Every title of a Journal or of a book should have its raison d’etre [reason for being]—especially that of a Theosophical publication. The title is bound to express the object in view, symbolizing, so to speak, the contents of the Journal. Allegory being the soul of Eastern philosophies, much to be pitied would be the reader who saw in the name of the “Blue Lotus” nothing more than an aquatic plant—the Nymphea Cærulea or Nelumbo. A reader of such calibre would assuredly see nothing but blue in the contents of our new journal as well.E1
In order to avoid such a misconception, we shall try to initiate our readers into the symbolism of the lotus in general, and of the blue lotus in particular. This mysterious and sacred plant has, in all ages, been considered the symbol of the Universe, in Egypt as in India. There is not a monument in the valley of the Nile, hardly a papyrus, where this plant has not had its place of honour. From the capitals of Egyptian columns down to the seats and head-dresses of the god-kings, the lotus is found everywhere symbolizing the Universe. It became, of necessity, an indispensable attribute of every creative God as of every goddess,—the latter being, in philosophy, only the feminine aspect of the God, androgynous at first, male afterwards.
It is from the Padma-Yoni,—“the womb of the lotus,”—from absolute Space or the Universe, outside of time and space, that the conditioned cosmos, limited by time and space, emanates. The Hiranyagarbha, the golden “egg” or womb, whence Brahmā arises, is often called the celestial lotus. During the “nights of Brahmā,” the god Vishnu—the synthesis of the Trimurti, or Hindu Trinity—floats asleep upon the primordial waters, stretched upon a lotus-flower. His goddess, the beautiful Lakshmi, rising, like Venus Aphrodite, from the bosom of the waters, has beneath her feet a white lotus. It is at the churning, by the assembled gods, of the Ocean of Milk—symbol of space and of the Milky Way—that Lakshmi, goddess of beauty and mother of love (Kāma), formed from the foam of the creamy waves, appeared before the wondering gods, supported by a lotus and holding another lotus in her hand.
Thence come the two principal titles of Lakshmi: padma, the lotus, and kṣhīrābdhi-tanayā, daughter of the Ocean of Milk. Gautama, the Buddha, who was never degraded to the level of a god, being nevertheless the first bold mortal who, in historical times, questioned the mute sphinx called the Universe, and ended by tearing from it the secrets of life and death—though never deified, we repeat—was, however, recognized by the generations of Asia as dominating the Universe. And it is for this reason that this conqueror and master of the intellectual and philosophical world is represented seated upon an opened lotus,—symbol of that universe divined by him. In India and Ceylon, the lotus is generally golden in colour; among the Northern Buddhists, it is blue.
But there exists, throughout the world, a third species of lotus, the Zizyphus. He who eats of it forgets his country and those who are dear to him, said the ancients. Let us not follow this example; let us not forget our intellectual fatherland, the cradle of the human race, and the birthplace of the blue lotus.
Let us then lift the veil of forgetfulness which covers one of the most ancient allegories, a Vedic legend, which the Brāhmin chroniclers have nevertheless preserved. Only, as each of these chroniclers tells it in his own fashion and add variations to it,1 we have given it here, not according to the incomplete versions and translations of the Gentlemen Orientalists, but according to the popular version. It is thus that the old Bards of Rajistan sing it, when, during the warm evenings of the rainy season, they come and sit beneath the verandah of the traveller’s bungalow. We leave, therefore, the Orientalists to their fanciful speculations. What matters it to us whether the father of the cowardly and selfish prince who was the cause of the transformation of the white lotus into the blue lotus was called Harischandra or Ambarīṣha? Names have nothing to do either with the naïve poetry of the legend, or with its moral,—for a moral will be found, if one looks well. Let us rather remark that the principal episode curiously recalls another legend,—that of the Biblical Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac.
Is this not one proof more that the Secret Doctrine of the East may well be right in maintaining that the name of the patriarch is neither a Chaldean nor a Hebrew name, but rather a Sanskrit epithet and surname signifying a-brahm, that is to say, a non-Brāhmin,2 a Brāhmin de-brahminized, or degraded and having lost his caste? Then, how can one avoid suspecting, in the modern Jews, the Chaṇḍālas [outcastes] of the time of the Rishi Agastya,—the brick-makers, whose persecution began 8,000 or 10,000 years ago, but who emigrated into Chaldea 4,000 years before the Christian era, when so many popular legends in Southern India recall the Biblical narratives? Louis Jacolliot speaks of it in several of his twenty-one volumes on Brahmanical India, and he is right, for once.
