In the third part of the Sixth Stanza, H.P. Blavatsky explained how humanity arrived at the stage of the "sexual, physical, man," per The Secret Doctrine 2:157. She asked the question: "COULD MEN EXIST 18,000,000 YEARS AGO?" She answered in the affirmative and tentatively dated the beginnings of Earth's phases: 1) the First and Second Root-Races to the Carboniferous (Coal) or Silurian ages between one hundred and two hundred million years ago 2) the Third Root-Race to the Triassic and Jurassic ages some thirty to forty million years ago 3) the Fourth Root-Race to the Jurassic-Cretaceous junctures some sixteen to eighteen million years ago. These ages correspond to her diagram in The Secret Doctrine 2:710. But her real interest in the Sixth Stanza was how Vaivasvata emerged as contemporary, "sexual, physical, man." In The Secret Doctrine 2:715, she traced his origin to the 5th Sub-Race of the Third Root-Race or 18,6718,728 years ago, counting backwards from 1887, per The Secret Doctrine 2:69. F.J. Dick and William Scott provided context for Vaivasvata's origin in their April 1919 article, "The Age of the Earth," in The Theosophical Path. The periods in Earth's physical history corresponded with the four Root-Races and the four major "convulsions" of the Earth's surface. Charles Ryan also provided some excellent context in Appendix 1 of G. de Purucker's Man in Evolution. On page 292, Charles Ryan surmised, "Nothing definite is revealed about the chronology of the four earlier subraces of the third root-race but approximately exact figures are given for the first time when we reach the firth subrace, and we learn that about 18,618,000 years have elapsed from that subrace to the present day. This period is called by H.P. Blavatsky that of 'our humanity' because the characteristics of mankind as we understand it--physically, emotionally and mentally--showed their first indications in the fifth subrace. This period is the age of Vaivasvata's humanity." The process by which our humanity arrived at this modernity is complicated.
In The Secret Doctrine 2:150, H.P. Blavatsky described how evolving Monads waited in combination with their respective latent souls for "coating" in which to embody. The "lower angels" of Nature had evolved "ethereal forms" from themselves but had left the "physical form" to evolve gradually from its "protoplasmic model." The physical form was simply not developing rapidly enough for the Monads to descend into them. It still had a ways to develop from the "boneless" and "purely ethereal." She clarified in The Secret Doctrine 2:157 that in the early ages before the 5th Sub-Race of the Third Root-Race "astral evolution was alone in progress, and the two planes, the astral and the physical, though developing on parallel Iines, had no direct point of contact with one another." That is, until 18,618,728 years ago when the astral line of evolution broke through into the physical line. The physical forms were finally ready and, through some unknown process of "spontaneous generation," the Monad with its astral soul was finally able to step into the physical body of a "modern, hard, muscular man." But this process did not happen overnight. It took millions and millions of years leading up to the 5th Sub-Race of the Third Root-Race to solidify the sexual physicalization of modern man. To understand this, one can turn to G. de Purucker's Dialogues 2:199, "It was probably in the Triassic Period of the Secondary Age that Man first 'separated' into the two sexes, and this was about the fifth sub-race of the Third Root-Race." He tied this separation of the sexes at this point to the emergence of small mammals of the "Marsupial type" which appeared in "the early Secondary" period. His statement implied that the initial separation of the sexes in the 5th Sub-Race actually occurred in the Triassic period between twenty-eight and forty-four million years ago. Although he pointed to the end of the Triassic for the initial separation in Studies on page 165, this is still a difference of millions years in relation to 18,618,728. In addition, his statement implied that mankind's corresponding mammalian offshoots in the early Secondary period also occurred long before the Jurassic-Cretaceous juncture of "sexual, physical, man."
Now, the 5th Sub-Race of the Third Root-Race obviously did not last ten to twenty million years and, therefore, G. de Purucker's use of the term "5th Sub-Race" in Dialogues 2:199 must refer to an earlier period than Vaivasvata's "hard" and "muscular" physical incarnation some eighteen million years ago. That is, the 5th Sub-Race of the Third Root-Race had its origins in the 5th Family Race of the 3rd Sub-Race in the Third Root-Race, or millions of years earlier. For example, the Third Root-Race evolved through its 1st Sub-Race to develop into its 3rd Sub-Race. This 3rd Sub-Race reached its mid-point in its 4th Family Race. It is the technical beginning of Vaivasvatu Manu, and it is millions of years before the 18,618,728 year marker. The earliest stirrings of the modern human qualities in Vaivasvata awakened and he guided the 3rd Sub-Race from the 4th Family Race into its 5th Family Race, just as he later guided the Third Root-Race from the Fourth Root-Race into the Fifth Root-Race. It is this 3rd Sub-Race in its 5th Family Race that set in motion the slow and steady separation of the sexes into male and female in their astral evolution. And it began millions of millions of years before the final division of humanity in the 5th Sub-Race of the Third Root-Race into "sexual, physical, man."
