Secret Cycles

Contents
1. Yugas and root-races
2. Root-race divisions
3. Precessional cycle
4. Fifth root-race
5. Age of the earth
6. Twelve rounds and races
7. Planetary embodiments
8. Relative lengths of rounds and races
9. The unfinished article controversy
Appendices
1. Dating the kali-yuga
2. Revati and the Hindu zodiac
Abbreviations
... much was purposely made obscure ... (ML2 357, MLC 428)
The blinds which conceal the real mysteries of Esoteric philosophy are great and puzzling, and even now the last word
cannot be given. The veil, however, may be a little more removed and some explanations, hitherto denied, may now
be offered to the earnest student. (SD 2:310)
What the Masters are now imparting are, so to speak, elementary fragments of the Ancient Wisdom religion. Much of
the teaching they are now giving us is in the form of problems for ourselves to solve ... (Echoes 2:439)
... solving [paradoxes] quickens our intuition, and that is one of the main aims and purposes of this system of teaching
... (FEP 339)
Refuse to take as the sole truth any isolated statement whatsoever, wherever you may find it. Take it, but not alone;
contrast it, compare it, study it, and analyze it if you want the truth. Especially is this necessary when it is a question of
cycles ... (FEP 282)
... no item of esoteric teaching is so carefully guarded as that dealing with numbers and time-periods ... (EST 4:80)
1. Yugas and root-races
Hindu philosophy refers to a series of four great cycles or yugas, whose lengths are 4000, 3000, 2000, and 1000 divine years
respectively (1 divine year = 360 solar years). Each is introduced by a dawn and concluded by a twilight (known as sandhi or
sandhya in Sanskrit), each equal in length to one-tenth of the yuga concerned. The four yugas together form a maha-yuga of
4,320,000 years, which is one thousandth of a day of Brahma (the total lifespan of the earth).
1
We are currently in the kali-yuga,
which began in 3102 BC. It is described as the harshest, most intense, and most challenging of the four yugas, but also the age
in which spiritual and intellectual advancement can be made most quickly; in short, it is the opportunity time.
2
Yugas
Dawn
Krita-/satya-yuga
Twilight
Dawn
Treta-yuga
Twilight
Dawn
Dvapara-yuga
Twilight
Dawn
Kali-yuga
Twilight
Total
Divine years
400
4,000
400
4,800
300
3,000
300
3,600
200
2,000
200
2,400
100
1,000
100
1,200
12,000
Solar years
144,000
1,144,000
144,000
1,728,000
108,000
1,080,000
108,000
1,296,000
72,000
720,000
72,000
864,000
36,000
360,000
36,000
432,000
4,320,000
A sequence of four cycles in the ratio 4:3:2:1 is said to apply on various scales:
... as each of the seven races is divided into four ages the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Age so is every
smallest division of such races.
3
As the four yugas are a reflection in human history of what takes place in the evolution of the earth itself and of the
planetary chain, therefore the same scheme of yugas applies also on a cosmic scale there exist the four series of
satya yuga, treta yuga, dvapara yuga, and kali yuga, in the evolution of the earth, and on a still larger scale in the
evolution of a planetary chain. Of course these cosmic yugas are very much longer than the racial yugas, but the
same general scheme of 4, 3, 2 applies throughout.
4
The general rule, says G. de Purucker, is ... that the small repeats the great, that little yugas are not only included in the greater
yugas, but repeat them on their own little scales. Our fifth (Aryan/Indo-European) root-race as a whole, including all its minor
subraces, is some 5000 years into its kali-yuga.
Now some of the minor cycles or yugas of this fifth root-race will be rising, and some will be falling, yet all interworking
with each other and subject to the great kali yuga of the root-race. Thus, a minor yuga or race may be in its youth and
rising to its flowering, yet, because it is included in the over-all kali yuga, will be subject to the general decline of the
major kali yuga.
Every minor cycle, great or small, within the root-race is in its turn septenary and therefore has its own little kali
yuga, and its numerical relations are about the same. Just as the great kali yuga is 432,000 years long, so a minor
one may be only 432 years long, or 4320, or even 43,200. The Hindu or Aryan race, which was one of the very first
subraces of our own fifth root-race, is now in its own racial kali yuga in addition to being in the longer kali yuga of the
root-race. But it is striving to rise again, and will do so in the future. On a smaller scale, Spain is in its short kali yuga,
as also Portugal. Italy has just ended a short kali yuga and is beginning to rise again.