We shall speak of it another day. Meanwhile, here is the legend of
The Blue Lotus
Centuries upon centuries have elapsed since Ambarīṣha, king of Ayodhyā, reigned in the city founded by the holy Manu Vaivasvata, son of the Sun. The king was a Sūryavanśa, a descendant of the Solar race, and called himself the most faithful servant of Varuṇa, the Eternal, the greatest as well as the most powerful god in the Ṛigveda.3 But the Eternal had refused male heirs to his worshipper, which made the king very disconsolate.. But the Eternal had refused male heirs to his worshipper, which made the king very disconsolate.
“Alas!” he lamented every morning, while performing his pūjā or devotions before the inferior gods. “Alas! what avails it me to be the greatest king upon earth, if the Eternal refuses me a successor of my blood! Once dead and placed upon the funeral pyre, who will fulfil for me the sweet filial duty of breaking the skull of my corpse, in order to liberate my soul from its last earthly bonds? What foreign hand will, during the full moon, place the rice of the Śrāddha, to do honour to my manes? Will not the birds of death4 themselves turn aside from the funeral feast? For surely my shade, riveted to the earth by its great despair, will not allow them to touch it!”5
Thus the king grieved, when his gṛihastha (his family chaplain) inspired him with the idea of making a vow. If the Eternal would send him two or more sons, he would promise the god to sacrifice to him the eldest, in a public ceremony, when the victim had reached the age of puberty. Allured by this promise of bleeding and smoking flesh,—in such good odour among all great gods,—Varuṇa accepted the promise of the king, and the happy Ambarīṣha had a son, followed by several others. The eldest, heir to the crown pro tempore [temporarily], was called Rohita (the red) and surnamed Devarāta, which, translated literally, means the “God given.” Devarāta grew up and soon became a true Prince Charming, but as selfish and crafty as he was handsome, if we may believe the legends.
When the prince had reached the required age, the Eternal, speaking through the mouth of the same court chaplain, summoned the king to keep his promise. But Ambarīṣha, each time inventing pretexts to put off the moment of sacrifice, the Eternal at last grew angry. As the jealous and wrathful god that he was, he threatened the king with all his divine anger.
For a long time neither summons nor threats had the desired effect. So long as there were sacred cows passing from the royal stables into those of the Brāhmins, and money in the treasuries to fill the crypts of the temples, the Brāhmins succeeded in keeping Varuṇa quiet. But when there remained neither cows nor money, the Eternal threatened the king with submerging his palace, together with himself and his heirs, and, should they escape therefrom, with burning them all alive. At the end of his resources, the poor king Ambarīṣha sent for his first-born and informed him of the fate that awaited him. But Devarāta turned a deaf ear. He refused to submit to the double will, paternal and divine.
Thus, when the sacrificial fires had been lighted, and the whole good city of Ayodhyā had assembled in great agitation,—the crown prince alone was missing from the feast.
He had fled into the forests of the Yogis.
Now these forests were inhabited by holy hermits, and Devarāta knew himself there to be unassailable and unseizable. One might come and see him there, but no one could do him violence,—not even Varuṇa, the Eternal. This was very simple. The religious austerities of the Āraṇyakas, the saints of the forest, several of whom were Daityas, Titans, a race of giants and demons, gave them such power that all the gods trembled before their omnipotence and supernatural powers,—even the Eternal.
These antediluvian Yogis, it appears, had the power to destroy that Eternal himself at will,—perhaps because it was they who had invented him.
Devarāta passed several years in the forests; then, at last, he had enough of it. Having been told that he might satisfy Varuṇa by finding a substitute who would be immolated in his place—provided that the substitute were the son of a Rishi—he set out and ended by discovering what he needed.
In the region bordering the flowered banks of the famous lake Puṣhkara, there was a famine, and a great Saint, named Ajīgarta,6 was on the point of dying there of hunger, with all his family. He had several sons, of whom the second, a virtuous youth named Śunaḥśepa, was on the way to becoming a Rishi himself. Profiting by the scarcity, and rightly thinking that a hungry stomach would have more ears than a satisfied one, the crafty Devarāta informed the father of his story. After which he offered him a hundred cows in exchange for Śunaḥśepa, to serve him as substitute, as flesh for offering upon the altar of the Eternal. The virtuous father at first refused outright. But the gentle Śunaḥśepa offered himself of his own accord, and spoke thus to his father:
“What matters the life of one man, when it can save those of so many others? The Eternal is a great God, and his mercy is infinite; but he is also a very jealous god, and his wrath is swift and avenging. Varuṇa is master of terror, and death obeys his command. His spirit will not always strive with him who disobeys him. He will repent of having created man, and then he will burn alive one hundred thousand lakhs7 of innocent persons for one guilty man. Should his victim escape him, surely he would dry up our rivers, set the earth on fire, and rip open pregnant women, in his infinite goodness . . . Let me then sacrifice myself, father, for this stranger who offers us a hundred cows; for this will prevent you and my brothers from dying of hunger, and will save thousands of others from a terrible death.
