Kumbha Mela and the Reestablishment of India's Truth and Power in the World ⁓ Part 4
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| Kumbh Mela at Haridwar, by Dirk Hartung, Wikipedia |
As discussed in Parts One, Two, and Three, the cycle of the Kumbha Mela is based upon the cosmological correspondence between the 12-month Vedic Year (a.k.a. the Zodiac) and Jupiter’s nearly 12-year cycle. Due to this correspondence, it takes Jupiter nearly one year to move (transit) through one astrological sign. The Kumbha Melas are celebrated during years when Jupiter is transiting through one of the four fixed signs of the Zodiac: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. Thus, Jupiter’s nearly 12-year orbital period is understood as a macrocosm or macro-cycle of the Sacred Year of the Vedic Rishis. The Kumbha Mela celebrates this special correspondence between Jupiter and the Vedic Year. What is not commonly discussed regarding Jupiter and the Kumbha Mela is the important role Jupiter plays in the Rig Veda as one of the hero-gods who assists in the victorious and purifying release of the Vedic waters from the cave, kumbha (water-jar), cloud, etc.
According to some post-Vedic astrological texts, the planet Jupiter is equivalent to the Vedic god Brihaspati [1]. Thea believed that this equivalence is found in the Rig Veda as well. In the Gnostic Circle (a synthesis of the 12-month Vedic Year and the 9 base of the Vedic Circle and Vedic Math), Thea placed the Sun of our solar system at the Zero Point and each orbiting planet from Mercury through Pluto, at each of the 9 integers. In this circle, the 5th planet Jupiter corresponds to the 5 Point of the circle of 9, equivalent to 20° Libra in the 12-month Zodiac. [I have constructed the image of the Gnostic Circle to the right. An image of Thea’s construction of the Gnostic Circle as found in her book The Gnostic Circle [1975] is available at www.AeonCentre.com. Thea wrote about the equivalence of Brihaspati and Jupiter in The New Way, Volumes 1&2].
) is therein closely associated with the release of the Seven Rivers (a.k.a. ‘Mother Floods’) of which Saraswati is said to be the seventh. As I wrote in Part Three, I believe the Kumbha Mela is, at its mythological heart, a celebration of the release of these Seven Rivers (seven vesica piscis) at 0° Aquarius, the 11th month of the Vedic Year, known as Kumbha (the Water Jar) in Sanskrit, as shown in the image to the right.‘The mountain, for thy glory, cleft itself apart when, Angiras! thou openedst the stall of kine. Thou! O Bṛhaspati, with Indra for ally didst hurl down water-floods which gloom had compassed round.’ ‒ Rig Veda 2.23.18, tr. RTH Griffith
‘He to whom songs of praise go forth like torrents, as rivers eddying under banks flow sea-ward Bṛhaspati the wise, the eager, closely looks upon both, the waters and the vessel.’ ‒ Rig Veda 1.190.7, tr. RTH Griffith
'Bṛhaspati in war hath won rich treasures, hath won, this God, the great stalls filled with cattle. Striving to win waters and light, resistless, Bṛhaspati with lightning smites the foeman.' ‒ Rig Veda 6.73.3, tr. RTH Griffith
'[Saraswati seated] upon this sacred grass be joyful, and give us strengthening food that brings no sickness.… The [seven] Mother Floods shall make us bright and shining, cleansers of holy oil, with oil shall cleanse us: For, Goddesses, they bear off all defilement: I, rise up from them purified and brightened. Through days of earliest date the Drop descended on this place and on that which was before it. I offer up, throughout the seven oblations, the Drop which still to one same place is moving.… That fallen Drop of thine, the stalk which from the ladle fell away, [t]his present God Bṛhaspati shall pour it forth to make us rich…. [R]ich in milk [is] the essence of the Waters: make me pure therewith.' ‒ Rig Veda 10.17.10-14, tr. RTH Griffith [Bold emphasis added]
Overlapping images of the vesica piscis (kumbha) of the Zodiac in the verses above include the mountain (cleft in two by the radius), the cows, the stall of the cattle, the water, rivers, torrents, floods, the river Saraswati, light, the vessel, food (a.k.a. manna), milk, the drop, oblations (offerings) and the ladle. I have written more in depth about Brihaspati in Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom; but what I want to get across here is that it is entirely fitting that the planet Jupiter/Brihaspati plays a central role in India’s special celebration of Kumbha. What I have yet to mention in this series is that the planet Saturn also plays a role in the Kumbha Mela mythology and apparently in the calculation of the Mela dates. According to some, the Amrita produced by Samudra Manthan (the Churning of the Milky Ocean) is guarded and carried not by Vishnu (as in some mythologies), but by the Sun, the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn. Other than reading that Saturn’s position is said to play a part in the calculation of the Mela dates [2] I have found no indication online of exactly how Saturn’s transits figure into the calculation of the Kumbha Melas. Regardless, the image (above) of the Seven Rivers (seven vesica piscis or seven oblations of RV 10.17.11) of the Zodiac above gives us a visual explanation as to why Saturn (
) is included in the mythology of the Kumbha Mela. Saturn, the 6th planet of our Solar System, sits at the 6 Point of the Circle of 9, corresponding to 0° Sagittarius in the Zodiac, precisely at the seat of the ray, radius or pillar (skambha) that informs the Seventh River (seventh vesica piscis/kumbha) of the Zodiac, stretching from 0° Libra to 0° Aquarius/Kumbha, the only sign of the Zodiac which is associated with the pouring out or release of world cleansing waters.
