Daily Theosophy Glossary
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V
Va
(Sanskrit) A term which means “speech” or “word”; and by the same procedure of mystical thought which is seen in ancient Greek mysticism, wherein the Logos is not merely the speech or word of the Divinity, but also the divine reason, so Vāc has come to mean really more than merely word or speech. The esoteric Vāc is the subjective creative intelligent force which, emanating from the subjective universe, becomes the manifested or concrete expression of ideation, hence Word or Logos. Mystically, therefore, Vāc may be said to be the feminine or vehicular aspect of the Logos, or the power of the Logos when enshrined within its vehicle or sheath of action. Vāc in India is often called Śata-rūpā, “the hundred-formed.” Cosmologically in one sense daiviprakṛti may be said to be a manifestation or form of Vāc.
(Sanskrit) A “vehicle” or carrier. This word has a rather wide currency in philosophical and esoteric and occult thought. Its signification is a bearer or vehicle of some entity which, through this carrier or vehicle, is enabled to manifest itself on planes or in spheres or worlds hierarchically inferior to its own. Thus the vāhana of man is, generally speaking, his body, although indeed man’s constitution comprises a number of vāhanas or vehicles, each one belonging to — and enabling the inner man, or manifesting spiritual or intellectual entity, to express itself on — the plane where the vāhana is native.
Vāhana is thus seen to have a number of different meanings, or, more accurately, applications. E.g., the vāhana of man’s spiritual monad is his spiritual soul; the vāhana of man’s human ego is his human soul; and the vāhana of man’s psycho-vital-astral monad is the liṅga-śarīra working through its vāhana or carrier, the sthūla-śarīra or physical body. The wire which carries the current of electricity can be said to be the vāhana of the electric current; or again, the intermolecular ether is the vāhana of many of the radioactive forces of the world around us, etc. Every divine being has a vāhana or, in fact, a number of vāhanas, through which it works and through which it is enabled to express its divine powers and functions on and in worlds and planes below the sphere or world or plane in which it itself lives. (See also Soul; Upādhi)
Fluid body. In Jainism, the body of hellish and heavenly beings which they take on immediately. It is the fluid body which can assume different forms and shapes:- small, big, separate and non-separate, and also can take any form at will.
(Sanskrit) [from virāj widely shining one] A class of gods emanating from Brahma in his aspect of creator collectively as Virāj, the Third Logos; hence, the celestial beings immediately derived from Virāj. Identified with the kumāras and the mānasaputras, as well as the agniṣvāttas. They are the hierarchies of cosmic conscious and self-conscious dhyāni-chohans who spring forth directly from the Third Logos, and furnish the intellectual background and vital urge of the hierarchies of beings who later produce the manifested universe from the ideation emanating from the Third Logos and the Vairājas.
“In the popular belief, semi-divine beings, shades of saints, inconsumable by fire, impervious to water, who dwell in Tapo-loka with the hope of being translated into Satya-loka — a more purified state which answers to Nirvāṇa. The term is explained as the aerial bodies or astral shades of ‘ascetics, mendicants, anchorites, and penitents, who have completed their course of rigorous austerities.’ [Vishnu-Purāna, Wilson, 2:229] Now in esoteric philosophy they are called Nirmāṇakāyas, Tapo-loka being on the sixth plane (upward) but in direct communication with the mental plane. The Vairājas are referred to as the first gods because the Mānasaputras and the Kumāras are the oldest in theogony, as it is said that even the gods worshipped them (Matsya Purāna); those whom Brahma ‘with the eye of Yoga beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the gods of gods’ (Vāyu Purāṇa)” (TG 358).
(Sanskrit) The third of the four castes or social classes into which the inhabitants of ancient India were divided. The Vaisya is the trader and agriculturist. (See also Brāhmaṇa; Kṣattriya; Śūdra)
(Sanskrit) Solar, coming from the sun (Vivasvat). Generally, the name of the seventh manu, who was saved in an ark, built by the order of Viṣṇu, from the deluge; the father of Ikṣvaku, the founder of the solar race of kings.
