great work "The History of Creation,"[11] "neither Australia, nor
America, nor Europe can have been this primæval home [of man], or the
so-called 'Paradise,' the 'cradle of the human race.' Most
circumstances indicate Southern Asia as the locality in question.
Besides Southern Asia, the only other of the now existing continents
which might be viewed in this light is Africa. But there are a number
of circumstances (especially chorological facts) which suggest that
the primeval home of man was a continent now sunk below the surface of
the Indian Ocean, which extended along the south of Asia, as it is at
present (and probably in direct connection with it), towards the east,
as far as Further India and the Sunda Islands; towards the west, as
far as Madagascar and the south-eastern shores of Africa. We have
already mentioned that many facts in animal and vegetable geography
render the former existence of such a South Indian continent very
probable. Sclater has given this continent the name of Lemuria, from
the semi-apes which were characteristic of it. By assuming this
Lemuria to have been man's primæval home, we greatly facilitate the
explanation of the geographical distribution of the human species by
migration."
In a subsequent work, "The Pedigree of Man," Haeckel asserts the
existence of Lemuria at some early epoch of the earth's history as an
acknowledged fact.
The following quotation from Dr. Hartlaub's writings may bring to a
close this portion of the evidence in favour of the existence of the
lost Lemuria:--[12]
"Five and thirty years ago, Isidore Geoffrey St. Hilaire remarked
that, if one had to classify the Island of Madagascar exclusively on
zoological considerations, and without reference to its geographical
situation, it could be shown to be neither Asiatic nor African, but
quite different from either, and almost a fourth continent. And this
fourth continent could be further proved to be, as regards its fauna,
much more different from Africa, which lies so near to it, than from
India which is so far away. With these words the correctness and
pregnancy of which later investigations tend to bring into their full
light, the French naturalist first stated the interesting problem for
the solution of which an hypothesis based on scientific knowledge has
recently been propounded, for this fourth continent of Isidore
Geoffrey is Sclater's 'Lemuria'--that sunken land which, containing
parts of Africa, must have extended far eastwards over Southern India
and Ceylon, and the highest points of which we recognise in the
volcanic peaks of Bourbon and Mauritius, and in the central range of
Madagascar itself--the last resorts of the almost extinct Lemurine
race which formerly peopled it."
[Sidenote: Evidence obtained from Archaic Records.]
The further evidence we have with regard to Lemuria and its
inhabitants has been obtained from the same source and in the same
manner as that which resulted in the writing of the _Story of
Atlantis_. In this case also the author has been privileged to obtain
copies of two maps, one representing Lemuria (and the adjoining
lands) during the period of that continent's greatest expansion, the
other exhibiting its outlines after its dismemberment by great
catastrophes, but long before its final destruction.
It was never professed that the maps of Atlantis were correct _to a
single degree_ of latitude, or longitude, but, with the far greater
difficulty of obtaining the information in the present case, it must
be stated that still less must these maps of Lemuria be taken as
absolutely accurate. In the former case there was a globe, a good
bas-relief in terra-cotta, and a well-preserved map on parchment, or
skin of some sort, to copy from. In the present case there was only a
broken terra-cotta model and a very badly preserved and crumpled map,
so that the difficulty of carrying back the remembrance of all the
details, and consequently of reproducing exact copies, has been far
greater.
We were told that it was by mighty Adepts in the days of Atlantis that
the Atlantean maps were produced, but we are not aware whether the
Lemurian maps were fashioned by some of the divine instructors in the
days when Lemuria still existed, or in still later days of the
Atlantean epoch.
But while guarding against over-confidence in the absolute accuracy of
the maps in question, the transcriber of the archaic originals
believes that they may in all important particulars, be taken as
approximately correct.
[Sidenote: Probable Duration of the Continent of Lemuria.]
