INTRODUCTION
This article aims to demonstrate a fundamental unity of ancient esoteric wisdom traditions by comparing Hindu cosmogony with Jewish cosmogony in addition to correcting certain ideas about shared geometric symbolism. These systems are not oppositional but “two leaves on the same stem,” sharing an identical esoteric core that originates from a primordial universal secret doctrine. This position emphasizes eternal, cyclical emanations from an unrevealed Absolute, rejecting creation out of nothing in favor of an emanative process of the development of life from indestructible matter and force. It critiques literal interpretations of religious texts such as the anthropomorphic God of the Bible as a simplification and veil constructed for dissemination or instruction to the uninitiated masses, while revealing esoteric (hidden, or symbolic) meanings in their most sublime philosophical form accessible only to initiates. Isis Unveiled (Blavatsky, Vol. II, 265-71) gave us a mental picture of cosmogony as involving a phase of “chaotic” (pre-manifestation) and “formative” (post-manifestation) periods of the universe.
The vision proceeds logically, in demonstrating their shared symbols in antiquity, moving into detailed parallels between key principles, deities, and concepts; then concluding with the implications for cycles, emanations, androgyny, historical transmissions, and the rejection of dogmatic monotheism.
The theory H.P. Blavatsky advanced was that the cosmogony (accounts of the origins of the universe) of the perennial wisdom tradition had an ancient Indo-Iranian root, and was the source from which the Chaldean and Jewish cosmogony derived. Despite writing about its roots in Central Asia, Blavatsky primarily focused on India, particularly as a region that included the entire region between the Himalayas and the Vindhya Ranges, extending from the eastern to the western sea. Thus, her focus reflected the roots and spread of Brahmanical influence. In this view are included theories about the origins of Kabbalah, as having (1) its roots and influence in Chaldean, Babylonian Jewish and Egyptian systems; and (2) the cosmogony (dealing solely with the initial stages of the origin and birth of the universe) of both Kabbalah and Bereshit (Genesis) sharing a historical and esoteric source.
These “phases” of the emanative process of the universe were dealt with briefly in Luciferous Protogonos, The God the Ancients Call “The First-Born” with more focus on a comparison of pre-Hesiodic philosophy/mythology with Kabbalah as a refutation of Christian polemics, which often uses the Christian extra-biblical myth of Lucifer to demonize esoteric traditions and other religions.
THESIS
This paper explains purely what we can find from these similarities. In Tragedy of Satan the Double-Headed Dragon, it was explained that “The Aryan and the Semitic Theo-anthropographies,” are but “two leaves on the same stem; their respective personifications and the personages standing in relation to each other…” (Blavatsky). This goes the same for their cosmogonical literature, and this is not entirely obvious to a Christian in their understanding of Genesis in their Bible, but certain parallels begin to emerge in an analysis between the account of the origin of the universe in Jewish esotericism and commentaries with Hindu esotericism.
“The answer is one which would suggest itself to every ancient philosopher, Kabalist and Gnostic, of the early days. It contains the very spirit of the delphic and kabalistic commandment, for esoteric philosophy solved, ages ago, the problem of what man was, is, and will be.”
H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Vol. 2, 262
THE UNREVEALED DEITY
In the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Kabbalah, the foundational principles of the birth and origin of the universe reveal similarities, rooted in an understanding of the universe as an eternal, self-unfolding process rather than a deliberate act of a singular personal deity. At the core lies a passive, ineffable absolute from which all manifestation emerges. In Hinduism, this is PARABRAHMAN1, the “Supreme Brahman” or the boundless reality beyond attributes, often described as latent potentiality. Parabrahman corresponds to Kabbalistic EIN SOF (the boundless unknowable, ineffable eternal essence and substance), derived from the Hebrew “אין” (ain), signifying “nothing” or non-existence in a latent state.
