HPB-SD(ed.1) v.1 ch.Introduction: Difference between revisions

{{Style P-No indent|direct references to the ancient mysteries, after having been carefully copied in cryptographic characters, such as to defy the art of the best and cleverest palæographer, was also destroyed to the last copy. During Akbar’s reign, some fanatical courtiers, displeased at the Emperor’s sinful prying into the religions of the infidels, themselves helped the Brahmans to conceal their MSS. Such was Badáonì, who had an ''undisguised horror'' for Akbar’s mania for idolatrous religions. *}}

Moreover in all the large and wealthy lamasaries, there are subterranean crypts and ''cave-libraries,'' cut in the rock, whenever the ''gonpa'' and the ''lhakhang'' are situated in the mountains. Beyond the Western Tsay-dam, in the solitary passes of ''Kuen-lun'' † there are several such hiding-places. Along the ridge of Altyn-Toga, whose soil no European foot has ever trodden so far, there exists a certain hamlet, lost in a deep gorge. It is a small cluster of houses, a hamlet rather than a monastery, with a poor-looking temple in it, with one old lama, a hermit, living near by to watch it. Pilgrims say that the subterranean galleries and halls under it contain a collection of books, the number of which, according to the accounts given, is too large to find room even in the British Museum. ‡

{{Style P-No indent|the reader rejects the truthfulness of the reports, let him pause and reflect over the following well known facts. The collective researches of the Orientalists, and especially the labours of late years of the students of comparative Philology and the Science of Religions have led them to ascertain as follows : An immense, incalculable number of MSS., and even printed works ''known to have existed, are now to be found no more.'' They have disappeared without leaving the slightest trace behind them. Were they works of no importance they might, in the natural course of time, have been left to perish, and their very names would have been obliterated from human memory. But it is not so; for, as now ascertained, most of them contained the true keys to works still extant, and ''entirely incomprehensible, ''for the greater portion of their readers, ''without those additional volumes of Commentaries and explanations.'' Such are, for instance, the works of Lao-tse, the predecessor of Confucius. *}}

Written in Greek by Berosus, a priest of the temple of Belus, for Alexander the Great, from the astronomical and chronological records preserved by the priests of that temple, and covering a period of 200,000 years, it is now lost. In the first century B.C. Alexander Polyhistor made a series of extracts from it — ''also lost.'' Eusebius used these extracts in writing his ''Chronicon'' (270—340 A.D.). The points of resemblance — almost of identity—between the Jewish and the Chaldean Scriptures, * made the latter most dangerous to Eusebius, in his ''rôle'' of defender and champion of the new faith which had adopted the Jewish Scriptures, and with them an absurd chronology. It is pretty certain that Eusebius did not spare the Egyptian Synchronistic tables of Manetho—so much so that Bunsen † charges him with mutilating history most unscrupulously. And Socrates, a historian of the fifth century, and Syncellus, vice-patriarch of Constantinople (eighth century), both denounce him as the most daring and desperate forger.

What do the scholars say of Buddhist literature ? Have they got it in its completeness ? Assuredly not. Notwithstanding the 325 volumes of the ''Kanjur'' and the ''Tanjur'' of the Northern Buddhists, each volume we are told, “ weighing from four to five pounds,” nothing, in truth, is known of Lamaism. Yet, the sacred canon of the Southern Church is said to contain 29,368,000 letters in the Saddharma alankâra, * or, exclusive of treatises and commentaries, “ five or six times the amount of the matter contained in the Bible,” the latter, in the words of Professor Max Müller, rejoicing only in 3,567,180 letters. Notwithstanding, then, these “ 325 volumes ” (''in reality'' there are 333, ''Kanjur ''comprising 108, and ''Tanjur'' 225 volumes), “ the translators, instead of supplying us with correct versions, have interwoven them ''with their own commentaries,'' for the purpose of justifying the dogmas of their several schools.” † Moreover, “ according to a tradition preserved by the Buddhist schools, both of the South and of the North, the sacred Buddhist Canon comprised originally 80,000 or 84,000 tracts, ''but most of them were lost,'' so that there remained but 6,000,” the professor tells his audiences. “ Lost ” as usual for Europeans. But who can be quite sure that they are likewise lost for Buddhists and Brahmins ?

