CHAPTER IX.

“All things are governed in the bosom of this triad.”--LYDUS:

_De Mensibus_, 20.

“Thrice let the heaven be turned on its perpetual axis.”--

OVID: _Fast_ iv.

“And Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here _seven_ altars,

and prepare me here _seven_ oxen and _seven_ rams.”--

_Numbers_ xxiii. 1, 2.

“In _seven_ days all creatures who have offended me shall

be destroyed by a deluge, but thou shalt be secured in a

vessel miraculously formed; take, therefore ... and with

_seven_ holy men, your respective wives, and pairs of

all animals, enter the ark without fear; then shalt thou

know God face to face, and all thy questions shall be

answered.”--_Bagavedgitta._

“And the Lord said, I will destroy man ... from the face

of the earth.... But with thee will I establish my

covenant.... Come thou and all thy house into the ark....

For yet _seven_ days and I will cause it to rain upon the

earth.”--_Genesis_ vi., vii.

“The Tetraktys was not only principally honored because all

symphonies are found to exist within it, but also because

it appears to contain the nature of all things.”--THEOS. OF

SMYRNA: _Mathem._, p. 147.

Our task will have been ill-performed if the preceding chapters have

not demonstrated that Judaism, earlier and later Gnosticism,

Christianity, and even Christian Masonry, have all been erected upon

identical cosmical myths, symbols, and allegories, whose full

comprehension is possible only to those who have inherited the key

from their inventors.

In the following pages we will endeavor to show how much these have

been misinterpreted by the widely-different, yet intimately-related

systems enumerated above, in fitting them to their individual needs.

Thus not only will a benefit be conferred upon the student, but a

long-deferred, and now much-needed act of justice will be done to

those earlier generations whose genius has laid the whole human race

under obligation. Let us begin by once more comparing the myths of the

_Bible_ with those of the sacred books of other nations, to see which

is the original, which copies.

There are but two methods which, correctly explained, can help us to

this result. They are--the _Vedas_, Brahmanical literature and the

Jewish _Kabala_. The former has, in a most philosophical spirit,

conceived these grandiose myths; the latter borrowing them from the

Chaldeans and Persians, shaped them into a history of the Jewish

nation, in which their spirit of philosophy was buried beyond the

recognition of all but the elect, and under a far more absurd form

than the Aryan had given them. The _Bible_ of the Christian Church is

the latest receptacle of this scheme of disfigured allegories which

have been erected into an edifice of superstition, such as never

entered into the conceptions of those from whom the Church obtained

her knowledge. The abstract fictions of antiquity, which for ages had

filled the popular fancy with but flickering shadows and uncertain

images, have in Christianity assumed the shapes of real personages,

and become accomplished facts. Allegory, metamorphosed, becomes sacred

history, and Pagan myth is taught to the people as a revealed

narrative of God’s intercourse with His chosen people.

“The myths,” says Horace in his _Ars Poetica_, “have been invented by

wise men to strengthen the laws and teach moral truths.” While Horace

endeavored to make clear the very spirit and essence of the ancient

myths, Euhemerus pretended, on the contrary, that “myths were the

legendary history of kings and heroes, transformed into gods by the

admiration of the nations.” It is the latter method which was

inferentially followed by Christians when they agreed upon the

acceptation of euhemerized patriarchs, and mistook them for men who

had really lived.

But, in opposition to this pernicious theory, which has brought forth

such bitter fruit, we have a long series of the greatest philosophers

the world has produced: Plato, Epicharmus, Socrates, Empedocles,

Plotinus, and Porphyry, Proclus, Damascenus, Origen, and even

Aristotle. The latter plainly stated this verity, by saying that a

tradition of the highest antiquity, transmitted to posterity under the

form of various myths, teaches us that the first principles of nature

may be considered as “gods,” for the _divine_ permeates all nature.

All the rest, details and personages, were added later for the clearer

comprehension of the vulgar, and but too often with the object of

supporting laws invented in the common interest.

Fairy tales do not exclusively belong to nurseries; all mankind--except

those few who in all ages have comprehended their hidden meaning and

tried to open the eyes of the superstitious--have listened to such

tales in one shape or the other and, after transforming them into

sacred symbols, called the product RELIGION!

We will try to systematize our subject as much as the ever-recurring

necessity to draw parallels between the conflicting opinions that have

been based on the same myths will permit. We will begin by the book of

_Genesis_, and seek for its hidden meaning in the Brahmanical

traditions and the Chaldeo-Judaïc _Kabala_.

The first Scripture lesson taught us in our infancy is that God

created the world in six days, and rested on the _seventh_. Hence, a

peculiar solenmity is supposed to attach to the seventh day, and the

Christians, adopting the rigid observances of the Jewish sabbath, have

enforced it upon us with the substitution of the first, instead of the

seventh day of the week.

All systems of religious mysticism are based on numerals. With

Pythagoras, the Monas or unity, emanating the duad, and thus forming

the trinity, and the quaternary or Arba-il (the mystic _four_),

compose the number seven. The sacredness of numbers begins with the

great First--the ONE, and ends only with the nought or zero--symbol of

the infinite and boundless circle which represents the universe. All

the intervening figures, in whatever combination, or however

multiplied, represent philosophical ideas, from vague outlines down to

a definitely-established scientific axiom, relating either to a moral

or a physical fact in nature. They are a key to the ancient views on

cosmogony, in its broad sense, including man and beings, and the

evolution of the human race, spiritually as well as physically.

The number _seven_ is the most sacred of all, and is, undoubtedly, of

Hindu origin. Everything of importance was calculated by and fitted

into this number by the Aryan philosophers--ideas as well as

localities. Thus they have the

_Sapta-Rishi_, or seven sages, typifying the seven diluvian primitive

races (post-diluvian as some say).

_Sapta-Loka_, the seven inferior and superior worlds, whence each of

these Rishis proceeded, and whither he returned in glory before

reaching the final bliss of Moksha.[810]

_Sapta-Kula_, or seven castes--the Brahmans assuming to represent the

direct descendants of the highest of them.[811]

Then, again, the Sapta-Pura (seven holy cities); Sapta-Duipa (seven

holy islands); Sapta-Samudra (the seven holy seas); Sapta-Parvata (the

seven holy mountains); Sapta-Arania (the seven deserts); Sapta-Vruksha

(the seven sacred trees); and so on.

In the Chaldeo-Babylonian incantation, this number reappears again as

prominently as among the Hindus. The number is _dual_ in its

attributes, _i.e._, holy in one of its aspects it becomes nefast under

other conditions. Thus the following incantation we find traced on the

Assyrian tablets, now so correctly interpreted.

“The evening of evil omen, the region of the sky, which produces

misfortune....

“Message of pest.

“Deprecators of Nin-Ki-gal.

“The seven gods of the vast sky.

“The seven gods of the vast earth.

“The seven gods of blazing spheres.

“The seven gods of celestial legion.

“The seven gods maleficent.

“The seven phantoms--bad.

“The seven phantoms of maleficent flames....

“Bad demon, bad _alal_, bad _gigim_, bad _telal_ ... bad god, bad

_maskim_.

“Spirit of seven heavens remember.... Spirit of seven earths remember

... etc.”

This number reappears likewise on almost every page of _Genesis_,

and throughout the Mosaic books, and we find it conspicuous (see

following chapter) in the _Book of Job_ and the Oriental _Kabala_.

If the Hebrew Semitics adopted it so readily, we must infer that it

was not blindly, but with a thorough knowledge of its secret meaning;

hence, that they must have adopted the doctrines of their “heathen”

neighbors as well. It is but natural, therefore, that we should seek

in _heathen_ philosophy for the interpretation of this number, which

again reappeared in Christianity with its _seven_ sacraments, _seven_

churches in Asia Minor, _seven_ capital sins, _seven_ virtues (four

cardinal and three theological), etc.

Have the _seven_ prismatic colors of the rainbow seen by Noah no

other meaning than that of a covenant between God and man to refresh

the memory of the former? To the kabalist, at least, they have a

significance inseparable from the seven labors of magic, the seven

upper spheres, the seven notes of the musical scale, the seven

numerals of Pythagoras, the seven wonders of the world, the seven

ages, and even the seven steps of the Masons, which lead to the Holy

of Holies, after passing the flights of _three_ and _five_.

Whence the identity then of these enigmatical, ever-recurring

numerals that are found in every page of the Jewish Scriptures, as

in every ola and sloka of Buddhistic and Brahmanical books? Whence

these numerals that are the soul of the Pythagorean and Platonic

thought, and that no unilluminated Orientalist nor biblical student

has ever been able to fathom? And yet they have a key ready in

their hand, did they but know how to use it. Nowhere is the mystical

value of human language and its effects on human action so perfectly

understood as in India, nor any better explained than by the authors

of the oldest _Brahmanas_. Ancient as their epoch is now found to

be, they only try to express, in a more concrete form, the abstract

metaphysical speculations of their own ancestors.

