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The Secret Doctrine Vol I

By H.P. Blavatsky

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The Days and Nights of Brahmâ

This is the name given to the Periods called Manvantara (Manuantara, or between the Manus) and Pralaya, or Dissolution; one referring to the Active Periods of the Universe; the other to its times of relative and complete Rest, whether they occur at the end of a Day or an Age, or Life, of Brahmâ. These Periods, which follow each other in regular succession, are also called Small and Great Kalpas, the Minor and the Mahâ Kalpas; though, properly speaking, the Mahâ Kalpa is never a Day, but a whole Life or Age of Brahmâ, for it is said in the Brahma Vaivarta: “Chronologers compute a Kalpa by the Life of Brahmâ. Minor Kalpas, as Samvarta and the rest, are numerous.” In sober truth they are infinite; for they have never had a commencement; or, in other words, there never was a first Kalpa, nor will there ever be a last, in Eternity.
One Parârdha, or half of the existence of Brahmâ, in the ordinary acceptation of this measure of time, has already expired in the present Mahâ Kalpa; the last Kalpa was the Padma, or that of the Golden Lotus; the present one is the Varâha,584 the “Boar” Incarnation, or Avatâra.
One thing is to be especially noted by the scholar who studies the Hindû religion from the Puranâs. He must never take the statements found therein literally, and in one sense only; and those especially, which concern the Manvantaras, or Kalpas, have to be understood in their several references. Thus these Ages relate, in the same language, to both the great and the small periods, to Mahâ Kalpas and to Minor Cycles. The Matsya, or Fish Avatâra, happened before the Varâha or Boar Avatâra; the allegories, therefore, must relate to both the Padma and the present Manvantara, and also to the Minor Cycles which have occurred since the reäppearance of our Chain of Worlds and the Earth. And as the Matsya Avatâra of Vishnu and Vaivasvata's Deluge are correctly connected with an event that happened on our Earth during this Round, it is evident that, while it may relate to pre-cosmic events, pre-cosmic in the sense of our Cosmos, or Solar System, it has reference, in our case, to a distant geological period. Not even Esoteric Philosophy can claim to know, except by analogical inference, that which took place before the reäppearance of our Solar System, and previous to the last Mahâ Pralaya. But it teaches distinctly, that after the first geological disturbance of the Earth's axis, which ended in the sweeping down to the bottom of the seas of the whole Second Continent, with its primeval races—of which successive Continents, or “Earths,” Atlantis was the fourth—there came another disturbance owing to the axis again resuming its previous degree of inclination as rapidly as it had changed it: when the Earth was indeed once more raised out of the waters—as above, so below, and vice versâ. There were “Gods” on Earth in those days; Gods, and not men, as we know them now, says the tradition. As will be shown in Volume II, the computation of periods, in exoteric Hindûism, refers to both the great cosmic and the small terrestrial events and cataclysms, and the same may be demonstrated in respect to names. For instance, the name Yudishthira—the first king of the Sacae or Shakas, who opens the Kali Yuga Era, which has to last 432,000 years, “an actual king who lived 3,102 years b.c.”—applies also to the Great Deluge, at the time of the first sinking of Atlantis. He is the “Yudishthira,585 born on the mountain of the hundred peaks, at the extremity of the world, beyond which nobody can go” and “immediately after the flood.”586 We know of no “Flood” 3,102 years b.c., not even that of Noah, for, agreeably with Judæo-Christian chronology, it took place 2,349 years b.c.
This relates to an esoteric division of time and a mystery explained elsewhere, and may therefore be left aside for the present. Suffice it to remark, at this juncture, that all the efforts of imagination of the Wilfords, Bentleys, and other would-be Œdipuses of esoteric Hindû Chronology, have sadly failed. No computation of either the Four Ages, or the Manvantaras, has ever yet been unriddled by our very learned Orientalists, who have therefore cut the Gordian Knot by proclaiming the whole “a figment of the Brâhmanical brain.” So be it, and may the great scholars rest in peace! This “figment” is given at the end of the Commentaries on Stanza II of the Anthropogenesis, in Volume II, with Esoteric additions.