In theosophic philosophy, the root-manu of our present fourth round, and in a more restricted sense the manu of the fourth root-race; and again the manu of the fifth subrace of the present fifth root-race. Vaivasvata corresponds to Xisuthrus, Deukalion, Noah, etc. — all head-figures or eponyms of races inaugurating a “new” humanity after a deluge, whether universal or partial, astronomical or geological, according to the interpretation.
(Sanskrit) Vajra Diamond or thunderbolt; one possessing this scepter, or diamond-thunderbolt, possesses great spiritual, intellectual, and psychic powers; among others, the occult ability to repel evil influences by purifying the air, as ozone does in chemistry. The vajra mystically refers to indestructibility and to the wondrous reflective powers of the diamond. One who possesses the vajra reflects the suffering, joys, and sorrows — and beauties — of the world, but can never be injured by them. It has been said that the heart of the perfect person is a mirror: it reflects all things, but holds nothing for self alone. Thus also is the heart of one wielding the scepter of the vajra.
In Hindu literature this vajra is the scepter of Indra (similar to the thunderbolt of Zeus), with which he as the god of the skies was said to slay evildoers. In mystical Buddhism it is the magic scepter of priest-initiates and adepts, the symbol of the possessions of siddhis (superhuman powers), wielded during certain mystical ceremonies by initiated priests and theurgists. It is also the symbol of the Buddha’s power over evil spirits or elementals. The possessors of this scepter are called vajrapāṇins .
(Sanskrit) [from vajra diamond + āchārya spiritual teacher] The diamond-teacher; the name Yogācāryas give to their spiritual preceptor or the supreme Master of the Vajra.
(Sanskrit) Vajradhara Diamond-holder; the First Logos, supreme buddha, or adi-buddha, equivalent to the Tibetan dorjechang. “As the Lord of all Mysteries he cannot manifest, but sends into the world of manifestation his heart — the ‘diamond heart,’ Vajrasattva (Dorjesempa)” (SD 1:571). Vajra here expresses the indestructibility and spiritually adamantine quality of this “One unknown, without beginning or end” — unknown to the average worldly person, but recognized by full initiates as the source of their divine inspiration and intuitions.
(Sanskrit) [from vajra diamond, thunderbolt + pāṇi hand] Holder of the diamond-thunderbolt, an epithet of the dhyāni-bodhisattvas, the guardians and Silent Watchers of the globes of our planetary chain, the spiritual reflections or sons of the dhyāni-buddhas. They are born directly from their predecessors subjectively, and have a subjective form of existence.
Also a title given a buddha because of his power over evil spirits and elementals. By the profane, a vajrapānin is worshiped as a god, but by initiates it is considered a subjective force. See also Mañjuśrī
(Sanskrit) [from vajra diamond + sattva essence, reality] Diamond-heart, diamond-essence; a title given to mahātmas of the highest grade, or to bodhisattvas whose whole personality as a living essence is merged in their compound sixth and seventh principles (ātman-buddhi). Vajra here expresses the spiritual adamantine quality of the inner natures of these glorious beings. Vajrasattva is a manifestation of the heart of vajradhara, the First Logos or adi-buddha; hence vajrasattva is “the second logos of creation, from whom emanate the seven (in the exoteric blind the five) Dhyani Buddhas, called the Anupadaka [Aupapāduka], ‘the parentless,’ ” (SD 1:571). Dorjesempa is the Tibetan equivalent.
Vajrasattva is often used for celestial beings, entities belonging to the hierarchy of light or compassion. The vajrasattva quality is likewise one which can be possessed in less degree by any human being, depending upon his degree of advancement.
(Sanskrit) [from the verbal root vṛ to surround, envelop] The all-enveloping sky; originally Varuṇa represented the waters of space, or the all-investing sky, ākāśa, but in later mythology he became the god of the ocean. In the Mahābhārata he was one of the four guardians of our visible kosmos, the guardian of the West.
