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Page 53 (part 1)

The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 52 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. STANZA II. NATURE UNAIDED FAILS. ------- § (5) After enormous periods the Earth creates monsters. (6) The "Creators" are displeased. (7) They dry the Earth. (8) The forms are destroyed by them. (9) The first great tides. (10) The beginning of incrustation. --------------------- 5. T HE W HEEL WHIRLED FOR THIRTY CRORES ( of years, or 300,000,000 * ) . I T CONSTRUCTED RUPAS ( forms ) . S OFT STONES, THAT HARDENED ( minerals ) ; HARD PLANTS, THAT SOFTENED ( vegetation ) . V ISIBLE FROM INVISIBLE, INSECTS AND SMALL LIVES ( sarisripa, swapada ) . S HE ( the Earth ) SHOOK THEM OFF HER BACK, WHENEVER THEY OVERRAN THE MOTHER ( a ). A FTER THIRTY CRORES OF YEARS, SHE TURNED ROUND. S HE LAID ON HER BACK; ON HER SIDE. . . . . S HE WOULD CALL NO SONS OF H EAVEN, SHE WOULD ASK NO SONS OF W ISDOM. S HE CREATED FROM HER OWN BOSOM. SHE EVOLVED WATER-MEN TERRIBLE AND BAD ( b ). ( a ) This relates to an inclination of the axis -- of which there were several -- to a consequent deluge and chaos on Earth (having, however, no reference to primeval chaos), in which monsters, half-human, half-animal, were generated. We find it mentioned in the "Book of the Dead," and also in the Chaldean account of creation, on the Cutha Tablets, however mutilated. [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * 300 million years, or Three Occult Ages. The Rig Veda has the same division. In the " Physician ' s Hymn, " (X 97 1) it is said that "the plants came into being three ages (Triyugam) before the gods" on our Earth (See "Chronology of the Brahmins" at the end of this Stanza). [[Vol. 2, Page]] 53 THE MONSTERS OF CHAOS. It is not even allegory. Here we have facts, that are found repeated in the account of Pymander, as well as in the Chaldean tablets of creation. The verses may almost be checked by the Cosmogony, as given by Berosus, which has been disfigured out of recognition by Eusebius, but some of the features of which may yet be found in fragments left by ancient Greek authors -- Apollodorus, Alexander Polyhistor, etc., etc. "The water-men terrible and bad," who were the production of physical nature alone, a result of the "evolutionary impulse" and the first attempt to create man the "crown," and the aim and goal of all animal life on Earth -- are shown to be failures in our Stanzas. Do we not find the same in the Berosian Cosmogony, denounced with such vehemence as the culmination of heathen absurdity? And yet who of the Evolutionists can say that things in the beginning have not come to pass as they are described? That, as maintained in the Puranas, the Egyptian and Chaldean fragments, and even in Genesis, there have not been two, and even more, "creations" before the last formation of the Globe; which, changing its geological and atmospheric conditions, changed also its flora, its fauna, and its men? This claim agrees not only with every ancient Cosmogony, but also with modern science, and even, to a certain degree, with the theory of evolution, as may be demonstrated in a few words. There is no "dark creation," no "Evil Dragon" conquered by a Sun-God, in the earliest World-Cosmogonies. Even with the Akkads, the great Deep (the Watery Abyss, or S PACE) was the birthplace and abode of Ea, Wisdom, the incognizable infinite Deity. But with the Semites and the later Chaldeans, the fathomless Deep of Wisdom becomes gross matter, sinful Substance, and Ea is changed into Tiamat, the dragon slain by Merodach, or Satan, in the astral waves. In the Hindu Puranas, Brahma, the creator, is seen recommencing de novo several creations after as many failures; and two great creations are mentioned,* the Padma and the Varaha, the present, when the Earth was lifted out of the water by Brahma, in the shape of a boar, or "Varaha Avatar." Creation is shown as a sport, an amusement (Lila) of the creative god. The Zohar speaks of primordial worlds, which perished as soon as they came into existence. And the same is said in Midraish, Rabbi Abahu explaining distinctly (in Bereschith Rabba, Parscha IX .) that "the Holy One" had successively created and de- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * These two must not be confused with the seven creations or divisions in each Kalpa (See Book I. " The Seven Creations ") . The primary and secondary creations are here meant. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 54 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. stroyed sundry worlds, before he succeeded in the present one. This does not relate only to other worlds in space, but to a mystery of our own globe contained in the allegory about the "kings of Edom." For the words, "This one pleases me," are repeated in Genesis i. 31, though in disfigured terms, as usual. The Chaldean fragments of Cosmogony on the Cuneiform inscriptions, and elsewhere, show two distinct creations of animals and men, the first being destroyed, as it was a failure. The Cosmogonical tablets prove that this our actual creation was preceded by others (See "Hibbert Lectures," p. 390); and as shown by the author of "The Qabbalah," in the Zohar, Siphrah Dzeniouta, in Jovah Rabbah, 128 a , etc., etc. The Kabala states the same. ( b ) Oannes (or Dagon, the Chaldean "Man-fish") divides his Cosmogony and Genesis into two portions. First the abyss of waters and darkness, wherein resided most hideous beings -- -men with wings, four and two-faced men, human beings with two heads, with the legs and horns of a goat (our "goat-men,")* hippocentaurs, bulls with the heads of men, and dogs with tails of fishes.
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Themes
Cosmogonycosmology

Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.

The entire passage is a cosmogonic narrative describing the Earth's creation of forms, failed creations, and their destruction, cross-referenced with Chaldean, Hindu, Zoharic, and Berosian origin accounts.

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Fall Of Sophiacosmology

The Gnostic myth of Wisdom's prolapse from the Pleroma — her unilateral desire or error producing the Demiurge and the entrapment of divine sparks in matter.

The passage explicitly narrates how 'the fathomless Deep of Wisdom becomes gross matter, sinful Substance, and Ea is changed into Tiamat, the dragon slain by Merodach' — a direct parallel to Sophia's prolapse producing the material world and its monstrous inhabitants.

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