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    "slug": "vol-2-anthropogenesis",
    "name": "Volume II — Anthropogenesis"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 24,
    "slug": "74-western-speculations-founded-on-the-greek-and-puranic",
    "title": "Western Speculations founded on the Greek and Puranic Traditions ... 402",
    "of": 49,
    "words": 10555,
    "text": "## Western Speculations founded on the Greek and Puranic Traditions ... 402\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 1, stanza 12 c\n\n###### he Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 402 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n[[This page continued from previous section]]\n\n**W**ESTERN **S**PECULATIONS,\n\nFOUNDED ON THE **G**REEK AND **P**URANIC\n**T**RADITIONS.\n\nThus it becomes natural to find that, on even such meagre data\nas have reached the profane historian, Rudbeck, a Swedish scientist,\ntried to prove about two centuries ago that Sweden was the Atlantis\nof Plato. He thought, even, that he had found in the configuration\nof ancient Upsala, the situation and measurements given by the\nGreek sage of the capital of \"Atlantis.\" As Bailly proved,\nRudbeck was mistaken; but so was Bailly likewise, and still more.\nFor Sweden and Norway had formed part and parcel of ancient Lemuria,\nand also of Atlantis on the European side, just as Eastern and\nWestern Siberia and Kamschatka had belonged to it, on the Asiatic.\nOnly, once more, when was it? We can find it out approximately\nonly by studying the *Puranas, *if we will have nought\nto do with the Secret teachings.\n\nThree quarters of a century have already elapsed since Captain\n(now Colonel) Wilford brought forward his fanciful theories about\nthe British islands being the \"White Island,\" the *Atala\n*of the Puranas. This was sheer nonsense, as the Atala is\none of the seven *dwipas, *or islands, belonging to the\nnether lokas, one of the seven regions of Patala (the antipodes).\nMoreover, as Wilford* shows, the Puranas place it \"on\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Wilford makes many mistakes. He identifies, for instance, Sveta-dwipa\n(the white Island), the \"island in the northern part of *Toyambhudi,*\"*\n*with England, and then tries to identify it with Atala (a\nnether region) and Atlantis. Now the former is the abode of Vishnu,\n*exoterically, *and Atala is a hell. He also places it\nin the Euxine or Icshu (Black) Sea, and then seems to connect\nit, in another place, with Africa and Atlas.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 403 ORIENTALISTS IN THE WRONG BOX.\n\nthe seventh zone or seventh climate,\" -- rather, on the seventh\nmeasure of heat: which thus locates it between the latitudes of\n24 and 28 degrees north. It is then to be sought on the same degree\nas the Tropic of Cancer, whereas England is between the 50th and\n60th degrees of latitude. Wilford speaks of it as *Atala, *Atlantis,\nthe white island. And in vol. viii. of Journal of Asiatic Researches,\np. 280, its enemy is called the \"White Devil,\" the *demon\nof terror. *For he says: \"In their (the Hindu and Mahomedan)\nromances, we see Kai-caus going to the mountain of '*As-burj,\nat the foot of which *the Sun sets,' to fight the *Dev-Sefid,\n*or white devil, the *Taradaitya *of the *Puranas,\n*whose abode was on the *seventh stage *of the world,\nanswering to the seventh zone of the Buddhists, or the *White\n*Island.\"\n\nNow here the Orientalists have been, and are still, facing the\nSphinx's riddle, the wrong solution of which will ever destroy\ntheir authority, if not their persons, in the eyes of every Hindu\nscholar, even those who are not initiates. For there is not a\nstatement in the Puranas -- on the conflicting details of which\nWilford based his speculations -- which has not several meanings,\nand does not apply to both the physical and the metaphysical worlds.\nIf the old Hindus divided the face of the globe geographically\ninto seven zones, climates, dwipas, and into seven hells and seven\nheavens, allegorically, that measure of seven did not apply in\nboth cases to the same localities. It is the north pole, the country\nof \"Meru,\" which is the seventh division, as it answers\nto the Seventh principle (or fourth metaphysically), of the occult\ncalculation, for it represents the region of Atma, of pure soul,\nand Spirituality. Hence Pushkara is shown *as the seventh zone,\n*or dwipa, which encompasses the *Kshira *Ocean, or\nOcean of milk (the ever-frozen white region) in the Vishnu (and\nother) Puranas (*Book II ch. iv.*).* *And Pushkara,\nwith its two *Varshas, *lies directly at the foot of Meru.\nFor it is said that \"the two countries north and south of\nMeru are *shaped like a* *bow,*\"* *.\n. and that \"one half of the surface of the earth is on the\nsouth of Meru and the other half on the north of Meru *-- beyond\nwhich* *is half of Pushkara*\" (*Vishnu Purana,\nAsiatic Researches, etc.*).* *Geographically, then,\nPushkara is America, Northern and Southern; and *allegorically\n*it is the prolongation of Jambu-dwipa* in the middle of\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Every name in the Puranas has to be examined at least under\ntwo aspects; geographically, and metaphysically, in its allegorical\napplication; *e.g., Nila, *the (blue) mountain which is\none of the boundaries to the north of Meru, is again to be sought\ngeographically in a mountain range in Orissa, and again in a mountain\nquite different from the others (in Western Africa). Jambu-dwipa\nis Vishnu's dominion -- the world, limited in the Puranas to our\nglobe, the region which contains Meru *only*, and again\nit is divided to contain Bharata-varsha (India), its *best\n*division, and the fairest, says Parasara. Likewise with Pushkara\nand all others.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 404 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nwhich stands Meru, for it is the country inhabited by beings who\nlive ten thousand years, who are free from sickness or failing;\nwhere there is neither virtue nor vice, caste or laws, for these\nmen are \"of the same nature as the Gods,\" (Vishnu Purana,\nBook **II**. ch. iv.). Wilford is inclined to see\nMeru in Mount Atlas, and locates there also the Loka-lokas. Now\nMeru, we are told, which is the *Swar*-loka, the abode\nof Brahma, of Vishnu, and the Olympus of Indian exoteric religions,\nis described geographically as \"passing through the middle\nof the earth-globe, and protruding on either side\" (*Surya\nSiddhanta, v. 5, Whitney*'*s* *trans.*)*.\n*On its upper station are the gods, on the nether (or South\npole) is the abode of demons (hells). How can then Meru be Mount\nAtlas? Besides which, Taradaitya, a demon, cannot be placed on\nthe seventh zone if the latter is identified with the \"white\"\nIsland, which is *Sveta-dwipa, *for reasons given in the\nfoot-note. (*Vide infra.*)\n\nWilford accuses the modern Brahmans \"of having jumbled them\n(islands and countries) all together\" (A.R. **III**.\n300); but* he* jumbled them still more. He believes that\nas the Brahmanda and Vayu Puranas divide the old continent into\nseven dwipas, said to be surrounded by a vast ocean, beyond which\nlie the regions and mountains of Atala (*ibid*), hence\n\"most probably the Greeks divided the nation of Atlantis,\nwhich, as it could not be found after having once been discovered,\nthey conceived to have been destroyed by some shock of nature.\"\n\nFinding certain difficulties in believing that the Egyptian priests,\nPlato, and even Homer, had all built their notions of Atlantis\non Atala -- a nether region located at the Southern pole -- we\nprefer holding to the statements given in the secret books. We\nbelieve in the seven \"continents,\" four of which have\nalready lived their day, the fifth still exists, and two are to\nappear in the future. We believe that each of these is not strictly\na continent in the modern sense of the word, but that each name,\nfrom Jambu down to Pushkara,* refers to the geographical names\ngiven (i.) to the dry lands covering the face of the whole earth\nduring the period of a Root-Race, in general; and (ii.) to what\nremained of these after a geological (race) *Pralaya* --\nas \"Jambu,\" for instance: and (iii.) to those localities\nwhich will enter, after the future cataclysms, into the formation\nof new *universal *\"continents,\" peninsulas,\nor dwipas** -- each continent being, in one sense, a greater or\nsmaller region of dry land surrounded with water. Thus, that whatever\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Jambu, Plaksha, Salmali, Kusa, Krauncha, Saka, and Pushkara.