RIP Phrinque the Dog (2017-2023)Brief eulogy for a friend of mine. I saw you just last night and held your head and you were super friendly to me. One tiny little moment of what life is supposed to be like. Now, thanks to one of our fellow motorists, it won't be happening again.
You replaced two of our dogs who were both run over by people who couldn't even stop to say "I'm sorry".
You were pronounced "Frank" but never allowed a conventional spelling. Didn't seem to bother you. Nothing did. You were in great shape and still had many years of goofy, pointless, flappy shenanigans still to go. Instead you became a victim of the system. All we can do is criticize it and rethink things and why if it is so advanced does it just spread illness, misery, and death, by bringing us more food in motorized vehicles and mocking us in the process.
The best I can say is there was no intent behind these accidents, but there probably was negligence. Most everything I witness seems to be from a dulled out, disconnected state of mind. It may have a fast action, which is more like reflexes, than quality.
We have posted some information on the star Spica, which has a certain meaning in the West, but in India it also marks the starting of the Zodiac, at its opposite point. Aries is a physically small constellation, so, in order for it to be the size of a "Sign", you start from this opposite point and go thirty degrees. In the West, this First Point of Aries is defined as the equinox, which means that it rotates, so that the sign Aries slips off of the actual constellation. However this definition did not come up until ca. year 150. If you already understand the equinox rotates, I do not see why this would impress you. You would just say, "Of course it does, what has that got to do with Aries?"
You can mark its movements through Taurus, Aries, Pisces, doesn't that mean the equinox is changing the sign it is in?
There is no way to explain the need for attaching the sign to its equation. So we are looking at the background of what is actually in these Signs, without this kind of tampering. As a brief assessment, it is based from a Divine Androgyne descending into the material world, and then, I might say, not so much escaping it, as escaping its limitations, in being the one with knowledgeable spiritual will which produces the triumph of mind *over* matter.
There is an allegory, similar to this, in most of the classical languages of most cultures who were in touch with this Zodiacal ideal or at least parts of it. In this sense, China is foreign, there are places which do not recognize its existence. There is more of an interest in the West with respect to the more significant aspect of its myths which help explain it. To a large extent, this means the systems of Greece and Egypt, which functioned until the ca. 500s. In turn, this is partly the story of Root Matter, Prakriti, or Akasha or Aether, "not the ether of science", Space.
From what I have seen, this is one of the more difficult things for a person to know by perceiving. It is the Gnostic Wisdom. So this must be one of the most fundamental tenets of the Zodiac or what it is trying to teach.
We found that in Greece, Virgo is:
Astraía; "star-maiden" or "starry night" is a daughter of Astraeus and Eos (Dawn in all Indo-European myths).
Astraea's hoped-for return was referred to in a phrase from Virgil's Eclogue 4: "Iam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia Regna" (Astraea returns, returns old Saturn's reign).
During the European Renaissance, Astraea became associated with the general spirit of renewal of culture occurring at that time...
Crossing to Egypt, we found Virgo associated with certain creative deities. In pagan polytheism, the elements such as Fire and orbs such as the Sun are not, ultimately, the objects of worship. So Nut and Hathor are like massive environments wherein a mission is to be accomplished. The "purpose" was identified readily enough by HPB:
Maat (Egyptian) Maāt. The goddess personifying physical and moral law, order, and truth, regarded as the feminine counterpart of Thoth (Tehuti). She is represented as standing with Thoth in the boat of Ra when the sun god first rose above the waters of the primeval spatial abyss of Nu. She is called the daughter of Ra, the eye of Ra, lady of heaven, queen of the earth, and mistress of the Underworld, who guides the course of the sun. The type and symbol of the goddess is the ostrich feather; the word maat is represented by the hieroglyph of the feather and means primarily that which is orderly and direct, hence in a moral sense, right, truth, justice, including a reference to the fact that these supreme attributes weigh light as a feather in the scales of judgment, and yet are as weighty in importance as the universe itself. Maat was regarded by the Egyptians, in connection with her moral power, as the greatest of goddesses, for she was the chief lady of the Judgment Hall, into which the deceased must enter (called the Hall of Maati, double truth).
Ma'at wasnt just the goddess of these concepts, but was the embodiment of them and therefore was seen to be above the ideas of right and wrong because she IS the truth, and nothing is stronger than truth! To the ancient Egyptians she personified both physical and moral laws, and was also thought to have been the ruler of Earth as well, being that she regulated the sun, stars, seasons and all cosmic events. This concept is seriously so crazy because while being one of the most important deities, she had no temples of her own or places of worship. The other Egyptian deities even had to follow under her! This makes sense because temples for other gods often contained statues of her within them! Total boss!
Maat s symbol was the white feather, commonly of an Ostrich, and this feather was used in deciding whether a person would successfully reach the afterlife by weighing her feather of truth against the weight of their soul.
On a personal level, entrance to the happy side of the Underworld is satisfied by following Ma'at's 42 Laws.
This again is an area where Egypt and India appear similar. What is designed as a role for the King is really just a metaphor for an individual practitioner. Ma'at determines the life of a country, and death to all. She is revealed at great length by Richter 2012 in an amazing study of the Theology of Hathor of Dendera, having three main contexts:
Hathor as solar goddess and
primordial Creator; the Myth of the Wandering Goddess; and the King as Intermediary between
the human and divine worlds. These three themes are interconnected, with the myth creating the
context by which the King approaches the goddess in order to carry out the crucial rituals that
will restore cosmic order and active the continuation of creation.Hathor is the Wandering Goddess, originally visible by Ra while he was on Earth, and then:
Ra enlists the aid of her brother Shu, a powerful lion, and the wise Thoth, to help bring
her back.The temple is saturated with word plays and visual suggestions:
...in passages concerned with Ma'at, the basis of Egyptian society, its stylistic patterning of sound,
word choice, and verse structuring is particularly striking.In other words, yes, it is much like Sanskrit, in that you would have to first be educated in basics, before half of the passages make sense, because it is all self-referencing, full of puns and other devices. A couple ideas about her prevalence:
The King sees Hathor, while
Ma'at approaches the goddess and pays homage to her....two scenes of the king offering
Maat to Hathor. Because Maat is the foundation of order and harmony in the universe,
established at Creation, its offering is the most essential, legitimizing the rule of the king and
showing his willingness to govern according to divine law.It may be a King--perhaps we should say Pharaoh--but there is also the social contract of an Enlightened Monarch. Justice may be only one of her main attributes, but, we would say, is not part of nature, does not happen without man's careful and non-selfish consideration. So yes, Ma'at is a very crucial and sensitive deity.
Dendera implies meditative exercises from a compound of clever verbal and visual components. Similarly, there are fifty exercises in Atalanta Fugiens by Michael Maier, 1617:
It is the first alchemical Gesamtkunstwerk that comprises music, images, poetry, and prose together in one piece. As is stressed on the frontispiece of the book, all the senses are involved in contact with this treatise: partim oculis et inteflectui... partim auribus et recreationi... videnda, legenda, meditanda, intelligenda, dijudicanda, canenda et audienda. In this respect, Atalanta is a book that requires a rather contemplative exercise.
The fugues were arranged in three voices symbolizing the philosopher's stone, the pursuing adept, and obstacles in his way.
The title page depicts various scenes from Greek mythology related to golden apples:
Top: Garden of the Hesperides.
