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    "name": "Volume II — Anthropogenesis"
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    "num": 13,
    "slug": "63-the-sons-of-god-and-the-sacred-island-220",
    "title": "THE SONS OF GOD AND THE SACRED ISLAND ... 220",
    "of": 49,
    "words": 3697,
    "text": "## THE SONS OF GOD AND THE SACRED ISLAND ... 220\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 1, Sons of God\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 220 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n**T**HE \"**S**ONS OF **G**OD\"\nAND THE \"**S**ACRED **I**SLAND.\"\n\nThe *legend *given in *Isis *in relation to a portion\nof the globe which science now concedes to have been the cradle\nof humanity -- though it is but one of the *seven *cradles,\nin truth -- ran, condensed, and now explained, as follows: --\n\n\"Tradition says, and the records of the *Great Book *(the\nBook of Dzyan) explain, that long before the days of Ad-am, and\nhis inquisitive wife, He-va, where now are found but salt lakes\nand desolate barren deserts, there was a vast inland sea, which\nextended over Middle Asia, north of the proud Himalayan range,\nand its western prolongation. An island, which for its unparalleled\nbeauty had no rival in the world, was inhabited by the last remnant\nof the race which preceded ours.\"\n\n\"The last *remnant*\"* *meant the \"Sons\nof Will and Yoga,\" who, with a few tribes, survived the great\ncataclysm. For it is the *Third *Race which inhabited the\ngreat Lemurian continent, that preceded the veritable and complete\nhuman races -- the fourth and the fifth. Therefore it was said\nin *Isis *that --\n\n\"This race could live with equal ease in water, air, or fire,\nfor it had an unlimited control over the elements. These were\nthe 'Sons of God'; not those who saw the daughters of men, but\nthe real *Elohim,* though in the oriental *Kabala *they\nhave another name. It was they who imparted Nature's most weird\nsecrets to men, and revealed to them the ineffable, and now *lost\n*'word.' \"\n\nThe \"Island,\" according to belief, exists to the present\nhour; now, as *an oasis *surrounded by the dreadful wildernesses\nof the great Desert, the Gobi -- whose sands \"no foot hath\ncrossed in the memory of man.\"\n\n\"This word, which is no word, has travelled once around the\nglobe, and still lingers as a far-off dying echo in the hearts\nof some privileged men. The hierophants of all the Sacerdotal\nColleges were aware of the existence of this island; but the 'word'\nwas known only to the *Java Aleim *(Maha Chohan in another\ntongue), or chief lord of every college, and was passed to his\nsuccessor only at the moment of death. There were many such colleges,\nand the old classic authors speak of them.\n\n\"There was no communication with the fair island by sea,\nbut subterranean passages, known only to the chiefs, communicated\nwith it in all directions.\"*\n\nTradition asserts, and archaeology accepts the truth of the legend\nthat there is more than one city now flourishing in India, which\nis built on\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* There are archaeologists, who, like Mr. James Fergusson, deny\nthe great antiquity of even one single monument in India. In his\nwork, \"Illustrations of the Rock-Cut Temples of India,\"\nthe author ventures to express the very extraordinary opinion\nthat \"Egypt had ceased to be a nation before the earliest\nof the cave-temples of India was excavated.\" In short, he\ndoes not admit the existence of any cave anterior to the reign\nof Asoka, and seems anxious to prove that most of these rock-cut\ntemples were executed during a period extending from the time\nof that pious Buddhist king until the destruction of the Andhra\ndynasty of Maghada, in the beginning of the fifth century. We\nbelieve such a claim perfectly arbitrary. Further discoveries\nwill show that it is erroneous and unwarranted.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 221 THE CONTINENT OF THE GODS.\n\nseveral other cities, making thus a subterranean city of six or\nseven stories high. Delhi is one of them; Allahabad another --\nexamples of this being found even in Europe; *e.g*., in\nFlorence, which is built on several defunct Etruscan and other\ncities. Why, then, could not Ellora, Elephanta, Karli, and Ajunta\nhave been built on subterranean labyrinths and passages, as claimed?