Forgotten Ages Research

Did the Ancient Egyptian Temples Correspond with the Hindu Seven Chakras?

Report Topics:

• The distribution of the Temples along the Nile and all their ancient deities and symbolism, find curious parallels with the Hindu belief structure surrounding the Seven Chakras and their corresponding deities and symbols.

Full Report:

The system of Temples which emerged along the Nile from the prehistoric past was by no means a fixed structure but was as a living organism, growing and changing, as an integrated body grows and changes in response to its needs and influences.

The Temple system began at Aswan, where the ancient Egyptians believed the flow of the sacred Nile originated, then progressed northward, downstream, taking in the sacred sites in succession for a six hundred mile length into the Delta of Lower Egypt, ending at ancient Ani or Heliopolis.

Along this Initiation pathway the Temples were separated into a variety of groupings, depending on the various processes involved and level of spiritual evolution.

Without a doubt the most important division corresponded to the major energy centers of the human body. The Egyptians regarded the Nile river as a great spinal column, and certain major cites or groups of sites were designed to represent what the Hindus called the Chakras. As the Hindu yogi through self-discipline explored, understood and eventually mastered the energies unique to each Chakra level of awareness, so the Egyptian Initiates followed a similar path, only one externalized for them, symbolized in the interactions of the deities, the glyphs, the wall engravings and the designs and functions of the Temples themselves. Though the Egyptians developed their own elaborations on the Chakra system, it is apparent that they borrowed many of their basic essentials from the same prehistoric source from which the Hindus derived their teachings.

According to the Satcakra-Nirupana and other Hindu works, there are seven major Chakra centers as well as several minor centers, placed along an etheric cord adjunct to the physical spine, up which can rise a powerful transformational energy called the Kundalini. The seven Chakras are centered in the base of the spine, the sexual organs, the solar plexus, the heart, the throat, in the forehead, and at the top of the head.

In the Hindu system, the main cord is called the Susumna, is blue-colored, and is also identified as the “rod of Brahma,” which finds an interesting parallel in the Egyptian Djed column, the “backbone of Osiris,” often portrayed as deep blue.

About this Susumna are entwined two minor lines or Nadis, the crimson Ida or feminine aspect, and the yellow Pingala, the masculine aspect.

A perfect representation of these can be seen in the Caduceus staff of the Greek Hermes and Asclepius, deities of healing and medicine, which also now in modern times is the symbol of the American Medical Association. It is composed of a central staff with two serpents entwined about it. The ball at the top of the staff symbolizes the opened and expanded pineal gland, or seat of the Sixth Chakra, and the wings outstretched from it are the auric flames which emanate from this center when the Kundalini reaches it and energizes it.

The staff, ball and wings of the Caduceus also have their counterpart in the sign of the Egyptian Ankh, the scepter of life.

In the New World, the Hopis also recognize the existence of seven energy centers in the body, grouped along what they call the “air-tube” around which is wrapped the “two-fold air-tube” up all of which could arise the inner “lightning” of inspiration and power. One can also see the Chakras and three lines of energy portrayed in ancient Maya and Zapotec art, with literary references made in the Maya sacred book, the Popul Vuh.

In ancient Egypt the Nile river symbolized the central Susumna, while running parallel to the river on either side were two lines of oases and water channels called wadis. Many of these no longer exist but in earlier times the ancient oases were interconnected with the Nile valley by a series of underground streams which extended the belt of fertility much farther out into what is now desert.

The major Nile Sacred Sanctuaries representing the body’s energy centers as a reflection of the Seven Chakra generally followed these divisions:

*Aswan, Elephantine and Philae designated the First or Base Chakra.

*Kom Ombo, Edfu and Esna Temples constituted the Second or Sexual Chakra.

*Karnak, Luxor and the West Bank Temples and tombs of Thebes symbolized the Third or Solar Plexus Chakra; Dendera.

*Abydos, Hermopolis and Amarna were all included in the Fourth or Heart Chakra Initiations.

*Memphis and Saqqara represented the Fifth or Throat Chakra.

*Giza was the center for the Sixth or Third Eye Chakra.

*Heliopolis, now part of modern northern Cairo, held the Initiations for the Seventh or Crown Chakra.

