But there is the synchronistic table of Abydos, which, thanks to the genius of Champollion, has now vindicated the good faith of the priests of Egypt (Manetho's above all), and that of Ptolemy.
In the Turin papyrus, the most remarkable of all, in the words of the Egyptologist, de Rouge: -- ".
.
.
Champollion, struck with amazement, found that he had under his own eyes the whole truth.
.
.
.
It was the remains of a list of dynasties embracing the furthest mythoic times, or the REIGN OF THE GODS AND HEROES.
.
.
.
At the very outset of this curious [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Ch.
iv.
of " Egypt, " p.
441.
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 368 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
papyrus we have to arrive at the conviction that so far back already as the period of Ramses, those mythic and heroical traditions were just as Manetho had transmitted them to us; we see figuring in them, as Kings of Egypt, the gods Seb, Osiris, Horus, Thoth-Hermes, and the goddess Ma, a long period of centuries being assigned to the reign of each of these." ( Ann.
de Philologie Chretienne, Vol.
XXXII ., p.
442).
The synchronistic tables of Manetho, besides the fact that they were disfigured by Eusebius for dishonest purposes, had never gone beyond Manetho.
The chronology of the divine Kings and Dynasties, like that of the age of humanity, has ever been in the hands of the priests, and was kept secret from the profane multitudes.
Africa, as a continent, it is said, appeared before Europe did; nevertheless it appeared later than Lemuria and even the earliest Atlantis.
That the whole region of what is now Egypt and the deserts was once upon a time covered with the sea, was known firstly through Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, and all the Greeks; and, secondly, through geology.
Abyssinia was once upon a time an island; and the Delta was the first country occupied by the pioneer emigrants who came with their gods from the North-east.
When was it?
History is silent upon the subject.
Fortunately we have the Dendera Zodiac, the planisphere on the ceiling of one of the oldest Egyptian temples, which records the fact.
This Zodiac, with its mysterious three Virgos between the Lion and Libra, has found its OEdipus, who understood the riddle of these signs, and justified the truthfulness of those priests who told Herodotus that: -- ( a ) The poles of the Earth and the Ecliptic had formerly coincided; and ( b ) That even since their first Zodiacal records were commenced, the Poles have been three times within the plane of the Ecliptic, as the Initiates taught.
Bailly had not sufficient words at his command to express his surprise at the sameness of all such traditions about the divine races.
"What are finally," he exclaims, "all those reigns of Indian Devas and Persian Peris?
.
.
.
.
Or, those reigns and dynasties of the Chinese legends; those Tien-hoang or the Kings of Heaven, quite distinct from the Ti-hoang, the Kings on Earth, and the Gin-hoang the King's men, a distinction which is in perfect accord with that other one made by the Greeks and the Egyptians, in enumerating their dynasties of Gods, of demi-gods, and of mortals.
" * "Now," says Panadoras, "it is before that time (Menes), that the reign of the seven gods who rule the world took place.
It was during that period that those benefactors of humanity descended on Earth and taught [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Histoire de l'Astronomie Ancienne.
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 369 WHAT THE PRIESTS TOLD HERODOTUS.
men to calculate the course of the sun and moon by the twelve signs of the Ecliptic." Nearly five hundred years before the actual era, Herodotus was shown by the priests of Egypt the statues of their human Kings and Pontiffs -piromis (the archi-prophets or Maha-Chohans of the temples), born one from the other (without the intervention of woman) who had reigned before Menes, their first human King.
These statues, he says, were enormous colossi in wood, three hundred and forty-five in number, each of which had his name, his history and his annals.
And they assured Herodotus* (unless the most truthful of historians, the "Father of History," is now accused of fibbing, just in this instance ) that no historian could ever understand or write an account of these superhuman Kings, unless he had studied and learned the history of the three dynasties that preceded the human -- namely, the DYNASTIES OF THE GODS, that of demi-gods, and of the Heroes, or giants.
These "three dynasties" are the three Races.** Translated into the language of the Esoteric doctrine, these three dynasties would also be those of the Devas, of Kimpurushas, and of Danavas and Daityas -- otherwise gods, celestial spirits, and giants or Titans.
"Happy are those who are born, even from the condition of gods, as men, in Bharata-Varsha!" exclaim the incarnated gods themselves, during the Third Root-Race.
Bharata is India, but in this case it symbolized the chosen land in those days, and was considered the best of the divisions of Jambu-dwipa, as it was the land of active (spiritual) works par excellence ; the land of initiation and of divine knowledge.
Can one fail to recognise in Creuzer great powers of intuition, when, being almost unacquainted with the Aryan Hindu philosophies, little known in his day, he wrote: -- "We modern Europeans feel surprised when hearing talk of the Spirits of the Sun, Moon, etc.
But we repeat again, the natural good sense and the upright [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See also Memoires a l ' Academie, etc., of de Mirville, Vol.
III., for a mass of evidence.
** In Vishnu-Purana, Book II., chap.
3, 4, et seq., may be found many corroborations of the same, if one reads carefully.
The reigns of gods, lower gods, and men are all enumerated in the descriptions of the seven Islands, seven seas, seven mountains, etc., etc., ruled by Kings.
Each king is said invariably to have seven sons, an allusion to the seven sub-races.
One instance will do.
The King of Kusa dwipa had seven sons (follow names) .
.
.
"after whom the seven portions (Varsha) of the island were called.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage narrates the origin of Egypt and human civilization: the sea covering the land, the arrival of pioneer emigrants from the North-east, and the pre-human divine dynasties that preceded Menes, constituting a narrative of cosmic and civilizational origin.
A historical or mythical chain of transmission for secret wisdom from master to disciple across time and cultures — the credential of the teaching, not merely its content. Distinct from oral_tradition (the spoken-not-written modality of transmission, which a lineage may or may not use) and hidden_sayings (the concealment-for-readiness of a teaching's meaning, independent of who transmitted it or in what unbroken chain).
The passage describes an unbroken chain of priestly transmission: the original divine kings, the Pontiffs born one from another without the intervention of woman, Manetho's transmission to Ptolemy, and the corroborating traditions across cultures, establishing a genealogical chain of secret wisdom.
The doctrine that the divine or a spiritual principle takes on a specific, bounded material or bodily form — descending from an unconditioned state into individual, corporeal existence — as a discrete act rather than a diffuse pervading presence. The Christian Word made flesh, the Hindu avatara, the Egyptian pharaoh as living Horus, the Vajrayana tulku. Distinct from divine_immanence (the general claim that the divine pervades all of creation diffusely, not a specific embodiment-event) and separation_from_source (the felt exile FROM origin, the opposite motion) in describing a specific, individuated descent INTO a particular body or form.
The passage describes gods who 'descended on Earth and taught men,' and the 'incarnated gods themselves' during the Third Root-Race, depicting a specific descent of unconditioned divine beings into bounded earthly existence as discrete acts.