\nOf course we do not allude to the caves which are known to every\nEuropean, whether *de visu *or through hearsay, notwithstanding\ntheir enormous antiquity, though that is so disputed by modern\narchaeology. But it is a fact, known to the Initiated Brahmins\nof India and especially to Yogis, that there is not a cave-temple\nin the country but has its subterranean passages running in every\ndirection, and that those underground caves and endless corridors\nhave in their turn *their *caves and corridors.\n\n\"Who can tell that the lost Atlantis -- which is also mentioned\nin the *Secret Book, *but, again, under another name, pronounced\nin the sacred language -- did not exist yet in those days?\"\n--\n\nwe went on to ask. It *did *exist most assuredly, as it\nwas fast approaching its greatest days of glory and civilization\nwhen the last of the Lemurian continents went down.\n\n\"The great lost continent might have, perhaps, been situated\nsouth of Asia, extending from India to Tasmania?* If the hypothesis\n(now so much doubted, and positively denied by some learned authors,\nwho regard it as a joke of Plato's) is ever verified, then, perhaps,\nwill the scientists believe that the description of the god-inhabited\ncontinent was not altogether a fable.** And they may then perceive\nthat Plato's guarded hints and his attributing the narrative to\nSolon and the Egyptian priests, were but a prudent way of imparting\nthe fact to the world, and, by cleverly combining truth and fiction,\nso disconnecting himself from a story which the obligations imposed\nat initiation forbade him to divulge.\n\n\"To continue the tradition, we have to add that the class\nof hierophants was divided into two distinct categories:*** those\nwho were instructed by the 'Sons of God,' of the island, and who\nwere initiated in the divine doctrine of pure revelation; and\nothers who inhabited the lost Atlantis -- if such must be its\nname -- and who, being of another race, (born *sexually *but\nof *divine *parents), were born with a sight, which embraced\nall living things, and was independent of both distance and material\nobstacle. In short, they were the *Fourth *Race of men mentioned\nin the *Popol-Vuh, *whose sight was unlimited, and who knew\nall things at once.\"\n\nIn other words, they were the Lemuro-Atlanteans, the first who\nhad\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* America when discovered, was called *Atlanta *by some\nnative tribes.\n\n** Since then Donnelly's *Atlantis *has appeared, and soon\nits actual existence will have become a scientific fact.\n\n*** It is so divided to this day, and theosophists and Occultists,\nwho have learned something of the Occult but undeniable power\nof Dugpaship at their own expense, know this but too well.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 222 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\na dynasty of *Spirit*-Kings, not of *Manes, *or\n\"ghosts,\" as some believe (*See *\"*Pneumatologie*\"),\nbut of actual living *Devas *(or demi-gods or *Angels,\n*again) who had assumed bodies to rule over them, and who,\nin their turn, instructed them in arts and sciences. Only, as\nthey were *rupa *or material Spirits, these Dhyanis were\nnot always good. Their King *Thevetata *was one of the\nlatter, and it is under the evil influence of this King-Demon\nthat . . . . the Atlantis-race became a nation of wicked *magicians.*\n\n\"In consequence of this, war was declared, the story of which\nwould be too long to narrate; its substance may be found in the\ndisfigured allegories of the race of Cain, the giants, and that\nof Noah and his righteous family. The conflict came to an end\nby the submersion of the Atlantis, which finds its imitation in\nthe stories of the Babylonian and Mosaic flood. The giants and\nmagicians '. . . and all flesh died . . . and every man.' All\nexcept Xisuthrus and Noah, who are substantially identical with\nthe great Father of the Thhnkithians in the *Popol-Vuh, *or\nthe sacred book of the Guatemaleans, which also tells of his escaping\nin a large boat like the Hindu Noah -- Vaivasvata.\n\n\"If we believe the tradition at all, we have to credit the\nfurther story that, from the intermarrying of the progeny of the\nhierophants of the island and the descendants of the Atlantean\nNoah, sprang up a mixed race of righteous and wicked. On the one\nside the world had its Enochs, Moseses, various Buddhas, its numerous\n'Saviours,' and great hierophants; on the other hand, its '*natural\n*magicians' who, through lack of the restraining power of proper\nspiritual enlightenment, . . . perverted their gifts to evil purposes.\n. . .\"\n\nWe may supplement this by the testimony of some records and traditions.