Raja and Rishi

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Confusing Words Series · 5 pages

A page of entries from the Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary, gathering the two word-families that get run together. Raja or rajan is simply king or prince in India. Raja yoga is royal union — more generally the balance of all the faculties, physical, mental, moral and spiritual — described here as a true system for developing psychic, intellectual and spiritual powers and union with one's higher self, which must be attained by self-directed evolution and is the source of all human genius and inspiration; a man increases his receptivity to it by co-operating with nature on its spiritual planes even more than its physical, and by aspiration combined with a fervent love for all beings.

Rajarshi is the compound of the two: kingly or royal sages, kings and princes who follow the path of illumination and initiation, corresponding to the king-hierophants of ancient Egypt — one of three classes of rishis in India along with the devarshis and brahmarshis. The trap the file exists to spring is that rajas, which looks like a plural of raja, is an entirely different word: one of the three gunas, alongside sattva and tamas, the quality of longing, passion and activity that arises from the urge in nature producing change. Related entries follow — rajasa, rajasic, and the rajasas or shining ones, a name for the older Agnishvattas called the Kumaras, the fire-Pitris who endowed mankind with the fire of mind; and the raja-star or king sun, a term coined by the Master K.H.

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