CHAPTER XV

THE BUILDING OF THE GREAT CITY
AFTER the second destruction, the Manu thought that a little more of the Toltec infusion was needed in His Race, which had, it will be remembered, only one-twelfth of Toltec strain in it ; so He sent Mars, who had been killed in the beginning of the last war, to incarnate in the purest of the Toltec families in Poseidonis, and called him to re¬ turn to His infant community at the age of twenty-five. The fairest and best of the Manu’s own daughters, who had escaped the second massacre in her child¬ hood, was given to Mars as wife — his age-long friend and teacher, Jupiter. Of these two Viraj was born — a splendid specimen of all that was best in the two Races whence he sprang. He married Saturn, and Vaivasvata Manu took birth again as their son. From this point the Fifth, or Aryan Root-Race, as a really successful foundation, may be said to begin, for after this it was never again destroyed. This was about B. C. 60,000. The civilisation which rose slowly from that tiny seed was a fine and pure one, and, shut away as it was to a large extent from the rest of the world, it flourished exceedingly.
256 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
The descendants of the Manu remained on the Island until they numbered one hundred ; it had been decreed by the Manu that when they reached that number they should go over to the mainland, and begin to work at the City which He had planned as the future capital of His Race. The plan was fully worked out, as He wished it to be when finished, all the streets marked in, their width stated, the size of the chief buildings given, and so on. The White Island was the centre on which the great main streets converged, so that if they had crossed the intervening sea they would have ended on the Island. Low cliffs rose from the sea, and from these the land sloped gradually up to the lovely purple hills twenty miles away: it was a splendid site for a city, though open to cold winds from the north ; the city spread out fan-like round the edge of the shore, extending over this great gentle slope, and the main streets were so wide that even from their extreme ends towards the hills the White Island could be seen. It was the most prominent object, and seemed to dominate all the City’s life, when the whole splendid plan was complete. The City was built a thousand years in advance of the people who were to live in it ; it did not grow disjointedly, like London ; and the little group of one hundred — the children and grand¬ children of the Manu — looked almost absurdly inade¬ quate for the immense task which they were to begin, and which their descendants would finish. They put up temporary quarters for themselves in a way which did not interfere with the plan, and had, of course, to cultivate enough of the land to
THE BUILDING OF THE GREAT CITY
257
enable them to live. All the time which they were not compelled to give to their own support, they devoted to preparation for building ; they measured the land and marked out the wide streets according to the plan, cutting down many trees, the wood of which they used for their own quarters. Presently some were sent to the hills to look for suitable stone and metals, and they sank mines and dug out quarries. Out of these they hewed white, grey, red and green stone, stone which looked like marble, but seemed to be harder than the marble we know ; it may be that they had some secret for hardening it, since they came from Atlantis, where architecture was carried to great perfection. Later on, they went further afield, and found some porphyry of a splendid purple colour, which they used with great effect.
It was a strange sight to see these builders of a future city at work. Descendants of the Manu, similar in education and training, they felt and acted like one family, even when they had increased to thousands. Doubtless the presence of the Manu and of His lieutenants kept this feeling alive, and made the growing community a real brotherhood, each member knowing the rest. They worked be¬ cause they were glad to work, and felt that they were carrying out the wishes of Him who was at once their Father and their King. They worked in the fields, they ground corn — they seemed to have wheat, rye and oats — they cut and shaped the huge stones brought from the hills ; all was done joyfully, as a religious duty and as bringing merit, and any form of work was willingly taken up.
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258
MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
The style of architecture was cyclopean, enormous stones being used, larger even than those at Karnac. They used machinery, and slung great stones on rollers ; sometimes, in difficulties, the Manu gave instructions which rendered the work easier, possibly by some methods of magnetisation. They were allowed to use their utmost strength and ingenuity in managing these immense stones, some of them 160 feet long, and they succeeded in dragging them along the roads. But for lifting them into their destined places, the Manu and His lieutenants lightened them by occult means. Some of these lieutenants, above the rank of Masters, were Lords of the Moon, who had become Chohans of Rays. They moved about among the people superintending their work, and were spoken of under the general name of Maharshis. Some names sounded very guttural, as Rhudhra ; another name heard was Vasukhya.1 The buildings were on the Egyptian scale, but were much lighter in appearance; and this was specially noticeable in the buildings on the White Island, where the domes were not great spheres, but were bulging at the base, and went up to a point, like a tightly closed lotus-bud, in which the folded-in leaves had been given a kind of twist. It was as though two helices, right- handed and left-handed, had been superposed, so
1 We were much surprised at finding what was evi¬ dently a form of Samskrt existing such an enormous time ago in a recognisable form. It appeared that the language brought from Venus by the Lords of the Flame was this mother-Samskrt — truly a ‘ divine language ’ — and, while the people were in touch with Them, it persisted without much change.
THE BUILDING OF THE GREAT CITY
259
that the lines should cross each other, and that this was worked on to the lotus-bud, bulging at
the base. There was immense solidity in the lower parts of the huge buildings ; then a crown- work of minarets and arches, arches with a peculiar and very graceful curve, and then, on the top, the fairy-like lotus-bud of a dome.
