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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 251 ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS. [[This page continued from previous section ]] A RCHAIC T EACHINGS IN THE P URANAS AND G ENESIS. P HYSICAL E VOLUTION. The writer cannot give too much proof that the system of Cosmogony and Anthropogony as described actually existed, that its records are preserved, and that it is found mirrored even in the modern versions of ancient Scriptures. The Puranas on the one hand, and the Jewish Scriptures on the other, are based on the same scheme of evolution, which, read esoterically and expressed in modern language, would be found to be quite as scientific as much of what now passes current as the final word of recent discovery. The only difference between the two schemes is, that [[Vol. 2, Page]] 252 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. the Puranas, giving as much, and perhaps more attention to the causes than to the effects, allude to the pre-Cosmic and pre-Genetic periods rather than to those of so-called Creation, whereas the Bible, saying only a few words of the former period, plunges forthwith into material genesis, and, while nearly skipping the pre-Adamic races, proceeds with its allegories concerning the Fifth Race. Now, whatever the onslaught made on the Order of creation in Genesis, and its dead letter account certainly lends itself admirably to criticism,* he who reads the Hindu Puranas -- its allegorical exaggerations notwithstanding -- will find them quite in accordance with physical Science. Even what appears to be the, on the face of it, perfectly nonsensical allegory of Brahma assuming the form of a Boar to rescue the Earth from under the waters, finds in the Secret Commentaries a perfectly scientific explanation, relating as it does to the many risings and sinkings, and the constant alternation of water and land from the earliest to the latest geological periods of our globe; for Science teaches us now that nine-tenths of the stratified formations of the earth's crust have been gradually constructed beneath water, at the bottom of the seas. The ancient Aryans are credited with having known nothing whatever of natural history, geology, and so on. The Jewish race is, on the other hand, proclaimed even by its severest critic, an uncompromising opponent of the Bible, (See "Modern Science and Modern Thought," p. 337), to have the merit of having conceived the idea of monotheism "earlier, and retained it more firmly, than any of the less philosophical and more immoral religions ( ! !) of the ancient world." Only, while we find in Biblical esotericism physiological sexual mysteries symbolised, and very little [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Mr. Gladstone's unfortunate attempt to reconcile the Genetic account with science (see Nineteenth Century, "Dawn of Creation" and the "Proem to Genesis," 1886) has brought upon him the Jovian thunderbolt hurled by Mr. Huxley. The dead-letter account warranted no such attempt; and his fourfold order, or division of animated creation, has turned into the stone which, instead of killing the fly on the sleeping friend's brow, killed the man instead. Mr. Gladstone killed Genesis for ever. But this does not prove that there is no esotericism in the latter. The fact that the Jews and all the Christians, the modern as well as the early sects, have accepted the narrative literally for two thousand years, shows only their ignorance; and shows the great ingenuity and constructive ability of the initiated Rabbis, who have built the two accounts -- the Elohistic and the Jehovistic -- esoterically, and have purposely confused the meaning by the vowelless glyphs or word-signs in the original text. The six days -- yom -- of creation do mean six periods of evolution, and the seventh that of culmination of perfection (not of rest), and refer to the seven Rounds and the seven Races with a distinct "creation" in each; though the use of the words boker, dawn or morning, and crib , evening twilight -- which have esoterically the same meaning as sandhya, twilight, in Sanskrit -- have led to a charge of the most crass ignorance of the order of evolution. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 253 MR. GLADSTONE KILLS GENESIS. more (something for which very little real philosophy is requisite ) , in the Puranas one may find the most scientific and philosophical "dawn of creation," which, if impartially analyzed and rendered into plain language from its fairy tale-like allegories, would show that modern zoology, geology, astronomy, and nearly all the branches of modern knowledge, have been anticipated in the ancient Science, and were known to the philosophers in their general features, if not in such detail as at present! Puranic astronomy, with all its deliberate concealment and confusion for the purpose of leading the profane off the real track, was shown even by Bentley to be a real science; and those who are versed in the mysteries of Hindu astronomical treatises, will prove that the modern theories of the progressive condensation of nebulae, nebulous stars and suns, with the most minute details about the cyclic progress of asterisms -- far more correct than Europeans have even now -- for chronological and other purposes, were known in India to perfection. If we turn to geology and zoology we find the same. What are all the myths and endless genealogies of the seven Prajapati, and their sons, the seven Rishis or Manus, and of their wives, sons and progeny, but a vast detailed account of the progressive development and evolution of animal creation, one species after the other? Were the highly philosophical and metaphysical Aryans -- the authors of the most perfect philosophical systems of transcendental psychology, of Codes of Ethics, and such a grammar as Panini's, of the Sankhya and Vedanta systems, and a moral code (Buddhism), proclaimed by Max Muller the most perfect on earth -- such fools, or children, as to lose their time in writing fairy-tales ; such tales as the Puranas now seem to be in the eyes of those who have not the remotest idea of their secret meaning? What is the fable, the genealogy and origin of Kasyapa, with his twelve wives, by whom he had a numerous and diversified progeny of nagas (serpents), reptiles, birds, and all kinds of living things, and who was thus the father of all kinds of animals, but a veiled record of the order of evolution in this round? So far, we do not see that any Orientalist ever had the remotest conception of the truths concealed under the allegories and personifications. "The Satapatha Brahmana," says one, "gives a not very intelligible account of Kasyapa's origin. . . . He was the son of Marichi, the Son of Brahma, the father of Vivasvat, the father of Manu, the progenitor of mankind. . . .