The five
Each tattva is a state of matter and of sense with its own form and colour: the black egg, the blue circle, the red triangle, the silver crescent and the yellow square. Select a figure.
About the five
The tattvas are the five modifications of the one breath, and each brings forth one of the senses: Akasa sound, Vayu touch, Tejas sight, Apas taste, Prithivi smell. The Science of Breath gives each a form and a colour. Prithivi is quadrangular and yellow, Apas semi-lunar and white, Tejas triangular and red, Vayu spherical and sky-blue, and Akasha is "spotted", holding every colour. The Western tradition kept the forms, fixed the colours as the figures are drawn here, black, blue, red, silver and yellow, and set the five on the points of the pentagram with the five elements: Akasa is Spirit, Vayu Air, Tejas Fire, Apas Water and Prithivi Earth.
The figures are drawn in those literal colours rather than in the element palette of the rest of the archive, because the colours are the point. Gazed on until the complementary colour appears, each figure is a door for vision, and the same five are set before the eye as objects of concentration in the exercise of Dharana.
The senses do not agree between the Indian text and the Western table of correspondences. The first gives Vayu touch and Prithivi smell; the second gives Air smell, Water taste, Fire sight, Earth touch and Spirit hearing. The board shows both and corrects neither.
The twenty-five
Every tattva holds the other four within it, drawn as a small figure inside the larger. The row is the ground, the column the tattva within it.
About the compounds
The division into five, Panchikarana, is the process by which every ether keeps its own form and takes on the qualities of the other four, so that each tattva has five sub-states. The Science of Breath draws them as one figure superposed on another, the triangle over the sphere for Vayu-Agni, the quadrangle over the sphere for Vayu-Prithivi, the half moon over the sphere for Vayu-Apas, and names only those five layers of the Vayu ground. The grid carries the same rule to the other four grounds, so its middle row is the text's own and the rest is the rule applied.
The Golden Dawn drew the same twenty-five as a small figure of the sub-tattva set within the larger figure of its ground, at about a fifth of its area, and named them the other way about: Tejas of Prithivi for the fiery part of Earth. The egg is the Western figure of Akasa, where the Indian text has only "spotted". The compound figures were used one at a time as doors for vision.
The tides
From sunrise the five tattvas flow in turn, twenty-four minutes each, twelve courses in a day and night. Enter the sunrise, or estimate it from a place, and show the day.
Enter a sunrise time, or a latitude and longitude for an estimate, then show the day.
About the tides
The Science of Breath measures the flow of the breath in gharis of twenty-four minutes. The five tattvas flow a ghari each, in order, so that a full course of the five takes two hours and the day and night hold twelve courses. The count begins at sunrise, the Akasic commencement of the tattvic course in the day.
The order of the four after Akasa differs between the witnesses. The Indian text gives the order of the breath as Vayu, Tejas, Prithivi, Apas, with Akasha flowing between every two; the Golden Dawn's papers give Akasa, Vayu, Tejas, Apas, Prithivi, and the table follows them.
The sunrise estimate is made in the browser from the latitude and longitude for the day, at a horizon of minus 0.833 degrees and in the browser's own time zone. It is an estimate; a sunrise taken from an almanac is better. The table is a calendar of the rule and nothing more.
Sources
Everything on this page rests on four public-domain witnesses, given here in their own words, with the passages the figures and the tides are built from.
Rama Prasad, Nature's Finer Forces (1890)
Prasad's essays first appeared in the ninth and tenth volumes of The Theosophist and were collected with his translation of the Shivagama's "Science of Breath" by the Theosophical Publishing Society in London in 1890. The passages below follow the third edition as reprinted in 1907, in the copy digitised by the Internet Archive; verse numbers are those of his translation.
The Tattvas are the five modifications of the Great Breath. Acting upon Prakriti this Great Breath throws it into five states, having distinctive vibratory motions, and performing different functions. The first outcome of the evolutionary state of Parabrahman is the Akasha Tattva. After this come in order the Vayu, the Tejas, the Apas and the Prithivi. They are variously known as Mahabhutas.
We might call Akasha the sonoriferous ether, the Vayu the tangiferous ether, Apas the gustiferous ether, and Prithivi the odoriferous ether.
Of the five sensations of men, each of these ethers gives birth to one, thus: 1. Akasha, sonoriferous ether, sound. 2. Vayu, tangiferous ether, touch. 3. Tejas, luminiferous ether, colour. 4. Apas, gustiferous ether, taste. 5. Prithivi, odoriferous ether, smell.
Nature's Finer Forces, chapter I, "The Tattvas"
147. In this state the five Tattvas are gradually known as the yellow, the white, the red, the blue, and the spotted without any other distinct Upadhi.
149. Quadrangular, semi-lunar, triangular, spherical, and spotted are respectively the forms of the five Tattvas.
150. Thus the first, Prithivi, flows midway; the second, Apas, flows downwards; the third, Agni flows upwards; the fourth, Vayu, flows at acute angles; the Akasha flows between every two.
