At the extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed toward the south, and whose body is in the shape of a ring [circle], Dhruva [the ex-pole star] is placed; along its tail are Prajâpati, Agni, Indra, Dharma, etc.; across its loins the seven Rishis.[1294]
This is then the first and earliest cross and circle, formed by the Deity, symbolized by Vishnu, the Eternal Circle of Boundless Time, Kâla, on whose plane lie crossways all the Gods, creatures, and creations born in Space and Time-who, as the Philosophy has it, all die at the Mahâpralaya.
Meanwhile it is the seven Rishis who mark the time and the duration of events in our septenary Life-cycle. They are as mysterious as their supposed wives, the Pleiades, of whom only one-she who hides-has proven virtuous. The Pleiades, or Krittikâs, are the nurses of Kârttikeya, the God of War (the Mars of the Western Pagans), who is called the Commander of the Celestial Armies, or rather of the Siddhas—Siddha-sena (translated Yogîs in Heaven, and holy Sages on the Earth)—which would make Kârttikeya identical with Michael, the “Leader of [pg 580] the Celestial Hosts” and, like himself, a virgin Kumâra.[1295] Verily he is the Guha, the “Mysterious One,” as much so as are the Saptarshis and the Krittikâs, the seven Rishis and the Pleiades, for the interpretation of all these combined reveal to the Adept the greatest mysteries of Occult Nature. One point is worth mention in this question of cross and circle, as it bears strongly upon the elements of Fire and Water, which play such an important part in the circle and cross symbolism. Like Mars, who is alleged by Ovid to have been born of his mother Juno alone, without the participation of a father, or like the Avatâras (Krishna, for instance)—in the West as in the East—Kârttikeya is born, but in a still more miraculous manner, begotten by neither father nor mother, but out of a seed of Rudra-Shiva, which was cast into the Fire (Agni) and then received by the Water (Ganges). Thus he is born from Fire and Water—a “boy bright as the Sun and beautiful as the Moon.” Hence he is called Agnibhû (son of Agni) and Gangâputra (son of Ganges). Add to this the fact that the Krittikâ, his nurses, as the Matsya Purâna shows, are presided over by Agni, or, in the authentic words, “the seven Rishis are on a line with the brilliant Agni,” and hence “Krittika has Âgneya as a synonym”[1296]—and the connection is easy to follow.
It is, then, the Rishis who mark the time and the periods of Kali Yuga, the age of sin and sorrow. As the Bhâgavata Purâna tells us:
When the splendour of Vishnu, named Krishna, departed for heaven, then did the Kali age, during which men delight in sin, invade the world....
When the seven Rishis were in Maghâ, the Kali age, comprising 1,200 [divine] years [432,000 common years] began; and, when, from Maghâ, they shall reach Pûrvâshâdhâ, then will this Kali age attain its growth, under Nanda and his successors.[1297]
This is the revolution of the Rishis—
When the two first stars of the seven Rishis (the Great Bear) rise in the heavens, and some lunar asterism is seen at night, at an equal distance between them, then the seven Rishis continue stationary in that conjunction for a hundred years,
—as a hater of Nanda makes Parâshara say. According to Bentley, it was in order to show the quantity of the precession of the equinoxes that this notion originated among the Astronomers.
This was by assuming an imaginary line, or great circle, passing through the poles of the ecliptic and the beginning of the fixed Maghâ, which circle was supposed to cut some of the stars in the Great Bear.... The seven stars in the Great Bear being called the Rishis, the circle so assumed was called the line of the Rishis; and, being invariably fixed to the beginning of the lunar asterism Maghâ, the precession would be noted by stating the degree, etc., of any movable lunar mansion cut by that line or circle, as an index.[1298]