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We have to go to the very source of historical information, if we would bring our best evidence to testify to the facts enunciated. For, though entirely allegorical, the Rig-Vedic hymns are none the less suggestive. The seven rays of Sûrya (the Sun) are made therein parallel to the Seven Worlds (of every planetary chain), to the seven rivers of heaven and earth, the former being the seven creative Hosts, and the latter the Seven men, or primitive human groups. The Seven ancient Rishis — the progenitors of all that lives and breathes on earth — are the seven friends of Agni, his seven “ horses,” or seven “ Heads.” The human race has sprung from fire and water, it is allegorically stated ; fashioned by the Fathers, or the ancestor-sacrificers, from Agni ; for Agni, the Aswins, the Adityas (Rig-Veda III., 54, 16, II., 29, 3, 4), are all synonymous with that “ sacrificer,” or the fathers, variously called Pitar (Pitris, fathers), Angirases † (Ibid, 1, 31, 17, 139, et seq.), the Sâdh yas, “ divine sacrificers,” the most occult of all. They are all called deva putra rishayah or “ the Sons of God ” (X., 62 ; 1, 4). The “ sacrificers,” moreover, are collectively the one sacrificer, the father of the gods, Visvakarman, who performed the great Sarva-Medha ceremony, and ended by sacrificing himself. (See Rig-Vedic Hymns.)
† Prof. Roth (in Peter’s Lexicon) defines the Angirases as an intermediate race of higher beings between gods and men ; while Prof. Weber, according to his invariable custom of modernising and anthropomorphising the divine, sees in them the original priests of the religion which was common to the Aryan Hindus and Persians. Roth is right. “ Angirases ” was one of the names of the Dhyanis, or Devas instructors (“ guru-deva ”), of the late Third, the Fourth, and even of the Fifth Race Initiates.
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In these Hymns the “ Heavenly Man ” is called purusha, “ the Man,” (X. 90, 1) from whom Virâj was born (X. 90, 5) ; and from Virâj, the (mortal) man. It is Varuna (now drawn from his sublime position to be the chief of the lords-Dhyanis or Devas) who regulates all natural phenomena, who “ makes a path for the Sun, for him to follow.” The seven rivers of the sky (the descending creative gods) and the seven rivers of the earth (the seven primitive mankinds) are under his control, as will be seen. For he who breaks Varuna’s laws (Vratâni, “ courses of natural action,” active laws) is punished by Indra (X. 113, 5), the Vedic powerful god, whose Vratâ (law or power) is greater than the Vratâni of any other god.
Thus, the Rig Veda, the oldest of all the known ancient records, may be shown to corroborate the occult teachings in almost every respect. Its hymns — the records written by the earliest Initiates of the Fifth (our race) concerning the primordial teachings — speak of the Seven Races (two still to come) allegorising them by the “ seven streams ” (1, 35, 8) ; and of the Five Races (“ pânca krishtâyah ”) which have already inhabited this world ( ibid ) on the five regions “ pânca pradicah ” (IX, 86, 29), as also of the three continents that were. *
It is those scholars only who will master the secret meaning of the Purushasukta (in which the intuition of the modern Orientalist has chosen to see “ one of the very latest hymns of the Rig-Veda ”), who may hope to understand how harmonious are its teachings and how corroborative of the Esoteric doctrines. One must study in all the abstruseness of their metaphysical meaning the relations in it between the (Heavenly) man “ Purusha,” Sacrificed for the production of the Universe and all in it (See Visvakarman), and the terrestrial mortal man (Hymn X. 20, 1., 16), before one realizes the hidden philosophy of this verse : —
“ 15. He (“ Man,” purusha, or Visvakarman) had seven enclosing logs of fuel, and thrice seven layers of fuel ; when the gods performed the sacrifice, they bound the Man as victim ” . . . . This relates to the three Septenary primeval Races, and shows the antiquity of the Vedas, who knew of no other, probably in this earliest oral teachings ; and also
* Three submerged, or otherwise destroyed, continents — the first “ continent ” of the First Race prevailing to the last and existing to this day — are described in the occult Doctrine, the Hyperborean, the Lemurian (adopting the name now known in Science), and the Atlantean. Most of Asia issued from under the waters after the destruction of Atlantis ; Africa came still later, while Europe is the fifth and the latest — portions of the two Americas being far older. But of these, more anon. The Initiates who recorded the Vedas — or the Rishis of our Fifth Race — wrote at a time when Atlantis had already gone down. Atlantis is the fourth continent that appeared, but the third that disappeared.
