Band 2 Anthropogenesis - H.P. Blavatsky

of termination required to express male personification" (Vishnu Purana Bk. III., ch. I., p. 17 footnote). All the sons of
Viraja are Manasa, says Nilakantha. And
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* We are quite aware that the Yayu and Matsya Puranas identify (agreeably to Western interpretation) the Agnishwatta
with the seasons, and the Barhishad Pitris with the months; adding a fourth class -- the Kavyas -- cyclic years. But do not
Christian, Roman Catholics identify their Angels with planets, and are not the seven Rishis become the Saptarshi -- a
constellation? They are deities presiding over all the cyclic divisions.
** The Vayu Purana shows the region called Viraja-loka inhabited by the Agnishwattas.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 90 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Viraja is Brahma, and, therefore, the incorporeal Pitris are called Vairajas from being the sons of Viraja, says Vayu
Purana.
We could multiply our proofs ad infinitum, but it is useless. The wise will understand our meaning, the unwise are not
required to. There are thirty-three crores, or 330 millions, of gods in India. But, as remarked by the learned lecturer on the
Bhagavad Gita, "they may be all devas, but are by no means all 'gods', in the high spiritual sense one attributes to the
term." "This is an unfortunate blunder," he remarks, "generally committed by Europeans. Deva is a kind of spiritual being,
and because the same word is used in ordinary parlance to mean god, it by no means follows that we have to worship
thirty-three crores of gods." And he adds suggestively: "These beings, as may be naturally inferred have a certain affinity
with one of the three component Upadhis (basic principles) into which we have divided man." -- (Vide Theosophist, Feb.,
1887, et seq.)
The names of the deities of a certain mystic class change with every Manvantara. Thus the twelve great gods, Jayas,
created by Brahma to assist him in the work of creation in the very beginning of the Kalpa, and who, lost in Samadhi,
neglected to create -- whereupon they were cursed to be repeatedly born in each Manvantara till the seventh -- are
respectively called Ajitas, Tushitas, Satyas, Haris, Vaikunthas, Sadhyas, and Adityas: they are Tushitas (in the second
Kalpa), and Adityas in this Vaivasvata period (see Vayu Purana), besides other names for each age. But they are
identical with the Manasa or Rajasas, and these with our incarnating Dhyan Chohans. They are all classes of the Gnanadevas.
Yes; besides those beings, who, like the Yakshas, Gandharvas, Kinaras, etc., etc., taken in their individualities, inhabit
the astral plane, there are real Devagnanams, and to these classes of Devas belong the Adityas, the Vairajas, the
Kumaras, the Asuras, and all those high celestial beings whom Occult teaching calls Manaswin, the Wise, foremost of all,
and who would have made all men the self-conscious spiritually intellectual beings they will be, had they not been
"cursed" to fall into generation, and to be reborn themselves as mortals for their neglect of duty.
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STANZA IV. -- (Continued.)
15. SEVEN TIMES SEVEN SHADOWS (chhayas) OF FUTURE MEN (or Amanasas) (a) WERE (thus) BORN, EACH OF
HIS OWN COLOUR (complexion) AND KIND (b). EACH (also) INFERIOR TO HIS FATHER (creator). THE FATHERS,
THE BONELESS, COULD GIVE NO LIFE TO BEINGS WITH
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 91 SEVEN CLASSES OF PITRIS.
BONES. THEIR PROGENY WERE BHUTA (phantoms) WITH NEITHER FORM NOR MIND, THEREFORE THEY WERE
CALLED THE CHHAYA (image or shadow) RACE (c).
(a) Manu, as already remarked, comes from the root "man" to think, hence "a thinker." It is from this Sanskrit word very
likely that sprung the Latin "mens," mind, the Egyptian "Menes," the "Master-Mind," the Pythagorean Monas, or conscious
"thinking unit," mind also, and even our "Manas" or mind, the fifth principle in man. Hence these shadows are called
amanasa, "mindless."
With the Brahmins the Pitris are very sacred, because they are the Progenitors,* or ancestors of men -- the first
Manushya on this Earth -- and offerings are made to them by the Brahmin when a son is born unto him. They are more
honoured and their ritual is more important than the worship of the gods (See the "Laws of Manu," Bk. III., p. 203).
May we not now search for a philosophical meaning in this dual group of progenitors?
The Pitris being divided into seven classes, we have here the mystic number again. Nearly all the Puranas agree that
three of these are arupa, formless, while four are corporeal; the former being intellectual and spiritual, the latter material
and devoid of intellect. Esoterically, it is the Asuras who form the first three classes of Pitris -- "born in the body of night" --
whereas the other four were produced from the body of twilight. Their fathers, the gods, were doomed to be born fools on
Earth, according to Vayu Purana. The legends are purposely mixed up and made very hazy: the Pitris being in one the
sons of the gods, and, in another those of Brahma; while a third makes them instructors of their own fathers. It is the
Hosts of the four material classes who create men simultaneously on the seven zones.
Now, with regard to the seven classes of Pitris, each of which is again divided into seven, a word to students and a query
to the profane. That class of the "Fire Dhyanis," which we identify on undeniable grounds with the Agnishwattas, is called
in our school the "Heart" of the Dhyan-Chohanic Body; and it is said to have incarnated in the third race of men and made