Left: Hercules stretching out his arm to seize one of the golden apples.
Right: Aphrodite handing the golden apples to Hippomenes.
Bottom: Race between Atalanta and Hippomenes, with Atalanta picking up an apple. Behind them is a temple with lovers embracing each other, while in the background they appear as a lion and lioness.Atalanta ("equal in weight") was a defensive virgin, however this method used to attain sex with her leads to a change:
Aphrodite had given him three golden apples, and during the race he dropped them one after the other. Their beauty charmed Atalanta so much, that she could not abstain from gathering them. Thus she was conquered, and became the wife of Meilanion. Once when the two, by their embraces in the sacred grove of Zeus, profaned the sanctity of the place, they were both metamorphosed into lions.
As to the Hesperides in Theosophy:
The Greek goddesses who, with the hundred-headed dragon Ladon, guarded the golden apples which Gaia (earth) gave as a wedding present to Hera on her marriage to Zeus. These apples grew on a tree in a garden by the banks of the river Oceanus near Mt. Atlas, which geographically for the ancients was the peak of Teneriffe, a remnant of Atlantis. One of the tasks of Hercules was to secure some of these apples. The Hesperides are, according to various authorities, three, four, or seven in number. Hesiod calls them the daughters of Night; they are also called Atlantides, and by some made the daughters of Atlantis and Hesperis.
In this we recognize the mythos of the tree of knowledge with its fruit and its location in the garden of life, localized in those mysterious lands of the West from which the ancestors of the Greeks migrated when the new race was in birth from the surviving elect of the old. It represents the Golden Age, the Eden of Grecian mythology.
For some reason, Atalanta has been presented in the same work as Hercules. Does her name imply "equal to the white feather?" The Apples are the Eleventh Labor, after two of his previous successes are technically disqualified. First there were ten, but it becomes twelve, which are supposed to be impossible and fatal.
Atalanta became a Lion, and Hercules's first task was the Nemean Lion which is the sign Leo, prior to Virgo. This immediately suggests the Fixed Cross.
We can perhaps find this as a tangent to Astraea and Ma'at on the Tarot card Justice:
Noteworthy, is that the cardinal virtues, both in and outside the tarot, are almost always personified by women. The reason for this can be found in the book of Wisdom from the Old Testament. In this book these four virtues are mentioned as the result of the divine Wisdom (Greek: Sophia), which underlies creation:
her [Wisdom] labours have great virtues: for she teacheth temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude, which are such things as men can have nothing more profitable in life.
(Wisdom 8:7)
Cardinal is a "hinge", as in "everything hinges on this", and the cards are usually:
Justice, Strength, Temperance, Wisdom
Cardinal Virtues derive initially from Plato in Republic Book IV, 426435. Prudence or Wisdom is Sophia. Prudence was assigned to the rulers and to reason. Justice stands outside the class system and divisions of man, and rules the proper relationship among the three of them.
Their symbols in churches and papal tombs are similar to them in the Tarot.
Comparatively, it is the Scale, Libra, which is on the Cardinal Cross.
Libra is the only sign without a living feature, so, it is difficult to argue that it is very separate from Virgo.
The woman on the Visconti Justice card is wearing a dress with hexagons. This is a reference to the hexagram (six-pointed star); the universal symbol for the merger of the polarities (right). With the hand with which the woman holds the scales, she is, subtly, making the sign of the sacred marriage. The scales have different colors: gold and silver. This is a reference to the polar energies sun (gold) and moon (silver) that have been balanced.
A lot of artwork keeps using the "secret marriage", which is just a soft gesture of two fingers held together as one.
The Sigillum Sapientum (Seal of the Wise) of the alchemist. The inner union (hexagram and ouroboros) takes place as a result of the inner working of the divine Sophia (woman with SWORD AND SCALES). Source: JM Faust, Philalethes Illustratus, 1706.
The horses deck is decorated with five-petalled flowers: the Rose of Venus.
qv.:
The Damsel of Swords card of the 15th century Visconti di Modrone deck. A pomegranate pattern is printed on her dress.
The article mentions Squaring the Circle, as seen in Atalanta Fugiens:
Its accomplishment is the Magnum Opus which leaves the practitioner covered with Roses of Venus:
The Rose is a Pentagram. which may not be literally true, but is based on the perceived motion:
Prague Sophia under Hygeia:
It was hardly explained above, but, Squaring the circle is taken from an old mathematical problem for which there isn't a solution, and it became a metaphor for something impossible, like the Labors of Hercules. However there is a subjective one as described in The Mahatma Letters:
the meaning of the interlaced triangles -- geometrical synthesis of whole occult doctrine -- contains the squaring of the circle
...the double triangle viewed by the Jewish Kabalists as Solomon's Seal, is, as many of you doubtless know the Sri-antara of the archaic Aryan Temple, the "mystery of Mysteries," a geometrical synthesis of the whole occult doctrine. The two interlaced triangles are the Buddhangums of Creation. They contain the "squaring of the circle," the "philosophical stone," the great problems of Life and Death, and -- the Mystery of Evil. The chela who can explain this sign from every one of its aspects -- is virtually an adept.
The interlaced triangles -- the upper pointing one -- is Wisdom concealed, and the downward pointing one -- Wisdom revealed (in the phenomenal world).
The white represents in its straight lines: Gnanam -- (Knowledge); Gnata -- (the Knower); and Gnayam -- (that which is known). The black-form, colour, and substance, also the creative, preservative, and destructive forces...
...the third Person of the Christian Trinity is -- female...
Pythagoras had a reason for never using the finite, useless figure -- 2, and for altogether discarding it. The One, can, when manifesting, become only 3. The unmanifested when a simple duality remains passive and concealed. The dual monad (the 7th and 6th principles) has, in order to manifest itself as a Logos, the "Kwan-shai-yin" to first become a triad (7th, 6th and half of the 5th); then, on the bosom of the "Great Deep" attracting within itself the One Circle -- form out of it the perfect Square, thus "squaring the circle" -- the greatest of all the mysteries, friend -- and inscribing within the latter the -- Word (the Ineffable name) -- otherwise the duality could never tarry as such, and would have to be reabsorbed into the One. The "Deep" is Space -- both male and female. "Purush (as Brahma) breathes in the Eternity: when 'he' in-breathes -- Prakriti (as manifested Substance) disappears in his bosom; when 'he' out-breathes she reappears as Maya," says the Sloka. The One reality is Mulaprakriti (undifferentiated Substance) -- the "Rootless root," the. . . But we have to stop, lest there should remain but little to tell for your own intuitions.
...the Unmanifested Circle -- the Father, or Absolute Life -- is non-existent outside the Triangle and Perfect Square, and -- is only manifested in the Son; and that it is when, reversing the action and returning to its absolute state of Unity, and the square expands once more into the Circle -- that "the Son returns to the bosom of the Father." There it remains until called back by his Mother -- the "Great Deep," to remanifest as a triad -- the Son partaking at once, of the Essence of the Father, and of that of the Mother -- the active Substance, Prakriti in its differentiated condition. "My Mother -- (Sophia -- the manifested Wisdom) took me" -- says Jesus in a Gnostic treatise; and he asks his disciples to tarry till he comes. . . . The true "Word" may only be found by tracing the mystery of the passage inward and outward of the Eternal Life, through the states typified in these three geometric figures.