“Uranos is a modified Varuṇa, ‘the Universal encompassor,’ the all-embracer, and one of the oldest of the Vedic deities — Space, the maker of Heaven and Earth, since both are manifested out of his (or its) seed. It is only later that Varuṇa became the chief of the ādityas and a kind of Neptune riding on the Leviathan — Makara, now the most sacred and mysterious of the signs of the Zodiac. Varuṇa, ‘without whom no creature can even wink,’ was degraded like Uranos, and, like him, he fell into generation, his functions . . . having been lowered down from heaven to earth by exoteric anthropomorphism. As the same Orientalist [Muir] says, ‘The attributes ascribed to Varuṇa (in the Vedas) impart to his character a moral elevation and sanctity far surpassing that attributed to any other Vedic Deity.’ But to understand correctly the reason of his fall, like that of Uranos, one has to see in every exoteric religion the imperfect and sinful work of man’s fancy, and also to study the mysteries which Varuṇa is said to have imparted to Vaśiṣṭha
. Only . . . ‘his secrets and those of Mirat are not to be revealed to the foolish’ ” (SD 2:268-9n).
Writing of Varuṇa, Muir says:
“The grandest cosmical functions are ascribed to Varuṇa. Possessed of illimitable knowledge . . . he upholds heaven and earth, he dwells in all worlds as sovereign ruler. . . . He made the golden . . . sun to shine in the firmament. The wind which resounds through the atmosphere is his breath. . . . Through the operation of his laws the moon walks in brightness, and the stars . . . mysteriously vanish in daylight. He knows the flight of birds in the sky, the paths of ships on the ocean, the course of the far-travelling wind, and beholds all the things that have been or shall be done. . . . He witnesses men’s truth and falsehood” (TG 360).
Varuṇa, essentially the all-encompassing ether of space, is the Vedic representative of cosmic spirit, and therefore has always been one of the noblest, most mysterious conceptions of divinity.
(Sanskrit) Vāsanās are armic residues, unconscious propensities, disposition, habit energy, thought, habit formation, habit thought dormant, potential tendency, habitual pattern, habitual propensity, habitual tendency, impression, imprint, inclination, inherent tendency, inveterate tendency, karmic impression, karmic imprint, karmic propensities, imprints, predispositions; karmic traces, latency, latent predisposition, latent tendency, mental imprint, negative psychic imprint, potency, potential tendency, potentiality, predisposition, propensity, propensities, sediment of impressions. Tibetan synonym: nus pa, habitual patterning. (From Dharmic Dictionary, 2006).
Vasiṣṭha The most wealthy; a celebrated Vedic ṛṣi, representing the typical Brahmin sage. Many legends have clustered about him, especially in regard to his conflict with the sage Viśvamitra — the king who raised himself from the Kṣattriya to the Brahmanical class. Many hymns of the Ṛg-Veda are attributed to these two sages: one hymn represents Vasiṣṭha as the family priest of King Sudas, and in the Ṛg-Veda (7:33:11) he is called the son of the apsaras Urvasi by Mitra and Varuṇa, hence his name Maitravaruṇi. He is also supposed to have owned Nandinī, the cow of plenty (offspring of Surabhi). As this cow was able to grant the sage all his wishes, he became the master of every vasu (desirable object).
In Manu (1:35) Vasiṣṭha is enumerated as one of the ten prajāpatis, the patriarchs produced by Manu-Svayambhuva for the peopling of the earth. In the Mahābhārata he is regarded as the family priest of the Sūryavaṅsa (solar race), and also as one of the seven great ṛṣis associated with the seven stars of the Great Bear. In the Purāṇas, Vasiṣṭha is represented as one of the arrangers of the Vedas in a dvāpara yuga of a certain catur yuga, and as the father of seven celebrated sons.
(Sanskrit) Air; one of the five cosmic elements. Personified, the god and sovereign of the air and the king of the gandharvas. Agni, Vāyu, and Surya formed the primeval Vedic Trimurti: “ ‘Agni (fire) whose place is on earth; Vāyu (air, or one of the forms of Indra), whose place is in the air; and Surya (the sun) whose place is in the air’ [celestial spaces]. (Nirukta.) In esoteric interpretation, these three cosmic principles, correspond with the three human principles, Kāma, Kāma–Manas and Manas, the sun of the intellect” (TG 361). These three deities in this connection are three manifestations of cosmic fohat, guided and directed by cosmic mahat.
