The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 of 4 / The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy

by H. P. Blavatsky

“The four Kumâras [are] the mind-born Sons of Brahmâ. Some specify seven.”[759] All these seven Vaidhâtra, the patronymic of the Kumâras, the “Maker's Sons,” are mentioned and described in Îshvara Krishna's Sânkhya Kârikâ with the Commentary of Gaudapâdâchârya (Shankarâchvrya's Paraguru) attached to it. It discusses the nature of the Kumâras, though it refrains from mentioning by name all the seven Kumâras, but calls them instead the “seven sons of Brahmâ,” which they are, as they are created by Brahmâ in Rudra. The list of names it gives us is: Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanâtana, Kapila, Ribhu, and Panchashikha. But these again are all aliases.

The exoteric four are Sanatkumâra, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanâtana; and the esoteric three Sana, Kapila, and Sanatsujâta. Special attention is once more drawn to this class of Dhyân Chohans, for herein lies the mystery of generation and heredity hinted at in the Commentary on Stanza VII, in treating of the Four Orders of Angelic Beings. Volume II explains their position in the Divine Hierarchy. Meanwhile, let us see what the exoteric texts say about them.

They say little; and to him who fails to read between the lines—nothing. “We must have recourse, here, to other Purânas for the elucidation of this term,” remarks Wilson, who does not suspect for one [pg 494] moment that he is in the presence of the “Angels of Darkness,” the mythical “great enemy” of his Church. Therefore, he contrives to “elucidate” no more than that “these [Divinities] declining to create progeny, [and thus rebelling against Brahmâ], remained, as the name of the first [Sanatkumâra] implies, ever boys, Kumâras; that is, ever pure and innocent, whence their creation is called the Kaumâra.” The Purânas, however, may afford a little more light. “Being ever as he was born, he is here called a youth; and hence his name is well known as Sanatkumâra.”[760] In the Shaiva Purânas, the Kumâras are always described as Yogins. The Kurma Purâna, after enumerating them, says: “These five, O Brâhmans, were Yogins, who acquired entire exemption from passion.” They are five, because two of the Kumâras fell.

So untrustworthy are some translations of the Orientalists that in the French translation of the Hari Vamsha, it is said: “The seven Prajâpati, Rudra, Skanda (his son) and Sanatkumâra proceeded to create beings.” Whereas, as Wilson shows, the original is: “These seven ... created progeny; and so did Rudra, but Skanda and Sanatkumâra, restraining their power, abstained (from creation).” The “four orders of beings” are referred to sometimes as Ambhâmsi, which Wilson renders as “literally Waters” and believes it “a mystic term.” It is one, no doubt; but he evidently failed to catch the real Esoteric meaning. “Waters” and “Water” stand as the symbol for Âkâsha, the “Primordial Ocean of Space,” on which Nârâyana, the self-born Spirit, moves, reclining on that which is its progeny.[761] “Water is the body of Nara; thus we have heard the name of Water explained. Since Brahmâ rests on the Water, therefore he is termed Nârâyana.”[762] “Pure, Purusha created the Waters pure.” At the same time Water is the Third Principle in material Kosmos, and the third in the realm of the Spiritual: Spirit of Fire, Flame, Âkâsha, Ether, Water, Air, Earth, are the cosmic, sidereal, psychic, spiritual and mystic principles, preëminently occult, on every plane of being. “Gods, Demons, Pitris and Men,” are the four orders of beings to whom the term Ambhâmsi is applied, because they are all the product of Waters (mystically), of the Âkâshic Ocean, and of the Third principle in Nature. In the Vedas it is a synonym of Gods. Pitris and Men on Earth are the [pg 495] transformations or rebirths of Gods and Demons (Spirits) on a higher plane. Water is, in another sense, the feminine principle. Venus Aphrodite is the personified Sea, and the Mother of the God of Love, the Generatrix of all the Gods, as much as the Christian Virgin Mary is Mare, the Sea, the Mother of the Western God of Love, Mercy and Charity. If the student of Esoteric Philosophy thinks deeply over the subject, he is sure to find out all the suggestiveness of the term Ambhâmsi, in its manifold relations to the Virgin in Heaven, to the Celestial Virgin of the Alchemists, and even to the “Waters of Grace” of the modern Baptist.