He refers to exactly the same point within a hexagram that we found with the Simonians.
From some Arabic and Jewish tales of Solomon's Seal or Signet Ring:
Solomon is represented as having authority over spirits, animals, wind, and water, all of which obeyed his orders by virtue of a magic ring set with the four jewels given him by the angels that had power over these four realms.
See AlsoThe Healing Gods Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America - PDFCOFFEE.COM[PDF] Download Text Book References - Free Download PDFAmong the many parallels of Hermes:
In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, comprised of a variety of texts treating after-death states and the forces leading to diverse conditions of rebirth, Thoth is depicted in the great solar barque of Ra, standing opposite Maat. Here Ra is the solar creative force, the spirit of the Invisible Sun, while Thoth is its hidden wisdom and Maat, the feminine aspect of Thoth, is the law of noumenal Nature. According to the oldest known Egyptian cosmogony, Thoth utters the divine Word through which the whole cosmos emerges. When Atum, the golden sphere of light, arose in the incomprehensible Abyss of Nothingness, it differentiated itself into three creative aspects Thought, Will and Command. While Ra is the divine idea of the universe to be, Thoth is the mysterious ideation which gives rise to the Word Maat, the Law.
...as Poimandres explains:
That light is I, Nous, the first god, who was before the watery substance appeared out of this darkness, and the Word which emanated from the light is the son of God. . . . Learn my meaning by looking at what is within yourself, for in you also Speech is son, and the mind is father of the Word. They are not separate from one another, for Life is the union of Word and Mind.
The scene disappears to be replaced by a vast congeries of forces and powers, all part of the original Light, forming the architectonics of the world. This is the archetype of the visible universe. The prime Nous, Poimandres, "the Mind which is Life and Light", gives rise to a second Nous, a creative force which makes from fire and air seven cosmocratores or administrators of the cosmic order. These correspond to the seven sacred planets of the visible universe, whose intelligent revolutions constitute destiny. After forming these beings, who contain the watery substance which will become Nature, the Word is withdrawn and Nature is left devoid of reason. But the first Mind gave birth to Anthropos, archetypal man, who is consubstantial with itself, and in this sense made in the image of God. Anthropos took his place in the abode of the second, creative Mind, and there beheld the creation of his brother.
When Anthropos looks upon blind Nature, Nature responds to that which is like itself in origin and forms herself into a mirror. Thus Anthropos looks upon himself, and taking that image for Nature, is drawn towards her. He passes through each of the seven spheres of the planets and gains their powers as he moves. Yet since he is one with Nous, the first god, originator of the creative Mind, his descent is self-limitation and a fall from his true being.
For the Pymander, we use an Arabic text from 1650, and:
The earliest Latin edition is that of Marsilius Ficinus, 1471...
...he is said by himself, to be the son of Saturn...
It has been asserted by men who have been called learned, that this Hermes was really identical with Enoch, and by others he has been identified as Gautamathe Buddha. If the name HERMES be taken and the suffix ES be neglected, and the word formed of the letters H, R, M, be traced through Chaldee, Coptic, Greek and Latin forms, an analogy will be observed between Hermes, and Hiram the hero of the myth of Freemasonry, a symbolical system of morals and theosophy which is but a reconstruction of a portion of the Ancient Mysteries.
The Corpus has the sense of accretion in Hermetica:
During the Middle Ages, most of them were only accessible to Byzantine scholars (an important exception being the Asclepius, which mainly survives in an early Latin translation), until a compilation of Greek Hermetic treatises known as the Corpus Hermeticum was translated into Latin by the Renaissance scholars Marsilio Ficino (14331499) and Lodovico Lazzarelli (14471500).
...a selection of seventeen Greek treatises that was first compiled by Byzantine editors, and translated into Latin in the fifteenth century...Its individual treatises were quoted by many early authors from the second and third centuries on, but the compilation as such is first attested only in the writings of the Byzantine philosopher Michael Psellus (c. 10171078).
In 1462 Ficino was working on a Latin translation of the collected works of Plato for his patron Cosimo de' Medici, but when a manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum became available, he immediately interrupted his work on Plato in order to start translating the works of Hermes, which were thought to be much more ancient, and therefore much more authoritative, than those of Plato.
Among the Coptic treatises which were found in 1945 in the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi, there are also three treatises attributed to Hermes Trismegistus.
The star-worshipping sect known as the Sabians of Harran also believed that their doctrine descended from Hermes Trismegistus.
HPB says of Pymander:
Said to be an abridgment of one of the Books of Thoth by a Platonist of Alexandria, remodeled in the 3rd century after old Greek and Phoenician manuscripts by a Jewish Qabbalist and called the Genesis of Enoch (SD 2:267n).
Genesis of Enoch is also called Genesis Apocrypha, found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Enoch is canonical in Ethiopia.
From Isis Unveiled:
Michael and Enoch are one and the same person. Both occupy the junction-point of the cross of the Zodiac as "man."
He that "walked with God" and "did not die" is the spiritual Enoch, who typified humanity, eternal in spirit and as eternal in flesh, though the latter does die. Death is but a new birth, and spirit is immortal; thus humanity can never die, for the Destroyer has become the Creator, Enoch is the type of the dual man, spiritual and terrestrial. Hence his place in the centre of the astronomical cross.
It is the Mundane cross of Heaven repeated on earth by plants and dual man: the physical man superseding the "spiritual," at the junction-point of which stands the mythical Libra-Hermes-Enoch.
If the reader will keep in mind the Hindu ideas of cosmogony, as given in chapter vi., he will better understand the relation between the biblical antediluvian patriarchs, and that puzzle of commentators--"Ezekiel's wheel." Thus, be it remembered 1, that the universe is not a spontaneous creation, but an evolution from pre-existent matter; 2, that it is only one of an endless series of universes; 3, that eternity is pointed off into grand cycles, in each of which twelve transformations of our world occur, following its partial destruction by fire and water, alternately. So that when a new minor period sets in, the earth is so changed, even geologically, as to be practically a new world; 4, that of these twelve transformations, the earth after each of the first six is grosser, and everything on it--man included--more material, than after the preceding one: while after each of the remaining six the contrary is true, both earth and man growing more and more refined and spiritual with each terrestrial change; 5, that when the apex of the cycle is reached, a gradual dissolution takes place, and every living and objective form is destroyed. But when that point is reached, humanity has become fitted to live subjectively as well as objectively. And not humanity alone, but also animals, plants, and every atom. After a time of rest, say the Buddhists, when a new world becomes self-formed, the astral souls of animals, and of all beings, except such as have reached the highest Nirvana; will return on earth again to end their cycles of transformations, and become men in their turn.
This stupendous conception, the ancients synthesized for the instruction of the common people, into a single pictorial design--the Zodiac, or celestial belt. Instead of the twelve signs now used, there were originally but ten known to the general public, viz.: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo-Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces. These were exoteric. But in addition there were two mystical signs inserted, which none but initiates comprehended, viz.: at the middle or junction-point where now stands Libra, and at the sign now called Scorpio, which follows Virgo. When it was found necessary to make them exoteric, these two secret signs were added under their present appellations as blinds to conceal the true names which gave the key to the whole secret of creation, and divulged the origin of "good and evil."