In later mythology Vāyu is the father of Hanuman, the monkey-king who aids Rāma in the Rāmāyaṇa. The allegory of Hanuman becoming the son of Vāyu by Anjuna (an ape-like monster) refers to the first glimmering of mind coming into the highest apes through the miscegenation of unevolved late third root-race and early fourth root-race humans with certain simians, themselves the descendants of a previous and parallel origin during an earlier time of the third root-race.
(Sanskrit) [from vāyu air, wind, cosmic spirit + bhūta element] The air element; fifth in the descending scale of the seven comic bhūtas. The cosmic element corresponding with prāṇa in the human constitution.
Vāyu-tattva (Sanskrit) Vāyu-tattva [from vāyu air, wind, cosmic spirit + tattva thatness, reality] The air principle; fifth in the descending scale of the seven tattvas.
Ve
(Sanskrit) From a verbal root vid signifying “to know.” These are the most ancient and the most sacred literary and religious works of the Hindus. Veda as a word may be described as “divine knowledge.” The Vedas are four in number: the Ṛg-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sāma-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda, this last being commonly supposed to be of later date than the former three.
Manu in his Work on Law always speaks of the three Vedas, which he calls “the ancient triple Brahman” — sanatanam trayam brahma.” Connected with the Vedas is a large body of other works of various kinds, liturgical, ritualistic, exegetical, and mystical, the Veda itself being commonly divided into two great portions, outward and inner: the former called the karma-kanda, the “Section of Works,” and the latter called jnāna-kanda or “Section of Wisdom.”
The authorship of the Veda is not unitary, but almost every hymn or division of a Veda is ascribed to a different author or rather to various authors; but they are supposed to have been compiled in their present form by Veda-Vyāsa. There is no question in the minds of learned students of theosophy that the Vedas run back in their origins to enormous antiquity, thousands of years before the beginning of what is known in the Occident as the Christian era, whatever Occidental scholars may have to say in objection to this statement. Hindu pandits themselves claim that the Veda was taught orally for thousands of years, and then finally compiled on the shores of the sacred lake Mānasa-Sarovara, beyond the Himalayas in a district of what is now Tibet.
[from the verbal root vid to know] Perception or knowledge conveyed by the senses, sensation. The sixth nidāna and the second skandha in the Bhavacakra of Mahāyāna Buddhism
(Sanskrit) From the Upaniṣads and from other parts of the wonderful cycle of Vedic literature, the ancient sages of India produced what is called today the Vedānta — a compound word meaning “the end (or completion) of the Veda” — that is to say, instruction in the final and most perfect exposition of the meaning of the Vedic tenets.
The Vedānta is the highest form that the Brahmanical teachings have taken, and under the name of the Uttara-Mimaṁsā attributed to Vyāsa, the compiler of the Vedas, the Vedānta is perhaps the noblest of the six Indian schools of philosophy. The Avatāra Śaṅkarāchārya has been the main popularizer of the Vedāntic system of philosophical thought, and the type of Vedāntic doctrine taught by him is what is technically called the Advaita-Vedānta or nondualistic Vedānta .
The Vedānta may briefly be described as a system of mystical philosophy derived from the efforts of sages through many generations to interpret the sacred or esoteric meaning of the Upaniṣads. In its Advaita form the Vedānta is in many, if not all, respects exceedingly close to, if not identical with, some of the mystical forms of Buddhism in central Asia. The Hindus call the Vedānta Brahma-jñāna.
(Latin) Hestia (Greek) Daughter of Saturn (Kronos) and Rhea, sister of Jupiter, Juno, Ceres, Pluto, and Neptune (Zeus, Hera, Demeter, Hades, and Poseidon). The first-born, she became, as Terra or Gaia, the earth goddess. She is variously represented as the wife of Uranus, and again as a divine maid, both accounts probably being remnants of an earlier myth similar to those centering around Demeter, Isis, Neith, and other goddesses.
