They are, so to speak, the eternal prototypes of the Buddhas who appear on this earth, each of whom has his particular divine prototype.
So, for instance, Amitabha is the Dhyani-Buddha of Gautama Sakyamuni, manifesting through him whenever this great Soul incarnates on earth as He did in Tzon-kha-pa.** As the synthesis of the seven Dhyani-Buddhas, Avalokiteswara was the first Buddha (the Logos), so Amitabha is the inner "God" of Gautama, who, in China, is called Amita(-Buddha).
They are, as Mr.
Rhys Davids [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See A.
P.
Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism," 5th annotated edition, pp.
171-173.
** The first and greatest Reformer who founded the "Yellow-Caps," Gyalugpas.
He was born in the year 1355 A.D.
in Amdo, and was the Avatar of Amitabha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 109 THEOGONY OF THE CREATORS.
correctly states, "the glorious counterparts in the mystic world, free from the debasing conditions of this material life" of every earthly mortal Buddha -- the liberated Manushi-Buddhas appointed to govern the Earth in this Round.
They are the "Buddhas of Contemplation," and are all Anupadaka (parentless), i.e.
, self-born of divine essence.
The exoteric teaching which says that every Dhyani-Buddha has the faculty of creating from himself, an equally celestial son -- a Dhyani-Bodhisattva -- who, after the decease of the Manushi (human) Buddha, has to carry out the work of the latter, rests on the fact that owing to the highest initiation performed by one overshadowed by the "Spirit of Buddha" -- (who is credited by the Orientalists with having created the five Dhyani-Buddhas!), -- a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhisattva, created such by the High Initiator.
( c ) Fohat, being one of the most, if not the most important character in esoteric Cosmogony, should be minutely described.
As in the oldest Grecian Cosmogony, differing widely from the later mythology, Eros is the third person in the primeval trinity: Chaos, Gaea, Eros: answering to the Kabalistic En-Soph (for Chaos is SPACE, [[ C haino ]], "void") the Boundless A LL, Shekinah and the Ancient of Days, or the Holy Ghost; so Fohat is one thing in the yet unmanifested Universe and another in the phenomenal and Cosmic World.
In the latter, he is that Occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse which becomes in time law.
But in the unmanifested Universe, Fohat is no more this, than Eros is the later brilliant winged Cupid, or L OVE.
Fohat has naught to do with Kosmos yet, since Kosmos is not born, and the gods still sleep in the bosom of "Father-Mother." He is an abstract philosophical idea.
He produces nothing yet by himself; he is simply that potential creative power in virtue of whose action the N OUMENON of all future phenomena divides, so to speak, but to reunite in a mystic supersensuous act, and emit the creative ray.
When the "Divine Son" breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power which causes the O NE to become T WO and T HREE -- on the Cosmic plane of manifestation.
The triple One differentiates into the many, and then Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine.
We find an echo of this primeval teaching [[Vol.
1, Page]] 110 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
in early Greek mythology.
Erebos and Nux are born out of Chaos, and, under the action of Eros, give birth in their turn to Ether and Hemera, the light of the superior and the light of the inferior or terrestrial regions.
Darkness generates light.
See in the Puranas Brahma's "Will" or desire to create; and in the Phoenician Cosmogony of Sanchoniathon the doctrine that Desire, [[ pothos ]], is the principle of creation.
Fohat is closely related to the "ONE LIFE." From the Unknown One, the Infinite TOTALITY, the manifested ONE, or the periodical, Manvantaric Deity, emanates; and this is the Universal Mind, which, separated from its Fountain-Source, is the Demiurgos or the creative Logos of the Western Kabalists, and the four-faced Brahma of the Hindu religion.
In its totality, viewed from the standpoint of manifested Divine Thought in the esoteric doctrine, it represents the Hosts of the higher creative Dhyan Chohans.
Simultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom of Adi-Buddha -- the One Supreme and eternal -- manifests itself as Avalokiteshwara (or manifested Iswara), which is the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of the Hermetic philosopher, the Logos of the Platonists, and the Atman of the Vedantins.* By the action of the manifested Wisdom, or Mahat, represented by these innumerable centres of spiritual Energy in the Kosmos, the reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the Fohat of the Buddhist esoteric philosopher.
Fohat, running along the seven principles of A KASA, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element, as declared above, and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar System.
The Solar System, brought into existence by these agencies, consists of Seven Principles, like everything else within these centres.
Such is the teaching of the trans-Himalayan Esotericism.
Every philosophy, however, has its own way of dividing these principles.
[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Mr.
Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the L OGOS.
(See his four lectures on the "Bhagavadgita" in the Theosophist.) [[Vol.
1, Page]] 111 THE PROTEAN SPIRIT-SUBSTANCE.
Divine archetypal beings or eternal attributes dwelling within the Pleroma, often arranged in male-female syzygies.
The Dhyani-Buddhas are described as 'eternal prototypes,' 'Buddhas of Contemplation,' and 'Anupadaka (parentless), i.e., self-born of divine essence,' functioning as aeon-like archetypal beings within the divine fullness.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage systematically maps the same principle across traditions: Fohat = Eros = Logos = Atman = Osiris = Ahura-Mazda = Heavenly Man, demonstrating the Hermetic axiom that cosmic structure is reflected at every scale and in every tradition.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage is fundamentally a cosmogonic account: how Fohat operates in the unmanifested universe, how the ONE becomes TWO and THREE, how the triple One differentiates into the many, and how the Solar System is brought into existence.
A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.
The Universal Mind, 'separated from its Fountain-Source, is the Demiurgos or the creative Logos of the Western Kabalists'—a secondary creative principle distinct from the supreme transcendent source.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The 'Unknown One' and the unmanifested state where 'the gods still sleep' and Fohat 'has naught to do with Kosmos yet' point to the supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage explicitly traces a cascading chain from the Unknown One/Infinite Totality through the manifested ONE, Universal Mind, Demiurgos/Logos, Fohat, seven principles, to the Solar System—a textbook emanation hierarchy.
A historical or mythical chain of transmission for secret wisdom from master to disciple across time and cultures — the credential of the teaching, not merely its content. Distinct from oral_tradition (the spoken-not-written modality of transmission, which a lineage may or may not use) and hidden_sayings (the concealment-for-readiness of a teaching's meaning, independent of who transmitted it or in what unbroken chain).
The reference to 'trans-Himalayan Esotericism' and Tzon-kha-pa as Avatar of Amitabha implies a chain of transmission for this secret wisdom across time and cultures.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage explicitly contrasts 'exoteric teaching' with esoteric doctrine, and the entire work is titled 'The Secret Doctrine,' framing these as inner truths concealed behind outer appearances.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The 'Infinite TOTALITY' and 'the Boundless ALL' point to a doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The 'mystic world, free from the debasing conditions of this material life' and the unmanifested realm of the Dhyan Chohans suggest a non-physical dimension interpenetrating the physical.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage describes a directional process from the unmanifested to the manifested: the triple One differentiates into the many, Fohat brings elemental atoms together, and the Solar System is brought into existence—a staged descent from spirit to matter.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
Avalokiteswara is explicitly called 'the first Buddha (the Logos),' and the Universal Mind is identified as 'the creative Logos of the Western Kabalists' and 'the Logos of the Platonists,' making the Logos a central mediating principle throughout.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The 'Unknown One, the Infinite TOTALITY' and the 'ONE' that becomes TWO and THREE function as the absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity flows.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
'Darkness generates light' and the ONE becoming TWO and THREE hint at the doctrine that apparent opposites are two extremes of the same scale.