(23) And he lived tnree jubilees and four weeks of years, one hundred and seventy-five years, and completed the days of his life, being old and full of days. The decreasing Years and increasing Corrup- tion of Mankind (xxiii. -).

(17) Further, Sariputra, if there are living beings who are qualified for liberation but who want to stay longer in the world, this Bodhisattva will (use his supernatural power to) extend a week to an aeon so that they will consider their remaining in time to be one week.

(2) As this was six thousand years series of millennium reigns of Cancer, Leo, and Virgo had elapsed, because it was six thousand years when the millennium reign came to Libra, the adversary rushed in, and Gâyômard lived thirty years in tribulation. After the thirty years Mâshya and Mashyôî grew up; it was fifty years while they were not wife and husband, and they were ninety-three years together as wife and husband till the time when Hôshyang came. 4. Hôshyang was forty years, Takhmôrup thirty years, Yim till his glory departed six hundred and sixteen years and six months, and after that he was a hundred years in concealment. 5. Then the millennium reign came to Scorpio, and Dahâk ruled a thousand years. 6. After the millennium reign came to Sagittarius, Frêdûn reigned five hundred years; in the same five hundred years of Frêdûn were the twelve years of Aîrîk; Mânûskîhar was a hundred and twenty years, and in the same reign of Mânûskîhar, when he was in the mountain fastness (dûshkhvâr-gar), were the twelve years of Frâsîyâv; Zôb the Tûhmâspian was five years. 7. Kaî-Kabâd was fifteen years; Kaî-Kâûs, till he went to the sky, seventy-five years, and seventy-five years after that, altogether a hundred and fifty years; Kai-Khûsrôv sixty years; Kaî-Lôrâsp a hundred and twenty years; Kaî-Vistâsp, till the coming of the religion, thirty years, altogether a hundred and twenty years. 8. Vohûman son of Spend-dâd a hundred and twelve years; Hûmâî, who was daughter of Vohûman, thirty years; Dârâî son of Kîhar-i-âzâd, that is, of the daughter of Vohûman, twelve years; Dârâî son of Dârâî fourteen years; Alexander the Rûman fourteen years. 9. The Askânians bore the title in an uninterrupted (a-arûbâk) sovereignty two hundred and eighty-four years, Ardashîr son of Pâpak and the number of the Sâsânians four hundred and sixty years, and then it went to the Arabs.

(7) Mahidâsa Aitareya (the son of Itarâ), who knew this, said (addressing a disease): 'Why dost thou afflict me, as I shall not die by it?' He lived a hundred and sixteen years (i.e. 24+44+48). He, too, who knows this lives on to a hundred and sixteen years.

(3) O ye seamen of Râ at the gloaming of the day, let N live after death, like Râ daily

(23) And-in those days, if a man live a jubilee and a half of years, they will say regarding him : "He hath lived long, and the greater part of his days are pain and sorrow and 1 i. e. Machpelah; cf. Gen. xxv. 9. 4 Bracketed words a ditto graph. tribulation, and there is no peace :

(4) And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore was it written concern- ing the tree of knowledge : "On the day that ye eat thereof ye will die." For this reason he did not complete the years of this day ; for he died during it.

(2) When a hundred thousand generations had passed, the mortal birds surrendered themselves spontaneously to total annihilation. No man, neither young nor old, can speak fittingly of death or immortality. Even as these things are far from us so the description of them is beyond all explanation or definition. If my readers wish for an allegorical explanation of the immortality that follows annihilation, it will be necessary' for me to write another book. So long as you are identified with the things of the world you will not set out on the Path, but when the world no longer binds you, you enter as in a dream; but, knowing the end, you see the benefit. A germ is nourished among a hundred cares and loves so that it may become an intelligent and acting being. It is instructed and given the necessary knowledge. Then death comes and evernhing is effaced, its dignity is thrown down. This that was a being has become the dust of the street. It has several times been annihilated; but in the meanwhile it has been able to learn a hundred secrets of which previously it had not been aware, and in the end it receives immortality', and is given honour in place of dishonour. Do you know what you possess? Enter into yourself and reflect on this. So long as you do not realize your nothingness and so long as you do not renounce your self-pride, your vanity and your self-love, you will never reach the heights of immortality. On the ay you are cast down in dishonour and raised in honour.

And now my story is finished, I have nothing more to say.

(22) The works which fill out the life-span may be either immediately or gradually operative. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on these comes a knowledge of the time of the end, as also through signs.

(23) For the days of the forefathers, of their life, were nineteen jubilees; and after the Flood they began to grow less than nineteen jubilees, and to decrease in jubilees, and to grow old quickly, and to be full of their days by reason of manifold tribula- tion and the wickedness of their ways, with the exception of Abraham.

(14) When a nation begins to decline it is because its more advanced souls have passed on, leaving only the less progressive souls behind to carry on the work of the sub-race. The advanced souls pass on to new scenes of activity, and even the backward ones are not permitted to lag very far behind for the continual change and the creation of new environments tend to reawaken sleeping energies and to stimulate the lagging ones to fresh endeavor and activity.

