The great battle, leading to the main destruction of Atlantis – or the continent now referred to by that name but which did not call itself “Atlantis” – occurred around 850,000 years ago according to H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters in “The Secret Doctrine.” The same book repeats, however, that the real exact dates and figures are not permitted to be made public, so 850,000 may not be as accurate as we might like but still, it was a very very long time ago. That was the last large island of Atlantis, which is sometimes called Ruta in “The Secret Doctrine.” Then, around 270,000 years ago, a smaller Atlantean island (Daitya) was submerged. (See “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 650-651) Just as “Atlantis” was not the actual name of that continent, so “Ruta” and “Daitya” may not have been the actual names of two of its islands but are names found in the Hindu scriptures known as the Puranas.

The Atlantis that Plato famously speaks of was only the very last surviving island, a small remnant which held on until as recently as 11,500 years ago and then met the same watery fate as its original parent continent. Its end therefore more or less coincided with the end of the last great glacial period, often spoken of – although not entirely accurately – as the end of the Ice Age.

But in “The Secret Doctrine” we read things such as, “No one can fail to recognize the Atlanteans of the Secret Doctrine in the Rakshasas of Lanka – the opponents conquered by Rama,” (Vol. 2, p. 276) and HPB also quotes Wilson, the respected Orientalist of that time, as saying “The traditions of Southern India uniformly [ascribe] its civilization and the settlement of civilized Hindus (the Fifth Race – HPB) to the conquest of Lanka by Rama” and then she adds “the victory of the “Sons of God” over the Atlantean sorcerers, says the true tradition.” (Vol. 2, p. 224)

Yet Sri Lanka is in the Indian Ocean and one might wonder how this connects with Atlantis, which we’re used to thinking of as being the continent which once occupied the Atlantic Ocean, hence the name.

This is clarified elsewhere in Vol. 2, where it says:

“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 dwipas), preceded Europe, is sure. It covered the whole of the North and South Atlantic regions, as well as portions of the North and South Pacific, and had islands even in the Indian Ocean (relics of Lemuria). The claim is corroborated by Indian Puranas, Greek writers, and Asiatic, Persian, and Mahommedan traditions.” (p. 405)

So there “The Secret Doctrine” is expressly stating the main locations of Atlantis as:

* The North Atlantic

* The South Atlantic

* The North Pacific

* The South Pacific

* The Indian Ocean

So we shouldn’t think of what we call “Atlantis” as having just been in one place for in actuality it was in many places . . . and the Atlanteans also colonised various places; the Greek island of Crete is named by the Masters (“Five Years of Theosophy” p. 334) as having been an Atlantean colony, as also are the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

Also, Lemuria (which was also not that continent’s actual name) is the still more ancient continent, which we generally describe as having occupied the Pacific Ocean. But to be more precise, “the Lemuria, which served as the cradle of the Third Root-Race, not only embraced a vast area in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but extended in the shape of a horse-shoe past Madagascar, round “South Africa” (then a mere fragment in process of formation), through the Atlantic up to Norway.” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 333) Lemuria was “that continent of which Asia was a kind of broken prolongation, and which stretched up to the Polar regions.” (Vol. 2, p. 769) 

It is perhaps also worth mentioning, for sake of clarity, that Africa as a continent – i.e. Africa as a whole – was not part of either Lemuria or Atlantis. As the large land mass it is today, Africa is younger than both “Lemuria” and “Atlantis.” This is elaborated on several times in “The Secret Doctrine,” a few such references being Vol. 2, p. 263, 264, 368.

One may naturally ask, “If “Atlantis” was not the real name of that land, what was its real name? What was it called by those Fourth Race giants we refer to as the Atlanteans?”

H. P. Blavatsky does not give the answer to that but she does say this much about it:

“As shown in the Introduction, it stands to reason that neither the name of Lemuria nor even Atlantis are the real archaic names of the lost continents, but have been adopted by us for the sake of clearness. . . . Most of the correct names of the countries and islands of both continents are given in the Puranas; but to mention them specially, as found in other more ancient works, such as the Surya Siddhanta, would necessitate too lengthy explanations.” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 323-324)

~ BlavatskyTheosophy.com ~