(_b_) The concluding sentence of this shloka shows how archaic is the belief and the doctrine that man is seven‐fold in his constitution. The “Thread” of Being, which animates man, and passes through all his Personalities, or Rebirths on this Earth—an allusion to Sûtrâtmâ—the Thread on which moreover all his “Spirits” are strung, is spun from the essence of the Three‐fold, the Four‐fold and the Five‐fold which contain all the preceding. Panchâshikha, agreeably to _Padma Purâna_,(372) is one of the seven _Kumâras_ who go to Shveta Dvîpa to worship Vishnu. We shall see, further on, what connection there is between the “celibate” and chaste Sons of Brahmâ, who refuse “to multiply,” and terrestrial mortals. Meanwhile, it is evident that the “Man‐Plant, Saptaparna,” thus refers to the seven principles, and that man is compared to this seven‐leaved plant, which is so sacred among Buddhists. The Egyptian allegory, in the _Book of the Dead_, that relates to the “reward of the Soul,” is as suggestive of our septenary doctrine as it is poetical. The Deceased is allotted a piece of land in the field of Aanroo, wherein the Manes, the deified shades of the dead, glean, as the harvest they have sown by their actions in life, the corn seven cubits high, which grows in a territory divided into seven and fourteen portions. This corn is the food on which they will live and prosper, or that will kill them, in Amenti, the realm of which the Aanroo‐ field is a domain. For, as said in the hymn,(373) the Deceased is either destroyed therein, or becomes pure spirit for the Eternity, in consequence of the “seven times seventy‐seven lives” passed, or to be passed, on Earth. The idea of the corn reaped as the “fruit of our actions” is very graphic. 4. IT IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES, THE THREE‐TONGUED FLAME OF THE FOUR WICKS (_a_)... THE WICKS ARE THE SPARKS, THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE‐TONGUED FLAME,(374) SHOT OUT BY THE SEVEN, THEIR FLAME; THE BEAMS AND SPARKS OF ONE MOON, REFLECTED IN THE RUNNING WAVES OF ALL THE RIVERS OF THE EARTH(375) (_b_). (_a_) The “Three‐tongued Flame that never dies” is the immortal spiritual Triad, the Âtmâ, Buddhi and Manas, or rather the fruitage of the last, assimilated by the first two after every terrestrial life. The “Four Wicks,” that go out and are extinguished, are the Quaternary, the four lower principles, including the body. “I am the Three‐wicked Flame and my Wicks are immortal,” says the Defunct. “I enter into the domain of Sekhem [the God whose hand sows the seed of action produced by the disembodied soul], and I enter the region of the Flames who have destroyed their adversaries [_i.e._, got rid of the sin‐ creating Four Wicks].”(376) “The Three‐tongued Flame of the Four Wicks” corresponds to the four Unities and the three Binaries of the Sephirothal tree.