Of all the seven great divisions of Dhyân Chohans, or Devas, there is none with which humanity is more concerned than with the Kumâras. Imprudent are the Christian Theologians who have degraded them into Fallen Angels, and now call them Satan and Demons; as among these heavenly denizens who “refuse to create,” the Archangel Michael, the greatest patron Saint of the Western and Eastern Churches, under his double name of St. Michael and his supposed copy on earth, St. George conquering the Dragon, has to be given one of the most prominent places.

The Kumâras, the Mind-born Sons of Brahmâ-Rudra, or Shiva, mystically the howling and terrific destroyer of human passions and physical senses, which are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the growth of the inner eternal man, are the progeny of Shiva, the Mahâyogî, the great patron of all the Yogîs and Mystics of India.

Shiva-Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the Preserver; and both are the Regenerators of spiritual as well as of physical Nature. To live as a plant, the seed must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity, the passions and senses of man must die before his body does. “That to live is to die and to die is to live,” has been too little understood in the West. Shiva, the Destroyer, is the Creator and the Saviour of Spiritual Man, as he is the good gardener of Nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to call to life the perceptions of the spiritual, man.

The Kumâras, themselves then, being the “virgin ascetics,” refuse to create the material being Man. Well may they be suspected of a direct connection with the Christian Archangel Michael, the “virgin combatant” of the Dragon Apophis, whose victim is every Soul united too loosely to its immortal Spirit, the Angel who, as shown by the Gnostics, [pg 496] refused to create just as the Kumâras did. Does not that patron Angel of the Jews preside over Saturn (Shiva or Rudra), and the Sabbath, the day of Saturn? Is he not shown of the same essence with his Father (Saturn), and called the Son of Time, Cronus, or Kâla, a form of Brahmâ (Vishnu and Shiva)? And is not Old Time of the Greeks, with its scythe and sand-glass, identical with the Ancient of Days of the Kabalists; the latter “Ancient” being one with the Hindû Ancient of Days, Brahmâ, in his triune form, whose name is also Sanat, the Ancient? Every Kumâra bears the prefix of Sanat and Sana. And Shanaishchara is Saturn, the planet Shani, the King Saturn, whose Secretary in Egypt was Thot-Hermes the first. They are thus identified both with the planet and the God (Shiva), who are, in their turn, shown to be the prototypes of Saturn, who is the same as Bel, Baal, Shiva, and Jehovah Sabbaoth, the Angel of the Face of whom is Mikael—מיכאל, “who [is] as God.” He is the patron, and guardian Angel of the Jews, as Daniel tells us; and, before the Kumâras were degraded, by those who were ignorant of their very name, into Demons and Fallen Angels, the Greek Ophites, the occultly inclined predecessors and precursors of the Roman Catholic Church after its secession and separation from the primitive Greek Church, had identified Michael with their Ophiomorphos, the rebellious and opposing spirit. This means nothing more than the reverse aspect, symbolically, of Ophis, the Divine Wisdom or Christos. In the Talmud, Mikael is “Prince of Water” and the chief of the Seven Spirits, for the same reason that one of his many prototypes, Sanatsujâta, the chief of the Kumâras, is called Ambhâmsi, “Waters,” according to the commentary on Vishnu Purâna. Why? Because the Waters is another name of the Great Deep, the Primordial Waters of Space, or Chaos, and also means Mother, Ambâ, meaning Aditi and Akâsha, the Celestial Virgin-Mother of the visible Universe. Furthermore, the “Waters of the Flood” are also called the “Great Dragon,” or Ophis, Ophiomorphos.

The Rudras will be noticed in their septenary character of “Fire-Spirits” in the “Symbolism” attached to the Stanzas in Volume II. There we shall also consider the Cross (3 + 4) under its primeval and later forms, and shall use for purposes of comparison the Pythagorean numbers side by side with Hebrew metrology. The immense importance of the number seven will thus become evident, as the root number of Nature. We shall examine it from the standpoint of the Vedas and [pg 497] the Chaldean Scriptures; as it existed in Egypt thousands of years b.c., and as treated in the Gnostic records; we shall show how its importance as a basic number has gained recognition in Physical Science; and we shall endeavour to prove that the importance attached to the number seven throughout all antiquity was due to no fanciful imaginings of uneducated priests, but to a profound knowledge of Natural Law.