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to the seven primeval groups of mankind, as Visvakarman represents divine humanity collectively. *
The same doctrine is found reflected in the other old religions. It may, and must have come down to us disfigured and misinterpreted, as in the case of the Parsis, who read it in their Vendidad and elsewhere, without understanding the allusions they contain any better than the Orientalists do ; yet the doctrine is plainly mentioned in their old works. (See the enumeration of the seven spheres — not the “ Karshvare of the earth,” as believed — in Fargard XIX., 30). But see further on.
Comparing the esoteric teaching with the interpretations by James Darmesteter (the Vendidad, edited by Prof. Max Müller), one may see at a glance where the mistake is made, and the cause that produced it. The passage runs thus : —
“ The Indo-Iranian Asura (Ahura) was often conceived as seven-fold ; by the play of certain mythical (?) formulæ and the strength of certain mythical (?) numbers, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians had been led to speak of seven worlds, † and the Supreme God was often made sevenfold, as well as the worlds over which he ruled.” ( Vide the foot note ). “ The seven worlds became in Persia the seven Karshvare of the earth : the earth is divided into seven Karshvare, only one of which is known and accessible to man, the one on which we live, namely, Hvaniratha ; which amounts to saying that there are seven earths. ‡ Parsi mythology knows also of seven heavens. Hvaniratha itself is divided into seven climes. (Orm. Ahr.§ 72. “ Vendidad Introd. p. lx.,)” and the same division and doctrine is to be found in the oldest and most revered of the Hindu
* Nor is this archaic teaching so very unscientific, since one of the greatest naturalists of the age — the late Professor Agassiz — admitted the multiplicity of the geographical origins of man, and supported it to the end of his life. The unity of the human species was accepted by the illustrious Professor of Cambridge (U.S.A.) in the same way as the Occultists do — namely, in the sense of their essential and original homogeneity and their origin from one and the same source : — e.g., Negroes, Aryans, Mongols, etc., have all originated in the same way and from the same ancestors. The latter were all of one essence, yet differentiated, because belonging to seven planes which differed in degree though not in kind. That original physical difference was but little more accentuated by that of geographical and climatic conditions, later on. This is not the theory of Agassiz, of course, but the esoteric version. It is fully discussed in the Addenda (Part III.).
† The seven worlds are, as said, the seven spheres of the chain, each presided over by one of the “ Seven great gods ” of every religion. When the latter became degraded and anthropomorphized, and the metaphysical ideas nearly forgotten, the synthesis or the highest, the seventh, was separated from the rest, and that personification became the eighth god, whom monotheism tried to unify but — failed. In no exoteric religion is God really one, if analyzed metaphysically.
‡ The six invisible globes of our chain are both “ worlds ” and “ earths ” as is our own, albeit invisible. But where could be the Six invisible earths on this globe ?
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scriptures — the Rig-veda. Mention is made therein of six worlds, besides our earth : the six râjamsi above prithivi — the earth, — or “ this ” (idám) as opposed to that which is yonder (i.e., the six globes on the three other planes or worlds). (See Rig-veda I. 34, III. 56 ; VII. 10, 411, and V., 60. 6).
