“One may even say that Asia is contemporary with man, since from the very beginnings of human life its root-continent, so to speak, already existed; that part of the world now known as Asia being only cut off from it in a later age, and divided by the glacial waters.”
(H. P. Blavatsky, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 401)

Depending on who you ask, you may receive slightly different answers as to which countries constitute or are included in the umbrella term “Central Asia.” It appears that its usage in the Theosophical literature definitely includes such areas as are now Tibet, Mongolia, China, and Siberia (the Asian part of Russia and which is also by far the largest area of that country), and – considering their proximity to these – it almost definitely includes a few other countries, such as, perhaps, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.

The now defunct term “Tartary” occasionally appears in the original Theosophical literature from the time of H. P. Blavatsky. Even in her day it had become an almost entirely obsolete term; she usually used it when quoting and paraphrasing the words of the 18th century Swedish seer, clairvoyant, and mystic philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg, as will be seen in the first section of this article. “Tartary” was originally coined by Europeans several centuries ago as a convenient blanket term for the entirety of Central Asia, since at that time Westerners had barely any definite knowledge of the many nations, peoples, and cultures contained in it. Later, more specific terms were developed, such as “Great Tartary,” which applied solely to Siberia, “Chinese Tartary,” and so on. We mention all this merely so that some of the following passages will make more sense and their significance be more clearly perceived.

We will see over the course of this article that humanity’s most ancient past, far distant future and destiny, as well as its present, is inextricably linked and tied up with Central Asia. As will be brought to light, one cannot even talk in any depth or detail about the Theosophical concept of “Root Races” – which refer to seven vast successive epochs of human evolutionary development, rather than being a classification wholly applicable to or synonymous with today’s vast array of races and ethnicities – without speaking of the role played by Central Asia.

Its importance is of such a special character or nature that we have called it “the occult importance” but words such as “occult,” “occultism,” and “occultist,” simply and literally mean and relate to “that which is hidden, unseen, or unsuspected.” It was only in the 20th century and largely at the instigation of the Christian Church that these terms became associated in many people’s minds with ideas of witchcraft, black magic, or “the dark arts.” In themselves, the terms are neutral and innocent. All depends on what use and to what motive the hidden knowledge and hidden forces of the Cosmos, Earth, and man, are applied. According to Those who Theosophists call the “Masters of Wisdom” – that hidden esoteric Brotherhood here on Earth, which guides and watches over the spiritual evolution and advancement of humanity – such knowledge and powers should only ever be applied selflessly, ethically, altruistically, and compassionately, for the good and benefit of all. Helena Blavatsky, as the specially prepared and initiated emissary or public representative of those Masters, declared that “In its practical bearing, Theosophy is purely divine ethics.” (“The Theosophical Glossary” p. 328, Entry for “Theosophia”)

~ * ~

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG (1688-1772) ON SEEKING IN CENTRAL ASIA FOR THE “LOST WORD”

“Swedenborg, the Northern seer, advised his followers to search for the LOST WORD, among the hierophants of Tartary, Tibet and China.” (HPB, “Lamas and Druses”)

“While the Southern Buddhists [i.e. adherents of Theravada Buddhism] have no idea of the existence of an Esoteric Doctrine – enshrined like a pearl within the shell of every religion – the Chinese and the Tibetans have preserved numerous records of the fact. Degenerate, fallen as is now the Doctrine publicly preached by Gautama, it is yet preserved in those monasteries in China that are placed beyond the reach of visitors. And though for over two millennia every new “reformer,” taking something out of the original, has replaced it by some speculation of his own, still truth lingers even now among the masses. But it is only in the Trans-Himalayan fastnesses – loosely called Tibet [i.e. “loosely called” because although the Trans-Himalayan region is, as the name means, “beyond the Himalayas” from the perspective of one looking from India, it still precedes the actual land of Tibet. Tibet is just beyond the Trans-Himalayan region; parts of the latter, which includes areas such as Ladakh and Lahaul–Spiti, were known in HPB’s time, however, as “Little Tibet.”] – in the most inaccessible spots of desert and mountain, that the Esoteric “Good Law” – the “Heart’s Seal” – lives to the present day in all its pristine purity. 

“Was Emanuel Swedenborg wrong when he remarked of the forgotten, long-lost Word: 

“Seek for it in China; peradventure you may find it in Great Tartary.”

“He had obtained this information, he tells his readers, from certain “Spirits,” who told him that they performed their worship according to this (lost) ancient Word. On this it was remarked in Isis Unveiled that “Other students of occult Sciences have had more than the word of “certain spirits” to rely upon in this special case – they have seen the books” that contain the “Word.” Perchance the names of those “Spirits” who visited the great Swedish Theosophist were Eastern [i.e. a subtle suggestion that perhaps it was some of the Eastern or Trans-Himalayan Adepts]. The word of a man of such undeniable and recognised integrity, of one whose learning in Mathematics, Astronomy, the natural Sciences and Philosophy was far in advance of his age, cannot be trifled with or rejected as unceremoniously as if it were the statement of a modern Theosophist; further, he claimed to pass at will into that state when the Inner Self frees itself entirely from every physical sense, and lives and breathes in a world where every secret of Nature is an open book to the Soul-eye. . . . Unless one obtains exact information and the right method, one’s visions, however correct and true in Soul-life, will ever fail to get photographed in our human memory, and certain cells of the brain are sure to play havoc with our remembrances. . . . Unfortunately two-thirds of his public writings are also allegorical in one sense; and, as they have been accepted literally, criticism has not spared the great Swedish Seer any more than other Seers.” (HPB, “The Doctrine of the Eye & The Doctrine of the Heart, or The Heart’s Seal”)

