THE COSMIC TAROT
In the Agama texts of the Vedic tradition, the thirty-nine layers that lead to the realization of the fortieth layer were known as the thirty-nine vibhavas (evolutionary states) of the self.7 By means of these thirty-nine stages of spiritual evolution, the soul is carried across the sea of mortality and delivered to the shore of immortality.
In these texts, the cosmic being who embodies all thirty-nine layers above and below and serves to carry the soul across the sea of mortality is personified as the universal goddess Tara. The Sanskrit word tara means “to carry across.”
We can divide into two sets the 39 + 39 = 78 layers above and below. The first set consists of the 28 + 28 = 56 layers that carry the soul across the lesser mysteries of the universe. These can be experienced by the mortal soul as the twenty-eight heavens and twenty-eight hells. The second set consists of the 11 + 11 = 22 layers that carry the soul across the higher mysteries of the universe. They cannot be seen by any mortal eyes.
These seventy-eight layers correspond directly to seventy-eight symbolic cards used in the ancient system of Tarot, which are organized into two sets: The first fifty-six cards, which represent the lower mysteries, are called the Minor Trumps (Minor Arcana) and the subsequent twenty-two cards, which represent the higher mysteries, are called the Major Trumps (Major Arcana). Moreover, each set is divided into two subsets. The Minor Trumps consist of twenty-eight red cards and twenty-eight black cards, and the Major Trumps consist of eleven red cards and eleven black cards. In this way, the Tarot deck reflects precisely the organization of the evolutionary layers as embodied by the goddess Tara. It is highly unlikely that this is a mere coincidence. There is good reason to suspect that the Sanskrit word tara is the etymological basis of Tarot.
It turns out that word tara can also be found in the very first verse of the Rig Veda in which the first letter of the word, t, occurs as the thirty-ninth letter of the verse. In the Vedic tradition, the essence of a god or goddess is viewed as inherent in the first letter of their name. In this sense, it can be said that the essence of the goddess Tara is represented by the thirty-ninth letter of the Rig Veda, which corresponds directly to the thirty-ninth layer above the half measure.
Later, we shall see that the letters in the first verse of the Rig Veda provide an alternate model of the ascending sequence of layers that is different from, but similar to, the alphabetical model.