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

What Annihilation Means - (Page 403) [This] denotes it to be the creation of Mâyâ, all the works of which are as nothing before the uncreated Form [Spirit], in whose profound and sacred depths all motion must cease for ever. [Isis Unveiled. i, 289.] 

Motion here refers only to illusive objects, to their change as opposed to perpetuity, rest—perpetual motion being the Eternal Law, the ceaseless Breath of the Absolute.

 

The mastery of Buddhistic dogmas can be attained only according to the Platonic method : from universals to particulars. The key to it lies in the refined and mystical tenets of spiritual influx and divine life.

 

Saith Buddha:

 

Whosoever is unacquainted with my Law, [The Secret Law, the “Doctrine of the Heart,” so called in contrast to the “Doctrine of the Eye.” or exoteric Buddhism.] and dies in that state must return to earth until he becomes a perfect Samano [ascetic]. To achieve this object he must destroy within himself the trinity of Mâyâ. [“Illusive matter in its triple manifestation in the earthly, and the astral or fontal Soul (the body) and the Platonian dual Soul—the rational and the irrational one.”] He must extinguish his passions, unite and identify himself with the Law [the teaching of the Secret Doctrine], and comprehend the philosophy of annihilation. [Isis Unveiled. i.289.]

 

No, it is not in the dead-letter of Buddhistical literature that scholars may ever hope to find the true solution of its metaphysical subtleties. Alone in all antiquity the Pythagoreans understood them perfectly, and it is on the (to the average Orientalist and the Materialist) incomprehensible abstractions of Buddhism that Pythagoras grounded the principal tenets of his Philosophy.

 

Annihilation means with the Buddhistical Philosophy only a dispersion of matter, in whatever form or semblance of form it may be

for everything that bears a shape was created, and thus must sooner or later perish, i.e., change that shape; therefore, as something temporal, though seeming to be permanent, it is but an illusion, Mâyâ; for as eternity has neither beginning nor end, the more or less prolonged duration of some particular form passes, as it were, like an instantaneous flash of lightning. Before we have the time to realize that we have seen it, it is gone and passed for ever; hence even our astral bodies, pure ether, are but illusions of matter so long as they retain their terrestrial outline. The latter changes, says the Buddhist, according to the merits or demerits of the person during his lifetime, and this is (Page 404) metempsychosis. When the spiritual Entity breaks loose for ever from every particle of matter, then only it enters upon the eternal and unchangeable Nirvâna. He exists in Spirit, in nothing; as a form, a shape, a semblance, he is completely annihilated, and thus will die no more, for Spirit alone is no Mâyâ, but the only Reality in an illusionary universe of ever-passing forms. 

It is upon this Buddhist doctrine that the Pythagoreans grounded the principal tenets of their philosophy. “Can that Spirit which gives life and motion, and partakes of the nature of light, be reduced to nonentity?” they ask. “Can that sensitive Spirit in brutes which exercises memory, one of the rational faculties, die and become nothing?” And Whitelock Bulstrode in his able defence of Pythagoras expounds this doctrine by adding:

 

“If you say they [the brutes] breathe their Spirits into the air, and there vanish, that is all that I contend for. The air indeed is the proper place to receive them, being according to Laertius full of souls; and according to Epicurus full of atoms, the principles of all things; for even this place wherein we walk and birds fly has so much of a spiritual nature that it is invisible, and therefore may well be the receiver of forms, since the forms of all bodies are so; we can only see and hear its effects; the air itself is too fine and above the capacity of the age. What then is the ether to the region above, and what are the influences of forms that descend from thence?” The Spirits of creatures, the Pythagoreans hold, who are emanations of the most sublimated portions of ether—emanations, breaths, but not forms. Ether is corruptible—all philosophers agree in that:—and what is incorruptible is so far from being annihilated when it gets rid of the form that it lays a good claim to immortality.

