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180 ←
28. How the first mammals were produced. 29. A quasi-Darwinian evolution. 30. The animals get solid bodies. 31. Their separation into sexes. 32. The first sin of the mindless men.
- 28. From the drops of sweat, from the residue of the substance, matter from dead bodies of men and animals of the Wheel before,* and from cast-off dust, the first animals† were produced.
The Occult Doctrine maintains that, in this Round, the mammalians were a later work of evolution than man. Evolution proceeds in Cycles. The great Manvantaric Cycle of Seven Rounds, beginning in the First Round with the mineral, vegetable, and animal, brings its evolutionary work on the descending arc to a dead stop in the middle of the Fourth Race, at the close of the first half of the Fourth Round. It is on our Earth, then—the Fourth Sphere and the lowest—and in the present Round, that this middle point has been reached. And since the Monad has passed, after its first “immetallization” on Globe A, through the mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds in every degree of the three states of matter, except the last degree of the third or solid state, which it reached only at the “mid-point of evolution,” it is but logical and natural that at the beginning of the Fourth Round on Globe D, Man should be the first to appear; and also that his frame should be of the most tenuous matter that is compatible with objectivity. To make it still clearer: if the Monad begins its cycle of incarnations through the three objective kingdoms on the descending curved line, it has necessarily to enter on the reäscending curved line of the Sphere as a man also. On the descending arc it is the spiritual which gradually transforms into the material. On the middle line of the base, Spirit and Matter are equilibrized in Man. On the ascending arc, Spirit is slowly reässerting itself at the expense of the physical, or Matter, so that, at the close of the Seventh Race of the Seventh Round, the Monad will find itself as free from Matter and all its
* The previous Third Round.
† Of this Round.
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181 ←qualities as it was in the beginning; having gained in addition the experience and wisdom, the fruitage of all its personal lives, without their evil and temptations.
This order of evolution is found also in the first and second chapters of Genesis, if one reads it in its true esoteric sense; for Chapter i contains the history of the first Three Rounds, as well as that of the first Three Races of the Fourth, up to the moment when Man is called to conscious life by the Elohim of Wisdom. In Chapter i, animals, whales and fowls of the air, are created before the androgyne Adam.* In Chapter ii, Adam (the sexless) comes first, and the animals only appear after him. Even the state of mental torpor and unconsciousness of the first two Races, and of the first half of the Third Race, is symbolized, in the second chapter of Genesis, by the deep sleep of Adam. It is the dreamless sleep of mental inaction, the slumber of the Soul and Mind, which is meant by that “sleep,” and not at all the physiological process of differentiation of sexes, as a learned French theorist, M. Naudin, imagined.
The Purânas, the Chaldæan and Egyptian fragments, and also the Chinese traditions, all show an agreement with the Secret Doctrine as to the process and order of evolution. We find in them the corroboration of almost all our teaching: for instance, the statement concerning the oviparous mode of procreation of the Third Race, and even a hint at a less innocent mode of procreation of the first mammal forms. “Gigantic, transparent, dumb and monstrous they were,” says the Commentary. Study in this connection the stories of the several Rishis and their multifarious progeny. Pulastya is the father of all the Serpents and Nâgas—an oviparous brood; Kashyapa is grandsire, through his wife Tâmrâ, of the birds and of Garuda, king of the feathered tribe; while by his wife Surabhi, he was the parent of cows and buffaloes, etc.
In the Secret Doctrine, the first Nâgas—Beings wiser than Serpents—are the “Sons of Will and Yoga,” born before the complete separation of the sexes, “matured in the man-bearing eggs† produced by
* An allegorical reference to the “Sacred Animals” of the Zodiac and other heavenly bodies. Some Kabalists see in them the prototypes of the animals.
† In Hesiod, Zeus creates his Third Race of men out of ash-trees. In the Popol Vuh the Third Race of men is created out of the tree Tzita and the marrow of the reed called Sibac. But Sibac means “egg” in the mystery language of the Artufas, or Initiation caves. In a report sent in 1812 to the Cortes by Don Baptista Pino it is said: “All the Pueblos have their Artufas—so the natives call subterranean rooms with only a single door where they (secretly) assemble. . . . . These are impenetrable temples . . . . and the doors are always closed to the Spaniards. . . . . They adore the Sun and Moon . . . . fire and the great Snake (the creative power), whose eggs are called Sibac.”
