and those who knew not, could make absolutely nothing of them. But the Dhyanas, etc., were open to many misunderstandings, and the little said about them, but constantly said, could very well lead to a false practice of Yoga. There are, in the Buddha's doctrine-such as we know it through the Pitakas—a few very hard points (e.g., the Pratitya-Samutpāda) of which no proper explanation is given, though it doubtlessly existed, and which consequently gave rise to a great variety of sectarian opinions, but of all such teachings at least the names are mentioned over and again. Why is there no trace of a Ko-an in the Nikāyas nor any allusion to the Sect in the Abhidhamma lists ?

A little more light on such questions may perhaps be expected of other Zen teachers who have not yet spoken to the world. We are told that of the two sects, Rinzai is "more speculative and intellectual," while Sodo "tends towards quietism." Surely Mr. Suzuki belongs only to one of these sects, and it would be but human if he had neglected the other standpoint. May I hope that a friend of mine—a learned Zen priest, whom the Central Hindu College at Benares has the good luck of keeping in its shelter-will be induced by these lines to give us the explanations we want?

In concluding my essay, I should like to call attention to an interesting parallelism : Hinduism has two kinds of Yogins (corresponding with two kinds of Dars'anas), viz., (1) those who aim at a direct 'union' with the Absolute, and (2) those who believe in a gradual ascension to higher planes. Buddhism is of opinion that some people can reach the goal without the Dhyānas, whereas to others these are a valuable, if not necessary, help. The Zen Sect, finally, (provided we are rightly informed) has kept the mystical jump only, i.e., the sudden enlightenment following a series of unsuccessful runs.

DR. F. OTTO SCHRADER.

THE IMPERISHABLE LAND—AIRYĀNA VAĒJO

ACCORDING TO ZOROASTRIANISM.

(Concluded from p. 40.)

THEN, when that man becomes thirty years old, he confers with the archangels, the good rulers and good providers; on the morrow, in the daylight of the day, it is moreover manifest, when the embodied existence is thus undistressed-without a Kai and without a Karap (that is, not deaf and blind to the affairs of the sacred beings), and is to be appropriated (that is, has not made his own self apart from the affairs of the sacred beings) and is produced full of life-that it has become extending and remains again great in various places in Irān-vêj, where the good Daiţi is.

This refers to the condition of man when he conferred, or was in direct communication with, the yazatas or angels, devas, when man was neither deaf nor blind to the celestial existence, and could either see or hear, so to speak, the divine beings; or, as H.P.B. says," whose life and food they [men] had once shared."

"The first of the good lands and countries which I, Ahura Mazda, created, was the Airyāna Vaējo, by the good river Daitya. Thereupon came Añgra Mainyu, who is all death, and he countercreated by his witchcraft the serpent in the river and winter, a work of the Daevas. There are ten winter months there, two summer months; and those are cold for the waters, cold for the earth, cold for the trees. Winter falls there, with the worst of its plagues. The second of the good lands and countries which I, Ahura-Mazda, created, was the plains in Sughdha. Thereupon came Añgra Mainyu, who is all death, and he counter-created by his witchcraft the fly Skaitya which brings death to the cattle."†

Writing on the sidereal and cosmic glyphs, our revered Teacher H. P. Blavatsky gives us a very satisfactory explanation of the Serpent" referred to above. It also explains the antiquity of this most ancient religion and its records :

"But, one ought to discriminate between the characters of this symbol. For instance: Zoroastrian Esotericism is identical with that of the Secret Doctrine; and when, as an example, we read, in the

* Dinkard, vii, 60. This Daiți is the Avesta Daitya, also considered to be "a mythic river in Irān-vēj" (Bund., xx, 13); "a favorite place for religious rites," see Yt. v, 17, 104, 112; ix, 25, 29; xvii, 45, 49, 61. Or it may be merely maya-i-shed, “ brilliant water.”

† Venḍiḍāḍ, i, 3-4,

Vendiḍāḍ complaints uttered against the 'Serpent,' whose bites have transformed the beautiful, eternal spring of Airyāna Vaējo, changing it into winter, generating disease and death, at the same time as mental and psychic consumption, every occultist knows that the Serpent alluded to is the North Pole, as also the pole of the heavens. The latter produces the seasons according to the angle at which it penetrates the centre of the earth. The two axes were no more parallel, hence the eternal spring of Airyāna Vaējo by the good river Daitya had disappeared, and the Airayan Magi had to emigrate to Sagdiani'-say the exoteric accounts. But the esoteric teaching states that the pole had passed through the equator, and that the land of bliss' of the Fourth Race, its inheritance from the Third, had now become the region of desolation and woe. This alone ought to be an incontrovertible proof of the great antiquity of the Zoroastrian Scriptures. The Neo-Aryans of the post-diluvian age could, of course, hardly recognise the mountains on the summits of which their forefathers had met before the Flood, and conversed with the pure 'Yazaṭas' (celestial Spirits of the Elements), whose life and food they had once shared. As shown by Eckstein (Revue Archæologique, 8th year, 1885), the Vendiḍāḍ seems to point out a great change in the atmosphere of Central Asia; strong volcanic eruptions and the collapse of a whole range of mountains in the neighborhood of the Kara-Korum chain."t

