Esoteric explanation may, however, bring some order into this confusion, in which Jehovah becomes Saturn, and Michael and his army, Satan and the rebellious angels, owing to the indiscreet endeavours of the too faithful zealots to see in every pagan god a devil.
The true meaning is far more philosophical, and the legend of the first "Fall" (of the angels) assumes a scientific colouring when correctly understood.
Kronos stands for endless (hence immovable) Duration, without beginning, without an end, beyond divided Time and beyond Space.
Those "Angels," genii, or Devas, who were born to act in space and time , i.e.
, to break through the seven circles of the superspiritual planes into the phenomenal, or circumscribed, super-terrestrial regions, are said allegorically to have rebelled against Kronos and fought the (then) one living and highest God.
In his turn, when Kronos is represented as mutilating Uranus, his father, the meaning of this mutilation is very simple: Absolute Time is made to become the finite and the conditioned; a portion is robbed from the whole, thus showing that Saturn, the father of the gods, has been transformed from Eternal Duration into a limited Period.
Chronos cuts down with his scythe even the longest and (to us) seemingly endless cycles, yet, for all that, limited in Eternity, and puts down with the same scythe the mightiest rebels.
Aye, not one will escape the scythe of Time!
Praise the god or gods, or flout, one or both, and that scythe will not be made to tremble one millionth of a second in its ascending or descending course.
The Titans of Hesiod's Theogony were copied in Greece from the Suras and Asuras of India.
These Hesiodic Titans, the Uranides , numbered once upon a time as only six, have been recently discovered to be seven -- the seventh being called Phoreg -- in an old fragment relating to the Greek myth.
Thus their identity with the Seven rectors is fully demonstrated.
The origin of the "War in Heaven" and the F ALL has, in our mind, to be traced unavoidably to India, and perhaps far earlier than the Puranic accounts thereof.
For T ARAMAYA was in a later age, and there are three accounts, each of a distinct war, to be traced in almost every Cosmogony.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 419 THE WAR OF THE GODS.
The first war happened in the night of time, between the gods the (A)- suras , and lasted for the period of one "divine year."* On this occasion the deities were defeated by the Daityas, under the leadership of Hrada.
After that, owing to a device of Vishnu, to whom the conquered gods applied for help, the latter defeated the Asuras.
In the Vishnu Purana no interval is found between the two wars.
In the Esoteric Doctrine, one war takes place before the building of the Solar system; another, on earth, at the "creation" of man; and a third "war" is mentioned as taking place at the close of the 4th Race, between its adepts and those of the 5th Race, i.e.
, between the Initiates of the "Sacred Island" and the Sorcerers of Atlantis.
We shall notice the first contest, as recounted by Parasara, while trying to separate the two accounts, purposely blended together.
It is there stated that as the Daityas and Asuras were engaged in the duties of their respective orders ( Varna ) and followed the paths prescribed by holy writ, practising also religious penance (a queer employment for demons if they are identical with our devils , as it is claimed) -- it was impossible for the gods to destroy them.
The prayers addressed by the gods to Vishnu are curious as showing the ideas involved in an anthropomorphic deity.
Having, after their defeat, "fled to the Northern shore of the Milky Ocean (Atlantic Ocean),** the discomfited gods address many supplications "to the first [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * One "Day of Brahma" lasting 4,320,000,000 years -- multiply this by 365!
The Asuras here (no-gods, but demons) are still Suras , gods higher in hierarchy than such secondary gods as are not even mentioned in the Vedas.
The duration of the war shows its significance, and that they are only the personified Cosmic powers.
It is evidently for sectarian purposes and out of odium theologicum that the illusive form assumed by Vishnu Mayamoha , was attributed in later rearrangements of old texts to Buddha and the Daityas, in the Vishnu Purana , unless it was a fancy of Wilson himself.
He also fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in Bhagavatgita, whereas, as proved by K.
T.
Telang, he had only confused the Buddhists and the older Charvaka materialists.
