmud of the Hindus, and the Vedas the Mosaic books, then theVednta may be correctly called the Kabalah of India. But how vastlymore grand! Sankarchrya, who was the popularizer of the Vednticsystem, and the founder of the Adwaita philosophy, is sometimes c alledthe founder of the modern schools of the Vednta.

Vedas (Sk. ). The r evelation. the scriptures of the Hindus, from theroot vid , to know, or divine knowledge. They are the most ancientas well as the most sacred of the Sanskrit works. The Vedas


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on the date and antiquity of which no two Orientalists can agree, areclaimed by the Hindus themselves, whose Brahmans and Pundits oughtto know best about their own religious works, to have been first taughtorally for thousands of years and then compiled on the shores of LakeMnasa-Sarovara (phonetically, Mnsarovara ) beyond the Himalayas, inTibet. When was this done? While their religious teachers, such asSwami Dayanand Saraswati, claim for them an antiquity of manydecades of a ges, our modern Orientalists will grant t hem no greaterantiquity in their present form than about between , and , B.C.

As compiled in their final form by Veda-Vysa, however themselves u nanimously ass ign , years before the Christian era, thedate when Vysa flourished. Therefore the Vedas must be as old as thisdate. But t heir an tiquity is sufficiently proven by the fact t hat t hey arewritten in such an ancient form, of Sanskrit, so different from theSanskrit now used, t hat there is no other, work like them in theliterature of this el dest s ister o f all the known languages, as P rof. MaxMller calls it. Only the most learned of the Brahman Pundits can readthe Vedas in their ori ginal. It is urged that Colebrooke found the date

B.C. corroborated absolutely by a passage which he discovered, andwhich is based on astronomical data. But if, as shown unanimously byall the Orientalists an d the Hindu Pundits al so, that ( a) t he Vedas arenot a single work, nor yet any one of the separate Vedas ; but that eachVeda , and almost every hymn and division of the latter, is theproduction of various authors; and that ( b) t hese have been written(whether as sruti , r evelation, o r not) at various periods of theethnological evolution of the Indo-Aryan race, thenwhat does Mr.Colebrooke's discovery prove? Simply that the Vedas were finallyarranged and compiled fourteen centuries before our era; but t hisinterferes i n no way with their an tiquity. Quite th e revers e; for, as anoffset t o Mr. Colebrooke's p assage, there is a l earned article, written onpurely astronomical data by Krishna Shstri Godbole (of Bombay),which proves as absolutely and on the same evidence that the Vedasmust have been taught at least , years ago. (See Theosophist , Vol.II. , p. et seq ., Aug., .) This statement is, if not supported, at anyrate not con tradicted by what Prof. Cowell says in Appendix VII., ofElphinstone's History of India : There is a difference i n age b etween thevarious hymns, which are now united in their present form as theSanhit of the Rig Veda: but we have no data to determine their r elativeantiquity , and purely subjective criticism, apart f rom solid data, has s ooften failed in other i nstances, that w e can trust b ut little to any of itsinferences in such a recently opened field of research as Sanskritliterature. [Not a f ourth part of t he Vaidik literature i s as yet i n print,

and very little o f it has


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been translated into English ().] T he still unsettled controversiesabout the Homeric poems may well warn us of being too confident inour j udgments regarding the yet earlier hymns of the Rig-Veda . . . . Whenwe exam ine these hymns . . . they are d eeply interesting for t he historyof the human mind, belonging as they do to a much older phase thanthe poems of Homer or Hesiod. The Vedic writings are all classified intwo great d ivisions, exo teric and esoteric , t he former being calledKarma-Knda , division of actions or works, and the Jnna Knda ,division of (divine) kn owledge, the Upanishads (q.v. ) coming underthis last classification. Both departments are regarded as Sruti orrevelation. To each hymn of the Rig-Veda , the name of the Seer or Rishito whom it was revealed is pre fixed. It, thus, becomes evident on theauthority of these very names (such as Vasishta, Viswmitra, Nrada,etc.), all of which belong to men born in various manvantaras and evenages, that cent uries, and perhaps millenniums, must have elapsedbetween the dates of their composition.