Traces of the worship of goddesses equivalent to Vesta are found in prehistoric times. The cult reached a place of sanctity and importance in ancient Ireland, the Hebrides, and among the Incas of Peru. None, however, is so fully documented as the Roman cult of Vesta worship, centering around the guardianship of the sacred fire, symbol of the loftiest ideals of the state, and hence of the home and domestic life. In Rome the cult grew in importance until the position of the priestesses almost rivaled that of royalty. There is a tradition that Numa introduced the worship of Vesta into Rome and founded the Temple of Vesta.
Vi
(Sanskrit) The word (derived from the same verbal root vid from which comes the noun Veda) for “knowledge,” “philosophy,” “science.” This is a term very generally used in theosophical philosophy, having in a general way the three meanings just stated. It is frequently compounded with other words, such as: ātma-vidyā — “knowledge of ātman” or the essential Self; Brahma-vidyā — “knowledge of Brahman,” knowledge of the universe, a term virtually equivalent to theosophy; or, again, guhya-vidyā — signifying the “secret knowledge” or the esoteric wisdom. Using the word in a collective but nevertheless specific sense, vidyā is a general term for occult science.
Vijaya Victory. A name for Arjuna.
Vijñāna (Sanskrit), Viññāṇa (Pali)
[from vi–jñā to know exactly, perceive clearly from the verbal root jñā to know] Mental powers; the perfect knowledge of every perceptible thing and of all objects in their concatenation and unity; the faculty of the higher manas. The tenth nidāna or causes of existence; and the fifth skandha, “an amplification of the fourth — meaning the mental, physical and moral predispositions” (ML 111).
(Sanskrit) [from the verbal root viṣ to enter, pervade], usually written as Viṣṇu. The sustainer or preserver; the second of the three gods of the Hindu Trimurti or Triad. Brahmā, Siva, and Viṣṇu together are infinite space, of which the gods, rishis, manus, and all in the universe are simply the manifestations, qualities, and potencies. Viṣṇu is called the eternal deity, and in the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas he is declared to be the imbodiment of sattva-guna, the quality of mercy and goodness, which displays itself as the preserving power in the self-existent, all-pervading spirit. His symbol is the cakra (circle). He is identical with the Hindu Idaspati (master of the waters) and with the Greek Poseidon and Latin Neptune.
Blavatsky gives a passage about Viṣṇu from the Laws of Manu, with interpolated remarks (SD 1:333): ” ‘Removing the darkness, the Self-existent Lord’ (Viṣṇu, Narayana, etc.) becoming manifest, and ‘wishing to produce beings from his Essence, created, in the beginning, water alone. In that he cast seed . . . That became a Golden Egg.’ (V.6, 7, 8, 9) Whence this Self-existent Lord? It is called this, and is spoken of as ‘Darkness, imperceptible, without definite qualities, undiscoverable as if wholly in sleep.’ (V.5) Having dwelt in that Egg for a whole divine year, he ‘who is called in the world Brahma,’ splits that Egg in two, and from the upper portion he forms the heaven, from the lower the earth, and from the middle the sky and ‘the perpetual place of waters.’ (12, 13.)”
In the Mahābhārata (3:189:3) Viṣṇu says: “ ‘I called the name of water nara in ancient times, and am hence called Narayana, for that was always the abode I moved in’ (Ayana). It is into the water (or chaos, the ‘moist principle’ of the Greeks and Hermes), that the first seed of the Universe is thrown. ‘The “Spirit of God” moves on the dark waters of Space’; hence Thales makes of it the primordial element and prior to Fire, which was yet latent in that Spirit” (SD 2:591).
