Prajāpati: Difference between revisions

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==Further reading==
*[http://www.theosophy.ph/encyclo/index.php?title=Triad# Triad] at Theosopedia
[[Category:Sanskrit terms]]
[[Category:Hindu concepts]]
[[Category:Concepts in The Secret Doctrine]]

Revision as of 21:00, 13 August 2012

Prajāpati (Devanāgarī: प्रजापति) is a Sanskrit word that means "lord of creatures." In Hinduism he is the deity presiding over procreation, and protector of life. He also appears as the creator Vishvakarman, the "Principal Universal Architect". His female emanation was Vac, the personification of the sacred word.

In some scriptures he is one of the lords of created beings first created by Brahmā. There are mentions of 10 or 14 Prajapatis in different sacred texts.

In Hinduism

In The Secret Doctrine

In Stanza IV.3 we read:

From the effulgency of light — the ray of the ever-darkness — sprung in space the re-awakened energies; the one from the egg, the six, and the five.[1]

H. P. Blavatsky explains that these numbers represent the Prajapatis:

“The One from the Egg, the Six and the Five,” give the number 1065, the value of the first-born (later on the male and female Brahmâ-Prajâpati), who answers to the numbers 7, and 14, and 21 respectively. The Prajapati are, like the Sephiroth, only seven, including the synthetic Sephira of the triad from which they spring. Thus from Hiranyagarbha or Prajâpati, the triune (primeval Vedic Trimurti, Agni, Vayu, and Surya), emanate the other seven, or again ten, if we separate the first three which exist in one, and one in three, all, moreover, being comprehended within that one “supreme” Parama, called Guhya or “secret,” and Sarvâtma, the “Super-Soul.” “The seven Lords of Being lie concealed in Sarvâtma like thoughts in one brain.” So are the Sephiroth. It is either seven when counting from the upper Triad headed by Kether, or ten—exoterically. In the Mahabhârata the Prajâpati are 21 in number, or ten, six, and five (1065), thrice seven.[2]

Notes

  1. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 89-90.
  2. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 89-90.

Further reading