A period--speaking roughly--of between four and five million years
probably represents the life of the continent of Atlantis, for it is
about that time since the Rmoahals, the first sub-race of the Fourth
Root Race who inhabited Atlantis, arose on a portion of the Lemurian
Continent which at that time still existed. Remembering that in the
evolutionary process the figure four invariably represents not only
the nadir of the cycle, but the period of shortest duration, whether
in the case of a Manvantara or of a race, it may be assumed that the
number of millions of years assignable as the life-limit of the
continent of Lemuria must be very much greater than that representing
the life of Atlantis, the continent of the Fourth Root Race. But in
the case of Lemuria no dates can be stated with even approximate
accuracy. Geological epochs, so far as they are known to modern
science, will be a better medium for contemporary reference, and they
alone will be dealt with.
[Sidenote: The Maps.]
But not even geological epochs, it will be observed, are assigned to
the maps. If, however, an inference may be drawn from all the evidence
before us, it would seem probable that the older of the two Lemurian
maps represented the earth's configuration from the Permian, through
the Triassic and into the Jurassic epoch, while the second map
probably represents the earth's configuration through the Cretaceous
and into the Eocene period.
From the older of the two maps it may be seen that the equatorial
continent of Lemuria at the time of its greatest expansion nearly
girdled the globe, extending as it then did from the site of the
present Cape Verd Islands a few miles from the coast of Sierra Leone,
in a south-easterly direction through Africa, Australia, the Society
Islands and all the intervening seas, to a point but a few miles
distant from a great island continent (about the size of the present
South America) which spread over the remainder of the Pacific Ocean,
and included Cape Horn and parts of Patagonia.
A remarkable feature in the second map of Lemuria is the great length,
and at parts the extreme narrowness, of the straits which separated
the two great blocks of land into which the continent had by this time
been split, and it will be observed that the straits at present
existing between the islands of Bali and Lomboc coincide with a
portion of the straits which then divided these two continents. It
will also be seen that these straits continued in a northerly
direction by the west, not by the east coast of Borneo, as conjectured
by Ernst Haeckel.
With reference to the distribution of fauna and flora, and the
existence of so many types common to India and Africa alike, pointed
out by Mr. Blandford, it will be observed that between parts of India
and great tracts of Africa there was direct land communication during
the first map period, and that similar communication was partially
maintained in the second map period also; while a comparison of the
maps of Atlantis with those of Lemuria will demonstrate that
continuous land communication existed, now at one epoch, and now at
another, between so many different parts of the earth's surface, at
present separated by sea, that the existing distribution of fauna and
flora in the two Americas, in Europe and in Eastern lands, which has
been such a puzzle to naturalists, may with perfect ease be accounted
for.
The island indicated in the earlier Lemurian map as existing to the
north-west of the extreme promontory of that continent, and due west
of the present coast of Spain, was probably a centre from which
proceeded, during long ages, the distribution of fauna and flora above
referred to. For--and this is a most interesting fact--it will be seen
that this island must have been the nucleus, from first to last, of
the subsequent great continent of Atlantis. It existed, as we see, in
these earliest Lemurian times. It was joined in the second map period
to land which had previously formed part of the great Lemurian
continent; and indeed, so many accretions of territory had it by this
time received that it might more appropriately be called a continent
than an island. It was the great mountainous region of Atlantis at its
prime, when Atlantis embraced great tracts of land which have now
become North and South America. It remained the mountainous region of
Atlantis in its decadence, and of Ruta in the Ruta and Daitya epoch,
and it practically constituted the island of Poseidonis--the last
remnant of the continent of Atlantis--the final submergence of which
took place in the year 9564 B.C.
A comparison of the two maps here given, along with the four maps of
Atlantis, will also show that Australia and New Zealand, Madagascar,
parts of Somaliland, the south of Africa, and the extreme southern
portion of Patagonia are lands which have _probably_ existed through
all the intervening catastrophes since the early days of the Lemurian
period. The same may be said of the southern parts of India and
Ceylon, with the exception in the case of Ceylon, of a temporary
submergence in the Ruta and Daitya epoch.
It is true there are also remains still existing of the even earlier
Hyperborean continent, and they of course are the oldest known lands
on the face of the earth. These are Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen,
the most northerly parts of Norway and Sweden, and the extreme north
cape of Siberia.
Japan is shown by the maps to have been above water, whether as an
island, or as part of a continent, since the date of the second
Lemurian map. Spain, too, has doubtless existed since that time. Spain
is, therefore, with the exception of the most northerly parts of
Norway and Sweden, _probably_ the oldest land in Europe.
