The Secret Doctrine 1.2.5

The Seven were not yet born from the Web of Light. Darkness alone was Father‐Mother, Svabhâvat; and Svabhâvat was in Darkness.

The Secret Doctrine, in the Stanzas here given, occupies itself chiefly, if not entirely, with our Solar System, and especially with our Planetary Chain. The “Seven Sons,” therefore, are the creators of the latter. This teaching will be explained more fully hereafter.

Svabhâvat, the “Plastic Essence” that fills the Universe, is the root of all things. Svabhâvat is, so to say, the Buddhistic concrete aspect of the abstraction called in Hindû philosophy Mûlaprakriti. It is the body of the Soul, and that which Ether would be to Âkâsha, the latter being the informing principle of the former. Chinese mystics have made of it the synonym of “Being.” In the Chinese translation of the Ekashloka‐Shâstra of Nâgârjuna (the Lung‐shu of China), called the Yih‐shu‐lu‐kia‐lun, it is said that the term “Being,” or “Subhâva,” (Yeu in Chinese) means “the Substance giving substance to itself”; it is also explained by him as meaning “without action and with action,” “the nature which has no nature of its own.” Subhâva, from which Svabhâvat, is composed of two words: su fair, handsome, good; sva, self, and bhâva, being or states of being.