Article selections by Andrew T. Sibbald | Notes by H.P.B.
About two thousand years before our Christian era, the Chinese tribe first appeared in the country, where it has since increased so greatly. It then occupied a small extent of territory, on the north and east of the Ho, the more southern portion of the present province of Shan-se. As its course continued to be directed to the east and south (though after it crossed the Ho, it proceeded to extend itself westwards as well), we may conclude that it had come into China from the north-west. Believing that we have in the 10th chapter of the Book of Genesis some hints, not to be called in question,1 of the way in which the whole world was overspread by the families of the sons of Noah, I suppose that the family, or collection of families—the tribe—which has since grown into the most numerous of the nations, began to move eastwards, from the regions between the Black and Caspian seas, not long after the confusion of tongues. . . .
1. Our contributors are entitled to their opinions and allowed a great latitude in the expression of their respective religious or even sectarian views. Yet a line of demarcation must be drawn; and if we are told that the evolution of Races and their ethnological distribution as in the Bible are “not to be called in question,” then, after Noah, we may be next asked to accept Bible chronology, and the rib, and the apple verbally, to boot? This—we must decline. It is really a pity to spoil able articles by appealing to Biblical allegory for corroboration.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
The arrival of the Chinese tribe had been anticipated by others.2 These may have left the original seat of our infant race in the West earlier than it; or they may have left it at the same time. . . .
2. And all this in less than 2,000 years B.C. (1998) if we accept Bible chronology? The Chinese race has been ethnologically and historically known to exhibit the same type as it does now, several thousand years B.C. A Chinese emperor put to death two astronomers for failing to predict an eclipse, over 2,000 years B.C. What kind of an antediluvian animal was Noah, for that “Adamite” to beget all by himself three sons of the most widely separated types—namely an Aryan or Caucasian, a Mongolian, and an African Negro?—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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The accession of Yu, the first sovereign of the nation, was probably at some time in the nineteenth century before Christ;3 and previous to him there were the chiefs Shun and Yaou. To attempt to carry the early Chinese history to a higher antiquity than twenty centuries before Christ is without any historical justification.4
3. The first Emperor, the grandson of Chow Siang, the founder of the Tsin dynasty, which gave its name to China, flourished in the VIth century B.C., but the series of Sovereigns in China is lost in the flight of time. But even nineteen centuries carry the Chinese race beyond the Flood, and leave that race still historical.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
4. The Chinese chronological annals have preserved to this day the names of numerous dynasties running back to a period 3,000 and 4,000 years B.C. Why should we, whose history beyond the year 1 of our era (even that year is now found untrustworthy!) is all guess-work, presume to correct the chronology of other nations far older than our own? With doubts thrown even upon Wilhelm Tell as an historical personage, and King Arthur in an historical London fog, what right—except egregious conceit—have we, Europeans, to say we know Chinese or any pre-Christian chronology better than the nations who have kept and preserved their own records?—Ed. [H.P.B.]
There may have been such men as Chinese writers talk of under the appellations of Chuen-heuh, Hwang-te, Shin-nung, Fuh-he, etc.; but they cannot have been rulers of China. They are children of the mist of tradition, if we should not rather place them in the land of phantasy.5
5. Surely not any more so than the Patriarchs and their periods?—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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. . . The wild tribes of which we read in the Shoo and Chinese history were, no doubt, black-haired, as all the remnants of them are at the present day. If we must seek an explanation for the name of “black-haired people,” as given to the early Chinese, I should say that its origin was anterior to their entrance into China, and that it was employed to distinguish them from other descendants of Noah,6 from whom they separated, and who, while they journeyed to the east, moved in an opposite and westward direction.
6. We believe there could not be found now one single anthropologist or ethnologist of any note (not even among those clergymen who care for their scientific reputation) who would take any concern in, or consider for one moment, Noah as the root-stock of mankind. To use this personage as a buffer against the views of any man of science is, to say the least, out of date. Mr. Gladstone alone could afford it.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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. . . the original immigrants, I believe, brought with them the art of ideographic writing or engraving. It was rude and imperfect, but it was sufficient for the recording of simple observations of the stars in their courses and the surface of the earth, and for the orders to be issued by the government of the time.7 As early as the beginning of the Shang dynasty, we find E Yin presenting a written memorial to his sovereign.8
7. Bunsen calculates that 20,000 years, at least, were necessary for the development and formation of the Chinese language. Other philologists may disagree, but which of them traces the “celestials” from Noah?—Ed. [H.P.B.]
8. How can this be, when we find in Knight’s Cyclopaedia of Biography that the work Shan Hai King is spoken of by the commentator Kwoh P’oh (A.D. 276–324) as having been compiled 3,000 years before his time, “seven dynasties back”? It was arranged by Kung Chia or Chung-Ku “from engravings on nine urns made by the Emperor Yu. B.C. 2355.”—[H.P.B.]
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The name by which God was designated was the Ruler and the Supreme Ruler, denoting emphatically his personality, supremacy, and unity. We find it constantly interchanged with the term Heaven, by which the ideas of supremacy and unity are equally conveyed, while that of personality is only indicated vaguely, and by an association of the mind.9 By God, kings were supposed to reign, and princes were required to decree justice. All were under law to Him, and bound to obey His will. . . .
9. No Chinaman has ever believed in one personal God, but in Heaven in an abstract sense, whose many “Rulers” were synthesized by that “Heaven.” Every philosophy and sect proves it; from Lao-tze and Confucius down to the latest sects and Buddhism. A “He” God is unknown in China.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
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It was the duty of all men to reverence and honour God, by obeying His law written in their hearts, and seeking His blessing in all their ways; but there was a solemn and national worship of Him, as ruling in nature and providence, which could only be performed by the emperor. It consisted of sacrifices, or offerings rather, and prayers. No image was formed of Him, as indeed the Chinese have never thought of fashioning a likeness of the Supreme.10
10. Just so; because the mind of the Chinaman is too philosophical to create for itself an Absolute Supreme as a personality in his (the Chinaman’s) likeness.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
Who the “six Honoured ones,” whom Shun sacrificed to next to God, were, is not known.11 . . .
11. “The six honoured ones” are those of every nation which had a cult based on astronomy. The “God” was the Sun. Ahura Mazda and his six Amshaspends of the Mazdeans are the later development of the twelve Zodiacal signs divided into six double houses, the Sun being the seventh and always made the representative (or synthesis) of the six. As Proclus has it: “The Framer made the heavens six in number, and for the seventh he cast into the midst the fire of the Sun” (Timaeus); and this idea is pre-eminent in the Christian (especially the Roman Catholic) idea, i.e., the Sun-Christ, who is also Michael, and his six and seven Eyes, or Spirit of the Planets. The “six—seven” are a movable and interchangeable number and are ever made to correlate in religious symbolism. As correctly shown by Mr. G. Massey, there are seven circles to Meru and six parallel ridges across it; there are seven manifestations of light and only six days of creation, etc. The mystery of the “double heaven” is one of the oldest and most Kabalistic, and the six chambers, divisions, etc., in most of the temples of antiquity, with the officiating priest representing the Sun, the seventh, left abundant witnesses behind them.—Ed. [H.P.B.]