“No human-born doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and antiquity, can compare in sacredness with the religion of Nature. The Key of Wisdom that unlocks the massive gates leading to the arcana of the innermost sanctuaries can be found hidden in her bosom only: and that bosom is in the countries pointed to by the great seer of the past century Emanuel Swedenborg [i.e. Tartary, Tibet, and China, as mentioned above and in fact mentioned numerous times throughout HPB’s and her Adept-Teachers’ writings]. There lies the heart of nature, that shrine whence issued the early races of primeval Humanity, and which is the cradle of physical man.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 797)

[Note: The above passage has the distinction and significance of being the penultimate paragraph of the entire two volume book “The Secret Doctrine.” It is closely linked with words which HPB would soon afterwards translate from The Book of The Golden Precepts in “The Voice of The Silence”: “Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one of her creators and make obeisance. And she will open wide before thee the portals of her secret chambers, lay bare before thy gaze the treasures hidden in the very depths of her pure virgin bosom.” (p. 14, original edition) Those beautifully poetic words do of course refer also to gaining metaphysical perception and vision of Nature – a term which in Theosophy refers to the entirety of the manifested Universe, on all its various planes – but the “pure virgin bosom” of Nature, “the heart of Nature,” can also refer to an actual place here on this Earth, in a specific part of the Earth and no other, namely Central Asia. But travelling the length and breadth of Central Asia is no guarantee that one will find the “Key of Wisdom” spoken of. As the Master K.H. of the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood, Trans-Himalayan Lodge, or Trans-Himalayan Esoteric School, once wrote to A. P. Sinnett, those who the Adepts do not consider fit to meet Them will not find Them even if they were to go there with a whole army, while “Those whom we desire to know us will find us at the very frontiers.”]

“. . . we are not prepared to say that “any Hindu Rishis of old still exist in flesh and blood” although we have our own reasons to believe that some of the great Hindu Adepts of ancient times have been and are reincarnating themselves occasionally in Tibet and Tartary.” (HPB, “Do The Rishis Exist?”)

“Moreover, there is a well-known fact, a very curious one, corroborated to the writer by a reverend gentleman attached for years to a Russian Embassy – namely, that there are several documents in the St. Petersburg Imperial Libraries to show that, even so late as during the days when Freemasonry, and Secret Societies of Mystics flourished unimpeded in Russia, i.e., at the end of the last [i.e. the late 1700s] and the beginning of the present century [i.e. the early 1800s], more than one Russian Mystic travelled to Tibet via the Ural mountains in search of knowledge and initiation in the unknown crypts of Central Asia. And more than one returned years later, with a rich store of such information as could never have been given him anywhere in Europe. Several cases could be cited, and well-known names brought forward, but for the fact that such publicity might annoy the surviving relatives of the said late Initiates. Let any one look over the Annals and History of Freemasonry in the archives of the Russian metropolis, and he will assure himself of the fact stated.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, Introductory, p. xxxv-xxxvi)

SHAMBHALA AND THE GOBI DESERT OF MONGOLIA/CHINA

“ . . . her [i.e. Mother Earth’s] heart – which beats under the foot of the sacred Shambalah . . .” (An Esoteric Commentary translated and quoted by HPB in “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 400)”

“In the same manner and on the plan of the Zodiac in the upper Ocean or the heavens, a certain realm on Earth, an inland sea, was consecrated and called “the Abyss of Learning”; twelve centres on it in the shape of twelve small islands representing the Zodiacal signs – two of which remained for ages the “mystery signs” and were the abodes of twelve Hierophants and masters of wisdom. This “sea of knowledge” or learning remained for ages there, where now stretches the Shamo or Gobi desert. It existed until the last great glacial period, when a local cataclysm, which swept the waters south and west and so formed the present great desolate desert, left only a certain oasis, with a lake and one island in the midst of it, as a relic of the Zodiacal Ring on Earth.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 502-503)

“What is claimed is simply the fact that the Wisdom imparted by the “Divine Ones” – born through the Kriyashakti powers of the Third [i.e. Lemurian] Race before its Fall and Separation into sexes – to the adepts of the early Fourth [i.e. Atlantean] Race, has remained in all its pristine purity in a certain Brotherhood [i.e. surely a reference to the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood with which HPB and the Masters most closely involved with and behind the Theosophical Movement of our era are connected; they refer to their esoteric Teaching as “ancient Lemuro-Atlantean Wisdom.”]. The said School or Fraternity being closely connected with a certain island of an inland sea, believed in by both Hindus and Buddhists, but called “mythical” by geographers and Orientalists, the less one talks of it, the wiser he will be.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 636-637)

“The “Island,” according to belief, exists to the present hour; now, as an oasis surrounded by the dreadful wildernesses of the great Desert, the Gobi.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 220)

“. . . the sacred Island (now the “fabled” Shamballah, in the Gobi Desert) . . .” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 319)

“Although these matters were barely hinted at in [the first Theosophical book] “Isis Unveiled,” it will be well to remind the reader of what was said in Vol. I., pp. 587 to 593, concerning a certain Sacred Island in Central Asia, and to refer him for further details to the chapter in Book II. on “The Sons of God and the Sacred Island.”” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 209)

“. . . that Sacred Island – ‘from whence the last Saviour will come’ . . .” (An Esoteric Commentary translated and quoted by HPB in “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 350)

“Many are the names of that School and land, the name of the latter being now regarded by the Orientalists as the mythic name of a fabulous country. It is from this mysterious land, nevertheless, that the Hindu expects his Kalki Avatara, the Buddhist his Maitreya, the Parsi his Sosiosh, and the Jew his Messiah, and so would the Christian expect thence his Christ – if he only knew of it. There, and there alone, reigns Paranishpanna (Gunggrub), the absolutely perfect comprehension of Being and Non-Being, the changeless true Existence in Spirit, even while the latter is seemingly still in the body, every inhabitant thereof being a Non-Ego because he has become the Perfect Ego. Their voidness is “self-existent and perfect” – if there were profane eyes to sense and perceive it – because it has become absolute; the unreal being transformed into conditionless Reality, and the realities of this, our world, having vanished in their own nature into thin (non-existing) air.

