The Theosophical Quarterly Subscription price, $1.00 per annum; single copies 25 cents Published by The Theosophical Society ^ at 64 Washington Mews, New York, N. Y. :r > 1* July; October; January; April Address all communications to P. O. Box 64, Station O, N ew York In Europe, single copies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be sent to John M. Watkins, 21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2, England; or to Mr. E. H. Lincoln, 9 Beaconsfield Road, Low Fell, Gateshead-on-Tyne, England, from whom all back numbers may be obtained. Annual subscription price, 6s., postpaid. CONTENTS OF VOL. XXVIII, NO. 1 July, 1930 PAGE NOTES AND CO M M EN TS......................................................................... 5 FR AG M EN TS................................................................................................... 13 THEOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PLANT WORLD .......... 14 W AR MEMORIES, V III............................................................................... 25 HIGHER EDUCATION, A New T ranslation..................................... 34 THOUGHTS OF A NEW MEMBER ....................................................... 43 THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT AND KALI YUGA .............. 45 BRIHAD ARANYAKA UPANISHAD, Part IV, Section 4 .................. 58 ON TH E SCREEN OF T IM E .................................................................... 64 T. S. ACTIVITIES: Convention Report; Letters of Greeting . 73 R E V IE W S.......................................................................................................... 108 QUESTIONS AND AN SW ERS.................................................................... n o Entered as second-class matter September 5. 1923, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y ., under the Act of March 3, 1879* Copyright, 1930, by The Theosophical Society The Theosophical Quarterly VOLUME XXVIII J uly, 1930— A pril, 1931 PUBLISHED BY THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY NEW YORK 41131 V, 2 £ 11*30/3 I The Theosophical Quarterly Subscription price, $i.oo per annum; single copies, 25 cents Published by The Theosophical Society at 64 Washington Mews, New York, N. Y. July; October; January; April Address all communications to P. O. Box 64, Station O, New York In Europe, single copies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be sent to John M. Watkins, 21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2, England; or to Mr. E. H. Lincoln. 9 Beaconsfield Road. Low Fell. Gateshead-on-Tyne, England, from whom all back numbers may be obtained. Annual subscription price, 6s., postpaid. THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY The principal aim and object of this Society is to form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour. The subsidiary objects are: The study of ancient and modern religions, philosophies and sciences, and the demonstration of the importance of such study; and the investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man. The Theosophical Quarterly is the official organ of the original Theosophical Society founded in New York by II. P. Blavaisky, W. Q. Judge and others, in 1875. We wish to make it clear that ice have no connection ichatsoever with any other organization calling itself Theosophical, headed by Mrs. Besant or others, nor with similar bodies, the purposes and methods of which are wholly foreign to our own. E ditors, T he T heosophical Quarterly. 1934 io JULY, 1930 The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an official document. THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINE MAN MONG the discourses of the Buddha there is one named the Lakkhana Suttanta. The first part of the Pali nameMAR corresponds to the Sanskrit Lakshana, a characteristic, a distinguishing mark; and the discourse is i ned with the marks which distinguish the body of the Maha-Purusha, the Great, or Divine Man, such as grace of form, beauty of colour, and so on. The words of the Buddha suggest that the list of characteristic signs was old in his day, and the stories of his own birth represent the magicians and astrologers as identifying these signs on the body of the new-born divine infant. One may BINDING safely come to the conclusion that the tradition of these signs, thirty-two in number, is very old, far older than the period, two and a half millenniums ago, when the Buddha taught in the valley of the Ganges. The name, Maha-Purusha, in Pali, Maha-Purisa, suggested to Mr. T. W. Rhys Davids, a series of reflections, which he did not carry to their legitimate conclusion, but which, when fully developed, are deeply significant. Let us try to see what their fuller meaning is. j The learned Pali scholar points out two things: that the term M aha-Purisi is rarely used in Pali; it is not a standard Pali term, as is, for example, Arhat; and he indicates, but does not develop, certain relations between the Buddhist use of the term