In addition, like their Hindu yogi counterparts in India, the Egyptian Teachers recognized the existence of several minor Chakras located below the Base Chakra in the body that corresponded to the now drowned Temples of Nubia, including Abu Simbel. More minor Chakras, what the Hindus identified as the Five Footstools of Shiva, exist in and around the head and support the energy functions of the Sixth and Seventh Chakras. These the Egyptians represented as the Temples of the Nile Delta.

In the Egyptian Initiation process the Initiates, after fulfilling their Seventh level lessons at Heliopolis, swung through the Delta Sanctuaries in a large loop, then returned to Giza to complete their Final Initiations through the interiors of the Sphinx, the Hall of Records and the Three Pyramids.

The south-to-north line of Temples from Aswan to Heliopolis, followed by the loop through the Delta Sanctuaries, ending with the Final processing in the east-west cross-line of the Three Giza Pyramids, all together configured a giant ANKH or Key of Life upon the Egyptian Sacred Landscape.

In order to teach the various subtle aspects of the body’s etheric energy system, the Hindus ascribed to each Chakra a mandala containing shapes, symbols, gods and goddesses, and animal forms to each. The yogis were required to meditate on these, until they understood the characteristics behind the symbols and forms, and knew how to overcome their forces in their own selves.

In the same manner, each of the major Temples along the Nile contained their own design features, symbols, and gods and goddesses, many of the latter having animal heads and other attributes representing certain aspects of their inner nature. It was only in later times—particularly in the late New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic-Roman periods—that the Egyptian deities were considered objects of worship. Originally their purpose was to reflect the process of Transformation which the Initiates went through.

In the Hindu mandala for the First Chakra, situated at the base of the spine, there is contained the whirlpool of Kasi. According to most ancient Egyptian traditions the sacred waters of the Nile began as a whirlpool issuing out of two caverns from Elephantine Island, near Aswan, seat of the Temple of Khnum, deity of the river, and Master of the first level of the Egyptian Initiation process.

The Hindu animal symbol for the First Chakra is Airvata the King of Elephants, sometimes also portrayed as Ganesha the elephant-headed god. The Temple of Khnum is located on Elephantine Island, and the hieroglyph symbol for the city of Aswan was an elephant.

The First Chakra also contains Lam, the Bija of Fire, and the entire mandala is in the shape of four petals or spokes. Four spokes in a circle is the universal symbol for the earth. Just south of Elephantine and Aswan, on the Island of Philae, is another Temple which played an important role in the Egyptian First level of Initiation, dedicated to the Earth Mothers Isis and Hathor. In the Hindu First Chakra Isis is identified as Devi Dakini, the “Queen of Chakras,” and is the “carrier of the relations of every pure Intelligence.” Isis of Philae was the center of the Isaic Mysteries, the revelation of Inner Knowledge beneath her Veil of Light.

It was at Philae also that Isis’ son, Horus, was born, symbolizing the birth of the Higher Consciousness within the Initiate. In the Satcakra-Nirupana, Devi Dakini is called “the Child Creator, of the young Sun,” who is the “Creation itself, and Consciousness itself.” Isis likewise sports a headdress in which the image of the Sun is born between two horns, shaped as a womb or vulva.

At Philae too was the development of that aspect of the soul which the ancient Egyptians called the Sekhem or the foundation of consciousness.

The First Chakra also contains the first Granthis, or knot, the untying of which was important for the yogi to accomplish before proceeding on. At Philae, prominently depicted among the wall symbols, is the Thet, the Knot of Isis, the solution of which led the Egyptian Initiate into the next step of Learning.

Several Hindu works allude to there being three, possibly as many as five, minor Chakras below the first Chakra, which were known to the yogi masters of southern India, and were utilized to explore deeper physical aspects as well as to awaken powerful energies and visions of self-realization.

South of Aswan, above the First Cataract on the Nile, are a series of five Temples culminating at Abu Simbel where the Egyptian Initiates, through a Wilderness Experience, received the Vision of his or her Inner Purpose.

The Second Chakra is sometimes linked with the spleen though more often with the sexual organs, dealing with controlling the sex drive. The Hindu animal symbol for the Second Chakra is Makara, the crocodile-headed creature. Traveling northward from Aswan down the Nile, we arrive at the Temple of Kom Ombo where we meet crocodile-headed Sobek, the god who represents the Basic Nature within us.

