CHAPTER XVII

THE SECOND SUB-RACE, THE ARABIAN
It will be remembered that when the Manu went to Shamballa — after leading His little flock from Arabia to their temporary northern resting-place, and, after the great catastrophe of B. C. 75,025, bringing them to the White Island — He was shown by the Head of the Hierarchy the plan which was to be followed in the shaping of His Race.1 Four long valleys — running back through the mountain range which lay twenty miles from the shore of the Gobi Sea, separated from each other by intervening hills — were to be used by Him for the segregation and training of four distinct sub-races. This work was now to begin.
The Manu started by picking out from the great band of Servers — who had been developing in the noble Aryan civilisation — a few families, willing to act as pioneers, and, leaving the glorious City of the Bridge, to .go out into the wilderness and found His new colony. A large group of people who, for the most part, are or have been in the Theosophical Society of our own times, were selected by Him for this pioneer work,2 and of
1 See Chapter XIV, p. 249.
2 They are doing, over again, what they have done so often before, breaking open the way for a new type
276 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
these a few families were sent out to lead the way. In the third generation Mars and Mercury took birth among the descendants of these, and then the Manu and some of the great people
incarnated there to specialise the type, the Manu preparing a special body of the type at which He was aiming, and incarnating in it, when He
had brought it to the desired point.
This latter group of highly developed Personages set the type whenever a new sub-race is founded, and the type is then seen at its best ; it is the Golden Age to which each nation looks back in later days. Then the younger egos come in and carry it on, unable, of course, to keep at the level set. There
is in each case, a group of younger egos sent to
prepare the way ; then some older ones come, of the rank which now includes Masters ; from these the greater people take bodies and set the new type. The juniors then flock in and do the best they can with it, at first led by some of their seniors, and then later left to themselves to learn their lessons by experience.
Among the juniors chosen to form the first pioneer families, we noticed Herakles — a son of Corona and Theodoros — with Sirius as wife, Sirius a tall, rather muscular woman, a notable house¬ wife, and very kind to her rather large family, among whom we observed Alcyone, Mizar, Uranus,
of humanity and of civilisation. They are the pioneers, the sappers and miners, of a great advancing army, for which they are clearing away jungles, making roads, bridging rivers. The work may be thankless, but it is necessary, and to many congenial.
THE SECOND SUB-RACE, THE ARABIAN 277
Selene and Neptune. 1 Herakles had brought some Tlavatli nobles as captives from a foray, and the son of one of these, Apis, married his niece Gemini, much to the anger of the proud Aryan family, that looked on this marriage as a mesalliance — an unworthy mixing of their pure blood ; but doubt¬ less it was quietly arranged by the Manu, in order that a Tlavatli intermixture might be brought in ! They had Spica and Fides as twins, a quaint little pair. Hector and Aurora were another married pair of the emigrant families, and their daughter Albireo married Selene ; they had Mercury as child. Uranus married Andromeda, and Mars and Venus were born to them, and Vulcan appeared as a son of Alcyone.
It will be noticed here that two who are now Masters, Uranus and Neptune, were born in the second generation ; Mars and Venus, both now Mas¬ ters, were born in the family of these in the third ; Mercury, now a Master, was also born in the third, a child of Selene ; and Vulcan, also now a Master, in the third, a child of Alcyone. In the fourth generation the Manu appeared, as a son of Mars and Mercury.
At this time some of our friends were living in the City of the Bridge — Castor among them, married to Rhea. They thought the people who went to the valley were behaving very foolishly, for the existing civilisation was a very fine one, and there was no sense in going off to make a new one, and to plant, turnips in an unreclaimed valley, instead of living in the culture and order
1 See Appendix vii, for the complete lists.
278 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
of the City. Besides the new religion followed by the valley-dwellers was quite unnecessary, the old one being much better. Another of the friends who accompany Castor through the ages, Lachesis, was a ponderous merchant, with Velleda as a hasty short- tempered son, who was impolite to customers, much to the displeasure of his courteous father. Lachesis had married Amalthea, and she ran away with Calypso, a proceeding which was considered to be most improper. As she and her lover were not received in the City, they went to the valley, but met there with no warmer welcome.
The visit of a Toltec Prince from Poseidonis to the City showed an old friend, Crux, in his person, and among his suite was another old friend, Phocea.
