Puranic Cosmology Updated 9

22 March 2010

There is an interesting element of Puranic Tradition that ought to be studied – in and for itself, and later in the context of this updating exercise. This is the prominent feature of Hindu temples throughout India: the Navagrahas (Nine Planets) at their entrance in the form of a 3x3 square diagram, which the devotee is expected to acknowledge and propitiate before all else. Scientists and rationalists point to this tradition as another indication of superstition and ignorance because apart from giving a human-like personality to the planets, included among the nine are simply not planets at all – i.e., Sun and Moon, for instance. But what causes the most derision is the inclusion of Rahu and Ketu, the lunar nodes. And yet it is precisely this gross scientific ‘flaw’ that provides a hint to the remarkable advancement of higher knowledge in those early days.

The Head and Tail of the ‘Serpent’, as it is known, or the ‘Dragon’ as in St John’s Apocalypse, the last Book of the New Testament, is simply the crossing of two orbits, the Moon’s and the Earth’s, in their dance together around the Sun. Yet even while knowing that there was no solid body involved, the Ancients went to the extent of listing Rahu and Ketu as part of the scheme of 9, in a sense personalising this nothingness.

The Cobra’s Head marking
(the astronomical symbol of Rahu and Ketu
from where the name Serpent arose)

From The New Way, PNB
Aeon Books, 1981, p.408

The truth be told, Rahu and Ketu, while lacking a consolidated body provide us with an even more interesting perspective vis-à-vis the ancient lore. In formalising the pre-eminence of this elusive Pair, the ancient sages were once again emphasising the role of Time in the Cosmic Order, and particularly of its cycles. In addition, emphasis is laid on orbits, above all else.

As we know, the Lunar Nodes hold the key to the occurrence of eclipses and therefore the Saros cycle of 18+ years. The number 18 has always been a significant key that the Tradition has nurtured throughout the ages. For example, the 18 Major and 18 Minor Puranas – no more, no less. This number figures in a wealth of extant cultural documents, as in the 18 Books of the Mahabharat and its 18-day war, the Gita in 18 chapters, and many more.

If we return to elements already discussed about the Churning Myth, there is an important part of its symbolism which has not been treated so far: precisely the Serpent Vasuki – the rope the Devas and Asuras use to churn Mt Meru. Vasuki is the symbol that conveys the role of Time in the action. But this serpent is not Ananta, endless, infinite Time who forms the bed whereupon Vishnu reclines before the grand moment of awakening when Time and Creation are ‘set in motion’ as it were. Vasuki, the same symbol, is here a part of the awakened action and the representative in the Myth of the evolutionary Becoming, central to which is Time. But Vasuki bears a special feature, given the stage of the avataric descents and the Order emerging out of Chaos as the tale informs us. Vasuki is Time in its periodicities rather than its endlessness or infinitudes. When Order is established, this is the most salient feature of the cosmos born of chaos. Only if and when Time is established in its recurring periods can we truly appreciate that Cosmic Order applied to life on Earth. And this is what is honoured when Rahu and Ketu are included in the Navagraha schematic of every Hindu Temple.

Again, as an indication of the prophetic quality of the Puranas, what was fundamental to preserve for posterity was simply the Measure of 9 because this number-power holds the key to Time’s periodicities. And it needs to be repeated: in the Puranic Age the higher knowledge went underground to be preserved in Myth primarily. The ‘science’ we know from this period of concealment is not veda in the sense that we find in the Rig Veda, for example. Therefore, it is no stretch of the imagination to state, as Sri Aurobindo has done, that for the past two thousand years no Indian has understood the Veda. That was the objective: occultation, a veritable eclipse of the Light. To retrieve that knowledge the process has to be through a restoration of the earlier Vedic initiation: we have to retrace our steps.

