Tattvas
Ether
Gross Elements
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Origin 1887 to 1890
Akasha, the ether or space element, is the subtlest of the five great elements, the empty field in which all the others arise and move. Its sense is hearing and its subtle quality (tanmatra) is sound (shabda); it is the space within the body itself. Formless and all-pervading, akasha is the medium of sound and vibration. It corresponds to openness, potential, and consciousness itself.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1887 to 1890 1Tradition: Rama Prasad, Nature's Finer Forces (1890) Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account1888 to 1900 2Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Origin PeriodIn classical Samkhya "tattva" names any of the twenty-five principles of the system 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna Origin PeriodShaiva and Shakta tantric systems count thirty-six tattvas, extending the Samkhya twenty-five upward with eleven further principles above them 4Tradition: Tantra Origin PeriodThe five recorded here, the pancha-mahabhuta or five gross elements, are five of those twenty-five, and they are the last and densest to unfold 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna Origin PeriodThe same word therefore names three different-sized lists depending on who is speaking 4Tradition: Tantra Place of OriginSourced to the subject's own accountLondon. 2Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Place of OriginThe Indian subcontinent. 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna Attributed Author / CompilerRama Prasad, for the English transmission 1Tradition: Rama Prasad, Nature's Finer Forces (1890) Attributed Author / CompilerThe doctrine itself is anonymous and much older than he is 1Tradition: Rama Prasad, Nature's Finer Forces (1890) Origin of the NameA principle or category of reality, not an element 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna Origin of the NameTattva is Sanskrit for that-ness, from tat, "that" 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna Origin of the NameThe five recorded here are the pancha-mahabhuta, five of Samkhya's twenty-five tattvas and five of Shaiva tantra's thirty-six 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna Origin of the NameUsing "tattva" to mean "element" is a Western shorthand that loses the word's meaning 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna LanguageSanskrit 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceAkasha, space or ether, is the gross element whose proper sense-object is sound, shabda 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna Meaning in the Attesting SourceIn the Samkhya sequence it is the first of the five to unfold and the subtlest 3Tradition: Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 5 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe word akasha was taken into Theosophy for the "akashic records", a modern coinage with no counterpart in the Sanskrit sources, where akasha is the element of space and the medium of sound and nothing more. 6Tradition: Theosophical subtle-body doctrine Learn More
Akasha, the Ether Tattva
Akasha is the ether or space tattva, the subtlest and first of the five gross elements of the Indian scheme, the principle of space, vibration and sound, out of which the other four elements are said to unfold. In the classical analysis ether is associated with the sense of hearing and with the medium in which all things exist and move; in the subtle physiology it is linked to the region of the throat and to sound and the spoken word. As the most rarefied element it is regarded as the closest to the unmanifest, the ground from which air, fire, water and earth successively densify.
Akasha entered Western esoteric vocabulary through Theosophy and through Rama Prasad's Nature's Finer Forces of 1890 and the Golden Dawn, which represented it as a black or indigo egg in the tattva meditations from 1888; the Theosophical notion of the "akashic records" is a further modern extension. The ether tattva itself, as the element of space and sound, belongs to the ancient Indian doctrine.
Sources Classical Samkhya: An Interpretation of Its History and MeaningGerald James Larson with Nature's Finer Forces: The Science of Breath and the Philosophy of the TattvasRama Prasad
Akasha in the Golden Dawn Tattva Cards
In its late nineteenth century synthesis the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn adapted Akasha into a black or deep indigo egg shape, the last and subtlest of five coloured meditation cards that make up a Western practice separate from the tattva's role in Indian philosophy. The egg or oval form, unlike the four geometric shapes assigned to the other tattvas, was chosen to suggest a boundary containing all possible form without itself being one fixed shape, consistent with Akasha's place as the field the other four elements arise within.
Golden Dawn method has the practitioner gaze at the painted shape until an afterimage forms, then hold it with closed eyes as an entry point into meditative states, typically treated as the deepest or most difficult of the five cards to work with; the practice passed into later currents drawing on Golden Dawn material largely unchanged.
This gazing technique is a distinct later invention and should not be mistaken for Akasha's role in its own tradition, where the tattva names the subtlest of the five gross elements, tied to sound and to the space within the body, the ground from which the other four are said to unfold, a metaphysical claim with no original tie to a painted egg used for scrying.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Indigo, Colors In the Golden Dawn's tattva set Akasha, ether, is drawn as an egg or ovoid, printed variously as indigo, violet or black. The uncertainty is in the sources themselves: the ether symbol is the least stable of the five in Western printings.
Belongs to Tradition
Derived From
Akasha (ether/space) condenses from shabda alone among the five tanmatras, the first step of grossening.
Originates in Language
Related To
The tattvas entered English-language occultism through his essays in The Theosophist, collected as Nature's Finer Forces in 1890. He is the transmitter, not the origin. The tattvas are far older than he is and the atlas cites him only for the English route.
The tattva Ether is paired with the Western element Spirit in the tattva work the Golden Dawn took into its curriculum.
Sources
1. The Theosophical Enlightenment
Joscelyn Godwin, State University of New York Press, 1994on Rama PrasadView the Source 2. The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 6th edition
3. Classical Samkhya: An Interpretation of Its History and Meaning
Gerald James Larson, Motilal Banarsidass, 1979the mahabhuta; ether (akasha) and the sense of hearingView the Source 4. The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introduction to Hindu Sakta Tantrism
Douglas Renfrew Brooks, University of Chicago Press, 1990on the tattva scheme in Shakta tantric metaphysics
5. An Introduction to Hinduism
Gavin Flood, Cambridge University Press, 1996on Samkhya categories in living Hindu thoughtView the Source 6. Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age
Olav Hammer, Brill, 2001on Theosophy's use of Sanskrit vocabularyView the Source The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft
Ronald Hutton, Oxford University Press, 1999Rama Prasad (1890) and the tattva symbols in the Golden DawnView the Source The Golden Dawn
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.