H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Volume 3

SECTION XXXIX
Cycles of Avatâras

 

(Page 345) We have already drawn attention to the facts that the record of the life of a World-Savior is emblematical, and must be read by its mystic meaning, and that the figures 432 have a cosmic evolutionary significance. We find these two facts throwing light on the origin of the exoteric Christian religion, and clearing away much of the obscurity surrounding its beginnings. For is it not clear that the names and characters in the Synoptical Gospels and in that of St. John are not historical? Is it not evident that the compilers of the life of Christ, desirous to show that the birth of their Master was a cosmic, astronomical, and divinely-preördained event, attempted to coördinate the same with the end of the secret cycle, 4,320? When facts are collated this answers to them as little as does the other cycle of “thirty-three solar years, seven months, and seven days,” which has also been brought forward as supporting the same claim, the soli-lunar cycle in which the Sun gains on the Moon one solar year. The combination of the three figures, 4, 3, 2, with cyphers according to the cycle and Manvantara concerned, was, and is, preëminently Hindu. It will remain a secret even though several of its significant features are revealed. It relates, for instance, to the Pralaya of the races in their periodical dissolution, before which events a special Avatâra has always to descend and incarnate on earth. These figures were adopted by all the older nations, such as those of Egypt and Chaldæa, and before them were current among the Atlanteans. Evidently some of the more learned among the early Church Fathers who had dabbled, whilst Pagans, in temple secrets, knew them to relate to the Avatâric or Messianic Mystery, and tried to apply this cycle to the birth of their Messiah; they failed because the figures relate to the respective ends of the Root-Races and not to any individual. In their badly-directed efforts, moreover, an error of five years occurred. Is it possible, if their claims as to the (Page 346) importance and universality of the event were correct, that such a vital mistake should have been allowed to creep into a chronological computation preördained and traced in the heavens by the finger of God? Again, what were the Pagan and even Jewish Initiates doing, if this claim as to Jesus be correct? Could they, the custodians of the key to the secret cycles and Avatâras, the heirs of the Âryan, Egyptian, and Chaldæan wisdom, have failed to recognize their great “God-Incarnate,” one with Jehovah, [ In the 1,326 places in the New Testament where the word “God” is mentioned nothing signifies that in God are included more beings than God. On the contrary in 17 places God is called the only God. The places where the Father is so-called amount to 320. In 105 places God is addressed with high-sounding titles. In 90 places all prayers and thanks are addressed to the Father: 300 times in the New Testament is the Son declared to be inferior to the Father; 85 times is Jesus called the “Son of Man; 70 times is he called a man. In not one single place in the Bible is it said that God holds within him three different Beings or Persons, and yet is one Being or Person—Dr. Karl Von Bergen’s Lectures in Sweden.] their Saviour of the latter days, him whom all the nations of Asia still expect as their Kalki Avatâra, Maitreya Buddha, Sosiosh, Messiah, etc.,?
The simple secret is this: There are cycles within greater cycles, which are all contained in the one Kalpa of 4,320,000 years. It is at the end of this cycle that the Kalki Avatâra is expected—the Avatâra Whose name and characteristics are secret, Who will come forth from Shamballa, the “City of Gods,” which is in the West for some nations, in the East for others, in the North or South for yet others. And this is the reason why, from the Indian Rishi to Virgil, and from Zoroaster down to the latest Sibyl, all have, since the beginning of the Fifth Race, prophesied, sung, and promised the cyclic return of the Virgin—Virgo, the constellation—and the birth of a divine child who should bring back to our earth the Golden Age.
No one, however fanatical, would have sufficient hardihood to maintain that the Christian era has ever been a return to the Golden Age—Virgo having actually entered into Libra since then. Let us trace as briefly as possible the Christian traditions to their true origin.
First of all, they discover in a few lines from Virgil a direct prophecy of the birth of Christ. Yet it is impossible to detect in this prophecy any feature of the present age. It is in the famous fourth Eclogue in which, half a century before our era, Pollio is made to ask the Muses of Sicily to sing to him about greater events.

