Lord Of The Rings: The Felloship Of The Ring

GESER OF GLING: THE ORIGINS AND MEANINGS OF THE EAST TIBETAN EPIC

Published on October 28, 2004 By geser nart In History

Ancient Egyptian Flying Vehicles
Excerpt from The Anti-Gravity Handbook
By D. Hatcher Childress

Many researchers into the UFO enigma tend to overlook a very important fact. While it assumed that most flying saucers are of alien, or perhaps Governmental Military origin, another possible origin of UFOs is ancient India and Atlantis.

What we know about ancient Indian flying vehicles comes from ancient Indian sources; written texts that have come down to us through the centuries.

There is no doubt that most of these texts are authentic; many are the well known ancient Indian Epics themselves, and there are literally hundreds of them. Most of them have not even been translated into English yet from the old Sanskrit.

The Indian Emperor Ashoka started a "Secret Society of the Nine Unknown Men": great Indian scientists who were supposed to catalogue the many sciences. Ashoka kept their work secret because he was afraid that the advanced science catalogued by these men, culled from ancient Indian sources, would be used for the evil purpose of war, which Ashoka was strongly against, having been converted to Buddhism after defeating a rival army in a bloody battle.

The "Nine Unknown Men" wrote a total of nine books, presumably one each. Book number was "The Secrets of Gravitation!" This book, known to historians, but not actually seen by them dealt chiefly with "gravity control."

It is presumably still around somewhere, kept in a secret library in India, Tibet or elsewhere (perhaps even in North America somewhere). One can certainly understand Ashoka's reasoning for wanting to keep such knowledge a secret, assuming it exists. if the Nazis had such weapons at their disposal during World War Ii. Ashoka was also aware devastating wars using such advanced vehicles and other 'futuristic weapons' that had destroyed the ancient Indian "Rama Empire" several thousand years before.

Only a few years ago, the Chinese discovered some Sanskrit documents in Lhasa, Tibet and sent them to the University of Chandrigarh to be translated. Dr. Ruth Reyna of the University said recently that the documents contain directions for building interstellar spaceships!

Their method of propulsion, she said, was "anti-gravitational" and was based upon a system analogous to that of "laghima," the unknown power of the ego existing in man's physiological makeup, "a centrifugal force strong enough to counteract all gravitational pull." According to Hindu Yogis, it is this "laghima" which enables a person to levitate.

Dr. Reyna said that on board these machines, which were called "Astras" by the text, the ancient Indians could have sent a detachment of men onto any planet, according to the document, which is thought to be thousands of years old.

The manuscripts were also said to reveal the secret of "antima"; "the cap of invisibility" and "garima"; "how to become as heavy as a mountain of lead."

Naturally, Indian scientists did not take the texts very seriously, but then became more positive about the value of them when the Chinese announced that they were including certain parts of the data for study in their space program!

This was one of the first instances of a government admitting to be researching anti-gravity.

The manuscripts did not say definitely that interplanetary travel was ever made but did mention, of all things, a planned trip to the Moon, though it is not clear whether this trip was actually carried out. However, one of the great Indian epics, the Ramayana, does have a highly detailed story in it of a trip to the moon in a Vimana (or "Astra"), and in fact details a battle on the moon with an "Asvin" (or Atlantean" airship.

This is but a small bit of recent evidence of anti-gravity and aerospace technology used by Indians. To really understand the technology, we must go much further back in time.

The so-called "Rama Empire" of Northern India and Pakistan developed at least fifteen thousand years ago on the Indian sub-continent and was a nation of many large, sophisticated cities, many of which are still to be found in the deserts of Pakistan, northern, and western India.

Rama existed, apparently, parallel to the Atlantean civilization in the mid-Atlantic Ocean, and was ruled by "enlightened Priest-Kings" who governed the cities, The seven greatest capital cities of Rama were known in classical Hindu texts as "The Seven Rishi Cities."

According to ancient Indian texts, the people had flying machines which were called "Vimanas." The ancient Indian epic describes a Vimana as a double-deck, circular aircraft with portholes and a dome, much as we would imagine a flying saucer.

It flew with the "speed of the wind" and gave forth a "melodious sound." There were at least four different types of Vimanas; some saucer shaped, others like long cylinders ("cigar shaped airships").

The ancient Indian texts on Vimanas are so numerous, it would take volumes to relate what they had to say. The ancient Indians, who manufactured these ships themselves, wrote entire flight manuals on the control of the various types of Vimanas, many of which are still in existence, and some have even been translated into English.

The Samara Sutradhara is a scientific treatise dealing with every possible angle of air travel in a Vimana. There are 230 stanzas dealing with the construction, take-off, cruising for thousand of miles, normal and forced landings, and even possible collisions with birds.

In 1875, the Vaimanika Sastra, a fourth century B.C. text written by Bharadvajy the Wise, using even older texts as his source, was rediscovered in a temple in India.

It dealt with the operation of Vimanas and included information on the steering, precautions for long flights, protection of the airships from storms and lightening and how to switch the drive to "solar energy" from a free energy source which sounds like "anti-gravity."

The Vaimanika Sastra (or Vymaanika-Shaastra) has eight chapters with diagrams, describing three types of aircraft, including apparatuses that could neither catch on fire nor break.

It also mentions 31 essential parts of these vehicles and 16 materials from which they are constructed, which absorb light and heat; for which reason they were considered suitable for the construction of Vimanas.

This document has been translated into English and is available by writing the publisher: VYMAANIDASHAASTRA AERONAUTICS by Maharishi Bharadwaaja, translated into English and edited, printed and published by Mr. G. R. Josyer, Mysore, India, 1979 (sorry, no street address). Mr. Josyer is the director of the International Academy of Sanskrit Investigation located in Mysore.

