Isis Study – April to June 2013, Summary and discussions : Isis unveiled, Vol. I.

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 Chapter XV –INDIA THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION

Pages 577 – 580

Hindu origin of Biblical myths

In Isis Unveiled H.P.B. brings up numerous evidences to demonstrate that one and the same esoteric truths were expressed in identical symbols and allegories in countries scattered widely over the face of the globe, between which there had been traced no historical affiliations. Jewish Kabala and the Bible repeat the “myths” of ancient Babylonia (‘Ancient Fragments’  by Cory documents some of them).The same ideas are found repeated in Oriental and Chaldean allegories, and in the oldest manuscripts and traditions of Siam and Ceylon.

H.P.B. speaks of an acquaintance, a Pali scholar, a native of Ceylon, who possessed a palm-leaf, which has been given  time-proof durability, by an unknown chemical process, and an enormous half-sized Conch (split in two), On the leaf was seen a giant of Ceylonian antiquity and fame, blind, and pulling down, with an outstretched arm, which are embracing the four central pillars of a pagoda, crushing armed enemies by the falling Pagoda. His hair is long, reaching out to the ground. The name of the blind giant was called “Somona, the Little,” in contradistinction to Somona-Kadmon, the Siamese saviour. The Pali legend corresponds with the biblical legend of Samson.

The shell bore on its pearly surface a very artistic pictorial engraving in two panels. In the first panel was the Hindu god Siva, with all his attributes, sacrificing his son. The victim was laid on the funeral pile, and the father (Siva) shown as hovering in air above the pile with an uplifted weapon ready to strike. Siva’s face turned is turned toward a jungle in which a rhinoceros has deeply buried its horn in a huge tree and is unable to extricate itself. In the adjoining panel was depicted the same rhinoceros on the pile, and the weapon plunged in its side, and intended victim, Siva’s son, is free, and helping the god to kindle the fire upon the sacrificial altar. This was reminiscent of the biblical story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac in obedience to the command of his god. (Gen.22 / 1-19)

In the Greek myth (Sanchoniathon) Saturn is depicted as sacrificing his only begotten son as a sacrifice to his father, Ouranos, circumcised himself and forced all his household to do the same. Abraham is held by Mohometan Arabs as Saturn in the Kaaba., and Abraham and Israel were names of Saturn. Thus the biblical legend of Abraham sacrificing his son is traced to older mythologies, and finally to India, the original of which is to be found in the Mahabharata. Jewish Pentateuch is certainly much later than Brahminical and Buddhist traditions, as the Pentateuch was complied by Ezra after the Babylonian captivity and revised by the Rabbi.

Spread of translated Sanscrit original myths from Nepal and India to far East and the West

 Researchers have discovered enough evidence that Sanscrit originals of Nepal were translated by Buddhist missionaries into nearly every Asiatic language. Pali manuscripts were translated into Siamese. Hence the phenomenon of the same religious legends and myths circulating in all these countries. This accounts for the presence of the oldest Ceylonic traditions in the Chaldean Kabbala and the Jewish Bible.

Akkadians are the Nomadic Aryan tribe who emigrated to the West

 Rawlison traces Akkadian origin to Armenia, but not beyond. H.P.B. says, based on her knowledge of the records of the Adept Fraternity, the tribe might well have come to Armenia from beyond the Indus in the direction of the Caspian sea—a part which was also India, once upon a time—from thence to Euxine. Or they might have come originally from Ceylon by the same way. The wandering of this nomadic tribe can be judged by comparative study of myths and traditions of countries of these geographical tracts. Abraham himself might have been one of these Pali shphards who emigrated to the West.

Biblical allegories, of the Book of Genesis, is entirely due to the Akkadian and the Pali shephards.

 If language is advanced as reason for discounting the claim of the identity of the two traditions—the Biblical and the Brahminical—there are other substantial evidences which make good the claim, that the Biblical allegories are entirely due to these nomadic tribes of India. The tribes are called by Ethnologists Akkadians. Ak-Ad is of the same class as As-Am, Ha-Va, or Ed-En. In Assyria, Ak is creator, and Ad-ad is AD the father. In Aramean Ad also means One, and Ad-Ad, the Only One. In the Kabala, Ad-am is the only begotten, the first emanation of the unseen Creator. Adon was the “Lord” god of Syria and the consort of Adar-gat or Aster-‘t,’ the Syrian goddess who was Venus, Isis, Istar, or Mylitta etc., and each of these was the “mother of all things.”—Magna Mater.

Genesis I, II and III are the mutilated copies of Cosmogonies of other nations, and Genesis IV and V are accounts of actual historical events, though not correctly interpreted by biblical scholars

 They are taken word for word from the secret Book of Numbers, of the great Oriental Kabala. H.P.B. informs us that in an old Brahminical manuscript called “Prophesies,” as well as in the Southern MSS, in the legend of Krishna, the latter gives nearly word for word the first two chapters of Genesis. Krishna recounts the “first man” whom he calls Adima, in Sanscrit meaning the First Man, and first woman is called Heva, that which completes life. The great Orientalist, Louis Jacolliot (“La Bible dans I’nde) Christna existed, and his legend was written over 3000 years B.C.