) is included in the mythology of the Kumbha Mela. Saturn, the 6th planet of our Solar System, sits at the 6 Point of the Circle of 9, corresponding to 0° Sagittarius in the Zodiac, precisely at the seat of the ray, radius or pillar (skambha) that informs the Seventh River (seventh vesica piscis/kumbha) of the Zodiac, stretching from 0° Libra to 0° Aquarius/Kumbha, the only sign of the Zodiac which is associated with the pouring out or release of world cleansing waters.
As mentioned in Part Three, on the December Solstice (Makar Sankranti) of 2020, both Jupiter and Saturn will be conjunct at 0° Aquarius/Kumbha. To say that this is a rare conjunction or rare display of cosmological harmonies is an understatement. Astrologer Richard Nolle has constructed and published a chart of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions from 600 BCE to 2400 CE. In this 3,000-year span, 21 December 2020 is the singular instance wherein Jupiter and Saturn enter into conjunction at 0° Aquarius/Kumbha. So this conjunction at this specific degree of the Zodiac has not happened in over 2,600 years according to Nolle’s chart. I have not found any data that tracks Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions back further than 600 BCE; so at this point I have no idea if one would have to go back 3,000 years, 6,000 years or more to a time on Earth when Jupiter and Saturn entered into the sign (into the zero degree) of Kumbha/Aquarius together. It is possible that we could go back tens or hundreds of thousands of years in time before finding a precedent for a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at 0° Aquarius/Kumbha precisely upon the December Solstice. This extraordinarily occasion of Jupiter entering into the sign of Kumbha, accompanied by Saturn (a planetary ruler of Kumbha) [3], on the special day of the December Solstice, should mark the beginning of an extra special Kumbha Mela celebration across all of India and the world. It should not be restricted to a convergence of masses upon one town on one river. It should be a celebration of the release of the purifying waters of the Vedic Kumbha (and Vedic Rivers) across all of India and across all of the world.
In a nutshell what was recovered and released in 2016 is the occult knowledge that the Vedic River and Kumbha and Amrita are all symbols of the vesica piscis within the circle/cycle of the Vedic Year (Zodiac), and the occult knowledge that this geometric form functions an essential key of unlocking, unveiling and releasing the mathematical and zodiacal basis of Vedic and post-Vedic mythology. As I discussed in my book, this recovery-release was born out of the collective supramental yoga of Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), the Mother (1878-1973) and Thea (1938-2016), spanning 144 years (1872-2016). As I have written in my book and in this blog, the mythology of Vishnu’s recovery of the kumbha (pot) of Amrita, Indra’s release of the Seven Rivers, and Saraswati’s bursting of the hills with her wave (RV 6.61.2) are all varied accounts or depictions of the same victory that has actually played itself out in our Age of Aquarius/Kumbha. This victory represents the cracking of the Vedic Code, Cave or Kumbha, whereupon the ancient hidden truth ‒ occulted and preserved within the primary symbols (words) of the Vedic Rishis ‒ has been poured out.
I am not suggesting that the geometric sense of these Vedic symbols is the only sense of the symbols. As Sri Aurobindo wrote, the Vedic symbols have a clear psychological and spiritual sense having to do with the evolution of higher consciousness on Earth. I am saying that the recovery and release of the geometric sense of many of the central Vedic symbols, including the symbols of the Vedic rivers, waters, floods, vessels, and amrita of the gods, is a real break though and victory in terms of understanding the simple mathematical basis of the Vedic symbols and the cosmological (zodiacal) context in which they must be understood. This recovery and release breaks through thousands of years of compounded misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the Vedic symbols and lore. This compounded misunderstanding and misinterpretation (i.e. compounded ignorance) forms the basis of our world’s fragmented religions and their destructive disharmony. The purification associated with the inevitable (and predicted) release of the hidden or occulted truth of the ancient seers is depicted as devastating for the forces of Ignorance and Falsehood in both the Vedas and in St. John’s Revelation. But for all those who are more than happy to let go of thousands-of-years-worth of inherited distortion and fragmentation of our essential Oneness, the recovery and release of these keys of ancient wisdom should be a welcome and delightful turn of events.
