—T.S.
The Septenary Principle in Esotericism
Since the exposition of the Arhat esoteric doctrine was begun, many who had not acquainted themselves with the occult basis of Hindu philosophy have imagined that the two were in conflict. Some of the more bigoted have openly charged the Occultists of the Theosophical Society with propagating rank Buddhistic heresy; and have even gone to the length of affirming that the whole Theosophic movement was but a masked Buddhistic propaganda. We were taunted by ignorant Brahmins and learned Europeans that our septenary divisions of Nature and everything in it, including man, are arbitrary and not endorsed by the oldest religious systems of the East. It is now proposed to throw a cursory glance at the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Law-Books of Manu, and especially the Vedanta, and show that they too support our position. Even in their crude exotericism their affirmation of the sevenfold division is apparent. Passage after passage may be cited in proof. And not only can the mysterious number be found traced on every page of the oldest Aryan Sacred Scriptures, but in the oldest books of Zoroastrianism as well; in the rescued cylindrical tile records of old Babylonia and Chaldea, in the "Book of the Dead" and the Ritualism of ancient Egypt, and even in the Mosaic books—without mentioning the secret Jewish works, such as the Kabala.
The limited space at command forces us to allow a few brief quotations to stand as landmarks and not even attempt long explanations. It is no exaggeration to say that upon each of the few hints now given in the cited Slokas a thick volume might be written.
From the well-known hymn To Time, in the Atharva-Veda (xix. 53):
"Time, like a brilliant steed with seven rays,
Full of fecundity, bears all things onward.
"Time, like a seven-wheeled, seven-naved car moves on,
His rolling wheels are all the worlds, his axle
Is immortality…."
—down to Manu, "the first and the seventh man," the Vedas, the Upanishads, and all the later systems of philosophy teem with allusions to this number. Who was Manu, the son of Swayambhuva? The secret doctrine tells us that this Manu was no man, but the representation of the first human races evolved with the help of the Dhyan-Chohans (Devas) at the beginning of the first Round. But we are told in his Laws (Book I. 80) that there are fourteen Manus for every Kalpa or "interval from creation to creation" (read interval from one minor "Pralaya" to another) and that "in the present divine age there have been as yet seven Manus." Those who know that there are seven Rounds, of which we have passed three, and are now in the fourth; and who are taught that there are seven dawns and seven twilights, or fourteen Manvantaras; that at the beginning of every Round and at the end, and on and between the planets, there is "an awakening to illusive life," and "an awakening to real life," and that, moreover, there are "root-Manus," and what we have to clumsily translate as the "seed-Manus"—the seeds for the human races of the forthcoming Round (a mystery divulged but to those who have passed the 3rd degree in initiation); those who have learned all that, will be better prepared to understand the meaning of the following. We are told in the Sacred Hindu Scriptures that "the first Manu produced six other Manus (seven primary Manus in all), and these produced in their turn each seven other Manus" (Bhrigu I. 61-63),* the production of the latter standing in the occult treatises as 7 x 7. Thus it becomes clear that Manu—the last one, the progenitor of our Fourth Round Humanity—must be the seventh, since we are on our fourth Round, and that there is a root-Manu on globe A and a seed-Manu on globe G. Just as each planetary Round commences with the appearance of a "Root-Manu" (Dhyan-Chohan) and closes with a "Seed-Manu," so a root-and a seed-Manu appear respectively at the beginning and the termination of the human period on any particular planet.
———- * The fact that Manu himself is made to declare that he was created by Viraj and then produced the ten Prajapatis, who again produced seven Menus, who in their turn gave birth to seven other Manus (Manu, I. 33-36), relates to other still earlier mysteries, and is at the same time a blind with regard to the doctrine of the Septenary chain. ————-
It will be easily seen from the foregoing statement that a Manu-antaric period means, as the term implies, the time between the appearance of two Manus or Dhyan-Chohans: and hence a minor Manu-antara is the duration of the seven races on any particular planet, and a major Manu-antara is the period of one human round along the planetary chain. Moreover, that, as it is said that each of the seven Manus creates 7 x 7 Manus, and that there are 49 root-races on the seven planets during each Round, then every root-race has its Manu. The present seventh Manu is called "Vaivasvata," and stands in the exoteric texts for that Manu who represents in India the Babylonian Xisusthrus and the Jewish Noah. But in the esoteric books we are told that Manu Vaivasvata, the progenitor of our fifth race—who saved it from the flood that nearly exterminated the fourth (Atlantean)—is not the seventh Manu, mentioned in the nomenclature of the Root, or primitive Manus, but one of the 49 "emanated from this 'root'—Manu."