Lipika (devanāgarī: लिपिक) is a Sanskrit word that means "scribe". In Hindu thought the lipikas (also referred to as the four Maharājas) are gods that regulate Karma. Mme. Blavatsky defined them as follows:
Lipikas (Sk.). The celestial recorders, the “Scribes”, those who record every word and deed, said or done by man while on this earth. As Occultism teaches, they are the agents of KARMA-the retributive Law. (The Theosophical Glossary (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 190.)
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 103-104.
The Lipi-ka, from the word lipi, “writing,” means literally the “Scribes.” Mystically, these Divine Beings are connected with Karma, the Law of Retribution, for they are the Recorders or Annalists who impress on the (to us) invisible tablets of the Astral Light, “the great picture-gallery of eternity”—a faithful record of every act, and even thought, of man, of all that was, is, or ever will be, in the phenomenal Universe. As said in “Isis,” this divine and unseen canvas is the BOOK OF LIFE
The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 128.
The Lipika . . . are the Spirits of the Universe, whereas the Builders are only our own planetary deities. The former belong to the most occult portion of Cosmogenesis, which cannot be given here. Whether the Adepts (even the highest) know this angelic order in the completeness of its triple degrees, or only the lower one connected with the records of our world, is something which the writer is unprepared to say, and she would incline rather to the latter supposition. Of its highest grade one thing only is taught: the Lipika are connected with Karma—being its direct Recorders
The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 103-104.
As it is the Lipika who project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the universe, upon which the “Builders” reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who stand parallel to the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christians recognise in the Seven “Planetary Spirits” or the “Spirits of the Stars;” for thus it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation—or, as called by Plato, the “Divine Thought.”
The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 129.
The Lipika "make an impassible barrier between the personal EGO and the impersonal SELF. . . . They circumscribe the manifested world of matter within the RING “Pass-Not.”
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 405.
The Lipika proceed from Mahat and are called in the Kabala the four Recording Angels; in India, the four Maharajas, those who record every thought and deed of man; they are called by St. John in the Revelation, the Book of Life. They are directly connected with Karma and what the Christians call the Day of Judgment; in the East it was called the Day after Mahamanvantara, or the “Day-Be-With-Us.”
The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 103.
Stanza IV.6 call the Lipikas "the second seven", that is, the hierarchy that emanates after the primordial seven:
Then the Second Seven, who are the Lipika, produced by the three (Word, Voice, and Spirit)
Collected Writings vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 406.
The Lipika are on the plane corresponding to the highest plane of our chain of globes.
The four Maharajas are the rulers of the cardinal points, and are also connected to karma:
The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 122-123.
These are the “four Maharajahs” or great Kings of the Dhyan-Chohans, the Devas who preside, each over one of the four cardinal points. They are the Regents or Angels who rule over the Cosmical Forces of North, South, East and West, Forces having each a distinct occult property. These BEINGS are also connected with Karma, as the latter needs physical and material agents to carry out her decrees, such as the four kinds of winds, for instance, professedly admitted by Science to have their respective evil and beneficent influences upon the health of Mankind and every living thing.
The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 124.
It is not the “Rector” or “Maharajah” who punishes or rewards, with or without “God’s” permission or order, but man himself—his deeds or Karma, attracting individually and collectively (as in the case of whole nations sometimes), every kind of evil and calamity. We produce CAUSES, and these awaken the corresponding powers in the sidereal world; which powers are magnetically and irresistibly attracted to—and react upon—those who produced these causes; whether such persons are practically the evil-doers, or simply Thinkers who brood mischief.
Although Blavatsky sometimes talks indistinctly of the Lipikas and the four Maharajas, there seems to be a difference between them:
The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 126.
They are the protectors of mankind and also the Agents of Karma on Earth, whereas the Lipika are concerned with Humanity’s hereafter.
см.
http://theosophy.wiki/en/Lipika#cite_note-1