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- 26. When the Sweat-born produced the Egg-born, the Two-fold ( androgyne Third Race * ), the Mighty, the Powerful with Bones, the Lords of Wisdom said : “ Now shall we create ” (a).
Why “ now ” — and not earlier ? This the following sloka explains.
- 27. (Then) the Third (race) became the vahan (vehicle) of the Lords of Wisdom. It created Sons of “ Will and Yoga,” by Kriyasakti (b), it created them, the Holy Fathers, Ancestors of the Arhats. . . .
(a) How did they create, since the “ Lords of Wisdom ” are identical with the Hindu Devas, who refuse “ to create ” ? Clearly they are the
* The evolutionist Professor Schmidt alludes to “ the fact of the separation of sexes, as to the derivation of which from species once hermaphrodite all (the believers in creation naturally excepted) are assuredly of one accord.” Such indeed is the incontestable evidence drawn from the presence of rudimentary organs. (Cf., his “ Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism,” p. 159.) Apart from such palpable traces of a primeval hermaphroditism, the fact may be noted that, as Laing writes, “ a study of embryology. . . . shows that in the human higher animal species the distinction of sex is not developed until a considerable progress has been made in the growth of the embryo.” ( “ A Modern Zoroastrian,” p. 106. ) The Law of Retardation — operative alike in the case of human races, animal species, etc., when a higher type has once been evolved — still preserves hermaphroditism as the reproductive method of the majority of plants and many lower animals.
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Kumâras of the Hindu Pantheon and Purânas, those elder sons of Brahmâ, “ Sanandana and the other sons of Vedhas,” who, previously created by him “ without desire or passion, remained chaste, full of holy wisdom and undesirous of progeny ? ” *
The power, by which they first created, is just that which has since caused them to be degraded from their high status to the position of evil spirits, of Satan and his Host, created in their turn by the unclean fancy of exoteric creeds. It was by Kriyasakti, that mysterious and divine power latent in the will of every man, and which, if not called to life, quickened and developed by Yogi-training, remains dormant in 999,999 men out of a million, and gets atrophied. This power is explained in the “ Twelve Signs of the Zodiac,” † as follows : —
(b) “ Kriyasakti — the mysterious power of thought which enables it to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy. The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one’s attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it ; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result. A Yogi generally performs his wonders by means of Itchasakti (Will-power) and Kriyasakti.”
The Third Race had thus created the so-called Sons of Will and Yoga, or the “ ancestors ” (the spiritual forefathers) of all the subsequent and present Arhats, or Mahatmas, in a truly immaculate way. They were indeed created, not begotten, as were their brethren of the Fourth Race, who were generated sexually after the separation of sexes, the Fall of Man. For creation is but the result of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of it the primordial divine Light and eternal Life. They were the “ holy seed-grain ” of the future Saviours of Humanity.
Here we have to make again a break, in order to explain certain difficult points, of which there are so many. It is almost impossible to avoid such interruptions. For explanations and a philosophical account of the nature of those beings, which are now viewed as the “ Evil ” and rebellious Spirits, the creators by Kriyasakti, the reader is referred to the chapters on “ The Fallen Angels ” and “ The Mystic Dragons,” in Part II. of this Volume.
The order of the evolution of the human Races stands thus in the Fifth Book of the Commentaries, and was already given : —
The First men were Chhayas (1) ; the second, the “ Sweat-born ” (2), the Third, “ Egg-born,” and the holy Fathers born by the power of Kriyasakti (3) ; the Fourth were the children of the Padmapani (Chenresi) (4).
* See “ Vishnu Purâna,” Book I., ch. 7, para. 1.
† See “ Five Years of Theosophy,” p. 777.
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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 before-hand 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 Purânas. * It is the beautiful allegory and story of Sanjnâ, 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 Purânic 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 Purânas 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, Kumâras, and Asuras, whose great sanctity and chastity seem a standing reproach to the Don Juanic gods of the Pantheon. But it is
* Vide “ Vishnu-Purâna,” Book III., chap. 2.
† In the oldest MS. of “ Vishnu-Purâna ” 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.
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the reverse that we find in all the Purânic allegories, and not without good esoteric reason.
The king of the gods (or Indra) sends a beautiful Apsarasas (nymph) named Pramlochâ 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 Pramlochâ, 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 Mârishâ.” †
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. Pramlochâ is the Hindu Lilith of the Aryan Adam ; and Mârishâ, 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 Purânas, but Kamadeva, the god of love and desire, who sends Pramlochâ 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 Pramlochâ is one ; and, therefore, when Kandu, in cursing her,
* 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 Purânas that has not a special esoteric meaning.
† “ Vishnu Purâna,” Book I., ch. 15. Cf. also Vivien’s temptation of Merlin (Tennyson), the same legend in Irish tradition.
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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 One, 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 Taittarîya Brâhmana 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 Brahmâ ; therefore he is Atma-Bhu “ Self-Existent,” and Aja, the “ unborn.” His sending Pramlochâ 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 Mârishâ 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.