“At such a price, the surrender of life is sweet to me.”
The old Rishi shed tears; but he ended by consenting, and went to prepare the sacrificial pyre.8
Lake Puṣhkara9 was one of the spots upon this earth favoured by the goddess Lakṣhmī-Padmā, the White Lotus, who often plunged into its cool waves to visit her elder sister, Varuṇī, wife of Varuṇa the Eternal.10 Lakṣhmī-Padmā heard Devarāta’s offer, saw the father’s despair, and admired the filial devotion of Śunaḥśepa. Full of pity, the mother of love and compassion sent to fetch the Rishi Viśvāmitra, one of the seven primordial Manus and a son of Brahmā, and succeeded in interesting him in the fate of her protégé. The great Rishi promised her his help. Appearing to Śunaḥśepa, while remaining invisible to the others, he taught him two sacred verses, or Mantras, of the Ṛigveda, making him promise to recite them upon the pyre. Now he who pronounced these two mantras, or invocations, compelled the whole conclave of the gods, Indra at their head, to come to his aid, and by that very fact became a Rishi, in this life or in his future reincarnation.
The altar was raised upon the bank of the lake, the pyre prepared, and the crowd assembled. Laying, then binding his son upon the fragrant sandal-wood, Ajīgarta armed himself with the sacrificial knife. Already he raised his trembling arm above the heart of his well-beloved son, when the latter intoned the sacred verses. Yet one instant of hesitation and supreme sorrow . . . and, as the child finished his mantra, the old Rishi plunged his knife into the breast of Śunaḥśepa . . .
But, O miracle! . . . At the same instant, Indra, the god of azure (the Firmament), slipped down from the heavens and fell into the midst of the ceremony. Enveloping the pyre and the victim in a thick azure cloud, the mist extinguished the flames of the pyre and untied the cords which held the child captive. It was as though a corner of the blue sky had sunk down upon the place, illuminating the whole country and colouring the whole scene with its golden azure. Terrified, the crowd and the Rishi himself fell upon their noses, half dead with fear.
When they came to themselves, the mist had disappeared, and the whole scene had changed. The fires of the pyre had rekindled of themselves; and there, stretched upon it, they saw a doe (Rohit)11 which was none other than Prince Rohita, the Devarāta. His heart pierced by the very knife he had turned against another, he himself was burning as a holocaust for his sin.
A few steps from the altar, stretched likewise, but upon a bed of lotus, Śunaḥśepa slept peacefully. And at the place where the knife had fallen upon his breast, one saw a beautiful blue lotus unfold. Lake Puṣhkara itself, covered, a moment before, with white lotuses whose petals shone in the sun like silver cups filled with amṛita,12 now reflected the azure of heaven—the white lotuses had become blue.
Then was heard a voice, melodious as the voice of the vīṇa,13 rising through the air from the depths of the waters, pronouncing these words and this imprecation:
“A prince who knows not how to die for his subjects is unworthy to reign over the children of the Sun. He shall be reborn in a race with red hair, a barbarous and selfish race; and the nations which shall descend from him shall have for their inheritance only the setting sun. It is the younger son of a mendicant ascetic, he who sacrifices his life without hesitation to save that of others, who shall become king and reign in his place.”
A thrill of approbation set in motion the flowery carpet which covered the lake. Opening their blue hearts to the golden light, the lotuses smiled for joy and sent up a hymn of perfume to Sūrya, their sun and master. All Nature rejoiced, except Devarāta, who was no more than a handful of ashes.
Then Viśvāmitra, the great Rishi, although already the father of a hundred sons, adopted Śunaḥśepa as his eldest son, and cursed beforehand, by way of precaution, every mortal who should refuse to recognize, in the last-born of the Rishi, the eldest of his children and the legitimate heir to the throne of King Ambarīṣha.
By reason of this decree, Śunaḥśepa was born, in his next incarnation, into the royal family of Ayodhyā, and reigned over the Solar race for 84,000 years.
As for Rohita, though he bore the name Devarāta, “God-given,” he underwent the fate to which Lakṣhmī-Padmā had doomed him. He reincarnated in the family of a casteless foreigner, a Mleccha-Yavana, and became the ancestor of the barbarous and red-haired races that dwell in the West.”
It is for the conversion of these races that La Lotus Bleu has been founded.
