Chapter 550

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So, for instance, in the Purânas, Pulastya, a Prajâpati, or son of Brahmâ—the progenitor of the Râkshasas, and the grandfather of Râvana, the great king of Lankâ in the Râmâyana—had, in a former birth, a son named Dattoli, “who is now known as the sage Agastya,” says Vishnu Purâna (Wilson’s Trans., i. 154). This name of Dattoli alone, has six more variants to it, or seven meanings. He is called respectively, Dattoli, Dattâli, Dattotti, Dattotri, Dattobhri, Dambhobhi and Dambholi. These seven variants have each a secret sense, and refer in the Esoteric Commentaries to various ethnological classifications, and also to physiological and anthropological mysteries of the primitive races. For, surely, the Râkshasas are not Demons, but simply the primitive and ferocious Giants, the Atlanteans, who were scattered on the face of the Globe, as the Fifth Race is now. Vasishtha is a warrant of this, if his words addressed to Parâshara, who attempted a bit of Jadoo (sorcery), which he calls “sacrifice,” for the destruction of the Râkshasas, mean anything. For he says: “Let no more of these unoffending ’Spirits of Darkness’ be consumed.” (See for details, Mahâbhârata, Âdi Parvan, s. 176; also Linga Purâna, Pûrvârdha, s. 64; Wilson, ibid., i. 8, 9.)