Blavatsky Answers Subba Row on the Principles in Man

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Tallapragada Subba Row · Constitution of Man Series · 46 pages

The longest file in this batch and one of the more important disagreements in theosophical literature, printed so that both sides can be read in full. The first half is Subba Row's article on the sevenfold principle in man, setting out the Aryan-Arhat esoteric tenets and then each of the seven principles in turn. The second half is Blavatsky's response, given as a run of numbered notes keyed to his argument.

The disagreement is about classification rather than doctrine — how the principles should be divided and numbered, and whether the sevenfold scheme as commonly presented is the right one — and it matters because the numbering used in one place contradicts the numbering used in another, a problem the companion Drawing in this section also addresses. The epigraph gives the geometrical form of the argument she is defending: that the circle produces the point, the point expands into a triangle, returning after two angles upon itself, and then forms the mystical Tetractys, the plane cube; and that these three, passing into the manifested world of effects, become geometrically and numerically 3 + 4 = 7. Subba Row's own treatment is also issued separately in this section as Subba Row on the Sevenfold Principle in Man.

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