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- 4. And after great throes she ( the Earth ) cast off her old three and put on her new seven skins, and stood in her first one (a).
(a) This refers to the growth of the Earth, whereas in the Stanza treating of the First Round it is said (given in the Commentary) : —
“ After the changeless (a vikâra) immutable nature (Essence, sadaikarûpa) had awakened and changed (differentiated) into (a state of) causality (avayakta), and from cause (Karana) had become its own discrete effect (vyakta), from invisible it became visible. The smallest of the small (the most atomic of
* As shown elsewhere, it is only the “ Heavenly Man,” Adam Kadmon, of the first chapter of Genesis, who is made “ in the image and likeness of God.” Adam, of chapter ii., is not said to be made in that image nor in the divine likeness, before he ate of the forbidden fruit. The former Adam is the Sephirothal Host ; the second Adam is the Mindless first human Root-race ; the third Adam is the race that separated, whose eyes are opened.
† For a discussion of the scientific objections to the views and figures here enunciated, the reader is referred to the Addenda, which form Part III. of this book.
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atoms, or aniyâmsam aniyâsam) became one and the many (ekanekárûpa) ; and producing the Universe produced also the Fourth Loka (our Earth) in the garland of the seven lotuses. The Achyuta then became the Chyuta. *
The Earth is said to cast off her old three skins, because this refers to the three preceding Rounds she has already passed through ; the present being the fourth Round out of the seven. At the beginning of every new Round, after a period of “ obscuration,” the earth (as do also the other six “ earths ”) casts off, or is supposed to cast off, her old skins as the Serpent does : therefore she is called in the Aitareya-Brâhmana the Sarpa Rajni, “ the Queen of the Serpents,” and “ the mother of all that moves.” The “ Seven Skins,” in the first of which she now stands, refer to the seven geological changes which accompany and correspond to the evolution of the Seven Root-Races of Humanity.
Stanza II., which speaks of this Round, begins with a few words of information concerning the age of our Earth. The chronology will be given in its place. In the Commentary appended to the Stanza, two personages are mentioned : Narada and Asura Maya, especially the latter. All the calculations are attributed to this archaic celebrity ; and what follows will make the reader superficially acquainted with some of these figures.
To the mind of the Eastern student of Occultism, two figures are indissolubly connected with mystic astronomy, chronology, and their cycles. Two grand and mysterious figures, towering like two giants in the Archaic Past, emerge before him, whenever he has to refer to Yugas and Kalpas. When, at what period of pre-history they lived, none save a few men in the world know, or ever can know with that certainty which is required by exact chronology. It may have been 100,000 years ago, it may have been 1,000,000, for all that the outside world will ever know. The mystic West and Freemasonry talk loudly of Enoch and Hermes. The mystic East speaks of Narada, the old Vedic Rishi, and of Asuramaya, the Atlantean.
It has already been hinted that of all the incomprehensible characters in the Mahabhârata and the Purânas, Narada, the son of Brahmâ in Matsya Purâna, the progeny of Kasyapa and the daughter of Daksha
* Achyuta is an almost untranslatable term. It means that which is not subject to fall or change for the worse : the Unfalling ; and it is the reverse of chyuta, “ the Fallen.” The Dhyanis who incarnate in the human forms of the Third Root-Race and endow them with intellect (Manas) are called the chyuta, for they fall into generation.
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in the Vishnu Purâna, is the most mysterious. He is referred to by the honourable title of Deva Rishi (divine Rishi, more than a demi-god) by Parasâra, and yet he is cursed by Daksha and even by Brahmâ. He informs Kansa that Bhagavat (or Vishnu in exotericism) would incarnate in the eighth child of Devaki, and thus brings the wrath of the Indian Herod upon Krishna’s mother ; and then, from the cloud on which he is seated — invisible as a true Manasaputra — he lauds Krishna, in delight at the Avatar’s feat of killing the monster Kesim. Narada is here, there, and everywhere ; and yet, none of the Purânas gives the true characteristics of this great enemy of physical procreation. Whatever those characteristics may be in Hindu Esotericism, Narada — who is called in Cis-Himalayan Occultism Pesh-Hun, the “ Messenger,” or the Greek Angelos — is the sole confidant and the executor of the universal decrees of Karma and Adi-Budh : a kind of active and ever incarnating logos, who leads and guides human affairs from the beginning to the end of the Kalpa.