Thus, by giving a prominent position to the 9 grahas in the Puranic Age, and even imbuing each one with an approachable human aspect to which the devotee could easily relate in spite of the eclipse of the Light, and thereby further the Knowledge albeit unknowingly, this special key could be preserved across the centuries and the millennia. Puranic Tradition has once again demonstrated its ‘method to the madness’ – that is, a means was devised to utilise the temple and the individual worshipper as channels for the preservation of the Dharma through a very dark age. That key had to be camouflaged, along with everything else of significance, re-clothed as it were in a garb suitable to the darkness that set in when the Precession of the Equinoxes entered the Age of Pisces after Sri Krishna’s 8th appearance and the close of the Vedic Age proper. However, we can appreciate the value and importance of the ‘method’ only when we enter fully into the period of the 9th Avatar and can engage in an updating exercise where the 9 plays an essential role, without which the Appearance could not be seen to be factual thereby re-establishing the Dharma as it has been done. Thanks to the Puranic preservation our times can offer factuality that updates Science itself. Heaven is no longer elusive and imaginative. The Vedic Swar descends on Earth.

When I highlight 9 as the key to Time in the old and new cosmologies, it is important to note exactly how this number plays the role that it does. This is carried out through the division of the circle of 360 degrees into 9 parts, resulting in sections of 40 degrees each. Most important of all is to bear in mind ever and always that the CIRCLE IS ONE. We are always analysing one circle within which all divisions are done and find their place. This One Circle of 360 degrees is also the solar year, established by the Earth’s circumambulation of the Sun.

Vedic Tradition has a special characteristic. It is the ability to carry forward the realisation of oneness and unity in this simple manner – the Circle is one, all actions take place in this one field of our endeavour. The circle is everywhere present – in the micro and macrocosm which can all be reduced to the same 360 (=9) degrees of an infinitude of circles always and ever within the One Circle.

To illustrate the method further, we observe that the fourfold harmony is, once more, a product of the Circle. To render concrete the perspective, the ‘one circle’ is our solar system’s ecliptic. In this division, each quarter consists of 90 of the 360 degrees which are marked off by the Equinoxes and Solstices, thereby actualising what would otherwise be just theory or a mental abstract. Thus, the division of 12 (x 30 = 360) with its fourfold balance is the field of the Sacrifice, the 12-month year. Its physicality is easily appreciated by the effects of the Equinoxes and Solstices on the seasons as experienced in the course of the year.

The 12-part division of the One Circle is to be equated with space and the horizontal (expansion) bar of our equal-bodied cross . The circle of 9, on the other hand, is more elusive in that it is the vertical axis expressed in the Solstices (contraction) which require a more initiatic approach to understand as we find in the Veda in its pristine form. In the Puranas the division of 9 is equally present but embellished by tales which camouflage the Knowledge as a form of protection and preservation. From individualised consciousness to consciousness, the initiatic perspective is passed down across the ages in the sacred form of Myth, thereby assuring its survival through periods of great tribulations such as the subcontinent has known throughout the Age of Pisces. Thus, the Navagrahas at each temple’s entrance serve to ‘focus the lens’ of perception right when we enter the sacred precinct, as if to state, ‘This is the Key with which, similar to the Vedic Age, you may enter those ‘worlds’ through the months and the years, i.e., the very solar system we inhabit whose measure is 9 and 12.

To summarise, we have two features of the One Circle, vertical and horizontal. The latter is its division of 12 – spatial, resting on the four Cardinal Pillars; the former is the division of 9, experienced by us as cycles in periods of 9 and multiples thereof. The two together, superimposed, offer the most formidable key of higher knowledge of all times. I have called it the Gnostic Circle. Without it there could be no updating.

I am of the view that the superimposed 9 and 12 was known in the Vedic Age. There are clues in the Rig Veda to suggest that this was the case. The principal clue is the enigmatic phrase, ‘The 9 (navagwas) becomes the 10 (dashagwas).’

Indeed, this ‘becoming’ of 9 to 10 is the hardest, most demanding stage of the Initiate’s journey to Swar because in the lived experience of Number and Unity at the level of 9 there has to be an integration of the two divisions, 9 and 12; that is, Vertical (9) and Horizontal (12) have to intertwine, as it were, to become the equal-bodied cross out of whose centre the Axis is born. Sri Aurobindo writes in this context:

‘Tradition asserts the separate existence of two classes of Angirasa Rishis, the one Navagwas who sacrificed for nine months, the other Dashagwas whose session of sacrifice endured for ten. According to this interpretation we must take Navagwa and Dashagwa as “nine-cowed” and “ten-cowed”, each cow representing collectively the thirty Dawns which constitute one month of the sacrificial year.’

