of the Mahabhashya and the real secrets of Hatha Yoga contained in the Yoga Sutras.  No one but an initiate can understand the full significance of the said Anhika; and the “eternity of the Logos” or Sabda is one of the principal doctrines of the Gymnosophists of India, who were generally Hatha Yogis.  In the opinion of Hindu writers and pundits Patanjali was the author of three works, viz., Mahabhashya, Yoga Sutras, and a book on Medicine and Anatomy; and there is not the slightest reason for questioning the correctness of this opinion.  We must, therefore, place Patanjali in the Sutra period, and this conclusion is confirmed by the traditions of the Indian initiates.  As Sankaracharya was a contemporary of Patanjali (being his Chela) he must have lived about the same time.  We have thus shown that there are no reasons for placing Sankara in the eighth or ninth century after Christ, as some of the European Orientalists have done.  We have further shown that Sankara was Patanjali’s Chela, and that his date should be ascertained with reference to Patanjali’s date.  We have also shown that neither the year B.C. 140 nor the date of Alexander’s invasion can be accepted as the maximum limit of antiquity that can be assigned to him, and we have lastly pointed out a few circumstances which will justify us in expressing an opinion that Patanjali and his Chela Sankara belonged to the Sutra period.  We may, perhaps, now venture to place before the public the exact date assigned to Sankaracharya by Tibetan and Indian initiates.  According to the historical information in their possession he was born in the year B.C. 510 (fifty-one years and two months after the date of Buddha’s Nirvana), and we believe that satisfactory evidence in support of this date can be obtained in India if the inscriptions at Conjeveram, Sringeri, Jaggurnath, Benares, Cashmere, and various other places visited by Sankara, are properly deciphered.  Sankara built Conjeveram, which is considered as one of the most ancient towns in Southern India; and it may be possible to ascertain the time of its construction if proper inquiries are made.  But even the evidence now brought before the public supports the opinion of the Initiates above indicated.  As Goudapada was Sankaracharya’s Guru’s guru, his date entirely depends on Sankara’s date; and there is every reason to suppose that he lived before Buddha.

Question vi.—­“Historical Difficulty”—­Why?

It is asked whether there may not be “some confusion” in the letter quoted on p. 62 of “Esoteric Buddhism” regarding “old Greeks and Romans said to have been Atlanteans.”  The answer is—­None whatever.  The word “Atlantean” was a generic name.  The objection to have it applied to the old Greeks and Romans on the ground that they were Aryans, “their language being intermediate between Sanskrit and modern European dialects,” is worthless.  With equal reason might a future 6th Race scholar, who had never heard of the (possible) submergence of a portion of European Turkey, object to Turks from the Bosphorus being referred to as a remnant of the Europeans.  “The Turks are surely Semites,” he might say 12,000 years hence, and “their language is intermediate between Arabic and our modern 6th Race dialects.” *