“The “Absolute Truth” (Dondam-pay-den-pa; Sanskrit: Paramarthasatya), having conquered “relative truth” (Kunza-bchi-den-pa; Sanskrit: Samvritisatya), the inhabitants of the mysterious region are thus supposed to have reached the state called in mystic phraseology Svasamvedana (“self-analyzing reflection”) and Paramartha, or that absolute consciousness of the personal merged into the impersonal Ego, which is above all, hence above illusion in every sense.

“Its “Perfect” Buddhas and Bodhisattvas may be on every nimble Buddhist tongue as celestial – therefore unreachable Beings, while these names may suggest and say nothing to the dull perceptions of the European profane. What matters it to Those who, being in this world, yet live outside and far beyond our illusive earth! Above Them there is but one class of Nirvanis, namely, the Chos-ku (Dharmakaya), or the Nirvanis “without remains” – the pure Arupa, the formless Breaths. Thence [i.e. from Shambhala] emerge occasionally the Bodhisattvas in their Prul-pai-ku (or Nirmanakaya) body and, assuming an ordinary appearance, they teach men. There are conscious, as well as unconscious, incarnations.” (HPB, “A Few More Misconceptions Corrected”)

“The “Western paradise,” [i.e.mentioned in some Buddhist scriptures, also called the “Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha”] or Western heaven, is no fiction located in transcendental space. It is a bona-fide locality in the mountains, or, to be more correct, one encircled in a desert within mountains [Note: The Gobi Desert is surrounded by mountain ranges, including the Mongolian Altai, the Khangai or Hangayan, the Tian Shan or Tien Shan, and the Tibetan Plateau.] Hence it is assigned for the residence of those students of Esoteric Wisdom – disciples of Buddha – who have attained the rank of Lohans and Anagamins (Adepts). It is called “Western” simply from geographical considerations; and “the great iron mountain girdle” that surrounds the Avitchi, and the seven Lokas that encircle the “Western paradise” are a very exact representation of well-known localities and things to the Eastern student of Occultism.” (HPB, “The Doctrine of the Eye & The Doctrine of the Heart, or The Heart’s Seal”)

It is important to be aware that despite such statements as the above, there are a few places where HPB locates Shambhala as being somewhere “in the Himalayas” (which is not the case for the Gobi Desert) or speaks of its locality with deliberate vagueness. It may perhaps be – as the following quote suggests – that in reality the name of “Shambhala” (literally meaning “The Place of Peace”) can be applied to quite a large geographical region spanning certain areas of several neighbouring countries and including the above-mentioned sacred island in the Gobi, Mount Kailash in Tibet, and at least certain parts of the Trans-Himalayan region. Or it may be that the real central location of Shambhala is not even directly stated by HPB. “The Secret Doctrine” also appears to imply that “Shambhala” may occasionally be relocated, based on various factors in humanity’s development or degeneration. But she makes clear in various places that it is spiritual in nature, yet existing here on this physical plane, although none can ever find it or go there, except the very few who have earned the right and passed through the requisite initiations. The physical or geographic land it occupies may be found on a map and even visited by travellers but if the Masters are able to render a house invisible or undiscoverable even to those who may be on the same street as it (see the section “The Bungalow by the Sea” in The Masters and Madame Blavatsky) They can surely do the same for the buildings, residents, and other features of Shambhala.

““Arghya in Sanskrit is the libation cup [i.e. the cup or chalice from which offering, tribute, sacrifice, etc. is poured out] . . . Arghyanath is a title of the Maha-Chohan, meaning “the Lord of Libations;” and Arghya Varsha – “the land of libations” – is the mystery name of that region which extends from Kailas mountain [i.e. Mount Kailash in Tibet] nearly to the Schamo Desert [i.e. the Gobi Desert, which is partly in Mongolia and partly in China] – from within which the Kalki Avatar is expected. The Airyâna-Varsedya [i.e. Airyanem Vaejah, often written “Airyana-Vaego” in Theosophical literature, a land usually equated by HPB with Shambhala] of the Zoroastrians, as a locality, is identical with it. It is now said to have been situated between the sea of Aral, Baltistan, and little Tibet; but in olden times its area was far larger, as it was the birth-place of physical humanity, . . . “Argos” is Arghya Varsha, the land of libation of the old Hierophants, whence the deliverer of Humanity will appear, a name which became ages later that of its neighbour, India – the Arya-varta of old.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 416, 419)

THE LAST ATLANTEANS AND FIRST “ARYANS” – REFUGEES TO CENTRAL ASIA

“The Vedas, Brahmanism, and along with these, Sanskrit, were importations into what we now regard as India. They were never indigenous to its soil. There was a time when the ancient nations of the West included under the generic name of India many of the countries of Asia now classified under other names. There was an Upper, a Lower, and a Western India, even during the comparatively late period of Alexander; and Persia-Iran is called Western India in some ancient classics. The countries now named Tibet, Mongolia, and Great Tartary were considered by them as forming part of India. When we say, therefore, that India has civilized the world and was the Alma Mater of the civilizations, arts and sciences of all other nations (Babylonia, and perhaps even Egypt, included) we mean archaic, pre-historic India, India of the time when the great Gobi was a sea, and the lost “Atlantis” formed part of an unbroken continent which began at the Himalayas and ran down over Southern India, Ceylon, Java, to faraway Tasmania.” (HPB, “Editorial Appendix”)