Let us see, however, what were the three kinds of Pralayas, and what is the popular belief about them. For once it agrees with Esotericism.
Of the Pralaya, before which fourteen Manvantaras elapse, having over them as many presiding Manus, and at whose close occurs the Incidental, or Brahmâ's Dissolution, it is said in Vishnu Purâna, in condensed paraphrase:
At the end of a thousand Periods of Four Ages, which complete a day of Brahmâ, the earth is almost exhausted. The Eternal (Avyaya) Vishnu then assumes the character of Rudra, the Destroyer (Shiva), and reünites all his creatures to himself. He enters the Seven Rays of the Sun and drinks up all the Waters of the Globe; he causes the moisture to evaporate, thus drying up the whole Earth. Oceans and rivers, torrents and small streams, are all exhaled. Thus fed with abundant moisture the Seven Solar Rays become Seven Suns, by dilation, and they finally set the World on fire. Hari, the destroyer of all things, who is the Flame of Time, Kâlâgni, finally consumes the Earth. Then Rudra, becoming Janârdana, breathes clouds and rain.587
There are many kinds of Pralaya, but three chief periods are specially mentioned in old Hindû books. The first of these, as Wilson shows, is called Naimittika,588 “Occasional” or “Incidental,” caused by the intervals of Brahmâ's Days; it is the destruction of creatures, of all that lives and has a form, but not of the substance, which remains in statu quo till the new Dawn after that Night. The second is called Prâkritika, and occurs at the end of the Age or Life of Brahmâ, when everything that exists is resolved into the Primal Element, to be remodelled at the end of that longer Night. The third,  tyantika, does not concern the Worlds, or the Universe, but only the Individualities of some people. It is thus the Individual Pralaya, or Nirvâna, after having reached which, there is no more future existence possible, no rebirth till after the Mahâ Pralaya. The latter Night—lasting as it does 311,040,000,000,000 years, with the possibility also of being almost doubled in the case of the lucky Jîvanmukta who reaches Nirvâna at an early period of a Manvantara—is long enough to be regarded as eternal, if not endless. The Bhâgavata Purâna589 speaks of a fourth kind of Pralaya, the Nitya, or Constant Dissolution, and explains it as the change which takes place imperceptibly in everything in this Universe from the globe down to the atom, without cessation. It is growth and decay—life and death.
When the Mahâ Pralaya arrives, the inhabitants of Svar-loka, the Upper Sphere, disturbed by the conflagration, seek refuge “with the Pitris, their Progenitors, the Manus, the Seven Rishis, the various orders of Celestial Spirits and the Gods, in Mahar-loka.” When the latter is reached also, the whole of the above enumerated beings migrate in their turn from Mahar-loka, and repair to Jana-loka, “in their subtile forms, destined to become reëmbodied, in similar capacities as their former, when the world is renewed at the beginning of the succeeding Kalpa.”590
Clouds, mighty in size, and loud in thunder, fill up all Space [Nabhas-tala]. Showering down torrents of water, these clouds quench the dreadful fires, ... and then they rain uninterruptedly for a hundred [divine] Years, and deluge the whole World [Solar System]. Pouring down, in drops as large as dice, these rains overspread the Earth, and fill the Middle Region (Bhuvo-loka) and inundate Heaven. The World is now enveloped in darkness; and all things, animate or inanimate, having perished, the clouds continue to pour down their Waters, ... and the Night of Brahmâ reigns supreme over the scene of desolation.591
