Page 58 (part 7)

[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See " Vishnu Purana, " Book I., ch. 7, para. 1. ** See " Five Years of Theosophy, " p. 777. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 174 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Of course such primeval modes of procreation -- by the evolution of one's image, through drops of perspiration, after that by Yoga, and then by what people will regard as magic (Kriyasakti) -- are doomed beforehand to be regarded as fairy-tales. Nevertheless, beginning with the first and ending with the last, there is really nothing miraculous in them, nor anything which could not be shown natural. This must be proven. 1 . Chhaya-birth, or that primeval mode of sexless procreation, the first Race having oozed out, so to say, from the bodies of the Pitris, is hinted at in a Cosmic allegory in the Puranas.* It is the beautiful allegory and story of Sanjna, the daughter of Viswakarman -- married to the Sun, who, "unable to endure the fervours of her lord," gave him her chhaya (shadow, image, or astral body), while she herself repaired to the jungle to perform religious devotions, or Tapas. The Sun, supposing the "chhaya" to be his wife begat by her children, like Adam with Lilith -- an ethereal shadow also, as in the legend, though an actual living female monster millions of years ago. But, perhaps, this instance proves little except the exuberant fancy of the Puranic authors. We have another proof ready. If the materialised forms, which are sometimes seen oozing out of the bodies of certain mediums could, instead of vanishing, be fixed and made solid -- the creation of the first Race would become quite comprehensible. This kind of procreation cannot fail to be suggestive to the student. Neither the mystery nor the impossibility of such a mode is certainly any greater -- while it is far more comprehensible to the mind of the true metaphysical thinker - than the mystery of the conception of the foetus, its gestation and birth as a child, as we now know it. Now to the curious and little understood corroboration in the Puranas about the "Sweat-born." 2. Kandu is a sage and a Yogi, eminent in holy wisdom and pious austerities, which, finally, awaken the jealousy of the gods, who are represented in the Hindu Scriptures as being in never-ending strife with the ascetics. Indra, the "King of the Gods,"** finally sends one of his female Apsarasas to tempt the sage. This is no worse than Jehovah sending Sarah, Abraham's wife, to tempt Pharaoh; but in truth it is those gods (and god), who are ever trying to disturb ascetics and thus make them lose the fruit of their austerities, who ought to be regarded as "tempting demons," instead of applying the term to the Rudras, Kumaras, and Asuras, whose great sanctity and chastity seem a standing reproach to the Don Juanic gods of the Pantheon. But it is [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Vide " Vishnu-Purana, " Book III ., chap. 2. ** In the oldest MS. of " Vishnu-Purana " in the possession of an Initiate in Southern India, the god is not Indra, but Kama, the god of love and desire. See text further on. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 175 A SAINT -- HYPNOTISED. the reverse that we find in all the Puranic allegories, and not without good esoteric reason. The king of the gods (or Indra) sends a beautiful Apsarasas (nymph) named Pramlocha to seduce Kandu and disturb his penance. She succeeds in her unholy purpose and "907 years six months and three days"* spent in her company seem to the sage as one day. When this psychological or hypnotic state ends, the Muni curses bitterly the creature who seduced him, thus disturbing his devotions. "Depart, begone!" he cries, "vile bundle of illusions!" . . . And Pramlocha, terrified, flies away, wiping the perspiration from her body with the leaves of the trees as she passes through the air. She went from tree to tree, and as, with the dusky shoots that crowned their summits, she dried her limbs, the child she had conceived by the Rishi came forth from the pores of her skin in drops of perspiration. The trees received the living dews; and the winds collected them into one mass. "This," said Soma (the Moon), "I matured by my rays; and gradually it increased in size, till the exhalation that had rested on the tree tops became the lovely girl named Marisha."** Now Kandu stands here for the First Race. He is a son of the Pitris, hence one devoid of mind, which is hinted at by his being unable to discern a period of nearly one thousand years from one day; therefore he is shown to be so easily deluded and blinded. Here is a variant of the allegory in Genesis, of Adam, born an image of clay, into which the "Lord-god" breathes the breath of life but not of intellect and discrimination, which are developed only after he had tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge; in other words when he has acquired the first development of Mind, and had implanted in him Manas, whose terrestrial aspect is of the Earth earthy, though its highest faculties connect it with Spirit and the divine Soul. Pramlocha is the Hindu Lilith of the Aryan Adam; and Marisha, the daughter born of the perspiration from her pores, is the "sweat-born," and stands as a symbol for the Second Race of Mankind. As remarked in the foot note ( vide supra ) it is not Indra, who now figures in the Puranas, but Kamadeva, the god of love and desire, who sends Pramlocha on Earth. Logic, besides the esoteric doctrine, shows that it must be so. For Kama is the king and lord of the Apsarasas, of whom Pramlocha is one; and, therefore, when Kandu, in cursing her, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * These are the exoteric figures given in a purposely reversed and distorted way, being the figure of the duration of the cycle between the first and second human race. All Orientalists to the contrary, there is not a word in any of the Puranas that has not a special esoteric meaning. ** " Vishnu Purana, " Book I., ch. 15. Cf. also Vivien's temptation of Merlin (Tennyson), the same legend in Irish tradition. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 176 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.