“Suffice it to say, that in Egypt the Mysteries had been known since the days of Menes, and that the Greeks received them only when Orpheus introduced them from India. In an article “Was writing known before Panini?” [published in the book “Five Years of Theosophy”] it is stated that the Pandus had acquired universal dominion and had taught the “sacrificial” Mysteries to other races as far back as 3,300 B.C. Indeed, when Orpheus, the son of Apollo or Helios, received from his father the phorminx – the seven-stringed lyre, symbolical of the sevenfold mystery of Initiation – these Mysteries were already hoary with age in Central Asia and India. According to Herodotus it was Orpheus who brought them from India, and Orpheus is far anterior to Homer and Hesiod. Thus even in the days of Aristotle few were the true Adepts left in Europe and even in Egypt. The heirs of those who had been dispersed by the conquering swords of various invaders of old Egypt had been dispersed in their turn. As 8,000 or 9,000 years earlier the stream of knowledge had been slowly running down from the tablelands of Central Asia into India and towards Europe and Northern Africa, so about 500 years B.C. it had begun to flow backward to its old home and birthplace. During the two thousand subsequent years [i.e. from around 500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.] the knowledge of the existence of great Adepts nearly died out in Europe.” (HPB, “The Mystery “Sun of Initiation””)

[Note: The above quote is very important, since it shows us that it is erroneous to say or imply – as some students of the original Theosophical teachings do – that the India of today has been inhabited for around 1,000,000 years and that the Indians, or at least the North Indians, were and are the first sub-race of the Fifth Root Race or Aryan Root Race, and have been living in India for about that length of time. Approximately 1,000,000 (1-million) years is indeed the age allotted by Theosophy to our Fifth Root Race but that figure includes its very earliest ethnological dawn back in the time of Atlantis, the Fourth Root Race. As other passages quoted in this article show, the very early Fifth Race, after fleeing the destruction of their parent-continent of Atlantis (which was not only located in the Atlantic, as you can read here), found refuge in Central Asia – specifically, to begin with, the summits and peaks of the Central Asian mountain chains, since these were essentially the only safely dry land available to them – and remained there, along with the saved remnants of the Fourth Root Race, with whom they had lived in the Atlantean lands, for many hundreds of thousands of years. It was in Central Asia, and not in India, that the first sub-race of the Fifth Root Race began to develop and branch out and transform. The above quote tells us that only about 9,000 years prior to the time of Aristotle – which would have been around 11,500 years ago – did “the stream of knowledge” begin “slowly running down from the tablelands of Central Asia into India,” which is classed as South Asia. This harmonises with contemporary open-minded research into the age of Indian civilisation, as the Rig Veda, although not believed to have been written that long ago, contains astronomical references which researchers have been able to trace back to occurrences that happened about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago at the very most. To be precise and as accurate as possible, HPB informs us that actually “The Aryan Hindu is the last offshoot of the first sub-race of the fifth Root-Race.” (“Miscellaneous Notes,” “Lucifer” November 1890) The quotes which follow may help to shed further light on all this; this developmental period of that first Aryan sub-race in Central Asia also relates to the “thousands of generations” and “long ages” that “the “Wise Men” of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents” spent “in learning, not teaching . . . checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts” etc., as referred to in the first “Summing Up” point of “The Secret Doctrine” (Vol. 1, p. 272-273), referred to in the United Lodge of Theosophists as “The Ancient Source.”]

“The Orientalist . . . Having no knowledge himself whatever of those incalculable ages that lie between the Aryan Brahman in Central Asia [i.e. this is referring to the earliest periods of the Fifth Root Race], and the Brahman at the threshold of Buddhism [i.e. the historically identifiable period of 2,600 years ago] . . .” (HPB or one of the Adepts, “Historical Difficulty” – Why?” in “Five Years of Theosophy” p. 322-323)

“And it is as clearly ascertained by geological survey that the tradition which claims that the ocean ages ago washed the base of the Himalayas – is not entirely without foundation, for there are traces left of this.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 572-573)

“The Vedas – on the date and antiquity of which no two Orientalists can agree, are claimed by the Hindus themselves, whose Brahmans and Pundits ought to know best about their own religious works, to have been first taught orally for thousands of years and then compiled on the shores of Lake Mânasa-Sarovara (phonetically, Mânsarovara) beyond the Himalayas, in Tibet [Note: Lake Manasarovar is near the celebrated Mount Kailash]. When was this done? While their religious teachers, such as Swami Dayanand Saraswati, claim for them an antiquity of many decades of ages, our modern Orientalists will grant them no greater antiquity in their present form than about between 1,000 and 2,000 B.C. As compiled in their final form by Veda-Vyâsa, however, the Brahmans themselves unanimously assign 3,100 years before the Christian era, the date when Vyâsa flourished. Therefore the Vedas must be as old as this date [i.e. HPB accepts that in their present written form they are indeed not likely to be much older than just over 5,000 years]. But their antiquity is sufficiently proven by the fact that they are written in such an ancient form of Sanskrit, so different from the Sanskrit now used, that there is no other work like them in the literature of this eldest sister of all the known languages, as Prof. Max Müller calls it.” (HPB, “The Theosophical Glossary” p. 361-362, Entry for “Vedas”)

“. . . the truth of another esoteric statement, which runs thus:  “Seek for the remains of thy forefathers in the high places. The vales have grown into mountains and the mountains have crumbled to the bottom of the seas.” .  .  .  Fourth Race [i.e. Atlantean] mankind, thinned after the last cataclysm by two-thirds of its population, instead of settling on the new continents and islands that reappeared while their predecessors [i.e. the lands that had formed part of Atlantis] formed the floors of new Oceans – deserted that which is now Europe and parts of Asia and Africa for the summits of gigantic mountains, the seas that surrounded some of the latter having since “retreated” and made room for the table lands of Central Asia.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 723-724)