\n\n** Such as Saka and Pushkara, for instance, which do not yet exist,\nbut into which will enter such lands as some portions of America,\nof Africa, and Central Asia, with the Gobi region. Let us bear\nin mind that *Upadwipas *means* *\"*root*\"*\n*islands, or the dry land in general.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 405 FUTURE CONTINENTS, SYMBOLIZED.\n\n\"jumble\" the nomenclature of these may represent to\nthe profane, there is none, in fact, to him who has the key.\n\nThus, we believe *we know *that, though two of the Puranic\n\"islands\" -- the *sixth and seventh *\"continents\"\n-- are yet to come, nevertheless there *were, *or there\n*are*, lands which will enter into the composition of the\nfuture dry lands, of new earths whose geographical faces will\nbe entirely changed, as were those of the past. Therefore we find\nin the Puranas that Saka-dwipa is (or will be) a continent, and\nthat Sankha-dwipa, as shown in the Vayu Purana, is only \"a\nminor island,\" one of the nine divisions (to which Vayu adds\nsix more) of Bharata Varsha. Because Sankha-dwipa was peopled\nby \"Mlechchhas (unclean foreigners), who worshipped Hindu\ndivinities,\" therefore they were connected with India.* This\naccounts for Sankhasura, a King of a portion of Sankha-dwipa,\nwho was killed by Krishna; that King who resided in the palace\n\"which was an ocean shell, and whose subjects lived in shells\nalso,\" says Wilford.\n\n\"On the banks of the Nile** (?) there were frequent contests\nbetween the Devatas (divine beings, demi-gods) and the Daityas\n(giants); but the latter tribe having prevailed, their King, Sankhasura,\nwho resided in the Ocean, made frequent incursions in the night\"\n(*As. Res.,* Vol.** III**. 225.)\n\nIt is not on the banks of the *Nile, *but on the coasts\nof Western Africa, south of where now lies Morocco, that these\nbattles took place. There was a time when the whole of the Sahara\ndesert was a sea, then a continent as fertile as the Delta, and\nthen, only after another temporary submersion, it became a desert\nsimilar to that other wilderness, the desert of Shamo or Gobi.\nThis is shown in Puranic tradition, for on the same page as above\ncited, it is said: \"The people were between two fires; for,\nwhile Sankhasura was ravaging one side of the continent, Krauncha\n(or Cracacha), King of Kraunch, used to desolate the other; both\narmies . . . thus *changed the most fertile regions into a\nsavage desert.*\"\n\nThat not only the last island of Atlantis, spoken of by Plato,\nbut a large continent, first divided, and then broken later on\ninto seven peninsulas and islands (called *dwipas*)*,\n*preceded Europe, is sure. It covered the whole of the North\nand South Atlantic regions, as well as portions of the North and\nSouth Pacific, and had islands even in the Indian Ocean (relics\nof Lemuria). The claim is corroborated by Indian Puranas, Greek\nwriters, and Asiatic, Persian, and Mohammedan traditions. Wilford,\nwho confuses sorely the Hindu and the Mussulman legends, shows\nthis, however, clearly. (*See Vol. VIII., X. and XI. of*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* They were called demons, *Asuras, *giants, and monsters,\nbecause of their wickedness; and thus their country was likened\nto Atala -- a hell, because of that.\n\n** Not on the river Nile, surely, but near the *Nila* mountains\nof the Atlas range.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 406 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n*Asiatic Researches.*)* *And his facts and quotations\nfrom the *Puranas *give direct and conclusive evidence\nthat the Aryan Hindus and other ancient nations were earlier navigators\nthan the Phoenicians, who are now credited with having been the\nfirst seamen that appeared in the *post-*diluvian times.\nThis is what is given in the *Journal *of the Asiatic Society,\n*III., pp.* 325,* et seq.: -*-\n\n\"In their distress the few nations who survived (in the war\nbetween Devatas and Daityas) raised their hands to Bhagavan, 'Let\nhim who can deliver us . . . be our King'; using the word I'T\n(a *magic *term not understood by Wilford, evidently) which\nre-echoed through the whole country.\"\n\nThen comes a violent storm, the waters of the *Kali *are\nstrangely agitated, \"when there appeared from the waves .\n. a man, afterwards called I'T, at the head of a numerous army,\nsaying *abhayan, *no fear\" . . . and scattered the\nenemy. \"The King I'T,\" explains Wilford, \"is a\nsubordinate incarnation of M'rira\" (*Mrida, *a form\nof Rudra, probably?) who \"re-established peace and prosperity\nthroughout all Sankha-dwipa, *through Barbaradesa, *Hissast'han\nand Awasthan or Arabia . . \" etc., etc.\n\nSurely, if the Hindu Puranas give a description of wars on continents\nand islands situated beyond Western Africa in the Atlantic Ocean;\nif their writers speak of *Barbaras *and other people such\nas Arabs -- they who were never known to navigate, or cross the\n*Kala pani *(the black waters of the Ocean) in the days\nof Phoenician navigation -- then their Puranas must be older than\nthose Phoenicians (placed at from 2,000 to 3,000 years **B.C**.).\nAt any rate those traditions must have been older;* as --\n\n\"In the above accounts,\" writes an adept, \"the\nHindus speak of this island as *existing *and in great\npower; it must, therefore, have been more than *eleven thousand\nyears ago.*\"\n\nBut another calculation and proof may be adduced of the great\nantiquity of these Hindu Aryans who knew of (because they had\nonce dwelt in it) and described the last surviving island of Atlantis\n-- or rather of that remnant of the Eastern portion of that continent\nwhich had\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Says Wilford of the division of Atlantis and Bharata or India,\nconfusing the two accounts and Priyavrata with Medhatithi: --\n\"The division was made by Priyavrata. . . . He had ten sons,\nand it was his intention to divide the whole world. In the same\nmanner Neptune divided Atlantis between his ten sons. . . . One\nof them had . . . the extremity of the Atlantis\" -- which\n\"is probably the old continent. . . . This Atlantis was overwhelmed\nby a flood. . . . and it seems that *by Atlantis we should*\n*understand the Antediluvian Earth *over which ten princes\nwere born to rule according to the mythology of the West (and\nof the East, also) but *seven only *of them sat upon the\nthrone.\" (*Vol. III. p. *286.) . . Some also are of\nopinion that of the seven dwipas *six *were destroyed by\na flood (*Vol. VIII. p. *367). Wilford takes it to be \"Gades\nwhich included Spain,\" but it was Plato's island -- rather.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 407 THE PUZZLES OF ANTIQUITY.\n\nperished soon after the upheaval of the two Americas* -- the two\nVarshas of Pushkara. This may be demonstrated, moreover, on an\nastronomical calculation by an adept who criticises Wilford. For\nrecalling what the Orientalist had brought forward concerning\nthe Mount Ashburj \"at the foot of which the sun sets,\"\nwhere was the war between the Devatas and the Daityas,** he says:\n--\n\n\"We will consider, then, the latitude and longitude of the\nlost island, and of the remaining Mount Ashburj. It was on the\nseventh stage of the world, *i.e*., in the seventh climate\n(which is between the latitude of 24 degrees and latitude 28 degrees\nnorth) . . . This island, the daughter of the Ocean, is frequently\ndescribed as lying in the West; and the sun is represented as\nsetting at the foot of its mountain (Ashburj, Atlas, Teneriffe\nor Nila, no matter the name), and fighting the white Devil of\nthe 'White Island.' \"\n\nNow, considering this statement from its astronomical aspect,\nand knowing that Krishna is the incarnated Sun (Vishnu), a solar\nGod; and that he is said to have killed Dev-Sefid, the white giant\n-- a* possible* personification of the ancient inhabitants\nat the foot of the Atlas -- perchance Krishna may be only a representation\nof the vertical beams of the Sun? Those inhabitants (the Atlantides)\nare, we have seen, accused by Diodorus of daily *cursing the\nSun, *and ever fighting his influence. This is an astronomical\ninterpretation of course. But it will now be proved that Sankhasura,\nand Sancha dwipa, and all their history, is also geographically\nand ethnologically Plato's \"Atlantis\" in Hindu dress.