Seven Rishis: Seven Timekeepers.

In this paper we consider the function between the Seven Rishis and the Pleiades. The timing of this solar system, being late due to the incorrect functioning and timekeeping of both, the esoteric "war in heaven" which in turn due to the functional imbalance brought this system the problem of imperfect adjustment.

Whilst in esoteric meditation or perfect abstract obscuration, the seven brothers failed to "create," as keepers of perfect time, as the Seven Rishis, this failure or manifestation of "magnetic corruption" caused much "lost time" as accounted for by DK and HPB. Hence this solar cycle being one of great disruption. All of which is being ably dealt with by the Seven Sacred Brothers as they ably regain balance and equilibrium via the use of solar fire.

The Seven Rishis Are:

The Seven leading Solar logi of the seven solar systems including ours!

The Seven Prototypes of the seven Schemes including Earth Scheme.

The Seven Prototypes of the seven Heavenly Men.

The Seven "Saptarshis" of the 7 x 7 = 49 Maha-richis "storm Gods" sons of Rudra.

The Seven Paths or creators of them. The Way for the Seven Solar Systems/Constellations. JPC.

Seven regions have their several Suns; the ministering priests are seven; Seven are the Aditya Deiti. Aditya (the Sun) Rig Veda.

We must always seek for more than one meaning in every mystery allegorically revealed, especially in those in which the number seven and its multiplication seven by seven, or forty-nine, appear. SD2 563.

The numbers seven and forty-nine (7 x 7) play a most prominent part. Classes of Rishis appear by seven and seven. SD2 611.

"The constellations of the Great Bear and of the Pleiades constitute the greatest mystery of occult nature." (S.D. Vol. II, 580)

The seven Rishis (as They are called) of the Great Bear express Themselves through the medium of the seven planetary Logoi Who are Their Representatives and to Whom They stand in the relation of prototype. The seven Planetary Spirits manifest through the medium of the seven sacred planets. EA 85.

The Saptarishis (the seven Rishis of the Stars) of the Hindus. SD1 198.

Then the Seven Companions passed into the sphere of time as auxiliaries of Kronus, or Sons of the Male Parent. As Damascius says in his Primitive Principles, the Magi consider that space and time were the source of all; and from being powers of the air the gods were promoted to become timekeepers for men. Seven constellations were assigned to them .. . .As the seven turned round in the ark of the sphere they were designated the Seven Sailors' Companions, Rishis, or Elohim.

The first "Seven Stars" are not planetary. They are the leading stars of seven constellations which turned round with the Great Bear in describing the circle of the year. [ These originated with the Aryans, who placed therein their "bright-crested" (Chitra-Shikhandan) Seven Rishis. But all this is far more Occult than appears on the surface.]

These the Assyrians called the seven Lumazi, or leaders of the flocks of stars, designated sheep. On the Hebrew line of descent or development, these Elohim are identified for us by the Kabalists and Gnostics, who retained the hidden wisdom or gnosis, the clue of which is absolutely essential to any proper understanding of mythology or theology. . . . There were two constellations with seven stars each.

We call them the Two Bears. But the seven stars of the Lesser Bear were once considered to be the seven heads of the Polar Dragon, which we meet with - as the beast with seven heads - in the Akkadian Hymns and in Revelation. The mythical dragon originated in the crocodile, which is the dragon of Egypt. . . . Now in one particular cult, the Sut-Typhonian, the first god was Sevekh [the sevenfold], who wears the crocodile's head, as well as the Serpent, and who is the Dragon or whose constellation was the Dragon. . . . In Egypt the Great Bear was the constellation of Typhon, or Kepha, the old genetrix, called the Mother of Revolutions; and the Dragon with seven heads was assigned to her son, Sevekh-Kronus, or Saturn, called the Dragon of Life.

That is, the typical dragon or serpent with seven heads was female at first, and then the type was continued, as male in her son Sevekh, the Sevenfold Serpent, in Ea the Sevenfold, . . . . Iao Chnubis, and others. We find these two in The Book of Revelation. One is the Scarlet Lady, the mother of mystery, the great harlot, who sat on a scarlet-coloured beast with seven heads, which is the Red Dragon of the Pole. She held in her hand the unclean things of her fornication. That means the emblems of the male and female, imaged by the Egyptians at the Polar Centre, the very uterus of creation, as was indicated by the Thigh constellation, called the Khepsh of Typhon, the old Dragon, in the northern birthplace of Time in heaven. The two revolved about the pole of heaven, or the Tree, as it was called, which was figured at the centre of the starry motion.