The mandala for the Chakra is shaped like a crescent moon, and at Kom Ombo also appears Khonsu, the male moon god symbolizing the subconscious mind, who in the Temple is portrayed as a companion of Sobek and wears a crescent moon on his head.

The chief Hindu deity for the Second Chakra is Vishnu, god of procreation, seated upon the eagle Garuda. At Kom Ombo, and particularly at Edfu just to the north—both Temples involved in the Second level of Egyptian Initiation processes—the falcon god Horus, representing the Higher Self, resides and rules.

Edfu was also the center where the goddess Hathor, the wife of Horus, and representing the Active Feminine Principle, would join in perfect sexual union with her husband, in a festival which took place on the new moon. She was portrayed holding a papyrus scepter, sometimes a spear or trident, which were likewise the devices of Syama-varna, the Hindu goddess of the Second Chakra.

Northward beyond Kom Ombo and Edfu we arrive at Thebes, site of Karnak Temple and its ram-headed god Amun, as well as the Third level of Initiation. The Hindu animal symbol for the Third Chakra is also a ram. The mandala for the Chakra is predominantly blue—and the god Amun was most often portrayed as blue-skinned.

This is the Chakra of the energy of the powerful solar plexus, the mandala of which contains the “region of fire” and the Bija of Fire, mirrored in the fire rituals of Karnak and nearby Luxor Temple. These were part of the transference of energy from the first Temple to the latter whereby the god Amun—the personification of energy, wind and strength—became Amun-Min, the god of fertilization. His consort, the goddess Mut, bears a striking resemblance in her characteristics to Sakti Lakini, the goddess of the Third Chakra mandala.

The Fourth level of Egyptian Initiation was centered primarily at Hermopolis, which means the “city of Hermes.” Hermes was the Greek variation of the Egyptian god Thoth or Djehutis, one of whose functions was the Weighing of the Heart in the Judgment of the Soul. The Hindus believe that the yogi who masters the Fourth of Heart Chakra energies is thereafter instinctively aware of sorrow and pain in others. The ancient Egyptians saw this sensitivity arising out of a self-evaluation process whereby the Initiate could be compassionate toward the pain of others, because they had first overcome their own tests of pain within their own being.

The Hindu god of the Fourth Chakra is Siva, who wears the crescent moon and Bindu on his head, as Thoth wears the sun and moon as his symbolic headdress, as the deity of time.

The Hindu Fourth Chakra mandala also contains the Kalpa Tree, called the “celestial wishing tree,” the Kalpa being a measure of a duration in a day in the life of Brahma, equivalent in our time count to more than four billion years. In Egyptian art, Thoth was many times portrayed as marking off in notches the soul-reign of the Pharaoh on the leaf of the sacred Persea or Tree of Life, each notch indicating a hundred thousand years, all the notches totaling “millions and millions of years.”

The major symbol of the Fourth Chakra mandala is “a steady flame of a lamp.” In the main Temple of Thoth at Hermopolis, a sacred flame, representing the Light of Wisdom, was kept burning constantly day and night for centuries.

Still another mandala symbol is the goddess Shakti Kakini who holds a rope-noose in her hands. This rope-noose is equivalent to the Egyptian Ankh, not only the scepter representing eternal life and live, but also the symbol for the Egyptian Fourth level of Initiation. The rope also symbolizes that the Fourth Chakra contains the second Granthis or knot to be untied. For the Egyptian Initiate, a major challenge in the Fourth Initiation process was to untie the knots that bound the doors of their heart, leading to the Judgment of their Life in the inner Hall of Truth.

The animal symbol for the Fourth Chakra is the black antelope, to the Egyptians one of the animals sacred to Set, the nondescript god of chaos and confusion, who represented the inner antagonistic nature to order, overcome in the Fourth level Initiate.

There are some Hindu sources that claim just below the Heart Chakra is a minor Chakra center which acts as a supplementary energy source for the Heart, and is considered to be the Karmic Center for the Soul. It is most significant that Pharaoh Akhnaten, the revolutionary ruler who attempted to bring peace and love energies into the Egyptian mainstream as a counterbalance to the over abundance of Third level energies generated at Karnak by the priests of Amun, built his capital at Tel el Amarna located just a few miles south and across the river from Hermopolis, the Egyptian Heart center on the Nile.