There seems to be no doubt that Vimanas were powered by some sort of "anti-gravity." Vimanas took off vertically, and were capable of hovering in the sky, like a modern helicopter or dirigible. Bharadvajy the Wise refers to no less than 70 authorities and 10 experts of air travel in antiquity. These sources are now lost.

Vimanas were kept in a Vimana Griha, a kind of hanger, and were sometimes said to be propelled by a yellowish-white liquid, and sometimes by some sort of mercury compound, though writers seem confused in this matter. It is most likely that the later writers on Vimanas, wrote as observers and from earlier texts, and were understandably confused on the principle of their propulsion.

The "yellowish white liquid" sounds suspiciously like gasoline, and perhaps Vimanas had a number of different propulsion sources, including combustion engines and even "pulse-jet" engines.

It is interesting to note, that the Nazis developed the first practical pulse-jet engines for their V-8 rocket "buzz bombs." Hitler and the Nazi staff were exceptionally interested in ancient India and Tibet and sent expeditions to both these places yearly, starting in the 30's, in order to gather esoteric evidence that they did so, and perhaps it was from these people that the Nazis gained some of their scientific information!

According to the Dronaparva, part of the Mahabarata, and the Ramayana, one Vimana described was shaped like a sphere and born along at great speed on a mighty wind generated by mercury. It moved like a UFO, going up, down, backwards and forwards as the pilot desired.

In another Indian source, the Samar, Vimanas were "iron machines, well-knit and smooth, with a charge of mercury that shot out of the back in the form of a roaring flame."

Another work called the Samaranganasutradhara describes how the vehicles were constructed. It is possible that mercury did have something to do with the propulsion, or more possibly, with the guidance system.

Curiously, Soviet scientists have discovered what they call "age-old instruments used in navigating cosmic vehicles" in caves in Turkestan and the Gobi Desert. The "devices" are hemispherical objects of glass or porcelain, ending in a cone with a drop of mercury inside.

It is evident that ancient Indians flew around in these vehicles, all over Asia, to Atlantis presumably; and even, apparently, to South America.

Writing found at Mohenjodaro in Pakistan (presumed to be one of the "Seven Rishi Cities of the Rama Empire") and still undeciphered, has also been found in one other place in the world: Easter Island! Writing on Easter Island, called Rongo-Rongo writing, is also undeciphered, and is uncannily similar to the Mohenjodaro script.

Was Easter Island an air base for the Rama Empire's Vimana route? (At the Mohenjo-Daro Vimana-drome, as the passenger walks down the concourse, he hears the sweet, melodic sound of the announcer over the loudspeaker,

"Rama Airways flight number seven for Bali, Easter Island, Nazca, and Atlantis is now ready for boarding.

Passengers please proceed to gate number..") in Tibet, no small distance, and speaks of the "fiery chariot" thusly: "Bhima flew along in his car, resplendent as the sun and loud as thunder... The flying chariot shone like a flame in the night sky of summer ... it swept by like a comet... It was as if two suns were shining. Then the chariot rose up and all the heaven brightened."

In the Mahavira of Bhavabhuti, a Jain text of the eighth century culled from older texts and traditions, we read: "An aerial chariot, the Pushpaka, conveys many people to the capital of Ayodhya.

The sky is full of stupendous flying-machines, dark as night, but picked out by lights with a yellowish glare-"

The Vedas, ancient Hindu poems, thought to be the oldest of all the Indian texts, describe Vimanas of various shapes and sizes: the "ahnihotra-vimana" with two engines, the "elephant-vimana" with more engines, and other types named after the kingfisher, ibis and other animals.

Unfortunately, Vimanas, like most scientific discoveries, were ultimately used for war.

Atlanteans used their flying machines, 'Vailixi'. a similar type of aircraft, to literally try and subjugate the world, it would seem, if Indian texts are to be believed.

The Atlanteans, known as "Asvins" in the Indian writings, were apparently even more advanced technologically than the Indians, and certainly of a more war-like temperament. Although no ancient texts on Atlantean Vailixi are known to exist, some information has come down through esoteric, "occult" sources which describe their flying machines.

Similar, if not identical to Vimanas, Vailixi were generally "cigar shaped" and had the capability of maneuvering underwater as well as in the atmosphere or even outer space.

Other vehicles, like Vimanas, were saucer shaped, and could apparently also be submerged.

According to Eklal Kueshana, author of "The Ultimate Frontier," in an article he wrote in 1966, Vailixi were first developed in Atlantis 20,000 years ago, and the most common ones are "saucer shaped of generally trapezoidal cross-section with three hemispherical engine pods on the underside." "They use a mechanical antigravity device driven by engines developing approximately 80,000 horse power."

The Ramayana, Mahabarata and other texts speak of the hideous war that took place, some ten or twelve thousand years ago between Atlantis and Rama using weapons of destruction that could not be imagined by readers until the second half of this century.

The ancient Mahabharata, one of the sources on Vimanas, goes on to tell the awesome destructiveness of the war: "...(the weapon was) a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame As bright as the thousand suns rose in all its splendor... An iron thunderbolt,

A gigantic messenger of death,

Which reduced to ashes

The entire race of the Vrishnis

And the Andhakas.

. . . the corpses were so burned

As to be unrecognizable.

The hair and nails fell out;

Pottery broke without apparent cause,

And the birds turned white.

... After a few hours

All foodstuffs were infected...

... to escape from this fire

The soldiers threw themselves in streams

To wash themselves and their equipment..."

It would seem that the Mahabharata is describing an atomic war! References like this one are not isolated; but battles, using a fantastic array of weapons and aerial vehicles are common in all the epic Indian books.

One even describes a Vimana-Vailix battle on the Moon! The above section very accurately describes what an atomic explosion would look like and the effects of the radioactivity on the population. Jumping into water is the only respite.

When the Rishi City of Mohenjodaro was excavated by archeologists in the last century, they found skeletons just lying in the streets, some of them holding hands, as if some great doom had suddenly overtaken them.

These skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found, on a par with those found at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Ancient cities whose brick and stone walls have literally been vitrified, that is-fused together, can be found in India, Ireland, Scotland, France, Turkey and other places.

There is no logical explanation for the vitrification of stone forts and cities, except from an atomic blast.

Furthermore, at Mohenjo-Daro, a well planned city laid on a grid, with a plumbing system superior to those used in Pakistan and India today, the streets were littered with "black lumps of glass."

These globs of glass were discovered to be clay pots that had melted under intense heat!

With the cataclysmic sinking of Atlantis and the wiping out of Rama with atomic weapons, the world collapsed into a "stone age" of sorts, and modern history picks up a few thousand years later. Yet, it would seem that not all the Vimanas and Vailixi of Rama and Atlantis were gone.

Built to last for thousands of years, many of them would still be in use, as evidenced by Ashoka's "Nine Unknown Men" and the Lhasa manuscript.

That secret societies or "Brotherhoods" of exceptional, "enlightened" human beings would have preserved these inventions and the knowledge of science, history, etc., does not seem surprising.

Many well known historical personages including Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Krishna, Zoroaster, Mahavira, Quetzalcoatl, Akhenaton, Moses, and more recent inventors and of course many other people who will probably remain anonymous, were probably members of such a secret organization.

It is interesting to note that when Alexander the Great invaded India more than two thousand years ago, his historians chronicled that at one point they were attacked by "flying, fiery shields" that dove at his army and frightened the cavalry.

These "flying saucers" did not use any atomic bombs or beam weapons on Alexander's army however, perhaps out of benevolence, and Alexander went on to conquer India.

It has been suggested by many writers that these "Brotherhoods" keep some of their Vimanas and Vailixi in secret caverns in Tibet or some other place is Central Asia, and the Lop Nor Desert in western China is known to be the center of a great UFO mystery.

Perhaps it is here that many of the airships are still kept, in underground bases much as the Americans, British and Soviets have built around the world in the past few decades.

Still, not all UFO activity can be accounted for by old Vimanas making trips to the Moon for some reason. Undoubtedly, some are from the Military Governments of the world, and possibly even from other planets.

Of course, many UFO sightings are "swamp, gas, clouds, hoaxes, and hallucinations, while there is considerable evidence that many UFO sightings, especially "kidnappings" and the like, are the result of what is generally called "telepathic hypnosis."

One common thread that often runs between "Alien kidnappings," "sex with aliens," and other "close encounters of a third kind" is a buzzing in the ears just before the encounter.

According to many well informed people, this is a sure sign of telepathic hypnosis.

Comments

SoundtrackGeek

on Oct 28, 2004

So...how does the Lord of the Rings figure in to all of this? Maybe the nine of this "Secret Society" was the Nazgul?

Never mind. Weird stuff. I don't necessarily believe it.

island_gurl12

on Oct 29, 2004

Wow! I loved the article it made me go in the depths of my imagination to try and picture all that was written in it....I'll dream about it tonite...

you know what you should make a movie out of all this, instead of the trilogy of the lord of the rings it would be the trilogy of Atlantis vs Roma!!!!

Cool stuff

geser nart

on Oct 29, 2004

THEOSOPHY, Vol. 15, No. 12, October, 1927
(Pages 543-549)

SOURCES OF EARLY AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

WHAT is the origin of the American Indian? The civilizations of Persia, China and Egypt had their roots in the remote past of the Fourth, Atlantean Race. But who ever associates American civilization with so ancient a source? Do we not assume that, for all practical purposes, American history began with Columbus' discovery of the New World? Yet, this New World, geologically considered, is older than Europe, the continent having risen from the ocean bed during the palmy days of Atlantis, which began to sink millions of years ago. Does it seem probable that any land would remain uninhabited for millions of years?

In consideration of these questions, we should apply first of all the principle of continuity: Nature's processes are never broken, although a constant change of land masses as well as races is always in progress. This transforming process culminates at certain periods in the breakingasunder of land surfaces, on which reincarnate and develop races gradually adapted to and modified by the new conditions, thus producing new cycles of history. Hence wherever separated land areas or divergent races appear, we must look for the hidden connections and intervening types which once bound them together in one continuous line of evolution, the whole process preparing for higher races and at last for Perfected Man.

Although one anthropologist assigned an age of 50,000 years to the remains of a human skeleton found at New Orleans, most so-called "authorities" believe there is no evidence of early man in America. On the other hand a great number of scientists accept the existence of the former continents of Lemuria and Atlantis and agree that there was a connection between the latter and America in former times. If such connections ever existed, why would there not have been migrations from those older continents to America? In fact the Mayas of Central America, the Toltecs and many other tribes maintained that their ancestors came from the East. For generations, according to Lewis Spence, the Antilles or West India Islands were recognized as being the remains of an Island continent called Antilia, shown on a globe by Behaim in 1492. This writer also says that in a letter to Columbus in 1474, Toscanelli refers to Antilia; also that long after the South American coast had been explored and demonstrated as a continental area, it was identified with Antilia, as two maps in the Egerton manuscript (now in the British Museum) distinctly prove. But Antilia was very evidently only the disconnected portion of a larger region, as indicated by deep sea soundings in the Atlantic basin. These have revealed the presence of an elevated ridge 9,000 feet higher than the ocean floor, beginning near the coast of Ireland, extending through the Azores southwesterly to the vicinity of the Amazon river; then shifting almost at right angles it proceeds southeast toward the African coast and on down to Tristan d'Acunha. Other indications of a former connection between the New World and the Old are the similar geological structure of the opposing coast lines of South America and Africa; and either an identity or close resemblance between the fauna and flora of the United States and Europe. In the forests of Virginia and Florida are many varieties of trees corresponding with European flora of the tertiary age term for term. How did they reach the New World? That the transition was not by way of the isthmus that once filled up Behring Strait is proved by the fact that a great number of these are not found west of the Rocky Mountains. Stones in the Canary Islands -- a remnant of Atlantis -- bear sculptured symbols similar to those found on the shore of Lake Superior. The form of skull belonging to the Guanches of the Canary Islands is the same as that of the Caribs of the West Indies, the Mayas and other tribes, which leads us to postulate the unity of race of the early men of these islands and America. (See Secret Doctrine, II, 789 for further proofs).