Viṣṇu has many names and is presented in many different forms in Hindu writings. Riding on Garuda, the allegorical monstrous half-man and half-bird, Viṣṇu is the symbol of Kāla (duration), and Garuda the emblem of cyclic and periodical time. Viṣṇu as the sun represents the male principle, which vivifies and fructifies all things. The Puranas call Ananta-Sesha a form of Viṣṇu on which the universe sleeps during pralaya. In the allegorical Vaivasvata-Manu deluge, Viṣṇu in the shape of a fish towing the ark of salvation represents the divine spirit as a concrete cosmic principle and also as the preserver and generator, or giver of life. In the Rig-Veda Viṣṇu is a manifestation of the solar energy and strides through the seven regions of the universe in three steps. The Vedic Viṣṇu is not the prominent god of later times.
Viṣṇu as the giver of life is the source of one line of avatāras.
These ten mythical avatāras of Viṣṇu are: 1) Matsya the fish; 2) Kūrma the tortoise; 3) Vāraha the boar; 4) Narasiṁha the man-lion (last of animal stage); 5) Vāmana the dwarf (first step toward the human form); 6) Paraśu Rāma, Rāma with the axe (a hero); 7) Rāma or Rāmac(h)andra, the hero of the Rāmāyāna; 8) Kṛṣṇa (Krishna), son of Devakī; 9)Gautama Buddha; and finally, Kalki, the avatāra who is to appear at the end of the Kali yuga “mounted on a white horse” and inaugurate a new reign of righteousness upon earth.
” ‘In the Kṛta age, Viṣṇu, in the form of Kapila and other (inspired sages) . . . imparts to the world true wisdom as Enoch did. In the Tretā age he restrains the wicked, in the form of a universal monarch (the Cakravartin or the ‘Everlasting King’ of Enoch) and protects the three worlds (or races). In the Dvāpara age, in the person of Veda-Vyasa, he divides the one Veda into four, and distributes it into hundreds (Sata) of branches.’ Truly so; the Veda of the earliest Aryans, before it was written, went forth into every nation of the Atlanto-Lemurians, and sowed the first seeds of all the now existing old religions. The off-shoots of the never dying tree of wisdom have scattered their dead leaves even on Judeo-Christianity. And at the end of the Kali, our present age, Viṣṇu, or the ‘Everlasting King’ will appear as Kalki, and re-establish righteousness upon earth. The minds of those who live at that time shall be awakened, and become as pellucid as crystal” (SD 2:483).
Again,
“If we only search for the true essence of the philosophy of both Manu and the Kabala, we will find that Viṣṇu is, as well as Adam Kadmon, the expression of the universe itself; and that his incarnations are but concrete and various embodiments of the manifestations of this ‘Stupendous Whole.’ ‘I am the Soul, O, Arjuna. I am the Soul which exists in the heart of all beings; and I am the beginning and the middle, and also the end of existing things,’ says Viṣṇu to his disciple, in the Bhagavad-Gītā (ch. x)” (IU 2:277).
(Sanskrit) One of the most celebrated of the 18 principal Purāṇas, conforming more than any other to the definition of pañca-lakṣaṇa (five distinguishing marks) assigned as being the character of a complete Purāṇa by Amara-Siṁha, an ancient Sanskrit lexicographer. It consists of six books: the first treats of the creation of the universe from cosmic prakṛti, and the peopling of the world by the prajāpatis or spiritual ancestors; the second book gives a list of kings with many geographical and astronomical details; the third treats of the Vedas and caste; the fourth continues the chronicle of dynasties; the fifth gives the life of Kṛṣṇa; and the sixth book describes the dissolution of the world, and the future re-issuing of the world after pralaya.
[Sanskrit, from Viśva, universal + kṛ, to make, to do) The omnificent, the all-worker; in the Ṛg-Veda, the highest and oldest of the cosmic architects, and hence the father, initiator, or teacher of the hierarchies of later gods under him. As a collective name, he corresponds in many respects to the Greek cosmocratores, in some to the Third Logos. He is spoken of as the divine artist and carpenter, the architect of the universe, the creative god, father of the creative fire, the builder and artificer of the gods, and the great patron of initiates.
