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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1 [[Vol. 1, Page]] 368 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. [[This page continued from previous section ]] § VII. THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF BRAHMA. T HIS is the name given to the Periods called M ANVANTARA ( Manuantara , or between the Manus) and P RALAYA (Dissolution); one referring to the active periods of the Universe, the other to its times of relative and complete rest -- according to whether they occur at the end of a "Day," or an "Age" (a life) of Brahma. These periods, which follow each other in regular succession, are also called Kalpas , small and great, the minor and the Maha Kalpa; though, properly speaking, the Maha Kalpa is never a "day," but a whole life or age of Brahma, for it is said in the Brahma Vaivarta: "Chronologers compute a Kalpa by the Life of Brahma; minor Kalpas, as Samvarta and the rest, are numerous." In sober truth they are infinite; as they have never had a commencement, i.e. , there never was a first Kalpa, nor will there ever be a last one, in Eternity. One Parardha -- in the ordinary acceptation of this measure of time -- or half of the existence of Brahma (in the present Maha Kalpa ) has already expired; the last Kalpa was the Padma, or that of the Golden Lotos; the present one being Varaha* (the "boar" incarnation, or Avatar ) . [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * There is a curious piece of information in the Buddhist esoteric traditions. The exoteric or allegorical biography of Gautama Buddha shows this great Sage dying of an indigestion of pork and rice , a very prosaic end, indeed, having little of the solemn element in it. This is explained as an allegorical reference to his having been born in the "Boar," or Varaha-Kalpa when Brahma assumed the form of that animal to raise the Earth out of the "Waters of Space." And as the Brahmins descend direct from Brahma and are, so to speak, identified with him; and as they are at the same time the mortal enemies of Buddha and Buddhism, we have the curious allegorical hint and combination. Brahminism (of the Boar, or Varaha Kalpa ) has slaughtered the religion of Buddha in India, swept it away from its face; therefore Buddha, identified with his philosophy, is said to have died from the effects of eating of the flesh of a wild hog. [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 1, Page]] 369 HUMAN GODS AND DIVINE MEN. By the scholar who studies the Hindu religion from the Puranas, one thing is to be especially noted. He must not take literally, and in one sense only, the statements therein found; since those which especially concern the Manvantaras or Kalpas have to be understood in their several references. So, for instance, these periods relate in the same language to both the great and the small periods, to Maha Kalpas and to minor Cycles. The Matsya , or Fish Avatar, happened before the Varaha or Boar Avatar; the allegories, therefore, must relate to both the Padma and the present manvantara, and also to the minor cycles which took place since the reappearance of our Chain of Worlds and Earth. And, as the Matsya Avatar of Vishnu and Vaivasvata's Deluge are correctly connected with an event that happened on our Earth during this Round, it is evident that while it may relate to pre-cosmic events (in the sense of our Kosmos or Solar system) it has reference in our case to a distant geological period. Not even Esoteric philosophy can claim to know, except by analogical inference, that which took place before the reappearance of our Solar System and previous to the last Maha Pralaya. But it teaches distinctly that after the first geological disturbance in the Earth's axis which ended in the sweeping down to the bottom of the Seas of the whole second Continent, with its primeval races -- of which successive "Earths" or Continents Atlantis was the fourth -- there came another disturbance by the axis resuming as rapidly its previous degree of inclination; when the Earth was indeed raised once more out of the Waters, and -- as above so it is below; and vice versa. There were "gods" on Earth in those days -- gods, and not men, as we know them now, says the tradition. As will be shown in Book II., the computation of periods in exoteric Hinduism refers to both the great cosmic and the small terrestrial events and cataclysms, and the same may be shown for names. For instance Yudishthira -- the first King of the Sacea , who opens the Kali Yuga era, which has to last 432,000 years -- "an actual King and man who lived 3,102 years B.C.," applies also, name and all, to the great Deluge at the time of the first sinking of Atlantis. He is the "Yudishthira* born on the mountain of the hundred peaks at the extremity of [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] The idea alone of one who established the most rigorous vegetarianism and respect for animal life -- even to refusing to eat eggs as vehicles of a latent future life -- dying of a meat indigestion, is absurdly contradictory and has puzzled more than one Orientalist. But this explanation, unveiling the allegory, explains all the rest. The Varaha , however, is no simple boar, and seems to have meant at first some antediluvian lacustrine animal "delighting to sport in water." ( Vayu Purana. ) * According to Colonel Wilford, the conclusion of the "Great War" was B.C. 1370. ( See A. R. , Vol. 9, p . 116); according to Bentley, 575 B.C.!! We may hope, perhaps, that before the end of this century, the Mahabharatean epics will be found and proclaimed identical with the wars of the great Napoleon. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 370 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. the world beyond which nobody can go " and "immediately after the flood." ( See Royal Asiat. Soc. , Vol. 9, p . 364.) We know of no "Flood" 3,102 years B.C. -- not even that of Noah, for, agreeably with Judaeo-Christian chronology, it took place 2,349 years B.C. This relates to an esoteric division of time and a mystery explained elsewhere, and may therefore be left aside for the present. Suffice to remark at this juncture that all the efforts of imagination of the Wilfords, Bentleys, and other would-be OEdipuses of esoteric Hindu Chronology have sadly failed.