Just as Parabrahman resides within the eternal olam (Hebrew: עוֹלָם, meaning “eternity” or “world”), Ein Sof expands into active force according to its inherent nature, not through willful intervention. Both are utterly ineffable. The Vedic sacred syllable AUM (a sacred syllable pronounced only mentally), referred to as the primeval sound (praṇava in Sanskrit among other names) and pronounced only mentally under ancient penalties for audible utterance, mirrors the Kabbalistic Ineffable Name (YHWH, or the Tetragrammaton), revealed solely to high initiates.
This secrecy ties into the shared history of oral transmission (unwritten or unrecorded) in mystery traditions, where profound truths were whispered to prevent profanation and preserve their sanctity.
Within the classical Indian philosophical systems and Theosophy, from this passive latency emerges Svabhāva (“self-becoming”), the eternal substance and root of all manifestation in both systems. Svabhāva produces the universe from its own indestructible essence, emphasizing that matter or prakriti in Hinduism is eternal, unfolding transformations but never truly created or annihilated.
This view starkly rejects the theology that creation came from nothing (ex nihilo), which is to be regarded as a later exoteric distortion from attempts to simplify the complexity of the system for the masses, e.g., Parabrahman is not what is generically called “God,” and its nature is beyond the concept of a “creator god,” because historically-speaking, a “creator god” in creation accounts aren’t and do not have to be singular. Creator gods often do belong to a secondary phase in the origin accounts of the birth of the universe, and this has been mentioned numerous times discussing the primordial elements (e.g., NYX, Terra and Chronos) before the Olympian gods ruled by Zeus.
PHASE OF ACTIVE EMANATIONS
As manifestation dawns, passive potential gives way to active emanations. In Hinduism, Aditi embodies the infinite and unbounded ALL, serving as both androgyne mother and father of the gods. Following the “Night of Brahmā” (a period of cosmic rest), Aditi sends forth active power, producing the primordial DEEP or primordial WATERS. Over these broods Nara (the Divine Spirit, similar to the Holy Ghost), with Nārī emerging as its female emanation. This tripartite dynamic unfolds within the Mundane Egg, where Purusha (cosmic pure consciousness) gestates. The Laws of Manu further elucidate this process: water arises from a transformation of light, and earth from a modification of water, revealing that Aditi’s androgyne nature is essential for elemental creation.
In Kabbalah, a parallel unfolds with the emergence of the first sefirah, Kether (the Crown or Primordial Point) on the Tree of Life. From the Invisible Dew of Ein Sof, it produces PRIMEVAL WATER and CHAOS. Initially conceived as female, Kether becomes androgyne but male as creator, foreshadowing the Biblical symbolism of Eve emerging from Adam’s rib, much like Nārī from Nara. While Ein Sof remains unrevealed, the Sefirot manifest actively, with Adam Kadmon as the primordial androgyne LOGOS (Protogonos), and the representation for cosmic humanity.
It rejects gender binaries, because each includes a male, a female, and an androgyne element, portraying creation as the unification of opposites. The Hindu goddess Vāc, embodying speech and the active power of Brahmā (the universal soul), declares,
“I bore the Father on the head of this universe.” (Ahaṃ suve pitaram-asya mūrdhan.)
Hymn from the Rig Veda, Bk. 10, Hymn 125, Verse 7 spoken by Vāc Āmbhṛṇī (the daughter of Rishi Ambhṛṇa), a female seer (rishika) who has realized in ecstatic condition her oneness or identity with the Ultimate Reality.
She corresponds to the Kabbalistic Shekinah (divine presence), which veils Ein Sof and serves as the garment of YHWH. Shekinah also aligns with Eve in her aspect as Binah (Intelligence), weaving speech, presence, and feminine wisdom into the fabric of manifestation. Beyond Vāc and Shekinah, this is also connected to the Hindu goddess Shakti (primordial energy), which corresponds to both the shekinah in its immanent context or the Kabbalah’s Matronita aspect. Both represent active, immanent forces counterbalancing transcendent masculinity in their creation myths required for spiritual wholeness and redemption (tikkun in Kabbalah).