In The Book of Enoch these two constellations are identified as Leviathan and Behemoth-Bekhmut, or the Dragon and Hippopotamus=Great Bear, and they are the primal pair that were first created in the Garden of Eden. So that the Egyptian first (Page 196) mother, Kefa [or Kepha] whose name signifies "mystery," was the original of the Hebrew Chavah, our Eve; and therefore Adam is one with Sevekh the sevenfold one, the solar dragon in whom the powers of light and darkness were combined, and the sevenfold nature was shown in the seven rays worn by the Gnostic Iao-Chnubis, god of the number seven, who is Sevekh by name and a form of the first father as head of the Seven. [ Op.cit., pp. 19-22]

All this gives the key to the astronomical prototype of the allegory in Genesis, but it furnishes no other key to the mystery involved in the sevenfold glyph. The able Egyptologist shows also that Adam himself according to Rabbinical and Gnostic tradition, was the chief of the Seven who fell from Heaven, and he connects these with the Patriarchs, thus agreeing with the Esoteric Teaching. For by mystic permutation and the mystery of primeval rebirths and adjustment, the Seven Rishis are in reality identical with the seven Praj patis, the fathers and creators of mankind, and also with the Kum ras, the first sons of Brahm , who refused to procreate and multiply. This apparent contradiction is explained by the sevenfold nature - make it fourfold on metaphysical principles and it will come to the same thing - of the celestial men, the Dhyan Chohans. This nature is made to divide and separate; and while the higher principles (Atma-Buddhi) of the "Creators of Men" are said to be the Spirits of the seven constellations, their middle and lower principles are connected with the earth and are shown. SD3 196.

THE SHINING SEVEN (the "Builders"). The seven creative Rishis now connected with the constellation of the Great Bear. SD1 213.

"The first form of the mystical SEVEN was seen to be figured in heaven, by the seven large stars of the Great Bear, the constellation assigned by the Egyptians to the Mother of Time, and of the seven elemental powers." (See The Seven Souls, etc.) As well known to every Hindu, this same constellation represents in India the Seven Rishis, and as such is called Riksha, and Chitra-Sikhandinas. SD1 227.

This is what we call in the Esoteric Doctrine a "Solar Pralaya" . . . When the waters have reached the region of the Seven Rishis, and the world (our Solar System) is one ocean, they stop. SD1 371.

The seven great Rishis, the seven great rupa hierarchies or classes of Dhyan Chohans, are meant. Let us bear in mind that the Saptarshi (the seven Rishis) are the regents of the seven stars of the Great Bear, therefore, of the same nature as the angels of the planets, or the seven great Planetary Spirits. They were all reborn, all men on earth in various Kalpas and races. SD2 319.

The Rishis and our Dhyan Chohans, who incarnated in the Elect of the Third and Fourth Races. Thus, while in Theogony the Kabiri-Titans were seven great gods: cosmically and astronomically the Titans were called Atlantes, because, perhaps, as Faber says, they were connected (a) with At-al-as "the divine Sun," and (b) with tit "the deluge." But this, if true, is only the exoteric version. SD2 361.

Meanwhile it is they, the Seven Rishis, who mark the time and the duration of events in our septenary life cycle. They are as mysterious as their supposed wives, the Pleiades, of whom only one -- she who hides -- has proven virtuous. The Pleiades (Krittika) are the nurses of Karttikeya, the God of War (Mars of the Western Pagans), who is called the Commander of the celestial armies -- or rather of the Siddhas (translated Yogis in heaven, and holy sages on the earth) -- "Siddha-sena," which would make Karttikeya identical with Michael, the "leader of the celestial hosts" and, like himself, a virgin Kumara.

Verily he is the "Guha," the mysterious one, as much so as are the Saptarshis and the Krittika (seven Rishis and the Pleiades), for the interpretation of all these combined, reveal to the adept the greatest mysteries of occult nature. One point is worth mention in this question of cross and circle, as it bears strongly upon the elements of fire and water, which play such an important part in the circle and cross Symbolics. Like Mars, who is alleged by Ovid to have been born of a mother alone (Juno), without the participation of a father, or like the Avatars (Krishna, for instance), in the West as in the East -- Karttikeya is born, but in a still more miraculous manner -- begotten by neither father nor mother, but out of a seed of Rudra Siva, via Agni, who dropped it into the Ganges.

Thus he is born from fire and water -- a "boy bright as the Sun and beautiful as the moon." Hence he is called Agnibhuva (Agni's son) and Ganga-putra (Son of Ganges). Add to this the fact that the Krittika, his nurses, as Matsya Purana shows, are presided over by Agni, or, in the authentic words -- "The seven Rishis are on a line with the brilliant Agni," and hence are called Agneya --and the connection is easy to follow.