\n\nIt was just remarked that since, in the Puranic accounts, the\nisland is* still existing, *then those accounts must be\nolder than the 11,000 years elapsed since Sancha dwipa, or the\nPoseidonis of Atlantis, disappeared. Is it not barely possible\nthat Hindus should have known the island still earlier? Let us\nturn again to astronomical demonstrations, which make this quite\nplain if one assumes, according to the said adept, that \"at\nthe time when the summer tropical 'colure' passed through the\n*Pleiades,* when* cor-Leonis *would be upon the\nequator; and when Leo *was vertical* to Ceylon at sunset,\nthen would *Taurus *be vertical to the island of *Atlantis\nat noon.*\"\n\nThis explains, perhaps, why the Singhalese, the heirs of the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* America, the \"new\" world -- is thus, though not *much,*\nolder; still it *is* older than Europe, the \"old world.\"\n\n** If Div or Dev-Sefid's (the Taradaitya's) abode was on the *seventh\nstage, *it is because he came from Pushkara, the *Patala*\n(antipodes) of India, or from America. The latter touched the\nwalls, so to say, of Atlantis, before the latter sank finally.\nThe word *Patala, *meaning both the antipodal countries\nand infernal regions, thus became synonymous in ideas and attributes\nas well as in name.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 408 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nRakshasas and Giants of Lanka, and the direct descendants of *Singha,*\nor *Leo, *became connected with Sancha dwipa or Poseidonis\n(Plato's Atlantis). Only, as shown by Mackey's \"*Sphinxiad,*\"*\n*this must have occurred about 23,000 years ago, *astronomically*;*\n*at which time the obliquity of the ecliptic must have been\nrather more than 27 degrees, and consequently Taurus must have\npassed over \"Atlantis\" or \"Sancha dwipa.\"\nAnd that it was so is clearly demonstrated.\n\n\"*The sacred bull Nandi was brought from Bharata to Sancha\nto meet* *Rishabha *(*Taurus*) *every Kalpa.\nBut when those of the White Island* (who descended originally\nfrom Sveta dwipa),* *who had mixed with the* *Daityas\n*(giants)* of the land of iniquity, had become black with\nSin, then* *Nandi remained for ever in the *\"*White\nIsland*\"* *(or Sveta dwipa.) \"*Those*\n*of the Fourth World* (race)* lost ***AUM**\"*\n-- *say the *Commentaries.*\n\nAsburj (or Azburj), whether the peak of Teneriffe or not, was\na volcano, when the sinking of the \"western Atala\" (or\nhell) began, and those who were saved told the tale to their children.\nPlato's Atlantis perished between water below and fire above;\nthe great mountain vomiting flames all the while. \"The 'fire-vomiting\nMonster' survived alone out of the ruins of the unfortunate island.\"\n\nDo the Greeks, accused of borrowing a Hindu fiction (Atala), and\ninventing from it another (Atlantis), stand also accused of getting\ntheir geographical notions and the number seven from them? (*Vide\n*in Part **II**. the several sections on the\n**S**EPTENATE in nature.)\n\n\"The famous Atlantis exists no longer, but we can hardly\ndoubt that it did once,\" says Proclus, \"for Marcellus,\nwho wrote a history of Ethiopian affairs, says that such, and\nso great an island once existed, and this is evidenced by those\nwho composed histories relative to the external sea. For *they\nrelate that in this time there were seven islands in *the\nAtlantic sea sacred to Proserpine; and besides these, three of\nimmense magnitude, sacred to Pluto . . . Jupiter . . . and Neptune.\nAnd, besides this, the inhabitants of the last island (Poseidonis)\n*preserved* *the memory of the prodigious magnitude\n*of the Atlantic island as related by their ancestors, and\nof its governing for many periods all the islands in the Atlantic\nsea. From this *isle *one may pass to other large\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Neither Atlantis, nor yet Sancha dwipa, was ever called \"White\nIsland.\" When tradition says that \"the White Island\nbecame black on account of the sins of people\" it only means\nthe denizens of the \"White Island,\" or Siddhapura, or\nSveta dwipa, who descended to the Atlantis of the Third and Fourth\nraces, to \"inform the latter; and who, having incarnated,\nbecame black with sin\" -- a figure of speech. All the Avatars\nof Vishnu are said to come originally from the White Island. According\nto Tibetan tradition the White Island is the only locality which\nescapes the general fate of other dwipas and can be destroyed\nby neither fire nor water, for -- it is the \"eternal land.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 409 WHAT MARCELLUS SAYS.\n\nislands beyond, which are not far from the firm land, near which\nis the true sea.\"\n\n\"These seven dwipas (inaccurately rendered islands) constitute,\naccording to Marcellus, the body of the famous Atlantis,\"\nwrites Wilford himself. . . . . This evidently shows that *Atlantis\nis the old continent*. . . . The Atlantis was destroyed after\na violent storm (?): this is well known to the Puranics, some\nof whom assert that in consequence of this dreadful convulsion\nof nature, six of the dwipas disappeared\" . . *. *(*xi.,\n*27).\n\nEnough proofs have now been given to satisfy the greatest sceptic.\nNevertheless, direct proofs based on exact science are also added.\nVolumes might be written, however, to no purpose for those who\nwill neither see nor hear, except through the eyes and ears of\ntheir respective authorities.\n\nHence the teaching of the Roman Catholic scholiasts, namely, that\nHermon, the mount in the land of Mizpeth -- meaning \"anathema,\"\n\"destruction\" -- is the same as Mount Armon. As a proof\nof this, Josephus is often quoted, as affirming that still in\nhis own day enormous bones of giants were daily discovered on\nit. But it was the land of Balaam the prophet, whom the \"Lord\nloved well\"; and so mixed up are facts and personages in\nthe said scholiasts' brains, that, when the Zohar explains the\n\"birds\" which inspired Balaam to mean \"Serpents,\"\nto wit, the wise men and adepts at whose school he had learnt\nthe mysteries of prophecy -- the opportunity is again taken of\nshowing Mount Hermon inhabited by the \"winged dragons of\nEvil, whose chief is Samael\" (the Jewish Satan).\n\n\"It is to those unclean spirits chained on Mount Hermon of\nthe Desert, that the scapegoat of Israel, who assumed the name\nof one of them (Azaz(y)el), was sent\" (*Spencer*).\n\nWe say it is not so. The Zohar has the following explanation on\nthe practice of magic which is called in Hebrew *Nehhaschim,\n*or the \"Serpents' Works.\" It says (*Part III.\ncol. 302*)*: -*- \"It is called *nehhaschim,\n*because the magicians (practical Kabalists) work *surrounded\nby* *the light of the primordial serpent, *which they\nperceive in heaven as a luminous zone composed of myriads of small\nstars\" . . . which means simply the *astral light, *so\ncalled by the Martinists, by Eliphas Levi, and now by all the\nmodern Occultists. (Vide Sections about.)\n\n-------\n\n**T**HE \"**C**URSE\" FROM A\n**P**HILOSOPHICAL POINT OF VIEW.