The Seven Fathers and the Forty-nine Sons blaze in Darkness, but they are the Life and Light and the continuation thereof through the Great Age.
Now it becomes evident that, in every Esoteric interpretation of exoteric beliefs expressed in allegorical forms, there is the same underlying idea—the basic number seven, the compound of three and four, preceded by the divine three ([triangle]) making the perfect number ten.
Also, these numbers apply equally to divisions of time, to cosmography, metaphysical and physical, as well as to man and everything else in visible Nature. Thus these seven Vowels with their forty-nine Powers are identical with the three and the seven Fires of the Hindûs and their forty-nine Fires; identical with the numerical mysteries of the Persian Simorgh; identical with those of the Jewish Kabalists. The latter, dwarfing the numbers (their mode of “blinds”), made the duration of each successive Renewal, or what we call in Esoteric parlance Round, 1,000 years only or of the seven Renewals of the Globe 7,000 years, instead of, as is more likely, 7,000,000,000, and assigned to the total duration of the Universe 49,000 years only.[1330]
Now, the Secret Doctrine furnishes a key which reveals to us on the Indisputable grounds of comparative analogy that Garuda, the allegorical and monstrous half-man and half-bird—the Vâhana or vehicle on which Vishnu, as Kâla or “Time,” is shown to ride—is the origin of all such allegories. He is the Indian Phœnix, the emblem of cyclic and periodical time, the “Man-lion” (Sinha), of whose representations the so-called Gnostic gems are so full.[1331]
Over the seven rays of the lion's crown, and corresponding to their points, stand often the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet, ΑΕΗΙΟΥΩ, testifying to the Seven Heavens.[1332]
This is the Solar Lion and the emblem of the Solar Cycle, as Garuda[1333] is that of the Great Cycle, the Mahâ Kalpa, coëternal with Vishnu, and also, of course, the emblem of the Sun and Solar Cycle. This is shown by the details of the allegory. At his birth, Garuda, on account of his “dazzling splendour,” is mistaken for Agni, the God of Fire, and was thence called Gaganeshvara, “Lord of the Sky.” Its representation as Osiris, on the Abraxas (Gnostic) gems, and by many heads of allegorical monsters, with the head and beak of an eagle or a hawk—both solar birds—denotes Garuda's solar and cyclic character. His son is Jatâyu, the cycle of 60,000 years. As well remarked by C. W. King:
Whatever its primary meaning [of the gem with the solar lion and vowels] it was probably imported in its present shape from India (that true fountain head of Gnostic iconography).[1334]
The mysteries of the seven Gnostic Vowels, uttered by the Thunders of St. John, can be unriddled only by the primeval and original Occultism of Âryâvarta, brought into India by the primeval Brâhmans, who had been initiated in Central Asia. And this is the Occultism we study and try to explain, as much as is possible, in these pages. Our doctrine of seven Races, and seven Rounds of life and evolution around our Terrestrial Chain of Spheres, may be found [pg 597] even in Revelation.[1335] When the seven “Thunders,” or “Sounds,” or “Vowels”—one meaning out of the seven for each such vowel relates directly to our own Earth and its seven Root-Races in each Round—“had uttered their voices,” but had forbidden the Seer to write them, and made him “seal up those things,” what did the Angel, “standing upon the sea and upon the earth,” do?
He lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, ... that there should be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God [of the Cycle] should be finished.[1336]
This means, in Theosophic phraseology, that when the Seventh Round is completed, then Time will cease. “There shall be time no longer”—very naturally, since Pralaya shall set in and there will remain no one on Earth to keep a division of time, during that periodical dissolution and arrest of conscious life.