(10) The Rosicrucian teachings concerning the value of experiences in each earth-life are well illustrated by the following quotation from a leading writer, who says: "Many object to the doctrine of Re-Birth on the ground that the experiences of each life, not being remembered, must be useless and without value. This is an erroneous view of the subject, for while such experiences may not be fully remembered, yet they are not lost to us at all, but really form a part of the material of which our minds are composed. They exist in essence in the form of feelings, characteristics, inclinations, likes and dislikes, affinities, attractions, repulsions, etc., and are in this form just as much in evidence in our lives as are the experiences of yesterday which are well remembered. Look back over the years of your present life, and try to recall the experiences of one year ago, five years ago, ten years, twenty years, thirty years, and as much further back as you care to go. You will find that you can remember but few of the events of your life. The experiences of most of the days in which you have lived have been almost completely forgotten. Though these experiences may have seemed very vivid and real to you when they occurred, still they have faded into nothingness now, and they are to all intents and purposes lost to you.

(28) Again, Epicharmas having said: "As destined Ion to live, and yet not long, Think of thyself."- Euripides writes: "Why? seeing the wealth we have uncertain is, Why don't we live as free from care, as pleasant As we may?" Similarly also, the comic poet Diphilus having said: "The life of men is prone to change,"- Posidippus says: "No man of mortal mould his life has passed From suffering free. Nor to the end again Has continued prosperous."

(11) The writer previously referred to says of the survival of members of a disappearing race, and their influence on the life of the new race: "By means of the cataclysms the races of each cycle were wiped out when their time came, but the few elect or chosen ones, that is those who had manifested the right to become torch-bearers, were carried away to some favorable environment, where they became as leaven to the mass—as gods' to the new races that quickly appeared. It must be noted, however, that the chosen or elect ones were not the only ones saved from the destruction that overtook the majority of the race in these cataclysms. On the contrary, a few survivors were preserved, although driven away from their former homes, and reduced to 'first principles of living' in order to become the parents of the new race. The new races springing from the fittest of the survivors quickly formed sub-races, being composed of the better adapted souls seeking reincarnation, while the less fit sank into barbarism and showed evidences of decay. A remnant of these degraded human creatures, however, persist in incarnation for thousands of years, being composed of those souls not sufficiently advanced to take part in the life of the new races. These 'left overs' are in evidence in our own times in the cases of the Australian savages, the African Bushmen, and the Digger Indians, and others of a similar low order of development. In order to understand the advance of each race it must be remembered that the more advanced souls, after passing out of the body, have a much longer period of rest in the higher planes, and consequently do not present themselves for reincarnation until a period quite late as compared with the hasty reincarnation of the less advanced souls who are hurried back to rebirth by reason of the strong earthly attachment and desires. In this way it happens that the earlier races of each cycle are more primitive folk than those who follow them as the years roll by. The soul of an earth-bound person reincarnates in a few years, and sometimes in a few days, while the soul of an advanced man may repose and rest on the higher planes for centuries—nay, even for thousands of years, until the earth has reached a stage in which the appropriate environment may be afforded it." At the beginning of the period of the Fifth Race (the present race of man) there were born not only the beginning of the new sub-races which always spring into existence at the beginning of a new cycle, but there were also born the descendants of the Elect, saved from the destruction of Atlantis by having been led away from the scene of danger. The new races were the descendants of the scattered survivors of the Atlantean peoples—that is, of the common run of those peoples. But the Elect few were superior individuals of their race, and imparted to their descendants their knowledge and wisdom. By an understanding of this distinction, we are able to comprehend the fact that at the same time there existed hordes of people of the new races—more or less primitive and ignorant—and at other places certain advanced peoples like the ancient Egyptians, Persians, Chaldeans, Hindus, etc. These advanced peoples represented the advanced souls—the old souls, of the advanced individuals of the Lemurian and Atlantean civilizations.

(1) [This chapter is supplementary to chapter iii.] Those who understand the conditions of life devote no attention to things which life cannot accomplish. Those who understand the conditions of destiny devote no attention to things over which knowledge has no control. For the due nourishment of our physical frames, certain things are needful. Yet where such things abound, the physical frame is not always nourished. For the preservation of life it is necessary that there should be no abandonment of the physical frame. Yet where the physical frame is not abandoned, life does not always remain. Life comes, and cannot be declined. It goes, and cannot be stopped. But alas! the world thinks that to nourish the frame is enough to keep life. And if indeed it is not enough, what then is the world to do? Although not enough, it must still be done. It cannot be neglected. For if one is to neglect the physical frame, better far to retire at once from the world. By renouncing the world, one gets rid of the cares of the world. The result is a natural level, which is equivalent to a re-birth. And he who is re-born is near.

(5) Rā is living, the tortoise is dead. His wrappings have been opened; they reveal his figure. [The South wind of Rā

(14) It is said, that life is in the hand of that foremost man, at the end of his years, who has constructed the most defences around this earth, until the renovation of the universe is requisite.

(4) Here the helmsman : As Râ is born from Yesterday, so he too is born from Yesterday, and as every god exulteth in life, so shall N exult even as they exult in life

(7) Frêdûn the Âspiyân was son of Pûr-tôrâ the Âspiyân, son of Sôk-tôrâ the Âspiyân, son of Bôr-tôrâ the Âspiyân, son of Sîyâk-tôrâ the Âspiyân, son of Spêd-tôrâ the Âspiyân, son of Gefar-tôrâ the Âspiyân, son of Ramak-tôrâ the Âspiyân, son of Vanfraghesn the Âspiyân, son of Yim, son of Vîvanghâû; as these, apart from the Âspiyân Pûr-tôrâ, were ten generations, they every one lived a hundred years, which becomes one thousand years; those thousand years were the evil reign of Dahâk.

(139) Why should there be so long a time of staying in the wrath?