Page 74 (part 6)

To show how the continents, races, nations and cycles overlap each other, one has but to think of Lemuria, the last of whose lands perished about 700,000 years before the beginning of the Tertiary period (see p. 65 of the same work), and the last of "Atlantis" only 11,000 years ago; thus both overlapping -- one the Atlantean period, and the other the Aryan. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 434 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. is asked to glance at the diagram of the genealogical tree of the Fifth Root-Race -- generally, though hardly correctly, called the Aryan race, and the explanations appended to it. Let the reader remember well that which is said of the divisions of Root Races and the evolution of Humanity in this work, and stated clearly and concisely in Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism." 1. There are seven R OUNDS in every manvantara; this one is the Fourth, and we are in the Fifth Root-Race, at present. 2. Each Root-Race has seven sub-races. 3. Each sub-race has, in its turn, seven ramifications, which may be called Branch or "Family" races. 4. The little tribes, shoots, and offshoots of the last-named are countless and depend on Karmic action. Examine the "genealogical tree" hereto appended, and you will understand. The illustration is purely diagrammatic, and is only intended to assist the reader in obtaining a slight grasp of the subject, amidst the confusion which exists between the terms which have been used at different times for the divisions of Humanity. It is also here attempted to express in figures -- but only within approximate limits, for the sake of comparison -- the duration of time through which it is possible to definitely distinguish one division from another. It would only lead to hopeless confusion if any attempt were made to give accurate dates to a few; for the Races, Sub-Races, etc., etc., down to their smallest ramifications, overlap and are entangled with each other until it is nearly impossible to separate them. The human Race has been compared to a tree, and this serves admirably as an illustration. The main stem of a tree may be compared to the ROOT-RACE (A). [[Vol. 2, Page]] 435 ILLUSTRATION OF THE RACES. Its larger limbs to the various SUB-RACES; seven in number (B1, B2). On each of these limbs are seven BRANCHES, OR FAMILY-RACES. (C). After this the cactus-plant is a better illustration, for its fleshy "leaves" are covered with sharp spines, each of which may be compared to a nation or tribe of human beings. Now our Fifth Root-Race has already been in existence -- as a race sui generis and quite free from its parent stem -- about 1,000,000 years; therefore it must be inferred that each of the four preceding Sub-Races has lived approximately 210,000 years; thus each Family-Race has an average existence of about 30,000 years. Thus the European "Family Race" has still a good many thousand years to run, although the nations or the innumerable spines upon it, vary with each succeeding "season" of three or four thousand years. It is somewhat curious to mark the comparative approximation of duration between the lives of a "Family-Race" and a "Sidereal year." The knowledge of the foregoing, and the accurately correct division, formed part and parcel of the Mysteries, where these Sciences were taught to the disciples, and where they were transmitted by one hierophant to another. Everyone is aware that the European astronomers assign (arbitrarily enough) the date of the invention of the Egyptian Zodiac to the years 2000 or 2400 B.C. ( Proctor ); and insist that this invention coincides in its date with that of the erection of the Great Pyramid. This, to an Occultist and Eastern astronomer, must appear quite absurd. The year of the Kaliyuga is said to have begun between the 17th and 18th of February in the year 3102 B.C. Now the Hindus claim that in the year 20400 before Kaliyugam, the origin of their Zodiac coincided with the spring equinox -- there being at the time a conjunction of the Sun and Moon -- and Bailly proved by a lengthy and careful computation of that date, that, even if fictitious, the epoch from which they had started to establish the beginning of their Kaliyug was very real. That "epoch is the year 3102 before our era," he writes. ( See Part III., Book I. " Hindu Astronomy defended by an Academician". ) The lunar eclipse arriving just a fortnight after the beginning of the black Age -- it took place in a point situated between the Wheat Ear of Virgo and the star [[ theta ]] of the same constellation. One of their most esoteric Cycles is based upon certain conjunctions and respective positions of Virgo and the Pleiades -- ( Krittika ) . Hence, as the Egyptians brought their Zodiac from Southern India and Lanka,* the esoteric meaning was evidently identical. The three "Virgins," or Virgo in three different positions, meant, with both, the record of the first three "divine or astronomical Dynasties," who taught the Third [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Ceylon. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 436 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Root-Race; and after having abandoned the Atlanteans to their doom, returned (or redescended, rather) during the third Sub-Race of the Fifth, in order to reveal to saved humanity the mysteries of their birth-place -- the sidereal Heavens. The same symbolical record of the human races and the three Dynasties (Gods, Manes -- semi-divine astrals of the Third and Fourth, and the "Heroes" of the Fifth Race), which preceded the purely human kings, was found in the distribution of the tiers and passages of the Egyptian Labyrinth. As the three inversions of the Poles of course changed the face of the Zodiac, a new one had to be constructed each time. In Mackey's "Sphinxiad" the speculations of the bold author must have horrified the orthodox portion of the population of Norwich, as he says, fantastically enough: -- "But, after all, the greatest length of time recorded by those monuments (the Labyrinth, the Pyramids and the Zodiacs) does not exceed five millions of years (which is not so)*; which falls short of the records given us both by the (esoteric) Chinese and Hindus; which latter nation has registered a knowledge of time for seven or eight millions of years**; which I have seen upon a talisman of porcelain. . . . " The Egyptian priests had the Zodiacs of the Atlantean Asura-Maya, as the modern Hindus still have.