Theosophical Encyclopedia

Korean Buddhism

Buddhism entered the northern Korean peninsula in the 4th century CE (the official date is given as 372, but it was probably earlier) from China and spread south when, with Chinese help, the Silla kingdom conquered the Paekche and Koguryo kingdoms in the 7th century. In 935 the Silla dynasty was overthrown peacefully by Wang Kon who founded the Koryo dynasty and established Buddhism as the state religion, although Confucianism, which also had entered with the Chinese, was the dominant philosophy for running the government. When the Mongols invaded China, an alliance was made between them and the Koryos. The Ming dynasty replaced the Mongols in 1368 CE and Yi Songgye set up the Yi Dynasty in Korea in 1392, establishing the capital at Seoul and making Confucianism the state religion, although Buddhism never died out. In the first half of the 17th century, the Manchus invaded China and made Korea a vassal state. This resulted in Korea closing its border to all non-Chinese influences until 1876 when Japan forced a commercial treaty and Korea became open to both Japanese and Western influences. These various cultural influences – including the Communist rule in the north as a result of the Cairo Conference in 1943 – have made Korea a mixture of atheist, Buddhist, Confucian, and Christian philosophies.

A Gnostic sect sometimes called Nasoreans surviving in southern Iraq and Khuzistan. It is of interest to theosophists because some of the beliefs held by the Mandaeans are not dissimilar to certain Theosophical ideas. Its origins are obscure, but it appears to have emerged in Palestine in the late first or early second century CE and had its roots in primitive Christianity since they claim John the Baptist as a member; on the other hand they brand Jesus a false prophet. The sect is rapidly diminishing in numbers with the spread of education among them and the pressures for change exerted by modern technology. The lay members are called Mandaiia which simply means “Gnostics”; priests are tarmidia or “disciples.” Priests initiated into The Secret Doctrine are called Nazuraiia.

A Jewish sect to whom Jesus belongs. It must be distinguished from the name of the place called Nazareth, but it is probably related to the Nazarite order of the Jews.

In the New Testament, Jesus was frequently referred to as Jesus the Nazarene (or the Nazorian) as in Matt 2:23, and Mark 14:66. The Greek original is Iesous Nazarene. In the New American Bible (with Apocrypha), this is now translated as “Jesus the Nazorian.” This is different from the passages that identify him as someone from Nazareth, such as in Matt 21:11: “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.” The original Greek is Iesous ho apo Nazareth or “Jesus the (one) from Nazareth.” In Acts 24:5 the Nazarene sect is identified as one to which Paul belonged: “For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, an agitator among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes (Nazaraion)”

Agnosticism

A word coined by T. H. Huxley (1825-95) to convey the idea that knowledge, from the Greek gnosis, is impossible in much of the matters embraced by religious doctrines and philosophy. He suggested that on these matters, unless science can offer a valid comment, it is better to remain silent. Agnostics do not necessarily deny all religious claims, but on the other hand may not accept them. They maintain that an open mind is much better than a mind closed to all discussion or disagreement about religious matters.

Time

The period during which an action or condition exists or continues. We normally become conscious of time when there is awareness of change or motion. When there is none, we have no idea how much time has elapsed. When considered as an independent entity apart from movement and phenomena, time has baffled philosophers. The philosopher George Berkeley wrote that “whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of time, abstracted from the succession of ideas in my own mind, . . . I am lost and embrangled in inextricable difficulties. I have no notion of it at all.” Augustine of Hippo similarly states: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to a question, I do not know.”

Eternity

Defined in dictionaries as time without beginning or end, it is sometimes used with a different meaning in some theosophical writings. Helena P. Blavatsky, for instance, writes of “Seventh Eternity” in The Secret Doctrine, probably because no other English term would quite convey her meaning (SD I:28). In her commentary, Blavatsky qualifies the seemingly paradoxical use of the word “Eternity” by saying that such use is sanctified in esoteric philosophy. “The latter divides boundless duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time and a conditioned one (Khandakala)” (SD I:62).

Eternity might be described as an aspect of Ultimate Reality and a different kind of time from that which incarnated beings experience. In the physical world we perceive what is called MAYA, then the time which gives an appearance of duration to our world may be an illusion and eternity is all that has been, is, and will be. Perhaps this is what the SUFI mystic Rumi meant when he wrote, “The Sufi is the son of time present.”

Law of Periodicity

The law that the whole universe undergoes minor and major periodic cycles. The doctrine of constant renewal is central to the Ancient Wisdom philosophy. At the time of the emergence of theosophy in the West through the work of the Theosophical Society the commonly held view of the universe was that of a static expanse of stars and the vast size of the Universe had not been determined. It followed that any view of creation being a “repeat” process was not acceptable by the scientific establishment. It was not until 1912 that full confirmation of the spectrographic red shift of distant stars led to the theory of an expanding universe which in turn resulted in the “Big Bang” theory which is much closer to the theosophical view.