Veda-Vysa (Sk. ). The com piler of the Vedas (q.v. ).Veddhas (Sing .). The name of a wild race of men living in the forests

of Ceylon. They are ver y difficult to find.Vehicle of Life ( Mystic ). The Septeriary Man among the

Pythagoreans, number seven among the profane. The former

explained it by saying, that the human body consisted of four pri ncipalelements ( principles), and that t he soul is t riple (the higher t riad). (SeeIsis Unveiled , Vol. I I., p. , N ew York, .) It h as been oftenremarked that in the earlier works of the Theosophists no septenarydivision of man was mentioned. The above quotation is sufficientwarrant t hat, although with every caution, the subject was more thanonce approached, and is not a new-fangled theory or invention.

Venddd (Pahlavi ). The first bo ok ( Nosk ) in the co llection of Zendfragments usually known as the Zend-Avesta . The Venddd is acorruption of the compound-word Vidav-dtem, meaning theanti-demoniac law, and is full of teachings how to avoid sin anddefilement by purification, moral and physicaleach of whichteachings i s based on Occult l aws. It i s a pre-eminently occult treatise,full of symbolism and often of meaning quite the reverse of that whichis expressed in its dead-letter text. T he Venddd , as claimed bytradition, is the only one of t he twenty-one Nosks (works) that hasescaped the auto-da-f at the hands of the drunken Iskander the Rmi,he whom posterity calls Alexander the Great though the epithet is

justifiable only when applied to the bruconqueror. It is t hrough the van dalism of this Greek that literature an d

knowledge have lost much priceless lore in the Nosks burnt by hi m.Even the Venddd has


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reached us in only a fragmentary state. The first ch apters are verymystical, and therefore cal led mythical in the renderings of E uropeanOrientalists. T he two creators of spirit-matter or the world ofdifferentiationAhura-Mazda and Angra-Mainyu (Ahriman)areintroduced in them, and also Yima (the first man, or m ankindpersonified). T he work is divided into Fargards or chapters, and aportion of these is devoted to the formation of our gl obe, or t errestrialevolution. (See Zend-Avesta .)

Vetla (Sk. ). An elemental, a spook, which haunts burial grounds andanimates c orpses.

Vetla Siddhi (Sk. ). A practice of sorcery; means of obtaining power

over the living by black magic, incantations, and ceremonies performedover a dead h uman body, during which process the corpse is desecrated.(See V etla.)

Vibhvasu (Sk. ). A mystic fire connected with the beginning of pralaya , or t he d issolution of the u niverse.

Vibhtayah (Sk. ). The same as Siddhis or magic powers.Vidy (Sk. ). Knowledge, Occult Science.Vidy-dhara (Sk. ). And Vidya-dhari, male and female deities. Lit. ,

possessors of knowledge. They are al so called Nabhas-chara , moving

in the air, f lying, an d Priyam-vada , sweet-spoken. They are theSylphs o f t he Rosicrucians; inferior d eities i nhabiting the astral spherebetween the earth and ether; believed in popular folk-lore to bebeneficent, but in reality they are cunning and mischievous, andintelligent E lementals, or P owers of the air. They are represented inthe East, and in the West, as having intercourse with men(intermarrying, as i t i s cal led in Rosicrucian parlance; s ee Count deGabalis ). In India th ey are al so called Kma-rpins, as they take shapes atwill . I t i s among these creatures t hat t he spirit-wives and spirit-husbands of certain modern spiritualistic mediums and hysteriacs arerecruited. These boast with pride of having such pernicious connexions(e.g. , the American Lily, the spirit-wife of a well-known head of a nowscattered community of Spiritualists, of a great poet and well-knownwriter), and call them angel-guides, maintaining that they are t he sp iritsof famous disembodied mortals. These spirit-husbands and wiveshave not o riginated with the modern Spiritists an d Spiritualists, buthave been known in the East for thousands of years, in the Occultphilosophy, under the names above given, and among the profane asPishchas .

