Page:A Collection of Esoteric Writings.djvu/30

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16

Brahmans had derived their secret knowledge from them.*[1] Do these assertions mean that the Vedas and the Brabmanical esoteric teachings had their origin in the lost Atlantis—the continent that once occupied a considerable portion of the expanse of the Southern and the Pacific oceans? The assertion in "lais Unveiled" that Sanskrit was the language of the inhabitants of the said continent, may induce one to suppose that the Vedas had probably their origin there,—whereever else might be the birth-place of the Aryan esotericism.†[2] But the real esoteric doctrine as well as the mystic allegorical philosophy of the Vedas were derived from another source again, whatever that source may be—perchance, from the divine inhabitants (gods) of the sacred Island which once existed in the sea that covered in days of old the sandy tract now called Gobi Desert. However that may be, the knowledge of the occult powers of nature possessed by the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis was learnt by the ancient adepts of India and was appended by them to the esoteric doctrine taught by the residents of the sacred Island.‡[3] The Tibetan adepts, however, have not accepted this addition to their esoteric doctrine. And, it is in this respect that one should expect to find a difierence between the two doctrines.§[4]

The Brahmanical occult doctrine probably contains everything that was taught about the powers of nature and their


  1. * And so would the Christian pâdrîs. But they would never admit that their "fallen angles" were borrowed from the Râkshasâs; that their "Devil" is the illegitimate son of Dewel—the Sinhalese female demon, or that the "War in Heaven" of the Apocalypse—the foundation of the Christian dogma of the "Fallen Angles"—was copied from the Hindu story about Siva hurling the Tárakâsura who rebelled against Brahma into Andhakára,—the Abode of Darkness, according to Brabmanical Shâstrás.—Ed.
  2. † Not necessarily.—See Appendix, Note II. From rare MSS. just received we will shortly prove Sanskrit to have been spoken in Jâva and adjacent islands from remote antiquity.—Ed.
  3. ‡ A locality which is spoken of to this day by the Tibetans and called by them "Scham-bha-la" the Happy Land.—See Appendix, Note III.—Ed.
  4. § To comprehend this passage fully, the reader must turn to Vol. I., pp. 589-694, Isis Unveiled.—Ed.