\n\nThe foregoing teachings of the **S**ECRET **D**OCTRINE,\nsupplemented by universal traditions, must now have demonstrated\nthat the Brahmanas and Puranas, the Yathas and other Mazdean Scriptures,\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 410 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ndown to the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman, and finally to the Jewish\nSacred records, all have the same origin. None are meaningless\nand baseless stories, invented to entrap the unwary profane: all\nare allegories intended to convey, under a more or less fantastic\nveil, the great truths gathered in the same field of pre-historic\ntradition. Space forbids us from entering, in these two volumes,\ninto further and more minute details with respect to the four\nRaces which preceded our own. But before offering to the student\nthe history of the psychic and spiritual evolution of the direct\nantediluvian fathers of our Fifth (Aryan) humanity, and before\ndemonstrating its bearing upon all the other side branches grown\nfrom the same trunk, we have to elucidate a few more facts. It\nhas been shown, on the evidence of the whole ancient literary\nworld, and the intuitional speculations of more than one philosopher\nand scientist of the later ages, that the tenets of our Esoteric\nDoctrine are corroborated by inferential as well as by direct\nproof in almost every case. That neither the \"legendary\"\ngiants, nor the lost continents, nor yet the evolution of the\npreceding races, are quite baseless tales. In the *Addenda\n*which close this volume, science will find itself more than\nonce unable to reply; they will, it is hoped, finally dispose\nof every sceptical remark with regard to the sacred number in\nnature, and our figures in general. (Vide §§ on the\n*Septenaries.*)\n\nMeanwhile, one task is left incomplete: that of disposing of that\nmost pernicious of all the theological dogmas -- the CURSE under\nwhich mankind is alleged to have suffered ever since the supposed\ndisobedience of Adam and Eve in the bower of Eden.\n\nCreative powers in man were the gift of divine wisdom, not the\nresult of sin. This is clearly instanced in the paradoxical behaviour\nof Jehovah, who first *curses *Adam and Eve (or Humanity)\nfor the supposed committed crime, and then *blesses *his\n\"chosen people\" by saying \"Be fruitful and multiply,\nand replenish the earth\" (*Gen. ix. *1). The curse\nwas not brought on mankind by the Fourth Race, for the comparatively\nsinless Third Race, the still more gigantic Antediluvians, had\nperished in the same way; hence the Deluge was no punishment,\nbut simply a result of a periodical and geological law. Nor was\nthe curse of **K**ARMA called down upon them for\nseeking *natural *union, as all the mindless animal-world\ndoes in its proper seasons; but, for abusing the creative power,\nfor desecrating the divine gift, and wasting the life-essence\nfor no purpose except bestial personal gratification. When understood,\nthe third chapter of Genesis will be found to refer to the Adam\nand Eve of the closing Third and the commencing Fourth Races.\nIn the beginning, conception was as easy for woman as it was for\nall animal creation. Nature had never intended that woman should\nbring forth her young ones \"in sorrow.\" Since that period,\nhowever, during the\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 411 THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN MAN.\n\nevolution of the Fourth Race, there came enmity between its seed,\nand the \"Serpent's\" seed, the seed or product of *Karma\n*and divine wisdom. For the seed of woman or lust, *bruised\nthe head *of the seed of *the fruit of* *wisdom\nand knowledge, *by turning the holy mystery of procreation\ninto animal gratification; hence the law of Karma \"bruised\nthe *heel*\"* *of the Atlantean race, by gradually\nchanging physiologically, morally, physically, and mentally, the\nwhole nature of the Fourth Race of mankind,* until, from the healthy\nKing of animal creation of the Third Race, man became in the Fifth,\nour race, a helpless, scrofulous being, and has now become the\nwealthiest heir on the globe to constitutional and hereditary\ndiseases, the most consciously and intelligently bestial of all\nanimals!**\n\nThis is the real CURSE from the physiological standpoint, almost\nthe only one touched upon in the Kabalistic esotericism. Viewed\nfrom this aspect, the curse is undeniable, for it is evident.\nThe intellectual evolution, in its progress hand-in-hand with\nthe physical, has certainly been a curse instead of a blessing\n-- a gift quickened by the \"Lords of Wisdom,\" who have\npoured on the human *manas *the fresh dew of their own\nspirit and essence. The divine Titan has then suffered in vain;\nand one feels inclined to regret his benefaction to mankind, and\nsigh for those days so graphically depicted by AEschylus, in his\n\"Prometheus Bound,\" when, at the close of the first\nTitanic age (the age that followed that of ethereal man, of the\npious Kandu and Pramlocha), nascent, physical mankind, still mindless\nand (physiologically) senseless, is described as --\n\n\"Seeing, they saw in vain;\n\nHearing, they heard not; but like shapes in dreams,\n\nThrough the long time all things at random mixed.\"\n\nOur* Saviours, *the Agnishwatta and other divine \"Sons\nof the Flame of Wisdom\" (personified by the Greeks in Prometheus***),\nmay well, in\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* How wise and grand, how far-seeing and morally beneficent are\nthe laws of Manu on connubial life, when compared with the licence\ntacitly allowed to man in civilized countries. That those laws\nhave been neglected for the last two millenniums does not prevent\nus from admiring their forethought. The Brahmin was a *grihasta,\n*a family man, till a certain period of his life, when, after\nbegetting a son, he broke with married life and became a chaste\nYogi. His very connubial life was regulated by his Brahmin astrologer\nin accordance with his nature. Therefore, in such countries as\nthe Punjab, for instance, where the lethal influence of Mussulman,\nand later on of European, licentiousness, has hardly touched the\northodox Aryan castes, one still finds the finest men -- so far\nas stature and physical strength go -- on the whole globe; whereas\nthe mighty men of old have found themselves replaced in the Deccan,\nand especially in Bengal, by men whose generation becomes with\nevery century (and almost with every year) dwarfed and weakened.\n\n** Diseases and over-population are facts that can never be denied.\n\n*** In Mrs. Anna Swanwick's volumes, \"The Dramas of AEschylus,\"\nit is said of \"Prometheus Bound\" (Vol. **II**.,\npp. 146, 147), that Prometheus truly appears in it \"as [[Footnote\ncontinued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 412 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthe injustice of the human heart, be left unrecognized and unthanked.\nThey may, in our ignorance of the truth, be indirectly cursed\nfor Pandora's gift: but to find themselves proclaimed and declared\nby the mouth of the clergy, the EVIL ONES, is too heavy a Karma\nfor \"Him\" \"who dared alone \"-- when Zeus \"ardently\ndesired\" to quench the entire human race -- to save \"that\nmortal race\" from perdition, or, as the suffering Titan is\nmade to say: --\n\n\"From sinking blasted down to Hades' gloom.\n\nFor this by the dire tortures I am bent,\n\nGrievous to suffer, piteous to behold,\n\nI who did mortals pity! . . . . \"\n\nThe chorus remarking very pertinently: --\n\n\"Vast boon was this thou gavest unto mortals . . . .\"\n\nPrometheus answers: --\n\n\"Yea, and besides 'twas I that gave them fire.\n\n**C**HORUS: Have now these short-lived creatures\nflame-eyed fire?\n\n**P**ROM.: Ay, and by it full many arts will learn.\n. . . . \"\n\nBut, with the arts, the fire received has turned into the greatest\ncurse: the animal element, and *consciousness *of its possession,\nhas changed periodical instinct into chronic animalism and sensuality.*\nIt is this which hangs over humanity like a heavy funereal pall.\nThus arises the responsibility of free-will; the Titanic passions\nwhich represent humanity in its darkest aspect; \"the restless\ninsatiability of the lower passions and desires, when, with self-asserting\ninsolence, they bid defiance to the restraints of law.