The indeterminate character of the statements just made is rendered
necessary by our knowledge that there _did_ occur subsidences and
upheavals of different portions of the earth's surface during the ages
which lay between the periods represented by the maps.
For example, soon after the date of the second Lemurian map we are
informed that the whole Malay Peninsula was submerged and remained so
for a long time, but a subsequent upheaval of that region must have
taken place before the date of the first Atlantean map, for, what is
now the Malay Peninsula is there exhibited as part of a great
continent. Similarly there have been repeated minor subsidences and
upheavals nearer home in more recent times, and Haeckel is perfectly
correct in saying that England--he might with greater accuracy have
said the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, which were then joined
together--"has repeatedly been connected with the European continent,
and been repeatedly separated from it."
In order to bring the subject more dearly before the mind, a tabular
statement is here annexed which supplies a condensed history of the
animal and plant life on our globe, bracketed--according to
Haeckel--with the contemporary rock strata. Two other columns give the
contemporary races of man, and such of the great cataclysms as are
known to occult students.
[Sidenote: Reptiles and Pine Forests.]
From this statement it will be seen that Lemurian man lived in the age
of Reptiles and Pine Forests. The amphibious monsters and the gigantic
tree-ferns of the Permian age still flourished in the warm damp
climates. Plesiosauri and Icthyosauri swarmed in the tepid marshes of
the Mesolithic epoch, but, with the drying up of many of the inland
seas, the Dinosauria--the monstrous land reptiles--gradually became
the dominant type, while the Pterodactyls--the Saurians which
developed bat-like wings--not only crawled on the earth, but flew
through the air. The smallest of these latter were about the size of a
sparrow; the largest, however, with a breadth of wing of more than
sixteen feet, exceeding the largest of our living birds of to-day;
while most of the Dinosauria--the Dragons--were terrible beasts of
prey, colossal reptiles which attained a length of from forty to fifty
feet.[13] Subsequent excavations have laid bare skeletons of an even
larger size. Professor Ray Lankester, at a meeting of the Royal
Institution on 7th January, 1904, is reported to have referred to a
brontosaurus skeleton of sixty-five feet long, which had been
discovered in the Oolite deposit in the southern part of the United
States of America.
|Depth of| | | | |
Rock Strata. | Strata.| Races of Men. | Cataclysms. | Animals. | Plants. |
| Feet. | | | | |
-------------------------+--------+------------------+-----------------------+--------------+------------------|
Laurentian } | |First Root Race | | | |
} Archilithic | |which being Astra | |Skull-less |Forest of gigantic|
Cambrian } or | 70,000|could leave | |Animals. |Tangle and other |
} Primordial | |no fossil remains.| | |Thallus Plants. |
Silurian } | | | | | |
| | | | | |
Devonian } | | | | | |
} Palæolithic | |Second Root Race | | | |
Coal } or | 42,000|which was Etheric.| |Fish. |Fern Forests. |
} Primary. | | | | | |
Permian } | | | | | |
| | | | | |
Triassic } | | |Lemuria is said to have| | |
} Mesolithic | |Third Root Race |perished before the | |Pine and Palm |
Jurassic } or | 15,000|or Lemurian. |beginning of the Eocene|Reptiles. |Forests. |
} Secondary | | |age. | | |
Cretaceous } | | | | | |
| | |The main Continent of | | |
Eocene } | | |Atlantis was destroyed | | |
} Cenolithic | |Fourth Root Race |in the Miocene period | | |
Miocene } or | 5,000|or Atlantean. |about 800,000 years |Mammals. |Forests of |
} Tertiary. | | |ago. Second great | |Deciduous Trees. |
Pliocene } | | |catastrophe? about | | |
| | |200,000 years ago. | | |
Diluvial or} | | |Third great catastrophe| | |
Pleistocene} Quarternary | |Fifth Root Race |about 80,000 years ago.|More |Cultivated |
} or | 500|or Aryan. |Final submergence of |differentiated|Forests. |
Alluvial }Anthopolithic| | |Poseidonis 9564 B.C. |Mammals. | |
As it is written in the stanzas of the archaic Book of Dzyan, "Animals
with bones, dragons of the deep, and flying sarpas were added to the
creeping things. They that creep on the ground got wings. They of the
long necks in the water became the progenitors of the fowls of the
air." Modern science records her endorsement. "The class of birds as
already remarked is so closely allied to Reptiles in internal
structure and by embryonal development that they undoubtedly
originated out of a branch of this class.... The derivation of birds
from reptiles first took place in the Mesolithic epoch, and this
moreover probably during the Trias."[14]
In the vegetable kingdom this epoch also saw the pine and the
palm-tree gradually displace the giant tree ferns. In the later days
of the Mesolithic epoch, mammals for the first time came into
existence, but the fossil remains of the mammoth and mastodon, which
were their earliest representatives, are chiefly found in the
subsequent strata of the Eocene and Miocene times.