\nIn the \"*Histoire des Vierges: Les Peuples et les Continents\nDisparus,*\"* *the author says: --\n\n\"One of the most ancient legends of India, preserved in the\ntemples by oral and written tradition, relates that several hundred\nthousand years ago there existed in the Pacific Ocean an immense\ncontinent which was destroyed by geological upheaval, and the\nfragments of which must be sought in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra,\nJava, Borneo, and the principal isles of Polynesia.\"\n\n\"The high plateaux of Hindustan and Asia, according to this\nhypothesis, would only have been represented in those distant\nepochs by great islands contiguous to the central continent .\n. . . . According to the Brahmans, this country had attained a\nhigh civilization, and the peninsula of Hindustan, enlarged by\nthe displacement of the waters, at the time of the grand cataclysm,\nhas but continued the chain of the primitive traditions born in\nthis place. These traditions give the name of *Rutas *to\nthe peoples which inhabited this immense equinoctial continent,\nand from their speech *was derived the Sanscrit*. . . . .\nAnd the Indo-Hellenic tradition, preserved by the most intelligent\npopulation which emigrated from the plains of India, equally relates\nthe existence of a continent and a people to which it gives the\nname of Atlantis and Atlantides, and which it locates in the Atlantic\nin the northern portion of the Tropics.\"\n\n\"Apart from this fact, the supposition of an ancient continent\nin those latitudes, the vestiges of which may be found in the\nvolcanic islands and moun-\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 223 THE MAGICIANS OF ATLANTIS.\n\ntainous surface of the Azores, the Canaries and Cape de Verdes,\nis not devoid of geographical probability. The Greeks, who, moreover,\nnever dared to pass beyond the pillars of Hercules, on account\nof their dread of the mysterious ocean, appeared too late in antiquity\nfor the stories preserved by Plato to be anything else than an\necho of the Indian legend. Moreover, when we cast a look on a\nplanisphere, at the sight of the islands and islets strewn from\nthe Malayan Archipelago to Polynesia, from the straits of Sunda\nto Easter Island, it is impossible, upon the hypothesis of continents\npreceding those which we inhabit, not to place there the most\nimportant of all.\n\n\"A religious belief, common to Malacca and Polynesia, that\nis to say, to the two opposite extremes of the Oceanic world,\naffirms 'that all these islands once formed two immense countries,\ninhabited by yellow men and black men, always at war; and that\nthe gods, wearied with their quarrels, having charged Ocean to\npacify them, the latter swallowed up the two continents, and,\nsince, it has been impossible to make him give up his captives.\nAlone, the mountain-peaks and high plateaux escaped the flood,\nby the power of the gods, who perceived too late the mistake they\nhad committed.'\n\n\"Whatever there may be in these traditions, and whatever\nmay have been the place where a civilization more ancient than\nthat of Rome, of Greece, of Egypt, and of India was developed,\nit is certain that this civilization did exist, and it is highly\nimportant to science to recover its traces, however feeble and\nfugitive they may be\" (*pp*. 13-15)*.*\n\nThis last tradition corroborates the one given from the \"Records\nof the Secret Doctrine.\" The war mentioned between the yellow\nand the black men, relates to a struggle between the \"sons\nof God\" and the \"sons of giants,\" or the inhabitants\nand magicians of Atlantis.\n\nThe final conclusion of the author, who personally visited all\nthe islands of Polynesia, and devoted years to the study of the\nreligion, language, and traditions of nearly all the peoples,\nis as follows:\n\n\"As to the Polynesian continent which disappeared at the\ntime of the final geological cataclysms, its existence rests on\nsuch proofs that to be logical we can doubt no longer.\n\n\"The three summits of this continent, the Sandwich Islands,\nNew Zealand, Easter Island, are distant from each other from fifteen\nto eighteen hundred leagues, and the groups of intermediate islands,\nViti, Samoa, Tonga, Foutouna, Ouvea, the Marquesas, Tahiti, Poumoutou,\nthe Gambiers, are themselves distant from these extreme points\nfrom seven or eight hundred to one thousand leagues.\n\n\"All navigators agree in saying that the extreme and the\ncentral groups could never have communicated in view of their\nactual geographical position, and with the insufficient means\nthey had at hand. It is physically impossible to cross such distances\nin a pirogue . . . without a compass, and travel months without\nprovisions.