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II
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386 THB SECRET DOCTRINE.
the God who sprang from the Mundane Egg, and from whom the
Mortals and Immortals were derived. The God Ra is shown, in the
Book of the Dead, beaming in his Kgg [the Sun], and the stars oflF as
soon as the God Shoo [the Solar Energy] awakens and gives him the
impulse.* "He is in the Solar Egg, the Egg to which is given Eife
among the Gods."t The Solar God exclaims : "I am the Creative Soul
of the Celestial Abyss. None sees my Nest, none can break my Egg,
lam the Eord!"t
In view of this circular form, the "|" issuing from the "0»" or the
Egg, or the male from the female in the androgyne, it is strange to find
a scholar saying, on the ground that the most ancient Indian MSS.
show no trace of it, that the ancient Aryans were ignorant of the
decimal notation. The lo, being the sacred number of the Universe,
was secret and esoteric, both as regards the unit and cipher, or zero,
the circle.
Moreover, Professor Max Miiller tells that "the two words
cipher and zero, which are but one, are sufficient to prove that our
figures are borrowed from the Arabs." § Cipher is the Arabic cifron,
and means "empty," a translation of the Sanskrit S7inyan, or "nought,"
says the Professor.! The Arabs had their figures from Hindustan, and
never claimed the discovery for themselves. As to the Pythagoreans,
we need but turn to the ancient manuscripts of Boethius' treatise, De
Arithynetica, composed in
the sixth century, to find among the Pythagorean
numerals the "i" and the "o," as the first and final figures.^
And Porphyry, who quotes from the Pythagorean Moderatus,** says
that the numerals of Pythagoras were "hieroglyphical sj^mbols, by
means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature of things,"
or the origin of the Universe.
Now, if, on the one hand, the most ancient Indian MSS. show as yet
no trace of decimal notation in them, and Max Miiller states very
clearly that until now he has found but nine letters, the initials of
the Sanskrit numerals; on the other hand, we have records as ancient,
to supply the wanted proof. We speak of the sculptures and the sacred
* Ch. xvii. 50, 51.
t Ch. xlii. 13.
% Ch. Ixxx. 9.
\ See Max Miiller's "Our Figures."
Kabalist would be rather inclined to believe that as the Arabic cifron was taken from the
Indian sunyan, nought, so the Jewish Kabalistic Sephiroth [Sephnni) were taken from the word
cipher, not in the sense of emptiness, but in that of creation by number and degrees of evolution.
And the Sephiroth are 10 or (T)
IT See King's Gnostics and their Remains, 370 (2nd ed.).
** De Vita Pilhag.