Page 58 (part 8)

exclaims "Thou hast performed the office assigned by the monarch of the gods, go!" he must mean by that monarch Kama and not Indra, to whom the Apsarasas are not subservient. For Kama, again, is in the Rig Veda ( x . 129) the personification of that feeling which leads and propels to creation. He was the first movement that stirred the O NE, after its manifestation from the purely abstract principle, to create, "Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind ; and which sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered to be the bond which connects Entity with Non-Entity." A hymn in the Atharva Veda exalts Kama into a supreme God and Creator, and says: "Kama was born the first. Him, neither gods nor fathers (Pitara) nor men have equalled." . . . . The Atharva Veda identifies him with Agni , but makes him superior to that god. The Taittariya Brahmana makes him allegorically the son of Dharma (moral religious duty, piety and justice) and of Sraddha (faith). Elsewhere Kama is born from the heart of Brahma; therefore he is Atma-Bhu "Self-Existent," and Aja, the "unborn." His sending Promlocha has a deep philosophical meaning; sent by Indra -- the narrative has none. As Eros was connected in early Greek mythology with the world's creation, and only afterwards became the sexual Cupid, so was Kama in his original Vedic character, (Harivansa making him a son of Lakshmi, who is Venus). The allegory, as said, shows the psychic element developing the physiological, before the birth of Daksha, the progenitor of real physical men, made to be born from Marisha and before whose time living beings and men were procreated "by the will, by sight, by touch and by Yoga," as will be shown. This, then, is the allegory built on the mode of procreation of the Second or the "Sweat-born." The same for the Third Race in its final development. Marisha, through the exertions of Soma, the Moon, is taken to wife by the Prachetasas, the production of the "Mind-born" sons of Brahma also*, from whom they beget the Patriarch Daksha, a son of Brahma [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The text has: -- "From Brahma were born mind-engendered progeny, with forms and faculties derived from his corporeal nature, embodied spirits produced from the limbs ( gatra ) of Dhimat (all-wise deity). These beings were the abode of the three qualities of deva-sarga (divine creation, which, as the five-fold creation, is devoid of clearness of perception, without reflection, dull of nature). But as they did not multiply themselves, Brahma created "other mind-born sons like himself," namely, the Brahma-rishis, or the Prajapati (ten and seven). Sanandana and the other sons of Vedhas (Brahma) were previously created, but, as shown elsewhere, they were " without desire or passion, inspired with holy wisdom, estranged from the universe and undesirous of progeny" ( Book I, ch. 7). These Sanandana and other Kumaras are then the Gods, who after refusing to "create progeny" are forced to incarnate in senseless men. The reader must pardon unavoidable repetitions in view of the great number of the facts given. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 177 SWEAT-BORN AND ANDROGYNES. also, in a former Kalpa or life, explain and add the Puranas, in order to mislead, yet speaking the truth. (3.) The early Third Race, then, is formed from drops of "sweat," which, after many a transformation, grow into human bodies. This is not more difficult to imagine or realise than the growth of the foetus from an imperceptible germ, which foetus develops into a child, and then into a strong, heavy man. But this race again changes its mode of procreation according to the Commentaries. It is said to have emanated a vis formativa, which changed the drops of perspiration into greater drops, which grew, expanded, and became ovoid bodies -- huge eggs. In these the human foetus gestated for several years. In the Puranas, Marisha, the daughter of Kandu, the sage, becomes the wife of the Prachetasas and the mother of Daksha. Now Daksha is the father of the first human-like progenitors, having been born in this way. He is mentioned later on. The evolution of man, the microcosm, is analogous to that of the Universe, the macrocosm. His evolution stands between that of the latter and that of the animal, for which man, in his turn, is a macrocosm. Then the race becomes: -- (4.) The androgyne, or hermaphrodite. This process of men-bearing explains, perhaps, why Aristophanes* describes the nature of the old race as androgynous, the form of every individual being rounded, "having the back and sides as in a circle, " whose "manner of running was circular . . . . terrible in force and strength and with prodigious ambition." Therefore, to make them weaker, "Zeus divided them (in the Third Root-Race) into two, and Apollo (the Sun), under his direction, closed up the skin." The Madagascans (the island belonged to Lemuria) have a tradition about the first man, who lived at first without eating, and, having indulged in food, a swelling appeared in his leg; this bursting, there emerged from it a female, who became the mother of their race. Truly . . . "We have our sciences of Heterogenesis and Parthenogenesis, showing that the field is yet open. . . . . The polyps . . . . produce their offspring from themselves, like the buds and ramifications of a tree. . . . " Why not the primitive human polyp? The very interesting polyp Stauridium passes alternately from gemmation into the sex method of reproduction. Curiously enough, though it grows merely as a polyp on a stalk, it produces gemmules, which ultimately develop into a sea-nettle or Medusa. The Medusa is utterly dissimilar to its parent-organism, the Stauridium. It also reproduces itself differently, by sexual method, and from the resulting eggs Stauridia once more put in [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See Plato's " Banquet. " [[Vol. 2, Page]] 178 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. an appearance. This striking fact may assist many to understand that a form may be evolved -- as in the sexual Lemurians from Hermaphrodite parentage -- quite unlike its immediate progenitors.