To be clear, the 3rd Sub-Race, 5th Family Race man was not physical yet since the Manasaputras were waiting for the physical bodies to be ready. In The Secret Doctrine 2:154, H.P. Blavatsky hinted that the "modern, hard, muscular man" of 18,618,728 years ago "was, perhaps, some 25,000,000 years ago, just what the Haeckelian Moneron is, strictly 'an organism without organs,' an entirely homogeneous substance with a structureless albumen body within, and a human form only outwardly." The eighteen million year marker is only a reference to the "last transformation" that took place to create "the truly human man," per The Secret Doctrine 2:250. In his astral lineaments, the Third Root-Race man already began the separation into the sexes before the 5th Sub-Race in a correspondingly minor Family Race cycle (the 5th) belonging to an earlier Sub-Race (the 3rd). But the evolving Monads had to wait until the vehicles were ready. This is why H.P. Blavatsky defined the Vaivasvata Manu of 18,618,728 million years ago in The Secret Doctrine 2:148 as the "male and female entity already [ed. italics added] separated into distinct sexes."
It is best to quote H.P. Blavatsky's own statement in The Secret Doctrine 2:310 regarding the study of Vaivasvata Manu, "Therefore, as constant elucidation is needed, we must be forgiven unavoidable repetitions. The blinds which conceal the real mysteries of the Esoteric philosophy are great and puzzling, and even now the last word cannot be given." But she gave the secret away in The Secret Doctrine 2:160, "Universal Genesis starts from the one, breaks into three, then five, and finally culminates into seven, to return into four, three, and one." This is real esotericism, so let us explain it (remembering that the racial cycles correspond to the planetary cycles) in relation to Vaivasvata and his Sub-Races in the Third and Fourth Root-Races. In the Third Root-Race, the 1st Sub-Race extends its energies into the 3rd Sub-Race. Connected to the 1st Sub-Race, Vaivasvata awakens. The 3rd Sub-Race extends its energies into the 5th Sub-Race. Vavasvata fulfills his mission. The 5th Sub-Race extends its energies to the 7th Sub-Race. Connected to the 7th Sub-Race, Vaivasvata figuratively dies and transfers himself into the 4th Sub-Race of the next Root-Race, the Fourth. There, he is a receptacle of the Fourth Root-Race energies from the most evolved Monads in its 1st Sub-Race through its 3rd Sub-Race.
To give this more depth, let us substitute the planets for the Sub-Races. Intra-Mercury (1) at the portals of the Solar Sun extends its energies to Venus (3). Venus extends its energies to Mercury (5). Mercury extends its energies to the Planet of Death (7). The Planet of Death then transfers those energies to the receptacle of the Moon (4) which captures its light through Venus (3) from Intra-Mercury (1) to share with the Earth. As H.P. Blavatsky noted in The Secret Doctrine 2:31, Venus is "the other Sun." As the "third," it is the "preceptor of the Daityas, the giants of the Fourth Race." Therefore, Venus, "equally with Isis," is "represented with Cow's horns on her head, the symbol of mystic Nature, and one that is convertible with, and significant to, the moon." Jointly, the Moon and Venus shape the stages of the Earth. Further, "Every sin committed on Earth is felt by Usanas-Sukra [ed. "bright Venus"]. The Guru of the Daityas is the Guardian Spirit of the Earth and Men. Every change on Sukra is felt on, and reflected by, the Earth." Finally, in The Secret Doctrine 2:35, "Thus we see the figures 1, 3, 5, 7, as perfect, because thoroughly mystic, numbers playing a prominent part in every Cosmogony and evolution of living Beings." In hindsight, Vaivasvata is so special because he brings all these planetary influences to bear on the human race.
Sources:
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 2019).
F.J. Dick and William Scott, "The Age of the Earth," The Theosophical Path (April 1919). Retrieved from theosociety.org.
G. de Purucker, The Dialogues of G. de Purucker (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1948).
G. de Purucker, Man in Evolution (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1977).
G. de Purucker, Studies in Occult Philosophy (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1973).
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