The powers of hearing etc. [the physical senses, in short], which are presided over by the several deities.
But whatever it may mean, whether in scientific or orthodox interpretations, this passage on page 259 explains Nârada's statements on page 276, and shows them referring to exoteric and esoteric methods and contrasting them. Thus the Samâna and the Vyâna, though subject to the Prâna and the Apâna, and all the four to Udâna in the matter of acquiring the Prânâyâma (of the Hatha Yogî, chiefly, or the lower form of Yoga), are yet referred to as the principal offering, for, as rightly argued by K. Trimbak Telang, their “operations are more practically important for vitality”; i.e., they are the grossest, and are offered in the sacrifice, in order that they may disappear, so to speak, in the quality of darkness of that fire or its smoke—mere exoteric ritualistic form. But Prâna and Apâna, though shown as subordinate [pg 601] (because less gross or more purified), have the Fire between them; the Self and the Secret Knowledge possessed by that Self. So for the good and evil, and for “that which exists and that which does not exist”; all these “pairs”[1351] have Fire between them, i.e., Esoteric Knowledge, the Wisdom of the Divine Self. Let those who are satisfied with the smoke of the Fire remain wherein they are, that is to say within the Egyptian darkness of theological fictions and dead-letter interpretations.
The above is written only for the Western students of Occultism and Theosophy. The writer presumes to explain these things neither to the Hindûs, who have their own Gurus; nor to the Orientalists, who think they know more than all the Gurus and Rishis, past and present, put together. These rather lengthy quotations and examples are necessary, if only to point out to the student the works he has to study so as to derive benefit and learning from comparison. Let him read Pistis Sophia in the light of the Bhagavad Gîtâ, the Anugîtâ and others; and then the statement made by Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel will become clear, and the dead-letter “blinds” disappear at once. Read the following and compare it with the explanation from the Hindû scriptures just given.
And no Name is more excellent than all these, a Name wherein be contained all Names, and all Lights, and all the [forty-nine] Powers. Knowing that Name, if a man quits this body of matter,[1352] no smoke [i.e., no theological delusion],[1353] no darkness, nor Power, nor Ruler of the Sphere [no Personal Genius or Planetary Spirit called God] of Fate [Karma] ... shall be able to hold back the Soul that knoweth that Name.... If he shall utter that Name unto the fire, ... the darkness shall flee away.... And if he shall utter that name unto ... [pg 602]all their Powers, nay, even unto Barbelo,[1354] and the Invisible God, and the three triple-powered Gods, so soon as he shall have uttered that name in those places, they shall all be thrown one upon the other, so that they shall be ready to melt and perish, and shall cry aloud, O Light of every light that is in the boundless lights, remember us also and purify us![1355]
It is easy to see what this Light and Name are: the Light of Initiation and the name of the “Fire-Self,” which is no name, no action, but a Spiritual, Ever-living Power, higher even than the real “Invisible God,” as this Power is Itself.
But if the able and learned author of the Gnostics and their Remains has not sufficiently allowed for the spirit of allegory and mysticism in the fragments translated and quoted by him, in the above named work, from Pistis Sophia—other Orientalists have done far worse. Having neither his intuitional perception of the Indian origin of the Gnostic Wisdom still less of the meaning of their “gems,” most of them, beginning with Wilson and ending with the dogmatic Weber, have made most extraordinary blunders with regard to almost every symbol. Sir M. Monier Williams and others show a very decided contempt for the “Esoteric Buddhists” as Theosophists are now called; yet no student of Occult Philosophy has ever mistaken a cycle for a living personage and vice versâ, as is very often the case with our learned Orientalists. An instance or two may illustrate the statement more graphically. Let us choose the best known.
In the Râmâyana, Garuda is called “the maternal uncle of Sagara's 60,000 sons”; and Amshumat, Sagara's grandson, “the nephew of the 60,000 uncles” who were reduced to ashes by the look of Kapila—the Purushottama, or Infinite Spirit, who caused the horse which Sagara was keeping for the Ashvamedha sacrifice to disappear. Again, Garuda's son[1356];—Garuda being himself the Mahâ Kalpa or Great Cycle—Jatâyu, the king of the feathered tribe (when on the point of being slain by Râvana who carries off Sîtâ) says, speaking of himself: “It is 60,000 years O king, that I am born”; after which, turning his back on the Sun—he dies.
Jatâyu is, of course, the cycle of 60,000 years within the Great Cycle of Garuda; hence he is represented as his son, or nephew, ad libitum, since the whole meaning rests on his being placed in the line of [pg 603] Garuda's descendants. Then, again, there is Diti, the mother of the Maruts, whose descendants and progeny belonged to the posterity of Hiranyâksha, “whose number was 77 crores (or 770 millions) of men,” according to the Padma Purâna. All such narratives are pronounced “meaningless fictions” and absurdities. But—truth is the daughter of time, verily; and time will show.
Meanwhile, what could be easier than an attempt, at least, to verify Paurânic chronology? There are many Kapilas; but the Kapila who slew king Sagara's progeny—60,000 men strong—was undeniably Kapila, the founder of the Sânkhya philosophy, since it is so stated in the Purânas; although one of them flatly denies the imputation without explaining its Esoteric meaning. It is the Bhâgavata Purâna[1357] which says that:
The report is not true that the sons of the king were scorched by the wrath of the sage. For how can the quality of darkness, the product of anger, exist in a Sage whose body was goodness and who purified the world—the earth's dust, as it were, attributed to heavens! How should mental perturbation distract that sage, identified with the Supreme Spirit, who has steered here (on earth) that solid vessel of the Sânkhya (philosophy), with the help of which he who desires to obtain liberation crosses the dreaded ocean of existence, that path to death?[1358]