\"**\n\nPrometheus having endowed man, according to Plato's \"Protagoras,\"\nwith that \"wisdom which ministers to physical well-being,\"\nbut the lower aspect of *manas *of the animal (*Kama*)*\n*having remained unchanged,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] the champion and benefactor\nof mankind, whose condition . . . . is depicted as weak and miserable\nin the extreme. . . . Zeus, it is said, proposed to annihilate\nthese puny ephemerals, and to plant upon the earth a new race\nin their stead.\" We see the Lords of Being doing likewise,\nand exterminating the first product of nature and the sea, in\nthe Stanzas (V, *et seq*.). . . . Prometheus *represents\n*himself as having frustrated this design, and as being consequently\nsubjected, for the sake of mortals, to the most agonising pain,\ninflicted by the remorseless cruelty of Zeus. We have, thus, the\nTitan, the symbol of finite reason and free will (of intellectual\nhumanity, or the higher aspect of *Manas*),* *depicted\n*as the sublime philanthropist, *while Zeus, the supreme\ndeity of Hellas, is portrayed as the cruel and obdurate despot,\na character peculiarly revolting to Athenian sentiment.\"\nThe reason for it is explained further on. The \"Supreme Deity\"\nbears, in every ancient Pantheon -- including that of the Jews\n-- a *dual *character, composed of light and shadow.\n\n* The animal world, having simple instinct to guide it, has its\n*seasons of procreation,* and the sexes become neutralized\nduring the rest of the year. Therefore, the free animal knows\nsickness but once in its life -- before it dies.\n\n** Introduction to \"*Prometheus Bound,*\"*\n*p. 152.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 413 THE TRAVESTY OF PROMETHEUS.\n\ninstead of \"an untainted mind, heaven's first gift\"\n(AEschylus), there was created the eternal vulture of the ever\nunsatisfied desire, of regret and despair coupled with \"the\ndreamlike feebleness that fetters the blind race of mortals\"\n(*p*. 556), unto the day when Prometheus is released by\nhis heaven-appointed deliverer, Herakles.\n\nNow Christians -- Roman Catholics especially -- have tried to\nprophetically connect this drama with the coming of Christ. No\ngreater mistake could be made. The true theosophist, the pursuer\nof divine wisdom and worshipper of ABSOLUTE perfection -- the\nunknown deity which is neither Zeus nor Jehovah -- will demur\nto such an idea. Pointing to antiquity he will prove that there\nnever was an *original *sin, but only an abuse of physical\nintelligence -- the psychic being guided by the animal, and both\nputting out the light of the spiritual. He will say, \"All\nye who can read between the lines, study ancient wisdom in the\nold dramas -- the Indian and the Greek; read carefully the one\njust mentioned, one enacted on the theatres of Athens 2,400 years\nago, namely 'Prometheus Bound' \" The myth belongs to neither\nHesiod nor AEschylus; but, as Bunsen says, it \"is older than\nthe Hellenes themselves,\" for it belongs, in truth, to the\ndawn of human consciousness. The *Crucified* Titan is the\npersonified symbol of the collective Logos, the \"Host,\"\nand of the \"Lords of Wisdom\" or the HEAVENLY MAN, who\nincarnated in Humanity. Moreover, as his name *Pro*-me-*theus*,\nmeaning \"he who sees before him\" or futurity, shows*\n-- in the arts he devised and taught to humanity, psychological\ninsight was not the least. For as he complains to the daughters\nof Oceanos: --\n\n\"Of prophecies the various modes I fixed,\n\nAnd among dreams did first discriminate\n\nThe truthful vision . . . and mortals guided\n\nTo a mysterious art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\n\nAll arts to mortals from Prometheus came. . .\"\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* From [[*pro metis*]] *pro metis*, \"forethought.\"\n\"Professor Kuhn,\" we are told in the above-named volumes\nof \"The Dramas of AEschylus,\" \"considers the name\nof the Titan to be derived from the Sanskrit word Pramantha, the\ninstrument used for kindling fire. The root* mand* or*\nmanth*, implies rotatory motion, and the word *manthami*\n(used to denote the process of fire kindling) acquired the secondary\nsense of snatching away; hence we find another word of the same\nstock, *pramatha*, signifying theft.\" This is very\ningenious, but perhaps not altogether correct; besides, there\nis a very prosaic element in it. No doubt in physical nature,\nthe higher forms may develop from the lower ones, but it is hardly\nso in the world of thought. And as we are told that the word *manthami*\npassed into the Greek language and became the word *manthano,\n*to learn; that is to say, to appropriate knowledge; whence\n*prometheia, *fore-knowledge, fore-thought; we may find,\nin searching, a more poetical origin for the \"fire-bringer\"\nthan that displayed in its Sanskrit origin. The *Svastica,\n*the sacred sign and the instrument for kindling *sacred\n*fire, may explain it better. \"Prometheus, the fire-bringer,\nis the *Pramantha *personified,\" goes on the author;\n\"he finds his prototype in the Aryan [[Footnote continued\non next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 414 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nLeaving for a few pages the main subject, let us pause and see\nwhat may be the hidden meaning of this, the most ancient as it\nis the most suggestive of traditional allegories. As it relates\ndirectly to the early races, this will be no real digression.\n\nThe subject of AEschylus' drama (the trilogy is lost) is known\nto all cultured readers. The demi-god robs the gods (the Elohim)\nof their secret -- the mystery of the *creative fire. *For\nthis sacrilegious attempt he is struck down by KRONOS* and delivered\nunto Zeus, the FATHER and creator of a mankind which he would\nwish to have blind intellectually, and animal-like; a *personal\n*deity, which will not see MAN \"like one of us.\"\nHence Prometheus, \"the fire and light-giver,\" is chained\non Mount Caucasus and condemned to suffer torture. But the triform\nFates (Karma), whose decrees, as the Titan says, even Zeus: --\n\n\"E'en he the fore-ordained cannot escape. . . \"\n\n-- ordain that those sufferings will last only to that day when\na son of Zeus --\n\n\"Ay, a son bearing stronger than his sire\" (787)\n\n. . . . . . . . . .\n\n\"One of thine (Io's) own descendants it must be. .\"(791)\n\n-- is born. This \"Son\" will deliver Prometheus (the\nsuffering Humanity) from his own fatal gift. His name is, \"He\nwho has to come. . . . \"\n\nOn the authority, then, of these few lines, which, like any other\nallegorical sentence, may be twisted into almost any meaning;\nnamely, on the words pronounced by Prometheus and addressed to\nIo, the daughter of Inachos, persecuted by Zeus -- a whole prophecy\nis constructed by some Catholic writers. Says the crucified Titan:\n--\n\n\"And, portent past belief, the speaking oaks\n\nBy which full clearly, in no riddling phrase\n\nWast hailed *as the illustrious spouse of Zeus*\n\n*. . . . . . . . .* (v*. *853).\n\n. . . . stroking thee\n\nWith *touch alone of unalarming hand;*\n\nThen thou *dark Epaphos *shalt bear, whose name\n\nRecords his sacred gendering . . . . \" (870)\n\nThis was construed by several fanatics -- des Mousseaux and de\nMir-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] Matarisvan, a divine\n. . . . personage, closely associated with the fire god of the\nVeda, Agni. . . .\" Mati, in Sanskrit, is \"understanding,\"\nand a synonym of MAHAT and *manas, *and must be of some\naccount in the origin of the name: *Promati *is the son\nof Fohat, and has his story also.\n\n* Kronos is \"time,\" and thus the allegory becomes very\nsuggestive. (*See closing* *pages of this Sub-section.*)\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 415 CHRIST CONNECTED WITH EPAPHOS.\n\nville amongst others -- into a clear prophecy. Io -- \"is\nthe mother of God,\" we are told, and \"dark Epaphos\"\n-- Christ. But, the latter has not dethroned his father, except\nmetaphorically, if one has to regard Jehovah as that \"Father\";\nnor has the Christian Saviour hurled *his* Father down\ninto Hades. Prometheus says, in verse 930, that Zeus will be humbled\nyet; as for himself: --\n\n\" . . . . such marriage he prepares\n\nWhich from his throne of power to nothingness\n\nShall hurl him down; so shall be all fulfilled\n\nHis father Kronos' curse . . . .