Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00632)

WHAT WERE THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY MASTERS THE MASTERS OF ? PART III

by H H Tridandi Sannyasi Bhakti Ananda Goswami Maharaja
Shiksha (instructing) Master, Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya lineage of 
Vaishnavism 

TAKING A REAL-WORLD HISTORICAL APPROACH TO THE CONTENT OF THE MAHATMA 
LETTERS

AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE AND SUGGESTIONS FOR AN INITIAL VAISHNAVA, 
PURE LAND BUDDHIST, AND SHIVA-SHAKTI AGAMIC AND TANTRIC REVIEW OF THE 
LITERATURE, THE "MAHATMA LETTERS", AS COMPILED BY BARKER, AND 
AVAILABLE TO SEARCH ONLINE FROM THE THEOSOPHICAL UNIVERSITY PRESS


An Historical Approach

Whether or not God or gods exist, their worship certainly does, and 
such worship can be studied rigorously in an interdisciplinary way in 
history, the same as any other real-world phenomenon. In the same 
way, the innovation and diffusion of Theosophy can be studied. 
Thoughts, theistic, atheistic and agnostic etc., and the symbols, 
words and actions which express them have history. While people of 
equal intelligence and integrity may dispute the existance of God, 
gods, or the Theosophical Masters, the existence of religion and 
theosophy is not debated. It is easier to trace the course through 
time and territory of the popular exoteric 'Great Religions' than it 
is to trace the innovations and diffusions of the elitist esoteric 
traditions. Never the less, the esoteric traditions have real-world 
history too, and with some additional effort, much can be learned 
about these as well. Paul Johnson has noted the sui generis problem 
(see below). The historical approach to the study of a religion 
(or 'spirituality', I might add), is often experienced as threatening 
by faithful. 

From: "kpauljohnson" 
Date: Wed Nov 20, 2002 7:33 am
Subject: Synthetic vs. authentic; why genealogical dissociation 
occurs



..."Where authenticity comes in, IMO, is in the frank acknowledgment 
of 
the synthetic nature of the teaching. Cayceites who insist that the 
Readings are direct transcriptions of the Akashic Record; Baha'is who 
insist that Baha'u'llah's writings are direct words of God; 
Christians who insist that Jesus is the one and only Son of God whose 
words are the absolute and ultimate truth; Theosophists who insist 
that HPB's Theosophy is the ancient wisdom tradition from which 
everything else devolved; ad nauseum are engaged in what David Lane 
calls genealogical dissociation. That is, denying the actual, always 
complex genealogy of the belief system and pretending that it is sui 
generis, direct truth straight from The Source. I don't think 
Hinduism or Buddhism are exempt from this behavior pattern, although 
they do tend to a bit more self-honesty about the history of ideas."

BA G : In fact, that "...self-honesty about the history of 
ideas.",is exactly what the system of sampradaya or parampara and 
GURU,SHASTRA and SADHU (GSS)is all about in the authentic teaching 
lineages of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shakti-ism, Buddhism and 
Catholicism etc. These exoteric traditions all attempt to preserve 
their sacred heritage, by systems of initiation and apostolic 
succession. For example, one cannot just claim to be a Madhvite or 
Ramanujite Vaishnava master, any more than one could claim to be a 
Coptic Catholic bishop without the authority of the Coptic rite 
Patriarch. No one can serve as a bishop in the Roman Rite Catholic 
Church, without the proper elevation of the Pope. No one can just 
claim to be the next Dalai Lama or Patriarch of any of the Vaishnava, 
Shaivite, Shankarite Advaitan, Hasidic Jewish, traditional Sufi or 
Catholic Rite lineages. All of these 'apostolic' traditions 
zealously guard their teaching authority, which preserves the guru, 
shastra and sadhu history of their ideas and practices. The real-
world checks and balances system of guru (living teacher in union 
with the magisterium), shastra (scripture, canonical body of 
writings) and sadhu (the tradition of the saints, mystics, 
theologians and commentators), provides exoteric religions with a way 
to try to safe-guard the historical integrity and continuity of their 
traditions. Thus the legitimate lineages of Vaishnavsim, Shaivism and 
Buddhism etc. are extremely strict about properly identifying their 
history of ideas and practices. No one can speak from the 
Vyasasana 'ex cathedra' without proper lineage credentials.

In practice, this means that I can trace certain ideas in my specific 
lineage back thousands of years, because each generation has 
identified its accepted sources, heroes and associations with those 
of previous generations. I can also trace some of the major and 
minor branching-out of ideas and practices from the main 'trunk' of 
my lineage, and identify some groups that are proximately or remotely 
related to my own today. Because there is such a high value placed on 
such parampara or sampradaya lineage affiliations in the main Indic 
traditions, studying these has enormous value for an historian of 
religion. It is because of this "...self honesty of the history..." 
of their ideas, that India and Tibet etc, have any recorded history 
to be studied at all. It has been said that Indians wrote no history 
of India. However, this cannot be said if one is considering the 
histories of the great religious traditions of India, whose vast 
libraries were full of detailed accounts of the lives and thought of 
the generations transmitting their sacred traditions. One of the 
great tragedies of the Muslim invasion of India, was the vast 
destruction of Indian religious center monastery-university cities 
and all their libraries.