The rare conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn at 0° Aquarius/Kumbha as the Sun enters 0° Capricorn on the December Solstice of 2020 will be entirely missed and will go uncelebrated by those who following the sidereal (nirayana), post-Vedic measure of the Vedic Year (Zodiac). I do wonder if the precision and power of this solstice conjunction will help at least some swath of Indians to reconsider India’s chronic mismeasure of the Vedic Year as discussed in Part Two. Vedic and post-Vedic lore repeatedly tells the story of Vishnu and other Vedic heroes who recover the knowledge and treasures of the sacrifice (including the sacred cows and sacred rivers) from the forces of Ignorance who entrap or distort the sacred knowledge and sacred measure of the Vedic Year. This recovery – foretold in ancient mythology – has played out in our modern world through the supramental yoga of Sri Aurobindo, who many consider to be Kalki (the last of Vishnu’s ten avatars who is said to be victorious over the world’s Ignorance). Sri Aurobindo initiated a progressive recovery of Vedic Gnosis (a.k.a. Sanatana Dharma), which subsequently and naturally led to Thea’s recovery of the Solar, Tropical measure of the Vedic Year, and more recently to my recovery of the Vedic River (and Kumbha) as a symbol of the vesica piscis, which functions simultaneously as a key measure of the Vedic Year and as a key of the symbolism of the Rig Veda.
Now the question is: How long will it take for this real (non-mythological) recovery of the Vedic sacrifice (along with its rivers and cows and other treasures) to conquer or purify the well-established, inherited mismeasure of the Vedic Year in India. As long as the Vedic sacrifice (i.e. Zodiac) is mismeasured in India, the repercussions of fragmentation and disharmony will continue to be devastating for the country and for the world. [4] As Thea wrote in ‘The Origins and Nature of Hindu Decline’ (November-December, 2006), the rise of India and the heart and soul of her ancient wisdom in the world, is entirely dependent on its ability to reestablish the true measure of the Vedic Year (anchored by the Winter Solstice and the other three fixed Cardinal Points of the Earth’s Solar/Tropical Year) which Thea knew to be the Sanatana Dharma or Eternal Law upon which India’s ancient culture is based. Below is an excerpt from that article which includes mention of the chronic miscalculation of the Kumbha Mela as a symbol of the daunting challenge of restoring the true Vedic measure in India.
‘We then discover that Hinduism began its slow and steady decline not when Solstice and Zodiac were separated but when the Vedic experience that revealed their inseparability had faded into oblivion.…
‘From that point onward his formulation of that Cosmic Harmony conveyed the same rootlessness. No longer was the ecliptic in his experience balanced on the four pillars of Equinoxes and Solstices as the foundational base of his Seeing. The new Seers allowed their consciousness to seek the Beyond as the goal of their journey, in contrast to the Ancient Ones so often extolled in the Rig Veda, whose Swar was an experience of this very Earth dimension.
‘In practical terms this meant that the zodiac projected onto the backdrop of the perpetually mutating constellations became the only map to follow, no longer the zodiac of the tropical ecliptic where the solar system travels and which remains faithful in time to its never changing four pillars, the Equinoxes and the Solstices. This projection, which eventually became frozen in the Hindu calendar, arose out of a void left by the displacement of the Vedic Earth-oriented Swar in favour of trends that were set in motion because of the demands of the Time-Spirit. Realisers could only experience what was made permissible by Mahakala. The time of renewal had arrived. This was signalled by the cosmic harmonies themselves which can be read as one reads a book; and therein we learn that from approximately 500 BCE, Skambha was lost and the realiser’s ‘lighthouse’ was projected into the constellations and no longer rooted in the Earth’s own planetary system based on her own divine Measure. The slow poison of ‘migrating constellations’ had won the day….
‘Thus into the void of the Spirit the new seers plunged; it became filled thereafter with seekers after the Beyond who increasingly abandoned the Mother Base, forgetting her sacred Measure and Sequences. That Beyond then became projected into the devices that convert the Seer’s vision into the measurable quantities which grant the population at large the means to live and extend the Seer’s realisation across the breath of the land. Thus, the alterations in the spiritual domain laid the ground for the mutation in the calendar of observances. If yogic realisers became obsessed with the Beyond as the goal of their quests, however camouflaged initially, the calendar had to reflect the very same obsession since the projection starts from the consciousness of the Seer. [5] The way was then paved for the shift from the tropical zodiac to the sidereal. The latter was formalised centuries after the Vedic Way had faded into oblivion; then indeed drifting and shifting became the bywords, with an ever-increasing distance between Solstice and Zodiac now amounting to a Makar Sankranti 23 days off from its true timing.