For some centuries the people in the valley increased and multiplied, the careful specialisation going on, until in B. C. 40,000 the Manu thought them sufficiently numerous and sufficiently prepared to be sent out into the world. He sent them out under the leadership of Mars, supported by Corona and Theodoros, to retrace the way by which so many thousands of years ago they had come, to try to Aryanise the descendants of the Arabs whom they had left behind, for these, of all the Atlanteans, were the nearest to the possession of the new characteristics. These Arabs were still where He had settled them — a number of half-civilised tribes occupying the whole of the Arabian peninsula, and with a few settlements on the Somali coast. A strong and friendly power existed at that time in the region now called Persia and Mesopotamia,
THE SECOND SUB-RACE, THE ARABIAN 279
and the Manu — who had later joined the emigrants and headed His forces — had no difficulty in obtain¬ ing permission to march His host through it along a carefully indicated and guarded route. It is noteworthy that this migration differs in character from those of later years. In those which descended into India the entire tribe moved, from the old men and women to the babies ; but in this case the old and those with many young children were advised to stay behind, and the migration was confined to men of fighting age, with their wives and a comparatively small number of children. Many also were young unmarried men. The number of fighters was about 150,000, and the women and children may have added another 100,000 to the party.
The Manu had sent messengers two years before to prepare the Arab tribes for His coming, but the news had not been altogether favourably received, and He was by no means sure of a welcome. When He had crossed the belt of desert which then, as now, separated Arabia from the rest of the .world, and came in sight of the first of the Arab settlements, a body of armed horsemen ap¬ peared in front of Him and incontinently attacked the van of His army. He easily repulsed them, and, capturing some of them, endeavoured to make them understand that His mission was peaceful. The language had changed so much that they had great difficulty in understanding one another at all, but He contrived to reassure His captives and sent them to arrange an interview with their Chief. After some trouble and the interchange of more
280
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messages, the Chief came, suspicious and unconcilia- tory ; but a long conversation and full explanations somewhat changed his attitude, and it occurred to him that he might use this unusual sort of in¬ vasion for his own purposes. He was at deadly feud with a neighbouring tribe, and while he had no force fit to cope with the Manu’s capable-looking army, he felt that if he could enlist these strangers on his side he could make short work of his an¬ cient enemies. So he temporised, and agreed to al¬ low the visitors to establish themselves in a great desolate valley on the borders of his territory.
They thankfully accepted this offer, and very soon changed the whole aspect of that valley. Coming as they did from a highly-civilised nation, they knew all about the science of well-boring, and they presently had the entire valley efficiently irrigated, and a great stream flowing down the middle of it. Within a year the whole of their tract of country was thoroughly cultivated and some good crops had already been obtained ; in three years they were fully established as a prosperous and self-supporting community.
The Chieftain who had received them, however, was by no means satisfied; he cast a jealous eye upon the improvements they had made, and felt that, as this was part of his territory, his own people and not strangers ought to reap the advan¬ tages of it. Also, when asked to join in predatory expeditions, the Manu had said quite plainly that although He was grateful to His host and ready at any time to defend him from aggression, He would be no party to an unprovoked attack upon peaceable
THE SECOND SUB-RACE, THE ARABIAN 281
people. This made the Chief very angry — the more so as he did not see his way to enforcing his commands. At last he patched up a peace with his hereditary enemy, and induced him to join him in an endeavour to exterminate the new-comers.
This little scheme, however, came hopelessly to grief; the Manu defeated and killed both the Chiefs, and made Himself Ruler over their com¬ bined States. Their subjects, when once the battle was over, philosophically accepted a new Ruler, and soon found that they were much more pros¬ perous and happy under the improved regime, though it involved less fighting and more regular work. Thus the Manu made secure his footing in Arabia, and promptly proceeded to Aryanise his new subjects as rapidly as possible. Other tribes attacked Him now and then, but were so invariably defeated with heavy loss that they presently came to recognise the wisdom of letting Him alone. As years rolled on His kingdom prospered mightily, and grew ever stronger, while constant internecine struggles en¬ feebled and impoverished the other tribes. The natural result followed ; by degrees, by taking opportunities as they offered, He absorbed tribe after tribe, usually without bloodshed and with the full consent of the majority. Before His death, forty years later, the upper half of Arabia owned his sway, and might be regarded as definitely Aryan. He might have acquired sovereignty over the south as well, but for the advent of a religious fanatic, who reminded his people that they were a chosen race ; this man — whom, as he will reappear
later, and therefore needs a distinguishing name, 37
282 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
we will call Alastor — took his stand on the direc¬ tions of their Manu, given in ancient days, for¬ bidding them to intermarry with aliens. They must therefore on no account intermingle their blood with that of these Gentiles, who came no one knew whence, with their pretended civilisation and their odious tyranny, which denied to man even his inalienable right to kill his fellow-man freely, whenever he pleased. This appealed to the fierce impatience of control which is a prominent feature of the Arab character, and the southern tribes, who had for centuries squabbled viciously among themselves, actually united now to oppose their re-incarnated Leader. And they opposed Him in His own name, making His original order as to purity of race their rallying cry against Him.
