A.: The three murderers,” etc., etc.
Now this is the conversation that took place between the priest-initiators and the candidates for initiation during the mysteries enacted in the oldest sanctuaries of the Himâlayan fastnesses. The ceremony is still performed to this day in one of the most ancient temples in a secluded spot of Nepaul. It originated with the Mysteries of the first Krishna, passed to the First Tirthankara and ended with Buddha, and is called the Kurukshetra rite, being enacted as a memorial of the great battle and death of the divine Adept. It is not Masonry, but an initiation into the Occult teachings of that Hero—Occultism, pure and simple.
Ragon mentions the curious fact that the first four numbers in German are named after the elements.
“Ein, or one, means the air, the element which, ever in motion, penetrates matter throughout, and whose continual ebb and tide is the universal vehicle of life.
“Zwei, two, is derived from the old German Zweig, signifying germ, fecundity; it stands for earth the fecund mother of all.
“Drei, three, is the trienos of the Greeks, standing for water, whence the Sea-gods, Tritons; and trident, the emblem of Neptune—the water, or sea, in general being called Amphitrite (surrounding water).
“Vier, four, a number meaning in Belgian fire.... It is in the quaternary that the first solid figure is found, the universal symbol of immortality, the Pyramid, ‘whose first syllable means fire.’ Lysis and Timæus of Locris claimed that there was not a thing one could name that had not the quaternary for its root.... The ingenious and mystical idea which led to the veneration of the ternary and the triangle was applied to number four and its figure: it was said to express a living being, 1, the vehicle of the triangle 4, vehicle of God, or man carrying in him the divine principle.”
Finally, “the Ancients represented the world by the number five. Diodorus explains it by saying that this number represents earth, fire, water, air and ether or spiritus. Hence, the origin of Pente (five) and of Pan (the God) meaning in Greek all.” (Compare Ragon, op. cit., pp. 428-430.) It is left with the Hindu Occultists to explain the relation this Sanskrit word Pancha (five) has to the elements, the Greek Pente having for its root the Sanskrit term.
Ten is the perfect number of the Supreme God among the “manifested” deities, for number 1 is the symbol of the Universal Unit, or male principle in Nature, and number O the feminine symbol Chaos, the Deep, the two forming thus the symbol of Androgyne nature as well as the full value of the solar year, which was also the value of Jehovah and Enoch. Ten, with Pythagoras, was the symbol of the Universe; also of Enos, the Son of Seth, or the “Son of Man” who stands as the symbol of the solar year of 365 days, and whose years are therefore given as 365 also. In the Egyptian Symbology Abraxas was the Sun, the “Lord of the Heavens.”
The circle is the symbol of the one Unmanifesting Principle, the plane of whose figure is infinitude eternally, and this is crossed by a diameter only during Manvantaras.