Band 2 Anthropogenesis - H.P. Blavatsky

23. THE SELF-BORN WERE THE CHHAYAS, THE SHADOWS FROM THE BODIES OF THE SONS OF TWILIGHT.
NEITHER WATER NOR FIRE COULD DESTROY THEM. THEIR SONS WERE (so destroyed) (a).
(a) This verse cannot be understood without the help of the Commentaries. It means that the First Root-Race, the
"Shadows" of the Progenitors, could not be injured, or destroyed by death. Being so ethereal and so little human in
constitution, they could not be affected by any element -- flood or fire. But their "Sons," the Second Root-Race, could be
and were so destroyed. As the "progenitors" merged wholly in their own astral bodies, which were their progeny; so that
progeny was absorbed in its descendants, the "Sweat-born." These were the second Humanity -- composed of the most
heterogeneous gigantic semi-human monsters -- the first attempts of material nature at building human bodies. The everblooming
lands of the Second Continent (Greenland, among others) were transformed, in order, from Edens with their
eternal spring, into hyperborean Hades. This transformation was due to the displacement of the great waters of the globe,
to oceans changing their beds; and the bulk of the Second Race perished in this first great throe of the evolution and
consolidation of the globe during the human period. Of such great cataclysms there have already been four.* And we may
expect a fifth for ourselves in due course of time.
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A FEW WORDS ABOUT "DELUGES" AND "NOAHS."
The accounts in the various Puranas about our Progenitors are as contradictory in their details as everything else. Thus
while, in the Rig Veda, Ida (or Ila) is called the Instructress of Vaivasvata Manu, Sayana makes of her a goddess
presiding over the Earth, and the Sathapatha Brahmana shows her to be the Manu's daughter, an offering of his sacrifice,
and, later on, his (Vaivasvata's) wife, by whom he begat the race of Manus. In the Puranas, again, she is Vaivasvata's
daughter, yet the wife of Budha (Wisdom), the illegitimate son of the Moon (Soma) and the planet Jupiter's (Brihhaspati's)
wife, Tara. All this, which seems a jumble to the profane, is full of philosophical meaning to the Occultist. On the very face
of the narrative a secret and sacred meaning is per-
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* The first occurred when what is now the North Pole was separated from the later Continents.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 139 WHAT THE FLOOD MEANS.
ceivable, all the details, however, being so purposely mixed up that the experienced eye of an Initiate alone can follow
them and place the events in their proper order.
The story as told in the "Mahabharata" strikes the key-note, and yet it needs to be explained by the secret sense
contained in the Bhagavad Gita. It is the prologue to the drama of our (Fifth) Humanity. While Vaivasvata was engaged in
devotion on the river bank, a fish craves his protection from a bigger fish. He saves and places it in a jar, where, growing
larger and larger, it communicates to him the news of the forthcoming deluge. It is the well-known "Matsya Avatar," the
first Avatar of Vishnu, the Dagon* of the Chaldean Xisuthrus, and many other things besides. The story is too well known
to need repetition. Vishnu orders a ship to be built, in which Manu is said to be saved along with the seven Rishis, the
latter, however, being absent from other texts. Here the seven Rishis stand for the seven Races, the seven principles,
and various other things; for there is again a double mystery involved in this manifold allegory.
We have said elsewhere that the great Flood had several meanings, and that it referred, as also does the FALL, to both
spiritual and physical, cosmic and terrestrial, events: as above, so it is below. The ship or ark -- navis -- in short, being the
symbol of the female generative principle, is typified in the heavens by the Moon, and on Earth by the Womb: both being
the vessels and bearers of the seeds of life and being, which the sun, or Vishnu, the male principle, vivifies and
fructifies.** The First Cosmic Flood refers to primordial creation, or the formation of Heaven and the Earths; in which case
Chaos and the great Deep stand for the "Flood," and the Moon for the "Mother," from whom proceed all the life-germs.***
But the terrestrial Deluge and
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* We must remember that at the head of all the Babylonian gods were Ea, Anu, and the primeval Bel; and that Ea, the
first, was the God of Wisdom, the great "God of Light" and of the DEEP, and that he was identified with Oannes, or the
Biblical Dagon -- the man-fish who rose out of the Persian Gulf.
** See Part. II. § "The Holy of Holies."
*** It is far later on that the Moon became a male god; with the Hindus it was Soma, with the Chaldeans Nannak or
Nannar, and Sin, the son of Mulil, the older Bel. The "Akkadians" called him the "Lord of Ghosts"; and he was the god of
Nipoor (Niffer) in northern Babylonia. It is Mulil who caused the waters of the Flood to fall from heaven on Earth, for which
Xisuthrus would not allow him to approach his altar. As the modern Assyriologists have now ascertained, it is the northern
Nipoor which is the centre whence Chaldean (black) magic spread; and Eridu (the Southern) which was the primitive seat
of the worship of the culture god, the god of divine wisdom -- the Sun-God being the supreme deity everywhere. With the
Jews, the Moon is connected with Israel's Jehovah and his seed, because Ur was the chief seat of the worship of the
Moon-god, and because Abraham is said to have come from Ur, when from A-bra(h)m, he becomes Abraham.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 140 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
its story has also its dual application. In one case it has reference to that mystery when mankind was saved from utter
destruction, by the mortal woman being made the receptacle of the human seed at the end of the Third Race,* and in the
other to the real and historical Atlantean submersion. In both cases the "Host" -- or the Manu which saved the seed -- is
called Vaivasvata Manu. Hence the diversity between the Puranic and other versions; while in the Sathapatha Brahmana,