‘The victory is won in twelve periods of the upward journey, represented by the revolution of the twelve months of the sacrificial year, the periods corresponding to the successive dawns of a wider and wider truth, until the tenth secures the victory…What may be the precise significance of the nine rays and the ten, is a more difficult question which we are not yet in a position to solve.’ (The Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo, pp 174-5.)

‘Here cried (or, moved) the stone impelled by the hand, whereby the Navagwas chanted for ten months the hymn…(RV, V. 45-7) ‘I hold for you in the waters the thought that wins possession of heaven, by which the Navagwas passed through the ten months…(RV. V, 45, 1).

And finally regarding the difficulty, Sri Aurobindo wrote,

‘The expression in the hymns, daso maso ataran, indicates that there was some difficulty in getting through the full period of ten months. It is during this period apparently that the sons of darkness had the power to assail the sacrifice; for it is indicated that it is only by the confirming of the thought which conquers Swar, the solar world, that the Rishis are able to get through the ten months…(The Secret of the Veda, p.169).

From The New Way, PNB, Aeon Books, 1981, p.273.

In the composite diagrammatic of the Gnostic Circle this act of the 9 wrapping around the 12 to become the realigned axis is actualised in time and by Time, and is thus forged in the consciousness-being of the Initiate. Herein lies the answer to why the Rishis declared the 10th month/sign to be the stage where the Victory is attained. The 9 of the planetary system must at some point in the initiatic process form that cross balanced on the Cardinal Poles of the 12 Circle: the two must join, and to do so the way forward is the forging of a realigned Axis, cosmos then arises out of an amorphous chaos.

This is accomplished in the 10th month/sign, which is the first of the horizontal 12 to stand before the Initiate when he or she has successfully travelled through the 9 prior stages vertically (in consciousness). The horizontal enters the scheme of things at the 10th sign Capricorn/Meru/ Bharat; hence, the month of Victory, just as the Rishis proclaimed. Thereafter two more sign/months remain, Aquarius and Pisces, which I will discuss further on in relation to Varun, Mitra and Bhaga, the ‘weightiest’ of the Vedic Gods. The diagram above will help to visualise the superimposition of the two, the circle of 9 (planets) and 12 (zodiac sign/months).

The previsionary character of the Puranas is again to be noted because this updating could only come to pass when our solar system had reached a measure of 9. When that occurred in the first half of the last century, coinciding with the arrival of the 9th Avatar of Vishnu exactly on time – that is, just when his Age of Preservation had arrived – the correct number scale could be used, 0 to 9, along with the spatial field of 1 to 12 which had been known from time immemorial and handed down as the 12-part zodiac. In this time of updating we add the Circle of 9 to the equation. Thus we have the equal-bodied cross actualised through a Key that had been preserved through the Puranic period, albeit somewhat camouflaged by the personalisation of Myth – the ‘method to the madness’ to keep the Knowledge alive for us to retrieve today.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director
Aeon Centre of Cosmology

Puranic Cosmology Updated 8

17 March 2010

In discussing Form and Essence, my intention was not to minimise the outstanding art that has come down to us from the Puranic period, a comparable quality of which surfaced in Europe only many centuries later. Rather, I would like to demonstrate how the direction of the quest – the Journey in the Veda – was reflected in art itself. To illustrate, I reproduced in Update 7 the exquisite Ankhor Vat bas-relief of the Churning Myth, certainly one of the finest sculptural renditions of its kind, as the grandest of all myths merits. Then the same tale is retold in our century/millennium in the form of what could almost be described as graphic art, in the sense that the artistic refinement of the former Age has been set aside in favour of the more graphic representation. Art today has certainly undergone a change from both the oriental and the European styles of times gone by. In itself this displays the ‘levelling’ process, if you will, a universalisation such as Aquarius demands more clearly than anything else.