The last era of Cumæan song is now arrived and the grand series of ages [ that series which recurs again and again in the course of our mundane revolution ] begins afresh. Now the Virgin Astæa returns, and the reign of Saturn recommences

An Unfulfilled Prophecy - (Page 347) Now a new progeny descends from the celestial realms. Do thou, chaste Lucina, smile propitious to the infant Boy who will bring to a close the present Age of Iron, [ Kali Yuga, the Black or Iron Age.] and introduce throughout the whole world the Age of Gold. . . . . He shall share the life of Gods and shall see heroes mingled in society with Gods, himself to be seen by them and all the peaceful world. . . . Then shall the herds no longer dread the huge lion, the serpent also shall die: and the poison’s deceptive plant shall perish. Come then, dear child of the Gods, great descendant of Jupiter!. . . . The time is near. See, the world is shaken with its globe saluting thee: the earth, the regions of the sea, and the heavens sublime. [ Virgil, Eclogue. iv.]

It is in these few lines, called the “Sibylline prophecy about the coming of Christ,” that his followers now see a direct foretelling of the event. Now who will presume to maintain that either at the birth of Jesus or since the establishment of the so-called Christian religion, any portion of the above-quoted sentences can be shown as prophetic? Has the “last age”—the Age of Iron, or Kali Yuga—closed since then? Quite the reverse, since it is shown to be in full sway just now, not only, because the Hindus use the name, but by universal personal experience. Where is that “new race that has descended from the celestial realms”? Was it the race that emerged from Paganism into Christianity? Or is it our present race, with nations ever red-hot for fight, jealous and envious, ready to pounce upon each other, showing mutual hatred that would put to blush cats and dogs, ever lying and deceiving one another? Is it this age of ours that is the promised “Golden Age”—in which neither the venom of the serpent nor of any plant is any longer lethal, and in which we are all secure under the mild sway of God-chosen sovereigns? The wildest fancy of an opium-eater could hardly suggest a more inappropriate description, if it is to be applied to our age or to any age since the year one of our era. What of the mutual slaughter of sects, of Christians by Pagans, and of Pagans and Heretics by Christians; the horrors of the Middle Ages and of the Inquisition; Napoleon, and since his day, an “armed peace” at best—at the worst, torrents of blood, shed for supremacy over acres of land, and a handful of heathen : millions of soldiers under arms, ready for battle; a diplomatic body playing at Cains and Judases; and instead of the “mild sway of a divine sovereign” the universal, though unrecognised, sway of Cæsarism, of “might” in lieu of “right,” and the breeding therefrom of anarchists, socialists, pétroleuses, and destroyers of every description?

(Page 348) The Sibylline prophecy and Virgil’s inspirational poetry remain unfulfilled in every point, as we see.

The fields are yellow with soft ears of corn;

but so they were before our era:

The blushing grapes shall hang from the rude brambles, and dewy honey shall [ or may ] distil from the rugged oak;

but they have not thus done, so far. We must look for another interpretation. What is it? The Sibylline Prophetess spoke, as thousands of other Prophets and Seers have spoken, though even the few such records that have survived are rejected by Christian and infidel, and their interpretations are only allowed and accepted among the Initiated. The Sibyl alluded to cycles in general and to the great cycle especially. Let us remember how the Purânas corroborate the above, among others the Vishnu Purâna:

When the practices taught by the Vedas, and the Institutes of Law shall have nearly ceased, and the close of the Kali Yuga [ the “Iron Age” of Virgil ] shall be nigh, an aspect of that divine Being who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of Brahmâ and even is the beginning of the end [ Alpha and Omega ], . . . shall descend upon earth: he will be born in the family of Vishnuyashas, an eminent Brâhman of Shamballah . . . . endowed with the eight superhuman powers. By his irresistible might he will destroy . . . all whose minds are devoted to iniquity. He will then reëstablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of the [ Kali ] Age shall be awakened and shall be as pellucid as crystal. [ At the close of our Race, people, it is said, through suffering and discontent will become more spiritual. Clairvoyance will become a general faculty. We shall be approaching the spiritual state of the Third and Second Races.] The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time shall be as the seeds of human beings [ the Shistha, the survivors of the future cataclysm ], and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita [ or Satya ] Yuga [the age of purity, or the “Golden Age”] For it is said: “When the sun and moon and Tishya [asterisms] and the planet Jupiter are in one mansion the Krita Age [the Golden] shall return. [Vishnu Purâna. IV., 228. Wilson’s translation.]

