The Seven Great Janyati

Part I

The earliest known European Creation myth tells how the world was shaped by Dea. One of the names used for Her there is Eurynome (wide-rule). In many versions, Her first act after separating the waters from the sky was to create the seven great Planetary Powers. This appears to be a very early patriarchal, or transitional, text; though we must also bear in mind that it would not have been written down for several centuries, and that the patriarchal scribes and redactors would have brought it further into line with contemporary patriarchal thinking.

According to this account, the seven Great Planetary Powers were created in pairs, female and male. From our knowledge of the almost exclusively female nature of earlier iconography and of the normal progress of patriarchy, we can be certain that these Powers were at first all-female, then they gained male subordinates or "consorts", the consorts eventually became their superiors and finally the female forms were discarded altogether. In the Classical tradition, only two of the seven Powers (Venus and the Moon) remain female, while in the Sanskrit tradition, all are made male. Even Venus becomes the male Kama (best known in the West from the Kama Sutra). If the idea of a male Venus seems somewhat preposterous to Western minds, it should be remembered that, before the Patriarchal Revolution, the idea of a male Jupiter would have seemed equally preposterous.

The importance of these seven Powers in all Western thinking before the Modernist Revolution of the 17th century cannot be overemphasised. Even as late as the mid-17th century, Nicholas Culpeper's famous Herbal discusses curative plants largely in terms of their planetary correspondences. A plant ruled by Mercurius, for example, will be good for the mind. This was a vital part of the "scientific" way of looking at all subjects before the advent of a dogmatically empirical and materialistic science. Those familiar with earlier literature will be aware that it abounds in direct and indirect references to the planetary principles — and this despite the fact that the planetary divinities had no place in the Christian theological world-picture.

The mechanistic-materialistic "science" reached its apogee in the 19th century, and, since the early years of the 20th, it has been progressively stripped of its axiomatic basis by discoveries such as those in the field of quantum- and astro-physics, and an increasing understanding that information, and not just matter, forms a vital part of manifestation. Consequently the philosophical underpinnings of the old empiricist materialism have long been discredited, although the modern world continues to live on its assumptions because it has nothing else.The traditional outlook provided an information-based view of the world, and the seven planetary Powers were a cardinal element of this view.

Calendars have changed vastly over the centuries. July and August — to take but one instance — were inserted and named after two early Roman Emperors, while the four following months are to this day named after a numerical place that they no longer hold. September is not the seventh month. The Sanskrit calendar is quite different from ours, as was the Celtic. The last major alteration to the British calendar took place as late as 1752 and the Russian Orthodox Church still adheres to a different one. Yet with all this change, alteration and mergeance, one thing has stayed constant, to our knowledge, for over five thousand years, and almost certainly for far, far longer. That constant is the days of the week, attributed to the seven Powers. The Day of the Moon (Monday) is still an exact multiple of seven days away from the Day of the Moon in 3,000 B.C.

While the four elements (plus the Quintessence) and the three gunas represent the bases of manifestation from the substantial side, the seven Planetary streams or Powers represent the bases of manifestation from the Essential side. They represent the Essential (or if one prefers, informational) content by which all earthly forms are shaped. Everything that is, is fashioned by one or more of these great Essential streams.

Aristasians refer to the Head of each of these streams as a Janya (sometimes Genia) . The term has been translated both as "angel" and as "goddess". Of the two we prefer angel, though each has its merits.

People brought up in the modern West may be inclined to ask "Why should the Heads of these Streams be personified?" Part of the reason for such a question lies in the attachment of the modern mind to the outdated Newtonian-materialist model of the universe, which, while long disproved, remains the only way the modern Western mind has of understanding things. A certain adjustment has to take place in order to understand traditional thinking.

In the first place, let us be clear that the Janyati are not "forces" or "energies" conceived after the model of Newtonian physics (and dearly beloved of New Age movements). They are Intelligences. They are not people like us, it is true. But they are something more than people, not less than people. The greatest force in the universe is less than a person. It cannot think. We are speaking here of Intelligences immeasurably greater than ourselves. They have everything we people have, magnified a thousand times, and they have many qualities we cannot even conceive of. To picture them as something akin to people may not do them justice, but to picture them as something impersonal, like a force of nature, would do them infinitely less justice. They are everything we are and much more.

In the second place, let us remember that we are dealing with an intelligent, not an accidental, universe. The things below mirror the things above. The microcosm reflects the macrocosm. While the Janyati are very different from us, they nonetheless have a common measure with us. Just as we are made in God's image, so are they. Indeed they are far closer to the Dea-nature than we are, and in a sense, we may say that each Janya is Dea, in a certain aspect. That is why the translation "goddess" is in some sense as appropriate as "angel".

Before proceeding to speak of each individual Janya, we supply a table of the seven, each with some of her major associations. The first colour given in each case is according to the system of the spectrum or rainbow. The traditional virtues given are not all moral virtues according to the later Christian usage of the term. These things will be discussed at greater length shortly. We give the days in English and French, because the French names, being closer to the Latin, often make the association clearer. The days, planets and metals are quite unequivocal and of fundamental importance. They should be learned before proceeding. The seven notes of the musical scale — and the corresponding Ancient and Mediaeval modes — are also associated with the Janyati. We also include the ancient Greek names of the feminine planetary Powers.

Continue to Part Two