‘When the Vedic Skambha realisation exists and can then serve as the ‘anchor’ for the civilisation, a confusion of this nature simply cannot arise. The calendar of observances must be an expression of the cosmic Order as perceived by the highest Vedic Authority. That is, the one who has realised that Order within, through processes of Yoga given in great detail in the Rig Veda itself. In these matters there is no pretence. If no one can authoritatively say when Guru [the planet Jupiter] changed zodiacal signs, then we know the darkness has reached its deepest pitch. But with the inseparable Solstice/Zodiac on the shortest day of the year as one’s Anchor, such confusion can never take place. The passage occurs on one day only, not two or three or ten. And certainly we are given cause to wonder how a restoration will ever take place if the movements of perhaps the most important planet of all [Jupiter], the one whose transits determine the day and time of the nothing less than the 12-yearly Kumbha Mela, are treated so shabbily.' [Bold emphasis added, brackets added]
The sacred harmony and holy day of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at 0° Aquarius/Kumbha on Makar Sankranti will undoubtedly be celebrated by many across the world who celebrate Earth’s sacred Solar, Tropical Year. Will it be celebrated in India? I hope at some point in the near future, the Kumbha Mela will break out of its own confines and chains and become a non-local celebration, celebrated across the world according to the Divine Maya (Divine Measure) of the Earth’s Solar, Tropical Year, sloughing off one-thousand-plus years of imposition by post-Vedic sidereal calculations upon the Vedic Year. I pray that it serves as a global tuning fork by which those who have been out of harmony with the Divine Measure of the Earth’s Soul and the Earth’s Year can hear the unifying tone (and tune) of the Earth’s singular field of Time and Space and rejoin the chorus and circle of life here on Earth.
I am glad that at least some swath of people (however small) will be able appreciate and celebrate the 21 December 2020 Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at 0° Aquarius knowing that this event is entirely linked to the Vedic Wisdom/Sanatana Dharma that has been recovered and poured forth from the Vedic Kumbha in our Age of Kumbha (Aquarius) via the supramental yoga of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea. [6] This recovery and release establishes the solid basis by which humanity will evolve and progress beyond its collective delusions (its collective Ignorance) towards what Sri Aurobindo heralded as the reign of Truth-Consciousness on Earth. More information and backstory about this recovery and release of Vedic Wisdom can be found in Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom as well as in Thea’s many writings.
In Part Five (hopefully the last of this series) I will discuss various the Vedic Kumbha (the Water Jar and zodiacal sign) is celebrated in India, other than the Kumbha Mela.
Endnotes:
[1] As discussed by Sri Aurobindo in The Secret of the Veda, Brihaspati is also called Brahmanaspati, named meaning ‘master of the creative Word’ [The Secret of the Veda, CWSA Vol. 15, p. 243]. Free downloadable PDFs of Sri Aurobindo's books are available at www.sriaurobindoashram.com.
[2] See ‘Kumbh Melas, The Largest Gatherings on Earth’, www.factsanddetails.com.
[3] In addition to Saturn, the 7th planet Uranus (sitting at the 7 Point of the Gnostic Circle) is also considered to be a planetary ruler of Aquarius.
[4] In her writings Thea discussed the equivalence of the mismeasure/distortion of the Vedic Year with the mismeasure/distortion of a Sacred Temple, and specifically with the mismeasure/distortion of the Mother's Temple in Auroville which, as the Mother originally saw and designed it, was a manifestation of the 12-month Vedic Year. See Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, available online and also in paperback.
[4] In her writings Thea discussed the equivalence of the mismeasure/distortion of the Vedic Year with the mismeasure/distortion of a Sacred Temple, and specifically with the mismeasure/distortion of the Mother's Temple in Auroville which, as the Mother originally saw and designed it, was a manifestation of the 12-month Vedic Year. See Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, available online and also in paperback.
[5] This trend or obsession with the Beyond, is demonstrated in the current celebrations of the Kumbha Mela in the idea that the waters will help pilgrims attain the goal of Moksha, i.e. the goal of transcendence of Earthly life, as discussed briefly in Part One and Part Two.
[6] According to Thea, we have been in the Age of Aquarius since 1926, corresponding with the year the Lion body of the Sphinx was discovered/dug out in Gaza, as well as with a crucial shift in Sri Aurobindo’s supramental yoga.
[6] According to Thea, we have been in the Age of Aquarius since 1926, corresponding with the year the Lion body of the Sphinx was discovered/dug out in Gaza, as well as with a crucial shift in Sri Aurobindo’s supramental yoga.
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