The true Sabean astrological doctrine secretly taught that within this double sign was hidden the explanation of the gradual transformation of the world, from its spiritual and subjective, into the "two-sexed" sublunary state. The twelve signs were therefore divided into two groups. The first six were called the ascending, or the line of Macrocosm (the great spiritual world); the last six, the descending line, or the Microcosm (the little secondary world)--the mere reflection of the former, so to say. This division was called Ezekiel's wheel, and was completed in the following way: First came the ascending five signs (euphemerized into patriarchs), Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and the group concluded with Virgo-Scorpio. Then came the turning-point, Libra. After which, the first half of the sign Virgo-Scorpio, was duplicated and transferred to lead the lower, or descending group of Microcosm which ran down to Pisces, or Noah (deluge). To make it clearer, the sign Virgo-Scorpio, which appeared originally thus , became simply Virgo, and the duplication, , or Scorpio, was placed between Libra, the seventh sign (which is Enoch, or the angel Metatron, or Mediator between spirit and matter, or God and man). It now became Scorpio (or Cain), which sign or patriarch led mankind to destruction...
Noting a Swastika as a six-limbed cross:
by adding to the cross proper + the symbol of the four cardinal points and infinity at the same time, thus 卐, the arms pointing above, below, and right, and left, making six in the circle. . .
She also points out that the hermaphrodite goddess Adanari shows "the Svastica, the 'male and female sign', right in the central part, to denote the pre-sexual state...
Virgo's "ear of wheat" is the infant child of light born at Christmas, and her other hand is really holding Libra, i. e. the adult man in his initiatory trials of life, and of the soul at death.
HPB says:
...wheat is said not to be known in the wild state nor to have been developed from any grass.
Plato speaks of inventors gods and demigods incarnate in human beings who appeared successively among the races of mankind after their divine rulers had departed, and discovered fire, wheat, and wine. The kabiri and also Isis are said to have brought wheat. In ancient Greece wheat was always associated with Demeter or Ceres (whence the word cereal), and as Demeter was the preeminent goddess of the Mysteries, sheaves of wheat also were associated with the Mysteries.
and generally for Demeter:
Demeter is assigned the zodiac constellation Virgo, the Virgin, by Marcus Manilius in his 1st-century Roman work Astronomicon.
She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a religious tradition that predated the Olympian pantheon.
The central theme in the Eleusinian Mysteries was the reunion of Persephone with her mother, Demeter when new crops were reunited with the old seed, a form of eternity.
In the older chthonic cults the earth goddess was related to the Underworld and in the secret rites (mysteries) Demeter and Persephone share the double function of earth and fertility. Demeter is the giver of the secret rites and the giver of the laws of cereal agriculture.
The equivalent of Ma'at is Oracle goddess Themis:
Themis was closely identified with Demeter Thesmophoros ("Bringer of Law"). Indeed Themis' six children, the spring-time Horai (Horae, Seasons) and death-bringing Moirai (Moirae, Fates), reflect the dual-functions of Demeter's own daughter Persephone. Themis was also identified with Gaia (Gaea, Earth) especially in the role of the oracular voice of earth.
One of the Seasons is Dike or Justicia, a separate "scales" goddess.
Spica is one of the stars on the Brazilian flag the only one above the Latin motto.
The three goddesses are oddly tossed together for a panel on Justice given to the Berkeley Buddhist Center. It does not quite hit the occult highlights, but indicates the same general theme.
Cosimo Medici secured the manuscripts after Constantinople 1453, which caused Greek scholars to move to Italy:
With them came much of the magical and Hermetic
knowledge which the Greeks in their turn had inherited from the Egyptians. The Key of Solomon was one such text. It is therefore essential to the understanding of such magical texts that one understands exactly how the Byzantines understood the nature of daemons. Psellus forms the bridge between the ancient world, Byzantine Greek, and the grimoire conception of the nature of daemons.Here is a brief article of Hermetic Fragments historically, to which Michael Psellos represents the first known complete compendium. His comments however appear negative. He is at least a vehicle of information, actually a highly accomplished polymath according to the page for Psellos:
...a high ranking advisor to several Byzantine emperors and was instrumental in the re-positioning of power of those emperors.
Despite his eminence and prowess in learning, his knowledge of Latin was cloudy enough for him to confuse Cicero with Caesar. This is cited as a prime example of how the Eastern Roman Empire had lost nearly all of its connections to its Roman roots by the High Middle Ages.
De operatione dæmonum (On the Operation of Demons), which offered a demonic taxonomy as part of an anti-Manichaean dialogue. He wrote a treatise on alchemy, theurgy (summoning spirits) despite the study being forbidden by the church.
He prided himself on having single-handedly reintroduced to Byzantine scholarship a serious study of ancient philosophy, especially of Plato. His predilection for Plato and other pagan (often Neoplatonic) philosophers led to doubts about the orthodoxy of his faith among some of his contemporaries...
It would probably be fair to say that Neo-platonic Theurgy was "in decline" in the Greek eastern sphere after around the 600s due to upwellings from Christianity and Islam. Its schools and temples are no longer prevalent or influential. At the same time, it is coalescing into the Druze community. And nevertheless, in the 1,000s you find the Corpus intact, and it remains for four hundred years, until being attempted to be emplaced in Western Europe, especially in the Medici Renaissance. It is true that some of the same information must be entering Venice, but they are not using it the same way.
Here we can develop the notion that some deities such as Justitia and Tyche are like daughters, offspring, or additions to greater cosmic forces. For example, Fortuna lacks the Scales of Justitia:
During the early Empire, an amulet from the House of Menander in Pompeii links her to the Egyptian goddess Isis, as Isis-Fortuna.
Rota Fortunae (wheel of fortune, first mentioned by Cicero)
...she could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Lady Justice, except that Fortuna does not hold a balance.
As Annonaria she protected grain supplies.
Fortuna's name seems to derive from Vortumna (she who revolves the year).
Also Fortuna had a temple at the Forum Boarium (cattle market). Here Fortuna was twinned with the cult of Mater Matuta (indigenous Aurora and Eos)--the goddesses shared a festival on 11 June--and the paired temples have been revealed in the excavation beside the church of Sant'Omobono: the cults are indeed archaic in date.
Fortuna's identity as personification of chance events was closely tied to virtus (strength of character).
cf. the Fortuna gubernans of Lucretius
Fortuna gubernans (5.107) has many Greek parallels from Menander to
Anth. Pal. x. 65.With Lucretius, it is equivalent to Natura gubernans.
A study on Fortuna says that the "rudder" is almost certainly a Greek import:
In the West, Terence Eunuchus 1046 and Lucretius 5.107 are the earliest
Latin writers to define Fortuna as gubernans (guiding) and gubernatrix
(conductress), titles which, in fact, would become very common epithets of the
goddess in the imperial period.In his treatise, Plutarch attributes to
Fortuna the role of protector over Romulus and the city from its foundation. In describing
Fortunas role as protectress of the city, Plutarch depicts Fortunas arrival on the Palatine hill as
the residence of choice, where she gave up her fickle implements. He compares this scene to an
image of Aphrodite, who replaced her own peaceful adornments with those of war when fighting
for the Spartans (317F). He also associates Venus with Fortuna in the Sulla passage (318C-D). In
an inscription, writes Plutarch, Sulla described himself as Epaphroditus. The author follows this
passage with a quote from Menander, who wrote that the goddess of Chance has a greater share in
Aphrodite than night (318D).With Menander:
Greek gods do not act by miraculous interference with the course
of nature; they act through nature, and in particular through the
minds of human beings. This play, which has Fortune as its prologuizing
divinity, is no exception. Tyche and TO aUT6JLaTOV play a great
part in Menander; but in his work neither means 'Chance'. TO aUT6p.aTov
refers to things that happen by themselves, without deliberate human
intervention; notice the word 'human'. In some Hellenistic writers
Tyche came to have the sense of blind chance; but in the classical age
it normally means 'whatever happens'.Similar principle, "anything" is a different game than "human intervention". So, spiritually, we attempt to increase in Wisdom and those qualities which result in beneficial intervention. For a higher moral goddess affecting all classes of people, concerning the Wings of Fortune:
...at other times She is described as having wings, much like many Etruscan Goddessesand indeed She was equated with the old Etruscan Fate Goddess Nortia, who was often shown winged.