Purisa, or Purusha, and its earlier use in the Vedas, especially in the celebrated hymn in the tenth book of the Rig Veda, which is called “ Purusha Sukta” , the Hymn of Purusha. This great hymn contains two ele­ ments: first, the teaching of the Divine Man, the Logos in a sense personified; and, second, the even more mystical doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Divine Man. Both teachings are present in that great river of spiritual illumination which has its source in ancient E gypt; both may be recognized in the story of Osiris and in the Gospel of St. John. Finding them present in Vedic India and in prehistoric Egypt, we may safely reach the conclusion that they are an in- 5 « 1 8 8 9 8 4 6 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY tegral part of the primordial Wisdom Religion, the doctrine of the Greater Mysteries. Following the translation of John Muir, the Purusha Sukta may be ren­ dered as follows: 1. Purusha (the Divine Man) has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. On every side enveloping the earth, he overpassed it by a space of ten fingers. 2. Purusha himself, the Divine Man, is this whole universe, whatsoever has been and whatsoever shall be. He is also the Lord of immortality, since (or, when) by food he expands. 3. Such is his greatness, and Purusha is superior to this. All existences are a quarter of him; and three-fourths of him are that which is immortal in the heavens. 4. With three quarters Purusha mounted upwards. A quarter of him was again produced here. He was then diffused everywhere over things which eat and things which do not eat. 5. From him was born Viraj, and from Viraj, Purusha. When born he ex­ tended beyond the earth, both behind and before. So far, the first part of this great hymn, which is concerned with the Logos as the foundation of Being, the basis of manifestation: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life___” The symbolism of the thousand heads, the thousand eyes, the thousand feet, is universal. It has its echo in the Book of Proverbs: “ The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” Much of the essence of this hymn is found also in the Bhagavad Gita, that treasury of wisdom. Thus Krishna, speaking as the Logos, declares that He contains the world; the world does not contain Him; one-fourth of His being is the manifested world; three-fourths are eternal in the heavens. The Vedic hymn says that from Purusha was born Viraj, and from Viraj, Purusha. Viraj is twofold: positive and negative, masculine and feminine, subjective and objective. Viraj thus marks the field of primordial differenti­ ation or cleavage between Perceiver and Perceived; the cleavage which is the fundamental activity of Maya, of Cosmic Illusion, since there is in reality no cleavage, though without the semblance of cleavage there would be no manifes­ tation. The semblance of cleavage is a vitally important activity; it is not an eternal state of Being. The hymn goes on to say that from Viraj was born Purusha, that is, the Logos as the manifested universe; the Third Logos of The Secret Doctrine. We come now to the second movement of the Purusha Sukta, which intro­ duces the Sacrifice of the Divine M an: 6. When the gods (Radiant Powers) performed a sacrifice with Purusha as NOTES AND COMMENTS 7 the oblation, the Spring was its butter, the Summer its fuel, and the Autumn its (accompanying) offering. 7. This victim, Purusha, born in the beginning, they immolated on the sacrificial grass. With him the gods, the Sadhyas (Spirits of Light) and the rishis sacrificed. 8. From that universal sacrifice were provided curds and butter. It formed those (aerial) creatures, both wild and tame.-. At the beginning of the creative period, the Manvantara, the Logos contains all the powers and elements that are to be manifested: all forms and degrees of consciousness, all activities of force, all degrees of substance. But our Vedic hymn does not contemplate what may be called a purely automatic and spon­ taneous emanation of world-systems, worlds and their inhabitants. It con­ templates rather a disposal and direction of these qualities of consciousness, of force, of substance, by divine beings, who are named in three degrees: gods, Sadhyas and rishis; that is, to use the terms of The Secret Doctrine, Dhyan Chohans of higher and lower degree, acting with Masters of Wisdom (rishis) who have attained supreme wisdom, power and holiness in an earlier Manvan­ tara. Both elements of manifestation are present: the inherent tendencies of the Logos; and the directive energies of conscious Creative Powers. Funda­ mentalist and Modernist may find their reconciliation here. The sixth verse symbolizes the sacrifice of Purusha as the three seasons (since there was no winter in the Land of the Seven Rivers, that part of North­ ern India where this hymn may have taken form), in the circle of the year: that is, an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle, the symbol of Triune Spirit in the Eternal.