It was quaint that Vaivasvata Manu should thus be used against Himself, but Alastor was really only an anachronism, set in a groove from which he could not be moved. When the Manu had
needed a separate people He had forbidden inter¬ marriage with outsiders : when He wished to
Aryanise the descendants of his old followers, intermarriage became essential. But to Alastor — as to many of his ilk — growth and adaptation were
heresy, and he played on the fanaticism of his followers.
While this long struggle was going on, the Manu had the joy, in one of the intervals of comparative peace, of receiving a visit from His mighty Brother, the Mahaguru — the Buddha-to-be — who came to the second sub-race ere it began its long career of conquest — to indoctrinate it with the
THE SECOND SUB-RACE, THE ARABIAN 283
new religion which He had been teaching in Egypt as a reform of the ancient faith there prevailing.
The great Atlantean Empire in Egypt — which had quarrelled with Vaivasvata Manu when He was leading His people away from the catastrophe of B. C. 75,025 to settle in Arabia — had perished in that cataclysm, when Egypt went under water. When the swamps later became inhabitable, a negroid people possessed the land for awhile, and left behind them incongruous flints and other such barbarous remains to mark their occupation. After these, came the second Atlantean Empire with a great dynasty of Divine Kings, and with many of the heroes whom Greece later regarded as demi-gods, such as Herakles of the twelve labours, whose tradition was handed on to Greece. This Atlantean Empire lasted until about B. C. 13,500, when the Aryans came from southern India and made there an Empire of the Aryan root- stock. This Atlantean Empire was therefore ruling in B. C. 40,000, when the Manu was again in Arabia, and had attained to a very high state of civilisa¬ tion, stately and splendid ; it had immense Temples, such as that of Karnac, with long and very gloomy passages, and a very ornate ritual, with elaborate religious teaching.
The Egyptians were a profoundly religious race, and they lived through the stories belonging to their faith with an intensity of reality of which only a faint reflection is now seen among Roman and Anglican Catholics on such days as Good Friday. They were psychic, and felt the play of super-physical influences, and hence were without
284 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
scepticism as to the existence of higher beings and higher worlds ; their religion was their very life. They built their huge Temples to produce the im¬ pression of vastness and greatness, to instil rever¬ ence into the minds of the lower-class people. All the colour and splendour of life circled round their religion. The people normally wore white, but the religious processions were gorgeous rivers of splendid colour, glittering with gold and gems. The ceremonies accompanying the celebration of the death of Osiris palpitated with reality ; the mourning for the murdered God was real mourning ; the people wept and wailed aloud, the whole multitude being carried away with passionate emotion, and calling on Osiris to return.
It was to this people that the Mahaguru came as Tehuti or Thoth, called later by the Greeks Hermes. He came to teach the great doctrine of the ‘ Inner Light5 to the priests of the Temples, to the powerful sacerdotal hierarchy of Egypt, headed by its Pharaoh. In the inner court of the chief Temple He taught them of “ the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world 55 — a phrase of His that was handed down through the ages, and was echoed in the fourth Gospel in its early Egypt¬ ian-coloured words. He taught them that the Light was universal, and that Light, which was God, dwelt in the heart of every man : “ I am that
Light, 55 He bade them repeat, “ that Light am 1 ”. “ That Light,55 He said, “ is the true man, although men may not recognise it, although they neglect it. Osiris is Light ; He came forth from the Light ; He dwells in the Light ; He is the Light. The
THE SECOND SUB-RACE, THE ARABIAN 285
Light is hidden everywhere ; it is in every rock and in every stone. When a man becomes one with Osiris the Light, then he becomes one with the whole of which he was part, and then he can see the Light in everyone, however thickly veiled, pressed down, and shut away. All the rest is not ; but the Light is. The Light is the life of men. To every man — though there are glorious ceremonies, though there are many duties for the priest to do, and many ways in which he should help men — that Light is nearer than aught else, within his very heart. For every man the Reality is nearer than any ceremony, for he has only to turn inwards, and then will he see the Light. That is the object of every ceremony, and ceremonies should not be done away with, for I come not to destroy but to fulfil. When a man knows, he goes beyond the ceremony, he goes to Osiris, he goes to the Light, the Light Amun-Ra, from which all came forth, to which all shall return.”