She was the patron Goddess of the Etruscan city of Velsna, rendered by the Romans as Volsinii, and called in some accounts Nyrtia or Nursia, after the Goddess. Velsna was considered the sacred or moral center of Etruria, and within the city was a sanctuary to the God Voltumnus that functioned as a meeting-place for the Etruscan federation, made up of the twelve main cities of Etruria.
Having few remnants, for Nortia (time, fate, destiny, and chance):
Juvenal identifies her with Fortuna.
She is renowned for a Nail Driving ritual marking the close of a year and:
The ritual of the nail illuminates the otherwise puzzling iconography on the back of an Etruscan bronze mirror. Meleager is depicted under the wings of another Etruscan goddess of fate, identified by inscription as Athrpa, the counterpart of the Greek fate goddess Atropos who is one of the three Moirai. Athrpa holds a hammer in her right hand and a nail in her left. With Meleager is his beloved Atalanta (both names given in the Etruscan spelling), who will be parted by his death in a boar hunt presaged at the top of the composition. Turan and Atunis (the Etruscan Venus and Adonis myth) also appear, as another couple whose love is destroyed by the savagery of the hunt.
Atropos (from which, "atropine") marks the close of a life, usually by Scissors. This obvious alteration is not confusion, but, an attempt to say that Atropos is an aspect of Nortia.
In the Calydonian Boar Hunt, Atalanta:
...had been suckled by Artemis as a she-bear and raised as a huntress, a proxy for Artemis herself.
Whereas the Boar, itself, apparently reincarnates, such as for Hercules:
In the primitive highlands of Arcadia, where old practices lingered, the Erymanthian boar was a giant fear-inspiring creature of the wilds that lived on Mount Erymanthos, a mountain that was apparently once sacred to the Mistress of the Animals, for in classical times it remained the haunt of Artemis (Homer, Odyssey, VI.105). A boar was a dangerous animal: "When the goddess turned a wrathful countenance upon a country, as in the story of Meleager, she would send a raging boar, which laid waste the farmers' fields."
As to Atalanta and this potential suitor, there was Parthenopaeus:
'virgin woman's son'
Parthenopaeus was the son of Atalanta by either her husband Hippomenes (Melanion), or by Meleager, or Ares.
Hyginus writes that he was left exposed by Atalanta on Mount Parthenius ("virginal") in Arcadia, so that she could conceal the fact that she was not a virgin anymore; the name Parthenopaeus is accordingly interpreted by Hyginus as "seemingly-virginal" or the like, as if referring to the fact that his mother was pretending to still be a virgin.
HPB says of these Etruscans:
Among the older Greek historians there is mention of Tyrrhenoi or Tyrsenoi, and of a king of Lydia named Tyrrhenos who led a Pelasgian colony to Umbria. Roman history describes a mixed population, Etrusci, Tusci, or (by their own name) Rasenna, formed by immigrants from Asia and from over the Alps, still preserving much of their ancient culture amid corrupted habits, and diffusing it to other Italian peoples.
Throughout Roman history Etruria and the Etruscans were looked upon by virtually all classes of peoples under the sway of Rome as being the seat and the exponents of magic, profound mystical thought, and esoteric philosophy; and as the Romans knew much more about those so close to their own time than modern scholarship does, this manner of viewing the ancient Etruscans cannot be set aside lightly.
Isis--Fortuna--Nortia appears parallel.
Ma'at--Astraea--Themis are close.
Themis is a Titan and probably only affects Immortals:
Together with Zeus, Themis bore the HORAE, or the goddesses of the seasons. She also gave birth to Natura, a goddess of the forest.
So is Astraea but she is more immanent as in a certain conflation:
During the Golden Age, humankind was at its peak. During this time, the Golden Race of humanity lived. Some legends say that the Titan CRONUS presided over the Golden Age. However, Astraea is accepted as its most popular ambassador.
Astraea is most known as the last of the immortals to live among humans during the Golden Age of man.
For Virgil, it was not the Age of Immortals, but, Saturn, a refugee from the Trojan War, founding Latium on peaceful terms with the Etruscans. Perhaps it has a double meaning if Titans refer to a pre-human age.
I find it is usually easier to understand hypostasis from within a single system such as:
Plutarch writes, that is why they call the leader of the muses in the city of Hermes at once Isis and Justice, since she is wise One scholar has suggested that this Hermopolitan ennead of Muses might have consisted of Isis-Maat, Isis-Hathor, and the Seven Hathors.
We saw at Pompeii, there is Isis-Fortuna, where also was found what was thought to be Indian Lakshmi, but should probably just be called the Pompeii Ivory:
Based on its architectural remains and floor plan, this "House of the Four Styles," directly off of the Via dell'Abbondanza, is now believed to have belonged to a successful merchant. It is crammed with luxurious Indian commodities...
...the iconography, in particular the exposed genitals, reveals that the figure is more likely to depict a yakshi...
It lacks any significant iconography, however it is inscribed:
the letter śi, as the śi in Shiva
which is not much to go on. With one hand she holds her earrings, and the other reaches over behind her back and seems to be adjusting a hair braid. That doesn't resemble any deity. The strength of numbers would suggest it is Buddhist art, which made a lot of Yakshis for a long time, although others also did. The Mathura school is pretty close to this specimen.
Among goddesses, the more sublime or cosmic form does not appear to have Scales, which, i. e., are Idris or Hermes or Thoth or Enoch at the center of the Wheel. Ma'at "is associated with" them, but she does not personally carry them, neither does Isis, Fortuna, Astraea, or Nortia.
Scales are found with offspring such as:
Dike, Justitia
Rather than Libra, the apparent emanation says something about Virgo and Taurus:
Isis-Hathor cannot be much different from Osiris-Apis or Serapis.
I think it would be very speculative to try proving that Dendera records an extensive memory of multiple Great Year cycles, and, I am not sure what we could fill that much time with. However, because these deities point to the Bull, it is not that hard to go back to the Age of Taurus. This Age shows the equinox in the Fixed Cross as we know it, onto which, the Libra is centered and crucified. I suppose Libra is central to the whole Zodiac, however the Fixed Cross is the Four Form Elements, and so it is the first statement about being staked to a form of matter, lost from the higher realms, so of course you have to identify mistakes before fixing them.
We can trace our alphabet all the way back to the Phoenician, and they all begin with the Bull.