From the birth of Enoch begins the genealogy of the so-called Turanian, Aryan and Semetic families, if such they be correctly. Every woman is an euhemerized land or city, and every man and patriarch a race, a branch, or a sub-division of a race. The wives of Lamech gives the key to the riddle. Ad-ah bare Iabal was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. This is allusion to the nomadic Aryan tribes. His brother was Jubal, the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ. Zillah bare Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron, etc. Every word has significance. But it is not a ‘Revelation.’ It is just a compilation of the most historical facts, though history is perplexed on this point.

 From Euxine to Kashmir and beyond is to be found the cradle of mankind. Biblical Garden of Eden was a college of Magi and Astrologers, the Aleim

 Adah in Hebrew is woman’s name and Eden the designation of a country. They are closely related to each other but hardly to Adam and Akkad. Swedenborg, the Seer, advised seekers to search for the LOST WORD among the Hierophants of Tartary, China, and Thibet. It is there and only there, though we may find it inscribed on the monuments of the oldest Egyptian dynasties. The Lost Word is the Universal Esoteric Wisdom which forms the common ground-work from which have sprung all the great religious scriptures of the world : the four Vedas, the Books of Hermes, the Chaldean Book of Numbers, the Nazarene Codex, the Book of the Tenaim, the Sepher Jezira, the Book of Wisdom of Schlomah (Solomon), the secret treatise on Mukta and Baddha attributed by Buddhist Kabalists to Sage Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya system; the Brahamanas, the Stan-gyor of the Thibetans. All these volumes have the same ground-work, teach the same secret doctrine, which when thoroughly eliminated will prove to be the Ultima Thule of true philosophy, and disclose what is this LOST WORD.

The subject of discussion in the next blog will be, if the Lost Word is to be found underlying these ancient works, why have not the great Orientalists, Egyptologists, Biblical scholars have not discerned it. It is because they see only the dead letter and miss the spirit that gives life.

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Isis Study – April to June 2013 Summary and discussions

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Summary and discussions

Isis unveiled, vol. I

Chapter XV –INDIA THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION

Pages 574 – 577

Chapter XV of the first volume of Isis Unveiled ends the first volume.

The main purpose of the author of Isis Unveiled is to dispute the general notion of the times that mankind has progressed to the present civilization from savagery, and that the early history of mankind was primitive and uncultured. Falsity of this modern assumption, she shows, arises from the materialistic spirit of the civilization characterized by mere intellectual advancement and almost total spiritual blindness. Contrary to the prevalent notion, humanity is shown to have spiritual origin, and the universe—of which humanity is the highest expression—to be embodied consciousness, both being emanations of One Absolute Being, involved in threefold evolutionary development—spiritual, intellectual and physical—whose final end and consummation is the realization of the true nature of Self and Being to be the Universe itself, both manifest and unmanifest—Divinity.

The XIV chapter was devoted to showing many strings of evidence—historical, scriptural, writings of classical authors of ancient literature, modern scientific researches, architectural features of ancient ruins, etc.—in support of the claim that a divine degree of highest knowledge and wisdom, its custodians and teachers,  always existed on earth from the highest antiquity, that it was universally diffused, is existent today, that man is essentially a spiritual being and has divine potentialities of knowledge and powers hidden within him, and his destiny is to fully manifest and express the same unhindered and unimpeded by the imperfections of his material covering—his lower self. In the XIV chapter the wondrous ancient monuments—the Pyramids of Egypt, Nagkon Wat of Siam, Mexican temples were shown to exhibit in their architectural symbolism and hieroglyphic inscriptions  evidences of the universally diffused Esoteric Science and Knowledge. Extensive discourse on extraordinary heights of achievements of Egyptian civilization, with supporting evidence, was given.

In the XV chapter prevalence of similar high ancient civilization of India is discoursed upon.