Basing their ideas on such facts as these and also on Plato's story of Atlantis -- the name given by him to the last island only, which was engulfed some 11,000 years ago -- many reconstructions of the lost continent have been mapped out in recent years; but these give only an approximate idea of its size and shape, confined as they are to a small area of the Atlantic. Although the origin and development of the Fourth Race was at about the mid-point of the present ocean, the continent extended from the coast of Venezuela, across to North Africa and from Newfoundland nearly to the coast of France. And who can tell but what Lindbergh's air flight parallelled a well-known route on old land now buried beneath the water? Going still further back -- how long, who can say? -- when a tropical climate prevailed in the Arctic region, one could cross almost by dry land from Norway, via Iceland and Greenland, to the lands that now surround Hudson's Bay. This may account for the similarity between the artificial mounds in the United States and the tumuli in Norway, which have led some archaeologists to suggest that they were the work of Norwegian mariners who discovered America a thousand years ago under the leadership of Leif Ericson: a re-discovery rather, for no one knows the age either of the mounds or the tumuli.

But why did a Greek philosopher, 400 B.C. give the name Atlantis to the lost continent? It is not a Greek word, nor can it be referred to any known language of the Old World. The root of the word is found, however, in the Nahuatl (Mexican) tongue: atl signifies, among other things, water. From this comes a series of words, one of which is Atlan, the name of a town in Darien in existence when Columbus discovered America. Is it not very extraordinary to have found in aboriginal America a town called by a name which contains a purely local element, foreign to every other country, in the alleged fiction of Plato? -- for until quite recently his story was considered a mere myth. The same may be said of the name America, says H. P. Blavatsky, which may one day be found more closely related to Meru, the sacred mount in the center of the seven continents, than to the name Amerigo Vespucci. Prof. Wilder thinks Vespucci would have been more likely to have used his surname if he had designed to give a title to the country. When first discovered America was found to bear among some native tribes the name Atlanta.

But how, on the basis of an Atlantis connection alone, are we to account for apparent similarities to the Chinese language among some American tribes, or between the cyclopean structures of Tiahuanaco and Easter Island? A Chinese writer referred to America, says H.P.B., when speaking of that "far distant land into which pious men and heavy storms had transferred the sacred doctrine." And she adds that this sacred doctrine of the land which was the cradle of physical man and of the Fifth Race had found its way into the so-called New World ages and ages before the "sacred doctrine" of Buddhism. But no doctrine is taken to a land without inhabitants. Who were these men, whose fossil remains even have never been exhumed; or if so, are believed to be comparatively recent? De la Vega, a native historian of Inca blood, states that "Masses of enormous human bones were found in America near Misorte precisely on the spot which local tradition points out as the landing of those giants who overran America when it had hardly risen from the waters." The natives believe that the massive buildings at Tiahuanaco were erected by giants. But there was, according to the Secret Doctrine, a western connection with India. The India of pre-historic times stretched into the Gobi desert and included Mongolia, where the yellow race was developed. Hence it was that a pedestrian going north might then have reached -- hardly wetting his feet -- the Alaskan peninsula through Manchuria, across the Gulf of Tartary, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands; while another traveller with a canoe and starting from the south, could have walked over from Siam, crossed the Polynesian Islands and trudged into any part of South America. Might not this account for the traditions of the Peruvians that their ancestors came from the south? In fact, De la Vega calls himself an Antarctic Indian. We know, too, that old Lemuria lay in the Antarctic region and remaining portions of it might easily have been adjacent to the southernmost part of South America.

A connection between India and America was always assumed. When Columbus set out on his voyage of discovery, he had in view a western route to India. Until the appearance of a map published at Basle in 1522, wherein the name of America appears for the first time, the latter was supposed to be a part of India. Why were the islands reached by Columbus called the West Indies, or how did the aborigines of America come by the name "Indians?" Did it just happen, or was there some natural cause for the application of an old name, just as pioneers today bring with them the names of localities from which they came, or speak of themselves as French or Germans although on American soil? At any rate, an identity is found in the names of certain "medicine men" and priests who exist to this day in Mexico, and East Indians. In Hindu works America is referred to as Patala, meaning the antipodes, and Arjuna, Krishna's disciple, is said to have descended to Patala and married a daughter of one of the Nagas, or Serpents of Wisdom. That must have been 5,000 years ago at least. There is a very curious statement in the Secret Doctrine (Vol. II, 132) about a race of Nagas, one thousand in number only, born or rather sprung from Kasyapa's wife, for the purpose of peopling this country. Was there a time, then, when Wise Men dwelt in America? And were these men Red Indians?