This is what we call in the Esoteric Doctrine a Solar Pralaya. When the Waters have reached the region of the Seven Rishis, and the World, our Solar System, is one Ocean, they stop. The Breath of Vishnu becomes a strong Wind, which blows for another hundred Divine Years until all clouds are dispersed. The wind is then reäbsorbed: and That—Of which all things are made, the Lord by whom all things exist, He who is inconceivable, without beginning, the beginning of the Universe, reposes, sleeping upon Shesha [the Serpent of Infinity] in the midst of the Deep. The Creator [(?)  dikrit] Hari, sleeps upon the Ocean [of Space] in the form of Brahmâ—glorified by Sanaka592 and the Saints (Siddhas) of Jana-loka, and contemplated by the holy denizens of Brahma-loka, anxious for final liberation—involved in mystic slumber, the celestial personification of his own illusions.... This is the Dissolution [(?) Pratisanchara] termed Incidental because Hari is its Incidental [Ideal] Cause.593 When the Universal Spirit wakes, the World revives; when he closes his eyes, all things fall upon the bed of mystic slumber. In like manner, as a thousand Great Ages constitute a Day of Brahmâ [in the original it is Padmayoni, the same as Abjayoni, “Lotus-born,” not Brahmâ], so his Night consists of the same period.... Awaking at the end of his Night, the Unborn ... creates the Universe anew.594
This is “Incidental” Pralaya; what is the Elemental (Prâkritika) Dissolution? Parâshara describes it to Maitreya as follows:
When, by dearth and fire all the Worlds and Pâtâlas [Hells] are withered up595 ... the progress of Elemental Dissolution is begun. Then, first, the Waters swallow up the property of Earth (which is the rudiment of Smell), and Earth deprived of this property proceeds to destruction ... and becomes one with Water.... When the Universe is, thus, pervaded by the waves of the watery Element, its rudimentary flavour is licked up by the Element of Fire ... and the Waters themselves are destroyed ... and become one with Fire; and the Universe is, therefore, entirely filled with [ethereal] Flame, which ... gradually overspreads the whole World. While Space is [one] Flame, ... the Element of Wind seizes upon the rudimental property, or form, which is the Cause of Light, and that being withdrawn (pralîna), all becomes of the nature of Air. The rudiment of form being destroyed, and Fire [(?) Vibhâvasu] deprived of its rudiment, Air extinguishes Fire and spreads ... over Space, which is deprived of Light, when Fire merges into Air. Air, then, accompanied by Sound, which is the source of Ether, extends everywhere throughout the ten regions ... until Ether seizes upon Contact [(?) Sparsha, Cohesion—Touch?], its rudimental property, by the loss of which, Air is destroyed, and Ether [(?) Kha] remains unmodified; devoid of Form, Flavour, Touch (Sparsha), and Smell, it exists [un]embodied [mûrttimat] and vast, and pervades the whole of Space. Ether [ kâsha], whose characteristic property and rudiment is Sound [the “Word”] exists alone, occupying all the vacuity of Space [or rather, occupying the whole containment of Space]. Then the Origin [Noumenon?] of the Elements (Bhûtâdi) devours Sound [the collective Demiurgos]; [and the hosts of Dhyân Chohans] and all the [existing] Elements596are, at once, merged into their original. This Primary Element is Consciousness, combined with the Property of Darkness [Tâmasa—Spiritual Darkness rather], and is, itself, swallowed up [disintegrated] by Mahat [the Universal Intellect], whose characteristic property is Intelligence [Buddhi], and Earth and Mahat are the inner and outer boundaries of the Universe. In this manner, as [in the Beginning] were the seven forms of Nature [Prakriti] reckoned from Mahat to Earth, so ... these seven successively reënter into each other.597
The Egg of Brahmâ (Sarva-mandala) is dissolved in the Waters that surround it, with its seven zones (dvîpas), seven oceans, seven regions, and their mountains. The investure of Water is drunk by Fire; the (stratum of) Fire is absorbed by (that of) Air; Air blends itself with Ether [ kâsha]; the Primary Element [Bhûtâdi, the origin, or rather the cause, of the Primary Element] devours the Ether, and is (itself) destroyed by Intellect [Mahat, the Great, the Universal Mind], which, along with all these, is seized upon by Nature [Prakriti] and disappears. This Prakriti is, essentially, the same, whether discrete or indiscrete; only that which is discrete is, finally, lost or absorbed in the indiscrete. Spirit [Pums] also, which is one, pure, imperishable, eternal, all-pervading, is a portion of that Supreme Spirit which is all things. That Spirit [Sarvesha] which is other than (embodied) Spirit, and in which there are no attributes of name, species [nâman and jâti, or rûpa, hence body rather than species], or the like ... [remains] as the (sole) Existence [Sattâ]. Nature [Prakriti] and Spirit [Purusha] both resolve [finally] into Supreme Spirit.598
