Manu

Manu (devanāgarī: मनु) is the Sanskrit title given in Hinduism to the progenitor of mankind, who is said to have been the very first king to rule this earth. During a Kalpa 14 Manus are said to appear, one after the other, who manifest and regulate this world. Each Manu’s life (Manvantara) consists of 71 Mahayugas.

In Theosophy

General description

H. P. Blavatsky wrote:

Manu (Sk.). The great Indian legislator. The name comes from the Sanskrit root man “to think”—mankind really, but stands for Swâyambhuva, the first of the Manus, who started from Swâyambhu, “the self-existent” hence the Logos, and the progenitor of mankind. Manu is the first Legislator, almost a Divine Being.

Esoterically, every Manu, as an anthropomorphized patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the personified idea of the “Thought Divine” (as the Hermetic “Pymander”); each of the Manus, therefore, being the special god, the creator and fashioner of all that appears during his own respective cycle of being or Manvantara.

Q. Is Manu a unity also of human consciousness personified, or is it the individualization of the Thought Divine for manvantaric purposes?

A. Of both, since “human consciousness” is but a Ray of the divine. Our Manas, or Ego, proceeds from, and is the Son (figuratively) of Mahat. Vaivasvata Manu (the Manu of our own fifth race and Humanity in general) is the chief personified representative of the thinking Humanity of the fifth Root-race; and therefore he is represented as the eldest Son of the Sun and an Agnishwatta Ancestor. As “Manu” is derived from Man, to think, the idea is clear. Thought in its action on human brains is endless. Thus Manu is, and contains the potentiality of all the thinking forms which will be developed on earth from this particular source. In the exoteric teaching he is the beginning of this earth, and from him and his daughter Ila humanity is born; he is a unity which contains all the pluralities and their modifications. Every Manvantara has thus its own Manu and from this Manu the various Manus or rather all the Manasa of the Kalpas will proceed. As an analogy he may be compared to the white light which contains all the other rays, giving birth to them by passing through the prism of differentiation and evolution. But this pertains to the esoteric and metaphysical teachings.

Q. Is it possible to say that Manu is an individuality?

A. In the abstract sense certainly not, but it is possible to apply an analogy. Manu is the synthesis perhaps of the Manasa, and he is a single consciousness in the same sense that while all the different cells of which the human body is composed are different and varying consciousnesses, there is still a unit of consciousness which is the man. But this unit, so to say, is not a single consciousness: it is a reflection of thousands and millions of consciousnesses which a man has absorbed.

But Manu is not really an individuality, it is the whole of mankind. You may say that Manu is a generic name for the Pitris, the progenitors of mankind. They come, as I have shown, from the Lunar Chain. They give birth to humanity, for, having become the first men, they give birth to others by evolving their shadows, their astral selves. They not only give birth to humanity but to animals and all other creatures. In this sense it is said in the Puranas of the great Yogis that they gave birth, one to all the serpents, another to all the birds, etc.

For all you know Vaivasvata Manu may be an Avatar or a personification of MAHAT, commissioned by the Universal Mind to lead and guide thinking Humanity onwards.

Who was Manu, the son of Svâyambhuva? 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.

Root and Seed Manus

In Theosophical literature, a Kalpa is said to be the time employed for the development of seven Rounds in a given Planetary Chain. During this cycle 14 Manus are said to appear. This number is explained by Mme. Blavatsky by pointing out that there are two "Manus" in each round: the Root Manu at its beginning, and the Seed Manu at its end:

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 . . . 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 their third degree in initiation); those who have learned all that, will be better prepared to understand the meaning of the following. . . . There is a root-Manu at globe A and a seed-Manu at globe G.

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 there is a root-Manu at globe A and a seed Manu at 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 present seventh Manu is called ‘Vaivasvata’ and stands in the exoteric texts for that Manu who represents in India the Babylonian Xisuthrus 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 (Atlantis)—is not the seventh Manu, mentioned in the nomenclature of the Root, or primitive-Manus, but one of the 49 Manus emanated from this Root-Manu.

Online resources

Articles

• Manu at Theosopedia