Mârishâ, through the exertions of Soma, the Moon, is taken to wife by the Prachetasas, the production of the “ Mind-born ” sons of Brahmâ also *, from whom they beget the Patriarch Daksha, a son of Brahmâ
* The text has : — “ From Brahmâ were born mind-engendered progeny, with forms and faculties derived from his corporeal nature, embodied spirits produced from the limbs (gâtra) 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, Brahmâ created “ other mind-born sons like himself,” namely, the Brahmâ-rishis, or the Prajâpati (ten and seven). Sanandana and the other sons of Vedhas (Brahmâ) 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 Kumâras 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.
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also, in a former Kalpa or life, explain and add the Purânas, 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 fœtus from an imperceptible germ, which fœtus 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 fœtus gestated for several years. In the Purânas, Mârishâ, 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
* See Plato’s ‘ Banquet.”
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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. It is, moreover, unquestionable that in the case of human incarnations the aw of Karma, racial or individual, overrides the subordinate tendencies of “ Heredity,” its servant.
The meaning of the last sentence in the above-quoted Commentary on Stanza 27, namely, that the Fourth Race were the children of Padmapani, may find its explanation in a certain letter from the Inspirer of “ Esoteric Buddhism ” quoted on p. 68. “ The majority of mankind belongs to the seventh sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race — the above-mentioned Chinamen and their off-shoots and branchlets. (Malayans, Mongolians, Tibetans, Hungarians, Finns, and even the Esquimaux are all remnants of this last offshoot.) ”
Padmapani, or Avalôkitêswara in Sanskrit, is, in Tibetan, Chenresi. Now, Avalôkitêswara is the great Logos in its higher aspect and in the divine regions. But in the manifested planes, he is, like Daksha, the progenitor (in a spiritual sense) of men. Padmapani-Avalôkitêswara is called esoterically Bhodhisatva (or Dhyan Chohan) Chenresi Vanchug, “ the powerful and all-seeing.” He is considered now as the greatest protector of Asia in general, and of Tibet in particular. In order to guide the Tibetans and Lamas in holiness, and preserve the great Arhats in the world, this heavenly Being is credited with manifesting himself from age to age in human form. A popular legend has it that whenever faith begins to die out in the world, Padmapani Chenresi, the “ lotus-bearer,” emits a brilliant ray of light, and forthwith incarnates himself in one of the two great Lamas — the Dalai and Teschu Lamas ; finally, it is believed that he will incarnate as “ the most perfect Buddha ” in Tibet, instead of in India, where his predecessors, the great Rishis and Manus had appeared in the beginning of our Race, but now appear no longer. Even the exoteric appearance of Dhyani Chenresi is suggestive of the esoteric teaching. He is evidently, like Daksha, the synthesis of all the preceding Races and the progenitor of all the human Races after the Third, the first complete one, and thus is represented as the culmination of the four primeval races in his eleven-faced form. It is a column built in four rows, each series having three faces or heads of different complexions : the three faces for each race being typical of its three fundamental physiological transformations. The first is white (moon-coloured) ; the second is yellow ; the third, red-brown ; the fourth, in which are only two faces — the third face being left a blank — (a reference to the untimely end of the Atlanteans) is brown-black. Padmapani (Daksha) is seated on the column, and forms the apex. In this reference
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compare Stanza 39. The Dhyan Chohan is represented with four arms, another allusion to the four races. For while two are folded, the third hand holds a lotus (Padmapani, “ the lotus-bearer ”), this flower symbolizing generation, and the fourth holds a serpent, emblem of the Wisdom in his power. On his neck is a rosary, and on his head the sign of water 
— matter, deluge — while on his brow rests the third eye (Siva’s eye, that of spiritual insight). His name is “ Protector ” (of Tibet), “ Saviour of Humanity.” On other occasions when he has only two arms, he is Chenresi, the Dhyani and Bhodisatva, Chakna-padma-karpo, “ he who holds a lotus.” His other name is Chantong, “ he of the 1,000 eyes,” when he is endowed with a thousand arms and hands, on the palm of each of which is represented an eye of Wisdom, these arms radiating from his body like a forest of rays. Another of his names is Lokapati and Lokanâtha (Sanskrit) “ Lord of the World ” ; and Jigten-gonpo (Tibetan), “ Protector and Saviour against evil ” of any kind.
Padmapani, however, is the “ lotus-bearer ” symbolically only for the profane ; esoterically, it means the supporter of the Kalpas, the last of which, the present Maha-Kalpa (the Vârâha), is called Padma, and represents one half of the life of Brahmâ. Though a minor Kalpa, it is called Maha, “ great,” because it comprises the age in which Brahmâ sprang from a lotus. Theoretically, the Kalpas are infinite, but practically they are divided and sub-divided in Space and Time, each division — down to the smallest — having its own Dhyani as patron or regent. Padmapani (Avalôkitêswara) becomes, in China, in his female aspect, Kwan-yin, “ who assumes any form, at pleasure, in order to save mankind.” The knowledge of the astrological aspect of the constellations on the respective “ birth-days ” of these Dhyanis — Amitabha (the O-mi-to Fo, of China), included : e.g., on the 19th day of the second month, on the 17th day of the eleventh month, and on the 7th day of the third month, etc., etc. — gives the Occultist the greatest facilities for performing what are called “ magic ” feats. The future of an individual is seen, with all its coming events marshalled in order, in a magic mirror placed under the ray of certain constellations. But — beware of the reverse of the medal, Sorcery.