[Sidenote: The Human Kingdom.]
Before making any reference to what must, even at this early date, be
called the human kingdom, it must be stated that none of those who, at
the present day, can lay claim to even a moderate amount of mental or
spiritual culture _can_ have lived in these ages. It was only with the
advent of the last three sub-races of this Third Root Race that the
least progressed of the first group of the Lunar Pitris began to
return to incarnation, while the most advanced among them did not take
birth till the early sub-races of the Atlantean period.
Indeed, Lemurian man, during at least the first half of the race, must
be regarded rather as an animal destined to reach humanity than as
human according to our understanding of the term; for though the
second and third groups of Pitris, who constituted the inhabitants of
Lemuria during its first four sub-races, had achieved sufficient
self-consciousness in the Lunar Manvantara to differentiate them from
the animal kingdom, they had not yet received the Divine Spark which
should endow them with mind and individuality--in other words, make
them truly human.
[Sidenote: Size and Consistency of Man's Body.]
The evolution of this Lemurian race, therefore, constitutes one of the
most obscure, as well as one of the most interesting, chapters of
man's development, for during this period not only did he reach true
humanity, but his body underwent the greatest physical changes, while
the processes of reproduction were twice altered.
In explanation of the surprising statements which will have to be made
in regard to the size and consistency of man's body at this early
period it must be remembered that while the animal, vegetable and
mineral kingdoms pursued the normal course, on this the fourth globe,
during the Fourth Round of this Manvantara, it was ordained that
humanity should run over in rapid succession the various stages
through which its evolution had passed during the previous rounds of
the present Manvantara. Thus the bodies of the First Root Race in
which these almost mindless beings were destined to gain experience,
would have appeared to us as gigantic phantoms--if indeed we could
have seen them at all, for their bodies were formed of astral matter.
The astral forms of the First Root Race were then gradually enveloped
in a more physical casing. But though the Second Root Race may be
called physical--their bodies being composed of ether--they would have
been equally invisible to eyesight as it at present exists.
It was, we are told, in order that the Manu, and the Beings who aided
him, might take means for improving the physical type of humanity
that this epitome of the process of evolution was ordained. The
highest development which the type had so far reached was the huge
ape-like creature which had existed on the three physical planets,
Mars, the Earth and Mercury in the Third Round. On the arrival of the
human life-wave on the Earth in this the Fourth Round, a certain
number, naturally, of these ape-like creatures were found in
occupation--the residuum left on the planet during its period of
obscuration. These, of course, joined the in-coming human stream as
soon as the race became fully physical. Their bodies may not then have
been absolutely discarded; they may have been utilized for purposes of
reincarnation for the most backward entities, but it was an
improvement on this type which was required, and this was most easily
achieved by the Manu, through working out on the astral plane in the
first instance, the architype originally formed in the mind of the
Logos.
From the Etheric Second Race, then, was evolved the Third--the
Lemurian. Their bodies had become material, being composed of the
gases, liquids and solids which constitute the three lowest
sub-divisions of the physical plane, but the gases and liquids still
predominated, for as yet their vertebrate structure had not solidified
into bones such as ours, and they could not, therefore, stand erect.
Their bones in fact were pliable as the bones of young infants now
are. It was not until the middle of the Lemurian period that man
developed a solid bony structure.