“. . . the sinking of Atlantis, or “the Flood,” and the occupation of India by the Brahmans, who sought safety on the summits of the Himalayas, when even the high table-lands of what is now Tibet became submerged for a time.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 608)

“When geology shall have found out how many thousands of years ago the disturbed waters [i.e. disturbed as a result of the great cataclysm that caused the destruction and submersion of the last major part of Atlantis] of the Indian Ocean reached the highest plateaux of Central Asia, when the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf made one with it, then only will they know the age of the Aryan Brahminical nation, and the time of its descent [i.e. from Central Asia] into the plains of Hindostan [i.e. India], which it did millenniums later.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 609)

“Descending from the high plateaux of Asia, where the two Races [i.e. the last Atlanteans and earliest “Aryans”] had sought refuge in the days of the agony of Atlantis, it [i.e. “the latest, seventh sub-race of the Atlanteans, already swallowed up in one of the early sub-races of the Aryan stock”] had been slowly settling and colonizing the freshly emerged lands [including “the continent and islands of Europe”]. The emigrant sub-race had rapidly increased and multiplied on that virgin soil; had divided into many families, which in their turn divided into nations. Egypt and Greece, the Phœnicians, and the Northern stocks, had thus proceeded from that one sub-race. Thousands of years later, other races – the remnants of the Atlanteans – “yellow and red, brown and black,” began to invade the new continent. There were wars in which the new comers were defeated; and they fled, some to Africa, others to remote countries.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 743)

“The mysteries of the seven gnostic vowels, uttered by the thunders of St. John, can be unriddled only by the primeval and original Occultism of Aryavarta [i.e. the old name for India], brought into India by the primeval Brahmins, who had been initiated in Central Asia. And this is the Occultism we study and try to explain, as much as is possible in these pages.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 565)

“They “of the yellow hue” [i.e. a descriptive term for some of the last peoples of the Atlantean Root Race as used in an ancient esoteric text translated and quoted by HPB] are the forefathers of those whom Ethnology now classes as the Turanians, the Mongols, Chinese and other ancient nations; and the land they fled to was no other than Central Asia. There entire new races were born; there they lived and died until the separation of the nations. But this “separation” did not take place either in the localities assigned for it by modern science, nor in the way the Aryans are shown to have divided and separated by Mr. Max Müller and other Aryanists [i.e. proponents of the “Aryan Invasion” theory regarding the origins of the people of North Indian ethnicity; it was the North Indians who were originally meant by the term “Aryan” before Hitler and Nazism grossly distorted the meaning of the word].  Nearly two-thirds of one million years have elapsed since that period [i.e. this refers to the last major destruction of Atlantis having been around 850,000 years ago according to Theosophy; its very last and comparatively very small remnant was the Atlantis referred to by Plato and sank much later, around 11,500 years ago; one may note from an earlier quote that this was also around the time that the last offshoot of the first sub-race of the Fifth Race began moving down from Central Asia into India]. The yellow-faced giants of the post-Atlantean day, had ample time, throughout this forced confinement to one part of the world, and with the same racial blood and without any fresh infusion or admixture in it, to branch off during a period of nearly 700,000 years into the most heterogeneous and diversified types.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 425)

“The great event – the triumph of our “Sons of the Fire Mist” the inhabitants of “Shambullah” [i.e. Shambhala or Shamballa] (when yet an island in the Central Asian Sea) over the selfish but not entirely wicked magicians of Poseidonis [i.e. that very last small remnant of Atlantis, referred to directly above] occurred just 11,466 [years] ago.” (Master K.H., “The Mahatma Letters” p. 155)

“. . . the war of the Titans is but a legendary and deified copy of the real war that took place in the Himalayan Kailasa [i.e. Kailash] (heaven) instead of in the depths of Cosmic interplanetary Space. It is the record of the terrible strife between the “Sons of God” and the “Sons of the Shadow” of the Fourth and the Fifth Races.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 500 – Whether this is referring to the same event as the quote that precedes it from the Mahatma K.H. or to the much earlier earthly battle between the Brotherhoods of Light and Darkness at the time of the major destruction of Atlantis hundreds of thousands of years before that, is unclear.)

““Who is in possession of the true knowledge?” is asked. “The great Teachers of the Snowy Mountain,” is the response.

“These “great Teachers” have been known to live in the “Snowy Range” of the Himalayas for countless ages. To deny in the face of millions of Hindus the existence of their great Gurus, living in the Ashramas scattered all over the Trans- or the Cis-Himalayan slopes, is to make oneself ridiculous in their eyes. When the Buddhist Saviour [i.e. Gautama Buddha himself, who lived approximately 2,600 years ago] appeared in India, their Ashramas – for it is rarely that these great Men are found in Lamaseries [i.e. Tibetan Buddhist monasteries], unless on a short visit – were on the spots they now occupy, and that even before the Brahmins themselves came from Central Asia to settle on the Indus. And before that more than one Aryan Dvija [i.e. literally “twice-born,” meaning in this context a Hindu initiate] of fame and historical renown had sat at their feet, learning that which culminated later on in one or another of the great philosophical schools. Most of these Himalayan Bhante [i.e. Brothers] were Aryan Brahmins and ascetics.” (HPB, “The Secret Books of “Lam-Rim” and Dzyan”)

“. . . the Eastern Dugpas might make short work of their enemies. The name of the latter is legion, for the direct descendants of the antediluvian sorcerers hate all those who are not with them, arguing that, therefore, they are against them.” (HPB, “The Hexagon with The Central Point, or The Seventh Key” – for some specific details of who the Eastern Dugpas are, aside from the generalised explanation that “Dugpa means a black magician,” please see the closing section of The Dalai Lama, Theosophy & The Gelugpa Tradition. What this quote points out is that the contemporary black magicians or dangerous sorcerers of Asia, those who the Great Brotherhood of Masters call “the Brothers of the Shadow,” are “the direct descendants” – whether physically, ideologically, or both – of the Atlantean sorcerers of long distant epochs. In light of all the other quotes in this section, the reason for this should now make perfect sense and may also shed some light on why there is such a great and natural tendency and attraction towards practices of black or dark Tantra in many quarters of Tibetan Buddhism, perhaps more so than in any other religion or part of the world.)

