ird century B.C., was
driven (you may say) to do what ruthless drastic things he did.--
and that his action was followed by such wonderful results--are
proof enough that a long manvantara crowded with cultureal and
national activities had run it course in the past, and clogged
the astral, and made progress impossible. But what he did do,
throws the whole of that past manvantara, and to some extent the
pralaya that followed it, into the realm of shadows.--He burnt
the literature.

In a few paragraphs let me summarize the history of that past age
whose remnants Ts'in Shi Hwangti thus sought to sweep away.--Yao
adopted Shun for his successor; in whose reign for nine years
China's Sorrow, that mad bull of waters, the Hoangho, raged
incessantly, carrying the world down towards the sea. Then Ta
Yu, who succeeded Shun on the throne presently, devised and
carried through those great engineering works referred to above:
--cut through mountains, yoked the mad bull, and saved the world
from drowning. He was, says H. P. Blavatsky, an Adept; and had
learnt his wisdom from the Teachers in the snowy Range of SiDzang
or Tibet. His dynasty, called the Hia, kept the throne until
1766; ending with the downfall of a cruel weakling. Followed
then the House of Shang until 1122; set up by a wise and
merciful Tang the Completer, brought to ruin by a vicious tyrant
Chousin. It was Ki-tse, a minister of this last, and a great
sage himself, who, fleeing from the persecutions of his royal
master, established monarchy, civilization, and social order
in Corea.

Another great man of the time was Won Wang, Duke of the
Palatinate of Chow, a state on the western frontier whose
business was to protect China from the Huns. Really, those Huns
were a thing to marvel at: we first hear of them in the reign of
the Yellow emperor, two or three centuries before Yao; they were
giving trouble then, a good three millenniums before Attila. Won
Wang, fighting on the frontier, withstood these kindly souls;
and all China looked to him with a love he deserved. Which of
course roused King Chousin's jealousy; and when a protest came
from the great soldier against the debaucheries and misgovernment
at the capital, the king roused himself and did what he could;
imprisoned the protestant, as he dared not kill him. During the
three years of his imprisonment Won Wang compiled the mysterious
I-King, of Book of Changes; of which Confucius said, that were
another