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I
INTRODUCTORY.
I
So that, with the exception of these more than doubtful fragments,
the entire Chaldean sacred literature has disappeared from the eyes of
the profane as completely as the lost Atlantis. A few facts that were
contained in the Berosian History are given later on, and may throw
great light on the true origin of the Fallen Angels, personified by Bel
and the Dragon.
Turning now to the oldest specimen of Aryan literature, the Rig
Veda, the student if he strictly follows in this the data furnished by
the Orientalists themselves, will find that although the Rig Veda
contains only about 10,580 verses, or 1,028 hymns, yet in spite of the
Brdhma7ias and the mass of glosses and commentaries, it is
not understood
correctly to this day. Why is this so Evidently because the
Brahmanas, "the scholastic and oldest treatises on the primitive
hymns," themselves require a key, which the Orientalists have failed
to secure.
What, again, do the scholars say of Buddhist literature Do they
possess it in its completeness Assuredly not. Notwithstanding the
325 volumes of the Kanjur and Tanjur of the Northern Buddhists,
each volume, we are told, "weighing from four to five pounds,"
nothing, in truth, is known of real Lamaism. Yet the sacred canon
is said in the Saddharmdlankdra* to contain 29,368,000 letters, or,
exclusive of treatises and commentaries, five or six times the amount
of the matter contained in the Bible, which, as Professor Max Miiller
states, rejoices in only 3,567,180 letters. Notwithstanding, then, these
325 volumes (in reality there are 2>33, the Kanjur comprising 108, and
Tanjur 225 volumes), "the translators, instead of supplying us with
correct versions, have interwoven them with their own commentaries,
for the purpose of justifying the dogmas of their several schools." f
Moreover, "according to a tradition preserved by the Buddhist schools,
both of the South and of the North, the sacred Buddhist Canon comprised
originally 80,000 or 84,000 tracts, but most of them were lost,
that there remained but 6,000"—as the Professor tells his audience.
Lost, as usual—for Europeans. But who can be quite sure that they
are likewise lost for Buddhists and Brahmans
Considering the reverence of the Buddhists for every line written
upon Buddha and the Good L,aw, the loss of nearly 76,000 tracts does
so
• Spence Hardy, The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, p. 66.
tE. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, p. 77.