The whole building was a matter of many hundreds of years, but the White Island, when
complete, was a marvel. The Island itself sloped up to a central point, and the builders took advan¬ tage of this. They built stupendous Temples on it, all of white marble with inlaid work of gold, and these covered the whole Island, making it a single sacred City. These rose towards the huge Temple in the centre, which was crowned with the
minarets and arches mentioned above, with the
lotus-bud dome in the middle. The dome was over the great Hall, wherein the Four Kumaras appear¬ ed on special occasions, great religious festivals, and ceremonies of national importance.1
From a distance — say at the end of one of the City streets, ten miles away — the effect of the white and golden City, like a white dome set in the midst of the blue Gobi Sea,3 all the buildings seeming to spring upwards into the clear air to¬ wards the centre, and to be crowned with the
1 Readers of * Rents in the Veil of Time,* The Theosofrhist , July, 1910, will remember in Alcyone’s Life, X., the description of the gathering of the Chiefs of the emigra¬ tion in this Hall, and the appearing of the four Kumaras,
2 The Gobi Sea, at that time, was a little smaller than the present Black Sea in Europe.
260 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
fairy dome, almost floating in the atmosphere, was extraordinarily beautiful and impressive. Rising above it in the air, as in a balloon, and looking down, we could see the White City like a circle, divided by a cross, for the streets were arranged as four radii, meeting at the central Temple. Looked at from the north-west, from the promontory of the earlier settlement, an extraordinary effect was produced, which could hardly have been accidental. The whole looked like the great Eye of Masonic symbolism, being foreshortened so that the curves became cylindrical, and the darker lines of the city on the mainland made the iris.
Both inside and outside, the Temples on the White Island were adorned with many carvings. A large number of these contained Masonic symbols, for Masonry inherits its symbols from the Mysteries, and all Aryan Mysteries were derived from this ancient centre of Initiation. In one room attached to the central Temple, apparently used for teaching, there was a series of carvings, beginning with the physical atom and going on to the chemical atoms, arranged in order, and with explanatory lines mark¬ ing the various combinations. Verily, there is nothing new under the sun. 1
In another room were many models, in one of which Crookes’ lemniscates were arranged across each other, so as to form an atom with a four¬ fold rose. Many things were modelled in alto-relievo,
1 If the present writers had known at the time of the existence of these carvings, they might have saved themselves much trouble in their researches into occult Chemistry.
THE BUILDING OF THE GREAT CITY
261
such as the pranic atom, the oxygen snake, the nitrogen balloon.
Alas ! for the great catastrophe which shook these mighty buildings into ruins. But for that, they might have lasted for thousands upon thousands of years.
The City of the mainland was built of the various-coloured stone hewn out of the mountain quarries, some of the buildings being very effective with the grey and red intermixed. Pink and green was another favourite combination, and here and there the purple porphyry was introduced, with strik¬ ing success. Looking forward through many centuries, we saw the building still going on, though with many more workers, until the great City grew into its full magnificence, a capital, building through a thousand years, for a people that was to become imperial. The workers moved outwards, as their numbers expanded, bringing more land, which was very fertile, under cultivation for their support, now working in the fields, now at their huge Temples. Century after century this expansion continued along the shores of the Gobi Sea and up the great slope towards the hills, ever following the Manu’s original plan.
There were gold mines in the hills, and mines for jewels and precious stones of all sorts. Gold was much used on the buildings, especially on those made of white marble, and gave an effect of extraordinary and chaste richness. Jewels were also largely introduced into decorations, inset as brilliant points in schemes of colour ; slabs of chalcedony entered into decorative designs, and a precious stone, resembling Mexican onyx, was worked into
262 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
patterns. One favourite and most effective device in the ornamenting of large public buildings was a com¬ bination of dark green jade and the purple porphyry.
Carving was largely employed, both outside and inside buildings, but no paintings were observed, nor drawings on a flat surface, and no perspective. There were long friezes, representing processions, in alto-relievo, all the figures being of the same size, no idea of distance being introduced by reducing the size of the figures. There were no trees or clouds as background, and no impression of space was given. These friezes recalled the Elgin marbles, and were exceedingly well done and very natural. Figures in these friezes were often painted, as were also separate statues, of which there were many, both in the public streets and the private houses.
The City was connected with the White Island by a massive and splendid bridge — a structure so remarkable that it gave its name to the City, called, because of it, the City of the Bridge.1 It was a cantilever Bridge, the form very graceful, outlined with hewn work of massive scrolls, and decorated with great groups of statuary, where its ends rested on the cliff of the mainland and on the Island itself. The stones of the causeway were 160 feet in length and wide in proportion — a noble structure, worthy even of the Island to which it was the sole approach.
The City was at its zenith in B. C. 45,000, when it was the capital of an immense Empire, which included the whole of East and Central Asia, from Tibet to the coast and from Manchuria to Siam, besides claiming suzerainty over all the islands
1 Called also Manova, the City of Manu.
THE BUILDING OF THE GREAT CITY
263
from Japan to Australia. Traces of its domination are still to be seen in some of these countries ; the ineffaceable stamp of the Aryan blood is set upon races so primitive as the Hairy Ainus of Japan and the Australian so-called aborigines.
In the zenith of its glory it had the magnifi¬ cent architecture we have described, of the cyclopean style as to size, but finished with great delicacy, and polished to a remarkable degree. We have seen that its builders erected the marvellous Temples whose colossal ruins are the wonder of- all who have seen them at Shamballa to-day;1 it was they who dowered the world with that unequalled Bridge which once linked the Sacred Island with the shore — which may still be seen standing, mighty as ever, though now only the shifting desert sand flows beneath it. Its sculpture too was noble, as we have seen, its colouring brilliant, its mechanical genius considerable. In its prime it compared not ignobly with Atlantis, and though its luxury was never so great, its morals were distinctly purer.
Such was the mighty City planned by Vaivasvata
y
Manu and built by His children. Many and great were the cities of Asia, but the City of the Bridge outshone them all. And over it ever brooded the mighty Presences who had, and still have, Their earthly dwelling-place on the sacred White Island, giving to this one, out of all the cities of earth, the ever-abiding benediction of Their immediate proximity.
1 Shamballa is still the Imperishable Sacred Land, where dwell the four Kumaras, and where gather, every seven years, Initiates of all nations.