Art as a representation of the collective experience and level of consciousness in any given age, we observe through this expression the same levelling in the ideologies that surfaced right at the turnover from Pisces to Aquarius. With the demise of monarchies after World War 1 as effective means of governance, and the surfacing of movements demanding larger and more comprehensive participation of the masses, the indications were that the Aquarian Age had begun. Noblesse oblige came to an end as the new Age set in; and with that we witnessed the gradual elimination of colonialism that was a natural corollary to the monarchic system, both being justified as having a sort of divine sanction that could not be questioned.

The direction of the cosmic evolutionary process has been more than clear. But equally clear is the shift of the cosmic contest to the world stage today; and, in one form or another, we observe that the struggle for supremacy between Gods and Titans has moved into a position of pre-eminence, as it were: witness totalitarianism and democracy, for example. Both advocate rule of the people (democracy), or for the people (communism). To solve the conundrum, on which the future of Earth societies hinges, understanding the cosmic sense and purpose of the Harmony provides clear lines we can follow if we truly wish the Daivic/Asuric struggle to be resolved.

To return to the Churning Myth and its various depictions – at the height of Puranic glory and its contemporary version – it is noteworthy that the two examples provided have come from lands beyond the actual Indian landmass and in what have become Buddhist nations. However, the reach of Puranic culture was so widespread and penetrating that we have a Muslim nation, Indonesia, honouring the very backbone of Vedic civilisation through the formal adoption of the Ramayana as its national epic. How else can this be explained except to state that Myth and Epic speak with the language of the Soul which is universal?

Further to be noted is that the Vishnu abode at Ankhor Vat itself finally fell into disuse and was ultimately covered over by the tropical jungles of the region not long after Buddhism had displaced Hinduism as the national culture. It was predictable in that the Soul is not given pride of place in Buddhism – if it is given a place at all; therefore, its ‘language’ cannot receive the revitalising sustenance Myth requires from time to time, as we find on the Indian subcontinent where it is alive and well even today. The contemporary graphic rendition of the Churning Myth, though of lesser artistic value is precious in that occupying centrestage at a main international airport in a Buddhist country (ironically, an unthinkable occurrence in secular, socialist India), again drives home the point that the Cosmic Spirit envelops the entire Earth and is boundary-less. It is our modern concept of Nation that has to evolve further so that we may embody the highest ideals of the Age we entered in 1926. Indeed, during the former Piscean Age passports were not required to travel from one point of the known world to another, as we demand today. Rather than drawing closer to the Aquarian one-world ideal we seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

Further, hidden in the Puranic artistic renditions of this sublime myth is a clue to the shift that was taking place at the time it was formulated, and as it has come down to us today. To put it in perspective, we need to appreciate that the very same tale is the essence, if not the form, of the Vedic ‘journey’ on the backdrop of the Sacrificial Year. In the earlier Age the question of universalism had not figured. Its time had not yet come.

This may explain the stand taken by governments in adopting restrictions which seem to close borders even tighter than had ever been done in the past, precisely as an indication that this ‘knot’ in human consciousness had to become tightened in the extreme before release can come. (In one’s individual sadhana in the practice of Integral Yoga, the same situation is often experienced: when the Yoga Shakti has decided that it is time for a certain breakthrough, the issue in question seems to arise more vehemently than ever. Then we know that with her Grace its hold over our consciousness is nearing its end, the ‘knot’ is about to be undone if we participate in the required action.)

Thus, in Vedic times the Journey was, strictly speaking, reserved for the Initiate-Warrior; the masses were not involved, except insofar as the struggle of the Initiate reflected the condition of each soul participating in the evolutionary process. But knowledge was restricted to an elite, as the Cosmic Order of the day demanded. That Knowledge was, however – and this is the point to note – passed on to the whole of Vedic civilisation through the calendar formulated by the Sages to implement the cosmic scheme, thereby uniting the energies of ALL members of the society around the Cosmic Truth (the central Axis) which is the sense and purpose embedded in the Sacrificial Year. The Initiate had to realise that Truth of the Year, that realignment, make it his or her own conquest, if the masses at large were to benefit from the struggle. But the very same process is displayed in the later Puranic Myth, though its subtlety reveals the gradual directional shift to otherworldliness that was then taking place. It seemed to be presented more as the Ideal rather than the actualisation process of the Vedic period.