SYMBOLIC CORRESPONDENCES OF MALE AND FEMALE ENERGIES
In Hinduism, Brahmā-Virāj represents the male aspect, with Vāch-Virāj as the female; in Kabbalah, Chokhmah (Wisdom, or Yāh) is male, while Binah (Intelligence, or Yah-Veh) is female, with Eve embodying Binah’s essence. Manu-Svāyambhuva, the “self-born,” corresponds to Adam Kadmon, while Virāj (as son and manifested universe) parallels the revealed LOGOS. Symbolic motifs reinforce these ties: the cross symbolizes the intersection of celestial and terrestrial lines, embodying the binary of male and female energies.
COSMIC CYCLE, MATTER’S INDESTRUCTIBILITY AND ANCIENT EVOLUTION THEORY
Both traditions emphasize eternal cosmic cycles over linear creation. Hinduism describes Manvantaras (periods of activity) alternating with Pralaya (dissolution), where the cosmic germ returns to the Divine Spirit. Kabbalah teaches similarly in its worlds of descending sparks, each progressively grosser, ultimately returning to its essence in the final Jubilee. All things, it is taught in the world will return in spirit and body to their principal root from which they proceeded; and in life the human soul has the ability through meditation and proper action to return to its source.
Emanations flow from passive to active, light from darkness, without a personal creator, but through its inherent androgynous nature. Ancient Buddhist and Hindu schools of philosophy affirm matter’s (prakriti’s) indestructibility long before the birth of modern science during the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-17th centuries. Ancient Chaldean accounts, such as Berosus’s depiction of pre-Genesis CHAOS (darkness, abyss, and monsters), correspond to the Hindu concept of the primordial WATERS.
This emanationism, or eternal evolution extends to species transformation found in the Laws of Manu (Manusmriti) explaining that from earth, heat, and water, are born all creatures. Thus Brahmā has established the series of transformations from the plant up to man.
THE SRI-YANTRA AND SOLOMON’S SEAL AS FOUNDATIONAL SYMBOLISM
The Hindu Śrī-Yantra (also known as Śrī Chakra) comes from the Sri Vidya tradition of Hinduism. The foundational geometric elements of the Sri Yantra are ancient, and thus we can those foundational elements is an older example of the geometric esoteric symbolism of double-interlaced triangles found in the Star of David and Solomon’s seal, but technically and archaeologically we cannot say the Yantra is older than the Star of David or Solomon’s seal. It has thus far been a common motif in comparative mysticism to say, that it is older, but in scholarship, such unsupported claims have to be avoided and framed differently. Learning this could possibly correct pop-occultural ideas that disseminate and lose original meaning.
It is argued by some, that King Solomon and Hiram of Tyre (Phoenicia) adopted the Sri Yantra from trading in the biblical land of Ophir 2, interpreted as ancient India, but there is a lack of direct archaoelogical evidence for this plausible claim. Traditionally, it is said that Solomon’s Seal (Understanding the Differences between the Star of David and the Seal of Solomon) inherited from Solomon’s royal father improved upon the Star of David according to legend.
The Star of David (the national symbol of Israel) was used by King David as a short form of his written signature and as a battle insignia painted on shields of fellow Israelite soldiers and became important in early U.S. symbology alongside the prominence of the great Eagle. The Seal of Solomon was thought to have been an actual royal seal used throughout King Solomon’s reign.
The Śrī-Yantra on the other hand is a sacred geometric figure composed of nine interlocking triangles (four upward-pointing for male/Shiva energy, five downward for female/Shakti energy), which form 43 smaller triangles, symbolizing the union of cosmic creation. This yantra is not merely abstract, but informs the architecture of Brahmanical pagodas in India, where temples are built on its pattern to represent the microcosm (human) within the macrocosm (universe).