And again : “ Osiris is in the heavens, but
Osiris is also in the very heart of men. When Osiris in the heart knows Osiris in the heavens, then man becomes God, and Osiris, once rent into fragments, again becomes one. But see! Osiris the Divine Spirit, Isis, the Eternal Mother, give life to Horus, who is Man, Man born of both, yet one with Osiris. Horus is merged in Osiris, and Isis, who had been Matter, becomes through him the Queen of Life and Wisdom. And Osiris, Isis, and Horus are all born of the Light.”
“ Two are the births of Horus. He is born of Isis, the God born into humanity, taking flesh of
286 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
the Mother Eternal, Matter, the Ever- Virgin. He is born again into Osiris, redeeming his Mother from her long search for the fragments of her husband scattered over the earth. He is born into Osiris when Osiris in the heart sees Osiris in the heavens, and knows that the twain are one.”
So taught He, and the wise among the priests were glad.
To Pharaoh, the Monarch, He gave the motto : ec Look for the Light, ” for He said that only as a King saw the Light in the heart of each could he rule well. And to the people He gave as motto : “ Thou art the Light. Let that Light shine.” And He set that motto round the pylon in a great Temple, running up one pillar, and across the bar, and down the other pillar. And this was inscribed over the doors of houses, and little models were made of the pylon on which He had inscribed it, models in precious metals, and also in baked clay, so that the poorest could buy little blue clay models, with brown veins running through them, and glazed. Another favourite motto was : “ Follow the Light, ” and this became later : “ Follow the King,” and this spread westward and became the motto of the Round Table. And the people learned to say of their dead : “ He has gone to the Light. ”
And the joyous civilisation of Egypt grew yet more joyous, because He had dwelt among them, the embodied Light. The priests whom He had taught handed on His teachings and His secret instructions which they embodied in their Mysteries, and students came from all nations to learn the
THE SECOND SUB-RACE, THE ARABIAN 287
‘ Wisdom of the Egyptians,’ and the fame of the Schools of Egypt went abroad to all lands.
At this time He went over to Arabia, to teach the leaders of the sub-race settled there. Deep was the joy in each as the mighty Brothers clasped hands and smiled into each other’s eyes, and thought, in Their exile, of Their far-off home, of the City of the Bridge and of white Shamballa. For even the Great Ones must be sometimes weary, when They are living in the midst of the littleness of ignorant men.
Thus to the second sub-race came the Supreme Teacher, and gave to them the doctrine of the Inner Light.
To return to the history of the growth of this people in Arabia. In consequence of the opposition raised against the Manu by Alastor in the south, the peninsula of Arabia was divided into two parts, and the Manu’s successors, for many generations, were satisfied to maintain their kingdom without seeking to increase its borders. After some centuries, a more ambitious Ruler succeeded to the throne, and, taking advantage of local dissensions in the south, marched his armies clear down to the ocean, and proclaimed himself Emperor of Arabia. He allowed his new subjects to retain their own religious ideas, and as the new Government was in many ways an improvement over the old, there was no lasting opposition to the conqueror.
A certain fanatical section of the southerners, however, felt it their duty to protest against what they considered the triumph of evil ; and under a prophet of rude and fiery eloquence, they abandoned
288 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
their conquered fatherland and settled as a com- munity on the opposite Somali coast.
There, under the rule of the prophet and his suc¬ cessors, they lived for some centuries, greatly in¬ creasing in numbers, until an event occurred which caused a serious rupture. It was discovered that the ruling prophet of the period, while proclaim¬ ing fanatical purity of race, had himself formed an attachment to a young Negress from the interior. When this came to light there was a great uproar, but the prophet was equal to the occasion, and promulgated as a new revelation the idea that the stern prohibition against intermarriage was in¬ tended only to prevent them from mingling with the new-comers from the north, and did not at all apply to the Negroes, who indeed were to be re¬ garded as slaves, as goods and chattels rather than as wives. This bold pronouncement divided the community; the majority accepted it, at first hesi¬ tatingly and then with enthusiasm, and black ‘ slaves 5 were purchased with avidity. But a fairly large minority rebelled against the revelation, and denounced it as merely a clumsy artifice to shield a licentious priest (as indeed it was) ; and when they saw themselves outvoted they drew apart in horror, and declared that they could no longer dwell amongst heretics who had abandoned all principle. An ambitious preacher, who had always yearned to be a leader, put himself at their head, and they made themselves into a huge caravan and departed in virtuous indignation. They wandered round the shore of the Gulf of Aden and up the coast of the Red Sea, eventually finding their way
THE SECOND SUB-RACE, THE ARABIAN 289
into Egyptian territory. Their curious story happened to take the fancy of the Pharaoh of the period, and he offered them an outlying district of his kingdom if they chose to settle there. They ac¬ cepted, and lived there peacefully enough for cen¬ turies, flourishing under the beneficent Egyptian Government, but never in any way intermingling with its people.