This is the final Pralaya599—the Death of Kosmos; after which its Spirit rests in Nirvâna, or in That for which there is neither Day nor Night. All the other Pralayas are periodical, and follow the Manvantaras in regular succession, as the night follows the day of every human creature, animal, and plant. The Cycle of Creation of the Lives of Kosmos is run down; the energy of the Manifested “Word” having its growth, culmination, and decrease, as have all things temporary, however long their duration. The Creative Force is Eternal as noumenal; as a phenomenal manifestation, in its aspects, it has a beginning and must, therefore, have an end. During that interval, it has its Periods of Activity and its Periods of Rest. And these are the Days and Nights of Brahmâ. But Brahman, the Noumenon, never rests, as It never changes, but ever is, though It cannot be said to be anywhere.
The Jewish Kabalists felt the necessity of this immutability in an eternal, infinite Deity, and therefore applied the same thought to the anthropomorphic God. The idea is poetical, and very appropriate in its application. In the Zohar we read as follows:
As Moses was keeping a vigil on Mount Sinai, in company with the Deity, who was concealed from his sight by a cloud, he felt a great fear overcome him, and suddenly asked: “Lord, where art thou ... sleepest thou, O Lord? ...”And the Spirit answered him; “I never sleep: were I to fall asleep for a moment before my time, all the creation would crumble into dissolution in one instant.”
“Before my time” is very suggestive. It shows the God of Moses to be only a temporary substitute, like Brahmâ, the male, a substitute and an aspect of That which is immutable, and which, therefore, can take no part in the Days, or Nights, nor have any concern whatever with reäction or dissolution.
While the Eastern Occultists have seven modes of interpretation, the Jews have only four; namely, the real-mystical, the allegorical, the moral, and the literal or Pashut. The latter is the key of the exoteric Churches and not worth discussion. Here are several sentences, which, read in the first, or mystical key, show the identity of the foundations of construction in every Scripture. They are given in Isaac Myer's excellent book on the Kabalistic works, which he seems to have well studied. I quote verbatim.
“B'raisheeth barah elohim ath hashama' yem v'ath haa'retz, i.e., ‘In the beginning the God(s) created the heavens and the earth’; (the meaning of which is;) the six (Sephiroth of Construction),600 over which B'raisheeth stands, all belong Below. It created six, (and) on these stand (exist) all Things. And those depend upon the seven forms of the Cranium up to the Dignity of all Dignities. And the second 'Earth' does not come into calculation, therefore it has been said: ‘And from it (that Earth) which underwent the curse; came it forth.’ ... ‘It (the Earth) was without form and void; and darkness was over the face of the Abyss, and the Spirit of Elohim ... was breathing (me'racha'pheth, i.e., hovering, brooding over, moving, ...) over the waters.’ Thirteen depend on thirteen (forms) of the most worthy Dignity. Six thousand years hang (are referred to) in the first six words. The seventh (thousand, the millennium) above it (the cursed Earth) is that which is strong by Itself. And it was rendered entirely desolate during twelve hours (one ... day ...). In the thirteenth, It (the Deity) shall restore them ... and everything shall be renewed as before; and all those six shall continue.”601
