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15 harmonize their teachings. It probably existed long before the Vedas were compiled, and it was studied by our ancient Rishis in connection with the Hindu scriptures. It is attributed to one mysterioos personage called Maha* ....

The Upanishads and such portions of the Vedas as are not chiefly devoted to the public ceremonials of the ancient Âryans are hardly intelligible without some knowledge of that doctrine. Even the real significance of the grand ceremonials referred to in the Vedas will not be perfectly apprehended without its light being thrown upon them..The Vedas were perhaps compiled mainly for the use of the priests assisting at public ceremonies, but the grandest conclusions of our real secret doctrine are therein mentioned. I am informed by persons competent to judge of the matter, that the Vedas have a distinct dual meaning—one expressed by the literal sense of the words, the other indicated by the meter and the swara which are, as it were, the life of the Vedas...Learned Pundits and philologists, of course, deny that Swara has any thing to do with philosophy or ancient esoteric doctrines. But the mysterious connection between Swara and light is one of its most profound secrets.

Now it is extremely difficult to show whether the Tibetans derived their doctrine from the ancient Rishis of India, or the ancient Brahmans learned their occult science from the adepts of Tibet; or again whether the adepts of both countries professed originally the same doctrine and derived it from a common source.† If you were to go to the Sramana Balagula and question some of the Jain Pundits there about the authorship of the Vedas and the origin of the Brahmanical esoteric doctrine, they would probably tell you that the Vedas were composed by Râkshasâs‡ or Daityas and that the