Considering that out letter A is upside, down, from the Glossary:
Designated by the first letter of the alphabet, Taurus is described in many ancient systems as being number one among the signs, because this ascription took place and became static at a time in past history when Taurus opened the spring, and hence was reckoned as the first.
Taurus stands for both sun and moon gods, its symbol being sometimes a bull and sometimes a cow, the Third Logos mystically being considered androgyne, differentiation into the two opposites not yet having supervened. Thus Taurus was usually connected with sun gods, such as Osiris; and at others connected with moon goddesses Isis, Diana, Cybele, etc. with the moon, and with the far higher Magna Mater (great mother), source of Taurus as the Second Logos, a distinctly feminine aspect.
She says it is also Pranava or Om, although in most modern understandings this is split:
Nandi, the bull that sits in front of Sivalinga, represents pranava (Omkara, the sound OM). Vrishabha (the bull) represents Dharma Devata, the Lord of Virtue.
But this is another innovation, even according to The Met:
The young bull is popularly but incorrectly called Nandi, the joyful, but is better referred to simply as Vrishabha, the white bull.
Or Wiki:
It is recently documented, that the application of the name Nandi to the bull (Sanskrit: Vṛṣabha), is in fact a development of recent syncretism of different regional beliefs within Saivism. The name Nandi was widely used instead for an anthropomorphic door-keeper of Kailasha, rather than his mount, in the oldest Saivite texts in Sanskrit, Tamil, and other Indian languages.
It is now art of the art in the Indian Constitution:
He included Vrishabha, a symbol of Indus Valley Civilization, and then made drawings linking Babylon, the port of the Sumerian civilization with Lothal (Gujarat), the port of the Indus Valley Civilization.
It has an even more esoteric meaning similar to Buddhism with Shiva:
How to attain the final salvation? The Vrishabha indicates how. Nirkuta (9-22) gives another derivative meaning for Vrishabha : Atribrihati reta iti roots out of the seed.
When a Sadhak serves the Lord faithfully just as an ordinary bull serves his master day in and day out, without demanding or seeking anything for himself, then this very attitude sheds the seed of Vasanas and he will no more be born again.
Compared to the previous sign, Aries, Mesha-Aja:
Though Aja means the unborn, it refers to the "unborn-but-existing-in-eternity." Mesha (Aries) symbolizes the unborn or unmanifest potential chafing to externalize itself: it stands for subjective-objective unity. Mesha (Aries) represents the future possibilities of creative energy, the world-to-be rather than the world-as-it-is.
Mesha (Aries) maintains a strong link with the central invisible Sun God...
HPB says:
The Purusha-Sukta or Hymn of Man (RV 10:90) states that the thousand-headed Purusha is dismembered at the foundation of the world so that from his remains the universe might arise. This is the foundation of the later Christian symbol of the sacrificial lamb, for there is here a play on words: Aja the unborn Purusha or manvantaric spirit may also be derived from the verbal root aj (to drive, propel), whose meanings include a he-goat, a ram, and the sign Aries. Spirit disappears dies, metaphorically the more it becomes involved in cosmic matter, and hence the sacrifice of the unborn, the lamb, or the ram.
In India, Aries refers to the Unmanifest; but then for example, Buddha was born in Taurus.
There is a marker found by Tod on Ellora:
As emblematic
of the sun, and placed between the celestial signs Aries and Taurus, which
these ram-headed and bull-headed figures represent, Mahadeva may designate
the position of the sun in the Zodiac when these sculptures were executed.It could not be the time of their making, but, like at Dendera, a historical marker.
The Bull is grabbed in a few Vedic references linked by Incarnate Word:
Twashtri is the Deva as Maker, Lord and Enjoyer of the world through the female energies, ग्नाःthe image of the Vrishabha & the Cows, the Lord and the Wife or Wives always present in the Veda.
The seven rays or cows are Aditi the infinite Mother, the Cow unslayable, supreme Nature or infinite Consciousness, pristine source of the later idea of Prakriti or Shakti,the Purusha is in this early pastoral imagery the Bull, Vrishabha,the Mother of things taking form on the seven planes of her world-action as energy of conscious being.
They are figured as fostering cows (dhenavaḥ), mares (aśvāḥ), they are called sapta vāṇīḥ, the seven Words of the creative goddess Vak,Speech, the expressive power of Aditi, of the supreme Prakriti who is spoken of as the Cow just as the Deva or Purusha is described in the Veda as Vrishabha or Vrishan, the Bull. They are therefore the seven strands of all being, the seven streams or currents or forms of movement of the one conscious existence.
Subba Row gave a useful Twelve Signs of the Zodiac. It shows a quick conversion of Greek to Indian Signs and he explains them, and HPB largely copied this as her information. So it was him who said the Bull "...is used in several places in the Upanishats and the Veda to mean Pranava (Aum). Shankarâchârya has so interpreted it in several portions of his commentary."
Because he also gives the subject of Virgo and Scorpio, I thought he might have something to say about how Tula-Libra might be in the hands of some goddess, but he does not.
The number of Tattvas is different according to the views of different philosophers; but by Shâktêyas generally and by several of the ancient Rshis such as Agastya, Durwâsa and Parasurâma, and others, the number of Tattvas has been stated to be thirty-six.
This sign prepares the way to earthly Adam, to Nara. As the emblem of Nara it is properly placed as the seventh sign.
He is using Tattva in this sense:
Dharma Inc: The 36 Tattvas of Śakta-Śaiva Dharma
A tattva is commonly translated into English as element. However, the concept of tattva is better understood as a state of being or as a state of energy/experience. These states are not independent realities or material, objective entities. Tattva models attempt to describe and organize all that exists in our universe of matter/energy/consciousness. The number of tattvas is very flexible as they are all dependent on the first or Śiva.
The most commonly accepted models utilize a 36 tattva schema which is the re-interpreted samkhya 25 tattva model plus 11 more. It is important to remember that the sages of Kashmir werent trying to say that the model is the reality it describes. They were merely attempting to give the intellect a way to grasp reality beyond mind (meditation instructions).
The vibrant creative energy of Parashiva, known as Spanda, moves him to manifest himself these 36 tattvas as a līlā or divine play.
It is quite similar to Buddhism on Mahamaya:
The interaction of Pure Maya and Impure Maya is the Pure - impure Maya where the souls (Pashus) attain knowledge which leads to the existence of whole universe.
Mahāmāyā divides itself into three aspects: śuddha māyā, śuddha-aśuddha māyā, and aśuddha māyā, and causes five, seven, and twenty-four tattvas respectively.
In the Pure Realm is a Purity Tattva:
Also known as Sadvidyā
In Sanskrit grammar, Sat, on its own:
The true (i. e. real, substantive, self-subsisting) being;--a designation of Brahm as the real and sole substance of the (illusively) material universe. sat here has no implication of moral truth or moral goodness.
and as above:
True, real, actual, truly existing. 2 True, good, excellent, virtuous, right, fit, proper, true or good in the most extensive sense. Only in compounds and thus abundantly. Ex. satpuruṣa, sadguṇa, sadvidyā...
Not abstract knowledge about, but, personal experience of, actual Goodness in various guises.
In another hint from Kashmir:
Beyond Siva tattva is the atattva, which is not counted among the 36.
Atattva - ParaSiva or formless absolute Brahman who is beyond all the tattvas, symbolized by sivalinga, experienced in the state of samadhi.