“ Pesh-Hun ” is a general not a special Hindu possession. He is the mysterious guiding intelligent power, which gives the impulse to, and regulates the impetus of cycles, Kalpas and universal events. * He is Karma’s visible adjuster on a general scale ; the inspirer and the leader of the greatest heroes of this Manvantara. In the exoteric works he is referred to by some very uncomplimentary names ; such as “ Kali-Kâraka,” strife-maker, “ Kapi-vaktra,” monkey-faced, and even “ Pisuna,” the spy, though elsewhere he is called Deva-Brahmâ. Even Sir W. Jones was strongly impressed with this mysterious character from what he gathered in his Sanskrit Studies. He compares him to Hermes and Mercury, and calls him “ the eloquent messenger of the gods ” (see Asiat. Res. I. p. 264). All this led the late Dr. Kenealy (“ Book of God ”), on the ground that the Hindus believe him to be a great Rishi, “ who is for ever wandering about the earth, giving good counsel,” to see in him one of his twelve Messiahs. He was, perhaps, not so far off the real track as some imagine.
What Narada really is, cannot be explained in print ; nor would the modern generations of the profane gather much from the information. But it may be remarked, that if there is in the Hindu Pantheon a deity which resembles Jehovah, in, tempting by “ suggestion ” of thoughts and “ hardening ” of the hearts of those whom he would make his tools and victims, it is Narada. Only with the latter it is no desire to obtain a pretext for “ plaguing,” and thus showing that “ I am the Lord God.”
* This is perhaps the reason why, in the Bhagavad Gita, we are told that Brahmâ had communicated to Narada in the beginning that all men whatsoever, even Mlechchhas, outcasts and barbarians, might know the true nature of Vasudeva and learn to have faith in that deity.
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Nor is it through any ambitious or selfish motive ; but, verily, to serve and guide universal progress and evolution.
Narada is one of the few prominent characters, save some gods, in the Purânas, who visits the so-called nether or infernal regions, Pâtâla. Whether or not it was from his intercourse with the thousand-headed Sesha, the serpent who bears the seven Pâtâlas and the entire world like a diadem upon his heads, and who is the great teacher of astronomy, * that Narada learned all that he knew, certain it is that he surpasses Garga’s Guru in his knowledge of cyclic intricacies. It is he who has charge of our progress and national weal or woe. It is he who brings on wars and puts an end to them. In the old Stanzas Pesh-Hun is credited with having calculated and recorded all the astronomical and cosmic cycles to come, and with having taught the Science to the first gazers at the starry vault. And it is Asuramâya, who is said to have based all his astronomical works upon those records, to have determined the duration of all the past geological and cosmical periods, and the length of the all the cycles to come, till the end of this life-cycle, or the end of the seventh Race.
There is a work among the Secret Books, called the “ Mirror of Futurity,” wherein all the Kalpas within Kalpas and cycles within the bosom of Sesha, or infinite Time, are recorded. This work is ascribed to Pesh-Hun Narada. There is another old work which is attributed to various Atlanteans. It is these two Records which furnish us with the figures of our cycles, and the possibility of calculating the date of cycles to come. The chronological calculations which will presently be given are, however, those of the Brahmins as explained further on ; but most of them are also those of the Secret Doctrine.
The chronology and computations of the Brahmin Initiates are based upon the Zodiacal records of India, and the works of the above-mentioned astronomer and magician — Asuramaya. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught astronomy, among other things, to mankind.