\n\n. . . . Then let him sit\n\nConfiding in his lofty thunder-peals,\n\nAnd wielding with both hands the fiery bolt;\n\nFor *these shall not avail, but fail he shall,*\n\n*A fall disgraceful, *not to be endured . . . . \" (v.\n980).\n\n\"Dark Epaphos\" was the Dionysos-Sabazius, the son of\nZeus and of Demeter in the Sabasian Mysteries, during which the\n\"father of the gods,\" assuming the *shape of a Serpent,\n*begot on Demeter, Dionysos, or the solar Bacchus. Io is the\nmoon, and at the same time the **E**VE *of a*\n*new race, *and so is Demeter -- in the present case. The\nPromethean myth is a prophecy indeed; but it does not relate to\nany of the cyclic Saviours who have appeared periodically in various\ncountries and among various nations, in their transitionary conditions\nof evolution. It points to the last of the mysteries of cyclic\ntransformations, in the series of which mankind, having passed\nfrom the ethereal to the solid physical state, from spiritual\nto physiological procreation, is now carried onward on the opposite\narc of the cycle, toward that second phase of its primitive state,\nwhen *woman knew no man, *and human progeny *was created,*\n*not begotten.*\n\nThat state will return to it and to the world at large, when the\nlatter shall discover and really appreciate the truths which underlie\nthis vast problem of sex. It will be like \"the light that\nnever shone on sea or land,\" and has to come to men through\nthe Theosophical Society. That light will lead on and up to the\n*true spiritual intuition. *Then (as expressed once in\na letter to a theosophist), \"the world *will have a race\nof Buddhas and* *Christs, *for the world will have\ndiscovered that individuals *have it in their* *own\npowers to procreate Buddha-like children -- or demons.*\"*\n*\"When that knowledge comes, all dogmatic religions,\nand with these the demons, will die out.\"\n\nIf we reflect upon the serial development of the allegory, and\nthe character of the heroes, the mystery may be unriddled. **K**RONOS\nis of course \"time\" in its cyclic course. He swallows\nhis children -- the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See, for explanation of this curse, the last page of the present\nsub-section.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 416 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n*personal *gods of exoteric dogmas included. He has swallowed\ninstead of Zeus, his *stone *idol; but the symbol has grown,\nand has only developed in human fancy as mankind was cycling down\ntoward only its physical and intellectual -- not spiritual --\nperfection. When it is as far advanced in its spiritual evolution\nKronos will be no longer deceived. Instead of the *stone image\n*he will have swallowed the anthropomorphic fiction itself.\nBecause, *the serpent of wisdom, *represented in the Sabasian\nmysteries by the anthropomorphised Logos, the unity of spiritual\nand physical Powers, will have begotten in Time (Kronos) a progeny\n-- Dionysos-Bacchus or the \"dark Epaphos,\" the \"mighty\none\" -- the race that will overthrow him. Where will he be\nborn? Prometheus traces him to his origin and birth-place in his\nprophecy to Io. Io is the moon-goddess of generation -- for she\nis Isis and she is Eve, the great mother.* He traces the path\nof the (racial) wanderings as plainly as words can express it.\nShe has to quit Europe and go to Asia's continent, reaching there\nthe highest of the mountains of Caucasus (737), the Titan telling\nher: --\n\n\"When thou hast crossed the flood, limit betwixt\n\nTwo continents, fronting the burning East.\" (810)\n\nthat she must travel eastward, after passing the \"Kimmerian\nBosphorus,\" and cross what is evidently the Volga and now\nAstrakhan on the Caspian Sea. After this she will encounter \"fierce\nnorthern blasts\" and cross thither to the land of the \"Arimaspian\nhost\" (east of Herodotus' Scythia) to --\n\n\"Pluto's gold-abounding flood. . . .\"(825)\n\nWhich is rightly conjectured by Professor Newman to have meant\nthe\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* It is complained by the author of the version on, and translator\nof, \"Prometheus Bound\" that in this tracing of Io's\nwanderings, \"no consistency with our known geography is attainable\"\n(*p.* *191, Vol. II*). There may be good reason\nfor it. First of all it is the journey and wandering from place\nto place of the *race* from which the \"tenth,\"\nor *Kalki *Avatar, so called, is to issue. This he calls\nthe \"Kingly race born *in Argos*\"* *(888).\nBut Argos has no reference here to Argos in Greece. It comes from\n*Arg* or* arca *-- the female generative power symbolised\nin the moon -- the navi-formed Argha of the mysteries, meaning\nthe Queen of Heaven. Eustathius shows that, in the dialect of\nthe Arg-ians, Io signified the moon; while esotericism explains\nit as the divine Androgyne, or the mystic 10; in Hebrew 10 is\nthe perfect number, or Jehovah. *Arghya *in Sanskrit is\nthe libation cup, the *navi*-form or boat-shaped vessel\nin which flowers and fruit are offered to the deities. *Arghyanath\n*is a title of the Maha-Chohan, meaning \"the Lord of\nLibations;\" and *Arghya Varsha -- *\"the land\nof libations\" -- is the mystery name of that region which\nextends from Kailas mountain nearly to the Schamo Desert -- from\nwithin which the *Kalki Avatar *is expected. The Airyana-Varsedya\nof the Zoroastrians, as a locality, is identical with it. It is\nnow said to have been situated between the sea of Aral, Baltistan,\nand little Tibet; but in olden times its area was far larger,\nas it was the birth-place of *physical *humanity, of which\nIo is the mother and symbol.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 417 THE MISTAKE OF ARRIAN EXPLAINED.\n\nUral, the Arimaspi of Herodotus being \"the recognised inhabitants\nof this golden region.\"\n\nAnd here comes, between verses 825 and 835, a puzzle to all the\nEuropean interpreters. Says the Titan: --\n\n\"To these (Arimaspi and Grypes) approach not; a far border\nland\n\nThou next wilt reach, where dwells a swarthy race\n\nNear the Sun's founts, where is the AEthiop \"river\";\n\nAlong its banks proceed till thou attain\n\nThe mighty rapids, where from Bybline heights\n\nPure draughts of sacred water Neilos sends . . . \"\n\nThere Io was ordained to found a colony for herself and sons.\nNow we must see how the passage is interpreted. As Io is told\nthat she has to travel eastward till she comes to the river Ethiops,\nwhich she is to follow till it falls into the Nile -- hence the\nperplexity. \"According to the geographical theories of the\nearliest Greeks\" we are informed by the author of the version\non \"Prometheus Bound\" --\n\n\"This condition was fulfilled by the river Indus. Arrian\n(*vi.* i.) mentions that Alexander the Great, when preparing\nto sail down the Indus (having seen crocodiles in the river Indus,\nand in no other river except the Nile . . . ), seemed to himself\nto have discovered the sources of the Nile, as though the Nile,\nrising from some place in India, and flowing through much desert\nland, and thereby losing its name Indus, next . . . flowed through\ninhabited land, being now called the Nile by the Ethiopians of\nthose parts and afterwards by the Egyptians. Virgil in the 4th\nGeorgic echoes the absolute error\" (*p*. 197, *Vol.\nII*.).\n\nBoth Alexander and Virgil may have erred considerably in their\ngeographical notions; but the prophecy of Prometheus has not so\nsinned, in the least -- not, at any rate, in its esoteric spirit.\nWhen a certain race is symbolised, and events pertaining to its\nhistory are rendered allegorically, no topographical accuracy\nought to be expected in the itinerary traced for its personification.\nYet it so happens, that the river \"Ethiops\" is certainly\nthe Indus, and it is also the *Nil or Nila. It *is the\nriver born on the *Kailas* (heaven) mountain, the mansion\nof the gods -- 22,000* *feet above the level of the sea.