It is, then, the Rishis who mark the time and the periods of Kali-yuga, the age of sin and sorrow. See in the Bhagavata Purana XII., II, 2, 6, 32, and Vishnu Purana. Says the latter: "When the splendour of Vishnu (Krishna) departed for heaven, then did the Kali Yug, during which men delight in sin, invade the world. . . . . When the Seven Rishis were in Magha, the Kali Yug, comprising 1,200 (divine) years (432,000 years of mortals), began; and when from Magha, they shall reach Purvashadha, then will this Kali age attain its growth, under Nanda and his successors."

This is the revolution of the Rishis "when the two first stars of the Seven Rishis (of the Great Bear) rise in the heavens, and some lunar asterism is seen at night, at an equal distance between them, then the Seven Rishis continue stationary in that conjunction for a hundred years," a hater of Nanda makes Parasara say. According to Bentley, it is in order to show the quantity of the precession of the equinoxes that this notion originated among the astronomers. It was done "by assuming an imaginary line, or great circle, passing through the poles of the ecliptic and the beginning of the fixed Magha, which circle was supposed to cut some of the stars in the Great Bear. . . . The seven stars being called the Rishis, the Circle so assumed was called the line of the Rishis . . . . and being invariably fixed to the beginning of the lunar asterism Magha, the precession would be noted by stating the degree . . . of any moveable lunar mansion cut by that line or circle as an index" ("Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy," p. 65). SD2 550.

*One of these seven sisters has a close connection with our Heavenly Man, and therefore we have an interesting cosmic interplay as follows: One of the seven Rishis of the Great Bear.         

One of the seven Sisters, or a Pleiad. The Heavenly Man of our scheme. TCF 657.*

THE RISHIS AND THE PLEIADES.

There was, and still exists, a seemingly endless controversy about the chronology of the Hindus. Here is a point that could help to determine -- approximately at least -- the age when the symbolism of the Seven Rishis and their connection with the Pleiades began. When Karttikeya was delivered to them by the gods to be nursed, the Krittika were only six -- whence Karttikeya is represented with six heads; but when the poetical fancy of the early Aryan symbologists made of them the consorts of the Seven Rishis, they were seven.

Their names are given, and these are Amba, Dula, Nitatui, Abrayanti, Maghayanti, Varshayanti, and Chupunika. There are other sets of names which differ, however. Anyhow, the Seven Rishis were made to marry the Seven Krittika before the disappearance of the seventh Pleiad. Otherwise, how could the Hindu astronomers speak of that which, without the help of the strongest telescopes, no one can see? This is why, perhaps, in every such case the majority of the events described in the Hindu allegories is fixed upon as "a very recent invention, certainly within the Christian era"?

The oldest MSS. in Sanskrit on astronomy, begin their series of Nakshatras (the 27 lunar asterisms) with the sign of Krittika, and this can hardly make them earlier than 2780 B.C., (see the "Vedic Calendar," accepted even by the Orientalists); though they get out of the difficulty by saying that the said Calendar does not prove that the Hindus knew anything of astronomy at that date, and assure their readers that, Calendars notwithstanding, the Indian pundits may have acquired their knowledge of the lunar mansions headed by Krittika from the Phoenicians, etc.

However that may be, the Pleiades are the central group of the system of sidereal symbology. They are situated in the neck of the constellation of Taurus, regarded by Madler and others, in astronomy, as the central group of the system of The Milky Way, and in the Kabala and Eastern Esotericism, as the sidereal septenate born from the first manifested side of the upper triangle, the concealed [[diagram]]. This manifested side is Taurus, the Symbol of ONE (the figure 1), or of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph [[hebrew]] (bull or ox) whose synthesis is ten (10), or [[hebrew]] Yodh, the perfect letter and number.

The Pleiades (Alcyone, especially), are thus considered, even in astronomy, as the central point around which our Universe of fixed stars revolves, the focus from which, and into which the divine breath, MOTION, works incessantly during the Manvantara. Hence -- in the Occult philosophy and its sidereal symbols -- it is this Circle and the starry cross on its face, which play the most prominent part. SD2 551.

The Seven ancient Rishis -- the progenitors of all that lives and breathes on earth -- are the seven friends of Agni, his seven "horses," or seven "HEADS." The human race has sprung from fire and water, it is allegorically stated; fashioned by the FATHERS, or the ancestor-sacrificers, from Agni; for Agni, the Aswins, the Adityas (Rig-Veda III., 54, 16, II., 29, 3, 4), are all synonymous with that "sacrificer," or the fathers, variously called Pitar (Pitris, fathers), Angirases** (Ibid, 1, 31, 17, 139, et seq.), the Sadhyas, "divine sacrificers," the most occult of all. SD2 605.

Moreover there must have been a good reason why an Asiatic nation should locate its great progenitors and saints in the Ursa Major, a northern constellation. It is 70,000 YEARS, HOWEVER, SINCE THE POLE OF THE EARTH POINTED TO THE FURTHER END OF URSA MINOR'S TAIL; and many more thousand years since the seven Rishis could have been identified with the constellation of Ursa Major. SD2 768.