“The Secret Doctrine teaches that ‘He who is the first to appear at Renovation will be the last to come before Re-absorption (pralaya).’ Thus the logoi of all nations, from the Vedic Viśvakarma of the Mysteries down to the Savior of the present civilized nations, are the ‘Word’ who was ‘in the beginning’ (or the reawakening of the energizing powers of Nature) with the One Absolute. Born of Fire and Water, before these became distinct elements, It was the ‘Maker’ (fashioner or modeller) of all things . . . who finally may be called, as he ever has been, the Alpha and the Omega of manifested Nature” (SD 1:470).
In the Ṛg-Veda, Viśvakarman is said to sacrifice himself to himself. This refers, among other things, to the fact that when manvantara opens, in order for its vast content of worlds and hierarchies to appear, the originating entities must — because of karmic mandate or impulse — themselves form the beginnings of things from themselves, thus sacrificing themselves to themselves so that the cosmos may appear in manifestation. Another significance of the statement is the reference to the spiritual resurrection at the end of the manvantara or, in the case of man, to the choice to be spiritual rather than material, to rise self-consciously from material existence into the one Life. “Then he ascends into heaven indeed; where, plunged into the incomprehensible absolute Being and Bliss of Paranirvāṇa, he reigns unconditionally, and whence he will re-descend again at the next ‘coming,’ which one portion of humanity expects in its dead-letter sense as the second advent, and the other as the last ‘Kalki Avatāra’ ” (SD 1:268).
His mother Yoga-Siddhā (striving to become one with the inner god) and his daughter Sañjñā (spiritual consciousness) show his mystic character, for no actual mother or daughter is here intended, but the ideas of human spiritual and intellectual reformation taking place within himself from yoga-siddha, from which is brought forth the spiritual consciousness which is the fruit or daughter of perfect achievement.
From another viewpoint, he represents spiritual humanity collectively and is equivalent to Puruṣa, synonymous in the Epic and Purāṇic period with Tvaṣṭri, he is also called Karu (worker, builder) or Takṣaka (carpenter, etc.). (From: ETG)
(Sanskrit) [From Vīta ceased; stopped; rāga = desire; attachment] Beyond attachment.
(Sanskrit) Vivasvat The brilliant one; a name for the sun.
(Sanskrit). The demon of drought in Vedic literature, the great foe of Indra, god of the firmament, with whom he is constantly at war. Vṛtra was finally mastered and slain by Indra, hence the latter was named Vṛtra-han (slayer of Vṛtra).
Vu
[from Latin Vulcanus] (1) Astronomers at times have suspected the existence of a planet nearer the sun than Mercury, basing this upon perturbations of more than one kind observed in connection with Mercury and its orbit. Long ago the name Vulcan was suggested for this planet. It has been recorded that on March 26, 1859, a body was seen to be making a transit across the solar disk, yet nothing has been seen of this body since that time, although search has been made for it.
Theosophy teaches that there is a planet, at present generally invisible to human scrutiny, closer to the sun than Mercury, and that it became generally invisible to human sight during the third root-race, after the fall of mankind into physical generation. The ancients spoke of seven sacred planets, and the sun was often enumerated as a substitute or blind for this planet.
(2) Also, the ancient Roman fire god, who has always been identified with the Greek Hephaestos, popularly regarded by the Latins as having his workshops under several volcanic islands, but especially under Mt. Aetna. The isle of Lemnos was always sacred to him. He is represented, as are similar divinities such as the Hindu Viśvakarman or Tvashtri, as a fashioner, artificer, or architectural builder of the cosmic structure; and like his counterparts, the smith of the gods and maker of their divine weapons, lord of the constructive arts, master of a thousand handicrafts, etc. Not only was his forge in Olympus supplied with fire, anvils, and all the necessities of a blacksmith, according to the figurative stories of Greek and Latin mythology, but he was attended by automatic handmaidens whom Vulcan himself had fashioned. The deity is prominent in the Homeric poems, where he is represented as the son of Jupiter and Juno.
As the divine artificer, working both in a cosmic and microcosmic manner, legends tell that Vulcan assisted in the production of the human race. He also fashioned Pandora, and aided in the birth of Minerva — for he opened Jupiter’s head with an axe in order to allow the goddess to spring forth from the head of the father of both gods and men.
Vulcan corresponds to the theosophical fohat.