 

“But what is that which has no body, no form; which is imponderable, invisible, and indivisible—that which exists, and yet is not?” ask the Buddhists. “It is Nirvâna,” is the answer. It is nothing—not a region, but rather a state. [Isis Unveiled. i. 290.] 

SECTION XLVII

 

The Secret Books of “Lam-Rin” and Dzyan

 

(Page 405) THE Book of Dzyan—from the Sanskrit word “Dhyân” (mystic meditation)—is the first volume of the Commentaries upon the seven secret folios of Kiu-te, and a Glossary of the public works of the same name. Thirty-five volumes of Kiu-te for exoteric purposes and the use of the laymen may be found in the possession of the Tibetan Gelugpa Lamas, in the library of any monastery; and also fourteen books of Commentaries and Annotations on the same by the initiated Teachers.

 

Strictly speaking, those thirty-five books ought to be termed “The Popularized Version” of the Secret Doctrine, full of myths, blinds, and errors; the fourteen volumes of Commentaries, on the other hand—with their translations, annotations, and an ample glossary of occult terms, worked out from one small archaic folio, the Book of the Secret Wisdom of the World [It is from the texts of all these works that the Secret Doctrine has been given. The original matter would not make a small pamphlet, but the explanations and notes from the Commentaries and Glossaries might be worked into ten volumes as large as Isis Unveiled.]—contain a digest of all the Occult Sciences. These, it appears, are kept secret and apart, in the charge of the Teshu Lama of Tji-gad-je. The Books of Kiu-te are comparatively modern having been edited within the last millennium, whereas the earliest volumes of the Commentaries are of untold antiquity, some fragments of the original cylinders having been preserved. With the exception that they explain and correct some of the too fabulous, and to every appearance, grossly exaggerated accounts in the Books of Kiu-tet [The monk Della Penna makes considerable fun in his Memoirs (see Markham’s Tibet) of certain statements in the books of Kiu-te. He brings to the notice of the Christian public “the great mountain 160.000 leagues high” (a Tibetan league consisting of five miles) in the Himâlayan Range. “According to their law,” he says, “in the west of this world is an eternal world . . . a paradise and in it a Saint called Hopahma, which means ‘Saint of Splendour and Infinite Light.’ This Saint has many disciples who are all Chang-chub,” which means, he adds in a footnote. “the Spirits of those who, on account of their perfection, do not care to become saints, and train and instruct the bodies of the reborn Lamas . . . so that they may help the living.” Which means that the presumably “dead” Yang-Chhub (not “Chang-chub”) are simply living Bodhisattvas, some of those known as Bhante (“the Brothers”). As to the “mountain 160.000 leagues high,” the Commentary which gives the key to such statements explains that according to the code used by the writers, “to the west of the Snowy Mountain” 160 leagues [the cyphers being a blind] from a certain spot and by a direct road, is the Bhante Yul [the country of ‘Seat of the Brothers’], the residence of Mahâ-Chohan . .” etc. This is the real meaning. The “Hopahma” of Della Penna is—the Mahâ-Chohan, the Chief.]—properly so called—the Commentaries have little to do with these. They stand in relation to them (Page 406) as the Chaldæo-Jewish Kabalah stands to the Mosaic Books. In the work known as the Avatumsaka Sûtra, in section: “The Supreme Ãtman [ Soul] as manifested in the character of the Arhats and Pratyeka Buddhas,” it is stated that: 

Because from the beginning all sentient creatures have confused the truth and embraced the false, therefore there came into existence a hidden knowledge called Alaya Vijñâna. 

“Who is in possession of the true knowledge?” is asked. “The great Teachers of the Snowy Mountain,” is the response.

 

These “great Teachers” have been known to live in the “Snowy Range” of the Himâlayas for countless ages. To deny in the face of millions of Hindus the existence of their great Gurus, living in the Ãshrams scattered all over the Trans- or the Cis-Himâlayan slopes is to make oneself ridiculous in their eyes. When the Buddhist Saviour appeared in India, their Ãshrams—for it is rarely that these great Men are found in Lamaseries, unless on a short visit—were on the spots they now occupy, and that even before the Brâhmans themselves came from Central Asia to settle on the Indus. And before that more than one Ãryan Dvija of fame and historical renown had sat at their feet, learning that which culminated later on in one or another of the great philosophical schools. Most of these Himâlayan Bhante were Aryan Brâhmans and ascetics.