In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna speaks of four castes distinguished by the color of their skin: Brahmas, white; Kshatriyas or warriors, red; Vaisyas or merchants, yellow; Sudras or servants, black. Some consideration of the colors of the different races might be suggestive in this connection. The Occultist does not accept the Biblical division of races as descendants of Shem, Ham and Japhet, yet recognizes but three entirely distinct primeval races whose evolution, formation and development followed parallel lines with the evolution, formation and development of three geological strata, namely black, red-yellow and the brown-white. Man was universally considered in antiquity as born of the earth, and such was the profane explanation of the term autochthones. For human complexion was as much derived from the earth as it was determined by climate. The light yellow was the color of the first solid race (the later Third). The Third gave birth to the Fourth, which became "black with sin;" this portion of humanity being gradually transformed into red-yellow (of whomthe Red Indians and the Mongolians are descendants), and finally into brown-white, the color of the Fifth Aryan Race. (S.D., II, 250, 424-425). So Arjuna and the race of Nagas must have been an Aryan infusion among a people which in course of time became a distinct type -- Fourth Race Americans, known by the general name now of Red Indians. The Master, in a letter to Mr. Sinnett, states that the majority of people on the globe today belong to the seventh sub-race of the Fourth Race. There are now practically no pure races, unadulterated by admixtures of many different branches. There were brown, red, yellow, white and black Atlanteans, giants and dwarfs, for the term "Atlantean" covers an almost countless number of races and nations. And again, "In nearly every vulgarized popular fable from the Sanskrit Arya ... down to Adam, fashioned of 'red earth,' the genetical story has a deep occult meaning, and an indirect connection with the origin of man and of the subsequent races." Donnelly is responsible for saying that in later ages so desirous were the Egyptians of preserving the aristocratic distinction of the color of their skin that they represented themselves on the monuments as of a crimson hue -- an exaggeration of their original race complexion. In this nation, however, as in others was a variety of peoples and colors. So it is but natural that in the dispersion of races from Atlantis, both before and as the continent was visited by cataclysmic disturbances and showed signs of sinking, some went east, locating on the shores of the Mediterranean and penetrating into the more remote regions of Asia, and some came west; and thus the same varieties of color obtained and still persist.

We can now understand how it was that the Spaniards in the Cibola expeditions met with white savage chiefs. The name "White Indians" was given to the Menominees once around Lake Michigan; many of the Zunis are almost white, with blue eyes and auburn hair; the Mandans are almost white, while their neighbors, the Crows, are very dark; the Dakotas are a shade lighter than olive. William Penn in a letter to a friend describes the tribes in Pennsylvania as being of "so lively a resemblance" to the Jews that "a man would think himself in Duke's Place or Berry Street in London where he seeth them." The Toltecs in Mexico resembled the Jews and, according to a native writer, are their descendants. The ancient Peruvians appear, from hair found in their tombs, to have been an auburn-haired race. Ferdinand Columbus, in the account of his father's voyage, compares the inhabitants of Guanaani to the Canary Islanders and describes the people of San Domingo as still more beautiful and fair. Donnelly concluded that there was no doubt but that red, white, black and yellow men had united to form the original population of America and said, "When science is able to disabuse itself of the theory that the aborigines of America are all red men, and all belong to one race, we may hope that the confluence upon the continent of widely different races from different countries may come to be recognized and intelligently studied." Many recent "authorities" still contend that there is but one general type of American Indian. We will remember Mr. Judge's statement in The Ocean of Theosophy (pp. 127-128) that by the method of mixture, precipitation and separation, Nature brings about the greatest perfection. The remotest ancestors of some of the inhabitants of the now miserable pueblo of Aclo -- the former Atlan -- were allied at one time as closely with the old Greeks and Romans as they were with the true inland Chinamen. Many Greek designs and forms of architecture are found in Central America. The Greeks as well as the Egyptians and the Phoenicians trace back to the last sub-race of Atlantis. Many tribes emigrated to lands which in course of time, owing to new geological convulsions, became islands. Being thus forcibly separated from larger centers of civilization, they gradually degenerated and fell into an abject and savage condition. (The student may supplement this sketch by turning to S.D., II, 743-745).

The passing of the Red Indians is not without sadness to them nor without a tremendous weight of Karma on the white races. Upon first meeting, the Indians were friendly and unsuspicious, and it was chiefly on account of the white man's treachery, plunder and cruelty, that their original attitude was changed to distrust and hatred. Preserving in their legends and holding many beliefs closer to fact than those current among their conquerors; observing many customs and ceremonies truer to Nature than those of the people to whom they became subject; forced to adopt ideas which in their hearts they rejected, they have watched the gradual encroachment upon their territory and abolition of their rights with resentment. Not so very many years ago, some Indians in the United States appealed to the great "White Father" in Washington for the possession of four small lakes, the petition being written on the tiny surface of a piece of fabric, covered with barely a dozen representations of animals and birds. This ideographic writing is the earliest mode of recording events and ideas. And how old this is may be inferred from some signs found on hatchets of the Palaeolithic period, which began hundreds of thousands of years ago. The American savages have a number of such kinds of writing. "As the chief element in the languages of the Fifth Race is the Aryan Sanskrit of the 'Brown-White' geological stock, so the predominating element in Atlantis was a language which has now survived but in the dialects of some American Red Indian tribes, and in the Chinese speech of the inland Chinamen ... a language which was an admixture of the agglutinative and the monosyllabic." (Five Years of Theosophy). All of those who have regarded the ideographs of the Red Indians and even the Chinese characters as "attempts of the early races to express their untutored thoughts," will be loath to accept the statement that writing was invented by the Atlanteans and not by the Phoenicians.

As the Fourth Race overlapped the Third, so the presence side by side of the Indians and the white man is witness of the overlapping of the Fifth and Fourth. Already there are indications that many red men have reincarnated among the white races, there to receive and work out their karmic relations. Nor are all these ties of hate, for many bonds of love and friendship have been cemented between the two peoples.

Pure Anglo-Saxons hardly three hundred years ago, the Americans of the United States have already become a nation apart and, owing to a strong admixture of various nationalities and inter-marriage, almost a race sui generis, mentally and physically. They are the germs of the sixth sub-race which is now forming here and which in some few hundred years more will become most decidedly the pioneers of that race which must succeed to the present European or Fifth sub-race. In about 25,000 years they will launch into preparations for the seventh sub-race, after which the Sixth Root Race will have appeared on the stage of our Round. When this will be who knows save the Masters of Wisdom? And they are as silent upon the subject as the snow-capped peaks that tower above them. All we know is that it will slowly and silently come into existence. But, do we think the future race will come about of itself, as tomorrow will succeed today, without any effort on our part? H.P.B. says, "It is the mankind of the New World whose mission and Karma it is to sow the seeds for a forthcoming, grander, and far more glorious Race than any we know of at present." If this prophecy is fulfilled, it will be due to the fact that the great object of the original Theosophical Society has been achieved by having established a real Universal Brotherhood, without distinction of race, creed, caste or color, because it will embrace all. And who will compose this race? Who, indeed, but ourselves and reincarnated Red, Yellow, Black, Brown, and White Men of all climes and ages.

