CHAPTER XXI

THE ROOT-STOCK AND ITS DESCENT
INTO INDIA
We have traced, roughly and in broad outlines, the migration out of Central Asia of the second, third, fourth and fifth sub-races of the Aryan Root- stock. We have seen its magnificent civilisation, and the vast extent of its Empire, and that from B. C. 40,000 onwards it had been slowly declining. From B. C. 40,000 to B. C. 20,000, the chief work of Vaivasvafa Manu lay with His sub-races, and He and His immediate group, during these twenty thousand years, had been incarnating in the special districts set apart for the preparation of those sub-races. The original Empire, having long passed its prime, had been wearing away, as do all human institu¬ tions, while its sub-races were going out to play their appointed parts, and the process of disintegra¬ tion had already gone far. The Mongolian and Turanian races, over whom it had so long ruled, had asserted their independence, and the Kingdom centring round the City of the Bridge was now but a small one. The people built no more — they lived in the ruins of the great work of their fore¬ fathers. The egos showing genius and straining after high education were incarnating in the great
DESCENT OF ROOT-STOCK INTO INDIA 325
daughter civilisations, so in the Mother State the level of learning steadily sank. Trade had fallen almost to zero, and the people were becoming agri¬ cultural and pastoral only. The central Kingdom still held together, but outlying districts had broken off and become independent.
But now, B. C. 18,800, the toilsome work of building up and sending out the sub-races was, for the time, over. The Manu had managed all His migrations, and seen His sub-races definitely estab¬ lished, and He now turned His attention once more to the Root Race, because He wished to get it away by degrees from its ancestral home, and to establish it in India, the land chosen for its further evolution. In India the splendid Atlan- tean civilisation had developed from the time that huge Atlantean hosts, pouring through the Hima¬ layan passes, after the land was sufficiently dry for settlement, had occupied the country ; before that, a vast Atlantean Kingdom had existed in the far south, and had spread to the ocean which, be¬ fore the catastrophe of B. C. 75,025, bounded it on the north. This civilisation, over-luxurious, had now become effete, and the higher classes, belong¬ ing to the Toltec sub-race, were indolent and self- seeking ; much, however, remained of a noble literature, and there was a great tradition of occult knowledge, both of which were needed for the work of the future and therefore had to be preserved. The warrior spirit had largely died out, and the wealth of the country, enormously and lavishly displayed, invited conquest from a more virile people, who should inherit and carry on all that deserved perpetuation.
326 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
The entire removal of the Race from its Central Asian Home was necessary so that (1) Shamballa should be left in the required solitude; the work carried on in close contact with the outer world was finished for the time, and the Race must be left to grow without external supervision ; (2) India should be Aryanised ; (3) the Race should be out of the way before the coming cataclysm, as the Central Asian region would be much altered.
The Manu had not incarnated in the Root Race since He led away the fourth and fifth sub-races, that is for about one thousand two hundred years; for, as said above, we are now at B. C. 18,800. He had therefore become rather a myth in Central Asia, and there had been differences of opinion, a few centuries earlier, as to whether His rules as to intermarriage still held good. Some held that they were obsolete, their object having been obtained, and some families had married into those of some of the Tartar rulers. A schism had thus occurred, and those who favoured the new departure had left the Kingdom and set themselves up as a separate community. They went no further, however, along the road of intermarriage, and it may be opined that the few outside marriages which had occurred had been brought about in order to gain a slight, but necessary, infusion of other blood, and perhaps also to cause the desired separation. The disappear¬ ance of the original cause of disunion did not draw the communities nearer together, and, indeed, they became more hostile as centuries went by, and the increasing numbers in the Central Kingdom pressed the seceders further and further back into the
DESCENT OF ROOT-STOCK INTO INDIA 327
valleys of the northern hills. Mars, at the date mentioned above, was King of one of the tribes of the seceders, who were suffering much from the incursions of the larger nation ; continual fighting barely enabled his tribe to hold its own, and its eventual destruction was certain ; his teacher, Jupiter, advised him not to fight, but this did not help him, and he thought and prayed desperately to find a way of safety for his people, so brave, so loyal, but so hopelessly over-matched.
Then, in the crisis of his perplexity, the Manu appeared to him in a dream, and bade him lead his tribe westward and southward — the vanguard of the greatest migration that had ever occurred — into the sacred land of India, which was assigned to the Race as dwelling. He was told to fight as little as he could on his way to his future home, to attack none who would let him pass in peace, and to press on to the southern extremity of India. In the future all the Race would follow, and in the coming migrations he would frequently take part ; and at a future time he and his wife Mercury would do such work as He, the Manu, was then doing.