To explain the possibility of the process by which the etheric form
evolved into a more physical form, and the soft-boned physical form
ultimately developed into a structure such as man possesses to-day, it
is only necessary to refer to the permanent physical atom.[15]
Containing as it does the essence of all the forms through which man
has passed on the physical plane, it contained consequently the
potentiality of a hard-boned physical structure such as had been
attained during the course of the Third Round, as well as the
potentiality of an etheric form and all the phases which lie between,
for it must be remembered that the physical plane consists of four
grades of ether as well as the gases, liquids and solids which so many
are apt to regard as alone constituting the physical. Thus, every
stage of the development was a natural process, for it was a process
which had been accomplished in ages long past, and all that was needed
was for the Manu and the Beings who aided him, to gather round the
permanent atom the appropriate kind of matter.
[Sidenote: Organs of Vision.]
The organs of vision of these creatures before they developed bones
were of a rudimentary nature, at least such was the condition of the
two eyes in front with which they sought for their food upon the
ground. But there was a third eye at the back of the head, the
atrophied remnant of which is now known as the _pineal gland_. This,
as we know, is _now_ a centre solely of astral vision, but at the
epoch of which we are speaking it was the chief centre not only of
astral but of physical sight. Referring to reptiles which had become
extinct, Professor Ray Lankester, in a recent lecture at the Royal
Institution, is reported to have drawn special attention "to the size
of the parietal foramen in the skull which showed that in the
ichthyosaurs the parietal or pineal eye on the top of the head must
have been very large." In this respect he went on to say mankind were
inferior to these big sea lizards, "for we had lost the third eye
which might be studied in the common lizard, or better in the great
blue lizard of the South of France."[16]
Somewhat before the middle of the Lemurian period, probably during the
evolution of the third sub-race, the gigantic gelatinous body began
slowly to solidify and the soft-boned limbs developed into a bony
structure. These primitive creatures were now able to stand upright,
and the two eyes in the face gradually became the chief organs of
physical sight, though the third eye still remained to some extent an
organ of physical sight also, and this it did till the very end of the
Lemurian epoch. It, of course, remained an actual organ, as it still
is a potential focus, of psychic vision. This psychic vision continued
to be an attribute of the race not only throughout the whole Lemurian
period, but well into the days of Atlantis.
A curious fact to note is that when the race first attained the power
of standing and moving in an upright position, they could walk
backwards with almost as great ease as forwards. This may be accounted
for not only by the capacity for vision possessed by the third eye,
but doubtless also by the curious projection at the heels which will
presently be referred to.
[Sidenote: Description of Lemurian Man.]
The following is a description of a man who belonged to one of the
later sub-races--probably the fifth. "His stature was gigantic,
somewhere between twelve and fifteen feet. His skin was very dark,
being of a yellowish brown colour. He had a long lower jaw, a
strangely flattened face, eyes small but piercing and set curiously
far apart, so that he could see sideways as well as in front, while
the eye at the back of the head--on which part of the head no hair, of
course, grew--enabled him to see in that direction also. He had no
forehead, but there seemed to be a roll of flesh where it should have
been. The head sloped backwards and upwards in a rather curious way.
The arms and legs (especially the former) were longer in proportion
than ours, and could not be perfectly straightened either at elbows or
knees; the hands and feet were enormous, and the heels projected
backwards in an ungainly way. The figure was draped in a loose robe of
skin, something like rhinoceros hide, but more scaly, probably the
skin of some animal of which we now know only through its fossil
remains. Round his head, on which the hair was quite short, was
twisted another piece of skin to which were attached tassels of bright
red, blue and other colours. In his left hand he held a sharpened
staff, which was doubtless used for defence or attack. It was about
the height of his own body, _viz._, twelve to fifteen feet. In his
right hand was twisted the end of a long rope made of some sort of
creeping plant, by which he led a huge and hideous reptile, somewhat
resembling the Plesiosaurus. The Lemurians actually domesticated these
creatures, and trained them to employ their strength in hunting other
animals. The appearance of the man gave an unpleasant sensation, but
he was not entirely uncivilised, being an average common-place
specimen of his day."