But here again we are deliberately and recklessly facing a new difficulty. We shall be told that our statement is contradicted by science, in the person of a man regarded as a great authority (in the West) upon all subjects of Sanskrit literature — Professor Albrecht Weber, of Berlin. This, to our great regret, cannot be helped ; and we are ready to maintain what is now stated. Asuramaya, to whom the epic tradition points as the earliest astronomer in Aryavarta, one to whom “ the
* Sesha, who is also Ananta, the infinite, and the “ Cycle of Eternity ” in esotericism, is credited with having given his astronomical knowledge to Garga, the oldest astronomer of India, who propitiated him, and forthwith knew all about the planets and how to read omens.
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Sun-god imparted the knowledge of the stars,” in propriâ personâ, as Dr. Weber himself states, is identified by him, in some very mysterious way, with the “ Ptolemaios ” of the Greeks. No more valid reason is given for this identification than that “ this latter name (Ptolemaios), as we see from the inscription of Piyadasi, became the Indian ‘ Turamaya,’ out of which the name ‘ Asuramâya ’ might very easily grow.” No doubt it “ might,” but the vital question is — Are there any good proofs that it has thus grown ? The only evidence that is given for it is, that it must be so : “ since this Maya is distinctly assigned to Romaka-pura in the West.” * The Maya is evident, since no Sanskritist among Europeans can tell where that locality of “ Romakapura ” was, except, indeed, that it was somewhere “ in the West.” Anyhow, as no member of the Asiatic Society, or Western Orientalist, will ever listen to a Brahmanical teaching, it is useless to take the objections of European Orientalists into consideration. “ Romakapura ” was in “ the West,” certainly, since it was part and parcel of the last continent of Atlantis. And it is equally certain that it is Atlantis, which is assigned in the Hindu Purânas as the birth-place of Asuramâya, “ as great a magician as he was an Astrologer and an Astronomer.” Moreover, Prof. Weber refuses to assign any great antiquity to the Indian Zodiac, and feels inclined to think that the Hindus never knew of a Zodiac at all till “ they had borrowed one from the Greeks.” † This statement clashes with the most ancient traditions of India, and must therefore be ignored. (Vide “ The Zodiac and its Antiquity ” ). We are the more justified in ignoring it, as the learned German Professor himself tells us in the introduction to his work ( History of Sanskrit Literature ) that “ in addition to the natural obstacles which impede investigation (in India), there still prevails a dense mist of prejudices and preconceived opinions hovering over the land, and enfolding it as with a veil.” Caught in that veil, it is no wonder that Dr. Weber should himself have been led into involuntary errors. Let us hope that he knows better now.
Now whether Asuramâya is to be considered a modern myth, a personage who flourished in the day of the Macedonian Greeks, or as that which he is claimed to be by the Occultists, in any case his calculations agree entirely with those of the Secret Records.
From fragments of immensely old works attributed to the Atlantean astronomer, and found in Southern India, the calendar elsewhere men-
* See “ Lectures on the Indian Literature,” p. 253, by Prof. A. Weber ; in Trübner’s Asiatic Series.
† Even the Maya Indians of Guatemala had their Zodiac from untold antiquity. And “ primitive man acted in the same manner independently of time or locality in every age,” observes a French writer.
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tioned was compiled by two very learned Brahmins * in 1884 and 1885. The work is proclaimed by the best Pundits as faultless — from the Brahmanical standpoint — and thus far relates to the chronology of the orthodox teachings. If we compare its statements with those made several years earlier in “ Isis Unveiled,” with the fragmentary teachings published by some Theosophists, and with the present data derived from the Secret Books of Occultism, the whole will be found to agree perfectly, save in some details which may not be explained ; for secrets of higher Initiation — as unknown to the writer as they are to the reader — would have to be revealed, and that cannot be done. (But see “ Chronology of the Brahmins ” at the close of Stanza II.)
* The “ Tirukkanda Panchanga ” for the Kali Yug 4986, by Chintamany Raghanaracharya, son of the famous Government astronomer of Madras, and Tartakamala Venkata Krishna Rao.