Such is the respect of the Brahmans for the sacrificial mysteries,

that they hold that the world itself sprang into creation as a

consequence of a “sacrificial word” pronounced by the First Cause.

This word is the “Ineffable name” of the kabalists, fully discussed

in the last chapter.

The secret of the _Vedas_, “Sacred Knowledge” though they may be, is

impenetrable without the help of the _Brahmanas_. Properly speaking,

the _Vedas_ (which are written in verse and comprised in four books)

constitute that portion called the _Mantra_, or magical prayer, and

the _Brahmanas_ (which are in prose) contain their key. While the

Mantra part is alone holy, the Brahmana portion contains all the

theological exegesis, and the speculations and explanations of the

sacerdotal. Our Orientalists, we repeat, will make no substantial

progress toward a comprehension of Vedic literature until they place

a proper valuation upon works now despised by them; as, for instance,

the _Aitareya_ and _Kaushîtaki Brâhmanas_, which belong to the

_Rig-Veda_.

Zoroaster was called a _Manthran_, or speaker of Mantras, and,

according to Haug, one of the earliest names for the Sacred

Scriptures of the Parsis was _Mânthra-speñta_. The power and

significance of the Brahman who acts as the Hotri-priest at the

Soma-Sacrifice, consists in his possession and full knowledge of the

uses of the sacred word or speech--_Vâch_. The latter is personified

in Sara-isvati, the wife of Brahma, who is the goddess of the sacred

or “Secret Knowledge.” She is usually depicted as riding upon a

peacock with its tail all spread. The eyes upon the feathers of the

bird’s tail, symbolize the sleepless eyes that see all things. To one

who has the ambition of becoming an adept of the “Secret doctrines,”

they are a reminder that he must have the hundred eyes of Argus to

see and comprehend all things.

And this is why we say that it is not possible to solve fully the

deep problems underlying the Brahmanical and Buddhistic sacred books

without having a perfect comprehension of the esoteric meaning of

the Pythagorean numerals. The greatest power of this Vâch, or Sacred

Speech, is developed according to the form which is given to the

Mantra by the officiating Hotri, and this form consists wholly in

the numbers and syllables of the sacred metre. If pronounced slowly

and in a certain rhythm, one effect is produced; if quickly and with

another rhythm, there is a different result. “Each metre,” says Haug,

“is the invisible master of something visible in this world; it is,

as it were, its exponent and ideal. This great significance of the

metrical speech is derived from the number of syllables of which it

consists, for each thing has (just as in the Pythagorean system) a

certain numerical proportion. All these things, metres (chhandas),

stomas, and prishthas, are liable to be as eternal and divine as the

words themselves they contain. The earliest Hindu divines did not

only believe in a primitive revelation of the words of the sacred

texts, but even in that of the various forms. These forms, along with

their contents, the everlasting _Veda_-words, are symbols expressive

of things of the invisible world, and in several respects comparable

to the Platonic ideas.”

_This testimony from an unwilling witness shows again the identity

between the ancient religions as to their secret doctrine._ The

Gâyatri metre, for example, consists of _thrice eight_ syllables, and

is considered the most sacred of metres. It is the metre of Agni,

the fire-god, and becomes at times the emblem of Brahma himself,

the chief creator, and “fashioner of man” in his own image. Now

Pythagoras says that “The number eight, or the Octad, is the first

cube, that is to say, squared in all senses, as a die, proceeding

from its base two, or even number; _so is man four-square or

perfect_.” Of course few, except the Pythagoreans and kabalists,

can fully comprehend this idea; but the illustration will assist

in pointing out the close kinship of the numerals with the Vedic

_Mantras_. The chief problems of every theology lie concealed

beneath this imagery of fire and the varying rhythm of its flames.

The burning bush of the _Bible_, the Zoroastrian and other sacred

fires, Plato’s universal soul, and the Rosicrucian doctrines of both

soul and body of man being evolved out of fire, the reasoning and

immortal element which permeates all things, and which, according to

Herakleitus, Hippocrates, and Parmenides, is God, have all the same

meaning.

Each metre in the _Brahmanas_ corresponds to a number, and as shown

by Haug, as it stands in the sacred volumes, is a prototype of some

visible form on earth, and its effects are either good or evil. The

“sacred speech” can save, but it can kill as well; its many meanings

and faculties are well known but to the _Dikshita_ (the adept), who

has been initiated into many mysteries, and whose “spiritual birth”

is completely achieved; the Vâch of the _mantra_ is a spoken power,

which awakes another corresponding and still more occult power, each

allegorically personified by some god in the world of spirits, and,

according as it is used, responded to either by the gods or the

_Rakshasas_ (bad spirits). In the Brahmanical and Buddhist ideas,

a curse, a blessing, a vow, a desire, an idle thought, can each

assume a visible shape and so manifest itself _objectively_ to the

eyes of its author, or to him that it concerns. Every sin becomes

incarnated, so to say, and like an avenging fiend persecutes its

perpetrator.

There are words which have a destructive quality in their very

syllables, as though objective things; for every sound awakens

a corresponding one in the invisible world of spirit, and the

repercussion produces either a good or bad effect. Harmonious rhythm,

a melody vibrating softly in the atmosphere, creates a beneficent and

sweet influence around, and acts most powerfully on the psychological

as well as physical natures of every living thing on earth; it reacts

even on inanimate objects, for matter is still spirit in its essence,

invisible as it may seem to our grosser senses.

So with the numerals. Turn wherever we will, from the Prophets to the

Apocalypse, and we will see the biblical writers constantly using the

numbers _three_, _four_, _seven_, and _twelve_.

And yet we have known some partisans of the _Bible_ who maintained

that the _Vedas_ were copied from the Mosaic books![812] The _Vedas_,

which are written in Sanscrit, a language whose grammatical rules and

forms, as Max Müller and other scholars confess, were _completely

established_ long before the days when the great wave of emigration

bore it from Asia all over the Occident, are there to proclaim their

parentage of every philosophy, and every religious institution

developed later among Semitic peoples. And which of the numerals

most frequently occur in the Sanscrit chants, those sublime hymns to

creation, to the unity of God, and the countless manifestations of

His power? ONE, THREE, and SEVEN. Read the hymn by Dirghatamas.

“TO HIM WHO REPRESENTS ALL THE GODS.”

“The _God_ here present, our blessed patron, our sacrificer, has

a brother who spreads himself in mid-air. There exists a _third_

Brother whom we sprinkle with our libations.... It is he whom I have

seen master of men and armed with _seven_ rays.”[813]

And again:

“_Seven_ Bridles aid in guiding a car which has but ONE wheel, and

which is drawn by a single horse that shines with _seven_ rays. The

wheel has _three_ limbs, an immortal wheel, never-wearying, whence

hang all the worlds.”

“Sometimes _seven_ horses drag a car of _seven_ wheels, and _seven_

personages mount it, accompanied by _seven_ fecund nymphs of the

water.”

And the following again, in honor of the fire-god--_Agni_, who is so

clearly shown but a spirit subordinate to the ONE God.

“Ever ONE, although having _three_ forms of double nature

(androgynous)--he rises! and the priests offer to _God_, in the act

of sacrifice, their prayers which reach the heavens, borne aloft by

Agni.”

Is this a coincidence, or, rather, as reason tells us, the result

of the derivation of many national cults from one primitive,

universal religion? A _mystery_ for the uninitiated, the _unveiling_

of the most sublime (because correct and true) psychological and

physiological problems for the initiate. Revelations of the personal

spirit of man which is divine because that spirit is not only the

emanation of the ONE Supreme God, but is the only God man is able,

in his weakness and helplessness, to comprehend--to feel _within_

himself. This truth the Vedic poet clearly confesses, when saying:

“The Lord, Master of the universe and full of wisdom, has entered

with me (into me)--weak and ignorant--and has formed me of

_himself_ in that place[814] where the spirits obtain, by the help

of _Science_, the peaceful enjoyment of the _fruit_, as sweet as

ambrosia.”

Whether we call this fruit “an apple” from the Tree of Knowledge, or

the _pippala_ of the Hindu poet, it matters not. It is the fruit of

esoteric wisdom. Our object is to show the existence of a religious

system in India for many thousands of years before the exoteric

fables of the Garden of Eden and the Deluge had been invented. Hence

the identity of doctrines. Instructed in them, each of the initiates

of other countries became, in his turn, the founder of some great

school of philosophy in the West.

Who of our Sanscrit scholars has ever felt interested in discovering

the real sense of the following hymns, palpable as it is: “_Pippala_,

the sweet fruit of that tree upon which come _spirits_ who love the

_science_ (?) and where _the gods produce all marvels_. This is a

mystery for him _who knows not the Father_ of the world.”