Eventually some Pharaoh made a demand upon them for additional taxation and forced work, which they considered an infringement of their privileges ; so once more they undertook a wholesale migration, and this time settled in Palestine, where we know them as the Jews, still maintaining as strongly as ever the theory that they are a chosen people.
But the majority, left behind in Somaliland, had their adventures also. Now that, owing to the slave- traffic, they became better known to the tribes of the interior, whom they had always previously kept rigidly outside their bounds, the savages realised the wealth to be obtained from robbing the semi-civilised, and the tribes began a series of descents upon the colony, which so harassed its members that, after fight¬ ing them for many years, losing thousands of lives, and finding their territory more and more circum¬ scribed every decade, they too decided to abandon their homes, and migrate once more across the Gulf to the land of their forefathers. They were received in a friendly manner, and were soon absorbed into the general mass of the population. They had called themselves 4 the true Arabs, * though they deserved that title less than any ; and even to-day there is a tradition that the true
38
290 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
Arabs landed at Aden, and slowly spread north¬ wards ; even to-day may be seen among the Hamyaritic Arabs of the southern part of the country the indelible traces of that admixture of negroid blood so many thousands of years ago ; even to-day we may hear a legend that the Mostareb or adscititious Arabs of the northern half went away somehow for a long time into Asia, far away beyond Persia, and then returned, bearing with them many marks of their stay in foreign lands.
The second sub-race grew and increased, flourish¬ ing exceedingly for many thousands of years, and extending its dominion over nearly the whole of Africa, except that part which was in the hands of Egypt. Once, very much later, they invaded Egypt, and for a short time ruled as the Hyksos Kings, but their palmy days were when they ruled the great Algerian island, pushed their way down the east coast to the very Cape of Good Hope itself, and founded a kingdom which included all Matabeleland and the Transvaal and the Lorenzo Marques district.
Our band of pioneers, after several births in Arabia, took part in the building of this South African Empire, and we found Mars there as Monarch, with His faithful Herakles as ruler of a province under him. Sirius was also born in Mashonaland, where he married Alcyone, and among their negro servants we find the faithful hand-maiden of many lives, Boreas. The scenery in Matabeleland was beautiful, and there were valleys full of fine trees, and studded with herds
THE SECOND SUB-RACE, THE ARABIAN 291
of antelopes. Great cities were made of the favourite massive type, and huge Temples, and the civilisation gradually built up was by no means an unworthy one. But the gulf between the two peoples, the native Africans and the Arab con¬ querors, was too wide to be spanned, and the Africans remained labourers and domestic servants, kept entirely in subjection.
The Arabs, made settlements also on the West Coast of Africa, but there they came into collision with men from Poseidonis, and were in the end entirely driven back. Madagascar was invaded, the southern Empire trying to occupy it, but it suc¬ ceeded only in maintaining for a time settlements on different parts of the coast.
When the great Sumero-Akkad Empire of Persia, Mesopotamia and Turkestan finally broke up into small States and disorder, an Arab monarch conceived the bold idea of reuniting it under his own leadership. He led his armies against it, and, after twenty years of strenuous fighting, made him¬ self master of the plains of Mesopotamia and of almost the whole of Persia, up to the great salt lake of Khorasan, where the desert now is. But he could not conquer Kurdistan, nor could he subdue the mountain tribes who harassed his armies on their way. Then he died, and his son wisely set himself to consolidate rather than to extend his Empire. It held together well for some centuries, and might have endured much longer, but for the fact that dynastic troubles broke out in Arabia itself, and the governor of Persia, a cousin of the Arab King, seized the op¬ portunity to proclaim himself independent. The Arab
292 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
dynasty which he thus founded lasted two hundred years, but amidst incessant warfare : then again came a period of upheaval and of small tribes, and frequent raids from the savage Central Asian nomads, who play so prominent a part in the history of that region. One Arab King was tempted by reports which reached him of the fabulous wealth of India to send a fleet across to attack it ; but that was a failure, for his fleet was promptly destroyed and his men killed or taken prisoners.
After the final collapse of the Arabian Empire of Persia and Chaldasa, there were centuries of anarchy and bloodshed, and the countries were be¬ coming almost depopulated ; so the Manu at last determined to come to their rescue, and sent forth to them His third sub-race, which established the great Persian Empire of the Iranians.
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