Thus, the vertical/horizontal axes in the Puranic sculptures clearly reveal the ideal of a harmonised, balanced world. Moreover, placing Mt Meru as the central axis makes the position even clearer. Mt Meru is the tool without which no ‘churning’ can take place. However, equally if not more indispensable is the presence of none other than Mahavishnu to control the action according to rhythms the Time-Spirit sets in motion. Mt Meru resting on the Tortoise (Kurma Avatar following Matsya), apart from all else, indicates that the churning displayed is a movement of the Cosmic Ages – hence the perspective as mirrored in the precession of the Earth’s equinoctial plane over ‘tortoise-like’ slow-moving vast cycles of time. In this myth the question is not the individual’s transformation and participation; it is the cosmic angle almost exclusively. More particularly, it is Vishnu’s ‘play’, the understanding of which must come from Vishnu Himself through the periodic avataric appearances of his emanations.

Kurma, the avatar as Tortoise, is one of the most significant stages in what Sri Aurobindo has referred to as ‘a parable of evolution’. This second appearance is not just evolution per se. It is Order out of Chaos, the Cosmic Order. Kurma Avatar initiates the quest for the Nectar of Immortality for which the churning is required; its various stages describe with great exactitude just how order finally emerges out of a primordial Chaos. The task of Vishnu’s Avatars is to guide the evolutionary process according to the rhythms set by the Time-Spirit toward this end. No other myth presents such a superb exposition of deep cosmic workings as this one.

Vishnu is obliged to take the form of the mythic Tortoise, an amphibian creature, to prevent the Meru-churning stick from sinking relentlessly while the Devas and Asuras seek to carry out their labour of ‘accelerating Time’ – that is, to allow evolution to reach higher stages in this round of 25,920 years on the road to a full apotheosis. Kurma supports the churning stick from below, while Vishnu/Garuda enters the operation from above by restraining the measure of the rise of the churning stick until the perfect measure/stability is reached for the success of the endeavour: Time’s orderly march is established after which evolution cannot fail to manifest what is contained in the original ‘seed’ (of the Veda) that Matsya Avatar had hidden in that very Ocean for its protection. The Ocean acts as protective covering of the Seed; it is both covering and medium within which or by which the subsequent Churning can ensue.

What is clear in this mythic formula is that the Vertical is the Axis of the Avatars, in this instance involving Kurma and Matsya; the myth is clear on this point. Moreover, the link of the Vertical with Time is further corroborated because the Avatars are offspring of the Time-Spirit. We will observe further on how immaculately this arrangement has played itself out in contemporary India (Meru) with the appearance of the 9th Avatar in the last millennium, and how by the use of Number and the universal calendar (not the Hindu Calendar), and more particularly the number system India bequeathed to the world, we can APPLY what until now has remained mere ‘myth’. In the process Myth comes to be understood differently, at least in the Indian context: it is actually recurring history. Mt Meru holds the key to the past, but more specifically to the future of the evolutionary process. No other Myth in the Puranic lexicon presents such an accurate description of the cosmic process as the Churning of the Primordial Ocean, nor is there any other as prophetic. This is proven, however, only when the updating of the old cosmology takes place. But the new cosmology is not prophecy as we understand the term today. This will become clear in the course of the updating exercise centred on the Puranas.

We must view the vertical/horizontal axis in the terms laid down in Update 7: Asuras and Devas, time and space. What is displayed is the orderly harmonisation of the two in the course of the year, Cosmic or Earthly. In the Vedic Age it was the latter primarily; in the Puranic the focus was Cosmic. The sacred task of our present Age is the lived experience and APPLICATION of that harmonisation which we do experience on Earth in the progression of the year across the solstices and equinoxes. But the issue is to become conscious participants, thereby fulfilling the dharma of the Age: universal transformation.

Some in the academic world hold a similar view regarding the progression from equinoxes to solstices. For example, we note that the mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, Maurice Glaize, along with Eleanor Mannikka, a scholar who specialises in East Asian art and religion, hold the view that the difference in the number of Asuras (92) and Devas (88) depicted in the Ankhor Vat bas-relief represents the number of days between winter solstice and spring equinox to summer solstice; certainly numbers chosen not randomly but deliberately by the executors of the temple’s sacred architecture in appreciation of the cosmic vision prevalent in the Puranic period. The Ankhor Vat plan uses the Tropical Solar Year as the Measure with its equinoxes and solstices, just as in the Vedic Age and well into the 12th Century, the time when the Ankhor complex was constructed.