Blavatsky believed that the Sri Yantra shares an esoteric heritage with the Jewish and medieval Kabbalists:
“The antiquity of the diagram of the former may be inferred from the fact that many of the Brāhmanical pagodas are designed and built on this figure, called the ‘Śrī-Yantra.’ And yet we find the highest honours paid to it by the Jewish and mediæval kabbalists, who call it ‘Solomon’s seal.’”
Here, “Solomon’s Seal” refers to the three-dimensional hexagram formed by interwoven and interlocked triangles, which medieval Kabbalists adopted as a symbol of divine harmony and protection. The theory of its transmission implies a shared (not stolen or borrowed) esoteric heritage, where the hexagram represents the womb of the universe or the “golden mundane egg” (Hiranyagarbha in Hindu cosmology), enclosing the germ of creation. It embodies the principle “as above, so below,” connecting the spiritual (upward triangle) with the material (downward triangle) elements. This is a familiar concept in Hermeticism also influenced by Egyptian and Greek mysteries. There exists superficial differences, such as how in Judaism, the Seal of Solomon became a symbol for magical or protective purposes or as talismans, while its true meaning emcompasses universal emanation and unity, and remains hidden. This aligns its geometric significance with the teaching of Greek philosophers like Pythagoras, who derived similar geometric mysticism from Egyptian sources. Plato and others also acknowledged Egyptian influences on Greek thought.
COMPARING JEWISH AND INDIAN COSMOGONIES INTRODUCES PERENNIALISM
Esoterically, figures like Yahweh symbolize fallen humanity bound to matter, rather than a supreme deity. One of the meanings of the tetragrammaton is, that Yahweh represents nature as embodied in man, half-spiritual and half-material. In the history of the oral transmission of the Kabbalists, they whispered secrets, while Hindu Dīkshita recited mantras. Hindu mantra recitation and visualization (e.g., in tantra) align with Kabbalistic gematria and pathworking on the Tree, both using symbolic meditation to ascend toward the divine source. The underlying unity trans-culturally3, between Aryan and Semitic traditions unveils what is called the perennial Wisdom Tradition.
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life’s ten Sefirot could be compared to Hinduism’s five Mahābhūtas (great elements) or the thirty-six Tattvas in Shaivism, because both concepts detail progressive emanations from divine unity to material diversity, with potential for detailed correspondences like Kether to Shiva and Malkuth to Prithvi (earth). In the concept of Kabbalah’s gilgul (transmigration of souls) discussed in Nahmanides to Theosophy: Views about the Kabbalah, we find its parallels to Hindu samsara, which emphasizes karmic evolution. Both reject eternal damnation, viewing rebirth as a path to rectification (tikkun in Kabbalah) or liberation (moksha) in Hinduism. The electrifying power of AUM in Hinduism could be extended to the Kabbalistic permutation of YHWH letters, both seen as sonic keys to unfolding and wielding portions of the power of cosmic forces, and has historical connections through Pythagorean sacred numerology. The Unknowable (Parabrahman and Ein Sof), androgyne archetypes (self-born Manu-Svāyambhuva and Adam Kadmon), and maternal forces (Vāc and Eve) demonstrate, that the aryan and the Semitic theo-anthropographies are indeed “two leaves on the same stem.”
There are points we may differ, where we argue that Genesis was reordered to promote the construction of monotheism, and prophets like Jeremiah cursed false prophets and false elōhīm. In the same manner, false elōhīm (or idol) can be just as subtle as the psychological attachment to a particular symbol of the tetragrammaton, such as over-emphasizing the male aspect of the DEITY or anthropomorphizing it then forcing that concept on people. So, the method of simplifying complex ideas for the public has had its historical and theological consequences, as Blavatsky put it once — creating a Frankensteinian monster of human imagination as a weapon for enacting authoritarian rule and leadership. The masses worship finite gods and conceptual idols, while the mysteries of the initiates — who are taught to be distrusted because of the old laws and rules of secrecy — lead to depth in grasping aspects of the Unknown cognizable to man in various states or conditions.
