Geographically, then, Pushkara is America, Northern and Southern; and allegorically it is the prolongation of Jambu-dvîpa,[950] in the middle of which stands Meru, for it is the country inhabited by beings who [pg 422] live ten thousand years, who are free from sickness or failing; where there is neither virtue nor vice, caste or laws, for these men are “of the same nature as the Gods.”[951] Wilford is inclined to see Meru in Mount Atlas, and locates there also the Lokâloka. Now Meru, we are told, which is the Svar-loka, the abode of Brahmâ, of Vishnu, and the Olympus of Indian exoteric religions, is described geographically as “passing through the middle of the earth-globe, and protruding on either side.”[952] On its upper station are the Gods, at the nether, or South Pole, is the abode of Demons (Hells). How then can Meru be Mount Atlas? Besides which, Târadaitya, a Demon, cannot be placed on the seventh zone if the latter be identified with the White Island, which is Shveta-dvîpa, for reasons given in the foot-note above.
Wilford accuses the modern Brâhmans “of having jumbled them [islands and countries] all together”; but it is he who has jumbled them still more. He believes that as the Brahmânda and Vâyu Purânas divide the old Continent into seven Dvîpas, said to be surrounded by a vast ocean, beyond which lie the regions and mountains of Atala, hence:
Most probably the Greeks derived their notion of the celebrated Atlantis, which, as it could not be found after having once been discovered, they conceived to have been destroyed by some shock of nature.[953]
As we find certain difficulties in believing that the Egyptian priests, Plato, and even Homer, all built their notions of Atlantis on Atala—a nether region located at the Southern Pole—we prefer holding to the statements given in the Secret Books. We believe in the seven Continents, four of which have already lived their day, the fifth still exists, and two are to appear in the future. We believe that each of these is not strictly a continent in the modern sense of the word, but that each name, from Jambu down to Pushkara,[954] refers to the geographical names given (i) to the dry lands covering the face of the whole Earth during the period of a Root-Race, in general; (ii) to what remained of these after a geological Race Pralaya, as Jambu, for instance; and (iii) to those localities which will enter, after future cataclysms, into the formation of new universal Continents, Peninsulas, or Dvîpas[955]—each Continent being, in one sense, a greater or smaller region of dry land [pg 423] surrounded with water. Thus, that whatever “jumble” the nomenclature of these may represent to the profane, there is none, in fact, to him who has the key.
Thus, we believe we know that, though two of the Paurânic Islands—the Sixth and Seventh Continents—are yet to come, nevertheless there were, or there are, lands which will enter into the composition of the future dry lands, of new Earths whose geographical faces will be entirely changed, as were those of the past. Therefore we find in the Purânas that Shâka-dvîpa is (or will be) a Continent, and that Shankha-dvîpa, as shown in the Vâyu Purâna, is only “a minor island,” one of the nine divisions (to which Vâyu adds six more) of Bhârata-varsha. Because Shankha-dvîpa was peopled by “Mlechchhas [unclean foreigners], who worshipped Hindû divinities,” therefore they were connected with India.[956] This accounts for Shankhâsura, a King of a portion of Shankha-dvîpa, who was killed by Krishna; that King who resided in the palace “which was an ocean shell, and whose subjects lived in shells also,” says Wilford.
On the banks of the Nîlâ[957] there were frequent contests between the Devatâs [Divine Beings, Demi-gods] and the Daityas [Giants]: but the latter tribe having prevailed, their king and leader, Shankhâsura, who resided in the ocean, made frequent incursions ... in the night.[958]
It is not on the banks of the Nile, as Wilford supposes, but on the coasts of Western Africa, South of where now lies Morocco, that these battles took place. There was a time when the whole of the Sahara Desert was a sea, then a continent as fertile as the Delta, and then, only after another temporary submersion, it became a desert similar to that other wilderness, the Desert of Shamo or Gobi. This is shown in Paurânic tradition, for on the same page as above cited, it is said:
The people were between two fires; for, while Shankhâsura was ravaging one side of the continent, Cracacha [or Krauncha], king of Crauncha-dwîp [Krauncha-dvîpa], used to desolate the other: both armies ... thus changed the most fertile of regions into a barren desert.
That not only the last island of Atlantis, spoken of by Plato, but a large Continent, first divided, and then broken later on into seven peninsulas and islands (called Dvîpas), preceded Europe, is sure. It covered the whole of the North and South Atlantic regions, as well as [pg 424] portions of the North and South Pacific, and had islands even in the Indian Ocean (relics of Lemuria). The claim is corroborated by Indian Purânas, Greek writers, and Asiatic, Persian, and Mahommedan traditions. Wilford, who sorely confuses the Hindû and the Mussulman legends, shows this, however, clearly.[959] His facts and quotations from the Purânas give direct and conclusive evidence that the Âryan Hindûs and other ancient nations were earlier navigators than the Phœnicians, who are now credited with having been the first seamen that appeared in the post-diluvian times. This is what we read in the Asiatick Researches:
In this distress the few natives, who survived [in the war between Devatâs and Daityas] raised their hands and hearts to Bhagavân, and exclaimed, “Let him that can deliver us ... be our king”; using the word Ît magic term not understood by Wilford, evidently] which reëchoed through the whole country.[960]