Theos-Talk Archives (July 1996 Message tl00125)

>>......She
>> cribbed at least part of her "Stanzas of Dzyan" from the "Hymn of
>> Creation" in the old Sanskrit "Rig-Veda", as a comparison of the two
>> compositions will readily show. Coleman promised a book that should
>> expose all of H.P.B.'s sources.

   Daniel, it is these attacks which is based on a cocktail of the most 
superficial investigation and pure fantasy (suitable for a newsgroup 
dealing with fantasy worlds and roleplaying  :-)
   Take the above quote (I know how you appreciate quotes and examples  :-) 
  -  only 11 shlokas in the Rigveda deals with creation, 7 of which (from 
10.129) are quoted before the stanzas. Without credits in the original 
version, yes - but these lines are among the most famous in world 
litterature! Old Shankara would write in the same way, just adding the 
quotation marks and expecting his audience to be learned enough to know the 
source by heart.
   The remaining 4 (10.190) has nothing whatsoever to do with the stanzas 
(and neither has the Vishnu Purana). The combination of the terms 
paramartha and nibbana shows the author to be probably a Yogacharya or 
Madhyamika buddhist (Vedantins use paramartha but very rarely nibbana, they 
have many other terms for that state).
   The real scholarship hidden in the SD has nothing to do with foot-notes 
and credits. In fact most of it (very un-western) simply translates the old 
(usually sanskrit) idea (like over-soul, immutable principle, etc.) without 
bothering about crediting anybody with the "discovery" or giving examples 
of its previous use. It is left to the student to corroborate - and when 
this is done, a structure of unparalleled scholarship will reveal itself - 
far, far exceeding anything accomplished by both orientalist scholars and 
eastern pandits put together.
   It would be extremely easy to "expose the scholarship" of mr. Coleman. I 
wonder why these old hare-brained attacks keeps surfacing?

In friendship,

Kim