Or this one again:

“These stanzas bear at their head a title which announces that

they are consecrated to the _Viswadévas_ (that is to say, to all

the gods). He who knows not the Being whom I sing _in all his

manifestations_, will comprehend nothing of my verses; those who do

know HIM are not strangers to this reünion.”

This refers to the reünion and parting of the immortal and mortal

parts of man. “The immortal Being,” says the preceding stanza, “is in

the cradle of the mortal Being. The two eternal spirits go and come

everywhere; only some men know the one without knowing the other”

(_Dirghatamas_).

Who can give a correct idea of Him of whom the _Rig-Veda_ says:

“That which is One the wise call it in divers manners.” That One is

sung by the Vedic poets in all its manifestations in nature; and the

books considered “childish and foolish” teach how at will to call the

beings of wisdom for our instruction. They teach, as Porphyry says:

“a liberation from all terrene concerns ... a flight of the _alone_

to the ALONE.”

Professor Max Müller, whose every word is accepted by his school

as philological gospel, is undoubtedly right in one sense when in

determining the nature of the Hindu gods, he calls them “masks

without an actor ... names without being, not beings without

names.”[815] For he but proves thereby the monotheism of the ancient

Vedic religion. But it seems to us more than dubious whether he or

any scientist of his school needed hope to fathom the old Aryan[816]

thought, without an accurate study of those very “masks.” To the

materialist, as to the scientist, who for various reasons endeavors

to work out the difficult problem of compelling facts to agree with

either their own hobbies or those of the _Bible_, they may seem

but the empty shells of phantoms. Yet such authorities will ever

be, as in the past, the unsafest of guides, except in matters of

exact science. The _Bible_ patriarchs are as much “masks without

actors,” as the pragâpatis, and yet, if the living personage behind

these masks is but an abstract shadow there is an idea embodied in

every one of them which belongs to the philosophical and scientific

theories of ancient wisdom.[817] And who can render better service in

this work than the native Brahmans themselves, or the kabalists?

To deny, point-blank, any sound philosophy in the later Brahmanical

speculations upon the _Rig-Veda_, is equivalent to refusing to

ever correctly understand the mother-religion itself, which gave

rise to them, and which is the expression of the inner thought of

the direct ancestors of these later authors of the _Brahmanas_. If

learned Europeans can so readily show that all the Vedic gods are

but empty masks, they must also be ready to demonstrate that the

Brahmanical authors were as incapable as themselves to discover these

“actors” anywhere. This done, not only the three other sacred books

which Max Müller says “do not deserve the name of _Vedas_,” but the

_Rig-Veda_ itself becomes a meaningless jumble of words; for what

the world-renowned and subtile intellect of the ancient Hindu sages

failed to understand, no modern scientist, however learned, can hope

to fathom. Poor Thomas Taylor was right in saying that “philology is

not philosophy.”

It is, to say the least, illogical to admit that there is a hidden

thought in the literary work of a race perhaps ethnologically

different from our own; and then, because it is utterly unintelligible

to us whose spiritual development during the several thousand

intervening years has bifurcated into quite a contrary direction--deny

that it has any sense in it at all. But this is precisely what, with

all due respect for erudition, Professor Max Müller and his school do

in this instance, at least. First of all, we are told that, albeit

cautiously and with some effort, yet we may still walk in the

footsteps of these authors of the _Vedas_. “We shall feel that we are

brought face to face and mind to mind with men yet intelligible to us

_after we have freed ourselves from our modern conceits_. We shall not

succeed always; words, verses, nay whole hymns in the _Rig-Veda_, will

and must remain to us a dead letter.... For, with a few exceptions ...

the whole world of the Vedic ideas is so entirely beyond our own

intellectual horizon, that instead of translating, we can as yet only

guess and combine.”[818]

And yet, to leave us in no possible doubt as to the true value of

his words, the learned scholar, in another passage, expresses his

opinion on these same Vedas (with one exception) thus: “The only

important, the only real Veda, is the _Rig-Veda_--the other so-called

_Vedas_ deserve the name of _Veda_ no more than the _Talmud_ deserves

the name of _Bible_. Professor Müller rejects them as unworthy of

the attention of any one, and, as we understand it, on the ground

that they contain chiefly “sacrificial formulas, charms, and

incantations.”[819]

And now, a very natural question: Are any of our scholars prepared

to demonstrate that, so far, they are intimately acquainted with the

hidden sense of these perfectly absurd “sacrificial formulas, charms,

and incantations” and magic nonsense of _Atharva-Veda_? We believe

not, and our doubt is based on the confession of Professor Müller

himself, just quoted. If “the whole world of the Vedic ideas [the

_Rig-Veda_ cannot be included alone in this _world_, we suppose] is

so entirely beyond our own [the scientists’] intellectual horizon

that, instead of translating, we can as yet only guess and combine;”

and the _Yagur-Veda_, _Sama-Veda_, and _Atharva-Veda_ are “childish

and foolish;”[820] and the _Brahmanas_, the _Sûtras Yâska_, and

_Sâyana_, “though _nearest in time_ to the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_,

indulge in the most frivolous and ill-judged interpretations,” how

can either himself or any other scholar form any adequate opinion

of either of them? If, again, the authors of the _Brahmanas_, the

nearest in time to the Vedic hymns, were already incompetent to offer

anything better than “ill-judged interpretations,” then at what

period of history, where, and by whom, were written these grandiose

poems, whose mystical sense has died with their generations? Are

we, then, so wrong in affirming that if sacred texts are found in

Egypt to have become--even to the priestly scribes of 4,000 years

ago--wholly unintelligible,[821] and the _Brahmanas_ offer but

“childish and foolish” interpretations of the _Rig-Veda_, at least as

far back as that, then, 1st, both the Egyptian and Hindu religious

philosophies are of an untold antiquity, far antedating ages

cautiously assigned them by our students of comparative mythology;

and, 2d, the claims of ancient priests of Egypt and modern Brahmans,

as to their age, are, after all, correct.

We can never admit that the three other _Vedas_ are less worthy of

their name than the Rig-hymns, or that the _Talmud_ and the _Kabala_

are so inferior to the _Bible_. The very name of the _Vedas_ (the

literal meaning of which is _knowledge_ or _wisdom_) shows them

to belong to the literature of those men who, in every country,

language, and age, have been spoken of as “those who know.” In

Sanscrit the third person singular is _véda_ (he knows), and the

plural is _vidá_ (they know). This word is synonymous with the Greek

θεοσέβεια which Plato uses when speaking of the _wise_--the magicians;

and with the Hebrew Hakamin, חכמים (wise men). Reject the

_Talmud_ and its old predecessor the _Kabala_, and it will be simply

impossible ever to render correctly one word of that _Bible_ so much

extolled at their expense. But then it is, perhaps, just what its

partisans are working for. To banish the _Brahmanas_ is to fling away

the key that unlocks the door of the _Rig-Veda_. The _literal_

interpretation of the _Bible_ has already borne its fruits; with the

_Vedas_ and the Sanscrit sacred books in general it will be just the

same, with this difference, that the absurd interpretation of the

_Bible_ has received a time-honored right of eminent domain in the

department of the ridiculous; and will find its supporters, against

light and against proof. As to the “heathen” literature, after a few

more years of unsuccessful attempts at interpretation, its religious

meaning will be relegated to the limbo of exploded superstitions, and

people will hear no more of it.

We beg to be clearly understood before we are blamed and criticised

for the above remarks. The vast learning of the celebrated Oxford

professor can hardly be questioned by his very enemies, yet we

have a right to regret his precipitancy to condemn that which he

himself confesses “entirely beyond our own intellectual horizon.”

Even in what he considers a ridiculous blunder on the part of the

author of the _Brahmanas_, other more spiritually-disposed persons

may see quite the reverse. “_Who_ is the greatest of the gods? Who

shall first be praised by our songs?” says an ancient Rishi of the

_Rig-Veda_; mistaking (as Prof. M. imagines) the interrogative

pronoun “Who” for some divine name. Says the Professor: “A place

is allotted in the sacrificial invocations to a god ‘Who,’ and

hymns addressed to him are called ‘Whoish hymns.’” And is a god

“Who” less natural as a term than a god “I am?” or “Whoish” hymns

less reverential than “I-amish” psalms? And who can prove that

this is really a blunder, and not a premeditated expression? Is it

so impossible to believe that the strange term was precisely due

to a reverential awe which made the poet hesitate before giving a

name, as form to that which is justly considered as the highest

abstraction of metaphysical ideals--God? Or that the same feeling

made the commentator who came after him to pause and so leave the

work of anthropomorphizing the “Unknown,” the “WHO,” to future human

conception? “These early poets thought more for themselves--than

for others,” remarks Max Müller himself. “They sought rather, in

their language, to be true to their own thought than to please

the imagination of their hearers.”[822] Unfortunately it is this

very thought which awakes no responsive echo in the minds of our

philologists.

