Blavatsky H.P. - Footnotes to The Ancient Empire of China: Difference between revisions

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<center>[Lucifer, Vol. III, No. 18, February, 1889, pp. 479-485, and Vol. IV, No 20, April, 1889, pp. 141-148]</center>

[Andrew T. Sibbold contributes a long essay on the historical development of the Chinese Empire and the nature of its civilization, and beliefs. It is followed by some remarks from the pen of “Amaravella,” taking exception to certain statements of Sibbold and giving a theosophical interpretation of various points. H.P.B. has appended a number of footnotes referring to specific passages and words throughout the essay.]

[Believing that we have in the 10th chapter of the Book of Genesis some hints, not to be called in question] Our contributors are entitled to their opinions and allowed a great latitude in the expression of their respective religions, or even sectarian views. Yet a line of demarcation must be drawn; and if we are told that the evolution of Races and their ethnological distribution as in the Bible are “not to be called in question,” then, after Noah, we may be next asked to accept Bible chronology, and the rib, and the apple verbally, to boot? This—we must decline. It is really a pity to spoil able articles by appealing to Biblical allegory for corroboration.

[The accession of Yu, the first sovereign of the nation, was probably at some time in the nineteenth century before Christ] The first Emperor, the grandson of Chow Siang, the founder of the Tsin dynasty, which gave its name to China, flourished in the VIth cent. B.C. but the series of Sovereigns in China is lost in the night of time. But even nineteen centuries carry the Chinese race beyond the Flood, and leave that race still historical.

[There may have been such men as . . . . Chuen-heuh Hwang-te . . . if we should not rather place them in the land of phantasy] Surely not any more so than the Patriarchs and their periods?

[As early as the beginning of the Shang dynasty, we find E Yin presenting a written memorial to his sovereign] How can this be, when we find in Knight’s Cyclopaedia of Biography that the work Shan Hai Ching is spoken of by the commentator Kwoh P’ch (A.D. 276-324) as having been compiled 3,000 years before his time, “seven dynasties back”? It was arranged by Kung Chai or Chung-Ku “from engravings on nine urns made by the Emperor Yu B.C. 2255.<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[These data may be found in the Fourth Division of Charles Knight’s The English Cyclopaedia, Supplement on the Arts and Sciences, London, 1873, columns 524-534, and in the Chan-Hai-King. Antique Géographie Chinoise. Translated from the Chinese by Léon de Rosny, Paris, 1891.

The same information occurs in The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 54, footnote.—Compiler.]}}</ref>

[the Chinese have never thought of fashioning a likeness of the Supreme] Just so; because the mind of the Chinaman is too philosophical to create for itself an ABSOLUTE Supreme as a personality in his (the Chinaman’s) likeness.

[Who the “six-Honoured ones” . . . were, is not known] “The six honoured ones” are those of every nation which had a cult based on astronomy. The “God” was the Sun. Ahura Mazda and his six Amshaspends of the Mazdeans are the later development of the 12 Zodiacal signs divided into six double houses, the Sun being the seventh and always made the representative (or synthesis) of the six. As Proclus has it: “The Framer made the heavens six in number, and for the seventh he cast into the midst the fire of the Sun” (Timaeus),<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[This passage is from Proclus’ Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato (transl. by Thos. Taylor); it is quoted here, however, from I. P. Cory, Ancient Fragments, p. 265, 2nd. ed., London, Wm. Pickering, 1832.—Compiler.]}}</ref> and this idea is pre-eminent in the Christian (especially the Roman Catholic) idea, i.e., the Sun-Christ, who is also Michael, and his six and seven Eyes, or Spirit of the Planets. The “six—seven” are a movable and interchangeable number and are ever made to correlate in religious symbolism. As correctly shown by Mr. G. Massey there are seven circles to Meru and six parallel ridges across it, there are seven manifestations of light and only six days of creation, etc. The mystery of the “double heaven” is one of the oldest and most Kabalistic and the six chambers, divisions, etc., in most of the temples of antiquity with the officiating priest, representing the Sun, the seventh, left abundant witnesses behind them.

[the people of the Shang dynasty were very superstitious] But why not take advantage of this opportunity to also bring out that other worse “superstition”—about Noah and the rest? Shall our “doxies” remain forever the only orthodox, and those of all other people heterodoxies and “superstition”?