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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 307 THE SEVEN AND FOURTEEN MANUS. T HE P RIMEVAL M ANUS OF H UMANITY. Those who are aware that the "great Flood," which was connected with the sinking of an entire continent -- save what became a few islands -- could not have happened so far back as 18,000,000 years ago; and that Vaivasvata Manu is the Indian Noah connected with the Matsya (or the fish) Avatar of Vishnu -- may feel perplexed at this discrepancy between facts stated and the chronology previously given. But there is no discrepancy in truth. The reader is asked to turn to the Theosophist of July, 1883, and after studying the article therein, "The Septenary Principle in Esotericism," the whole question can be explained to him. It is in this explanation, I believe, that the Occultists differ from the Brahmins. For the benefit of those, however, who may not have "The Theosophist" of that month and year to hand, a passage or two may now be quoted from it: "Who was Manu, the son of Swayambhuva? The secret doctrine tells us that this Manu was no man, but the representation of the first human races evolved with the help of the Dhyan-Chohans ( Devas ) at the beginning of the first round. But we are told in his Laws ( Book I. 80) that there are fourteen Manus for every Kalpa -- or interval from creation to creation (read interval from one minor 'Pralaya' to another*) -- and that in the present divine age, there have been as yet seven Manus. Those who know that there are seven rounds, of which we have passed three, and are now in the fourth; and who are [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Pralaya -- a word already explained -- is not a term that applies only to every "Night of Brahma," or the world's dissolution following every Manvantara, equal to 71 Maha-yugas. It applies also to each "obscuration" as well, and even to every Cataclysm that puts an end, by Fire or by Water in turn, to each Root-Race. Pralaya is a term like that of "Manu" -- the generic name for the Sishtas, who, under the appellation of "King," are shown in the Puranas as preserved "with the seed of all things in an ark from the waters of that flood" (or the fires of a general volcanic conflagration, the commencement of which we already see for our Fifth-Race in the terrible earthquakes and eruptions of these late years, and especially in the present one) . . . . which in the season of a pralaya overspreads the world" (the Earth). ( See Preface, p. lxxxi. , to Wilson's " Vishnu Purana. ") Time is only a form of "Vishnu" -- truly, as Parasara says in that Purana. In the Hindu Yuga Kalpa, we have the regular descending series 4, 3, 2, with ciphers multiplied as occasion requires for esoteric purposes, but not, as Wilson and other Orientalists thought, for "sectarian embellishments." A Kalpa may be an age, a "Day" of Brahma, or a sidereal Kalpa, astronomical and earthly. Those calculations are found in all the Puranas, but some differ -- as for instance, "the year of the seven Rishis, 3,030 mortal years, and the year of Dhruva, 9,090 in the Linga Purana," which are again esoteric, and which do represent actual (secret) chronology. As said in the Brahma Vaivarta: "Chronologers compute a Kalpa by the life of Brahma. Minor Kalpas, as Samvarta and the rest, are numerous." " Minor Kalpas" denote here every period of destruction, as was well understood by Wilson himself, who explains the latter as "those in which the Samvarta wind or other destructive agents operate" ( Vishnu Purana, p. 54 , vol. I .). [[Vol. 2, Page]] 308 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. taught that there are seven dawns and seven twilights or fourteen Manvantaras; that at the beginning of every Round and at the end, and on, and between the planets there is an awakening to illusive life, and an awakening to real life; and that, moreover, there are root-Manus, and what we have to clumsily translate as the seed-Manus -- the seeds for the human races of the forthcoming Round (or the Sishtas -- the surviving fittest*; a mystery divulged only to those who have passed their third degree in initiation) -- those who have learned all that will be better prepared to understand the meaning of the following. We are told in the Sacred Hindu scriptures that the first Manu produced six other Manus ( seven primary Manus in all), and these produced in their turn each seven other Manus** ( Bhrigu I, 61-63) -- the production of the latter standing in the occult treatises as 7 x 7. Thus it becomes clear that Manu -- the last one, the progenitor of our Fourth Round Humanity -- must be the seventh, since we are on our fourth Round,*** and there is a root -Manu at globe A and a seed Manu at globe G. Just as each planetary Round commences with the appearance of a 'Root Manu' (Dhyan Chohan) and closes with a 'Seed-Manu,' so a Root and a Seed Manu appear respectively at the beginning and the termination of the human period on any particular planet.**** It will be easily seen from the foregoing statement that a Manu-antaric period means, as the term implies, the time between the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * An intuition and a presentiment of the Sishtas may be found in Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism, "Fifth Edition. See in it Annotations -- the "Noah's Ark Theory" pp. 146, 147. ** The fact that Manu himself is made to declare that he was created by Viraj, and that he then produced the ten Prajapatis, who again produced seven Manus, who in their turn gave birth to seven other Manus ( Manu, I, 33-36) relates to other still earlier mysteries, and is at the same time a blind with regard to the doctrine of the Septenary chain, and the simultaneous evolution of seven humanities, or M EN. However, the present work is written on the records of Cis-Himalayan Secret Teachings, and Brahmanical esoteric philosophy may now differ in form as the Kabala does. But they were identical in hoary antiquity. *** There is another esoteric reason besides this one for it.