Ages thus pass away and a cataclysm is fore-ordained, when those who were in charge of the great scheme of evolution were warned, and arrangement was made to transfer the Jivas to a safe ground. We read in the Vendiḍāḍ:

"The Maker Ahura Mazda, of high renown in the Airyāna Vaējo, by the good river Daitya, called together a meeting of the celestial Gods. The fair Yima, the good shepherd, of high renown in the Airyāna Vaējo, by the good river Daitya, called together a meeting of the excellent mortals." "To that meeting came Ahura Mazda, of high renown in the Airyāna Vaejo, by the good Driver aitya; He came together with the celestial Gods. To that meeting came the fair Yima, the good shepherd, of high renown in the Airyāna Vaējo, by the good river Daitya; he came together with the excellent mortals" "And Ahura Mazḍa spake unto Yima, saying: 'O fair Yima, son of Vivanghat! Upon the material world, the fatal winters are going to

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Symbolised by the Egyptians under the form of a serpent with a hawk's head, †The Secret Doctrine, vol. ii, p, 356.

fall that shall bring the fierce, foul frost; upon the material world, the fatal winters are going to fall, that shall make snow flakes fall thick, even Aredvi, deep on the highest tops of mountains.'"*

Here we see a meeting of Ahura Mazda, Yima, the celestial beings, and the excellent mortals.' A place where the excellent mortals' could join the celestial beings could not be gross or earthly. There is a clear reference in one of the quotations of the Bundahish above that in those days men could confer with angels and archangels, as the bodies of the former were not as gross as they are to-day and it is possible that the finer matter of the human forms could easily respond to the glorious and shining matter of the angels during that period of the 'golden age.' In the personification of fair Yima, son of Vivanghat,' we see Yama, the son of the Hindu Vaivasvata. Does not this account carry us to a period far beyond profane history?

The Bundahish gives some clue about "innumerable waters and rivers, springs and channels, (that) are one in origin with those (are from those as a source); so in various districts and various places they call them by various names."+ It may be remarked in passing that the" brilliant waters," called by the names of oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers, in Avesta and Pahlavi works, can be taken as divisions and subdivisions of astral regions. Read in this wise we get better light from the Zoroastrian scriptures than that we had hitherto. If we place different Tattvas in juxtaposition with their respective super-physical counterparts, the oft repeated astral stands with water as below:

Here is a list ot some of the Immortal Men, who have been watching humanity, and are privileged to have communication with the Immortal Land, which is humanity as it was in its pristine stage; where did then all these immortal' men come from? Immortality could never be achieved unless perfection were attained; and how could these men, who, having attained perfection, had * Vendidad, Farg. 2.

†The Bundahişh, ch. xx, 33,

become immortal during the time, as some of our learned men make us believe, that humanity was in a savage condition and its ideas about God and nature were crude and primitive.

We have learnt from The Secret Doctrine that Manus and others had to appear upon this earth, who had completed their evolution in past manvantaras, to help mankind in their early stage. Either they may be Manus, or they were the "Sons of Yoga." Looking at the period at which these Adepts appear on the scene, we may not be wrong in estimating that some of these souls may belong to other evolutionary periods.

"The Dāraja river is in Irān-Vēj, on the bank of which was the dwelling of Porushaspa, the father of Zarathusht."* We find "Zarathusht when he brought the Religion, first celebrated worship and expounded in Irān-Vēj, and Medyōkmāh received the religion from him. The Mōbads of Pārs are all traced back to this race of Mānūschihar."† If we grant a higher interpretation to the phrase herein mentioned, we will come to a better understanding of the above phrases. Zarathushtra brought, or rather established, the Religion, the Universal Law, in this land, from whom came the Mobeds of Pārs, who must not be understood as their modern fallen descendants, but must be real Mobeds, Persian Initiates, who had received their inspiration from the original Zarathushtra.

"And as to giving to the world," says H.P.B., "more information about the locality known as Airyāna Vaējo we need point but to the sentence in Fargard I, in which we find Ahura Mazda saying to Spiţama,' the most benevolent,' that He had made every land -even though it had no charms whatever in it-dear to its dwellers, since otherwise the 'whole living world would have invaded the Airyāna Vaējo'." (v. 2). In a footnote she adds:

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"Why do we find Zoroaster in the Bundahish offering a sacrifice in Iran-Vēj'-distorted name for Airyānām Vaejo, and where or what was this country? Though some Orientalists call it' no real country,' and others identify it with the basin of the Aras, the latter has nothing to do with Airyānām Vaējo. The last Zarathust may have chosen, and he has so chosen, the banks of the Aras for the cradle of his newly reborn religion ; only that cradle received a child reborn and suckled elsewhere, namely, in Airyānām Vaējo (the true' seed of the

* The Bundahish, ch. xx. 32, † Ibid. xxxi, 3-4.