Does it matter whether there are twenty-five or thirty-six Tattvas? The answer is that it does matter. Lord Shiva is the Lord of Yoga and His tradition teaches that the Tattvas are 36 in number. For the sake of harmony and unity, all Yogic traditions must agree with this.
However, there is another important reason. The number "36" is a sacred number which has a special meaning in Yoga.
In fact, yes, it has many numerological significances. Three Zodiacs is thirty-six, and three of these is 108, the number of a Rosary. And it melds with the hexadecimal time system. It is fairly complex in a way that the next couple of sentences there did not benefit much. But, the size of this "meditative object", plus its sort of unspoken Parameswara, are again quite similar to Buddhism.
As to the Pure Realm overall, re-working the generic term "evolution" from a large article by Arthur Avalon:
The Evolution from Śiva-Śakti of the Pure Tattvas is not of this kind. It is an Ābhāsa or shining forth, adopting the simile of the sun which shines without (it was supposed) change in, or diminution, of, its light. This unaffectedness in spite of its being the material cause is called in the Pañcharātra by the term Vīrya, a condition which, the Vaiṣṇava Lakṣmī Tantra says, is not found in the world where milk quickly loses its nature when curds appear. It is a process in which one flame springs from another flame. Hence it is called Flame to Flame. There is a second Flame but the first from which it comes is unexhausted and still there. The cause remains what it was and yet appears differently in the effect.
Sakti:
1e) The tula or balance of scale, addressed as.*
* Matsya-purāṇa 274. 59.
S. Sastri goes far more in-depth in Tantric Hieroglyphics:
The letters A and Ha are said to originate Srividya. A is Prakasa and Ha is vimarsa.
A-ham is the Mula Prakriti from which all creation proceeds. Mula Prakriti is nirguna and
has no Prakriti. She is Sarasvati, the mother of creation. In the pancaratragama, siva says
therefore that the Mother of the Universe is Sarasvati and that he is her son, born from the
categories Mahat, etc.Mesa, Vrsabha, Kataka, Simha, Kanya or Tula or Vrscika, Makara, Kumbha rasis are
indicated. Mesa-Tula and Kataka-Makara mark the equinoxes and solstices of the present
calendar. The older date of about B.C. 3000 is indicated by the vernal equinox in Krttika.In the Tantras the matrkas and metres are intimately associated wlth astronomical
data. Samkara in Prapancasara (Ch. IV) shows how from the Bhuvanesvari bija Hrim the
varnas, tattvas, time divisions, etc. originate. Hrim is H, R, I, M. From Ha which is Prana, a,
u and six urmis are derived. From Ra-R, Ru, Lr, Lru, and the four (colour, touch, taste and
smell. From I-i, i, u, e, ai, from M-the bindu, visarga (with four gunas), karana, manas,
buddhi, ahamkara, citta, forming the samghata (Body) and cetana (karyartha karanagata
cidabhasa). From the vowels the consonants are derived (KA to Ksa). The Bhuvaneswari
Bija with seven parts represents the seven planets. Surya is Svara as the lord of the planets
represents all the vowels.The zodiac also originates from Bhuvanesvari :
Bhu Cakra-two sets of rasis, inner and outer : Mesa Ikaranta, Vrsa rkaranta, Mithuna
Ukaranta, Kataka Ekaranta, Okaranta, Kanya Am and Sa varga, Tula to Mina Ka, Ca, Ta,
Ta, Pa vargas and Ya, Ra, La, Va respectively and Ksa is in Mina.Bhuvar Cakra the twelve rasis are of the Pitrs, and in the Svar Cakra, of the devas.
That encompasses the Three Worlds, Bhu, Bhuvar, Svar.
What follows about her Zodiac will force us to enquire about multiple levels of reality and multiple kinds of creation. The impression I get is that a surface reading of only a few Puranas will look like the creation of the world, with various cycles of destruction and re-creation. However, some of the more intricate Puranas--in a somewhat sly but manageable way--definitely involve a series of descending creations, from a rather abstract plane, to an idea, to a visual blueprint. Each time it is unsatisfactory and incomplete. And so if you carefully examine the "era" before "our creation", it is a highly earth-like image in the Astral Plane, so to speak. This too is destroyed, but the saga of mixed karma between the various forces has already begun, and our world begins with what are essentially the re-incarnations of the previous.
And so we have to try to explain this, because, evidently, the Indian Zodiac is based on this very distinction.
I am going to clean up a larger table on:
...the houses of the zodiac are identified with the twelve adityas
and forms of Visnu:and it is going to divinize the Zodiac to the class of Aditya deities, so, for each Sign, there is a deity, his caste, and his planetary ruler. As we do this, it is easy to see that Sani-Saturn is the only planted granted a pair of consecutive signs:
Mesa -- Aries: Dhatr...Ksatriya, Kuja
Vrsabha -- Taurus: Aryama...Sudra, Sukra
Mithuna -- Gemini: Mitra...Vaisya, Budha
Kataka -- Cancer: Varuna...Brahmana, Candra
Simha -- Leo: Amsuman...Ksatriya, Surya
Kanya -- Virgo: Bhaga...Sudra, Budha
Tula -- Libra: Vivasvan...Vaisva, Sukra
Vrscika -- Scorpio: Indra... Brahmana, Kuja
Dhanus -- Sagittarius: Pusa...Ksatriya, Guru
Makara -- Capricorn: Parjanya...Sudra, Sani
Kumbha -- Aquarius: Tvastr...Vaisya, Sani
Mina -- Pisces: Visnu...Brahmana, Guru
also:
Grahas and Naksatras are important in Nyasa. The Nityasodasikarnava and Tantraraja
(Ch. II. 88-98) describe the Mother as the embodiment of Ganesa, Graha, Naksatra,
Yoginis, Rasis, Mantras and Pitas.It proceeds through a beautiful hymn such as:
Mahadevim paramanandarupinim
The Zodiac is the Houses of a very selective class of Adityas:
The twelve sons born to the sage Kaśyapa of his wife Aditi are known as the twelve Ādityas. They are the following: Dhātā, Mitra, Aryamā, Rudra, Varuṇa, Sūrya, Bhaga, Vivasvān, Pūṣā, Savitā, Tvaṣṭā and Viṣṇu. Besides these Aditi had twentyone children including Indra. All of them are called Ādityas meaning children of Aditi. From the thirtythree sons of Aditi were born the thirtythree crores of devatās. Of these the eldest is Indra and the youngest, Vāmana. (Śloka 36, Chapter 66, Ādi Parva, Mahābhārata). (There is corroboration for this in Śloka 14, Sarga 14, Araṇya Kāṇḍa, Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa).
In prior eras:
...originally Vaikuṇṭhas and Sādhyas
...there are many different Ādityas in Ṛgveda, chief of them is Varuṇa. Though Savitā, Pūṣā and Mitra are all synonyms of Sūrya in Ṛgveda they are all separate devas.
...her youngest was Upendra, or Vāmanadeva, the dwarf incarnation of the Lord.
Well-known in Buddhism for quite some time:
Pali Kanon: Pali Proper Names
Mother of the sun, who is called Adicca, which is explained as Aditiya putto. DA.iii.963.