{{Style P-No indent|upon Buddha or his “ Good Law,” the loss of nearly 76,000 ''tracts'' does seem miraculous. Had it been ''vice versâ,'' every one acquainted with the natural course of events would subscribe to the statement that, of these 76,000, five or six thousand treatises ''might have been'' destroyed during the persecutions in, and emigrations from, India. But as it is well ascertained that Buddhist Arhats began their religious exodus, for the purpose of propagating the new faith beyond Kashmir and the Himalayas, as early as the year 300 before our era, * and reached China in the year 61 {{Style S-Small capitals|A.D}}. † when Kashyapa, at the invitation of the Emperor Ming-ti, went there to acquaint the “ Son of Heaven ” with the tenets of Buddhism, it does seem strange to hear the Orientalists speaking of such a loss as though it were really possible. They do not seem to allow for one moment the possibility that the texts may be ''lost'' only for West and ''for themselves'' ; or, that the Asiatic people should have the unparalleled boldness to keep their most sacred records out of the reach of foreigners, thus refusing to deliver them to the profanation and misuse of races even so “ vastly superior ” to themselves.}}

{{Style P-No indent|covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and with the strange pictures of gods and goddesses . . . . On rolls of papyrus, which seem to defy the ravages of time, we have even fragments of what may be called the sacred books of the Egyptians; yet, though much has been deciphered in the ancient records of that mysterious race, the mainspring of the religion of Egypt and the original intention of its ceremonial worship ''are far from being fully'' disclosed to us.” * Here again the mysterious hieroglyphic documents remain, but the keys by which alone they become intelligible have disappeared.}}

{{Style P-No indent|in that affair than the Missionaries and Colonel Wilford themselves. The former, on the testimony of Sir William Jones himself (see Asiat. Res., Vol. {{Style S-Small capitals|i}}., p. 272), were silly enough to maintain that “ the Hindus were even now almost Christians, because their Brahmâ, Vishnu and Mahesa were no other than the Christian trinity.” * It was a good lesson. It made the Oriental scholars doubly cautious ; but perchance it has also made some of them too shy, and caused, in its reaction, the pendulum of foregone conclusions to swing too much the other way. For “ that first supply on the Brahmanical market,” made for Colonel Wilford, has now created an evident necessity and desire in the Orientalists to declare nearly every archaic Sanskrit manuscript so modern as to give to the missionaries full justification for availing themselves of the opportunity. That they do so and to the full extent of their mental powers, is shown by the absurd attempts of late to prove that the whole Purânic story about Chrishna was ''plagiarized by the Brahmins from the Bible!'' But the facts cited by the Oxford Professor in his Lectures on the “ ''Science of Religion,”'' concerning the now famous interpolations, for the benefit, and later on to the sorrow, of Col. Wilford, do not at all interfere with the conclusions to which one who studies the Secret Doctrine must unavoidably come. For, if the results show that neither the ''New'' nor even the ''Old'' Testament borrowed anything from the more ancient religion of the Brahmans and Buddhists, it does not follow that the Jews have not borrowed all they knew from the Chaldean records, the latter being mutilated later on by Eusebius. As to the Chaldeans, they assuredly got their primitive learning from the Brahmans, for Rawlinson shows an undeniably Vedic influence in the early mythology of Babylon ; and Col. Vans Kennedy has long since justly declared that Babylonia was, from her origin, the seat of Sanskrit and Brahman learning. But all such proofs must lose their value, in the presence of the latest theory worked out by Prof. Max Müller. What it is everyone knows. The code of phonetic laws has now become a universal solvent for every identification and “ connection ” between}}  

{{Style P-No indent|legislator in historical chronology, though a very modern Sage in the World’s History, shown by Dr. Legge * — who calls him “ emphatically ''a transmitter,'' not a maker ” — as saying : “ I only hand on : I cannot create new things. I believe in the ancients and therefore I love them.” † (Quoted in “ Science of Religions ” by Max Müller.)}}