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the power (Kriyâshakti) of the holy Sages” of the early Third Race.*
“In these were incarnated the Lords of the three [upper] worlds—182 ←the various classes of Rudras, who had been Tushitas, who had been Jayas, who are Âdityas;” for, as explained by Parâshara: “There are a hundred appellations of the immeasurably mighty Rudras.”
Some of the descendants of the primitive Nâgas, the Serpents of Wisdom, peopled America, when its continent arose during the palmy days of the great Atlantis; America being the Pâtâla or Antipodes of Jambu-dvîpa, not of Bhârata-varsha. Otherwise, whence the traditions and legends—the latter always more true than history, as says Augustin Thierry—and even the identity in the names of certain “medicine men” and priests, who exist to this day in Mexico? We shall have to say something of the Nargals and the Nagals, and also of Nagalism, called “devil-worship” by the missionaries.
In almost all the Purânas, the story of the “Sacrifice of Daksha” is given, the oldest account of which is to be found in the Vâyu Purâna. Allegorical as it is, there is more meaning and biological revelation in it to a Naturalist, than in all the pseudo-scientific vagaries, which are regarded as learned theories and hypotheses.
Daksha, who is regarded as the Chief Progenitor, is, moreover, pointed out as the creator of physical man, in the “fable” which makes him lose his head from his body in the general strife between the Gods and the Raumas. This head, being burnt in the fire, is replaced by the head of a ram, according to the Kâshi Khanda of the Skanda Purâna. Now the ram’s head and horns are ever the symbol of generating power and of reproductive force, and are phallic. As we have shown, it is Daksha who establishes the era of men engendered by sexual intercourse. This mode of procreation did not occur suddenly, however, as one might think, but required long ages before it became the one “natural” way. Therefore, Daksha’s sacrifice to the Gods is shown to have been interfered with by Shiva—the Destroying Deity, Evolution and Progress personified, who is the Regenerator at the same time; who destroys things under one form but to recall them to life
* There is a notable difference esoterically between the words Sarpa and Nâga, though they are both used indiscriminately. Sarpa, serpent, is from the root srip, to creep, compare, Lat., serp-o; and they are called Ahi, from hâ, to abandon. The Sarpas were produced from Brahmâ’s hair, which, owing to his fright at beholding the Yakshas, whom he had created horrible to behold, fell off from the head, each hair becoming a serpent. They are called “Sarpa from their creeping and Ahi because they had deserted the head.” (Wilson, i. 83.) But the Nâgas, in the allegories, their serpent’s tail notwithstanding, do not creep, but manage to walk, run and fight.
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under another more perfect type. Shiva-Rudra creates the terrible Vîrabhadra, born of his breath, the “thousand-headed, thousand-armed” monster, and commissions him to destroy the sacrifice prepared by Daksha. Then Vîrabhadra, “abiding in the region of ghosts (ethereal men) . . . . created from the pores of his skin (Roma-kûpas) powerful Raumas.”* 183 ←Now, however mythical the allegory, the Mahâbhârata†—which is as much history as is the Iliad—shows the Raumas and other races springing in the same manner from the Roma-kûpas, hair or skin pores. This allegorical description of Daksha’s “sacrifice” is full of significance to the students of the Secret Doctrine who know of the “Sweat-born.”
In the Vâyu Purâna’s account of the sacrifice, moreover, it is said to have taken place in the presence of creatures born from the egg, from the vapour, vegetation, pores of the skin, and, finally only, from the womb.‡
Daksha typifies the early Third Race, holy and pure, as yet devoid of an Individual Ego, and possessing passive capacities only. Brahmâ, therefore, commands him to create (in the exoteric texts); when, obeying the command, he made “inferior and superior” (Avara and Vara) progeny (Putra), bipeds and quadrupeds; and by his will, gave birth to females, to the Gods, the Daityas (Giants of the Fourth Race), the snake-gods, animals, cattle and the Dânavas (Titans and Demon Magicians) and other beings.
From that period forward, living creatures were engendered by sexual intercourse. Before the time of Daksha, they were variously propagated—by the will, by sight, by touch, and by the influence of religious austerities practised by devout sages and holy saints.§
And now comes the simply zoölogical teaching.
* Wilson translates the word as “demigods” (Vishnu Purâna, i. 130); but Raumas are simply a race, a tribe.
† xii. 10,308.
‡ Wilson, ibid., p. 123.
§ Ibid., ii. 10.