Gautama (Sans.) A name in India. It is that of the Prince of Kapilavastu, son of Sudhodana, the Sâkya King of a small territory on the borders of Nepal, born in the seventh century bc, now called the "Savior of the world." Gautama or Gotama was the sacerdotal name of the Sâkya family. Born a simple mortal, he rose to Buddhaship through his own personal and unaided merit; a man-verily greater than any God!

Gebirol Salomon Ben Jehudah, called in literature Avicebron. An Israelite by birth, a philosopher, poet, and Cabalist; a voluminous writer and a mystic. He was born in the eleventh century at Malaga (1021), educated at Saragossa, and died at Valencia in 1070, murdered by a Mohammedan. His fellow-religionists called him Salomon, the Sephardi, or the Spaniard, and the Arabs, Abu Ayyub Suleiman-ben ya'hya Ibn Dgebirol, whilst the Scholastics named him Avicebron (see Myers' Quabbalah). Ibn Gebirol was certainly one of the greatest philosophers and scholars of his age. He wrote much in Arabic, and most of his manuscript have been preserved. His greatest work appears to be The Megôr Hayyim, i.e., The Fountain of Life, "one of the earliest exposures of the secrets of the Speculative Cabala," as his biographer informs us.

Gnosis (Gr.) Lit. "knowledge." The technical term used by the schools of religious philosophy, both before and during the first centuries of so-called Christianity, to denote the object of their enquiry. This spiritual and sacred knowledge, the Gupta-Vidya of the Hindus, could only be obtained by Initiation into Spiritual Mysteries of which the ceremonial "Mysteries" were a type.

Gnostics (Gr.) The philosophers who formulated and taught the "Gnosis" or knowledge. They flourished in the first three centuries of the Christian Era. The following were eminent: Valentinus, Basilides, Marcion, Simon Magus, etc.

Golden Age The ancients divided the life cycle into the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages. The Golden was an age of primeval purity, simplicity, and general happiness.

Great Age There were several "Great Ages" mentioned by the ancients. In India it embraced the whole Maha-Manvantara the "Age of Brahmâ ," each "Day" of which represents the Life Cycle of a chain, i.e., it embraces a period of Seven Rounds. Thus while a "Day" and a "Night" represent, as Manvantara and Pralaya, 8,640,000,000 years, an "age" lasts through a period of 311,040,000,000,000; after which the Pralaya or dissolution of the universe becomes universal. With the Egyptian and Greeks the "Great Age" referred only to the Tropical, or Sidereal year, the duration of which is 25,868 solar years. Of the complete age-that of the Gods-they said nothing, as it was a matter to be discussed and divulged only at the Mysteries, and during the Initiation Ceremonies. The "Great Age" of the Chaldeans was the same in figures as that of the Hindus.

Guhya-Vidya (Sans.) The secret knowledge of mystic-mantras.

Gupta-Vidya (Sans.) The same as Guhya-Vidya. Esoteric or secret science, knowledge.

Gyges "The ring of Gyges" has become a familiar metaphor in European literature. Gyges was a Lydian, who, after murdering the King Candaules, married his widow. Plato tells us that Gyges descending once into a chasm of the earth, discovered a brazen horse, within whose opened side was the skeleton of a man of gigantic stature, who had a brazen ring on his finger. This ring when placed on his own finger made him invisible.