Up to this point in the Tenth Stanza, H.P. Blavatsky dealt with the first five Root-Races. All modern humanities are Adamite except for one: the apes. In The Secret Doctrine 2:262, the apes had already made the "human stage" before the Fourth Round and they had also found the appropriate physical vehicles in which to express their humanity before the middle of the Fourth Root-Race. Human and animal mating (humans looked ape-like at the time) in the Miocene of the early Fourth Root-Race produced the bodies for the apes, per The Secret Doctrine 2:688. Therefore, the apes are human. But they are post-Adamic. What does this mean? If pre-Adamic refers to people before Vaivasvata Manu and Adamic refers to people under Vaivasvata Manu, then post-Adamic means that the apes will become fully human when the Sub-Races from Vaivasvata Manu begin to lose their sexuality in the Sixth Root-Race.
The relationship of ape to man in the Fourth Root-Race is represented by the heroic figures of Enkidu and Gilgamesh in The Epic of Gilgamesh (2000 BC-1000 BC). On page 63, Enkidu is described, "His body was rough, he had long hair like a woman's; it waved like the hair of Nisaba, the goddess of corn. His body was covered with matted hair like Samuqan's, the god of cattle. He was innocent of mankind; he knew nothing of the cultivated land." The mother of Gilgamesh, Ninsun or the "lady of wild cows," adopts him. He even grazes on the grasses like the cows. Enkidu is "man-animal united." But by page 67 he has "rubbed down the matted hair of his body and anointed himself with oil" to become "a man." He befriends Gilgamesh and becomes his servant, but he must die through no fault of his own. The goddess Ishtar forces Enkidu and Gilgamesh to fight the Bull of Heaven because she is angry at Gilgamesh for rejecting her sexual advances. They kill the Bull, but it is Enkidu who falls sick and dies. Seeing the mortality of his friend, Gilgamesh goes on a quest to seek immortality.
To understand this myth, G. de Purucker explained in Studies on page 120 that the early apes "associated so closely with their human half-parent, that like children they partook very largely by imitation, imitatively and otherwise, of what their human half-parent did and felt and thought. In other words, the apes then were far more human than now they are." Enkidu's actions mirror human actions: 1) he is adopted 2) he rubs himself down with oil 3) he serves Gilgamesh 4) he suffers his fate from Gilgamesh's actions as opposed to his own. Enkidu dies first because many of the apes are going to die out first in the Sixth Root-Race. But many human beings are also going to die out later in the Sixth Root-Race. This is why Gilgamesh embarks on his quest for immortality. H.P. Blavatsky noted that the "adepts of a certain school hope that some of the Egos of the apes of a higher intelligence will reappear at the close of the Sixth Root-race." In their current bodies, the apes must disappear, but they can reappear fully human in their egoic identities going into the Seventh Root-Race. All humans, whether symbolized by the primitive Enkidu or the so-called civilized Gilgamesh (who is far crueler than Enkidu), have a similar challenge to remain awake in the final stages of the planetary Manvantara.
The most famous ape-man in literature is Hanuman in the Ramayana (700 BC-400 BC). In Rama the Steadfast (an early form of the Ramayana) on page 228, he is the "ape champion." His father, Kesari, is a vanara, a forest-man, a monkey. His mother, Anjana, is an apsara, a beautiful female, though probably not too unlike the "charming," wavy hair" animal, Lilith, who is Adam's first wife. Hanuman himself is one of the Chiranjivi, the Eight Immortals, who will live throughout the Kali-Yuga, which indicates the apes will be present in the Sixth Root-Race. While the story of Gilgamesh is about the juncture between the Third and Fourth Root-Races, the story of Hanuman is about the juncture between the Fourth and Fifth Root-Races. In Studies on page 645, G. de Purucker clarified, "the Ramayana, for instance, is essentially the struggle of Rama against his enemies, mostly of the south, in Lanka, the Rakshasas, etc., which is but a modern Aryanized legendary version of the history of the struggle of the early Fifth Race in its Indian branch with the Aryanized Atlanteans of Lanka, an island-continent now sunken except its northern headland, which is Ceylon." But the 16th century AD Chinese story of Sun Wukong in Monkey is about the juncture between the Fifth and Sixth Root-Races. Sun Wukong is charged with finding the Buddha and bringing the scriptures back to China. He wants to escape death and discover immortality. So, he eats his "fill" of the sacred peaches "seven times" on pages 19-20. As a result, he takes the name "Aware-of-Vacuity," a sign that he represents the Sixth Root-Race. Moreover, he must give up his physical body (just like the apes leaning into the Seventh Root-Race) during the journey on page 282, "He had discarded his earthly body; he was cleansed from the corruption of the senses, from the fleshly inheritance of those bygone years. His was now transcendent wisdom that leads to the Further Shore, the mastery that knows no bounds." He finds the "true scriptures," which are actually "blank scrolls" indicative of the clearness of the Seventh Root-Race. He only has to pay "thee pecks and three pints of rice" for them. But since no one back in China will believe the true scrolls are blank his fellow disciples give him scrolls with writing to take home.
The commonality shared in all three stories about Enkidu, Hanuman, and Sun Wukong is that the ape-men ultimately safeguard humanity. Without Enkidu, Gilgamesh does not awaken to his own immortality. Without Hanuman, Rama does not save Sita. Without Sun Wukong, the East does not receive the wisdom of the West.
Sources:
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 2019).
John Brockington and Mary Brockington, trans., Rama the Steadfast: An Early Form of the Ramayana (London: Penguin Books, 2006).
Wu Cheng'en, Monkey, trans. Arthur Waley (New York: Grove Press, 1970).
G. de Purucker, Studies in Occult Philosophy (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1973).
N.K. Sandars, trans., The Epic of Gilgamesh (New York: Penguin Books, 1972).
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