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THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
distance, has the Seraphs; as to the tenth, Kircher, quoting Mor Isaac,
says that it is composed "of invisible stars that could be taken, they
said, for clouds, so massed are they in the zone that we call Via
Straminis, the Milky Way"; and he hastens to explain that "these are
the stars of L,ucifer, engulfed with him in his terrible shipwreck."
That which comes after and beyond the ten Worlds (our Quaternary), or
the Arupa World, the Syrians could not tell. "All they knew was
that it is there that begins the vast and incomprehensible Ocean of
the Infinite, the abode of the True Divinity, without boundary
or end."
having spoken of the
Champollion shows the same belief among the Egyptians. Hermes
Father-Mother and Son, whose Spirit—collectivel}'
the Divine Fiat—shapes the Universe, says: "Seven Agents
[Media] were also formed, to contain the Material [or manifested]
Worlds within their respective Circles, and the action of these Agents
was named Destiny." He further enumerates seven and ten and twelve
orders, but it would take too long to detail them here.
As the Rig Vidhdtia together with the Brahmaiida Purdna and all
such works, whether describing the magic efficacy of the Rig Vedic
Mantras, or the future Kalpas, are declared by Dr. Weber and others
to be modern compilations "belonging probably only to the time of the
Purdnas^' it is useless to refer the reader to their mystic explanations;
and one may as well simply quote from the archaic books utterly unknown
to the Orientalists. These works explain that which so puzzles
the scholars, namely that the Saptarshis, the "Mind-born Sons" of
Brahma, are referred to in the Shatapatha BrdJmiana under one set of
names; in the Mahdbhdrata under another set; and that the Vdyu
Purdna makes even nine instead of seve^i Rishis, by adding the names
of Bhrigu and Daksha to the list. But the same occurs in everj^
exoteric Scripture. The Secret Doctrine gives a long genealogy of
Rishis, but separates them into many classes. Ivike the Gods of the
Egyptians, who were divided into seven, and even twelve, Classes, so
are the Indian Rishis in their Hierarchies. The first three Groups are
the Divine, the Cosmical and the Sublunary. Then come the Solar
Gods of our System, the Planetary, the Submundane, and the purely
Human—the Heroes and the Manushi.
At present, however, we are only concerned with the Pre-cosmic,
Divine Gods, the Prajapatis, or the Seven Builders. This Group is
found unmistakably in every Cosmogony. Owing to the loss of