Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
Echoes from
the Orient
A BROAD OUTLINE OF
THEOSOPHICAL DOCTRINES
BY
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE
[OCCULTUS]
SECOND POINT LOMA EDITION
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA
1910
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
by William Q. Judge.
The Aryan Theosophical Press
Point Loma, California
DEDICATED TO
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
WITH LOVE
AND GRATITUDE
BY
THE AUTHOR
To the Reader
Echoes from the Orient was written by Mr. Judge sixteen years ago (1890)as a series of papers for a well known periodical. The author wroteunder the name of "Occultus," as it was intended that his personalityshould be hidden until the series was completed. The value of thesepapers as a popular presentation of Theosophical teaching was at onceseen and led to their publication in book form. As Mr. Judge wrote inhis "Antecedent Words" to the earlier edition:
"The restrictions upon the treatment of the subject growing out of thepopular character of the paper in which they were published precludedthe detail and elaboration that would have been possible in aphilosophical or religious periodical. No pretense is made that thesubject of Theosophy as understood in the Orient has been exhaustivelytreated, for, believing that millions of years have been devoted by thesages who are the guardians of Theosophical truth to its investigation,I think no one writer could do more than to repeat some of the echoesreaching his ears."
The reader should remember that the scope and influence of theTheosophical Movement have since that time (1890) greatly expanded, thework of The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society now reachingnearly every country in the world.
Point Loma, California, 1906
Echoes from the Orient.
I.
What appears to the Western mind to be a very strange superstitionprevails in India about wonderful persons who are said to be of immenseage, and who keep themselves secluded in places not accessible to theordinary traveler. So long has this been current in India that the nameapplied to these beings is well known in the Sanskrit language:"Mahâtma," a compound of two words, maha, great, and âtma, soul. Thebelief in the existence of such persons is not confined to the ignorant,but is shared by the educated of all castes. The lower classes look uponthe Mahâtmas as a sort of gods, and think most of their wonderful powersand great age. The pundits, or learned class, and educated Hindus ingeneral, have a different view; they say that Mahâtmas are men or soulswith unlimited knowledge of n