The writer loves them too, and therefore believes in the ancients, and the modern heirs to their Wisdom. And believing in both, she now transmits that which she has received and learnt herself to all those who will accept it. As to those who may reject her testimony, — ''i.e.,'' the great majority — she will bear them no malice, for they will be as right in their way in denying, as she is right in hers in affirming, since they look at {{Style S-Small capitals|truth}} from two entirely different stand-points. Agreeably with the rules of critical scholarship, the Orientalist has to reject ''a priori'' whatever evidence he cannot fully verify for himself. And how can a Western scholar accept on hearsay that which he knows nothing about ? Indeed, that which is given in these volumes is selected from ''oral,'' as much as from written teachings. This first instalment of the esoteric doctrines is based upon Stanzas, which are the records of a people unknown to ethnology; it is claimed that they are written in a tongue absent from the nomenclature of languages and dialects with which philology is acquainted ; they are said to emanate from a source (Occultism) repudiated by science ; and, finally, they are offered through an agency, incessantly discredited before the world by all those who hate unwelcome truths, or have some special hobby of their own to defend. Therefore, the rejection of these teachings may be expected, and must be accepted beforehand. No one styling himself a “ scholar,” in whatever department of exact science, will be permitted to regard these teachings seriously. They will be derided and rejected ''a priori'' in this century; but only in this one. For in the twentieth century of our era scholars will begin to recognize that the ''Secret Doctrine'' has neither been invented nor exaggerated, but, on the contrary, simply outlined ; and finally, that its teachings antedate the Vedas. ‡ Have not the latter been derided, rejected, and  

Both creeds have won their proselytes at the point of the sword ; both have built their churches on ''heaven-kissing hecatombs of human victims. ''Over the gateway of Century I. of our era, the ominous words “ the {{Style S-Small capitals|Karma of Israel}},” fatally glowed. Over the portals of our own, the future seer may discern other words, that will point to the Karma for cunningly made-up {{Style S-Small capitals|History}}, for events purposely perverted, and for great characters slandered by posterity, mangled out of recognition, between the two cars of Jagannâtha — Bigotry and Materialism ; one accepting too much, the other denying all. Wise is he who holds to the golden mid-point, who believes in the eternal justice of things. Says Faigi Diwan, the “ witness to the wonderful speeches of a free-thinker who belongs to a thousand sects ” : “ In the assembly of the day of resurrection, when past things shall be forgiven, the sins of the Ka’bah will be forgiven for the sake of the dust of Christian churches.” To this, Professor Max Müller replies : “ The sins of Islam are ''as worthless as the dust of Christianity. On the day of resurrection both Muhammadans and Christians will see the vanity of their religious doctrines.'' Men fight about religion on earth ; in heaven they shall find out that there is only one true religion — the worship of God’s {{Style S-Small capitals|Spirit}}.” *

{{Style P-Quote|“ So very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder over its pages an indefinite time, and still not quite agree as to the nature of the fabric upon which it is written. It is the only original copy now in existence. The most ancient Hebrew document on occult learning — the ''Siphrah Dzeniouta'' — was compiled from it, and that at a time when the former was already considered in the light of a literary relic. One of its illustrations represents the Divine Essence emanating from {{Style S-Small capitals|Adam}} * like a luminous arc proceeding to form a circle ; and then, having attained the highest point of its circumference, the ineffable glory bends back again, and returns to earth, bringing a higher type of humanity in its vortex. As it approaches nearer and nearer to our planet, the Emanation becomes more and more shadowy, until upon touching the ground it is as black as night.”}}

The “ very old Book ” is the original work from which the many volumes of ''Kiu-ti'' were compiled. Not only this latter and the ''Siphrah Dzeniouta'' but even the ''Sepher Jezirah'', * the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabalists to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of ''Shu-king, ''China’s primitive Bible, the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Purânas in India, and the Chaldean ''Book of Numbers'' and the ''Pentateuch'' itself, are all derived from that one small parent volume. Tradition says, that it was taken down in ''Senzar,'' the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our) race; for there was a time when its language (the ''Sen-zar'') was known to the Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as easily as the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn, from the sages of the 3rd Race, the ''Manushis,'' who learnt it direct from the ''Devas'' of the 2nd and 1st Races. The “ illustration ” spoken of in “ Isis ” relates to the evolution of these Races and of our 4th and 5th Race Humanity in the Vaivasvata Manvantara or “ Round ; ” each Round being composed of the Yugas of the seven periods of Humanity; four of which are now passed in ''our'' life cycle, the middle point of the 5th being nearly reached. The illustration is symbolical, as every one can well understand, and covers the ground from the beginning. The old book, having described Cosmic Evolution and explained the origin of everything on earth, including physical man, after giving the true history of the races from the ''First'' down to the Fifth (our) race, goes no further. It stops short at the beginning of the ''Kali Yuga ''just 4989 years ago at the death of Krishna, the bright “ Sun-god,” the once living hero and reformer.