The astronomical cycles of the Hindus—those taught publicly—have been sufficiently well understood, but the esoteric meaning thereof, in its application to transcendental subjects connected with them has ever remained a dead-letter. The number of cycles was enormous; it ranged from the Mahâ Yuga cycle of 4,320,000 years down to the small septenary and quinquennial cycles, the latter being composed of the five years called respectively the Samvatsara, Parivatsara, Idvatsara, Anuvatsara, and Vatsara, each having secret attributes or qualities attached to them.
Secret Cycles - (Page 349) Vriddhagarga gives these in a treatise, now the property of a Trans-Himâlayan Matham (or temple); and describes the relation between this quinquennial and the Brihaspati cycle, based on the conjunction of the Sun and Moon every sixtieth year: a cycle as mysterious—for national events in general and those of the Âryan Hindu nation especially—as it is important.

SECTION XL
Secret Cycles
(Page 350) THE former five-year cycle comprehends sixty solar-sidereal months or 1800 days, sixty-one solar months (or 1830); sixty-two lunar months (or 1860 lunations), and sixty-seven lunar-asterismal months (or 1809 such days).
In his Kâla Sankalita, Col. Warren very properly regards these years as cycles; this they are, for each year has its own special importance as having some bearing upon and connection with specified events in individual horoscopes. He writes that in the cycle of sixty there.

Are contained five cycles of twelve years, each supposed equal to one year of the planet (Brihaspati, or Jupiter) . . . I mention this cycle because I found it mentioned in some books, but I know of no nation or tribe that reckons time after that account. [ Op. cit., p.212.]

The ignorance is very natural, since Col. Warren could know nothing of the secret cycles and their meanings. He adds:

The names of the five cycles of Yugas are: . . . . (1) Samvatsara, (2) Parivatsara, (3) Idvatsara, (4) Anuvatsara, (5) Udravatsara.

The learned Colonel might, however, have assured himself that there were “other nations” which had the same secret cycle, if he had but remembered that the Romans also had their lustrum of five years (from the Hindus undeniably) which represented the same period if multiplied by 12. [ At any rate, the temple secret meaning was the same.] Near Benares there are still the relics of all these cycle-records, and of astronomical instruments cut out of solid rock, the everlasting records of Archaic Initiation, called by Sir W. Jones (as suggested by the prudent Brâhmans who surrounded him) old “back records” or reckonings.
The Naros - (Page 351) But in Stonehenge they exist to this day. Higgins says that Waltire found the barrows of tumuli surrounding this giant-temple represented accurately the situation and magnitude of the fixed stars, forming a complete orrery or planisphere. As Colebrook found out, it is the cycle of the Vedas, recorded in the Jyotisha, one of the Vedàngas, a treatise on Astronomy, which is the basis of calculation for all other cycles, larger or smaller; [ Aiat. Res., vol. viii, p.470. et seq ] and the Vedas were written in characters, archaic though they be, long after those natural observations, made by the aid of their gigantic mathematical and astronomical instruments, had been recorded by the men of the Third Race, who had received their instruction from the Dhyân Chohans. Maurice speaks truly when he observes that all such

Circular stone monuments were intended as durable symbols of astronomical cycles by a race who, not having, or for political reasons, forbidding the use of letters, had no other permanent method of instructing their disciples or handing down their knowledge to posterity.