“Tchertchen. An oasis in Central Asia, situated about 4,000 feet above the river Tchertchen Darya; the very hot-bed and centre of ancient civilization, surrounded on all sides by numberless ruins, above and below ground, of cities, towns, and burial-places of every description. As the late Colonel Prjevalski reported, the oasis is inhabited by some 3,000 people “representing the relics of about a hundred nations and races now extinct, the very names of which are at present unknown to ethnologists”.” (HPB, “The Theosophical Glossary” p. 324 – Tchertchen is more typically spelt as Cherchen but nowadays generally known as Qarqan or Qiemo; it is a county belonging to China but bordering Tibet (which nowadays is also claimed to “belong” to China) and is predominantly inhabited by the persecuted Uygur or Uyghur people.)

THE LINK BETWEEN ATLANTIS, CENTRAL ASIA, AND THE NATIVE AMERICANS AND INUITS

“As the chief element in the languages of the 5th race is the Aryan-Sanskrit of the “Brown-white” geological stock or race, so the predominating element in Atlantis was a language which has now survived but in the dialects of some American Red-Indian tribes, and in the Chinese speech of the inland Chinamen, the mountainous tribes of Kivang-ze [i.e. Kiangsi or Jiangxi, a province of southeast China] – a language which was an admixture of the agglutinate and the monosyllabic as it would be called by modern philologists.” (HPB or one of the Adepts, “Leaflets from Esoteric History” in “Five Years of Theosophy” p. 322-323)

“But there are other chelas of other Masters . . . who are pure blooded Mongolian Buddhists. . . . they are great friends with the native Peruvian, Mexican and Red Indian Adepts and chelas.” (HPB, “The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett” p. 85)

“The meaning of the last sentence in the above-quoted Commentary . . ., namely, that the Fourth Race were the children of Padmapani, may find its explanation in a certain letter from the Inspirer of “Esoteric Buddhism” [i.e. the Master K.H., some of whose letters formed the basis of A. P. Sinnett’s book “Esoteric Buddhism”] quoted on p. 68. “The majority of mankind belongs to the seventh sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race – the above-mentioned Chinamen and their off-shoots and branchlets. (Malayans, Mongolians, Tibetans, Hungarians, Finns, and even the Esquimaux [i.e. Eskimo or Inuit] are all remnants of this last offshoot.)”” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 178)

As one gains increasing clarity on what “The Secret Doctrine” calls “Esoteric Ethnology,” one realises that in the above passage it is the indigenous people of Finland who are meant, namely the Sami or Saami people, once referred to as Laplanders. And when one knows what the Sami look like, it is clearly seen how they relate to the other peoples mentioned and others who could be added to this list based on what is revealed in Theosophy, such as the so-called “Red Indians” or Native Americans just mentioned, as well as the Japanese, Nepalese, Bhutanese, and many other peoples of Asia, including the Oirats or Oirots of the Altai Mountains which extend across parts of Siberian Russia, Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan, the Kalmyks or Kalmucks (with whom HPB spent much time in childhood) who are descended from them but now live mostly in a technically European area of Russia, and the Buryats of the Siberian republic of Buryatia. It is only the Hungarians who appear out of place in the above list, since according to anthropologists and historians even the earliest indigenous inhabitants of Hungary were not of Oriental origin.

But according to the Esoteric Doctrine or Secret Wisdom, all these various peoples and groups, although nowadays considered of Asian or Oriental origin, are in fact of late Atlantean origin or at least descended from some of the last Atlanteans. As we have seen in this article, those who survived or escaped from the destruction of Atlantis sought refuge in Central Asia but some of them later migrated to other regions.

Some have wondered why the Native Americans in what is now the USA and the Inuit (Eskimo) who live mostly in the U.S. state of Alaska (which is joined onto Canada rather than the main part of the USA) and the Arctic portions of Northern Canada tend to have a typically Central Asian appearance. Travellers in the early 20th century reported showing photographs of Native Americans to people in Mongolia, who responded “They look like us, they must be Mongolians!” There is in fact only a mere 53 miles between one particular tip of Siberia (the Asian part of Russia) and Alaska. This distance is known as the Bering Strait and it is nowadays accepted that this must have been the route by which various Central Asian peoples travelled millennia ago to what is now the USA and Canada. At that time, it is theorised, it was the Bering Land Bridge rather than an area of water. DNA ethnicity tests have confirmed that the Native American and Inuit peoples are primarily of Asian origin and descent. “The Secret Doctrine” also teaches that there was a Bering “Land Bridge” (though it does not use this contemporary geological term) and that at one time it even formed part of Lemuria, the name figuratively applied to the lands occupied by the Third Root Race, which preceded the Fourth or Atlantean:

“To be accurate, however, in the same way that the evolution of the First Race (from the bodies of the pitars) took place on seven distinctly separated regions of the (then) only Earth at the arctic pole – so did the ultimate transformation of the Third occur: it began in those northern regions, which have just been described a few pages back as including Behring’s Straits, and what there then was of dry land in Central Asia, when the climate was semi-tropical even in the Arctic regions and most adapted to the primitive wants of nascent physical man.  That region, however, has been more than once frigid and tropical in turn since the appearance of man.” (Vol. 2, p. 329)

There is always an overlap for long ages between different Root Races, hence why only a century ago, as the present Fifth Root Race neared the advent of its penultimate sub-race, the Masters could observe – as in the above quote – that “the majority of mankind” still “belonged” to the Fourth Root Race. Much has changed since then in terms of world population and many other factors but it still remains the case that roughly or almost half of the global population is – ethnologically speaking – descended from the last remnants of the Fourth, as well as of the Third.