Thus encouraged, and full of joy, Mars set to work to prepare, telling his people of his dream, and bidding them get ready for the march. Nearly all believed him, but our old Arabian friend, Alastor, had turned up again, and he headed a small party who refused to follow Mars, saying that he was not going to leave the old land and the old teachings because of the hysterical dream of an overwrought and despairing man. So he
328 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
stayed behind, betrayed the route of his people to their enemies, and was put to death after the failure of the pursuing expedition.
Mars started in B. C. 18,87s1 and followed the appointed road, and after many hardships and not a little fighting — for though he never attacked, he was frequently assailed — he reached the great plains of India, and for a while enjoyed the hospitality of his comrade in many lives, Viraj, who was ruling as King Podishpar over the greater part of northern India. The alliance was cemented by the marriage of Corona, the son of Podishpar, to Brhaspati, a daughter of Mars and the widow of Vulcan, who
had been killed in a battle during the journey.
Southern India was then a large Kingdom under King Huyaranda, or Lahira — our Saturn — the High Priest of the Kingdom being our Surya, under
the name Byarsha, and the Deputy High Priest
being Osiris. Surya had told Saturn that the strangers were coming at the command of the Gods, some years before their arrival, so that the King sent the Crown Prince, Crux, to meet them, and gave them welcome, settling them in his land. Later, Surya declared that “ the high-nosed strangers from the north ” were fitted to be priests, and that they should hold the priestly office hereditarily ; those who agreed to this became priests, and were the ancestors of the Brahmanas of Southern India, abstaining from intermarriage with the earlier in¬ habitants, and living as a separate class.
Others intermarried with the Toltec aristocracy, thus gradually Aryanising the whole upper classes
1 See Appendix X.
DESCENT OF ROOT-STOCK INTO INDIA 329
of the country, and the south of India passed peacefully under Aryan rule ; for Crux, who suc¬ ceeded Saturn, died without issue, and Herakles, the second son of Mars, was elected by the people to the vacant throne, establishing an Aryan dynasty. From this migration forward, all the immigrants into India are spoken of as the e first sub-race, ’ since the whole Root Race, the ancient stock, pass¬ ed over into India. Births into this are reckoned as births into the first sub-race, whether taking place in India itself or in the countries colonised and Aryanised by it.
We find a number of old friends in this migration, in addition to those already named ; Mars’ eldest son was Uranus, who became a hermit in the Nilghiris, and his third son was Alcyone, who became Deputy High Priest on the resignation — due to old age — of Osiris. His second daughter was Demeter.1 A curious instance of bringing friends in from abroad was the arrival of a young Mongoliaa chieftain, Taurus, who fled from his elder brother’s anger, and took refuge with Mars in his Central Asian Kingdom ; he brought Procyon with him as his wife, and Cygnus, whom he married to Aries, was one of his daughters.
From the South Indian Aryan Kingdom went out, about B. C. 13,500, an important mission ta Egypt ; the order came from the Head of the Hierarchy through the Manu, and the expedition travelled via Ceylon, by water up the Red Sea, then hardly more than an inlet. It was not in¬ tended to colonise, since Egypt was already a
1 See Appendix X.
43
330
MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
mighty Empire, but rather to settle there under the Egyptian Government, a great and beneficent, as well as highly civilised, power.
Mars was at the head of the expedition, and Surya was a High Priest in Egypt as he had been in southern India nearly three thousand years be¬ fore ; as then, he smoothed the way for the coming Aryans, and he told the Pharaoh of their approach, and advised him to welcome them. His advice was taken, and a little later he counselled the Pharaoh to marry his daughter to Mars, and to name the latter his successor. This was duly done, and thus peaceably but effectively was an Aryan dynasty established in Egypt at the death of the ruling Pharaoh. It reigned gloriously for many thousand years, until the sinking of Poseidonis, when it, with the Egyptian people, was driven to the hills by the flooding of Egypt. The flood, however, re¬ treated comparatively soon, and the country re¬ covered ere long. Manetho’s history apparently deals with this Aryan dynasty ; he makes Unas — whose date is given as B. C. 3,900, while we make it 4,030 B. C. — the last King of the Fifth dynasty. The Arab Hyksos Kings are put at B. C. 1,500. Under the Aryan Pharaohs the great Schools of Egypt became even more famous, and for long it led the learning of the western world.