\nIt was the Ethiops river -- and was so called by the Greeks, long\nbefore the days of Alexander, because its banks, from Attock down\nto Sind, were peopled by tribes generally referred to as the Eastern\nEthiopians. India and Egypt were two kindred nations, and the\nEastern Ethiopians -- the mighty builders -- have come from India,\nas is pretty well proved, it is hoped, in \"**I**SIS\n**U**NVEILED.\" (Vol. I. p. 569-70).\n\nThen why could not Alexander, and even the learned Virgil have\nused the word Nile or *Neilos *when speaking of the Indus,\nsince it is one of its names? To this day that river is called,\nin the regions around Kala-Bagh,* nil *(blue), and *Nilah,\n*\"the blue river.\" The water here is of such dark\nblue colour that the name given to it from time immemorial led\nto\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 418 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\na small town on its banks being called by the same name. It exists\nto this day. Evidently Arrian -- who wrote far later than the\nday of Alexander, and who was ignorant of the old name of the\nIndus -- has unconsciously slandered the Greek conqueror. Nor\nare our modern historians much wiser, in judging as they do. For\nthey often make the most sweeping declarations on mere appearances,\nas much as their ancient colleagues ever did in days of old, when\nno Encyclopaedias were yet ready for them.\n\nThe race of IO, \"the cow-horned maid\" is then simply\nthe first pioneer race of the AEthiopians brought by her from\nthe Indus to the Nile (which received its name in memory of the\nmother river of the colonists from India*). For does not Prometheus\nsay to Io** that the sacred Neilos (the god, not the river) --\n\n. . . \"He to the land, *three-cornered, *thee shall\nguide,\" -- namely, to the *Delta, *where her sons\nare foreordained to found -- . . . . . \"that far-off colony\n. . .\" (*v*. 830 *et seq*.).\n\nIt is there that a new race (the Egyptians) will begin, and a\n\"female race\" (873) which, \"fifth in descent\"\nfrom dark Epaphos --\n\n\"Fifty in number shall return to Argos.\"\n\n. . . . . . . .\n\nThen one of the fifty virgins will fail through love and shall\n-- . . .\n\nA kingly race in Argos bear\n\n. . . . . . . .\n\nBut from this seed shall dauntless heroes spring,\n\nBow-famous, who shall free me from these ills.\"\n\nWhen this hero shall arise, the Titan does not reveal; for as\nhe remarks: --\n\n\"This, to set forth at large needs lengthy speech.\"\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Alexander, who was better acquainted with Attock than with India\n(where he never went) could not have failed to hear the Indus\nnear its very sources called Nil and *Nilah. *Even if a\nmistake, it is thus easily accounted for.\n\n** That Io is identical allegorically with Isis and the moon is\nshown by her being \"cow-horned.\" The allegory undeniably\nreached Greece from India, where Vach -- \"the melodious cow\"\n(Rig-Veda) \"from whom mankind was produced\" (Bhagavata\nPurana) is shown in the Aitareya Brahmana as pursued by her father\nBrahma, who was moved by an illicit passion, and changed her into\na deer. Hence Io, refusing to yield to Jupiter's passion, becomes\n\"horned.\" The cow was in every country the symbol of\nthe passive generative power of nature, Isis, Vach, Venus -- the\nmother of the prolific god of love, Cupid, but, at the same time,\nthat of the *Logos *whose symbol became with the Egyptians\nand the Indians -- the bull -- as testified to by Apis and the\nHindu bulls in the most ancient temples. In esoteric philosophy\nthe cow is the symbol of creative nature, and the Bull (her calf)\nthe spirit which vivifies her, or \"the Holy Spirit,\"\nas Mr. Kenealy shows. Hence the symbol of the horns. These were\nsacred also with the Jews, who placed near the altar horns of\nShittim wood, by seizing which a criminal ensured his safety.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 419 WAS AESCHYLUS INITIATED?\n\nBut \"Argos\" is *Arghya Varsha, *the land of libation\nof the old Hierophants, whence the deliverer of Humanity will\nappear, a name which became ages later that of its neighbour,\nIndia -- the Arya-varta of old.\n\nThat the subject formed part of the Sabasian mysteries is made\nknown by several ancient writers: by Cicero (*in Tuscul. Quaest.\nI, ii. No.* 20)* *and by Clemens Alexandrinus (*Strom*.\nI,* ii., oper. tom*. 1*, *p. 467 -- *Ed.*\n*Potter*'*s*).* *The latter writers are the\nonly ones who attribute the fact that AEschylus was charged by\nthe Athenians with sacrilege and condemned to be stoned to death,\nto its true cause. They say that having been himself uninitiated,\nAEschylus had profaned the Mysteries by exposing them in his trilogies\non a public stage.* But he would have incurred the same condemnation\nhad he been initiated -- which must have been the case, as otherwise\nhe must, like Socrates, have had a *daimon *to reveal to\nhim the secret and sacred allegorical drama of initiation. At\nall events, it is not the \"father of the Greek tragedy\"\nwho invented the prophecy of Prometheus; for he only repeated\nin dramatic form that which was revealed by the priests during\nthe MYSTERIA of the Sabasia.** The latter, however, is one of\nthe oldest sacred festivals, whose origin is to this day unknown\nto history. Mythologists connect it through Mithras (the Sun,\ncalled Sabasius on some old monuments) with Jupiter and Bacchus.\nBut it was never the property of the Greeks, but dates from days\nimmemorial.\n\nThe translators of the drama wonder how AEschylus could become\nguilty of such \"discrepancy between the character of Zeus\nas portrayed in the 'Prometheus Bound' and that depicted in the\nremaining dramas.\" (*Mrs. A. Swanwick.*)* *This\nis just because AEschylus, like Shakespeare, was and will ever\nremain the intellectual \"Sphinx\" of the ages. Between\nZeus, the abstract deity of Grecian thought, and the Olympic Zeus,\nthere was an abyss. The latter represented during the mysteries\nno higher a principle than the lower aspect of human physical\nintelligence -- *Manas *wedded to *Kama*; Prometheus\n-- its divine aspect merging into and aspiring to Buddhi -- the\ndivine Soul. Zeus was the human soul and nothing more, whenever\nshown yielding to his lower passions, -- the *jealous *God,\nrevengeful and cruel in its egotism or **I**-AM-NESS.\nHence, Zeus is represented as a serpent -- the intellectual tempter\nof man -- which, nevertheless, begets in the course of\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Herodotus and Pausanias supposed that the cause of the condemnation\nwas that AEschylus, adopting the theogony of the Egyptians, made\nDiana, the daughter of Ceres, and not of Latona. (See *AElian\nVar. Hist. I, v. c*. xviii., *tom*. *1, p*.\n*433 Edition* *Gronov.*)* *But AEschyIus\n*was *initiated.\n\n*** Sabasia *was a periodical festival with mysteries enacted\nin honour of some gods, a variant on the Mithraic Mysteries. The\nwhole evolution of the races was performed in them.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 420 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ncyclic evolution the \"Man-Saviour,\" the solar Bacchus\nor \"Dionysos,\" *more than a man.*\n\nDionysos is one with Osiris, with Krishna, and with Buddha (the\nheavenly wise), and with the coming (tenth) Avatar, the glorified\nSpiritual *Christos, *who will deliver the suffering *Christos\n*(mankind, or Prometheus, on its trial). This, say Brahminical\nand Buddhistic legends, echoed by the Zoroastrian and now by the\nChristian teachings (the latter only occasionally), will happen\nat the end of *Kaliyuga. *It is only after the appearance\nof Kalki-Avatar, or Sosiosh, that man will be born from woman\nwithout sin. Then will Brahma, the Hindu deity; Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd),\nthe Zoroastrian; Zeus, the Greco-Olympian Don Juan; Jehovah, the\njealous, repenting, cruel, tribal God of the Israelites, and all\ntheir likes in the universal Pantheon of human fancy -- vanish\nand disappear in thin air. And along with these will vanish their\nshadows, *the dark aspects *of all those deities, ever\nrepresented as their \"twin brothers\" and creatures,\nin exoteric legend, *their own reflection on *earth --\nin esoteric philosophy. The Ahrimans and Typhons, the Samaels\nand Satans, must be all dethroned on that day, when every dark\nevil passion will be subdued.