 

No student, unless very advanced, would be benefited by the perusal of those exoteric volumes. [ In some MSS, notes before us, written by Gelung (priest) Thango-pa Chhe-go-mo, it is said: “The few Roman Catholic missionaries who have visited our land (under protest) in the last century and have repaid our hospitality by turning our sacred literature into ridicule, have shown little discretion and still less knowledge. It is true that the Sacred Canon of the Tibetans, the Kahgyur and Bstanhgyur, comprises 1707 distinct works—1083 public and 624 secret volumes, the former being composed of 350 and the latter of 77 volumes folio. May we humbly invite the good missionaries, however, to tell us when they ever succeeded in getting a glimpse of the last-named secret folios? Had they even by chance seen them I can assure the Western Pandits that these manuscripts and folios could never be understood even by a born Tibetan without a key (a) to their peculiar characters, and (b) to their hidden meaning. In our system every description of locality is figurative, every name and word purposely veiled: and one has first to study the mode of deciphering and then to learn the equivalent secret terms and symbols for nearly every word of the religious heritage. The Egyptian enchorial or hieractic system is child’s play to our sacerdotal puzzles.”] They must be read with a key to their meaning and that key can only be found in the Commentaries. Moreover there are some comparatively modern works that are positively injurious so far as fair comprehension of even exoteric Buddhism is concerned. Such are the Buddhist Cosmos, by Bonze Jin-ch’on of Pekin; the Shing-Tau-ki ( or The Records of the Enlightenment of Tathâgata), by Wang Puk—seventh century; Hisai Sûtra (or Book of Creation), and some others.

 

 SECTION XLVIII

 

Amita Buddha Kwan-Shai-Yin, and Kwan-Yin
—What the “Book of Dzyan” and the Lamaseries of Tsong-Kha-Pa Say

 

(Page 407) AS a supplement to the Commentaries there are many secret folios on the lives of the Bhuddhas and Bodhisattvas, and among these there is one on Prince Gautama and another on His reincarnation in Tsong-Kha-pa. This great Tibetan Reformer of the fourteenth century, said to be a direct incarnation of Amita Buddha, is the founder of the secret School near Tji-gad-je, attached to the private retreat of the Teshu Lama. It is with Him that began the regular system of Lamaic incarnations of Buddhas (Sang-gyas), or of Shâkya-Thub-pa (Shakyamuni). Amida or Amita Buddha is called by the author of Chinese Buddhism, a mythical being. He speaks of 

Amida Buddha (Ami-to Fo) a fabulous personage, worshipped assiduously—like Kwan-yin—by the Northern Buddhists, but unknown in Siam, Burmah, and Ceylon. [Chinese Buddhism. p.171.] 

Very likely. Yet Amida Buddha is not a “fabulous” personage, since (a) “Amida” is the Senzar form of “Ãdi” ; “Ãdi-Buddhi” and “Ãdi-Buddha, “ [“Buddhi” is a Sanskrit term for “discrimination” or intellect (the sixth principle), and “Buddha” is “wise,” “wisdom,” and also the planet Mercury.] as already shown, existed ages ago as a Sanskrit term for “Primeval Soul” and “Wisdom” ; and (b) the name was applied to Gautama Shâkyamuni, the last Buddha in India, from the seventh century, when Buddhism was introduced into Tibet. “Amitâbha” (in Chinese, “Wu-lian-sheu”) means literally “Boundless Age,” a (Page 408) synonym of “En” or “Ain-Suph,” the “Ancient of Days,” and is an epithet that connects Him directly with the Boundless Âdi-Buddhi (primeval and Universal Soul) of the Hindus, as well as with the Anima Mundi of all the ancient nations of Europe and the Boundless and Infinite of the Kabalists. If Amitâbha be a fiction of the Tibetans, or a new form of Wu-liang-sheu, “a fabulous personage,” as the author-compiler of Chinese Buddhism tells his readers, then the “fable” must be a very ancient one. For on another page he says himself that the addition to the canon of the books containing the 

