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Revision as of 11:41, 2 January 2019
Agnishvatta (devanāgarī: अग्निष्वात्त Agniṣvātta), in Hindu mythology, are Pitris who, when living on Earth, did not maintain their domestic fires or offered burnt-sacrifices.
Theosophical view
In Theosophical writings the Agnishvatta-s are one of two classes of Pitris, the other one being the Barhishad-s.
There are seven classes of Pitris, as shown below, three incorporeal and four corporeal; and two kinds, the Agnishwatta and the Barhishad. And we may add that, as there are two kinds of Pitris, so there is a double and a triple set of Barhishad and Agnishwatta.[1]
The Agnishwatta, are represented in the exoteric allegory as Grihasta (Brahman-householders) who, in their past births in other Manvantaras having failed to maintain their domestic fires and to offer burnt sacrifices, have lost every right to have oblations with fire presented to them. Whereas the Barhishad, being Brahmins who have kept up their household sacred fires, are thus honoured to this day. Thence the Agnishwatta are represented as devoid of, and the Barhishad as possessed of, fires.
But esoteric philosophy explains the original qualifications as being due to the difference between the natures of the two classes: the Agnishwatta Pitris are devoid of fire (i.e., of creative passion), because too divine and pure (vide supra, Sloka 11th); whereas the Barhishad, being the lunar spirits more closely connected with Earth, became the creative Elohim of form, or the Adam of dust.[2]
Mânasa Dhyânis (Sk.). The highest Pitris in the Purânas; the Agnishwatthas, or Solar Ancestors of Man, those who made of Man a rational being, by incarnating in the senseless forms of semi-ethereal flesh of the men of the third race.[3]
The Agnishwatta, devoid of the grosser creative fire, hence unable to create physical man, having no double, or astral body, to project, since they were without any form, are shown in exoteric allegories as Yogis, Kumaras (chaste youths), who became “rebels,” Asuras, fighting and opposing gods, etc., etc. Yet it is they alone who could complete man, i.e., make of him a self-conscious, almost a divine being—a god on Earth.[4]
See also
Online resources
Articles
- Agnishvatta at Theosopedia
Notes
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 89.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 77-78.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 203.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. II, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 78-79.