Unfortunately in our time such destruction of temples and libraries 
is still going on, but this time it is not just fanatical Muslims 
doing it. The Sinhalese Buddhist 'Aryans' have recently occupied 
hundreds of Tamil (principally Shaivite and Devi)temples, and have 
destroyed about a hundred thousand volumes of priceless Tamil 
literatures in the last ten years. This campaign for the cultural 
annihilation of the Dravidian Tamils by the so-called 'Aryan' 
Sinhalese, is one reason that scholars of religion, such as myself, 
are concerned about the perpetuation of the 'Aryan' race-myth. 

Despite such barbarism, and in consideration of the amazing amount of 
information still available from ancient texts, archeology and the 
intact living GSS traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, there is ample 
evidence available for the study of the "Mahatma Letters" in the 
historical context of their "...complex genealogy..." 

Suggestions For an Initial Survey of the Literature 

Because we have the Theosophical University Library Edition of 
the "Mahatma Letters" in a searchable format online, one way to 
approach an understanding of the Mahatmas' mastery from the 
perspective of the Tibetan Buddhist-related Hindu and Buddhist GSS 
traditions, is to search the Letters for key terms associated with 
those GSS traditions. Completing such a search can establish the 
initial evidentiary parameters of our textual investigation. In 
assessing what the Mahatmas were the masters of, we can learn much 
from what is NOT INCLUDED IN THE LETTERS.

So let us begin with some of these key terms. The Mahatmas claimed 
an identity-with and love for India, which they significantly DID NOT 
CALL BHARATA. The use of European terms, instead of the ones 
like 'Bha_rata", which real ancient Indian Mahatmas would be expected 
to use, is one of the most striking things to a real master and lover 
of that ancient land and culture. 

Here are some of the Sanskrit terms I have already searched in the 
over 100 "Mahatma Letters", and the results, which are quite 
revealing. In my search, I used several variant spellings, and the 
singular and plural forms of the word. However for brevity, only the 
main search term or name is given with the totals below. Next to the 
word is the total number of references in the Mahatma Letters, pulled-
up by the Theosophical University search program. There seems to be 
no reflection of Agamic or Dravidian Vedic spirituality in 
the "Mahatma Letters". 

Places / States

goloka 0
bhuloka 0
bhumi 0
vrindavan 0
bharata 0
kailasa 1
vaikuntha 0
sukhavati 1
loka 8
swarga 0
vyuha 0

Giver (masculine) Deity Names

Vaishnava

chrishna 2
vishnu 4
hari 0
purusha 4
narayana 0
avatar 3 
devadeva 0
surya 2
indra 0
chandra 1
kama 12
vishvakarman 0
brahma 6
deva(s) 21

Shaivite

shiva 2
kala 0
hara 0
maruga(n) 0
kartikeya 0
skanda 0
ganesha 0
ganapati 0



Related Receiver (Feminine) Divine Names

Vaishnava

radha 0
sakti 2
prakriti 3
ganga 0
ma 2
sarasvati 0
lakshmi 0
sri 1
padma 1
narayani 0
tara 0
gayatri 0
tulasi 0


Shaivite

kali 1
uma 0
parvati 0
durga 0
maya 16
devi 0
yogamaya 0


The Tradition of Sita-Rama

ramayana 0
valmiki 0
tulsidas 0
rama 1
ramachandra 0
sita 0
janaki 0
hanuman 0
ravana 0

Some Shastra Titles, Important Names and Terms

vyasa 1
vyasadeva 0
mahabharata 0
veda 1
upanishads 0
agama 0
tantra 0
shastra 1
samhita 0
sutra (s) 3
sama 0
rig 0
yajur 0
ayurveda 0
saddharma pundarika 0
bhagavadgita 0
bhagavat 1
bhagavatam 0
gita 1
jataka 0
hitopedesha 0
pancatantra 0

Mahatmas Identified themselves as Buddhists

buddha 18
buddhism 24
buddhist 13
bodhisattva 0

Aryan and Race Term Search

arya 1
aryan 9
aryans 4

race 31
races 16
varna 0
dravidian 0


Material Modes of Nature

sattva 0
raja 3
tama 0
guna 0

Some Additional Important Terms

bhakti 0
kama 12
jnana 0
vidya 4
dharma 0
karma 38
vishva karman 0 

Ages and Cycles

kalpa 1
yuga (s)1
sattya
treta 0
dvarpara 0
kaliyuga 0

Worship and Sacrifice Related terms 

mantra 0
japa 0
puja 3
pujari 0
purohita 0
murti 0
soma 0
agni 0
yupa 0
nama 0
rupa 9
yoga 4

Some Great Masters Accepted by the Vaishnavas

caraka 0
madhva 0
jayatirtha 0
vyasatirtha 0
ramanuja 0
vallabha 0
vishnuswami 0
nimbarka 0
jayadevagoswami 0
caitanya 0
shankara 0

Some Master Titles and Lineage Words 

acharya 0
goswami 0
alvars 0
sadhu 0
saddhus 1
sampradaya 0
parampara 0
diksha 0
siksha 0
sannyasi 0

Finite and Supreme Spirit Words
atma 5
atman 2
jiva 2
jivatma 4
paramatma 0
parabrahmn 6
brahman 1
brahma 6