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he Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 402 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. [[This page continued from previous section ]] W ESTERN S PECULATIONS, FOUNDED ON THE G REEK AND P URANIC T RADITIONS. Thus it becomes natural to find that, on even such meagre data as have reached the profane historian, Rudbeck, a Swedish scientist, tried to prove about two centuries ago that Sweden was the Atlantis of Plato. He thought, even, that he had found in the configuration of ancient Upsala, the situation and measurements given by the Greek sage of the capital of "Atlantis." As Bailly proved, Rudbeck was mistaken; but so was Bailly likewise, and still more. For Sweden and Norway had formed part and parcel of ancient Lemuria, and also of Atlantis on the European side, just as Eastern and Western Siberia and Kamschatka had belonged to it, on the Asiatic. Only, once more, when was it? We can find it out approximately only by studying the Puranas, if we will have nought to do with the Secret teachings. Three quarters of a century have already elapsed since Captain (now Colonel) Wilford brought forward his fanciful theories about the British islands being the "White Island," the Atala of the Puranas. This was sheer nonsense, as the Atala is one of the seven dwipas, or islands, belonging to the nether lokas, one of the seven regions of Patala (the antipodes). Moreover, as Wilford* shows, the Puranas place it "on [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Wilford makes many mistakes. He identifies, for instance, Sveta-dwipa (the white Island), the "island in the northern part of Toyambhudi, " with England, and then tries to identify it with Atala (a nether region) and Atlantis. Now the former is the abode of Vishnu, exoterically, and Atala is a hell. He also places it in the Euxine or Icshu (Black) Sea, and then seems to connect it, in another place, with Africa and Atlas. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 403 ORIENTALISTS IN THE WRONG BOX. the seventh zone or seventh climate," -- rather, on the seventh measure of heat: which thus locates it between the latitudes of 24 and 28 degrees north. It is then to be sought on the same degree as the Tropic of Cancer, whereas England is between the 50th and 60th degrees of latitude. Wilford speaks of it as Atala, Atlantis, the white island. And in vol. viii. of Journal of Asiatic Researches, p. 280, its enemy is called the "White Devil," the demon of terror. For he says: "In their (the Hindu and Mahomedan) romances, we see Kai-caus going to the mountain of ' As-burj, at the foot of which the Sun sets,' to fight the Dev-Sefid, or white devil, the Taradaitya of the Puranas, whose abode was on the seventh stage of the world, answering to the seventh zone of the Buddhists, or the White Island." Now here the Orientalists have been, and are still, facing the Sphinx's riddle, the wrong solution of which will ever destroy their authority, if not their persons, in the eyes of every Hindu scholar, even those who are not initiates. For there is not a statement in the Puranas -- on the conflicting details of which Wilford based his speculations -- which has not several meanings, and does not apply to both the physical and the metaphysical worlds. If the old Hindus divided the face of the globe geographically into seven zones, climates, dwipas, and into seven hells and seven heavens, allegorically, that measure of seven did not apply in both cases to the same localities. It is the north pole, the country of "Meru," which is the seventh division, as it answers to the Seventh principle (or fourth metaphysically), of the occult calculation, for it represents the region of Atma, of pure soul, and Spirituality. Hence Pushkara is shown as the seventh zone, or dwipa, which encompasses the Kshira Ocean, or Ocean of milk (the ever-frozen white region) in the Vishnu (and other) Puranas ( Book II ch. iv. ). And Pushkara, with its two Varshas, lies directly at the foot of Meru. For it is said that "the two countries north and south of Meru are shaped like a bow, " . . and that "one half of the surface of the earth is on the south of Meru and the other half on the north of Meru -- beyond which is half of Pushkara " ( Vishnu Purana, Asiatic Researches, etc. ). Geographically, then, Pushkara is America, Northern and Southern; and allegorically it is the prolongation of Jambu-dwipa* in the middle of [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Every name in the Puranas has to be examined at least under two aspects; geographically, and metaphysically, in its allegorical application; e.g., Nila, the (blue) mountain which is one of the boundaries to the north of Meru, is again to be sought geographically in a mountain range in Orissa, and again in a mountain quite different from the others (in Western Africa). Jambu-dwipa is Vishnu's dominion -- the world, limited in the Puranas to our globe, the region which contains Meru only , and again it is divided to contain Bharata-varsha (India), its best division, and the fairest, says Parasara. Likewise with Pushkara and all others. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 404 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. which stands Meru, for it is the country inhabited by beings who live ten thousand years, who are free from sickness or failing; where there is neither virtue nor vice, caste or laws, for these men are "of the same nature as the Gods," (Vishnu Purana, Book II . ch. iv.). Wilford is inclined to see Meru in Mount Atlas, and locates there also the Loka-lokas. Now Meru, we are told, which is the Swar -loka, the abode of Brahma, of Vishnu, and the Olympus of Indian exoteric religions, is described geographically as "passing through the middle of the earth-globe, and protruding on either side" ( Surya Siddhanta, v. 5, Whitney ' s trans. ) . On its upper station are the gods, on the nether (or South pole) is the abode of demons (hells). How can then Meru be Mount Atlas?