Farther down the river northward is the Saqqara complex, center of the Fifth level of Initiation. The Hindu mandala for the Fifth or Throat Chakra is distinguished by a white circle or ring. Saqqara was circumscribed by a beautiful high wall of brilliant white limestone which could be seen for miles. The mandala is called the “Place of the Bull,” the Vahana carrier of Shiva. In the Heb Sed courtyards of Saqqara the Pharaoh performed the “Running of the Bull” ceremony in order to periodically test his worthiness to be ruler. And at the Serapeum, situated on the north side of Saqqara, the burial chambers of the sacred Apis bulls can still be seen today.

Rising above the Saqqara complex is the six-tiered silver-white Pyramid of Pharaoh Zoser. Sada-Siva’s body in the Fifth Chakra is depicted as half of silver and half of gold, reflected in the Heb Sed festival at Saqqara wherein the Pharaoh in his victory over his rulership tests received the Red and White Crowns of Lower and Upper Egypt.

The animal symbol for the Fifth Chakra is a white elephant, which is directly related to Airvata, the elephant symbol of the First Chakra. In the Egyptian system of Initiation there were two major deities of creation—Khnum who shaped humanity on the potter’s wheel, and Ptah who shaped the world on the potter’s wheel. Significantly they are the gods and Masters of Initiation at Elephantine and Saqqara respectively—the First and Fifth levels.

Saqqara, too, was designed as a healing Temple where priests and Initiates of the god Ptah—called the “Tongue of Ra”—learned to produce sound at absolute pitch, and direct that sound for the healing of the physical, mental and spiritual bodies. The Fifth Chakra is of course the Throat Chakra, the source of producing sound. Devotees of the Fifth mandala were said to be able to overcome disease and attain long life through breathing and chanting.

The Sixth level of Egyptian Initiation brings us to Giza, site of the Pyramids, the Sphinx and the Center of Hidden Wisdom, the subterranean Hall of Records. The Hindu mandala for the Sixth Chakra, or Third Eye in the center of brow, contains the Sun and Moon, mirrored in the two aspects of the Sphinx as the god of the Sun above ground and the mystic Moon below.

The goddess of the Sixth mandala is Sakti Hakini who reflects the original female aspect of the Sphinx as Virgo. The mandala goddess holds a Book of Knowledge in her hand, and her devotees are said to become “all-knowing, all-seeing, well-versed in all the Shastras” or sciences, acquiring the “knowledge of unknown powers.” This is a perfect mirror for the Egyptian Seshat, the goddess of books as well as of all sciences and learning. She was the feminine equivalent of Thoth, whose own Books of Wisdom are said to be still hidden beneath the paws of the Sphinx and inside the Giza Pyramids.

The Hindu devotee of the Sixth Chakra was likewise said to “see the Light, which is in the form of a flaming lamp. It is lustrous like the clearly shining morning sun, glowing between Heaven and Earth.” The god of the Sphinx is Ra-Harakhty, the deity of the dawning Sun, into which the countenance of the monument gazes each morning. The symbol for the Sixth level of Initiation was the Shen, representing the circle of the sun touching the horizon. The Shen circle is tied to its base stem by a rope, and the Sixth Chakra contains the third Granthis or knot to be overcome by the yogi. By loosening the bonds between the physical horizon and the rising Sun of Godhood, the Egyptian Initiate attained the Wisdom of the first step leading to Transcendence.

Giza was not only the place of the Sixth level, it was also where the Initiate returned for the Final Initiation process, the Transcendence itself. Reflecting this, the Satcakra-Nirupana states that by the Sixth Chakra, “the Yogi enters that Supreme, Eternal, Birthless, Primeval Deva, the Purusa,” and from there journeys to the “Cosmic Ajna of Universal Consciousness,” described as a great space filled with “ten million suns.” In the Final Egyptian Initiation, in the Great Pyramid, the Initiate Transcended into the stars to become a Star Being, eventually entering through the Gateway of the Celestial Pole.

The Seventh or Crown Chakra is said to be the color of the Sun, and just north and east of Giza was Heliopolis, center of the Sun god Ra and the Seventh level of Initiation.