Farther, we read the sound advice to students of the _Rig-Veda_

hymns, to collect, collate, sift, and reject. “Let him study the

commentaries, the _Sûtras_, the _Brahmanas_, and even later works,

in order to exhaust all the sources from which information can be

derived. He [the scholar] _must not despise the traditions of the

Brahmans_, even where their misconceptions ... are palpable.... Not

a corner in the _Brahmanas_, the _Sûtras_, _Yâska_, and _Sâyana_,

should be left unexplored _before we propose a rendering of our

own_.... When the scholar has done his work, the poet and philosopher

must take it up and finish it.”[823]

Poor chance for a “philosopher” to step into the shoes of a learned

philologist and presume to correct _his_ errors! We would like to

see what sort of a reception the most learned Hindu scholar in India

would have from the educated public of Europe and America, if he

should undertake to correct a savant, after he had sifted, accepted,

rejected, explained, and declared what was good, and what “absurd and

childish” in the sacred books of his forefathers. That which would

finally be declared “Brahmanic misconceptions,” by the conclave of

European and especially German savants, would be as little likely to

be reconsidered at the appeal of the most erudite pundit of Benares

or Ceylon, as the interpretation of Jewish Scripture by Maimonides

and Philo-Judæus, by Christians after the Councils of the Church

had accepted the mistranslations and explanations of Irenæus and

Eusebius. What pundit, or native philosopher of India should know his

ancestral language, religion, or philosophy as well as an Englishman

or a German? Or why should a Hindu be more suffered to expound

Brahmanism, than a Rabbinical scholar to interpret Judaism or the

Isaïan prophecies? Safer, and far more trustworthy translators can be

had nearer home. Nevertheless, let us still hope that we may find at

last, even though it be in the dim future, a European philosopher to

sift the sacred books of the wisdom-religion, and not be contradicted

by every other of his class.

Meanwhile, unmindful of any alleged authorities, let us try to sift

for ourselves a few of these myths of old. We will search for an

explanation within the popular interpretation, and feel our way

with the help of the magic lamp of Trismegistus--the mysterious

number _seven_. There must have been some reason why this figure was

universally accepted as a mystic calculation. With every ancient

people, the Creator, or Demiurge, was placed over the seventh heaven.

“And were I to touch upon the initiation into our sacred Mysteries,”

says Emperor Julian, the kabalist, “which the Chaldean bacchised

respecting the _seven-rayed God, lifting up the souls through Him_, I

should say things unknown, and _very unknown to the rabble_, but well

known to the _blessed Theurgists_.”[824] In _Lydus_ it is said that

“The Chaldeans call the God IAO, and SABAOTH he is often called, _as

He_ who is over the seven orbits (heavens, or spheres), that is the

Demiurge.”[825]

One must consult the Pythagoreans and Kabalists to learn the

potentiality of this number. Exoterically the seven rays of the solar

spectrum are represented concretely in the seven-rayed god Heptaktis.

These seven rays epitomized into THREE primary rays, namely, the red,

blue, and yellow, form the solar trinity, and typify respectively

spirit-matter and spirit-essence. Science has also reduced of

late the seven rays to three primary ones, thus corroborating the

scientific conception of the ancients of at least one of the visible

manifestations of the invisible deity, and the seven divided into a

quaternary and a trinity.

The Pythagoreans called the number seven the vehicle of life, as it

contained body and soul. They explained it by saying, that the human

body consisted of four principal elements, and that the soul is

triple, comprising reason, passion, and desire. The ineffable WORD

was considered the _Seventh_ and highest of all, for there are six

minor substitutes, each belonging to a degree of initiation. The Jews

borrowed their Sabbath from the ancients, who called it _Saturn’s_

day and deemed it unlucky, and not the latter from the Israelites

when Christianized. The people of India, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt

observed weeks of seven days; and the Romans learned the hebdomadal

method from these foreign countries when they became subject to the

Empire. Still it was not until the fourth century that the Roman

kalends, nones, and ides were abandoned, and weeks substituted in

their place; and the astronomical names of the days, such as _dies

Solis_ (day of the Sun), _dies Lunæ_ (day of the Moon), _dies Martis_

(day of Mars); _dies Mercurii_ (day of Mercury), _dies Jovis_ (day of

Jupiter), _dies Veneris_ (day of Venus), and _dies Saturni_ (day of

Saturn), prove that it was not from the Jews that the week of seven

days was adopted. Before we examine this number kabalistically, we

propose to analyse it from the standpoint of the Judaico-Christian

Sabbath.

When Moses instituted the _yom shaba_, or _Shebang_ (Shabbath), the

allegory of the Lord God resting from his work of creation on the

seventh day was but a _cloak_, or, as the _Sohar_ expresses it, a

screen, to hide the true meaning.

The Jews reckoned then, as they do now, their days by number, as, day

the _first_; day the second; and so on; _yom ahad_; _yom sheni_; _yom

shelisho_; _yom rebis_; _yom shamishi_; _yom shishehi_; yom SHABA.

“The Hebrew _seven_ שבע, consisting of three letters, S. B. O., has

more than one meaning. First of all, it means _age_ or cycle,

Shab-ang; Sabbath שבע can be translated _old age_, as well as _rest_,

and in the old Coptic, _Sabe_ means _wisdom_, learning. Modern

archæologists have found that as in Hebrew _Sab_ שב also means

_gray-headed_, and that therefore the _Saba_-day was the day on which

the “gray-headed men, or ‘aged fathers’ of a tribe, were in the habit

of assembling for councils or sacrifices.”[826]

“Thus, the week of six days and the seventh, the _Saba_ or

_Sapta_-day period, is of the highest antiquity. The observance of

the lunar festivals in India, shows that that nation held hebdomadal

meetings as well. With every new quarter the moon brings changes in

the atmosphere, hence certain changes are also produced throughout

the whole of our universe, of which the meteorological ones are the

most insignificant. On this day of the _seventh_ and most powerful

of the prismatic days, the adepts of the “Secret Science” meet as

they met thousands of years ago, to become the agents of the occult

powers of nature (emanations of the working God), and commune with

the invisible worlds. It is in this observance of the seventh day

by the old sages--not as the resting day of the Deity, but because

they had penetrated into its occult power, that lies the profound

veneration of all the heathen philosophers for the number _seven_

which they term the “venerable,” the sacred number. The Pythagorean

_Tetraktis_, revered by the Platonists, was the _square_ placed below

the _triangle_; the latter, or the Trinity embodying the invisible

_Monad_--the unity, and deemed too sacred to be pronounced except

within the walls of a Sanctuary.

The ascetic observance of the Christian Sabbath by Protestants is

pure religious tyranny, and does more harm, we fear, than good. It

really dates only from the enactment (in 1678) of the 29th of Charles

II., which prohibited any “tradesman, artificer, workman, laborer,

or other person,” to “do or exercise any worldly labor, etc., etc.,

upon the Lord’s day.” The Puritans carried this thing to extremes,

apparently to mark their hatred of Catholicism, both Roman and

Episcopal. That it was no part of the plan of Jesus that such a day

should be set apart, is evident not only from his words but acts. It

was not observed by the early Christians.

When Trypho, _the Jew_, reproached the Christians _for not having a

Sabbath_, what does the martyr answer him? “The new law will have

you keep a perpetual Sabbath. You, when _you have passed a day in

idleness, think you are religious_. The Lord is not pleased with

such things as these. If any be guilty of _perjury or fraud_, let

him reform; _if he be an adulterer_, let him repent; and _he will

then have kept the kind of Sabbath truly pleasing to God_.... The

elements are never idle, and keep no Sabbath. There was no need of

the observance of Sabbaths before Moses, neither now is there any

need of them after Jesus Christ.”

The _Heptaktis_ is not the Supreme Cause, but simply an emanation

from _Him_--the first visible manifestation of the Unrevealed Power.

“His Divine _Breath_, which, violently breaking forth, condensed

itself, shining with radiance until it evolved into Light, and so

became cognizant to external sense,” says John Reuchlin.[827] This

is the emanation of the Highest, the Demiurge, a multiplicity in a

_unity_, the _Elohim_, whom we see _creating_ our world, or rather

fashioning it, in six days, and resting on the _seventh_. And who are

these _Elohim_ but the euhemerized powers of nature, the faithful

manifested servants, the laws of Him who is immutable law and harmony

Himself?

They remain over the seventh heaven (or spiritual world), for it

is they who, according to the kabalists, formed in succession the

six material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds, that preceded

our own, which, they say, is the _seventh_. If, in laying aside the

metaphysico-spiritual conception, we give our attention but to the

religio-scientific problem of creation in “six days,” over which

our best biblical scholars have vainly pondered so long, we might,

perchance, be on the way to the true idea underlying the allegory.

The ancients were philosophers, consistent in all things. Hence,

they taught that each of these departed worlds, having performed its

physical evolution, and reached--through birth, growth, maturity, old

age, and death--the end of its cycle, had returned to its primitive

subjective form of a _spiritual_ earth. Thereafter it had to serve

through all eternity as the dwelling of those who had lived on it

as men, and even animals, but were now spirits. This idea, were it

even as incapable of exact demonstration as that of our theologians

relating to Paradise, is, at least, a trifle more philosophical.