The version exists nowhere in other Puranas if the inference does, as Professor Wilson claims, in the "Vishnu Purana"; the translation of which, especially of Book iii., ch.
xviii., where the reverend Orientalist arbitrarily introduces Buddha, and shows him teaching Buddhism to Daityas -- led to another "great war" between himself and Col.
Vans Kennedy.
The latter charged him publicly with wilfully distorting Puranic texts.
"I affirm," wrote the Colonel at Bombay, in 1840, "that the Puranas do not contain what Professor Wilson has stated is contained in them .
.
.
until such passages are produced I may be allowed to repeat my former conclusions, that Professor Wilson's opinion, that the Puranas as now extant are compilations made between the eighth and seventeenth centuries ( A.D .!) rests solely on gratuitous assumptions and unfounded assertions , and that his reasoning in support of it is either futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable." (See Vishnu Purana , trans.
by Wilson, edit.
by Fitzedward Hall, Vol.
V., Appendix.) ** This statement belongs to the third War, since the terrestrial continents, seas and rivers are mentioned in connection with it.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 420 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
of beings, the divine Vishnu," and among others this one: "Glory to thee, who art one with the Saints, whose perfect nature is ever blessed.
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Glory to thee, who art one with the Serpent-race , double-tongued , impetuous , cruel , insatiate of enjoyment and abounding with wealth.
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Glory to thee, .
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O Lord, who hast neither colour nor extension , nor size ( ghana ), nor any predicable qualities , and whose essence ( rupa ), purest of the pure is appreciable only by holy Paramarshi (greatest of sages or Rishis).
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The passage explicitly critiques the 'prayers addressed by the gods to Vishnu' as 'showing the ideas involved in an anthropomorphic deity,' and contrasts this with the true apophatic description of the divine.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The prayer to Vishnu describes the divine as 'neither colour nor extension, nor size (ghana), nor any predicable qualities, and whose essence (rupa), purest of the pure is appreciable only by holy Paramarshi' — describing the divine exclusively by negation.
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 demonstrates structural identity between the Greek Hesiodic Titans (six, later seven, the seventh being Phoreg) and the Indian Suras/Asuras, showing the same cosmic structure reflected across cultures.
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 narrates the origin of the War in Heaven, the transformation of Kronos from Eternal Duration to limited Period, the building of the Solar system, and the creation of man as sequential cosmogonic events.
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 describes a cascading structure from Kronos (endless Duration, beyond Time and Space) through the 'seven circles of the superspiritual planes' into 'the phenomenal, or circumscribed, super-terrestrial regions,' with angels/Devas born to act at each level.
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 passage traces the origin of the War in Heaven 'unavoidably to India' and demonstrates the identity of Hesiodic Titans with Indian Suras/Asuras, establishing a cross-cultural chain of transmission for the myth.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage explicitly states that 'the true meaning is far more philosophical' than the literal reading, that esoteric explanation 'may bring some order into this confusion,' and that the outer narrative (Jehovah as Satan, angels as devils) conceals an inner scientific/philosophical truth.
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 passage describes multiple non-physical dimensions: 'the seven circles of the superspiritual planes,' 'the phenomenal, or circumscribed, super-terrestrial regions,' and the 'Northern shore of the Milky Ocean' as a non-physical locus of divine conflict.
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 descent: angels 'break through the seven circles of the superspiritual planes into the phenomenal' regions, and Kronos is transformed 'from Eternal Duration into a limited Period' — a staged process from unconditioned to conditioned.
Organized, persisting groups — fraternities, orders, lodges — that maintain esoteric knowledge or practices as an institution distinct from public religion or mainstream society, holding 'the keys' collectively rather than through any one master-disciple pair. Distinct from esoteric_lineage (a genealogical chain of individual transmission, not an institution) and hidden_sayings (the concealment of a teaching's meaning, independent of whether any organized body holds it).
The passage references the 'Initiates of the Sacred Island' and 'the Sorcerers of Atlantis' as organized groups maintaining esoteric knowledge, and the 'Esoteric Doctrine' itself implies an institutional holder of these teachings.