The god of the Hindu Seventh Chakra mandala is Parama-Siva who is depicted as, “He is the Sun which destroys the darkness of nescience and delusion.” The Egyptian god of the setting sun, Atum-Ra, nightly traveled the Duat or Underworld, defeating the serpent god Apopis and the forces of darkness before emerging victorious as Ra-Harakhty each morning.

The fully manifested Crown Chakra according to yogi masters is a Lotus Flower composed of 972 petals, with 960 covering the top hemisphere of the head and the remaining 12 forming a ball or knot at the apex of the head. The Egyptian god Ra in many of his aspects was pictured with a great sun disk touching the top of the head, a symbol for contact with the God Self, as well as representing the manifestation of the auric halo seen above and around the head of highly evolved Masters.

Within the Seventh mandala also is located the Great Triangle. And one of the major objects venerated at Heliopolis was the Benben, the triangular Capstone of the Great Pyramid, the symbol of Completion.

The Seventh Chakra, too, is called the Abode of Liberation, the “celestial gateway,” by which the devotee need not return, “born again into the Wandering, not bound by the three worlds” of the physical, mental and spiritual bodies. At Heliopolis, as a preparation for Transcendence, the Egyptian Initiate symbolically entered the solar boat of Ra to journey skyward, beyond the cycle of birth and death.

The Seventh Chakra is likewise designated as the “Opening to the Stars,” and true to form the Seventh center at Heliopolis was known for its astronomical observations and its Sanctuaries dedicated to the Cosmic Mother Iusaset, the wife of Atum-Ra.

Located between the Sixth and Seventh Chakras several Hindu adepts have reported are a number of minor satellite Chakras which aid in the highest energizing process. The Paduka-Pancaka identifies these as the “Fivefold Footstool.” In the Egyptian system, these correspond to the major Temples in the Nile Delta, which the Initiate went through after Giza and before Heliopolis.

According to various Hindu works on the subject, the five minor Chakra centers are mirrored in the Five Faces of Shiva, god of Death and Transformation. There is supposed to be a Sixth, hidden Face which is turned downward, looking below the ground into the earth, and none but the Master Yogis have ever been allowed to gaze upon it. This is an echo of the buried Egyptian Mystery of Mysteries, the hidden and subterranean aspect of the Final Initiation process situated far below the staring face of the Sphinx, in the Hall of Records.

The goal of the Hindu yogi was to gain an understanding and mastery over the energies of each of the Chakra centers as a preparation for the release of the Kundalini fire, which rests in silence at the base of the spine. Once it is activated, it rises through the etheric cord, cleansing and energizing each Chakra, until it rises through the Crown Chakra and makes contact with the higher Brahma principle, in the spiritual dimension of “Eternal and Transcendental Bliss.” Then the Kundalini returns, bringing with it the “Stream of Celestial Nectar,” the essence of the God-Spirit of Wisdom. It then descends the Chakras back to its base spine resting place, transforming the energy centers into wheels of light, and changing the very atomic structure of the body. In this state, the yogi is prepared to leave the physical dimension of this Universe, never to return, and instead journey as pure Spirit to Higher Realms of Godhood and Being.

Sometimes the conquest of the Chakras and the rise of the Kundalini took only a lifetime to accomplish. In other cases, however, it took many lifetimes, the devotee having to retrace the process in each new physical existence, but always eventually focusing on that Chakra which needed the most work. Once the Final Goal was attained, existence in a physical body was no longer necessary. The state of Nirvana, absolute Peace, was attained, and the Spirit left the body shell far behind.

In the Egyptian Temple system, the Initiate’s journey down the Nile also often took more than one lifetime, each life the Initiate returning to enter that Temple which corresponded to his or her level of soul development.

Completing the Final Initiation, in many cases the Initiate-turned- Master did not immediately Transcend, but chose to remain behind as a Teacher, retracing his or her steps back up the Nile through the Temples of Initiation, to bring Light and Higher Wisdom, and to act as a Guide for those new Initiates beginning the Path and the Ultimate Quest.

As a last point, we may ask the questions, did the Egyptians borrow their symbology from India, or did the Hindus get their Chakra system from the Egyptians? The true answer is no to both.

The similarity and diversity of elements found in each system points instead to the Egyptians and Hindus deriving their symbology from a third source far older than either of them. That source was the prehistoric civilization of Lemuria-Mw, which in its earliest aspects dated back a million years into the forgotten past.

[Copyright 2009. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved.]