As well as man, and every other living thing upon it, our planet has

had its spiritual and physical evolution. From an impalpable ideal

_thought_ under the creative Will of Him of whom we know nothing,

and but dimly conceive in imagination, this globe became fluidic and

_semi_-spiritual, then condensed itself more and more, until its

physical development--matter, the tempting demon--compelled it to try

its own creative faculty. _Matter_ defied SPIRIT, and the earth, too,

had its “Fall.” The allegorical curse under which it labors, is that

it only _procreates_, it does not _create_. Our physical planet is

but the handmaiden, or rather the maid-of-all-work, of the spirit,

its master. “Cursed be the ground ... thorns and thistles shall it

bring,” the Elohim are made to say. “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth

children.” The Elohim say this both to the ground and the woman. And

this curse will last until the minutest particle of matter on earth

shall have outlived its days, until every grain of dust has, by

gradual transformation through evolution, become a constituent part

of a “living soul,” and, until the latter shall reascend the cyclic

arc, and finally stand--its own _Metatron_, or Redeeming Spirit--at

the foot of the upper step of the spiritual worlds, as at the first

hour of its emanation. Beyond that lies the great “Deep”--A MYSTERY!

It must be remembered that every cosmogony has a _trinity_ of workers

at its head--Father, spirit; Mother, nature, or matter; and the

manifested universe, the Son or result of the two. The universe,

also, as well as each planet which it comprehends, passes through

_four_ ages, like man himself. All have their infancy, youth,

maturity, and old age, and these four added to the other three make

the sacred seven again.

The introductory chapters of _Genesis_ were never meant to present

even a remote allegory of the creation of _our_ earth. They embrace

(chapter i.) a metaphysical conception of some indefinite period in

the eternity, when successive attempts were being made by the law of

evolution at the formation of universes. This idea is plainly stated

in the _Sohar_: “There were old worlds, which perished as soon as

they came into existence, were formless, and were called _sparks_.

Thus, the smith, when hammering the iron, lets the sparks fly in all

directions. The sparks are the primordial worlds which could not

continue, because the _Sacred Aged_ (Sephira) had not as yet assumed

its form (of androgyne or opposite sexes) of king and queen (Sephira

and Kadmon) and the Master was not yet at his work.”[828]

The six periods or “days” of _Genesis_ refer to the same metaphysical

belief. Five such ineffectual attempts were made by the _Elohim_, but

the sixth resulted in worlds like our own (_i.e._, all the planets

and most of the stars are worlds, and inhabited, though not like our

earth). Having formed this world at last in the sixth period, the

Elohim rested in the _seventh_. Thus the “Holy One,” when he created

the present world, said: “This pleases me; the previous ones did not

please me.”[829] And the Elohim “saw everything that he had made, and

behold _it was_ very good. And the evening and the morning were the

sixth _day_.”--_Genesis_ i.

The reader will remember that in Chapter IV. an explanation was

given of the “day” and “night” of Brahma. The former represents a

certain period of cosmical activity, the latter an equal one of

cosmical repose. In the one, worlds are being evolved, and passing

through their allotted four ages of existence; in the latter the

“inbreathing” of Brahma reverses the tendency of the natural forces;

everything visible becomes gradually dispersed; chaos comes; and

a long night of repose reinvigorates the cosmos for its next term

of evolution. In the morning of one of these “days” the formative

processes are gradually reaching their climax of activity; in the

evening imperceptibly diminishing the same until the _pralaya_

arrives, and with it “_night_.” One such morning and evening do, in

fact, constitute a cosmic day; and it was a “day of Brahma” that the

kabalistic author of _Genesis_ had in mind each time when he said:

“And the evening and the morning were the first (or fifth or sixth,

or any other) _day_.” Six days of gradual evolution, one of repose,

and then--evening! Since the first appearance of man on _our_ earth

there has been an eternal Sabbath or rest for the Demiurge.

The cosmogonical speculations of the first six chapters of _Genesis_

are shown in the races of “sons of God,” “giants,” etc., of chapter

vi. Properly speaking, the story of the formation of our earth, or

“creation,” as it is very improperly called, begins with the rescue

of Noah from the deluge. The Chaldeo-Babylonian tablets recently

translated by George Smith leave no doubt of that in the minds of

those who read the inscriptions esoterically. Ishtar, the great

goddess, speaks in column iii. of the destruction of the _sixth_

world and the appearance of the seventh, thus:

“SIX _days_ and _nights_ the wind, deluge, and storm overwhelmed.

“On the _seventh_ day, in its course was calmed the storm, and all

the deluge,

“which had destroyed like an earthquake,[830]

“quieted. The sea he caused to dry, and the wind and deluge ended....

“I perceived the shore at the boundary of the sea....

“to the country of Nizir went the ship (argha, or the moon).

“the mountain of Nizir stopped the ship....

“the _first_ day, and the _second_ day, the mountain of Nizir the

same.

“the _fifth_ and the _sixth_, the mountain of Nizir the same.

“on the _seventh_ day, in the course of it

“I sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and turned, and ...

the raven went ... and did not return.

“I built an altar on the peak of the mountain.

“by _seven_ herbs I cut, at the bottom of them I placed reeds, pines,

and simgar....

“the gods like flies over the sacrifice gathered.

“from of old _also the great God_ in his course.

“the great brightness (the sun) of Anu had created.[831] When the

glory of those gods the charm round my neck would not repel,” etc.

All this has a purely astronomical, magical, and esoteric relation.

One who reads these tablets will recognize at a glance the biblical

account; and judge, at the same time, how disfigured is the great

Babylonian poem by euhemeric personages--degraded from their exalted

positions of gods into simple patriarchs. Space prevents our entering

fully into this biblical travesty of the Chaldean allegories. We

shall therefore but remind the reader that by the confession of the

most unwilling witnesses--such as Lenormant, first the inventor and

then champion of the Akkadians--the Chaldeo-Babylonian triad placed

under Ilon, the _unrevealed_ deity, is composed of Anu, Nuah, and

Bel. Anu is the primordial chaos, the god time and world at once,

χρόνος and κόσμος, the uncreated matter issued from the one and

fundamental principle of all things. As to _Nuah_, he is, according to

the same Orientalist:

“... the intelligence, we will willingly say the _verbum_, which

animates and fecundates matter, which penetrates the universe,

directs and makes it live; and at the same time Nuah is the king of

the _humid principle; the Spirit moving on the waters_.”

Is not this evident? Nuah is Noah, _floating on the waters_, in his

ark; the latter being the emblem of the argha, or moon, the feminine

principle; Noah is the “spirit” falling into matter. We find him as

soon as he descends upon the earth, planting a vineyard, drinking of

the wine, and getting drunk on it; _i.e._, the pure spirit becoming

intoxicated as soon as it is finally imprisoned in matter. The

seventh chapter of _Genesis_ is but another version of the first.

Thus, while the latter reads: “... and darkness was upon the face of

the deep. And the spirit (of God) moved upon the face of the waters,”

in chapter seventh, it is said: “... and the waters prevailed ... and

the ark went (with Noah--the spirit) upon the face of the waters.”

Thus Noah, if the Chaldean Nuah, is the spirit vivifying _matter_,

chaos represented by the deep or waters of the flood. In the

Babylonian legend it is Istar (Astoreth, the moon) which is shut up

in the ark, and sends out a dove (emblem of Venus and other lunar

goddesses) in search of dry land. And whereas in the Semitic tablets

it is Xisuthrus or Hasisadra who is “translated to the company of the

gods for his piety,” in the _Bible_ it is Enoch who walks with, and

being taken up by God, “was no more.”

The successive existence of an incalculable number of worlds before

the subsequent evolution of our own, was believed and taught by all

the ancient peoples. The punishment of the Christians for despoiling

the Jews of their records and refusing the true key to them began

from the earliest centuries. And thus is it that we find the holy

Fathers of the Church laboring through an impossible chronology and

the absurdities of literal interpretation, while the learned rabbis

were perfectly aware of the real significance of their allegories.

So not only in the _Sohar_, but also in other kabalistic works

accepted by Talmudists, such as _Midrash Berasheth_, or the universal

_Genesis_, which, with the _Merkaba_ (the chariot of Ezekiel),

composes the _Kabala_, may be found the doctrine of a whole series of

worlds evolving out of the chaos, and being destroyed in succession.

The Hindu doctrines teach of two _Pralayas_ or dissolutions; one

universal, the Maha-Pralaya, the other partial, or the minor Pralaya.

This does not relate to the universal dissolution which occurs at the

end of every “Day of Brahma,” but to the geological cataclysms at the

end of every minor cycle of our globe. This historical and purely

local deluge of Central Asia, the traditions of which can be traced

in every country, and which, according to Bunsen, happened about the

year 10,000 B.C., had naught to do with the mythical Noah, or Nuah.