\n\nThere is one eternal Law in nature, one that always tends to adjust\ncontraries and to produce final harmony. It is owing to this law\nof spiritual development superseding the physical and purely intellectual,\nthat mankind will become freed from its false gods, and find itself\nfinally -*- ***SELF***-***REDEEMED***.*\n\nIn its final revelation, the old myth of Prometheus -- his*\nproto- *and *anti-*types being found in every ancient\ntheogony -- stands in each of them at the very origin of physical\nevil, because at the threshold of human physical life. **K**RONOS\nis \"Time,\" whose first law is that the order of the\nsuccessive and harmonious phases in the process of evolution during\ncyclic development should be strictly preserved -- under the severe\npenalty of abnormal growth with all its ensuing results. It was\nnot in the programme of natural development that man -- higher\nanimal though he may be -- should become at once -- intellectually,\nspiritually, and psychically -- the demi-god he is on earth, while\nhis physical frame remains weaker and more helpless and ephemeral\nthan that of almost any huge mammal. The contrast is too grotesque\nand violent; the tabernacle much too unworthy of its indwelling\ngod. The gift of Prometheus thus became a CURSE -- though *foreknown\n*and *foreseen *by the HOST personified in that personage,\nas his name well shows.* It is in this that rests, at one and\nthe same time,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** Vide supra, *a foot-note concerning the etymology of\n[[*prometis*]] *prometis* or* forethought. *Prometheus\nconfesses it in the drama when saying: -- [[Footnote continued\non next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 421 ONE OF THE FUNCTIONS OF ZEUS.\n\nits sin and its redemption. For the Host that incarnated in a\nportion of humanity, though led to it by Karma or *Nemesis,\n*preferred free-will to passive slavery, intellectual self-conscious\npain and even torture \"while myriad time shall flow\"\n-- to inane, imbecile, instinctual beatitude. Knowing such an\nincarnation was premature and not in the programme of nature,\nthe heavenly host, \"Prometheus,\" still sacrificed itself\nto benefit thereby, at least, one portion of mankind.* But while\nsaving man from mental darkness, they inflicted upon him the tortures\nof the self-consciousness of his responsibility -- the result\nof his free will -- besides every ill to which mortal man and\nflesh are heir to. This torture Prometheus accepted for himself,\nsince the Host became henceforward blended with the tabernacle\nprepared for them, which was still unachieved at that period of\nformation.\n\nSpiritual evolution being incapable of keeping pace with the physical,\nonce its homogeneity was broken by the admixture, the gift thus\nbecame the chief cause, if not the sole origin of *Evil.***\nThe allegory which shows** K**RONOS cursing Zeus\nfor dethroning him (in the primitive \"golden\" age of\nSaturn, when all men were demi-gods), and for creating a physical\nrace of men weak and helpless in comparison; and then as delivering\nto his (Zeus') revenge the culprit, who despoiled the gods of\ntheir prerogative of creation and who thereby raised man to their\nlevel, intellectually and spiritually -- is highly philosophical.\nIn the case of Prometheus, Zeus represents the Host of the primeval\nprogenitors, of the PITAR, the \"Fathers\" who created\nman senseless\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]]\n\n\"Oh! holy Ether, swiftly-winged gales . . . .\n\nBehold what I, a god, from gods endure\n\n. . . . . . . . .\n\nAnd yet what say I? *Clearly I foreknew*\n\nAll that must happen . . . .\n\n. . . . The Destined it behoves,\n\nAs best I may, to bear, for well I wot\n\nHow incontestable the strength of Fate . . . . (88-105)\n\n\"Fate\" stands here for **K**ARMA, or *Nemesis.*\n\n* Mankind is obviously divided into god-informed men and lower\nhuman creatures. The intellectual difference between the Aryan\nand other civilized nations and such savages as the South Sea\nIslanders, is inexplicable on any other grounds. No amount of\nculture, nor generations of training amid civilization, could\nraise such human specimens as the Bushmen, the Veddhas of Ceylon,\nand some African tribes, to the same intellectual level as the\nAryans, the Semites, and the Turanians so called. The \"sacred\nspark\" is missing in them and it is they who are the only\n*inferior *races on the globe, now happily -- owing to\nthe wise adjustment of nature which ever works in that direction\n-- fast dying out. Verily mankind is \"of one blood,\"\n*but not of the same* *essence. *We are the hot-house,\nartificially quickened plants in nature, having in us a spark,\nwhich in them is latent.\n\n** The philosophical view of Indian metaphysics places the Root\nof Evil in the differentiation of the Homogeneous into the Heterogeneous,\nof the unit into plurality.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 422 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nand without any mind; while the divine Titan stands for the Spiritual\ncreators, the *devas *who \"fell\" into generation.\nThe former are spiritually lower, but physically stronger, than\nthe \"Prometheans\": therefore, the latter are shown conquered.\n\"The lower Host, whose work the Titan spoiled and thus defeated\nthe plans of Zeus,\" was on this earth in its own sphere and\nplane of action; whereas, the superior Host was an exile from\nHeaven, who had got entangled in the meshes of matter. They (the\ninferior \"Host\") were masters of all the Cosmic and\nlower titanic forces; the higher Titan possessed only the intellectual\nand spiritual fire. This drama of the struggle of Prometheus with\nthe Olympic tyrant and despot, sensual Zeus, one sees enacted\ndaily within our actual mankind: the lower passions chain the\nhigher aspirations to the rock of matter, to generate in many\na case the vulture of sorrow, pain, and repentance. In every such\ncase one sees once more --\n\n\"A god . . . in fetters, anguish fraught;\n\nThe foe of Zeus, in hatred held by all. . . . \"\n\nA god, bereft even of that supreme consolation of Prometheus,\nwho suffered in self-sacrifice --\n\n\"For that to men he bare too fond a mind. . .\"\n\nas the divine Titan is moved by altruism, but the mortal man by\nSelfishness and Egoism in every instance.\n\nThe modern Prometheus has now become *Epi-metheus, *\"he\nwho sees only after the event\"; because the universal philanthropy\nof the former has long ago degenerated into selfishness and self-adoration.\nMan will rebecome the* free *Titan of old, but not before\ncyclic evolution has re-established the broken harmony between\nthe two natures -- the terrestrial and the divine; after which\nhe becomes impermeable to the lower titanic forces, invulnerable\nin his personality, and immortal in his individuality, which cannot\nhappen before every animal element is eliminated from his nature.\nWhen man understands that \"*Deus non fecit mortem*\"\n(*Sap. I., *13), but that man has created it himself, he\nwill re-become the Prometheus before his Fall.\n\nFor the full symbolism of Prometheus and the origin of this mythos\nin Greece, the reader is referred to Part **II**.\nof this Volume, chapter \"A Second Key to Prometheus,\"\netc. In the said Part -- a kind of supplement to the present portion\n-- every additional information is given upon those tenets that\nwill be the most controverted and questioned. This work is so\nheterodox, when confronted with the acknowledged standards of\ntheology and modern science, that no proof which tends to show\nthat these standards often usurp an illegal authority should be\nneglected.\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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