This also explains the approach of many occultists in the past. As stated in an article on the True Implications of Occultism, while the public still as far back into Agrippa’s era thought of Occultism as “woo-woo”: it has appeared thus far, that “esotericists are the losers of history,” but according to two former Theosophists (Mohini Chatterji and Laura Holloway) who both later resigned in the 1880s, the religions would not be able to prevent a serious, concerted effort on the part of learned occultists in propagating “Occult Philosophy.” It was suggested, that it would be cruel to destroy at once the cherished beliefs, that have developed in humanity so suddenly. Great care was necessary in guiding the impulse and traps of human flaws that have destroyed past efforts, e.g., of the Theosophical Movement, advising to avoid the mistakes of the past and correct the theology that developed around certain ideas.
In summary, identical mysteries bridge Jewish Kabbalah, ancient Indian, Greek and Egyptian (as intermediary) systems of philosophy4. This challenges scholarly attributions of only medieval origins, urging recognition of a universal sod (secret wisdom) beyond biased attachments to monotheistic theory, when proponents of monotheism claim it to be the truest, original or superior conceptual encapsulation of cosmology and the nature of the ultimate reality in the history of all religious-philosophical thought. This will be important to understand when I get into the cosmology of Theosophy and pre-Socratic philosophy at the root of “Western Civilization” in an attempt to displace the originalist position or claim of the superiority of monotheism.
FOOTNOTES
- In Hindu cosmogony, this is Parabrahman (beyond Brahmā, the “Absolute ALL,” unconditioned or mukta) existing in eternal, periodical “Nights of Brahmā,” where all is absorbed into non-being. This Parabrahman was absorbed in the non-being, imperceptible, without any distinct attribute, thus non-existent for our senses. We are taught, that IT was absorbed in eternal (into itself basically) periodical sleep, for it was one of the ‘Nights of Brahmā’ itself. Parabrahman cannot create in this state, as creation requires limitation or conditioning (baddha). The same query is thought of in relation to AIN. If Parabrahman and Ain cannot “create,” how do these systems of philosophy explain the commencement of the phases from the ∞ to the stages of manifestation, wherein chemical foundations of ecosystems dictate the evolutionary architecture of mobile biological intelligence. ↩︎
- Interpreted as ancient India; or specifically Sopara near modern Mumbai, or possibly the Malabar Coast or regions rich in gold and spices. ↩︎
- The approach I take, which we can term analogeticism and develop upon this term is a great way to introducing the foundations of perennialist perspectives with its roots in the Renaissance and Neo-Platonism (like modern Theosophy) rather than the common view of seeing them as culturally and philosophically contradictory. Comparing Jewish and Hindu esotericism is difficult. I have had this in my drafts since 2019, which began as a detailed description of “Hindu vs. Chaldeo-Jewish Cosmogony,” part of the “Secret Doctrine’s First Proposition Series” from Philaletheians UK (version 13.23, August 2023). It was a Theosophical exposition drawing heavily from Helena P. Blavatsky’s works, particularly Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888). ↩︎
- The Chaldean (Babylonian), Brahmanical, Buddhistic, Egyptian, and Greek elements are seen as derivations or parallels. It emphasizes cyclical evolution from eternal substance rejecting the concept that the universe came from nothing (ex nihilo), aligning the Jewish and Indian traditions with the history of science pre-Scientific Revolution/Industrial era. Ordinarily, a finite view of the mystery of the tetragrammaton is embodied in the notions of Yahweh as a tribal protector god of the Hebrew warrior, sage and tribe; understood to be a veil over deeper pantheistic and monistic conceptions of its nature shared with the Vedic system, or classical Indian philosophy. ↩︎
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