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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 452 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. § XVI. ADAM-ADAMI. N AMES such as Adam-Adami, used by Mr. Chwolsohn in his "Nabathean Agriculture"* and derided by M. Renan, may prove little to the profane. To the Occultist, however, once that the term is found in a work of such immense antiquity as the above cited, it proves a good deal: for instance that Adami was a manifold symbol, originating with the Aryan people, as the root word shows, and having been taken from them by the Semites and the Turanians -- as many other things were. "Adam-Adami" is a generic compound name as old as languages are. The Secret Doctrine teaches that Ad -i was the name given to the first speaking race of mankind -- in this Round -- by the Aryans. Hence the Adonim and Adonai (the ancient plural form of the word Adon ) , which the Jews applied to their Jehovah and angels, who were simply the first spiritual and ethereal sons of the earth; and the god Adonis, who in his many variations stood for the "First Lord." Adam is the Sanskrit Ada-Nath, also meaning first Lord, as Ad -Iswara, or any Ad (the first) followed by any adjective or substantive. The reason for this is that such truths were a common inheritance. It was a revelation received by the first mankind before that time which, in Biblical phraseology, is called "the period of one lip and word," or speech; knowledge expanded by man's own intuition later on, but still later hidden from profanation under an adequate symbology. The author of the "Qabbalah, (according to), the philosophical writings of Ibn Gebirol," shows the Israelite using " Ad onai," (Lord) instead of Eh ' yeh ( I am ) and YHVH , and adds that, while Ad onai is rendered "Lord" in the Bible, "the lowest designation, or the Deity in Nature, the more general term Elohim, is translated God." (p. 175.) A curious work was translated in 1860 or thereabout, by the Orientalist Chwolsohn, and presented to ever-incredulous and flippant Europe under the innocent title of Nabathean Agriculture. In the opinion of the translator that archaic volume is " a complete initiation into the mysteries of the pre-Adamite nations, on the authority of undeniably authentic documents. " It is "an invaluable compendium, the full epitome of the Doctrines held, of the arts and sciences, not only of the Chaldeans, but also of the Assyrians and Canaanites of the prehistoric ages." These [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Vide infra. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 453 "NABATHEAN AGRICULTURE." " Nabatheans " -- as some critics thought -- were simply the Sabeans, or Chaldean star-worshippers. The work is a retranslation from the Arabic, into which language it was at first translated from the Chaldean. Masoudi, the Arabic Historian, speaks of those Nabatheans, and explains their origin in this wise: "After the Deluge (?) the nations established themselves in various countries. Among these were the Nabatheans, who founded the city of Babylon, and were those descendants of Ham who settled in the same province under the leadership of Nimrod, the son of Cush, who was the son of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah. . . . . This took place at the time when Nimrod received the governorship of Babylonia as the delegate of Dzahhak named Biurasp." The translator, Chwolsohn, finds that the assertions of this historian are in perfect accord with those of Moses in Genesis; while more irreverent critics might express the opinion that for this very reason their truth should be suspected. It is useless to argue this point, which is of no value in the present question. The weather-beaten, long-since-buried problem, and the difficulty of accounting, on any logical ground, for the phenomenal derivation of millions of people of various races, of many civilized nations and tribes, from three couples (Noah's sons) in 346 years* after the Deluge, may be left to the Karma of the author of Genesis, whether he is called Moses or Ezra. That which is interesting in the work noticed is its contents, the doctrines enunciated in it, which are again, if read esoterically, almost all of them identical with the Secret Teachings. Quatremere suggested that this book might have been simply a copy made under Nebuchadnezzar II ., from some Hamitic treatise, "infinitely more ancient," while the author maintains, on "internal and external evidence," that its Chaldean original was written out from the oral discourses and teachings of a wealthy Babylonian landowner, named Qu-tamy, who had used for those lectures still more ancient materials. The first Arabic translation is placed by Chwolsohn so far back as the XIII . cent. B . C . On the first page of this "revelation," the author, or amanuensis, Qu-tamy, declares that "the doctrines propounded therein, were originally told by Saturn to the Moon, who communicated them to her idol, which idol revealed them to her devotee, the writer -- the adept Scribe of that work -- Qu-tamy. The details given by the God for the benefit and instruction of mortals, show periods of incalculable duration and a series of numberless kingdoms and Dynasties that preceded the appearance on Earth of [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See Genesis and the authorised Chronology. In Chapt. ix. "Noah leaveth the Ark" " B . C . 2348." Chapter x. "Nimrod the first Monarch," stands over " B . C . 1998." [[Vol. 2, Page]] 454 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Adami (the "red-earth"). These periods have aroused, as might have been expected, the defenders of the chronology of the Biblical dead-letter meaning almost to fury. De Rougemont was the first to make a levee -in-arms against the translator. He reproaches him* with " sacrificing Moses to an anonymous author." Berosus, he urges, "however great were his chronological errors, was at least in perfect accord with the prophet with regard to the first men, since he speaks of Alorus-Adam, of Xisuthrus-Noah, and of Belus-Nimrod, " etc.