The italics are ours to point out the identity of the tenets with those of the esoteric doctrine, and the mistake made. The Magi or Mazdeans only believed in what other people believed in ; namely, in seven “ worlds ” or globes of our planetary chain, of which only one is accessible to man (at the present time), our Earth ; and in the successive appearance and destruction of seven continents or earths on this our globe, each continent being divided, in commemoration of the seven globes (one visible, six invisible), into seven islands or continents, “ seven climes,” etc., etc. This was a common belief in those days when the now Secret Doctrine was open to all. It is this multiplicity of localities under Septenary division, that made the Orientalists (led astray, moreover, by the oblivion of both the uninitiated Hindus and Parsis of their primitive doctrines) feel so puzzled by this ever-recurring seven-fold number, as to regard it as “ mythical.” It is that oblivion of the first principles which has led the Orientalists off the right track and made them commit the greatest blunders. The same failure is found in the definition of the Gods. Those who are ignorant of the esoteric doctrine of the earliest Aryans, can never assimilate or understand correctly the metaphysical meaning contained in these Beings.
Ahura Mazda (Ormazd) was the head and synthesis of the seven Amesha Spentas (or Amshaspends), and, therefore, an Amesha Spenta himself. Just as “ Jehovah-Binah Arelim ” was the head and synthesis of the Elohim and no more ; so Agni-Vishnu-Sûrya was the synthesis and head, or the focus whence emanated in physics as in metaphysics, from the Spiritual as from the physical Sun, the Seven Rays, the seven fiery tongues, the seven planets or gods. All these became supreme gods and the One God, but only after the loss of the primeval secrets, the sinking of Atlantis, or “ the Flood,” and the occupation of India by the Brahmans, who sought safety on the summits of the Himalayas, when even the high table-lands of what is now Tibet became submerged for a time. Ahura Mazda is addressed only as “ the Most Blissful Spirit, Creator of the corporeal World ” in the Vendidad. “ Ahura Mazda ” in its literal translation means the “ Wise Lord ” (Ahura “ lord,” and Mazda “ wise ”). Moreover, this name of Ahura, in Sanskrit Asura, connects him with the Manasaputras, the Sons of Wisdom who informed the mindless man, and endowed him with his mind (manas). Ahura (asura) may be derived from the root ah “ to be,” but in its primal signification it is what the Secret Teaching shows it to be.
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When geology shall have found out how many thousands of years ago the disturbed waters of the Indian Ocean reached the highest plateaux of Central Asia, when the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf made one with it, then only will they know the age of the Aryan Brahminical nation, and the time of its descent into the plains of Hindostan, which it did millenniums later.
Yima, the so-called “ first man ” in the Vendidad, as much as his twin-brother Yama, the Son of Vaivasvata Manu, belongs to two epochs of the Universal History. He is the “ Progenitor ” of the Second human Race, hence the personification of the shadows of the Pitris, and the father of the postdiluvian Humanity. The Magi said “ Yima,” as we say “ man ” when speaking of mankind. The “ fair Yima,” the first mortal who converses with Ahura Mazda, is the first “ man ” who dies or disappears, not the first who is born. The “ Son of Vixanghat,” was, like the Son of Vaivasvata, the symbolical man, who stood in esotericism as the representative of the first three races and the collective Progenitor thereof. Of these races the first two never died * but only vanished, absorbed in their progeny, and the third knew death only towards its close, after the separation of the sexes and its “ Fall ” into generation. This is plainly alluded to in the II. Fargard of the Vendidad. Yima refuses to become the bearer of the law of Ahura Mazda, saying “ I was not born, I was not taught to be the preacher and the bearer of thy law.” And then Ahura Mazda asks him to make his men increase and “ watch over his world ” (3 and 4).
He refuses to become the priest of Ahura Mazda, because he is his own priest and sacrificer, but he accepts the second proposal. He is made to answer : —
“ Yes ! . . . yes, I will rule and watch over thy world. There shall be, while I am King, neither cold wind nor hot wind, neither disease nor death.”
