The “Island,” according to belief, exists to the present hour, as an oasis surrounded by the dreadful wildernesses of the great Gobi Desert—whose sands “no foot hath crossed in the memory of man.”
This word, which is no word, has travelled once round the globe, and still lingers as a far-off dying echo in the hearts of some privileged men. The hierophants of all the Sacerdotal Colleges were aware of the existence of this island; but the “word” was known only to the Java Aleim (Mahâ Chohan in another tongue), or chief Lord of every College, and was passed to his successor only at the moment of death. There were many such Colleges, and the old classical authors speak of them.
There was no communication with the fair island by sea, but subterranean passages, known only to the chiefs, communicated with it in all directions.[510]
Tradition asserts, and Archæology accepts the truth of the legend, that there is more than one city now flourishing in India, which is built on several other cities, making thus a subterranean city of six or seven stories high. Delhi is one of them, Allahabad another; examples being found even in Europe, e.g., in Florence, which is built on several defunct Etruscan and other cities. Why, then, could not Ellora, Elephanta, Karli, and Ajunta have been built over subterranean labyrinths and passages, as it is claimed? Of course we do not allude to the caves which are known to every European, whether de visu or by hearsay, notwithstanding their enormous antiquity, though that even is disputed by modern Archæology; but to a fact, known to the initiated Brâhmans of India and especially to Yogîs, viz., that there is not a cave-temple in the country but has its subterranean passages running in every direction, and that these underground caves and endless corridors have in their turn their caves and corridors.
Who can tell whether the lost Atlantis—which is also mentioned in the Secret Book, but, again, under another name, peculiar to the sacred language—did not still exist in those days?—
we went on to ask. It did exist most assuredly, for it was approaching its greatest days of glory and civilization when the last of the Lemurian continents went down.
The great lost Continent might have, perhaps, been situated south of Asia, extending from India to Tasmania.[511] If the hypothesis—now so much doubted, [pg 232]and positively denied by some learned authors, who regard it as a joke of Plato—is ever verified, then, perhaps, will the Scientists believe that the description of the God-inhabited continent was not altogether a fable.[512] And they may then perceive that Plato's guarded hints and his attributing the narrative to Solon and the Egyptian priests, were but a prudent way of imparting the fact to the world, and at the same time, by cleverly combining truth and fiction, of disconnecting himself from a story which the obligations imposed at Initiation forbade him to divulge.
To continue the tradition, we have to add that the class of hierophants was divided into two distinct categories;[513] those who were instructed by the “Sons of God” of the island, and who were initiated in the divine doctrine of pure revelation; and others who inhabited the lost Atlantis—if such must be its name—and who, being of another race (produced sexually but of divine parents), were born with a sight which embraced all hidden things, and was independent of both distance and material obstacle. In short, they were the Fourth Race of men mentioned in the Popol Vuh, whose sight was unlimited, and who knew all things at once.
In other words, they were the Lemuro-Atlanteans, the first who had a Dynasty of Spirit-Kings; not of Manes, or “Ghosts,” as some believe,[514] but of actual living Devas, or Demi-gods or Angels, again, who had assumed bodies to rule over this Race, and who, in their turn, instructed them in arts and sciences. Only, as these Dhyânîs were Rûpa or material Spirits, they were not always good. Their King Thevetat was one of the latter, and it is under the evil influence of this King-Demon that the Atlantis-Race became a nation of wicked “magicians.”
In consequence of this, war was declared, the story of which would be too long to narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured allegories of the race of Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his righteous family. The conflict came to an end by the submersion of Atlantis, which finds its imitation in the stories of the Babylonian and Mosaic flood. The giants and magicians “and all flesh died ... and every man.” All except Xisuthrus and Noah, who are substantially identical with the great Father of the Thlinkithians,[515] who, they say, also escaped in a large boat like the Hindû Noah Vaivasvata.