\n\n\"On the other hand, the aborigines of the Sandwich Islands,\nof Viti, of New Zealand, of the central groups, of Samoa, Tahiti,\netc., *had never known each other, had never heard of each other,\n*before the arrival of the Europeans. *And yet each of these\npeople maintained that their island had at one time formed part\nof* *an*\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 224 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n*immense stretch of land which extended towards the West on\nthe side of Asia. *And all, brought together, were found to\nspeak the same language, to have the same usages, the same customs,\nthe same religious belief. And all to the question, 'Where is\nthe cradle of your race?' for sole response, *extended their\nhand toward the setting sun*\"* (Ibid., p. *308).\n\nGeographically, this description clashes slightly with the facts\nin the Secret Records; but it shows the existence of such traditions,\nand this is all one cares for. For, as there is no smoke without\nfire, so a tradition must be based on some approximate truth.\n\nIn its proper place we will show modern Science fully corroborating\nthe above and the traditions of the *Secret Doctrine *with\nregard to the two lost continents. The Easter Island relics are,\nfor instance, the most astounding and eloquent memorials of the\nprimeval giants. They are as grand as they are mysterious; and\none has but to examine the heads of the colossal statues, that\nhave remained unbroken on that island, to recognise in them at\na glance the features of the type and character attributed to\nthe Fourth Race giants. They seem of one cast though different\nin features -- that of a *distinctly sensual type, *such\nas the Atlanteans (the Daityas and \"Atalantians\") are\nrepresented to have in the esoteric Hindu books. Compare these\nwith the faces of some other colossal statues in Central Asia\n-- those near Bamian for instance -- the *portrait-statues,\n*tradition tells us, of Buddhas belonging to *previous\nManvantaras*;* *of those Buddhas and heroes who are\nmentioned in the Buddhist and Hindu works, as men of fabulous\nsize,* the good and holy brothers of their wicked co-uterine brothers\ngenerally, as Ravana, the giant King of Lanka was the brother\nof Kumbhakarna; all descendants of the gods through the Rishis,\nand thus, like \"Titan and his enormous brood,\" all \"heaven's\nfirst born.\" These \"Buddhas,\" though often spoilt\nby the symbolical representation of the great pendent ears, show\na suggestive difference, perceived at a glance, between the expression\nof their faces and that of the Easter Isle statues. They may be\nof one race -- but the former are \"Sons of Gods\"; the\nlatter the brood of mighty sorcerers. All these are re-incarnations,\nhowever, and apart from unavoidable exaggerations in popular fancy\nand tradition, they are *historical characters.** *When\ndid they live? How long ago lived the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* An approach to the statues at Bamian -- also a Buddha 200 feet\nhigh -- is found near a Jain settlement in Southern India, and\nappears to be the only one that remains at present.\n\n** Even Wilson admits that Rama and Ravana were personages founded\non historical facts: --\"The traditions of Southern India\nuniformly ascribing its civilization and the settlement of civilized\nHindus (the Fifth Race) to the conquest of Lanka by Rama\"\n(*Vishnu Purana, *iii., *p.* 318) -- the victory\nof the \"Sons of God\" over the Atlantean sorcerers, says\nthe *true *tradition.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 225 COCK AND BULL HYPOTHESES.\n\ntwo races, the Third and Fourth, and how long after did the various\ntribes of the Fifth begin their strife, the wars between Good\nand Evil? We are assured by the Orientalists that chronology is\nboth hopelessly mixed and absurdly exaggerated in the Puranas\nand other Hindu Scriptures. We feel quite prepared to agree with\nthe accusation. Yet, if Aryan writers did allow their chronological\npendulum to swing too far one way occasionally, beyond the legitimate\nlimit of fact; nevertheless, when the distance of that deviation\nis compared with the distance of the Orientalists' deviation in\nthe opposite direction, moderation will be found on the Brahminical\nside. It is the Pundit who will in the long run be found more\ntruthful and nearer to fact than the Sanskritist. Surely, it is\nnot because the curtailing of the latter -- even when proven to\nhave been resorted to in order to fit a