Lives of Alcyone

Life XLVI
We come now to the most momentous lives of this long
series—the lives to which all the others have been leading up. Even
in these we will see much of suffering—the final clearing away of
such karma as remains; but the Great Ones come once more into
close and constant touch with our hero—never more to part from
him through all the ages that lie before us, for he who joins the Great
White Brotherhood can never again be alone. In this forty-sixth life
and in the next we find him playing a humble part in the foundation
of two of the great religions of the world; and so incidentally in
studying his lives we obtain fascinating glimpses of some of the
most important periods of human history.
The remnants of the great Persian empire, which had lasted
for so many years, had been overthrown by the Mongol tribes, and
the land which it had occupied had been devastated. But another
Aryan tribe—the speakers of Zend—descended from the hills of the
Susamir district and occupied the wasted territories, drawing round
them such refugees as had escaped the massacre which had
followed the victory of those savage Tartar tribes. In this country, still
in quite an unsettled condition, Alcyone was born at a place called
Drepsa, in Bactria, in the year 1528 B.C. His name was
Maidhyaimaongha. (I may say that the names habitually used by this
nation are the most extraordinary that I have encountered—more
formidable even. I think, than those of the Atlanteans, which we had