Interestingly, it was at this very time that Al Biruni, the Arab scholar, was travelling in India and translating Hindu texts on astrology and cosmology into Arabic. The undermining of the Vedic prescription seems to have begun then, for we have his own words to substantiate this statement: ‘The solstice has kept its place, but the constellations have migrated, just the very opposite of what Varaha has fancied.’ (India, II, p.7). Al Biruni implies what post-Vedic astrologers sustain today: Capricorn is ‘not there where once it was’; but with their floating constellations they are chasing a phantom because Capricorn is not ‘out there’, disregarding the Earth’s harmonies and rhythms. What is even more interesting to note is that through his translations of the Hindu texts Al Biruni was responsible for the adoption of the Vedic method of horoscopy in the West, while suggesting the sidereal method for pundits of the subcontinent! But the final, total eclipse of the Vedic Tropical Year in India occurred closer to our times. This was the definitive adoption of the Nirayana system in lieu of the Vedic. Interestingly, it was supplanted on the subcontinent just as Science gained the upper hand over the sacred and the division was then complete.

Advantage in carrying out the universal transformation seems to lie with the West not the East this time around, because though the subcontinent preserves a vast treasure of Myths, all of which describe the Cosmic Truth, and incomparable examples of sacred art and architecture which display that same Truth, the masses are left out of the experience. Or at least as in contemporary India’s case, 80% of the population is excluded from participation through the mis-calculation of the Hindu calendar. Originally it served to unify and draw the energies of the population into the yearly Sacrifice through the celebration of certain outstanding landmarks in consonance with the cosmic harmony. Two are of are primary importance, Mahavishuva (March Equinox) and Makar Sankranti (December Solstice), the establishment of which would ensure the right temporal insertion of all the other celebrations, festivals, pilgrimages, and so forth. These commemorations continue and are noteworthy because they make identification of the unbroken Thread traceable into our times. But equally significant is the distortion of the Vedic measure of the year, the chief protagonist of the Sacrifice, which speaks volumes of the condition of the Dharma today.

Given the present conditions, it would appear that the West is better positioned to make the process consciously lived. But what we find lacking in the occident is the age-old tradition that the subcontinent carries over from the hoary past into the present via the unbroken Thread. It is for the reader to judge which pole, oriental or occidental, would have a better chance at actualising the Dharma of the Aquarian Age: the West which experiences the solar year as it was known in the Vedic Age, but which lacks the foundation in myth and cosmic sense and purpose that we find alive and well in the subcontinent. Or the eastern end of the pole where treasures lie buried somewhere beneath the coverings of the ages. Thus the conscious participation is denied to the masses because of errors in transferring that cosmic measure to the populace. The means to do so, the proper calendar for the purpose, is opposed by those who hold the power to determine which system is to be used, Nirayana based on the constellations, or Vedic based on the Earth’s own measure.

The constant reference I am making to the erroneous Measure used for the computation of the Hindu calendar of observances is extremely important, though it might appear as a tedious repetition to readers. Be that as it may, its singular importance is twofold. First and foremost is the fact that the Cosmic Truth cannot be perceived, much less actualised or applied, on the sidereal backdrop of the current post-Vedic Nirayana system. Simply put, that Order, that Cosmic Truth vanishes in the post-Vedic system. It remains submerged in the Piscean Ocean, or imprisoned beneath coverings and ‘cobwebs’, as I call them, which demand removal if that Sense and Purpose is to be restored and the Churning Myth is to be made a reality of our contemporary world.

Next is the effect of this mis-measure on the subcontinent: 80% of the energies of the majority population continue to be dispersed rather than unified via an enlightened calendar, whose primary purpose is the fulfilment of the great ideals of Aquarius, for which the subcontinent plays a central role, as the Thread itself reveals through the Capricorn hieroglyph.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director
Aeon Centre of Cosmology