151. The Apas Tattva is white; the Prithivi yellow; the Agni red; the Vayu sky-blue; the Akasha foreshadows every colour.
152. First of all flows the Vayu Tattva; secondly, the Tejas; thirdly, the Prithivi; and fourthly, the Apas.
153. Between the two shoulders is located the Agni; in the root of the navel Vayu; in the knees the Apas; in the feet the Prithivi; in the head the Akasha.
154. The Prithivi Tattva is sweet; the Apas astringent; the Tejas pungent; the Vayu acid; the Akasha bitter.
"The Science of Breath", verses 147 to 154
62. The moon and the sun have each the white [northward, upward] and the black [southward, downward] duration of two and a half Gharis. They flow in order during the sixty Gharis of a day.
63. Then by a Ghari each [twenty-four minutes] the five Tattvas flow.
70. During five Gharis each, the Tattvas have their distinct rise in order, Ghari by Ghari.
71. Thus there are twelve changes during day and night.
"The Science of Breath", verses 62, 63, 70 and 71
157. During the flow of the Prithivi are performed acts which are expected to live long; during the Apas passing acts; during the Tejas harsh acts; during the Vayu killing, etc.
158. Nothing ought to be done during the Akasha except the practice of Yoga; all other acts will remain without their desired effect.
"The Science of Breath", verses 157 and 158
Each of these has five layers: 1, Pure Vayu; 2, Vayu-Agni; 3, Vayu-Prithivi; 4, Vayu-Apas; 5, Vayu-Akasha. … 1. Pure Vayu. This is the complete sphere of the Vayu. 2. Vayu-Agni. The triangle is superposed over the sphere. … 3. Vayu-Prithivi. This is the result of the superposition of the quadrangular Prithivi over the spherical Vayu. 4. Vayu-Apas. Something like an ellipse, the semi-moon placed above the sphere. 5. Vayu-Akasha. The sphere flattened by the superposition of the circle and dotted.
Nature's Finer Forces, chapter IV, "Prana", on the layers of the skin
Liber 777 (1909), column LXXV
The table of correspondences sets the five tattvas against the five elements and the points of the pentagram, on the paths of the five mother and elemental letters. The same table is reprinted as the appendix of Magick in Theory and Practice (1929).
| Key | Letter | Element | LXXV · The five elements (Tatwas) | LXX · Point of the pentagram | LXXVI · Skandha |
|---|
Two things in the table deserve notice. The spelling "Aupas" is the print's; Prasad writes Apas. And the senses that 777 gives the elements in a neighbouring column (Air smell, Water taste, Fire sight, Earth touch, Spirit hearing) do not agree with Prasad's, where Vayu is touch and Prithivi smell; the two schemes are recorded here side by side and not reconciled.
Liber E vel Exercitiorum (1909), Dharana
Constrain the mind to concentrate itself upon a single simple object imagined. The five tatwas are useful for this purpose; they are: a black oval; a blue disk; a silver crescent; a yellow square; a red triangle. Proceed to combinations of simple objects; e.g. a black oval within a yellow square, and so on.
Liber E, section V, "Dharana, Control of Thought"
The Sacred Magic of Abramelin, Mathers' notes (1898)
Also if working by the Indian Tatwas, we shall find it necessary to consider the position of the Moon, the time in the day, and the course of the Tatwa in the period of five Gharis.
The student of the Indian Tatwas will know the value of active meditation at Sunrise because that moment is the Akâsic commencement of the Tatwic course in the day, and of the power of the Swara.
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, translator's notes to Book II
Later papers, described
The Golden Dawn's own teaching on the tattvas, the knowledge lecture that lists the five figures and their tides and the Flying Rolls on tattva vision, was written in the 1890s and first printed by Israel Regardie between 1937 and 1940 and by Francis King in 1971. Those printings are not in the public domain and are not reproduced here. What can be said from them is this: the Order took the five names, forms and colours in the shape Liber 777 later tabulated, the black egg for Akasa; it set the course of the tides from sunrise in the order Akasa, Vayu, Tejas, Apas, Prithivi at twenty-four minutes each; it drew the compounds as a small figure of one tattva within the large figure of another and named them "Tejas of Prithivi" and the like; and it used the figures, gazed on until the complementary colour appeared, as doors for skrying. Regardie's edition is the place to read that teaching in full.
Prasad's text is quoted from the Internet Archive's digitisation of the third edition (Theosophical Publishing Society, London, reprinted 1907), whose optical transcription has been corrected only where it broke a word; the page images remain the authority for any doubtful reading. Liber 777, Liber E and the Abramelin notes are quoted from the archive's own editions. Regardie's The Golden Dawn (1937 to 1940) and King's Astral Projection, Ritual Magic and Alchemy (1971) are described only. The sunrise estimate uses the site's solar routine, which states its method and limits on the Olympian page; times are local to the browser's time zone.