It was the second mighty Empire of the first sub-race, if we count the Empire of the Root Race as the first. From Egypt was introduced Aryan blood into several East African tribes ; it would seem as though a low type of body were sometimes required for little-advanced egos, who had gone through many
DESCENT OF ROOT-STOCK INTO INDIA 331
previous sub-races without making much progress, and were thrown into contact with a higher race in order to force them forward. Some of the lowest types of dwellers in the slums of civilised fourth and fifth Aryan sub-races are obviously less advanced than Zulus. On the other hand, a touch of Aryan blood in an uncivilised tribe would give certain characteristics required for its improvement.
The South Indian Kingdom was used by the Manu as a subsidiary centre of radiation on other occasions than this of the Aryanising of Egypt. He sent out from it colonists to Java, to Australia and to the islands of Polynesia, which accounts for the Aryan strain to be observed even to-day in what are called the brown Polynesians, in contradistinction to the Melanesians.
While these arrangements were being carried out in the south of India, the Manu still worked at the gradual transportation of His Race from Central Asia into the northern parts of India. One of the early immigrations settled itself in the Panjab, and after much fighting made terms of peace with the inhabitants, partly plundering and partly defending them. Another, turning eastwards, had established itself in Assam and northern BengaL The expedition immediately preceding one on which we may pause for a few minutes had taken place about B. C. 17,520 ; part of it reached its destina¬ tion safely by the route followed by Mars, more than a thousand years before, while a smaller division, seeking to penetrate through what is now called the Khyber Pass, was annihilated. In B. C. 17,455 a third 1 was sent out, led by Mars, the eldest son 1 See Appendix XI.
332 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
of the reigning Monarch of the central Kingdom, Jupiter : Jupiter had Saturn as his wife, and Mercury as his sister. Mars had chosen the members of his expedition with great care, selecting the strongest and most vigorous men and women whom he could find ; among them were Psyche and his wife Arcturus, with three sons, Alcyone, Albireo and Leto. Capella and his wife Judex were chosen. Vulcan, a great captain, was the warrior most relied on by Mars, and he, with Vajra as a subordinate, led one wing of the expedition, while Mars headed the other.
The two wings of the expedition met, as was planned, and they settled the women and children in a strongly entrenched camp, between what are now Jammu and Gujranwala, themselves pressing on to the place where Delhi now stands, where they built the first city on that imperial site, and named it Ravipur, City of the Sun. On their way they had a skirmish with a powerful Chief, Castor, but succeeded in passing on, and when the new city was ready the women and children and their guards were brought to it, and the first life of Delhi, as a capital, began. Mars left his kingdom to his eldest son Herakles, who was much aided by Alcyone, nine years his senior and his dearest friend.
One of the hugest emigrations from the central Kingdom took place B. C. 15,950, three great armies being formed with Mars as Commander-in-Chief ; the command of the right wing was given to Corona, who was to pass through Kashmir, the Panjab, and the provinces now called the United, to Bengal ;
DESCENT OF ROOT-STOCK INTO INDIA 333
the left wing was to cross Tibet to Bhutan and thence to Bengal ; the centre under Mars, with Mercury as second in command, was to cross Tibet to Nepal, and so onwards to the general meeting- place, Bengal — which was to be their home. Corona, however, spent his time for forty years in making a Kingdom for himself, and did not reach Bengal till Mars, long ruling there, was an old man. Vulcan had joined Mars, and finally had establish¬ ed himself in Assam. Mars himself, with the help of Vulcan, had subdued Bengal, and, after desperate fighting, Orissa, and had finally fixed his capital in Central Bengal ; when an old man, he placed his eldest son, Jupiter, on his throne and retired from the world.
The great importance of this far-reaching immi¬ gration is marked by the fact that ten who are now Masters took part in it: Mars, Mercury, Vulcan, Jupiter, Brhaspafi, Osiris, Uranus, Saturn, Neptune, Viraj. Of others, bearing familiar names, the gathering was also large.1
From this time onwards there were constant descents into India from Central Asia, sometimes mere bands, sometimes considerable armies, the older settlers often resisting the new, the new plunder¬ ing the old. Wave after wave rolled in during thousands of years, and some of the more thought¬ ful of the Aryans studied the philosophy of the Toltecs, whom they sometimes called the Nagas. The lower classes of the Atlantean population, mostly the brown Tlavatli, they termed Dasyas, while the
1 See Appendix XII. For a graphic account of it, see the tenth life in The Lives of Alcyone .
334
MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
black people of Lemurian descent, whom they regard¬ ed with horror, they called Daityas and Jakshaks.