A partial cataclysm occurs at the close of every “age” of the world,

they say, which does not destroy the latter, but only changes its

general appearance. New races of men and animals and a new flora

evolve from the dissolution of the precedent ones.

The allegories of the “fall of man” and the “deluge,” are the two

most important features of the _Pentateuch_. They are, so to say,

the Alpha and Omega, the highest and the lowest keys of the scale

of harmony on which resounds the majestic hymns of the creation

of mankind; for they discover to him who questions the _Zura_

(figurative _Gemantria_), the process of man’s evolution from the

highest spiritual entity unto the lowest physical--the post-diluvian

man, as in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, every sign of the picture

writing which cannot be made to fit within a certain circumscribed

geometrical figure may be rejected as only intended by the sacred

hierogrammatist for a premeditated blind--so many of the details in

the _Bible_ must be treated on the same principle, that portion only

being accepted which answers to the numerical methods taught in the

_Kabala_.

The deluge appears in the Hindu books only as a tradition. It claims

no sacred character, and we find it but in the _Mahâbhârata_, the

_Puranas_, and still earlier in the _Satapatha_, one of the latest

_Brahmanas_. It is more than probable that Moses, or whoever wrote

for him, used these accounts as the basis of his own purposely

disfigured allegory, adding to it moreover the Chaldean Berosian

narrative. In _Mahâbhârata_, we recognize Nimrod under the name of

_King Daytha_. The origin of the Grecian fable of the Titans scaling

Olympus, and the other of the builders of the Tower of Babel who

seek to reach heaven, is shown in the impious _Daytha_, who sends

imprecations against heaven’s thunder, and threatens to conquer

heaven itself with his mighty warriors, thereby bringing upon

humanity the wrath of Brahma. “The Lord then resolved,” says the

text, “to chastise his creatures with a terrible punishment which

should serve as a warning to survivors, and to their descendants.”

_Vaivasvata_ (who in the _Bible_ becomes Noah) saves a little fish,

which turns out to be an _avatar_ of Vishnu. The fish warns that just

man that the globe is about to be submerged, that all that inhabit it

must perish, and orders him to construct a vessel in which he shall

embark, with all his family. When the ship is ready, and _Vaivasvata_

has shut up in it with his family _the seeds of plants and pairs of

all animals_, and the rain begins to fall, a gigantic fish, armed

with a horn, places itself at the head of the ark. The holy man,

following its orders, attaches a cable to this horn, and the fish

guides the ship safely through the raging elements. In the Hindu

tradition the number of days during which the deluge lasted _agrees

exactly with that of the Mosaic account_. When the elements were

calmed, the fish landed the ark on the summit of the Himalayas.

This fable is considered by many orthodox commentators to have been

borrowed from the Mosaic _Scriptures_.[832] But surely if such a

_universal_ cataclysm had ever taken place within man’s memory,

some of the monuments of the Egyptians, of which many are of such a

tremendous antiquity, would have recorded that occurrence, coupled

with that of the disgrace of Ham, Canaan, and Mizraim, their

alleged ancestors. But, till now, there has not been found the

remotest allusion to such a calamity, although Mizraim certainly

belongs to the first generation after the deluge, if not actually

an antediluvian himself. On the other hand the Chaldeans preserved

the tradition, as we find Berosus testifying to it, and the ancient

Hindus possess the legend as given above. Now, there is but one

explanation of the extraordinary fact that of two contemporary

and civilized nations like Egypt and Chaldea, one has preserved

no tradition of it whatever, although it was the most directly

interested in the occurrence--if we credit the _Bible_--and the other

has. The deluge noticed in the _Bible_, in one of the _Brahmanas_,

and in the Berosus _Fragment_, relates to the partial flood which,

about 10,000 years B.C., according to Bunsen, and according to the

Brahmanical computations of the Zodiac also changed the whole face

of Central Asia.[833] Thus the Babylonians and the Chaldeans might

have learned of it from their mysterious guests, christened by some

Assyriologists Akkadians, or what is still more probable they,

themselves, perhaps, were the descendants of those who had dwelt

in the submerged localities. The Jews had the tale from the latter

as they had everything else; the Brahmans may have recorded the

traditions of the lands which they first invaded, and had perhaps

inhabited before they possessed themselves of the Punjâb. But the

Egyptians, whose first settlers had evidently come from Southern

India, had less reason to record the cataclysm, since it had perhaps

never affected them except indirectly, as the flood was limited to

Central Asia.

Burnouf, noticing the fact that the story of the deluge is found only

in one of the most modern _Brahmanas_, also thinks that it might

have been borrowed by the Hindus from the Semitic nations. Against

such an assumption are ranged all the traditions and customs of the

Hindus. The Aryans, and especially the Brahmans, never borrowed

anything at all from the Semitists, and here we are corroborated by

one of those “unwilling witnesses,” as Higgins calls the partisans of

Jehovah and _Bible_. “I have never seen anything in the history of

the Egyptians and Jews,” writes Abbé Dubois, forty years a resident

of India, “that would induce me to believe that either of these

nations, or any other on the face of the earth, have been established

earlier than the Hindus, and particularly the Brahmans; so I cannot

be induced to believe that the latter have drawn their rites from

foreign nations. On the contrary, I infer that they have drawn them

from an original source of their own. Whoever knows anything of the

spirit and character of the Brahmans, their stateliness, their pride,

and extreme vanity, their distance, and sovereign contempt for

everything that is foreign, and of which they cannot boast to have

been the inventors, will agree with me that such a people cannot have

consented to draw their customs and rules of conduct from an alien

country.”[834]

This fable which mentions the earliest avatar--the Matsya--relates

to another yuga than our own, that of the first appearance of animal

life; perchance, who knows, to the Devonian age of our geologists? It

certainly answers better to the latter than the year 2348 B.C.! Apart

from this, the very absence of all mention of the deluge from the

oldest books of the Hindus suggests a powerful argument when we are

left utterly to inferences as in this case. “The _Vedas_ and _Manu_,”

says Jacolliot, “those monuments of the old Asiatic thought, existed

far earlier than the diluvian period; _this is an incontrovertible

fact, having all the value of an historical truth_, for, besides the

tradition which shows Vishnu himself as saving the _Vedas_ from the

deluge--a tradition which, notwithstanding its legendary form, must

certainly rest upon a real fact--it has been remarked that neither

of these sacred books mention the cataclysm, while the _Pûranas_

and the _Mahâbhârata_, and a great number of other more recent

works, describe it with the minutest detail, _which is a proof of

the priority of the former_. The _Vedas_ certainly would never have

failed to contain a few hymns on the terrible disaster which, of all

other natural manifestations, must have struck the imagination of the

people who witnessed it.”

“Neither would Manu, who gives us a complete narrative of the

creation, with a chronology from the divine and heroical ages, down

to the appearance of man on earth--have passed in silence an event

of such importance.” _Manu_ (book i., sloka 35), gives the names

of ten eminent saints whom he calls pradjâpatis (more correctly

_pragâpatis_), in whom the Brahman theologians see prophets,

ancestors of the human race, and the Pundits simply consider as ten

powerful kings who lived in the Krita-yug, or the age of good (the

golden age of the Greeks).

The last of these pragâpatis is Brighou.

“Enumerating the succession of these eminent beings who, according to

Manu, have governed the world, the old Brahmanical legislator names

as descending from Brighou: Swârotchica, Ottami, Tamasa, Raivata, the

glorious Tchâkchoucha, and the son of Vivasvat, every one of the six

having made himself worthy of the title of Manu (divine legislator),

a title which had equally belonged to the Pradjâpatis, and every

great personage of primitive India. The genealogy stops at this name.

“Now, according to the _Pûranas_ and the _Mahâbhârata_ it was under a

descendant of this son of Vivaswata, named Vaivaswata that occurred

the great cataclysm, the remembrance of which, as will be seen, has

passed into a tradition, and been carried by emigration into all

the countries of the East and West which India has colonized since

then....

“The genealogy given by Manu stopping, as we have seen, at Vivaswata,

it follows that this work (of Manu) knew nothing either of Vivaswata

or the deluge.”[835]

The argument is unanswerable; and we commend it to those official

scientists, who, to please the clergy, dispute every fact proving the

tremendous antiquity of the _Vedas_ and _Manu_. Colonel Vans Kennedy

has long since declared that Babylonia was, from her origin, the seat

of _Sanscrit_ literature and Brahman learning. And how or why should

the Brahmans have penetrated there, unless it was as the result of

intestine wars and emigration from India? The fullest account of the

deluge is found in the _Mahâbhârata_ of Vedavyasa, a poem in honor

of the astrological allegories on the wars between the Solar and the

Lunar races. One of the versions states that Vivaswata became the

father of all the nations of the earth through his own progeny, and

this is the form adopted for the Noachian story; the other states

that--like Deukalion and Pyrrha--he had but to throw pebbles into the

ilus left by the retiring waves of the flood, to produce men at will.