Legends of Kwan-yin and of the Western heaven with its Buddha, Amitâbha, was also previous to the Council of Kashmere, a little before the beginning of our era, [This curious contradiction may be found in Chinese Buddhism. pp. 171. 273. The reverend author assures his readers that “to the philosophic Buddhists . . . Amitâbha Yoshi Fo, and the others are nothing but the signs of ideas” (p,236). Very true. But so should be all other deific names, such as Jehovah, Allah, etc., and if they are not simply “signs of ideas” this would only show that minds that receive them otherwise are not “philosophic” : it would not at all afford serious proof that there are personal, living Gods of these names in reality.]

and he places

the origin of the primitive Buddhist books which are common to the Northern and Southern Buddhists before 246. B.C.

 

Since Tibetans accepted Buddhism only in the seventh century A.D., how comes it that they are charged with inventing Amita-Buddha? Besides which, in Tibet, Amitâbha is called Odpag-med which shows that it is not the name but the abstract idea that was first accepted of an unknown, invisible, and Impersonal Power—taken, moreover, from the Hindu “Adi-Buddhi,” and not from the Chinese “Amitâbha.” [The Chinese Amitâbha (Wu-liang-sheu) and the Tibetan Amitâbha (Odpag-med) have now become personal Gods, ruling over and living in the celestial region of Sukhâvati, or Tushita (Tibetan:Devachan): while Àdi-Buddhi, of the philosophic Hindu, and Amita Buddha of the philosophic Chinaman and Tibetan, are names for universal primeval ideas.] There is a great difference between the popular Odpag-med (Amitâbha) who sits enthroned in Devachan (Sukhâvati), according to the Mani Kambum Scriptures—the oldest historical work in Tibet, and the philosophical abstraction called Amita Buddha, the name being passed now to the earthly Buddha Gautama.

 

 SECTION XLIX

 

Tsong-Kha-Pa—Lohans in China

 

(Page 409) IN an article, “Reincarnation in Tibet,” everything that could be said about Tsong-Kha-pa was published. [See The Theosophist for March, 1882.] It was stated that this reformer was not, as is alleged by Pârsi scholars, an incarnation of one of the celestial Dhyânis, or the five heavenly Buddhas, said to have been created by Shâkyamuni after he has risen to Nirvâna, but that he was an incarnation of Amita Buddha Himself. The records preserved in the Gon-pa, the chief Lamasery of Tda-shi-Hlumpo, show that Sang-gyas left the regions of the “Western Paradise” to incarnate Himself in Tsong-Kha-pa, in consequence of the great degradation into which His secret doctrines had fallen. 

Whenever made too public, the Good Law of Cheu [magical powers] fell invariably into sorcery or “black magic.” The Dwijas, the Hoshang [Chinese monks] and the Lamas could alone be entrusted safely with the formulæ. 

Until the Tsong-Kha-pa period there had been no Sang-gyas (Buddha) incarnations in Tibet.

 

Tsong-Kha-pa gave the signs whereby the presence of one of the twenty-five Bodhisattvas [The intimate relation of the twenty-five Buddhas (Bodhisattvas) with the twenty-five Tattvas (the Conditioned or Limited) of the Hindus is interesting.] or of the Celestial Buddhas (Dhyân Chohans) in a human body might be recognized, and He strictly forbade necromancy. This led to a split amongst the Lamas, and the malcontents allied themselves with the aboriginal Bhons against the reformed Lamaism. Even now they form a powerful sect, practising the most disgusting rites all over Sikkhim, Bhutan, Nepaul, and even on the borderlands of Tibet. It was worse then. With the permission of the Tda-shu or Teshu Lama, [ It is curious to note the great importance given by European Orientalists to the Dalai Lamas of Lhasa, and their utter ignorance as to the Tda-shu (or Teshu) Lamas, while it is the latter who began the hierarchical series of Buddhi-incarnations, and are de facto the “popes” in Tibet: the Dalai Lamas are the creations of Nabang-lob-Sang, the Tda-shu Lama who was Himself the sixth incarnation of Amita, through Tsong-Kha-pa, though very few seem to be aware of that fact.] some hundred Lohans (Arhats), to avert strife, (Page 410) went to settle in China in the famous monastery near Tien-t’-ai, where they soon became subjects for legendary lore, and continue to be so to this day. They had been already preceded by other Lohans. 