There were some intermarriages between the more liberal Aryans and the Toltecs, and we found Alcyone, about B. C. 12,850, much attached to Psyche, the son of Orpheus, an Atlantean dignitary, and marrying the latter’s daughter, Mizar, though his own father, Algol, was a fanatical Aryan, hating the Atlanteans and their civilisation. While, under these circumstances, he and his young wife became fugitives, yet an Aryan leader, Vesta, head of an invading band, gave them shelter, and a relative of his, Draco, with his wife Cassiopeia, members of a band settled longer in India, helped them to the possession of an estate, where he was on very friendly terms with Aletheia, a rich Atlantean. It was evident, therefore, that in some cases, at least, friendly relations existed between the races, and these were not disturbed by the irrup¬ tion of a large host of Aryans, once more under Mars, who passed through the neighbourhood on his way to carve himself out an Empire in Central India.1
By these constant migrations the Central Asian Kingdom was drained of its inhabitants by about 9,700 B.C. The convulsions attending the catastrophe of B. C. 9,564 shattered the City of the Bridge into ruins, and wrought the destruction of most of the great Temples on the White Island. The latest bands did not reach India easily ; they were delay¬ ed in Afghanistan and Baluchistan for some two
\
thousand years, and many were massacred by Mongol
1 See Appendix XIII.
DESCENT OF ROOT-STOCK INTO INDIA 335
raiders; the rest slowly found their way down to the plains, already thickly populated.
When His people were thus finally conveyed into India, a danger arose that the Aryan blood might become a mere trace amidst the enormous majority of the Atlanteans and Atlanto-Lemurians, so the Manu again forbade inter-marriage, and about B. C. 8,000 ordained the caste system, in order that no further admixture might be made, and that those already made might be perpetuated. He founded at first only three castes — Brahmapa, Rajan and Vish. The first were pure Aryans, the second Aryan and Toltec, the third Aryan and Mongolian.
The castes were hence called the Varpas, or colours, the pure Aryans white, the Aryan and Toltec intermixture red, and the Aryan and Mongolian yellow. The castes were allowed to intermarry among themselves, but a feeling quickly grew up that marriages should be restricted within the caste. Later, those who were not Aryan at all were included under the general appellation of Shudras, but even here in many cases a certain small amount of Aryan blood may appear. Many of the hill tribes are partly Aryan — some few are wholly so, like the Siaposh people and the Gipsy tribes.
During the emigrations into India, one tribe had gone off in a direction different from that of the others, and had contrived to establish itself in a valley in the Susamir district. There, forgotten by the rest of the world, it enjoyed its primitive pastoral life for many centuries. About 2,200 B. C., there arose a great military leader amongst the
336 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
Mongol tribes, and they devastated all of Asia that they could reach, utterly destroying, among others, the remnants of the Persian Empire. The Tartar leader was finally overthrown, and his hordes scattered, but he had left utter desolation behind him. Somehow in a hundred years or so, news of a fertile but unoccupied land reached our Aryans in their valley ; they sent out spies to report, and when the story was confirmed, they migrated bodily into Persia. These were the speakers of Zend, and their late arrival accounts for the curiously unsettled state of the country even in the time of the last Zoroaster. Such remnants of the third sub-race as had been only driven from their homes, and had escaped the general massacre, came back and made common cause with our tribe, and from these beginnings gradually developed the latest Persian Empire.
MAN:
WHITHER
*
FOREWORD
The following pages are an attempt to sketch the early beginnings of the sixth Root Race, compar¬ able to the early stage of the fifth Root Race in Arabia. Ere the sixth Race comes to its own, and takes possession of its continent, now rising slowly, fragment after fragment, in the Pacific, many, many, thousands of years will have rolled away. North America will have been shattered into pieces, and the western strip on which the first Colony will be settled will have become an easternmost strip of the new continent.
While this little Colony is working at the embryonic stage, the fifth Race will be at its zenith, and all the pomp and glory of the world will be concentrated therein. The colony will be a very poor thing in the eyes of the world, a gathering of cranks, slavishly devoted to their Leader.
This sketch is reprinted from The Theosophist , and is wholly the work of my colleague.
A. B.
.
.
*
Vj
• ’• , ■
.
.
t f,
.
■ "f*
...
: 1 '
-