But we must make AN IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION: This notion of people “belonging” to a particular Root Race applies solely on the level of the physical plane and to the physiological “outer shell” and not to the reincarnating soul within. Theosophy does not teach that some of us are “Fifth Race souls” or “Fourth Race souls” etc; that is completely contrary to the true teaching. No soul “belongs” to any particular race, nationality, or ethnicity; all of us are born and reborn in whatever ethnicity of body and family our Karma or self-created destiny requires, and this can change from one life to the next. Hence, souls currently embodied as Mongolians, for example, are not “behind” those of us who are currently embodied as Europeans, nor are our souls collectively “ahead” of theirs. All differences, however interesting and intriguing from an historical and anthropological point of view, are external; internally, all souls are of one and the same source and one and the same essence. Hopefully this is clear.

AN IMPORTANT ESOTERIC ROLE AND DESTINY FOR RUSSIA?

After explaining that the Sanskrit names of the seven dvipas (or dwipas), literally “islands,” mentioned in the Purana scriptures of Hinduism, have meanings and applications on various different levels – such as to the seven globes of Earth’s planetary chain, the seven islands that once constituted the “Atlantis” of the Fourth Root Race, and the seven major continents – past, present, and future – which form the habitations of each successive Root Race in turn – HPB identifies Saka Dwipa and Pushkara Dwipa as referring, when the context indicates, to the future continents of the Sixth and Seventh Root Races respectively.

As explained, we are still only in the Fifth Root Race (often called in Theosophy the Aryan, but in the sense of Indo-Caucasian or Indo-European and not in the sense in which the Nazis later twisted and distorted this originally innocent and harmless Indian term) but on the verge of the earliest beginnings of the latter’s sixth sub-race, each Root Race consisting of seven sub-races in total.

HPB and her Adept-Teachers who co-wrote “The Secret Doctrine” with her then explain: “. . . those localities which will enter, after the future cataclysms, into the formation of new universal [i.e. worldwide] “continents,” peninsulas, or dwipas – each continent being, in one sense, a greater or smaller region of dry land surrounded with water. . . . Such as Saka and Pushkara, for instance, which do not yet exist, but into which will enter such lands as some portions of America, of Africa, and Central Asia, with the Gobi region. . . . Thus, we believe we know that, though two of the Puranic “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, . . .” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 404-405)

Reflecting on this, it can be deduced that to imply or believe – as some students of the original Theosophical teachings do – that “according to “The Secret Doctrine,” the next Root Race will exist in what is now America and nowhere else,” is erroneous and overly simplistic, while also ignoring such key statements as the above.

While it is indeed erroneous from the Theosophical perspective to claim – as some European esotericists have done – that “the Sixth Root Race will live in Russia and nowhere else,” it cannot be denied, in light of the above, that “some portions” – and presumably large ones – of Central Asia – and which includes as a key northern portion the vast land of Siberia, which is the Asian part of Russia (though nowadays mostly – 85-90% – inhabited by Slavic people rather than indigenous Asians) and in fact constitutes almost 80% of Russia’s land mass – will constitute part of the home of the Sixth or Seventh Root Races or both.

But there is more. Siberia is sometimes classed as part of Central Asia or North-Central Asia but Siberia is also the region that the geographical designation “Northern Asia” specifically refers to – both in HPB’s time and now.

Hence, in light of the statement from “The Secret Doctrine” with which we opened this article – “One may even say that Asia is contemporary with man, since from the very beginnings of human life its root-continent, so to speak, already existed; . . . the (now) polar regions . . . that part of the world now known as Asia being only cut off from it in a later age, and divided by the glacial waters.” (Vol. 2, p. 401, 304) – let us consider “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 776, which explains, regarding such terms as “Imperishable Sacred Land” and “Eternal Central Land” that are used in “The Secret Doctrine” for the continent of the very First Root Race and generally implied to be somewhere in the region of the North Pole, that –

“The whole globe is convulsed periodically; and has been so convulsed, since the appearance of the First Race, four times. Yet, though the whole face of the earth was transformed thereby each time, . . . The polar lands unite and break off from each other into islands and peninsulas, yet remain ever the same [i.e. even though they may become geographically separated and distanced from the actual Pole itself, the esoteric names such as “Eternal Land” or “Imperishable Land” still apply to them]. Therefore northern Asia is called the “eternal or perpetual land,” and the Antarctic the “ever living” and “the concealed”; while the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Pacific and other regions disappear and reappear in turn, into and above the great waters.”

The term “Northern Asia,” as said, has one specific traditional meaning, and that is as a synonym for Siberia. Those who may doubt this can look up the several occasions that HPB used the term and will see that this is exactly what she means by it. One can also type “Northern Asia” into a search engine and will see that almost every result explains the term to specifically mean Siberia. Hence “The Secret Doctrine” is telling us that it is actually Siberia which is called in the Esoteric Doctrine of the Masters the “eternal or perpetual land.” The North Pole or Arctic Pole itself does not belong to Asia but large parts of Siberia are in the Arctic Circle and thus known as the “Russian Arctic.” This is undoubtedly not the whole story by any means about the mysterious, perpetually present, “sacred land” somewhere near the North Pole of which “The Secret Doctrine” repeatedly speaks, but it goes a long way to shedding some tangible light on it, whereas without that crucial and revelatory statement on p. 776 it would remain an apparently unfathomable mystery.