Tenacious vitality of the WORLD-TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

It was said in Chapter IV that there cannot be more than one universal religion, for there can be but one truth concerning God. It was likened to “ an immense chain whose upper end, the alpha, remains invisibly emanating from a Deity—in statu absconidito—with every primitive theology—it encircles our globe in every direction; it leaves not even the darkest corner unvisited, before the other end, the omega, turns back on its way to be again received where it first emanated. On the divine chain was strung the exoteric symbology of very people. Their variety of form is powerless to effect their substance, and under their diverse ideal types of the universe of matter, symbolizing its vivifying principles, the uncorrupted immaterial image of the spirit of being guiding them is the same.” (I, 560)

Chapter XV opens with a reference again to this World-Tree of Knowledge. Truth has always been there. But who wants Truth, who is prepared to make personal sacrifices to obtain it ? History of mankind is full of the accounts of the struggle between the two poles of being—Truth and Untruth, good and evil, spirit and matter. The Secret Doctrine has ever been ridiculed and prevented to take root and grow and spread its benevolent canopy. It has always been like the “man of sorrows” of the biblical prophet Isaiah. It is hated by established religions, scouted by materialistic science, because it shows the errors of both, and show how  they can reform themselves and grow complete. It has never been welcome. But it exhibits a tenacious vitality all over the globe and persists everywhere, though esoterically. No lightening of human ridicule can fell it to the ground, no thunderbolt ever forged by the Vulcans of science have the power to blast its trunk, or even scar the branches of this WORLD-TREE OF KNOWELDGE.

Esoteric science concealed in the exoteric, apparently contradictory, verbiage of sacred scriptures of the world.

Revealed word of sacred scriptures are the dead-letters, which when taken literally, misleads the seeker. One has to learn to discover the hidden wisdom within those otherwise meaningless jumble of words and mythical symbols. Thus in the Books of Hermes  can be found, if read esoterically, to find the evidence of a truth and philosophy which must be based on eternal Laws.   Then we will better understand the hidden sense of the gift lavished by the Elohim on Adam : “Behold, I have given you everything which is upon the face of all the earth...subdue it, ´and “have dominion” over all.

Genesis I and II seem contradictory when taken in the literal dead-letter sense; but when read esoterically they perfectly harmonize

The first chapters of the Book of Genesis is a narration of historical events. One need not consider in esoteric sense to recognize in them a part of the history of prehistoric humanity. Kabalists show how to interpret the verses cited in Genesis to read in them ancient geographical and historical facts. The narration given in the scripture are allegorical and parables.

(Allegorical mode of teaching in the Bible is clearly hinted at by Jesus and St. Paul : “Which things are an allegory.” – Galatians, 4 / 24; Jesus said to his disciples that he spoke to the multitudes in parables : Matthew, 13 / 10-15)

Gen I and II seem to contradict each other when read literally, but the fact is that there is no contradiction in reality. The two narratives of creation seem diametrically opposed to each other in nearly every particular of order, time, place, and methods employed in the work of creation; also seem to belittle the majesty of the Unknown Deity, dragging him down to the level of earthly man and endow him with personality of man, feeling jealous, using precaution against man lest he should eat of the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil and become like a god, etc. But that is the impression one gets from the outer dead-letter reading. Esoterically, it is different.

The Garden of Eden as a locality is no myth at all, and not all mere allegory. Eden is Hebrew Gan-Eden, which means a park. Garden of Eden is an archaic name of the country watered by Euphrates and its many branches, from Asia and Armenia to the Erythraian sea. Alexander Wilder says that ‘Gan-duniyas” is a name of Babylonia. In the Chaldean Book of Numbers its location is designated in numerals. In the cipher Rosicrucian MSS left by Count St. Germain it is fully described. The Elohim may be taken in one sense to be gods or powers, and in another one for the Aleim or the Priests—the Hierophants initiated into the mystery of the good and evil of the world. There was a college of priests called Aleim, the chief of whom was known as Java-Aleim. “Behold, the man is become as one of us”  meant exercise of precaution against those among men who sought to learn the secret wisdom without prior purification and fitness, lest they should desecrate the sacred science to the hurt of the world and of themselves. Instead of becoming a neophyte, and gradually obtaining his esoteric knowledge through regular initiation,  Adam, or man, uses his intuitional faculties, and prompted by the Serpent—Woman and Matter—tastes of the Tree of Knowledge, the esoteric or the secret doctrine, unlawfully. (“Matter”,  “woman,” refer to the passional nature of the lower self of man).

The origin of The Book of Genesis is to be traced to Babylonia, which, in turn, is traced to India, the cradle of civilization; Akkads do not belong to Turanian race but are, in truth, emigrants from India, who founded the Babylonian civilization

Hebrew scriptures bear on their face the marks of their double origin : Genesis is reminiscent of Babylonian captivity. The names, places, men, objects mentioned in the original Hebrew texts point to the Chaldeans and Akkadians, and the Aryan instructors of the former. Akkad tribes of Chaldea, Babylonia, and Assyria were cognate with Brahmans of India, in support of which there are proofs. They emigrated from India, tarried on their way to Asia Minor, to initiate and civilize barbarian people. It is a proven fact that Babylonian civilization was neither born nor developed in that country. It was imported from India, and importers were Brahmanical Hindus.

Alexander Wilder disputes the contention of Max Muller that Akkads were “Turanians.” The historical reality of the latter tribe itself is questionable, and is purely a hypothetical idea based of some philologists and ethnologists.

In the next blog, the Hindu origins of Biblical myths will be discussed.

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