Page 87 (part 1)

The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 590 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. § XXV. THE MYSTERIES OF THE HEBDOMAD. W E must not close this Part on the Symbolism of Archaic History, without an attempt to explain the perpetual recurrence of this truly mystic number in every scripture known to the Orientalists. As every religion, from the oldest to the latest, claims its presence, and explains it on its own grounds agreeably with its own special dogmas, this is no easy task. We can, therefore, do no better or more explanatory work than to give a bird's-eye view of all. These sacred numbers (3, 4, 7) are the sacred numbers of Light, Life, and Union -- especially in this present manvantara, our Life-cycle; of which number seven is the special representative, or the Factor number. This has now to be demonstrated. If one happened to ask a Brahmin learned in the Upanishads -- so full of the secret wisdom of old, why "he, of whom seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the moon-plant, is trisuparna, " as Bopaveda is credited with saying; and why the Somapa Pitris should be worshipped by the Brahmin trisuparna -- very few could answer the question; or, if they knew, they would still less satisfy one's curiosity. Let us, then, hold to what the old Esoteric doctrine teaches. " When the first ' Seven ' appeared on earth, they threw the seed of everything that grows on the land into the soil. First came three, and four were added to these as soon as stone was transformed into plant. Then came the second ' Seven, ' who, guiding the Jivas of the plants, produced the middle ( intermediate ) natures between plant and moving living animal. The third ' Seven ' evolved their Chhayas. . . . The fifth ' Seven ' imprisoned their E SSENCE. . . . Thus man became a Saptaparna. " ( Commentary. ) ------- A. S APTAPARNA. Such is the name given in Occult phraseology to man. It means as shown elsewhere, a seven-leaved plant, and the name has a great significance in the Buddhist legends. So it had, also, under disguise, in the Greek "myths." The T, or ( tau ) , formed from the figure 7, and the Greek letter [[ G ]] ( gamma ) , was ( see § " Cross and Circle ") the symbol of life, ------ [[Vol. 2, Page]] 591 THE MEANING OF THE DOUBLE TRIANGLE. and of life eternal: of earthly life, because [[ G ]] ( gamma ) is the symbol of the Earth ( gaia )*; and of "life eternal," because the figure 7 is the symbol of the same life linked with divine life, the double glyph expressed in geometrical figures being: -- a triangle and a quaternary, the symbol of septenary MAN. Now, the number six has been regarded in the ancient mysteries as an emblem of physical nature. For six is the representation of the six dimensions of all bodies: the six lines which compose their form, namely, the four lines extending to the four cardinal points, North, South, East, and West, and the two lines of height and thickness that answer to the Zenith and the Nadir. Therefore, while the senary was applied by the sages to physical man, the septenary was for them the symbol of that man plus his immortal soul. Ragon gives in his Maconnerie Occulte a very good illustration of the "hieroglyphical senary," as he calls our double equilateral triangle, . He shows it as the symbol of the commingling of the " philosophical three fires and the three waters, whence results the procreation of the elements of all things. The same idea is found in the Indian equilateral double triangle. For, though it is called in that country the sign of Vishnu, yet in truth it is the symbol of the Triad (or the Trimurti). For, even in the exoteric rendering, the lower triangle with the apex downward, is the symbol of Vishnu, the god of the moist principle and water (" Nara -yana," or the moving Principle in Nara, water;**) while the triangle, with its apex upward, is Siva, the Principle of Fire, symbolized by the triple flame in his hand. (See the bronze statue of Tripurantika Siva, "Mahadeva destroying Tripurasura," at the museum of the India House). It is these two interlaced triangles -- wrongly called "Solomon's seal," which also form the emblem of our [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Hence the Initiates in Greece called the Tau [[ I ]] , son of gaia , "sprung from earth," like Tityos in Odyssey 7, 324. ** See the Mahabharata, e.g., III ., 189, 3, where Vishnu says, "I called the name of water nara in ancient times, and am hence called Narayana , for that was always the abode I moved in" ( Ayana ). It is into the water (or chaos, the "moist principle" of the Greeks and Hermes), that the first seed of the Universe is thrown. "The 'Spirit of God' moves on the dark waters of Space"; hence Thales makes of it the primordial element and prior to Fire, which was yet latent in that Spirit. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 592 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Society -- that produce the Septenary and the Triad at one and the same time, and are the Decad, whatever way this sign is examined, as all the ten numbers are contained therein. For with a point in the middle or centre, thus it is a sevenfold sign; its triangles denote number 3; the two triangles show the presence of the binary; the triangles with the central point common to both yield the quaternary; the six points are the senary; and the central point, the unit; the quinary being traced by combination, as a compound of two triangles, the even number, and of three sides in each triangle, the first odd number. This is the reason why Pythagoras and the ancients made the number six sacred to Venus, since "the union of the two sexes, and the spagyrisation of matter by triads are necessary to develop the generative force, that prolific virtue and tendency to reproduction which is inherent in all bodies."* Belief in "Creators," or the personified Powers of Nature, is in truth no polytheism, but a philosophical necessity. Like all the other planets of our system, the Earth has seven Logoi -- the emanating rays of the one "Father-Ray" -- the PROTOGONOS, or the manifested "Logos" -- he who sacrifices his Esse (or flesh, the Universe) that the world may live and every creature therein have conscious being.