Vihra ( Sk. ). Any place i nhabited by Buddhist p riests or as cetics; aBuddhist t emple, generally a rock-temple or cave. A monastery, or anunnery also. One finds in these days Vihras built in the


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enclosures of monasteries and academies for Buddhist training in townsand cities; but in days of yor e they were to be met with only inunfrequented wild jungles, on mountain tops, and in the most desertedplaces.

Vihraswmin (Sk. ). The superior (whether male or female) of amonastery or con vent, Vihra. Also called Karmadna , as every teach eror guru, h aving authority, t akes upon himself the responsibility ofcertain actions, good or bad, com mitted by his pupils or t he flockentrusted to him.

Vijnnam ( Sk. ). The Vedntic name for the pri nciple which dwells inthe Vijnnamaya Kosha (the sheath of intellect) an d corresponds t o the

faculties of the Higher Manas.Vikrttana (Sk. ). Lit. , shorn of his rags; a name of the Sun, and thetype of the initiated neophyte. (See Secret Doctrine , I., p. , n.)

Vimoksha (Sk. ). The same as Nirvna.Vn (Sk. ). A kind of large guitar used in India and Tibet, whose

invention is attributed variously to S iva, Nrada, and others.Vinat (Sk. ). A daughter of Daksha and wife of Kashyapa (one of the

seven orators of t he world). She brought forth the egg from whichGaruda the seer was born.

Viprachitti (Sk. ). The chief of the Dnavasthe giants that warredwith the gods: the Titans of India.Vrabhadra (Sk. ). A thousand-headed and thousand-armed monster,

born of t he breath of Siva Rudra, a symbol havi ng reference to thesweat-born, the second race of mankind ( Secret Doctrine , II. , p. ).

Virj (Sk. ). The Hindu Logos in the Purnas ; the male Manu, createdin the female portion of Brahm's body (Vch) by that god. Says Manu:Having divided his body into two parts, the lord (Brahm) becamewith the one half a male and with the other half a female; and in her hecreated Virj. The Rig-Veda makes Virj spring from Purusha, andPurusha spring from Virj. The latter is the t ype of all male beings, andVch, Sata-rp (she of the hundred forms), the type of all femaleforms.

Vishnu (Sk. ). The second person of the Hindu Trimrti (trinity),composed of Brahm, Vishnu and Siva. From the root vish , topervade. in the Rig-Veda , Vishnu is no high god, but s imply amanifestation of t he solar en ergy, des cribed as s triding through theseven regions of t he Universe in three steps an d enveloping all thingswith the dust (of hi s beams .) Whatever may be the six other occultsignificances o f the st atement, this i s r elated to the sam e cl ass of types asthe seven and ten Sephiroth, as the seven and three orifices o f t he perfect Adam Kadmon, as the seven principles and the higher tretc. , etc. L ater


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on this mystic type becomes a great god, the preserver and therenovator, he of a thousand namesSahasranma.

Vishwakarman (Sk. ). The Omnificent. A Vedic god, apersonification of t he creative Force, described as t he One all-seeinggod, . . . . the generator, disposer, who . . . is beyond thecomprehension of (uninitiated) mortals. In the two hymns of the Rig-Veda specially devoted to him, he is s aid to sacrifice himself to himself .The names of his mother, the lovely and virtuous Yoga-Siddh (Purnas ) and of his daughter Sanjn (spiritual consciousness), show hismystic character. (See Secret D octrine, sub voc .) As t he artificer of t hegods and maker of their weapons, he is called Kru , workman,Takshaka carpenter, or w ood-cutter, etc., etc.

Vishwatryarchas (Sk. ). The fourth solar ( mystic) r ay of the seven.(See Secret Doctrine , I., p. , n.)

Vivaswat (Sk. ). The bright One, the Sun.Viwan (Sk. ). Some kind of ai r-vehicle, like a balloon, mentioned

but not described in the old Sanskrit works, which the Atlanteans andthe ancient Aryas seem to have known and used.