And should any of our readers allow themselves to doubt the historical truth of this adventure of our ancestor Rohita, and of the transformation of the white lotuses into azure lotuses, they are invited to take a trip to Ajmer.
Once there, they need only betake themselves to the shore of the thrice-holy lake called Puṣhkara, where every pilgrim who bathes therein, during the full moon of the month of Kārttika (October-November) attains the highest sanctity, without otherwise disturbing himself. There, skeptics will be able to see with their own eyes the site where the pyre of Rohita arose, as well as the waters once frequented by Lakṣhmī.
They might even see the blue lotuses, were it not that, by a new transformation decreed by the gods, most of these plants have since been changed into sacred crocodiles, whom no one has the right to disturb. This explains why nine pilgrims out of ten who plunge into the waters of the lake have the good fortune to enter Nirvāṇa almost immediately afterward — and why the sacred crocodiles are the largest of their kind.
1. Compare the story of Śunaḥśepa in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 9:7:20 & 9:16:30-35; the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Bālakāṇḍa 1:60-61; Manusmṛti 10:105 with Kullūka Bhaṭṭa’s commentary; the Bahvṛicha or Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 7.13-18; the Viṣṇu Purāṇa 4.7.19, etc., etc.—Each book gives its own version. [See H. H. Wilson, Rig-Veda-Sanhita, Vol. 1, 1850, pp. 237-238, note on 1:6:1.]
2. The particle a in the Sanskrit word shows it plainly. Placed before a substantive, this particle always denotes negation, or the contrary of what is contained in the term which follows. Thus Sura (God), written a-sura, becomes non-god, or demon. Vidya is Knowledge, and a-vidya ignorance, or the contrary of Knowledge, etc., etc.
3. It was only much later, in the dogmatic Pantheon and symbolic polytheism of the Brāhmaṇas, that Varuṇa became the Poseidon or Neptune that he is now. In the Veda, he is the most ancient of the gods, one with the Greek Ouranos; that is to say, a personification of celestial space and the infinite heavens, creator and governor of heaven and earth, King, Father, and Master of the world, of gods and men. The Uranus of Hesiod and the Zeus of the Greeks in one.
4. Crows and ravens.
5. The Śrāddha is a posthumous ceremony observed for nine days by the nearest relative of the deceased. There was a time when it was magical. At present, it consists chiefly in scattering, among other practices, little balls of cooked rice before the door of the dead man’s house. If the crows devour the rice promptly, it is a sign that the soul is liberated and is at peace. If not, these birds, voracious as they are, not touching the corruption, furnish proof that the piśācha or bhūta (phantom) is there to prevent them. The Śrāddha is a superstition, no doubt, but certainly no more so than novenas and masses for the dead.
6. Others call him Ṛichīka, and make of King Ambarīṣha Hariśchandra, the famous sovereign who was the paragon of all virtues.
7. A lakh is a measure of 100,000, whether of men or of coins.
8. Manusmṛti 10:105, alluding to this story, remarks that Ajīgarta, the holy Rishi, committed no sin in selling the life of his son—since this sacrifice preserved his own life and that of his whole family. This recalls to us another, more modern legend, which may serve as a parallel to this one. Count Ugolino, condemned to die of hunger in his dungeon, did he not devour his children “to preserve for them a father”? The popular legend of Śunaḥśepa is more beautiful than Manu’s commentary; obviously an interpolation of the Brāhmins into the falsified Manuscripts.
9. This lake is sometimes called Pokher [Pushkar] in our day. It is a famous place of annual pilgrimage, situated in a charming site five English miles from Ajmer, in Rājasthān. Puṣhkara means “blue lotus,” the water of the lake being covered, like a carpet, with these beautiful plants. But the legend assures us that they were white at first. Puṣhkara is also a proper name of a man, and the name of one of the “seven sacred islands” in the geography of the Hindus—the Sapta-dvīpa.
10. Varuṇī, goddess of heat, later goddess of Wine, was also born from the Ocean of Milk. Of the “fourteen precious objects” produced by the churning, she appears second, and Lakshmi last, preceded by the cup of amṛita, the drink which gives immortality.
11. A play on words. Rohit, in Sanskrit, is the name of the female deer, the doe, and Rohita means “the red.” It is for his cowardice and fear of dying that he was changed into a doe by the gods, according to the legend.
12. The elixir that confers immortality.
13. A kind of lute; an instrument whose invention is attributed to the god Śiva.
E1. [Blavatsky is playing on the French idiom n’y voir que du bleu, “to see nothing but blue,” meaning to understand nothing, to be taken in, or to miss the point entirely. The joke is doubled by the fact that the cover of the magazine, containing the table of contents, was printed on blue paper.—Ed.]