Page 84 (part 7)

Brahma calls him Rudra, and gives him, besides, seven other names, which names are his seven forms of manifestation, also the seven powers of nature which destroy but to recreate or regenerate. Hence the cruciform noose ( pasa ) in his hand, when he is represented as an ascetic, the Mahayogin, has no phallic signification, and it, indeed, requires a strong imagination bent in this direction to find such even in [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See Moor's "Hindu Pantheon," plate xiii. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 549 "GUHA," THE MYSTERIOUS. an astronomical symbol. As an emblem of "door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet" it signifies the "strait gate" that leads to the kingdom of heaven, far more than the "birth-place" in a physiological sense. It is a Cross in a Circle and Crux Ansata, truly; but it is a Cross on which all the human passions have to be crucified before the Yogi passes through the "strait gate," the narrow circle that widens into an infinite one, as soon as the inner man has passed the threshold. As to the mysterious constellation of the Seven Rishis in the great Bear, if Egypt made them sacred to "the oldest genitrix, Typhon" -- India has connected all these symbols ages ago with time or Yuga revolutions, and the Saptarishis are intimately connected with our present age -- the Dark Kali Yug.* The great Circle of Time, on the face of which fancy in India has represented the Tortoise (Kurma, or Sisumara, one of the Avatars of Vishnu), has the Cross placed on it by nature in its division and localisation of stars, planets and constellations. Thus in Bhagavata Purana V., xxx., it is said that "at the extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed toward the South and whose body is in the shape of a ring (Circle), Dhruva (the ex-pole star) is placed; and along that tail are the Prajapati, Agni, Indra, Dharma, etc.; and across its loins the Seven Rishis." This is then the first and earliest Cross and Circle, into the formation of which enters the Deity (symbolized by Vishnu), the Eternal Circle of Boundless Time, Kala, on whose plane lie crossways all the gods, creatures, and creations born in Space and Time; -- who, as the philosophy has it, all die at the Mahapralaya. Meanwhile it is they, the Seven Rishis, who mark the time and the duration of events in our septenary life cycle. They are as mysterious as their supposed wives, the Pleiades, of whom only one -- she who hides -- has proven virtuous. The Pleiades (Krittika) are the nurses of Karttikeya, the God of War (Mars of the Western Pagans), who is called the Commander of the celestial armies -- or rather of the Siddhas (translated Yogis in heaven, and holy sages on the earth) -- "Siddha-sena," which would make Karttikeya identical with Michael, the "leader of the celestial hosts" and, like himself, a virgin Kumara.** Verily he is the "Guha," the mysterious one, as much so as are the Saptarshis and the Krittika (seven Rishis and the Pleiades), for the interpretation of all these combined, reveal to the adept the greatest mysteries of occult nature. One point is worth mention in this question of cross and [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Described in the "Mission des Juifs" by the Marquis St. Yves d'Alveydre, the hierophant and leader of a large party of French Kabalists, as the Golden Age! ** The more so since he is the reputed slayer of Tripurasura and the Titan Taraka. Michael is the conqueror of the dragon, and Indra and Karttikeya are often made identical. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 550 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. circle, as it bears strongly upon the elements of fire and water, which play such an important part in the circle and cross Symbolics. Like Mars, who is alleged by Ovid to have been born of a mother alone (Juno), without the participation of a father, or like the Avatars (Krishna, for instance), in the West as in the East -- Karttikeya is born, but in a still more miraculous manner -- begotten by neither father nor mother, but out of a seed of Rudra Siva, via Agni, who dropped it into the Ganges. Thus he is born from fire and water -- a "boy bright as the Sun and beautiful as the moon." Hence he is called Agnibhuva (Agni's son) and Ganga-putra (Son of Ganges). Add to this the fact that the Krittika, his nurses, as Matsya Purana shows, are presided over by Agni, or, in the authentic words -- "The seven Rishis are on a line with the brilliant Agni," and hence are called Agneya -- and the connection is easy to follow. It is, then, the Rishis who mark the time and the periods of Kali-yuga, the age of sin and sorrow. See in the Bhagavata Purana XII ., II, 2, 6, 32, and Vishnu Purana. Says the latter: "When the splendour of Vishnu (Krishna) departed for heaven, then did the Kali Yug, during which men delight in sin, invade the world. . . . . When the Seven Rishis were in Magha, the Kali Yug, comprising 1,200 (divine) years (432,000 years of mortals), began; and when from Magha, they shall reach Purvashadha, then will this Kali age attain its growth, under Nanda and his successors."* This is the revolution of the Rishis "when the two first stars of the Seven Rishis (of the Great Bear) rise in the heavens, and some lunar asterism is seen at night, at an equal distance between them, then the Seven Rishis continue stationary in that conjunction for a hundred years," a hater of Nanda makes Parasara say. According to Bentley, it is in order to show the quantity of the precession of the equinoxes that this notion originated among the astronomers. It was done "by assuming an imaginary line, or great circle, passing through the poles of the ecliptic and the beginning of the fixed Magha, which circle was supposed to cut some of the stars in the Great Bear. . . . The seven stars being called the Rishis, the Circle so assumed was called the line of the Rishis . . . .