The world-famous disciples of Tathâgata, called the “sweet-voiced” on account of their ability to chant the Mantras with magical effect. [The chanting of a Mantra is not a prayer, but rather a magical sentence in which the law of Occult causation connects itself with and depends on, the will and acts of its singer. It is a succession of Sanskrit sounds and when its string of words and sentences is pronounced according to the magical formulae in the Atharva Veda, but understood by the few, some Mantras produce an instantaneous and very wonderful effect. In its esoteric sense it contains the Vâch (the “mystic speech”) which resides in the Mantra, or rather in its sounds, since it is according to the vibrations, one way or the other, of ether that the effect is produced. The “sweet singers” were called by that name because they were experts in Mantras. Hence the legend in China that the singing and melody of the Lohans are heard at dawn by the priests from their cells in the monastery of Fang-Kwang. (See Biography of Chi-Kai in Tien-tai-nan-tchi.)]  

The first ones came from Kashmir in the year 3,000 lf Kali Yuga (about a century before the Christian era). [The celebrated Lohan, Mâdhyantika, who converted the king and whole country of Kashmir to Buddhism, sent a body of Lohans to preach the Good Law. He was the sculptor who raised to Buddha the famous statue one hundred feet high, which Hiuen-Tsang saw at Dardu, to the north of the Punjab. As the same Chinese traveller mentions a temple ten Li from Peshawur—350 feet round and 850 feet high—which was at his time (A.D.550) already 850 years old. Koeppen thinks that so far back as 292 B.C. Buddhism was the prevalent religion in the Punjab.] while the last ones arrived at the end of the fourteenth century, 1,500 years later; and, finding no room for themselves at the lamasery of Yihigching, they built for their own use the largest monastery of all on the sacred island of Pu-to (Buddha, or Put, in Chinese), in the province of Chusan. There the Good Law, the “Doctrine of the Heart,” flourished for several centuries. But when the island was desecrated by a mass of Western foreigners, the chief Lohans left for the mountains of ----------------. In the Pagoda of Pi-yun-ti, near Pekin, one can still see the “Hall of the Five-hundred Lohans.” There the statues of the first-comers are arranged below, while one solitary Lohan is placed quite under the roof of the building, which seems to have been built in commemoration of their visit.

 

The works of the Orientalists are full of the direct landmarks of Arhats (Adepts), possessed of thaumaturgic powers, but these are spoken of—whenever the subject cannot be avoided—with unconcealed scorn. Whether innocently ignorant of, or purposely ignoring, the importance of the Occult element and symbology in the various Religions they undertake to explain, short work is generally made of such passages, and they are left untranslated. In simple justice however, it should be allowed that much as all such miracles may have been exaggerated by popular reverence and fancy, they are neither less credible nor less attested in “heathen” annals than are those of the numerous Christian Saints in the church chronicles. Both have an equal right to a place in their respective histories.

