The only reference to it is contained in one verse of the volume of the Book of Dzyan before us, where it says:
4. After great throes she[87] cast off her old Three and put on her new Seven Skins, and stood in her first one.
This refers to the growth of the Earth, whereas in the Stanza treating of the First Round it is said in the Commentary:
“After the changeless [Avikâra] immutable Nature [Essence, Sadaikarûpa] had awakened and changed [differentiated] into [88]
The Earth is said to cast off “her old three” Skins, because this refers to the three preceding Rounds she has already passed through; the present being the Fourth Round out of the seven. At the beginning of every new Round, after a period of Obscuration, the Earth—as do also the other six “Earths”—casts off, or is supposed to cast off, her old Skins as the Serpent does; therefore she is called in the Aitareya-Brâhmana the Sarpa-Râjnî, the “Queen of the Serpents,” and “the mother of all that moves.” The “Seven Skins,” in the first of which she now stands, refer to the seven geological changes which [pg 051] accompany and correspond to the evolution of the Seven Root-Races of Humanity.
Stanza II, which speaks of this Round, begins with a few words of information concerning the age of our Earth. The chronology will be given in its place. In the Commentary appended to the Stanza, two personages are mentioned, Nârada and Asuramaya, especially the latter. All the calculations are attributed to this archaic celebrity; and what follows will make the reader superficially acquainted with some of these figures.
Two Antediluvian Astronomers.
To the mind of the Eastern student of Occultism, two figures are indissolubly connected with mystic Astronomy, Chronology, and their cycles. Two grand and mysterious figures, towering like two giants in the Archaic Past, emerge before him, whenever he has to refer to Yugas and Kalpas. When, at what period of pre-history they lived, none save a few men in the world know, or ever can know, with that certainty which is required by exact chronology. It may have been 100,000 years ago, it may have been 1,000,000, for all that the outside world will ever know. The mystic West and Freemasonry talk loudly of Enoch and Hermes. The mystic East speaks of Nârada, the old Vedic Rishi, and of Asuramaya, the Atlantean.
It has already been hinted that of all the incomprehensible characters in the Mahâbhârata and the Purânas, Nârada, the son of Brahmâ in the Matsya Purâna, the progeny of Kashyapa and the daughter of Daksha, in the Vishnu Purâna, is the most mysterious. He is referred to by the honourable title of Deva-Rishi (Divine Rishi, rather than Demi-God) by Parâshara, and yet he is cursed by Daksha and even by Brahmâ. He informs Kansha that Bhagavân, or Vishnu in exotericism, would incarnate in the eighth child of Devakî, and thus brings the wrath of the Indian Herod upon Krishna's mother; and then, from the cloud on which he is seated—invisible as a true Mânasaputra—he lauds Krishna, in delight at the Avatâr's feat of killing the monster Keshin. Nârada is here, there, and everywhere; and yet, none of the Purânas gives the true characteristics of this great enemy of physical procreation. Whatever those characteristics may be in Hindû Esotericism, Nârada—who is called in Cis-Himâlayan Occultism Pesh-Hun, the “Messenger,” or the Greek Angelos—is the sole confidant [pg 052] and the executor of the universal decrees of Karma and Adi-Budha: a kind of active and ever-incarnating Logos, who leads and guides human affairs from the beginning to the end of the Kalpa.