He errs only in the last idea. It was to conceal their knowledge from profane posterity, leaving it as an heirloom only to the Initiates, that such monuments, at once rock observatories and astronomical treatises, were cut out.
It is no news that as the Hindus divided the earth into seven zones, so the more western peoples—Chaldæans, Phœnicians, and even the Jews, who got their learning either directly or indirectly from the Bràhmans—made all their secret and sacred numerations by 6 and 12, though using the number 7 whenever this would not lend itself to handling. Thus the numerical base of 6, the exoteric figure given by Ãrya Bhatta, was made good use of. From the first secret cycle of 600—the Naros, transformed successively into 60,000 and 60 and 6, and with other noughts added into other secret cycles—down to the smallest, an Archæologist and Mathamatician can easily find it repeated in every country, known to every nation. Hence the globe was divided into 60 degrees, which, multiplied by 60, become 3,600 the “great year.” Hence also the hour with its 60 minutes of 60 seconds each. The Asíatic people count a cycle of 60 years also, after which comes the lucky seventh decad, and the Chinese have their small cycle of 60 days, the Jews of 6 days, the Greeks of 6 centuries—the Naros again.
(Page 352) The Babylonians had a great year of 3,600, being the Naros multiplied by 6. The Tartar cycle called Van was 180 years, or three sixties; this multiplied by 12 times 12=144, makes 25,920 years, the exact period of revolution of the heavens.
India is the birthplace of arithmetic and mathematics; as “Our Figures,” in Chips from a German Workshop, by Prof. Max Müller, shows beyond a doubt. As well explained by Krishna Shâstra Godbole in The Theosophist:
The Jews . . . represented the units (1-9) by the first nine letters of our alphabet; the tens (10-90) by the next nine letters; the first four hundreds (100-400) by the last four letters, and the remaining ones (500-900) by the second forms of the letters “kâf” (11^th), “mîm” (13^th), “nûn” (13^th), “pe” (17^th), and “sâd” (18^th); and they represented other numbers by combining these letters according to their value . . . . The Jews of the present period still adhere to this practice of notation in their Hebrew books. The Greeks had a numerical system similar to that used by the Jews, but they carried it a little farther by using letters of the alphabet with a dash or slant-line behind, to represent thousands (1000-9000), tens of thousands (10,000-90,000) and one hundred of thousands (100,000) the last, for instance, being represented by “rho” with a dash behind, while “rho” singly represented 100. The Romans represented all numerical values by the combination (additive when the second letter is of equal or less value) of six letters of their alphabet: i (=I), v (=5), x (=10), c (for “centum”= 100), d (=500), and m (=1000): thus 20=xx, 15=xv, and 9=ix. These are called the Roman numerals, and are adopted by all European nations when using the Roman alphabet. The Arabs at first followed their neighbours, the Jews, in their method of computation, so much so that they called it Abjad from the first four Hebrew letters—“alif,” “beth,” “gimel”—or rather “jimel,” that is “jim” (Arabic being wanting in “g”, and “daleth,” representing the first four units. But when in the early part of the Christian era they came to India as traders, they found the country already using for computation the decimal scale of notation, which they forthwith borrowed literally; viz., without altering its method of writing from left to right, at variance with their own mode of writing, which is from right to left. They introduced this system into Europe through Spain and other European countries lying along the coast of the Mediterranean and under their sway, during the dark ages of European history. It has thus become evident that the Äryas knew well mathematics or the science of computation at a time when all other nations knew but little, if anything, of it. It has also been admitted that the knowledge of arithmetic and algebra was first introduced from the Hindus by the Arabs, and then taught by them to the Western nations. This fact convincingly proves that the Âryan civilisation is older than that of any other nation in the world: and as the Vedas are avowedly proved the oldest work of that civilisation, a presumption is raised in favour of their great antiquity. [Theosophist, August. 1881.]
Age of the Vedas - (Page 353) But while the Jewish nation, for instance—regarded so long as the first and oldest in the order of creation—knew nothing of arithmetic and remained utterly ignorant of the decimal scale of notation—the latter existed for ages in India before the actual era.
To become certain of the immense antiquity of the Âryan Asiatic nations and of their astronomical records one has to study more than the Vedas. The secret meaning of the latter will never be understood by the present generation of Orientalists; and the astronomical works which give openly the real dates and prove the antiquity of both the nation and its science, elude the grasp of the collectors of ollas and old manuscripts in India, the reason being too obvious to need explanation. Yet there are Astronomers and Mathematicians to this day in India, humble Shâstris and Pandits, unknown and lost in the midst of that population of phenomenal memories and metaphysical brains, who have undertaken the task and have proved to the satisfaction of many that the Vedas are the oldest works in the world. One of such is the Shâstri just quoted, who published in The Theosophist [ Aug., 1881x to Feb., 1882.] an able treatise proving astronomically and mathematically that:

If the Post-Vaidika works alone, the Upanishads, the Brâhmanas, etc., down to the Purânas, when examined critically carry us back to 20,000 B.C. then the time of the composition of the Vedas themselves cannot be less than 30,000 B.C., in round numbers, a date which we may take at present as the age of that Book of books. [Loc. cit.,iv.127 ]

And what are his proofs?

