H.P. Blavatsky remarked that the Fifth Stanza is the "most difficult" to explain. When Brahma is "moved by the desire to create" in a Great Age, he embodies in his own secondary universe as a stream of consciousness in matter, thereby propelling it to self-consciousness. H.P. Blavatsky outlined the seven-fold, Kabbalistic, evolutionary ladder upwards, beginning with the "Breath," then a stone, a plant, an animal, a man, a spirit, and a god. In this case, the "Breath" signifies the divine elementals, a "spirit" signifies the Planetary Spirits, and a "god" symbolizes the Dhyani-Buddhas at the heart of a Solar Sun. All seven of these classes come to an end, as such, with the close of the Maha-Manvantara. Unlike in a singular Saurya Manvantara when only one Solar Sun dies, the Maha-Pralaya means that all the Solar Suns in Cosmic Kama in an array of universal solar systems are extinguished on the lower planes of a secondary universe. Therefore, a Saurya Manvantara can refer to two events: 1) the end of the solar system in any one of its embodiments during a Great Age 2) the end of the solar system in its final embodiment at the close of a Great Age.
G. de Purucker wrote on this two-fold distinction in Fountain-Source on pages 651-652. Here, he used the term Saurya Manvantara to acknowledge the "death of our own solar chain." But he used the term Prakritika Pralaya to acknowledge a Saurya Manvantara concurrent with the "dissolution of the universal solar system" (with its family of Solar Suns) or our "solar universe" at the close of a Great Age (H.P. Blavatsky also used the terms Prakritika Pralaya and Solar Pralaya interchangeably, per The Secret Doctrine 1:371). In Studies on page 464, his example of a Saurya Manvantara in relation to a Great Age applied to the second case, not the first. The subject is complicated. H.P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine 1:371, wrote that the Prakritika Pralaya "occurs at the end of the Age or Life of Brahma, when everything that exists is resolved into the primal element." G.de Purucker reminded us in his definition of Prakritika Pralaya in the Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary that the "inner portions or constitution of the universe" remain active after a human being dies and the "lower quaternary of the human constitution undergoes its prakritika or death." In G. de Purucker's digram on page 435 of Fountain-Source, the Reimbodying Ego for the human principles corresponds to Higher Manas. For the cosmical principles in G. de Purucker's diagram on page 437, it corresponds to Mahat or the Equatorial Sun. Thus, with the death of Brahma at the close of a Great Age, the Equatorial Sun, the Polar Sun, and the Central Sun are released from their bondage in lower matter (Cosmic Kama and below) to become active in their own journeys on other planes of existence. Since a universal solar system with a Central Sun at its head is seven-fold per Fundamentals on page 526 and the close of a Great Age impacts all seven cosmical principles of the Mundane Egg in the "great universal kosmical cycle" per Fundamentals on page 184, these three higher types of cosmic suns are affected by the Maha-Pralaya but in quite a different way than the lower Solar Suns and their planetary chains.
H.P. Blavatsky discussed this progression through several of the cosmical principles in The Secret Doctrine 1:371. When the Maha-Pralaya arrives, the "inhabitants of Swar-loka" are "disturbed" by the conflagration and seek refuge with the "celestial Spirits and the Gods, in Maharloka." When the conflagration reaches Mahar-loka, its inhabitants flee to Janar-loka in "their subtile forms, destined to become re-embodied, in similar capacities as their former, when the world is renewed at the beginning of the succeeding Kalpa." If one sees G. de Purucker's outline on page 462 in Fundamentals, it becomes apparent that Svar-loka loosely corresponds to the 3rd cosmical principle, Mahar-loka to the 4th cosmical principle, and Janar-loka to the 5th cosmical principle. If we transpose G. de Purucker's lokas onto H.P. Blavatsky's exposition of the seven-fold cosmical principles in The Secret Doctrine 2:241, then Svar-loka represents the planets, Mahar-loka represents the Solar Sun, and Janar-loka represents the Equatorial Sun. That is, the inhabitants of the lower four layers of the Cosmos flee upwards to the Equatorial Sun to escape the full force of the Maha-Pralaya. This interpretation is affirmed in H.P. Blavatsky's subsequent paragraph in The Secret Doctrine 1:371 when she related the "torrents of water," the "clouds," the "hundred (divine) years," and the "deluge of the world" to the "Solar System" while similarly relating the "rains" to the inundation of the "earth" as Bhuvar-loka. The "Night of Brahma" reigns "supreme over the scene of desolation." The scene of desolation is the solar system with its planetary chains.
On the journeys of the triplicate cosmic suns in their attempted escape from the scene of desolation, the Equatorial Sun as Mahat is pulled up into the Anima Mundi (or Adi-Buddhi of the Mundane Egg), per G. de Purucker's diagram in Fountain-Source on page 437. But even the Anima Mundi is "indrawn into the cosmic monad" in Fountain-Source on page 178, which means both the Equatorial Sun and the Polar Sun re-unite with the Central Sun. Since Mahat in its ascent carries the highest essence of the Prakritis below and re-unites them with the Prakritis above (in the same way that the higher Manas does with human principles in the death of a human being), "Mahat and matter" are considered the "inner and outer boundaries of the Universe," per The Secret Doctrine 1:256-257. Hence, Mahat, whose "characteristic property is Buddhi" and the "Father" on the lower manifested planes, is the 5th cosmical principle merging upwards into the 6th and 7th cosmical principles. As the 7th cosmical principle, the Central Sun, tinctured by the central point, is the "cosmic spirit" and "for its own universe" is "one and sole during mahapralaya, because during this period manifestation is not" (hence, its designation as the "First or Unmanifest Logos" in G. de Purucker's diagram on page 437). The hosts of the "galactic world," meaning the outpourings of the central point or 3rd Logos into that Central Sun, no longer exist in their "bewildering ramifications and differentiated varieties." H.P. Blavatsky wrote in The Secret Doctrine 1:373, "the energy of the manifested 'Word'" (3rd Logos) in its "growth, culmination, and decrease" begins to wind down. In its winding down, the "Universal Intellect" of the "Word" dissolves consciousness as we know it. Finally, as she explained in Collected Writings 10:44, "Then NO-THING reigns supreme and lone in Boundless Infinitude and that No-thing is non-differentiated space which is no-space, and the ABSOLUTE." Father and Mother, as the "NO-THING," both remain alive during all this conflagration. The child returns to its Mother, the dawn arrives, the Father's vibration radiates through the Mother, they re-become Father-Mother, their child is re-born, the central point tinctures the Central Sun, the Cosmic Monad of the secondary universe re-awakens, the secondary darkness of Adi-Buddhi unfolds itself, the Cosmic Mind of Mahat reflects the Universal Mind of the central point thereby carrying Divine Thought into manifestation, and Cosmic Kama is born as a vehicle for the higher cosmical principles to operate in the lower quaternary of the Kosmos. The evolving intelligences of the evolutionary ladder including the elemental, the stone, the plant, the animal, the man, the spirits, and the gods march upwards once again.
Sources:
H.P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings, Vol. 10 (Wheaton: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1974).
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 2019).
G.de Purucker, Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary. Retrieved from theosociety.org.
G.de Purucker, Fountain-Source of Occultism (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1974).
G. de Purucker, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1979).
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