The “Sephiroth of Construction” are the six Dhyân Chohans, or Manus, or Prajâpatis, synthesized by the seventh “B'raisheeth,” the First Emanation, or Logos, and who are called, therefore, the Builders of the Lower or Physical Universe, all belonging Below. These Six [6-pointed star with middle dot], whose essence is of the Seventh, are the Upâdhi, the Base or Fundamental Stone, on which the Objective Universe is built, the Noumenoi of all things. Hence they are, at the same time, the Forces of Nature; the Seven Angels of the Presence; the Sixth and Seventh Principles in Man; the spirito-psycho-physical Spheres of the Septenary Chain, the Root Races, etc. They all “depend upon the Seven Forms of the Cranium” up to the Highest. The “Second ‘Earth’ does not come into calculation,” because it is no Earth, but the Chaos, or Abyss of Space, in which rested the Paradigmatic, or Model Universe, in the Ideation of the Over-Soul, brooding over it. The term “Curse” is here very misleading, for it means simply Doom or Destiny, or that fatality which sent it forth into the objective state. This is shown by that “Earth,” under the “Curse,” being described as “without form and void,” in whose abysmal depths the “Breath” of the Elohim, or collective Logoi, produced, or so to say photographed, the first Divine Ideation of the things to be. This process is repeated after every Pralaya before the beginnings of a new Manvantara, or Period of sentient individual Being. “Thirteen depend on thirteen Forms,” refers to the thirteen Periods, personified by the thirteen Manus, with Svâyambhuva, the fourteenth—13, instead of 14, being an additional veil—those fourteen Manus who reign within the term of a Mahâ Yuga, a Day of Brahmâ. These thirteen-fourteen of the objective Universe depend on the thirteen-fourteen paradigmatic, ideal Forms. The meaning of the “six thousand Years” which “hang in the first six Words,” has again to be sought in the Indian Wisdom. They refer to the primordial six (seven) “Kings of Edom,” who typify the Worlds, or Spheres, of our Chain, during the First Round, as well as the primordial men of this Round. They are the septenary pre-Adamic First Root-Race, or they who existed before the Third, Separated Race. As they were Shadows, and senseless, for they had not yet eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they could not see the Parzuphim, or “Face could not see Face”; that is to say, primeval men were “unconscious.” “Therefore, the primordial (seven) Kings died,” i.e., were destroyed.602 Now, who are these Kings? They are the Kings who are the “Seven Rishis, certain (secondary) divinities, Indra [Shakra], Manu, and the Kings his Sons [who] are created and perish at one period” as Vishnu Purâna tells us.603 For the seventh “thousand,” which is not the millennium of exoteric Christianity, but that of Anthropogenesis, represents both the “Seventh Period of Creation,” that of physical man, according to Vishnu Purâna, and the Seventh Principle, both macrocosmic and microcosmic, and also the Pralaya after the Seventh Period, the Night, which has the same duration as the Day, of Brahmâ. “It was rendered entirely desolate during twelve hours.” It is in the Thirteenth (twice six and the synthesis) that everything shall be restored, and the “six shall continue.”
Thus, the author of the Qabbalah remarks quite truly that:
Long before his [Ibn Gebirol's] time ... many centuries before the Christian era, there was in Central Asia a “Wisdom Religion”, fragments of which subsequently existed among the learned men of the archaic Egyptians, the ancient Chinese, Hindûs, etc.... [And that] the Qabbalah most likely originally came from  ryan sources, through Central Asia, Persia, India and Mesopotamia, for from Ur and Haran came Abraham and many others, into Palestine.604
Such was also the firm conviction of C. W. King, the author of The Gnostics and Their Remains.
Vâmadeva Modelyar describes the coming Night most poetically. Though it is given in Isis Unveiled, it is worthy of repetition.
Strange noises are heard, proceeding from every point.... These are the precursors of the Night of Brahmâ; dusk rises at the horizon, and the Sun passes away behind the thirteenth degree of Makara [the tenth sign of the Zodiac], and will reach no more the sign of the Mîna [the Zodiacal sign Pisces, or the Fish]. The Gurus of the Pagodas, appointed to watch the Râshichakram [Zodiac], may now break their circle and instruments, for they are henceforth useless.