 

The Lost Word - (Page 411) If, after the beginning of persecution against Buddhism, the Arhats were no more heard of in India, it was because, their vows prohibiting retaliation, they had to leave the country and seek solitude and security in China, Tibet, Japan, and elsewhere. The sacerdotal powers of the Brâhmans being at that time unlimited, the Simons and Apolloniuses of Buddhism had as much chance of recognition and appreciation by the Brâhmanical Irenæuses and Tertullians as had their successors in the Judæan and Roman worlds. It was a historical rehearsal of the dramas that were enacted centuries later in Christendom. As in the case of the so-called “Heresiarchs” of Christianity, it was not for rejecting the Vedas or the sacred Syllable that the Buddhist Arhats were persecuted, but for understanding too well the secret meaning of both. It was simply because their knowledge was regarded as dangerous and their presence in India unwelcome, that they had to emigrate.

 

Nor were there a smaller number of Initiates among the Brâhmans themselves. Even today one meets most wonderfully-gifted Sâddhus and Yogîs, obliged to keep themselves unnoticed and in the shadow, not only owing to the absolute secresy imposed upon them at their Initiation but also for fear of the Anglo-Indian tribunals and courts of law, wherein judges are determined to regard as charlatanry, imposition, and fraud, the exhibition of, or claim to, any abnormal powers, and one may judge of the past by the present. Centuries after our era the Initiates of the inner temples and the Mathams (monastic communities) chose a superior council, presided over by an all-powerful Brahm-Ãtmâ, the Supreme Chief of all those Mahâtmâs. This pontificate could be exercised only by a Brâhman who had reached a certain age, and he it was who was the sole guardian of the mystic formula, and he was the Hierophant who created great Adepts. He alone could explain the meaning of the sacred word, AUM, and of all the religious symbols and rites. And whosoever among those Initiates of the Supreme Degree revealed to a profane a single one of the truths, even the smallest of the secrets entrusted to him, had to die; and he who received the confidence was put to death.

 

But there existed, and still exists to this day, a Word far surpassing the mysterious monosyllable, and which renders him who comes into possession of its key nearly the equal of Brahman. The Brahmâtmâs alone possess this key, and we know that to this day there are two (Page 412) great Initiates in Southern India who possess it. It can be passed only at death, for it is the “Lost Word.” No torture, no human power, could force its disclosure by a Brâhman who knows it; and it is well guarded in Tibet.

 

Yet this secresy and this profound mystery are indeed disheartening, since they alone—the Initiates of India and Tibet—could thoroughly dissipate the thick mists hanging over the history of Occultism, and force its claims to be recognized. The Delphic injunction, “Know thyself,” seems for the few in this age. But the fault ought not to be laid at the door of the Adepts, who have done all that could be done, and have gone as far as Their rules permitted, to open the eyes of the world. Only, while the European shrinks from public obloquy and the ridicule unsparingly thrown on Occultists, the Asiatic is being discouraged by his own Pandits. These profess to labour under the gloomy impression that no Bîga Vidyâ, no Arhatship (Adeptship), is possible during the Kali Yuga (the “Black Age”) we are now passing through. Even the Buddhists are taught that the Lord Buddha is alleged to have prophesied that the power would die out in “one millennium after His death.” But this is an entire mistake. In the Dîgha Nikâya the Buddha says: 

Hear, Subhadra! The world will never be without Rahats, if the ascetics in my congregations well and truly keep my precepts. 

A similar contradiction of the view brought forward by the Brâhmans is made by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gîtâ, and there is further the actual appearance of many Sâddhus and miracle-workers in the past, and even in the present age. The same holds good for China and Tibet. Among the commandments of Tsong-Kha-pa there is one that enjoins the Rahats (Arhats) to make an attempt to enlighten the world, including the “white barbarians,” every century, at a certain specified period of the cycle. Up to the present day none of these attempts has been very successful. Failure has followed failure. Have we to explain the fact by the light of a certain prophecy? It is said that up to the time when Phan-chhen-rin-po-chhe (the Great Jewel of Wisdom) [A title of the Tda-shu-Illum-po Lama.] condescends to be reborn in the land of the P’helings (Westerners), and appearing as the Spiritual Conqueror (Chom-den-da), destroys the errors and ignorance of the ages, it will be of little use to try to uproot the misconceptions of P’heling-pa (Europe): her sons will listen to no one.