Page 55 (part 2)

T HE Progenitors of Man, called in India "Fathers," Pitara or Pitris, are the creators of our bodies and lower principles. They are ourselves, as the first personalities, and we are they. Primeval man would be "the bone of their bone and the flesh of their flesh," if they had body and flesh. As stated, they were " lunar Beings." The Endowers of man with his conscious, immortal EGO, are the "Solar Angels" -- whether so regarded metaphorically or literally. The mysteries of the Conscious EGO or human Soul are great. The esoteric name of these "Solar Angels" is, literally, the "Lords" ( Nath ) of "persevering ceaseless devotion" ( pranidhana ) . Therefore they of the fifth principle ( Manas ) seem to be connected with, or to have originated the system of the Yogis who make of pranidhana their fifth observance (see Yoga Shastra, II., 32.) It has already been explained why the trans-Himalayan Occultists regard them as evidently identical with those who in India are termed Kumaras, Agnishwattas, and the Barhishads. How precise and true is Plato's expression, how profound and philosophical his remark on the (human) soul or EGO, when he defined it as "a compound of the same and the other. " And yet how little this hint has been understood, since the world took it to mean that the soul was the breath of God, of Jehovah. It is "the same and the other, " as the great Initiate-Philosopher said; for the EGO (the "Higher Self" when merged with and in the Divine Monad) is Man, and yet the same as the "OTHER," the Angel in him incarnated, as the same with the universal M AHAT. The great classics and philosophers felt this truth, when saying that "there must be something within us which produces our thoughts. Something very subtle; it is a breath; it is fire; it is ether; [[Vol. 2, Page]] 89 PITRIS OF THE GODS AND DEMONS. it is quintessence; it is a slender likeness; it is an intellection; it is a number; it is harmony. . . . . " ( Voltaire ) . All these are the Manasam and Rajasas: the Kumaras, Asuras, and other rulers and Pitris, who incarnated in the Third Race, and in this and various other ways endowed mankind with Mind. There are seven classes of Pitris, as shown below, three incorporeal and four corporeal; and two kinds, the Agnishwatta and the Barhishad. And we may add that, as there are two kinds of Pitris, so there is a double and a triple set of Barhishad and Agnishwatta. The former, having given birth to their astral doubles, are reborn as Sons of Atri, and are the "Pitris of the Demons," or corporeal beings, on the authority of Manu (III., 196); while the Agnishwatta are reborn as Sons of Marichi (a son of Brahma), and are the Pitris of the Gods ( Manu again, Matsya and Padma Puranas and Kulluka in the Laws of the Manavas, III., 195).* Moreover, the Vayu Purana declares all the seven orders to have originally been the first gods, the Vairajas, whom Brahma "with the eye of Yoga, beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the gods of gods "; and the Matsya adds that the Gods worshipped them; while the Harivansa ( S. 1, 935) distinguishes the Virajas as one class of the Pitris only -- a statement corroborated in the Secret Teachings, which, however, identify the Virajas with the elder Agnishwattas** and the Rajasas, or Abhutarajasas, who are incorporeal without even an astral phantom. Vishnu is said, in most of the MSS ., to have incarnated in and through them. "In the Raivata Manvantara, again, Hari, best of gods, was born of Sambhuti, as the divine Manasas -- originating with the deities called Rajasas." Sambhuti was a daughter of Daksha, and wife of Marichi, the father of the Agnishwatta, who, along with the Rajasas, are ever associated with Manasas. As remarked by a far more able Sanskritist than Wilson, Mr. Fitzedward Hall, "Manasa is no inappropriate name for a deity associated with the Rajasas. We appear to have in it Manasam -- the same as Manas -- with the change of termination required to express male personification" ( Vishnu Purana Bk. III., ch. I., p. 17 footnote). All the sons of Viraja are Manasa, says Nilakantha. And [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * We are quite aware that the Yayu and Matsya Puranas identify (agreeably to Western interpretation) the Agnishwatta with the seasons, and the Barhishad Pitris with the months; adding a fourth class -- the Kavyas -- cyclic years. But do not Christian, Roman Catholics identify their Angels with planets, and are not the seven Rishis become the Saptarshi -- a constellation? They are deities presiding over all the cyclic divisions. ** The Vayu Purana shows the region called Viraja-loka inhabited by the Agnishwattas. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 90 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Viraja is Brahma, and, therefore, the incorporeal Pitris are called Vairajas from being the sons of Viraja, says Vayu Purana. We could multiply our proofs ad infinitum, but it is useless. The wise will understand our meaning, the unwise are not required to. There are thirty-three crores, or 330 millions, of gods in India. But, as remarked by the learned lecturer on the Bhagavad Gita, "they may be all devas, but are by no means all 'gods', in the high spiritual sense one attributes to the term." "This is an unfortunate blunder," he remarks, "generally committed by Europeans. Deva is a kind of spiritual being, and because the same word is used in ordinary parlance to mean god, it by no means follows that we have to worship thirty-three crores of gods." And he adds suggestively: "These beings, as may be naturally inferred have a certain affinity with one of the three component Upadhis (basic principles) into which we have divided man." -- ( Vide Theosophist, Feb., 1887, et seq. ) The names of the deities of a certain mystic class change with every Manvantara.