Then Ahura Mazda brings him a golden ring and a poniard, the emblems of sovereignty, and under the sway of Yima —
“ Three hundred winters passed away, and the earth was replenished with flocks and herds, with men, and dogs, and birds, and with red blazing fires,” etc. (300 winters mean 300 periods or cycles.)
“ Replenished,” mark well, that is to say, all this had been on it before ; and thus is proven the knowledge of the doctrine about the successive destructions of the world and its life cycles. Once the “ 300 winters ” were over, Ahura Mazda warns Yima that the earth is becoming too full, and men have nowhere to live. Then Yima steps forward, and with the help of Spenta Armaïta (the female genius, or Spirit of the Earth) makes that earth stretch out and become larger by
* Death came only after man had become a physical creature, vide supra. The men of the First Race and also of the Second, dissolved and disappeared in their progeny.
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one-third, after which “ new herds and flocks and men ” appear upon it. Ahura Mazda warns him again, and Yima makes the earth by the same magic power to become larger by two-thirds. “ Nine hundred winters ” pass away, and Yima has to perform the ceremony for the third time. The whole of this is allegorical. The three processes of stretching the earth, refer to the three successive continents and races issuing one after and from the other, as explained more fully elsewhere. After the third time, Ahura Mazda warns Yima in an assembly of “ celestial gods and excellent mortals ” that upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, and all life will perish. This is the old Mazdean symbolism for the “ flood,” and the coming cataclysm to Atlantis, which sweeps away every race in its turn. Like Vaivasvata Manu and Noah, Yima makes a vara (an enclosure, an ark) under the God’s direction, and brings thither the seed of every living creature, animals and “ fires.”
It is of this “ earth ” or new continent that Zarathustra became the law-giver and ruler. This was the Fourth Race in its beginning, after the men of the Third began to die out. Till then, as said (vide supra, foot note) there had been no regular death, but only a transformation, for men had no personality as yet. They had monads — breaths of the One Breath, and as impersonal as the source from which they proceeded. They had bodies, or rather shadows of bodies, which were sinless, hence Karmaless. Therefore, as there was no Kamaloka — least of all Nirvana or even Devachan — for the “ souls ” of men who had no personal Egos, there could be no intermediate periods between the incarnations. Like the Phœnix, primordial man resurrected out of his old into a new body. Each time, and with each new generation, he became more solid, more physically perfect, agreeably with the evolutionary law, which is the Law of Nature. Death came with the complete physical organism, and with it — moral decay.
This explanation shows one more old religion agreeing in its symbology with the universal Doctrine.
Elsewhere the oldest Persian traditions, the relics of Mazdeism of the still older Magians, are given, and some of them explained. Mankind did not issue from one solitary couple. Nor was there ever a first man — whether Adam or Yima — but a first mankind.
It may, or may not be, “ mitigated polygenism.” Once that both creation ex-nihilo — an absurdity — and a superhuman Creator or creators — a fact — are made away with by science, polygenism presents no more difficulties or inconveniences (rather fewer from a scientific point of view) than monogenism does.
Nevertheless, it is as scientific as any other claim. For in his Introduction to Nott’s and Gliddon’s “ Types of Mankind,” Agassiz declares
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his belief in an indefinite number of “ primordial races of men created separately ” ; and remarks that, “ whilst in every zoological province animals are of different species, man, in spite of the diversity of his races, always forms one and the same human being.”
Occultism defines and limits the number of primordial races to seven, because of the “ seven progenitors,” or prajâpatis, the evolvers of beings. These are neither gods, nor supernatural Beings, but advanced Spirits from another and lower planet, reborn on this one, and giving birth in their turn in the present Round to present Humanity. This doctrine is again corroborated by one of its echoes — the Gnostic. In their Anthropology and Genesis of man they taught that “ a certain company of Seven angels,” formed the first men, who were no better than senseless, gigantic, shadowy forms — “ a mere wriggling worm ” (!) writes Irenæus (I., 24, 1), who takes, as usual, the metaphor for reality.