These two versions--one Hebrew, the other Greek--allow us no choice.

We must either believe that the Hindus borrowed from pagan Greeks as

well as from monotheistic Jews, or--what is far more probable--that

the versions of both of these nations are derived from the Vedic

literature through the Babylonians.

History tells us of the stream of immigration across the Indus, and

later of its overflowing the Occident; and of populations of Hindu

origin passing from Asia Minor to colonize Greece. But history says

not a single word of the “chosen people,” or of Greek colonies having

penetrated India earlier than the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., when

we first find vague traditions that make some of the problematical

_lost_ tribes of Israel, take from Babylon the route to India. But

even were the story of the ten tribes to find credence, and the

tribes themselves be proved to have existed in profane as well as in

sacred history, this does not help the solution at all. Colebrooke,

Wilson, and other eminent Indianists show the _Mahâbhârata_, if not

the _Satapatha_-brâhmana, in which the story is also given, as by

far antedating the age of Cyrus, hence, the possible time of the

appearance of any of the tribes of Israel in India.[836]

Orientalists accord the _Mahâbhârata_ an antiquity of between twelve

and fifteen hundred years B.C.; as to the Greek version it bears as

little evidence as the other, and the attempts of the Hellenists in

this direction have as signally failed. The story of the conquering

army of Alexander penetrating into Northern India, itself becomes

more doubted every day. No Hindu national record, not the slightest

historical memento, throughout the length and breadth of India offers

the slightest trace of such an invasion.

If even such _historical facts_ are now found to have been all the

while fictions, what are we to think of narratives which bear on

their very face the stamp of invention? We cannot help sympathizing

at heart with Professor Müller when he remarks that it seems

“blasphemy to consider these fables of the heathen world as corrupted

and misinterpreted fragments of _divine_ Revelation once granted to

the whole race of mankind.” Only, can this scholar be held perfectly

impartial and fair to both parties, unless he includes in the number

of these fables those of the _Bible_? And is the language of the _Old

Testament_ more _pure_ or _moral_ than the books of the Brahmans? Or

any fables of the _heathen_ world more blasphemous and ridiculous

than Jehovah’s interview with Moses (_Exodus_ xxxiii. 23)? Are any of

the Pagan gods made to appear more fiendish than the same Jehovah in

a score of passages? If the feelings of a pious Christian are shocked

at the absurdities of Father Kronos eating his children and maiming

Uranos; or of Jupiter throwing Vulcan down from heaven and breaking

his leg; on the other hand he cannot feel hurt if a _non_-Christian

laughs at the idea of Jacob boxing with the Creator, who “when he saw

that _he prevailed not_ against him,” dislocated Jacob’s thigh, the

patriarch still holding fast to God and not allowing Him to go His

way, notwithstanding His pleading.

Why should the story of Deukalion and Pyrrha, throwing stones behind

them, and thus creating the human race, be deemed more ridiculous

than that of Lot’s wife being changed into a pillar of salt, or of

the Almighty creating men _of clay_ and then breathing the breath of

life into them? The choice between the latter mode of creation and

that of the Egyptian ram-horned god fabricating man on a potter’s

wheel is hardly perceptible. The story of Minerva, goddess of wisdom,

ushered into existence after a certain period of gestation in her

father’s brain, is at least suggestive and poetical, as an allegory.

No ancient Greek was ever burned for not accepting it literally; and,

at all events, “heathen” fables in general are far less preposterous

and blasphemous than those imposed upon Christians, ever since the

Church accepted the _Old Testament_, and the Roman Catholic Church

opened its register of thaumaturgical saints.

“Many of the natives of India,” continues Professor Müller, “confess

that their feelings revolt against the impurities attributed to

the gods by what they call their sacred writings; yet there are

honest Brahmans who will maintain that _these stories have a deeper

meaning_; that immorality being incompatible with a divine being,

_a mystery_ must be supposed to be concealed in these time-hallowed

fables, a mystery which an inquiring and reverent mind may hope to

fathom.”

This is precisely what the Christian clergy maintain in attempting

to explain the indecencies and incongruities of the _Old Testament_.

Only, instead of allowing the interpretation to those who have the

key to these seeming incongruities, they have assumed to themselves

the office and right, by _divine_ proxy, to interpret these in their

own way. They have not only done that but have gradually deprived the

Hebrew clergy of the means to interpret their Scriptures as their

fathers did; so that to find among the Rabbis in the present century

a well-versed kabalist, is quite rare. The Jews have themselves

forgotten the key! How could they help it? Where are the original

manuscripts? The oldest Hebrew manuscript in existence is said to be

the _Bodleian Codex_, which is not older than between eight and nine

hundred years.[837] The break between Ezra and this _Codex_ is thus

fifteen centuries. In 1490 the Inquisition _caused all the Hebrew

Bibles to be burned_; and Torquemada alone destroyed 6,000 volumes

at Salamanca. Except a few manuscripts of the _Tora Ketubim_ and

_Nebiim_, used in the synagogues, and which are of quite a recent

date, we do not think there is one old manuscript in existence which

is not punctuated, hence--completely misinterpreted and altered by

the Masorets. Were it not for this timely invention of the _Masorah_,

no copy of the _Old Testament_ could possibly be tolerated in our

century. It is well known that the Masorets while transcribing the

oldest manuscripts put themselves to task to take out, except in a

few places which they have probably overlooked, all the _immodest_

words and put in places sentences of their own, often changing

completely the sense of the verse. “It is clear,” says Donaldson,

“that the Masoretic school at Tiberias were engaged in settling

or unsettling the Hebrew text until the final publication of the

_Masorah_ itself.” Therefore, had we but the original texts--judging

by the present copies of the _Bible_ in our possession--it would

be really edifying to compare the _Old Testament_ with the _Vedas_

and even with the Brahmanical books. We verily believe that no

faith, however blind, could stand before such an avalanche of crude

impurities and fables. If the latter are not only accepted but

enforced upon millions of civilized persons who find it respectable

and edifying to believe in them as _divine revelation_, why should we

wonder that Brahmans believe their books to be equally a _Sruti_, a

revelation?

Let us thank the Masorets by all means, but let us study at the same

time both sides of the medal.

Legends, myths, allegories, symbols, if they but belong to the Hindu,

Chaldean, or Egyptian tradition, are thrown into the same heap of

fiction. Hardly are they honored with a superficial search into

their possible relations to astronomy or sexual emblems. The same

myths--when and because mutilated--are accepted as Sacred Scriptures,

more--the Word of God! Is this impartial history? Is this justice to

either the past, the present, or the future? “Ye cannot serve God and

Mammon,” said the Reformer, nineteen centuries ago. “Ye cannot serve

truth and public prejudice,” would be more applicable to our own age.

Yet our authorities pretend they serve the former.

There are few myths in any religious system but have an historical

as well as a scientific foundation. Myths, as Pococke ably

expresses it, “are now proved to be fables, just in proportion as

we _misunderstand_ them; truths, in proportion as they were once

_understood_. Our ignorance it is which has made a myth of history;

and our ignorance is an Hellenic inheritance, much of it the result

of Hellenic vanity.”[838]

Bunsen and Champollion have already shown that the Egyptian sacred

books are by far older than the oldest parts of the _Book of

Genesis_. And now a more careful research seems to warrant the

suspicion--which with us amounts to a certainty, that the laws

of Moses are copies from the code of the Brahmanic _Manu_. Thus,

according to every probability, Egypt owes her civilization, her

civil institutions, and her arts, to India. But against the latter

assumption we have a whole army of “authorities” arrayed, and what

matters if the latter do deny the fact at present? Sooner or later

they will have to accept it, whether they belong to the German or

French school. Among, but not of those who so readily compromise

between interest and conscience, there are some fearless scholars,

who may bring out to light incontrovertible facts. Some twenty

years since, Max Müller, in a letter to the Editor of the London

_Times_, April, 1857, maintained most vehemently that Nirvana meant

_annihilation_, in the fullest sense of the word. (See _Chips_,

etc., vol. i., p. 287, on the meaning of Nirvana.) But in 1869, in

a lecture before the general meeting of the Association of German

Philologists at Kiel, “he distinctly declares his belief that the

nihilism attributed to Buddha’s teaching forms no part of his

doctrine, and that it is wholly wrong to suppose that Nirvana means

annihilation.” (Trübner’s _American and Oriental Literary Record_,

Oct. 16, 1869; also Inman’s _Ancient Faiths and Modern_, p. 128.) Yet

if we mistake not, Professor Müller was as much of an authority in

1857 as in 1869.