Gradually light pales, heat diminishes, uninhabited spots multiply on the earth, the air becomes more and more rarefied; the springs of waters dry up, the great rivers see their waves exhausted, the ocean shows its sandy bottom and plants die. Men and animals decrease in size daily. Life and motion lose their force, planets can hardly gravitate in space; they are extinguished one by one, like a lamp which the hand of the Chokra [servant] neglects to replenish. Sûrya [the Sun] flickers and goes out, matter falls into Dissolution [Pralaya], and Brahmâ merges back into Dyaus, the Unrevealed God, and, his task being accomplished, he falls asleep. Another Day is passed, Night sets in, and continues until the future Dawn.
And now again reënter into the Golden Egg of his Thought the germs of all that exist, as the divine Manu tells us. During His peaceful rest, the animated beings, endowed with the principles of action, cease their functions, and all feeling [Manas] becomes dormant. When they are all absorbed in the Supreme Soul, this Soul of all the beings sleeps in complete repose, till the Day when it resumes its form, and awakes again from its primitive darkness.605
As the Satya Yuga is always the first in the series of the Four Ages or Yugas, so the Kali ever comes the last. The Kali Yuga now reigns supreme in India, and it seems to coincide with that of the Western Age. Anyhow, it is curious to see how prophetic in almost all things was the writer of Vishnu Purâna, when foretelling to Maitreya some of the dark influences and sins of this Kali Yuga. For after saying that the “barbarians” will be masters of the banks of the Indus, of Chandrabhâgâ and Kâshmîra, he adds:
There will be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth, kings of churlish spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness. They will inflict death on women, children, and cows; they will seize upon the property of their subjects [or, according to another reading, be intent upon the wives of others]; they will be of limited power ... their lives will be short, their desires insatiable.... People of various countries intermingling with them will follow their example; and, the barbarians being powerful [in India] in the patronage of the princes, whilst pure tribes are neglected, the people will perish [or, as the Commentator has it: “the Mlechchhas will be in the centre, and the  ryas in the end”].606Wealth and piety will decrease day by day, until the world will be wholly depraved.... Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification.... External types will be the only distinction of the several orders of life; dishonesty [anyâya] will be the (universal) means of subsistence; weakness the cause of dependence; menace and presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be devotion; a man if rich will be reputed pure; mutual assent will be marriage; fine clothes will be dignity.... He who is the strongest will reign ... the people, unable to bear the heavy burthens [khara-bhâra, load of taxes], will take refuge among the valleys.... Thus, in the Kali Age, will decay constantly proceed, until the human race approaches its annihilation [pralaya]. When ... the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine Being which exists, of its own spiritual nature [Kalkî Avatâra] ... shall descend upon Earth, ... endowed with the eight superhuman faculties.... He will reëstablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of Kali Yuga shall be awakened, and shall be as pellucid as crystal. The men who are, thus, changed ... shall be as the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita Age (or Age of Purity). As it is said: “When the Sun and Moon and (the Lunar Asterism) Tishya, and the planet Jupiter are in one mansion, the Krita [or Satya] Age shall return....”607
Two persons, Devâpi, of the race of Kuru, and Maru [Moru], of the family of Ikshvâku, ... continue alive throughout the Four Ages, residing at ... Kalâpa.608 They will return hither, in the beginning of the Krita Age609 ... Maru [Moru]610 the son of Shîghra, through the power of devotion (Yoga) is still living ... and will be the restorer of the Kshattriya race of the Solar Dynasty.611
Whether right or wrong with regard to the latter prophecy, the “blessings” of Kali Yuga are well described, and fit in admirably even with that which one sees and hears in Europe and other civilized and Christian lands in the full XIXth, and at the dawn of the XXth century of our great “Era of Enlightenment.”