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- 5. The Wheel whirled for thirty crores (of years, or 300,000,000 *). it constructed rupas (forms). Soft stones, that hardened (minerals) ; hard plants, that softened (vegetation). Visible from invisible, insects and small lives (sarisripa, swapada). She (the Earth) shook them off her back, whenever they overran the mother (a). After thirty crores of years, she turned round. She laid on her back ; on her side. . . . . She would call no sons of Heaven, she would ask no sons of Wisdom. She created from her own bosom. She evolved water-men terrible and bad (b).
(a) This relates to an inclination of the axis — of which there were several — to a consequent deluge and chaos on Earth (having, however, no reference to primeval chaos), in which monsters, half-human, half-animal, were generated. We find it mentioned in the “ Book of the Dead,” and also in the Chaldean account of creation, on the Cutha Tablets, however mutilated.
* 300 million years, or Three Occult Ages. The Rig Veda has the same division. In the “ Physician’s Hymn,” (X 97 1) it is said that “ the plants came into being three ages (Triyugam) before the gods ” on our Earth (See “ Chronology of the Brahmins ” at the end of this Stanza).
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It is not even allegory. Here we have facts, that are found repeated in the account of Pymander, as well as in the Chaldean tablets of creation. The verses may almost be checked by the Cosmogony, as given by Berosus, which has been disfigured out of recognition by Eusebius, but some of the features of which may yet be found in fragments left by ancient Greek authors — Apollodorus, Alexander Polyhistor, etc., etc. “ The water-men terrible and bad,” who were the production of physical nature alone, a result of the “ evolutionary impulse ” and the first attempt to create man the “ crown,” and the aim and goal of all animal life on Earth — are shown to be failures in our Stanzas. Do we not find the same in the Berosian Cosmogony, denounced with such vehemence as the culmination of heathen absurdity ? And yet who of the Evolutionists can say that things in the beginning have not come to pass as they are described ? That, as maintained in the Purânas, the Egyptian and Chaldean fragments, and even in Genesis, there have not been two, and even more, “ creations ” before the last formation of the Globe ; which, changing its geological and atmospheric conditions, changed also its flora, its fauna, and its men ? This claim agrees not only with every ancient Cosmogony, but also with modern science, and even, to a certain degree, with the theory of evolution, as may be demonstrated in a few words.
There is no “ dark creation,” no “ Evil Dragon ” conquered by a Sun-God, in the earliest World-Cosmogonies. Even with the Akkads, the great Deep (the Watery Abyss, or Space) was the birthplace and abode of Ea, Wisdom, the incognizable infinite Deity. But with the Semites and the later Chaldeans, the fathomless Deep of Wisdom becomes gross matter, sinful Substance, and Ea is changed into Tiamat, the dragon slain by Merodach, or Satan, in the astral waves.
In the Hindu Purânas, Brahmâ, the creator, is seen recommencing de novo several creations after as many failures ; and two great creations are mentioned, * the Padma and the Vârâha, the present, when the Earth was lifted out of the water by Brahmâ, in the shape of a boar, or “ Vârâha Avatar.” Creation is shown as a sport, an amusement (Lîlâ) of the creative god. The Zohar speaks of primordial worlds, which perished as soon as they came into existence. And the same is said in Midraish, Rabbi Abahu explaining distinctly (in Bereschith Rabba, Parscha IX.) that “ the Holy One ” had successively created and de-
* These two must not be confused with the seven creations or divisions in each Kalpa (See Book I. “ The Seven Creations ”). The primary and secondary creations are here meant.
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stroyed sundry worlds, before he succeeded in the present one. This does not relate only to other worlds in space, but to a mystery of our own globe contained in the allegory about the “ kings of Edom.” For the words, “ This one pleases me,” are repeated in Genesis i. 31, though in disfigured terms, as usual. The Chaldean fragments of Cosmogony on the Cuneiform inscriptions, and elsewhere, show two distinct creations of animals and men, the first being destroyed, as it was a failure. The Cosmogonical tablets prove that this our actual creation was preceded by others (See “ Hibbert Lectures,” p. 390); and as shown by the author of “ The Qabbalah,” in the Zohar, Siphrah Dzeniouta, in Jovah Rabbah, 128a, etc., etc. The Kabala states the same.
(b) Oannes (or Dagon, the Chaldean “ Man-fish ”) divides his Cosmogony and Genesis into two portions. First the abyss of waters and and darkness, wherein resided most hideous beings — men with wings, four and two-faced men, human beings with two heads, with the legs and horns of a goat (our “ goat-men,”) * hippocentaurs, bulls with the heads of men, and dogs with tails of fishes. In short, combinations of various animals and men, of fishes, reptiles and other monstrous animals assuming each other’s shapes and countenances. The feminine element they resided in, is personified by Thalatth — the Sea, or “ Water ” — which was finally conquered by Belus, the male principle. And Polyhistor says : “ Belus came and cut the woman asunder, and of one half of her he formed the Earth, and of the other half the heavens, and at the same time he destroyed the animals within her.” As pertinently remarked by I. Myer, “ with the Akkadians each object and power of Nature had its Zi, Spirit. The Akkadians formed their deities into triads, usually males (sexless, rather ?) ; the Semites also had triadic deities, but introduced sex ” (p. 246) — or phallicism. With the Aryans and the earliest Akkadians all things are emanations through, not by, a creator or logos. With the Semites everything is begotten.
* Whence the identity of the ideas ? The Chinese have the same traditions. According to the commentator Kwoh P’oh, in the work called Shan-Hai-King, “ Wonders by Sea and Land,” a work which was written by the historiographer Chung Ku from engravings on nine urns made by the Emperor Yü, (b.c. 2255), an interview is mentioned with men having two distinct faces on their heads, before and behind, monsters with bodies of goats and human faces, etc. Gould, in his “ Mythical Monsters,” p. 27, giving the names of some authors on Natural History, mentions Shan-Hai-King. According to Kwoh P’oh (a.d. 276-324) this work was compiled three thousand years before his time, or at seven dynasties distance. Yang Sun of the Ming Dynasty (commencing a.d. 1368) states that it was compiled by Kung Chia and Chung Ku (as stated above). Chung Ku at the time of the last emperor of the Hia dynasty, b.c. 1818, fearing that the emperor might destroy the books treating of the ancient time, carried them in his flight to Yin. (See “ Mythical Monsters,” by C. Gould, p. 27.)