personal hobby -- is regarded\nby Western public opinion as \"a *cautious *acceptance\nof facts,\" whereas the Pundit is brutally treated in print\n*as a liar, *that everyone has to see this in the same\nlight. An impartial observer may judge it otherwise. He may either\nproclaim both unscrupulous historians, or justify both, each on\nhis respective ground, and say: Hindu Aryans wrote for their Initiates,\nwho read truth between the lines, not for the masses. If they\ndid mix up events and confuse Ages *intentionally, *it\nwas not in view of deceiving any one, but to preserve their knowledge\nfrom the prying eye of the foreigner. Otherwise, to him who *can\ncount the generations from the Manus, and the series of incarnations\nspecified in the cases of some heroes,* *the meaning and chronological\norder are very clear in the Puranas. As for the Western Orientalist,\nhe must be excused, on account of his undeniable ignorance of\nthe methods used by archaic Esotericism.\n\nBut such existing prejudices will have to give way and disappear\nvery soon before the light of new discoveries. Already Dr. Weber's\nand Mr. Max Muller's favourite theories -- namely, that writing\nwas not known in India, even in the days of Panini (!); that the\nHindus had all their arts and sciences -- even to the Zodiac and\ntheir architecture (Ferguson) -- from the Macedonian Greeks; these\nand other such cock-and-bull hypotheses, are threatened with ruin.\nIt is the ghost of old Chaldea that comes to the rescue of truth.\nIn his third Hibbert\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Thus we are shown one hero, to give an instance, first born\nas the \"unrighteous but valiant monarch\" (Purusha) of\nthe Daityas, Hiranyakasipu, slain by the Avatar *Nara-Sinha\n*(Man-lion). Then he was born as Ravana, the giant king of\nLanka, and killed by Rama; after which he is reborn as Sisupala,\nthe son of Rajarishi (King Rishi) Damaghosha, when he is again\nkilled by Krishna, the last incarnation of Vishnu. This parallel\nevolution of Vishnu (spirit) with a Daitya, as men, may seem meaningless,\nyet it gives us the key not only to the respective dates of Rama\nand Krishna but even to a certain psychological mystery.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 226 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nlecture (1887) Professor Sayce of Oxford, speaking of newly-discovered\nAssyrian and Babylonian cylinders, referred at length to Ea, the\nGod of Wisdom, now identified with the Oannes, of Berosus, the\nhalf-man, half-fish, who taught the Babylonians culture *and\nthe art of writing. *This Oannes, to whom, thanks only to\nthe Biblical Deluge, an antiquity of hardly 1,500 **B.C**.\nhad been hitherto allowed, is now spoken of in these terms: --\n\n\"His city was Eridu, which stood 6,000 years ago on the shores\nof the Persian Gulf. The name means 'the good city,' a particularly\nholy spot, since it was the centre from which the earliest Chaldean\ncivilization made its way to the north. As the culture-god was\nrepresented as coming from the sea, it was possible that the culture\nof which Eridu was the seat was of foreign importation. *We\nnow know that there was intercourse at a very early period between\nChaldea and the Sinaitic peninsula, as well as with India.*\nThe statues discovered by the French at Tel-loh (dating from at\nlatest **B.C**. 4,000) were made of the extremely hard stone\nknown as diorite, and the inscriptions on them stated the diorite\nto have been brought from Mazan -- *i.e*., the Sinaitic peninsula,\nwhich was then ruled by the Pharaohs. The statues are known to\nresemble in general style the diorite statue, Kephren, the builder\nof the second Pyramid, while, according to Mr. Petrie, the unit\nof measurement marked on the plan of the city, which one of the\nTel-loh figures holds on his lap, is the same as that employed\nby the Pyramid builders. *Teak wood has been found at Mugheir,\nor Ur of the Chaldees, although that wood is an Indian special\nproduct; add to this that an ancient Babylonian list of clothing\nmentions sindhu, or 'muslins,' explained as 'vegetable cloth.*'\n\"\n\nMuslin, best known now as *Dacca *muslin, known in Chaldea\nas Hindu (Sindhu), and *teak *wood used 4,000 years **B.C**.;\nand yet the Hindus, to whom Chaldea owes its civilization (as\nwell proven by Colonel vans Kennedy), were *ignorant of the\nart of writing *before the Greeks taught them their alphabet\n-- if we have to believe Orientalists!\n\n-------\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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