...literally means 'unbounded', 'the boundless Heaven'
She is called 'Devamātā' being strangely enough represented both as mother and daughter of Dakṣa. She had 8 sons; she approached the gods with 7 and cast away the 8th (Mārtaṇḍa, the sun.) In another place Aditi is addressed as 'supporter of the sky, sustainer of the earth, sovereign of this world, wife of Viṣṇu'
Prajāpati caused the tejas of the aṇḍa in her garbha, and removing it at the request of gods, made it into two pieces, and finding it weak, placed it on the lap of the Sungod (Mārtāṇḍa): given to dharma.
Here is what happens by the distinction of finite, or bounded, space:
Her name means 'un-binding' or 'liberation'. She is said to possess ear-rings of unsurpassed splendor. She is always jealous of her sister (and co-wife) Diti, the mother of the Asuras.
Once she incited her son Indra to cause the fetus of Diti to be split into seven pieces[Devi:4.3.18]. Diti cursed her, saying,
"May seven sons be born to you. May you also suffer the grief of loss of your seven sons."
Diti was born as Devaki, the sister of Kamsa as a result of this curse. Her first seven children were killed by her brother, for it had been foretold that her eighth child would be the his slayer.
HPB is fond of Aditi:
...from and in her cosmic matrix all the heavenly bodies were born. As the celestial virgin and mother of every existing form and being, the synthesis of all things, she is highest akasa. Aditi is identified in the Rig-Veda with Vach (mystic speech) and also with the mulaprakriti of the Vedanta. As the womb of space, she is a feminized form of Brahma. The line in the Rig-Veda: Daksha sprang from Aditi and Aditi from Daksha has reference to the eternal cyclic re-birth of the same divine Essence (SD 2:247n). In one of its most mystic aspects Aditi is divine wisdom.
Aditi has correspondences in many ancient religions: the highest Sephirah in the Zohar; the Gnostic Sophia-Achamoth; Rhea, mother of the Greek Olympians; Bythos or the great Deep; Amba; Surarani; Chaos; Waters of Space; Primordial Light; and the source of the Egyptian seven heavens. Sometimes she is linked with the Greek Gaia, goddess of earth, to denote dual nature or the mother of both the spiritual and physical: Aditi, cosmic expanse or space being the mother of all things; and Gaia, mother of earth and, on the larger scale, of all objective nature (cf SD 2:65, 269).
Vamana, her youngest progeny, is a major incarnation of Vishnu who, so to speak, "bounds" space by filling it with consciousness:
In the Vāmana incarnation, assuming the form of a Brāhmaṇa-dwarf, he traversed the earth, air and heaven in three strides and gained the earth from Bali, the lord of the demons.
HPB says that he:
...in three world-encompassing strides deprived Bali of the heavens and the earth, all save the regions of Patala (the lower spheres of manifestation).
These three strides of Vishnu represent the godlike emanation or essence passing through the three cosmic planes superior to the fourth or material plane, informing and inspiring as the essence proceeds.
Diti becomes the more or less divine spatial extent of a cosmic unit, such as a universe, solar system, etc.; but the significance of Diti points directly to lofty spirit. Diti . . . is the sixth principle of metaphysical nature, the Buddhi of Akasa. Diti, the mother of the Maruts, is one of her terrestrial forms, made to represent, at one and the same time, the divine Soul in the ascetic, and the divine aspirations of mystic Humanity toward deliverance from the webs of Maya, and final bliss in consequence (SD 2:613-14).
...asked her husband to bless her with a child to kill Indra. The unwilling husband offered it on condition of her observing certain vows for 100 years. So she observed them and Indra came to assist her. One day he found her sleeping in an unorthodox posture and entering her womb cut the embryo into seven and then into 49 pieces; but at her request he gave all of them the status of gods, known as Maruts.
By the power of her sacred rites, the child in the womb did not die as she was sleeping at that time, by a stroke of good luck. They were cut into seven pieces and so she had seven sons. These sons became gods by the name of Maruts. They all went to heaven along with Indra and were taken as his own attendants by the king of gods.
So these are also a definite class of entity commonly called "Storm", which, one might suppose, is a disordered condition of their real meaning:
Marut (मरुत्):Another name for Vāyu, a Vedic deity representing the cosmic life breath (the universal spirit). The name Marut means he without whom one dies.
So long as the breath (marut) is in the body, the soul is not released [from it]. The [breaths] departure is death.
Vital air or breath, life-wind
wind, air, breath (also applied to the five winds in the body)
Eventually, towards our material creation, Adityas come through with:
...the first marut gaṇa. Born with Rudras. Residents of Bhuvarloka. Offered presents (upāyana) at the time of the marriage of Kāmeśvara with Lalitā.
Gods of the Vaivasvata epoch at the commencement of the first tretāyuga
The present, the seventh manvantara is Vaivasvata [viz., vaivasvatamanvantara]. In this manvantara, Purandara is the Indra who is the Subduer of the pride of the Asuras; The gods are the Ādityas, the Rudras, the Vasus and the Maruts.
So the Indian Vaivasvata Manu has the Libra role like the center of Ezekiel's Wheel.
Scorpio--Indra makes sense, Indra being a type of Lord of the Form World but also the subject of Maya.
The Saturnine deities are extremely occult and the last is Vishnu in his own line of descent incarnating as himself. The information we already have on Gemini is colossal. Now of course we have gotten this list from a Shakti source, so, it may not universally match everything, but, it may be the most useful kind.
The Eight Vasus of Aditi are a specialized kind of elemental being.
And the last is in something that is in all the systems. Aditi has Eleven Rudras:
Nīlalohita, a chief Rudra.
In the Vedas, Rudra is said to be blue and red (nīlalohita). His throat is blue. His belly is black and his back red colours that probably relate to those of the sky at sunset. The Śrīmatottara refers to the goddess as Mahāpiṅgalā (the Great Tawny One) who establishes the order of the letters of the Mālinī alphabet. In this respect also, she is like Rudra who is also said to be a ruddy brown. This is because Rudra is the Fire just as the goddess is Saṃvartā, the energy of Fire.
HPB reveres them:
The rudras represent an aggregate of entities in the primary formation of worlds, as well as the intellectually informing principles of man. They are mythologically said to be at war with the shadowy entities and powers of the lower spheres, and hence are sometimes spoken of as the destroyers of outward forms.
Rudra is truly the Siva of the Rig-Veda, and in many respects the Agni of later writings. Like Siva, Rudra is a beneficent deity (because regenerating), and a mistaken maleficent deity (because destroying falsehoods and imperfections at the same time). As the beneficent one or spiritual healer, Rudra is the higher human ego aspiring to its own spiritual pure state; and as the destroyer he is the same imprisoned higher human ego whose war against imperfection, evil, and sin make him the roarer or the terrible.
Rudra is sometimes called the father of the maruts or Vedic storm gods.
They are even referred to as the ten vital breaths or pranas because these ten vital breaths are the ten varieties of intellectual energies or forces flowing from them, and which on the intellectual plane may be spoken of as the mental pranas.
So to just have this small piece of information about the Indian Zodiac means explaining the Adityas, who in total are the main characters in the Indra Heaven of the Thirty-three. This is completely metaphysical.
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References
- https://hugepdf.com/download/download-text-book-references_pdf
- https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?120912-Neo-Platonism-vs.-Capitalism&s=555ced8f41c315abdfac6aae08a495f9
- https://pdfcoffee.com/the-healing-gods-complementary-and-alternative-medicine-in-christian-america-pdf-free.html
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