"The Present is the Child of the Past; the Future, the begotten of the Present. And yet, O present moment! Knowest thou not that thou hast no parent, nor canst thou have a child; that thou art ever begetting but thyself? Thus, are the Past, the Present, and the Future, the ever-living trinity in one -- the Mahamaya of the Absolute Is."

island_gurl12

on Oct 31, 2004

There has been a lot of speculation on the location or even the existence of Atlantis. And that is because Atlantis was allegedly drowned in a cataclysm and was never to be seen again. There is a theory that associates the Minoan civilisation on Crete and Thera (a destroyed Greek island)with Atlantis. But the dates and the location are wrong. Plato said Atlantis disappeared 9.000 years before his time and that Atlantis was located West of the pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar's detroit). The theory says that there must have been a mistake in translating egyptian to greek so 900 yrs became 9.000 and east became west.

It is science biggest guess. I have a horrible headache. I'll come back later to add another comment.

geser nart

on Oct 31, 2004

THE BABYLONIAN EPIC OF GILGAMESH
THEOSOPHY, Vol. 16, No. 7, May, 1928

LIKE India, Greece and other countries, Babylonia had its great national epic centering around a hero named Gilgamesh. His feats remind us of the labors of Hercules and, like the latter, he was supposed to be a purely mythical character until, among some clay tablets found at Nippur a few years ago, was a list of historical dynasties in which Gilgamesh is mentioned as a king of Uruk (or Erech). Follows now the startling revelation by Col L. A. Waddell, in a book on The Indo-Sumerian Seals (1926) that "the Haryas'wa of the Vedas and Indian Epics and the Ur-Nina of the Assyriologists, generally regarded as the first great dynast of the early Sumerians,...is the son of the great Hercules of the Phoenicians and Greeks, here conclusively identified with Gilgamesh of Erech, and now disclosed for the first time as a historical Aryan-Sumerian-Phoenician king and great sun priest of Bel of relatively fixed date, about 3150 B.C."(1) As the Gilgamesh Epic has been reconstructed from thousands of broken pieces, it is exceedingly fragmentary; interesting to few besides the historian and archaeologist. To the theosophical student its chief appeal lies in its many indications that against a background of legend and history is depicted the drama of one "striving for perfection." The poem is divided into twelve books,(2) which probably correspond to the twelve signs of the zodiac, with which the twelve great "labors" of Hercules have usually been associated.

The narrative opens with a complaint of the people of Erech that Gilgamesh has taken away their sons and daughters and they appeal to the goddess Aruru to create a man who may be "equal to taking up the fight against him." Accordingly Aruru forms "a man of Anu in her heart," then breaks off clay and throws it upon the ground. Thus is created Enkidu,(3) the hero, "a lofty offspring of the host of Ninib."(4) But his body is covered with hair like an animal, he eats and drinks with the animals, and upsets the traps of the hunter who, in order to catch him, sends to him an Ukhat.(5) The woman bids him "Come, arise from the accursed ground!" Enkidu obeys her entreaty, learns to eat human food, drinks seven jars of wine, so that "his heart became glad and his face shone," is clothed by her, anointed with oil, and finally becomes a shepherd, protecting the fold from attacks of lions and other wild beasts.

Now Gilgamesh has two dreams. In the first, something heavy falls upon him from heaven, almost crushing him with its weight. He manages to take the burden to his mother, who says it forebodes the coming of one like himself, born in the mountain, and to whom all will pay homage and to whom he himself will become deeply attached. In the second dream he sees one like himself, brandishing an axe; this, his mother explains, is none other than Enkidu. Conducted by the woman to Erech, Enkidu meets Gilgamesh and immediately ensues a fierce combat in which Gilgamesh is worsted; nevertheless thereafter the two become inseparable. Gilgamesh is referred to as the "younger brother," slightly taller than Enkidu, who is otherwise his exact counterpart, except that on some cylinders he is represented with animal hoofs and horns.

The first task undertaken by the two is an attack upon Huwawa, the mighty guardian of the cedar forest, whose mouth emitted fire and whose breath was death. The elders try to dissuade Gilgamesh from so perilous an undertaking, Enkidu declares that even his strength is not sufficient, but Gilgamesh upbraids his companion for such cowardice, affirms his reliance upon Shamash (the sun-god) and says, "If I fall, I will establish my name." At last having received favorable oracles from the gods and being advised by the elders to wash his feet in the stream of Huwawa, the two set out, Enkidu leading, because he is acquainted with the way. After this exploit in which Huwawa is conquered, the goddess Ishtar offers herself in marriage to Gilgamesh, and enraged at his rejection of her suit, appeals to her father Anu to avenge the insult. Accordingly, Anu sends a winged bull which Enkidu seizes by the tail, adding insult to injury by flinging a piece of the carcass into the angry goddess' face. As punishment, he is smitten with a fatal illness to which he succumbs after twelve days. Then begins a long course of wanderings by Gilgamesh who, also afflicted with disease, seeks both healing and immortal life. The quest brings him to the portal guarded by the scorpion-men of terrifying aspect, who allow him to pass unmolested but warn him of the increasing difficulties of the way. Undaunted, our hero gropes along until he comes to a tree covered with precious stones and bearing beautiful fruit. Passing beyond this he reaches the sea where he meets a maiden who tells him that his search for immortality is vain, he might better eat, drink and be merry. When, despite her attempts to discourage him, he expresses his determination to go on, she unbars the portal and he continues his course until he comes to another sea and even to the waters of death, over which no one but Shamash has crossed. Following the directions of the ferryman, although the current is very strong, twelve strokes bring him to his desired haven and he stands face to face with Utnaphistim, the survivor of the flood, who has in addition become immortal. Utnaphistim relates the story of the deluge and then, in pity for the hero, puts him to sleep for six days and seven nights. During this time Utnaphistim's wife concocts a magic food which Gilgamesh eats upon waking and "of a sudden the man was transformed," although his body is covered with sores; these he finally washes away so that he becomes as white as snow. Still Gilgamesh has not found the secret of immortal life. At last the woman tells him where to find the plant called "the restoration of old age to youth," which he plucks, but alas! no sooner is it in his grasp than a devil, in the form of a serpent, snatches it from him. Gilgamesh is grief-stricken at the loss and is obliged to return to Erech without having obtained the object of his quest.