When our solar universe came into being, we are told in the allegorical language of the ancient scriptures, there "was war in Heaven"; "*the sun and his seven brothers*" did not function with true unanimity; hence (and herein lies a hint) our Earth is not one of the seven sacred planets. EP1 394.

*Eighth, Rhea (the Earth)* SD2 142.

In the Esoteric Doctrine, one war takes place *before the building of the Solar system*. SD1 419.

The whole of creation was due to, and the result of, that legendary "War in Heaven" brought on by the rebellion of the angels against creative law, or the Demiurge. The statement is correct, but the inner meaning is to this day a mystery. SD2 237.

I would point out that these rays have a close connection with the seven stars of the Great Bear (again always the four and the three as a secondary differentiation) and to the seven Sisters, the Pleiades. The first constellation is the agent of positive force to the planetary Logos and the other the relayer of the negative aspect.

There is, therefore, a direct interchange of energies between the lives of the seven planetary Logoi and the stupendous and unfathomable Lives Who inform these major constellations. Great interlocking triangles of force can be found existing between the seven planets and these two groups of seven stars each. It will eventually be discovered that the innermost secret of astrological deduction in the planetary sense is connected with these "sacred triangles," EA 31.

It is the seven Rishis who *mark the time and the duration of events* in our septenary life cycle. They are as mysterious as their supposed wives, the Pleiades. SD2 579. EA Appendix.

This is a mystery very difficult to realize and understand correctly. For, we see that those who were "obedient to law" are, equally with the rebels, doomed to be reborn in every age.

Narada, the Rishi, is cursed by Brahma to incessant peripateticism on Earth, i.e., to be constantly reborn.

He is a rebel against Brahma, and yet has no worse fate than the Jayas --the twelve great creative gods produced by Brahma as his assistants in the functions of creation.

For the latter, *lost in meditation, only forgot to create*; and for this, they are equally cursed by Brahma to be born in every manvantara. SD2 585.

Hence also the War in Heaven of Michael and his Host against the Dragon (Jupiter and Lucifer-Venus), when a third of the stars of the rebellious host was hurled down into Space, and "its place was found no more in Heaven." As said long ago --"This is the basic and fundamental stone of the secret cycles. SD1 203.

In a very real sense, Sanat Kumara is the incarnation of the Lord of the Ray Himself; He is the Silent Watcher, the great Sacrifice for humanity. TCF 728.

The Seven Kronidae, described as the Seven Watchers, who in the beginning were formed in the interior of heaven. The heaven, like a vault, they extended or hollowed out; that which was not visible they raised, and that which had no exit they opened; their work of creation being exactly identical with that of the Elohim in the Book of Genesis. These are the Seven elemental Powers of space, who were continued as Seven Timekeepers.

It is said of them: "In watching was their office, but among the stars of heaven their watch they kept not," and their failure was the Fall. In the Book of Enoch the same Seven Watchers in heaven are stars which transgressed the commandment of God before their time arrived, for they came not in their proper season, therefore was he offended with them, and bound them until the period of the consummation of their crimes, at the end of the secret, or great year of the World, i.e., the Period of Precession, when there was to be restoration and rebeginning. The Seven deposed constellations are seen by Enoch, looking like seven great blazing mountains overthrown - the seven mountains in Revelation, on which the Scarlet Lady sits. SD3 193.

The Secret of the Pleiades and of their relation to the Seven Rishis of the Great Bear, and therefore to our Seven Heavenly Men, is not yet to be revealed. It is known only in detail to the Chohans. of the Seventh Initiation, though the fact that there is such a relation is now exoteric." H.P.B. speaks of it in the Secret Doctrine. TCF 350.

Thus will the karma of the manvantara, or secondary cycle, be adjusted, and so much planetary karmic evil be "worked off." All the above must be interpreted in its esoteric sense and not its exoteric.  

Cosmic evil from the standpoint of our planet consists in the relation between that spiritual intelligent Unit or "Rishi of the Superior Constellation" as He is called (who is the informing Life of one of the seven stars of the Great Bear, and our planetary prototype) and one of the forces of the Pleiades. (S. D., II, 579-581.)

Students need here to remember that the "seven sisters" are occultly called the "seven wives" of the Rishis, and that the dual forces (resultant from that relationship) converge and play through that one of the planetary Logoi who is the Logos of any particular planet, and is the "reflection" of any specific Rishi. In this relation, at present lacking perfect adjustment, lies hid the mystery of cosmic evil as it makes itself felt in any particular planetary scheme. Again, when the heavenly triangle is duly equilibrated, and the force circulates freely through

      One of the stars of the Great Bear,