“It will be difficult to settle,” says (now) this great scholar,

“whether the _Vedas_ is the oldest of books, and whether some of the

portions of the _Old Testament_ may not be traced back to the same

or even an earlier date than the oldest hymns of the _Veda_.”[839]

But his retraction about the Nirvana allows us a hope that he may yet

change his opinion on the question of _Genesis_ likewise, so that the

public may have simultaneously the benefit of truth, and the sanction

of one of Europe’s greatest authorities.

It is well known how little the Orientalists have come to anything

like an agreement about the age of Zoroaster, and until this question

is settled, it would be safer perhaps to trust implicitly in the

Brahmanical calculations by the Zodiac, than to the opinions of

scientists. Leaving the profane horde of unrecognized scholars, those

we mean who yet wait their turn to be chosen for public worship

as idols symbolical of scientific leadership, where can we find,

among the sanctioned authorities of the day, two that agree as to

this age? There’s Bunsen, who places Zoroaster at Baktra, and the

emigration of Baktrians to the Indus at 3784 B.C.,[840] and the

birth of Moses at 1392.[841] Now it is rather difficult to place

Zoroaster anterior to the _Vedas_, considering that the whole of

his doctrine is that of the earlier _Vedas_. True, he remained in

Afghanistan for a period more or less problematical before crossing

into the Punjâb; but the _Vedas_ were begun in the latter country.

They indicate the progress of the Hindus, as the _Avesta_ that

of the Iranians. And there is Haug who assigns to the _Aitareya

Brahmanam_--a Brahmanical speculation and commentary upon the

_Rig-Veda_ of a far later date than the _Veda_ itself--between 1400

and 1200 B.C., while the _Vedas_ are placed by him between 2,000 and

2,400 years B.C. Max Müller cautiously suggests certain difficulties

in this chronological computation, but still does not altogether

deny it.[842] Let it, however, be as it may, and supposing that the

_Pentateuch_ was written by Moses himself--notwithstanding that he

would thereby be made to twice record his own death--still, if Moses

was born, as Bunsen finds, in 1392 B.C., the _Pentateuch_ could not

have been written, _before the Vedas_. Especially if Zoroaster was

born 3784 B.C. If, as Dr. Haug[843] tells us, some of the hymns of

the _Rig-Veda_ were written before Zoroaster accomplished his schism,

something like thirty-seven centuries B.C., and Max Müller says

himself that “the Zoroastrians and their ancestors started from India

during the Vaidic period,” how can some of the portions of the _Old

Testament_ be traced back to the same or even “an earlier date than

the oldest hymns of the _Veda_?”

It has generally been agreed among Orientalists that the Aryans,

3,000 years B.C., were still in the steppes east of the Caspian,

and united. Rawlinson _conjectures_ that they “flowed east” from

Armenia as a common centre; while two kindred streams began to flow,

one northward over the Caucasus, and the other westward over Asia

Minor and Europe. He finds the Aryans, at a period anterior to the

fifteenth century before our era, “settled in the territory watered

by the Upper Indus.” Thence Vedic Aryans migrated to the Punjâb, and

Zendic Aryans westward, establishing the historical countries. But

this, like the rest, is a hypothesis, and only given as such.

Again, Rawlinson, evidently following Max Müller, says: “The early

history of the Aryans is for many ages an absolute blank.” But many

learned Brahmans, however, have declared that they found trace of

the existence of the _Vedas_ as early as 2100 B.C.; and Sir William

Jones, taking for his guide the astronomical data, places the

_Yagur-Veda_ 1580 B.C. This would be still “before Moses.”

It is upon the supposition that the Aryans did not leave Afghanistan

for the Punjâb prior to 1500 B.C. that Max Müller and other Oxford

savants have supposed that portions of the _Old Testament_ may be

traced back to the same or even an earlier date than the oldest

hymns of the _Veda_. Therefore, until the Orientalists can show us

the correct date at which Zoroaster flourished, no authority can be

regarded as better for the ages of the _Vedas_ than the Brahmans

themselves.

As it is a recognized fact that the Jews borrowed most of their laws

from the Egyptians, let us examine who were the Egyptians. In our

opinion--which is but a poor authority, of course--they were the

ancient Indians, and in our first volume we have quoted passages from

the historian Collouca-Batta that support such a theory. What we mean

by ancient India is the following:

No region on the map--except it be the ancient Scythia--is more

uncertainly defined than that which bore the designation of India.

Æthiopia is perhaps the only parallel. It was the home of the Cushite

or Hamitic races, and lay to the east of Babylonia. It was once the

name of Hindustan, when the dark races, worshippers of Bala-Mahadeva

and Bhavani-Mahidevi, were supreme in that country. The India of

the early sages appears to have been the region at the sources of

the Oxus and Jaxartes. Apollonius of Tyana crossed the Caucasus, or

Hindu Kush, where he met with a king who directed him to the abode of

the sages--perhaps the descendants of those whom Ammianus terms the

“Brahmans of Upper India,” and whom Hystaspes, the father of Darius

(or more probably Darius Hystaspes himself) visited; and, having

been instructed by them, infused their rites and ideas into the

Magian observances. This narrative about Apollonius seems to indicate

Kashmere as the country which he visited, and the _Nagas_--after

their conversion to Buddhism--as his teachers. At this time Aryan

India did not extend beyond the Punjâb.

To our notion, the most baffling impediment in the way of

ethnological progress has always been the triple progeny of Noah.

In the attempt to reconcile postdiluvian races with a genealogical

descent from Shem, Ham, and Japhet, the Christianesque Orientalists

have set themselves a task impossible of accomplishment. The biblical

Noachian ark has been a Procrustean bed to which they had to make

everything fit. Attention has therefore been diverted from veritable

sources of information as to the origin of man, and a purely local

allegory mistaken for a historical record emanating from an inspired

source. Strange and unfortunate choice! Out of all the sacred

writings of all the branch nations, sprung from the primitive stock

of mankind, Christianity must choose for its guidance the national

records and scriptures of a people perhaps the least spiritual of

the human family--the Semitic. A branch that has never been able to

develop out of its numerous tongues a language capable of embodying

ideas of a moral and intellectual world; whose form of expression

and drift of thought could never soar higher than the purely sensual

and terrestrial figures of speech; whose literature has left nothing

original, nothing that was not borrowed from the Aryan thought; and

whose science and philosophy are utterly wanting in those noble

features which characterize the highly spiritual and metaphysical

systems of the Indo-European (Japetic) races.

Bunsen shows Khamism (the language of Egypt) as a very ancient

deposit from Western Asia, containing _the germs_ of the Semitic, and

thus bearing “witness to the primitive cognate unity of the Semitic

and Aryan races.” We must remember, in this connection, that the

peoples of Southwestern and Western Asia, including the Medes, were

all Aryans. It is yet far from being proved who were the original and

primitive masters of India. That this period is now beyond the reach

of documentary history, does not preclude the probability of our

theory that it was the mighty race of builders, whether we call them

Eastern Æthiopians, or dark-skinned Aryans (the word meaning simply

“noble warrior,” a “brave”). They ruled supreme at one time over the

whole of ancient India, enumerated later by Manu as the possession of

those whom our scientists term the Sanscrit-speaking people.

These Hindus are _supposed_ to have entered the country from the

northwest; they are _conjectured_ by some to have brought with them

the Brahmanical religion, and the language of the conquerors was

_probably_ the Sanscrit. On these three meagre data our philologists

have worked ever since the Hindustani and its immense Sanscrit

literature was forcibly brought into notice by Sir William Jones--all

the time with the three sons of Noah clinging around their necks.

This is _exact_ science, free from religious prejudices! Verily,

ethnology would have been the gainer if this Noachian trio had been

washed overboard and drowned before the ark reached land!

The Æthiopians are generally classed in the Semitic group; but we

have to see how far they have a claim to such a classification.

We will also consider how much they might have had to do with the

Egyptian civilization, which, as a writer expresses it, seems

referable in the same perfection to the earliest dates, and not to

have had a rise and progress, as was the case with that of other

peoples. For reasons that we will now adduce, we are prepared

to maintain that Egypt owes her civilization, commonwealth and

arts--especially the art of building, to pre-Vedic India, and that

it was a colony of the dark-skinned Aryans, or those whom Homer and

Herodotus term the eastern Æthiopians, _i.e._, the inhabitants of

Southern India, who brought to it their ready-made civilization in

the ante-chronological ages, of what Bunsen calls the pre-Menite, but

nevertheless epochal history.

In Pococke’s _India in Greece_, we find the following suggestive

paragraph: “The plain account of the wars carried on between

the solar chiefs, Oosras (Osiris) the prince of the Guelas, and

‘TU-PHOO’ is the simple historical fact of the wars of the Apians,

or Sun-tribes of Oude, with the people of ‘TU-PHOO’ or THIBET, who

were, in fact, the lunar race, mostly Buddhists[844] and opposed

by Rama and the ‘AITYO-PIAS’ or people of Oude, subsequently the

AITH-IO-PIANS of Africa.”[845]