Cycles and the evidence yielded by the asterisms. Here are a few extracts from his rather lengthy treatise, selected to give an idea of his demonstrations and bearing directly on the quinquennial cycle spoken of just now. Those who feel interested in the demonstrations and are advanced mathematicians can turn to the article itself, “The Antiquity of the Vedas,” [Theosophist, vol. iii., p.22.] and judge for themselves.

10. Somâkara in his commentary on the Shesha Jyotisha quotes a passage from the Satapatha Brâhmana, which contains an observation on the change of the topics, and which is also found in the Sâkhâyana Brâhmana, as has been noticed by Prof.Max Müller in his preface to Rigveda Samhitâ (p.xx. foot-note, vol. iv.). The passage is this: . . . “The full-moon night in Phâlguna is the first night of Samvatsara, the first year of the quinquennial age.” This passage clearly shows that the quinquennial age which, according to the sixth verse of the Jyotisha, begins on the 1^st of Mâgha (January-February), once began on the 15^th of Phâlguna (February-March). (Page 354) Now when the 15^th of Phâlguna of the first year called Samvatsara of the quinquennial age begins, the moon, according to the Jyotisha, is in

            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

position of the four principal points on the ecliptic was then as follows:

The winter solstice in 3◦29 of Purva Bhâdrapadâ.

The vernal equinox in the beginning of Mrigashîrsha.

The summer solstice in 10 of Purva Phâlgunî.

The autumnal equinox in the middle of Jyeshtha.

The vernal equinoctial point, we have seen, coincided with the beginning of Krittikâ in 1421 B.C.; and from the beginning of Krittikâ to that of Mrigashîrsha, was, consequence, 1421+26 2/3x72= 1421+1920= 3341 B.C., supposing the rate of precession to be 50,, a year. When we take the rate to be 3◦20" in 247 years, the time comes up to 1516+1960.7=3476.7 B.C.

When the winter solstice by its retrograde motion coincided after that with the beginning of Pûrva Bhâdrapadâ, then the commencement of the quinquennial age was changed from the 15^th to the 1^st of Phâlguna (February-March). This change took place 240 years after the date of the above observation, that is, in 3101 B.C. This date is most important, as from it an era was reckoned in after times. The commencement of the Kali or Kali Yuga (derived from “kal,” “to reckon”), though said by European scholars to be an imaginary date, becomes thus an astronomical fact.

Interchange for Krititkâ and Ashvinî

 

[The impartial study of Vaidic and Post-Vaidic works shows that the ancient Ãryans knew well the precession of the equinoxes, and “that they changed their position from a certain asterism to two (occasionally three) asterisms back whenever the precession amounted to two, properly speaking, to 2 11/61 asterisms or about 29◦, being the motion of the sun in a lunar month, and so caused the seasons to fall back a complete lunar month. . . . It appears certain that at the date of Sûrya Siddhânta, Brahmâ Siddânta, and other ancient treatises on astronomy, the vernal equinoctial point had not actually reached the beginning of Ashvini, but was a few degrees east of it. . . The astronomers of Europe change westward the beginning of Aries and of all other signs of the Zodiac every year by about 50" 25, and thus make the names of the signs meaningless. But these signs are as much fixed as the asterisms themselves, and hence the Western astronomers of the present day appear to us in this respect less wary and scientific in their observations than their very ancient brethren—the Ãryas.”—Theosophist, iii. 23.

We thus see that the asterisms, twenty-seven in number, were counted from the Mrigashîrsha when the vernal equinox retrograded was in its beginning, and that the practice of thus counting was adhered to till the vernal equinox retrograded to the beginning of Krittikâ, when it became the first of the asterisms. For then the winter solstice had changed, receding from Phâlguna (February-March) to Mâgha (January-February), one complete lunar month.