Many explanations of this poem have been offered. Prof. Jastrow believes the name Gilgamesh is not Babylonian -- which lends support to Col. Waddell's conclusions -- and that the first episode, the complaint of the people of Erech, is a reminiscence of the extension of Gilgamesh's domain by the conquest of the city. The creation of Enkidu by the goddess follows the universal tradition: he is the "man of dust," or more precisely, of the Babylonian clay, while the description of his person answers to that of similar half-animal tribes found in various parts of the world even at the present time. Curiously enough, Enkidu's environment differs but little from that of Adam who, in Genesis ii:19-20, is surrounded by the animals and in Chapter iii:17, "cursed is the ground" which he has to till; while Eve finds a partial counterpart in the Ukhat who entices the man from the companionship of the animals and leads him to Erech, the whole episode symbolizing the evolution of man from a savage or "mindless" state to a self-conscious, civilized life. The meeting of Gilgamesh with Enkidu, or his kind, who serves the former in his subsequent undertakings may have an historical basis. A similar tribe was used by Rama in his war with the king of Lanka and by their sacrificial service must have merited the right to enter upon a higher evolutionary round. On the other hand, the fact that Enkidu is the exact counterpart of Gilgamesh(6) with only the addition of hoofs and horns, is an indication that we may read the poem metaphysically. Enkidu may well stand for the human body. He is "a man of Anu," in biblical phraseology "a man of God," for Anu was one of the Babylonian trinity. But the word anu in Sanscrit, which was well known in Babylonia, means an atom, hence the atomic man is a primary or astral form. In the dreams of Gilgamesh that follow, the heavy weight which falls upon him may typify the heavy responsibility assumed by the beings who incarnated in the "mindless" physical forms in the third Round, also the heavy burden which he and every man assumes whenever they enter a new physical body; for it is said that upon the threshold of devachan lie in wait the skandhas (the tendencies, in large part evil) which were engendered in the preceding life or lives, and which go to make up the new astral body of the reincarnating Ego. Therefore, Gilgamesh takes the burden to his mother. The second dream in which he sees some one just like himself is, as his mother explains, Enkidu, the forthcoming personality or body. So Gilgamesh represents the Higher Triad in man. He had built the seven walls that surround Erech, he is described as "the seven-fold hero," two-thirds god and one-third human, while the signs composing his name are said to be a picture of fire under a bowl, or issuing from a torch. What is this but the light of Manas? He is also called the "younger brother," just as the Pandus in the Gita are the younger tribe, because they have appeared last on this plane of matter. As soon as Gilgamesh meets Enkidu there is the inevitable conflict between the higher and the lower self in which the latter is for the time conqueror, but afterwards Enkidu becomes the best of servants, doing with his hands the deeds which Gilgamesh, with the light of mind, points out to be done. Although Enkidu is aware that his strength is not sufficient, as is the leader of the Kurus, by his alliance with Gilgamesh he is able to overcome the foe.

And what is the cedar forest in which dwells the beast Huwawa, but the forest of our own nature?(7) Then there is the curious advice of the elders that Gilgamesh wash his feet in the stream of Huwawa! May we not find an interpretation of this passage in Light on the Path? "Before the soul can stand in the presence of the Masters its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart." For the beast of evil "lives fruitfully in the heart of the devoted disciple as well as in the heart of the man of desire." The episode of Ishtar occurs in the sixth book or sign, and Enkidu's killing of the bull which follows may typify the killing out of the purely animal nature, after which the next portal guarded by the scorpion-men may with safety be passed, although the darkness deepens as our hero proceeds. It will be instructive at this point to turn to another guide-book on this "small old path," The Voice of the Silence, and note how Gilgamesh's experiences tally with it. "The more thou dost advance, the more thy feet pitfalls will meet. The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire -- the light of daring burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. The more he fears, the more that light shall pale -- and that alone can guide." The scorpion-men are at the mountain of Mashu, and Prof. Jastrow says that Mashu was a name applied to the Arabian desert, and that even the bold Assyrian armies hesitated before passing through this region. Hence he thinks this episode may refer to some expedition to Southern Arabia. This may be true; for can we not see that the Path of the disciple is two-fold, manifesting as objective achievement -- the facts of history and biography -- and as subjective metempsychoses, or the desires, motives, choices which constitute the real journey of the soul -- the Path "without moving" as distinguished from the moving path of effects? Because of this parallelism, history and story may be employed as a symbol of soul experiences, following the Hermetic axiom, "As above, so below." As within, so without. Since many meanings may be implied by the successive steps taken by Gilgamesh, we leave the student to think them out for himself.