Along with what we quoted at the start of this section about the Sixth and Seventh Continents, plus what we read earlier about the survivors of Atlantis fleeing to the mountain ranges of Central Asia, it also lifts the statements of Russian Theosophist Helena Roerich (1879-1955) – the conduit for the teachings known as Agni Yoga, which are claimed to come from H. P. Blavatsky’s Guru the Master M. or Mahatma Morya – that it is chiefly part of what is now Russia to which the survivors of the inevitable cataclysms and destructions of each successive Root Race (those of the past as well as those of the future) have fled and sought refuge – out of the realm of “patriotic Russocentric fantasy” and into that of esoteric reality and occult history. We should add, for sake of clarity, that such assertions do not actually appear, nor are they hinted at, in any of the Agni Yoga books themselves, but can be found in some of Roerich’s letters to co-workers and students and in some of her private notes. We trust that readers will not mistake these words for a wholesale endorsement of Agni Yoga and the Roerichs.

“Three submerged, or otherwise destroyed, continents – the first “continent” of the First Race prevailing to the last and existing to this day – are described in the occult Doctrine, the Hyperborean, the Lemurian (adopting the name now known in Science), and the Atlantean. Most of Asia issued from under the waters after the destruction of Atlantis, Africa came still later, while Europe is the fifth and the latest – portions of the two Americas being far older. But of these, more anon. [Note: “Most” of Asia appeared only then, but parts of it – particularly what is now Central and North-Central or Northern Asia – had existed and been present since long before, as has become evident over the course of the present article.] The Initiates who recorded the Vedas – or the Rishis of our Fifth Race – wrote at a time when Atlantis had already gone down. Atlantis is the fourth continent that appeared, but the third that disappeared.” (HPB, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 606)

In HPB’s article “The Chaldean “Vedas” or “Vedic” Chaldees” she notes that “The Turks and the Mongols, in general have a tradition that their race sprung somewhere near the southern slopes of the Mount Altai, in a valley hemmed in between inaccessible mountains full of minerals.”

None of the Altai Mountains are actually known as just “Mount Altai,” so we assume that HPB means by this the highest, largest, and most prominent of all the Altai Mountains, namely Mount Belukha or Belukha Mountain, which is in the Siberian and therefore Russian part of the Altai Range. Its name is often translated as meaning “White Mountain.” An interesting article from 2004 on the BBC website reports about the Altai Mountains that “The Turkic [Note: “Turkic” has a much broader meaning than “Turkish” and actually includes a vast array of peoples, now spread across Central and Northern Asia, Turkey, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, although it does not cover all the peoples found in those parts of the world.] peoples who inhabit Asia from Anatolia to Siberia say their original homeland lies in these mountains. Some historians trace the origins of the Indo-European peoples to the valleys of the Altai. Somewhere in those mountains, it seems, there was once a vast factory, spewing out whole nations and tribes, in a new ethnic model every century or so. Certainly many mystics might agree.”

If read carefully and with geographical awareness, “The Secret Doctrine” may also seem to subtly suggest that Mount Belukha in Siberia is what is actually meant by Mount Meru in Hindu and Buddhist mythology and spiritual symbolism.

Many people think that Mount Meru refers to the famous Mount Kailash in Tibet but although HPB does not directly comment on this, notice what she says in “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 401: “. . . the Himavat [i.e. Himalayas] in which lie the roots of Meru, which mountain is north of the Himalaya. Meru is not “the fabulous mountain in the navel or centre of the earth,” but its roots and foundations are in that navel, though it is in the far north itself. This connects it with the “central” land “that never perishes”; . . .”

If Meru is “north of the Himalaya,” “in the far north,” and closely connected with the Imperishable Sacred Land or Central Land, this can presumably only mean – in light of what we showed several paragraphs ago from “The Secret Doctrine” – that it is in Siberia. And what is the highest mountain in Siberia and which has the most sacred traditions associated with it? Mount Belukha in the Altai. 

Yet one should not imagine that it was only the Altai which may have played such a role in the early period of this present Root Race. As the numerous Theosophical explanations compiled in this article show, the Himalayas (which spread across parts of today’s Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, China, India, and Pakistan) played an extremely important role, as most likely did all the Central Asian mountain chains, in receiving and nurturing the escapees from “the agony of Atlantis.”

Of course, by the time the future continents take shape in the ways described in the first quote in this section of the article, what we know of today as the country of “Russia” may not even exist in any recognisable form and the same can be said for every country currently in existence. But areas of its land will remain for long ages, as will “the Gobi region,” currently belonging partly to Mongolia and partly to China (both of which, along with Kazakhstan, border Siberia) and in which perhaps lies – physically, yet presently invisible and imperceptible to all except the few who have earned the right to go there – the mysterious Shambhala, the true heart of Asia and the true heart of Planet Earth.

This article may have raised more questions about various things. Please make use of the site search function (the magnifying glass symbol at the top of the page) and visit the Articles page to see the complete list of over 400 articles covering all aspects of Theosophy and the Theosophical Movement.

Some articles closely related to this one include The Seven Sub-Races, The Great Sacrifice: The Maha-Guru, The Silent Watcher, The Initiator, Blavatsky on Shambhala, Masters of Wisdom: Outwardly Mortal, Inwardly Immortal, The Secret Book of Dzyan, “The Voice of The Silence” – An Authentic Buddhist Text, The REAL Esoteric Buddhism, Atlantis and Lemuria, The Destruction of Atlantis, The Religion of the Lemurians and Atlanteans, Speech and Language in the Root Races, “Atlantis” Was Not Only In The Atlantic, Human Evolution in The Secret Doctrine, A Beginner’s Guide To Studying “The Secret Doctrine”, Who Wrote “The Secret Doctrine”?, Responding to Lies about H. P. Blavatsky, What Do We Mean By Occult?, and 12 Things Theosophy Teaches.

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