Voluspa (Scand .). A poem called The Song of the Prophetess, orSong of Wala.

Voodooism, or Voodoos . A system of African sorcery; a sect of blackmagicians, to which the New Orleans negroes are much addicted. Itflourishes likewise in Cuba and South America.

Voordalak (Slav .). A vampire; a corpse informed by its lowerprinciples, and maintaining a kind of semi-life in itself by raising itselfduring the night from the grave, fascinating its living victims andsucking out their blood. Roumanians, Moldavians, Servians, and all theSlavonian tribes dwelling in the Balkans, and also the Tchechs(Bohemians), Moravians, and others, firmly believe i n the exi stence o fsuch ghosts and dread them accordingly.

Votan ( Mex .). The deified hero of t he Mexicans, and probably thesame as Q uetzal-Coatl; a son of the snakes, one admitted to thesnake's hole, which means an Adept admitted to the Initiation in thesecret chamber of the Temple. The missionary Brasseur de B ourbourg,seeks to prove him a descendant of Ham, the accursed son of Noah.(See Isis Unveiled , I., pp. et seq .)

Vrata (Sk ) Law, or po wer of the gods.Vratni (Sk. ). Varuna's act ive laws, courses o f n atural action. (See

Rig-Vedic Hymns, X., -.)Vriddha Garga (Sk. ). From Vriddha , old, and Garga , an ancient

sage, one of the ol dest writers on astronomy.


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Vriddha Mnava (Sk. ). The laws of Manu.

Vritra (Sk. ). The demon of drought in the Vedas , a great f oe of Indra,with whom he is constantly at war. The allegory of a cosmicphenomenon.

Vritra-han (Sk. ). An epithet or t itle of Indra, meaning the sl ayer o fVritra.

Vyahritis (Slav .). Lit. , fiery, words lit by and born of fire . The threemystical, creative words, said by Manu to have been milked by thePrajpati from the Vedas : bhr , from the Rig-Veda ; bhuvah , from theVajur-Veda ; and Swar , from the Sama-Veda (Manu II., ). All threeare sai d to possess creative powers. The Satapatha Brhmana explainsthat they are t he t hree l uminous essences ext racted from the Vedas byPrajpati (lords of creation, progenitors), through heat. He (Brahm)uttered the word bhr and it became the earth; bhuvah , and it becamethe firmament; and swar , which became heaven. Mahar is t he fourthluminous essence, and was taken from the Atharva-Veda . But, as t hisword is purely mantric and magical, it is one, so to say, kept apart.

Vysa (Sk. ).. Lit. , one who expands or am plifies ; an interpreter, o rrather a revealer ; for that which he ex plains, interprets and amplifies is amystery to the profane. This term was applied in days of old to thehighest Gurus in India. There were many Vysas in Aryavarta; one wasthe compiler and arranger of t he Vedas ; another, the author of the Mahbhrata the twenty-eighth Vysa or revealer in the order ofsuccess ion and the last one of note was the author of Uttara Mmns ,the sixth school or s ystem of Indian philosophy. He was also thefounder of the Vednta system. His date, as assigned by Orientalists (seeElphinstone, Cowell, etc.), is , B.C., b ut t his d ate is c ertainly toorecent. The Purnas mention only twenty-eight Vysas, who at variousages descended to the earth to promulgate Vedic truthsbut there weremany more.


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WW. The rd letter. Has no equivalent in Hebrew. In Western

Occultism some take it as t he symbol for celestial water, whereas Mstands for t erres trial water.

Wala (Scand .). A prophetess in the songs of the Edda (Norsemythology). Through the incantations of Odin she was raised from hergrave, and made t o prophesy the death of Baldur.

Walhalla (Scand .). A kind of paradise (Devachan) for slaughteredwarriors, called by the Norsemen the hall of the blessed heroes; it hasfive hundred doors.

Wali (Scand .). The son of Odin who avenges the death o

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