Chapter 161

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Vaivasvata Manu is the one Human Being—some versions add to him the seven Rishis—who in the Matsya Avatâra allegory is saved from the Deluge in a boat, like Noah in the Ark. Therefore, this Vaivasvata Manvantara would be the “post-diluvian” period. This, however, does not refer to the later “Atlantean” or Noah’s Deluge, nor to the Cosmic “Deluge” or Pralaya of obscuration, which preceded our Round, but to the appearance of mankind in the latter Round. There is a great difference made, however, between the Naimitika, Occasional or Incidental, Prâkritika, Elemental, Atyantika, the Absolute, and Nitya, the Perpetual Pralaya; the latter being described as “Brahmâ’s contingent recoalescence of the Universe at the end of Brahmâ’s Day.” The question was raised by a learned Brâhman Theosophist: “Whether there is such a thing as Cosmic Pralaya; because, otherwise, the Logos (Krishna) would have to be reborn, and he is Aja (unborn).” We cannot see why. The Logos is said to be born only metaphorically, as the Sun is born daily, or rather a beam of that Sun is born in the morning and is said to die when it disappears, whereas it is simply reäbsorbed into the parent essence. Cosmic Pralaya is for things visible, not for the Arûpa, Formless, World. The Cosmic or Universal Pralaya comes only at the end of one hundred Years of Brahmâ, when the Universal Dissolution is said to take place. Then the Avyaya, say the exoteric Scriptures, the Eternal Life symbolized by Vishnu, assuming the character of Rudra, the Destroyer, enters into the Seven Rays of the Sun and drinks up all the waters of the Universe. “Thus fed, the seven Solar Rays dilate to seven suns and set fire to the whole Cosmos.”