And now the "Pilgrim" pushes on even to the "waters of death," which no one but the Sun-god had ever crossed, and he crosses over them -- daring antetype of Columbus and Lindbergh! For did not these men pass over tracts of sea and air never traversed before by any but the sun-god in the heavens? Some commentators have suggested that the journey over the waters of death referred to a voyage to Atlantis, not an impossible adventure considering the maritime skill of the Phoenicians. Where these waters were, insofar as we may interpret them as navigable seas, does not really matter. It would appear, however, that Gilgamesh journeyed to some great Sage at a distance, possibly to India. We will recall that the American "witnesses on the scene" made long journeys to some central Lodge and Great Chohan for the ostensible purpose of getting the rejuvenating Elixir of Life. At all events, when Gilgamesh found this "Immortal One," he recognized him as his Master. Arjuna, with Krishna at his side, did not know that he was a Master, but asked him what such a being looked like. When Gilgamesh saw Utnaphistim he was astonished to find that in outward appearance he was no different from himself. So it is said that one may live in the same house with a Master and never recognize him as such. So, too, the Ego, who thinks himself only man, may waken himself to knowledge of his own Divinity.

And now Utnaphistim proceeds to tell Gilgamesh about the flood. That this episode existed independently of its setting in the epic is certain, for it was a universal tradition, and followed an older version in which the survivor's name is Atrakhasis, meaning "The Very Wise One." We also see that the story is the model for the account in Genesis. Utnaphistim says Ea warned him in a dream of the approaching cataclysm and instructed him to build a vessel and to catch fish and birds. After completing the "ark," he loaded it with silver and gold and "all living beings of all kinds" and then brought his family and household and workmen on board. At last--

"The fixed time approached,
When the rulers of darkness at even-time were to
cause a terrible rain-storm.
I recognized the symptoms of [such] a day,
A day, for the appearance of which I was in terror."

The hurricane raged so furiously that even the gods were terrified and crouched like dogs in enclosure. For six days it continued to sweep over the land

"When the seventh day approached, the hurricane
and cyclone ceased the combat,
The sea grew quiet, the evil storm abated, the
cyclone was restrained.
I looked at the day and the roar had quieted down,
And all mankind had turned to clay.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I looked in all directions of the sea.
At a distance of twelve [miles] an island appeared.
At Mount Nizir the ship stood still.
Mount Nizir took hold of the ship so that it could not move.
When the seventh day arrived,
I sent forth a dove, letting it free.
Not finding a resting-place, it came back.
I sent forth a swallow, letting it free.
The swallow went hither and thither.
Not finding a resting-place, it came back.
I sent forth a raven, letting it free.
The raven went and saw the decrease of the water,
It ate, croaked, but did not come back."(8)

Then Utnaphistim made a sacrifice to the gods, who "smelled the sweet odor" and "like flies gathered around the sacrifice." Ea took this occasion to upbraid the leader and warrior of the gods for bringing on this terrible deluge and confesses that he warned Utnaphistim so that the latter might be saved and mankind not completely destroyed. Enlil then blesses the survivors, saying:

"Hitherto Utnaphistim was a man:
Now Utnaphistim and his wife shall be on a level
with the gods.
Utnaphistim shall dwell in the distance, at the
confluence of the streams."

Utnaphistim's tale ended, Gilgamesh is put into a trance-sleep, is "transformed," healed of his sores, and told where to find the elixir of life, a plant, which he plucks. Just as he is about to achieve immortality, the narrative continues, he waits to bathe in a cool cistern. A serpent snatches the precious plant from him. After this, Gilgamesh returns to Erech, where he evokes the shade of Enkidu and asks for information about the life after death, but the ghost says he can give no knowledge to Gilgamesh.

Such is the apparently inglorious ending to this ancient Epic -- tragedy of failure where one would anticipate a glorious climax. What may be its meaning? Considering the view of Col. Waddell that Gilgamesh may be identified with the Grecian Hercules one would conclude that, like that hero, Gilgamesh should have been admitted to the circle of the gods. Other scholars reach a more abstract opinion and think that the fate of Gilgamesh is intended to teach that the search for immortality is useless, that death does, indeed, "end all," even for the most heroic man.

But Theosophists who have studied "The Secret Doctrine" and "The Voice of the Silence" and gained some insight into the symbolisms in which are recorded the various Paths pursued in the course of Evolution, Spiritual and Psychic as well as physical, may read other meanings into or out of this old Epic. It is true that "great ones fall back, even from the threshold, unable to sustain the weight of their responsibility, unable to pass on;" and so, "when the victory is all but won, it is lost" -- as recited in Light on the Path. But the whole course of Gilgamesh, as narrated in the Poem, is against this supposition, let alone the false psychology of leading the hero of a great religious Epic, which we must assume to have excited the reverence of a whole people for long ages, to final failure after having triumphed over every obstacle. Nor does the narrative lend itself to the supposition that Gilgamesh personifies or typifies a practitioner of or devotee to Atlantean Black magic.

Rather, one would think, Gilgamesh, having reached to the mystic plant, the "Shangna robe," or plant of the Voice of the Silence, pauses indeed, to bathe in the "cool cistern" in which, if he will, he can gain "oblivion of the World and men for ever" by choosing the Path of "Liberation" rather than that of "Renunciation". But -- who knows? -- the Serpent in the Epic may have said to Gilgamesh:

"The choice is thine....But stay, Disciple....
Yet one word. Canst thou destroy divine COMPASSION?"

And Gilgamesh may have replied, as in the "Voice:" "OM! I believe that the Nirvana-Dharma is entered not by all the Buddhas," and so have chosen the "Secret Path" of the Nirmanakaya, to live and work in the Ethereal world where, as in the physical, he would find his shadow, "Enkidu."

Footnotes:
(1) From a review in the New York Times.

(2) The number 12 recurs throughout the poem.

(3) Also read Eabani.

(4) Ninib is the Babylonian Saturn. "The host" may represent the hierarchy of "lives."

(5) An Ukhat is a temple-woman, or devotee of Ishtar.

(6) Some have thought that the two "heroes" were originally the subjects of two separate tales which were finally welded into one.

(7) Initiates were sometimes called "cedars."

(8) Compare Genesis vi, 5-20; vii, 11, 12, 23, and viii, 4-22.

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