Unfortunately, because our fifth root-race is a very materialistic one, heavily sunken in matter due to our fourth
round, these rises are mostly along the lines of materialisms.
5
Yugas shorter than those in the above table could include cycles whose length is the same number of ordinary human years as
the length given in the table in divine years. H.P. Blavatsky states: one of the secret sub-cycles or years of the Devas lasts
about 12,000 of our common years ...
6
She also writes:
... three yugas passed away during the time of the third root-race, i.e., the satya, the treta, and the dvapara yuga,
answering to the golden age of its early innocence: to the silver when it reached its maturity: and to the bronze age,
when, separating into sexes, they became the mighty demi-gods of old.
7
Since the third (Lemurian) root-race lived throughout the Mesozoic, which lasted from about 44 to 8 million years ago, the length
of these yugas must be longer than those in the above table.
8
There is also a reference to a satya-yuga prior to the earths
formation, associated (to speak metaphorically) with the churning of the ocean of milk, the war in heaven, and the fall of the
angels.
9
This, too, is probably a satya-yuga on a larger scale than the standard yugas.
As a general rule, a root-race (or humanity) lasts for two maha-yugas (8.64 million years). During the first maha-yuga, it reaches
its zenith. A new root-race then starts to emerge, and begins its satya-yuga as the old one is finishing its kali-yuga a transition
marked by geological cataclysms. During the second maha-yuga the old root-race slowly dies out while the new one evolves
towards maturity.
10
Fig.
11
HPB writes:
... the fourth sub-race of the Atlanteans was in its kali-yug, when destroyed, whereas the fifth was in its satya or krita
yuga. The Aryan race is now in its kali yuga, and will continue to be in it for 427,000 years longer, while various family
races, called the Semitic, Hamitic, etc., are in their own special cycles. The forthcoming 6th sub race which may
begin very soon will be in its satya (golden) age while we reap the fruit of our iniquity in our kali yuga.
12
GdeP explains what happens to the previously dominant race:
every root-race has its satya yuga, followed by its treta, dvapara, and kali yugas. Then comes a sandhya or rest
period, a junction point, after which comes the birth of the new race. The seeds of the succeeding new root-race
spring into being; but the old root-race continues along, although no longer having the mastery of the earth. The
reason is that with the opening of the satya yuga of the succeeding root-race, all the stronger, more advanced egos of
the race then in its kali yuga take imbodiment in the new race; whereas the bodies of the decaying race are given over
to less developed egos which enter them. As these bodies of the old race continue living and propagating through
several succeeding ages, egos of less and less degree of evolutionary advancement enter them, until finally these
bodies through slow degeneration will house only the least developed egos of the human stock. But the dying-out
root-race lasts almost as long as it takes the succeeding root-race to reach its kali yuga.
13
In general, every root-race begins to sow the seeds of the next root-race at its midpoint, i.e. in its fourth main subrace. However,
the next root-race does not develop into a race of a distinct type until the previous root-race is in the subrace of the same number
as the root-race that follows it.
For instance, we in our fifth root-race will sow the seeds of the 6th root-race, and we are doing it now because we are
in the 4th main sub-race ... Yet the succeeding 6th root-race will not actually be a race sui generis until we, the 5th
root-race, have reached our 6th sub-race. ...
Thus during the 4th root-race the seeds of the 5th root-race were sown during the 4th great sub-race. But those
seeds did not actually collect together and begin to be the beginnings of a race sui generis until the 4th sub-sub-race
of the 5th sub-race of the 4th root-race.
14
Although one maha-yuga of four yugas is often said to be followed by another maha-yuga of four yugas, there are indications that
there are actually seven yugas rather than four:
Since it is said that a Day of Brahma (representing or covering the totality of the seven rounds) equals 14
manvantaras plus a satya yug; or 4,320,000,000; but as the kali yug covers only 4 yugas, whereas there are 7 and
therefore the correct sum ... [this unfinished manuscript breaks off here]
15
As the krita, treta, dvapara, and kali (ages) have been each decreasing in excellence (physical as well as moral) so
the ascending dvapara, treta and krita will be increasing in every excellence.
16
The last quotation could mean that, for the dying-out race, the kali-yuga following the first three yugas is followed by the same
three yugas in reverse order, giving the overall ratio 4:3:2:1:2:3:4, spanning a total of 8,208,000 years.
17
The general rule about a root-race lasting for a total of two maha-yugas applies in particular to the fifth root-race. It is 4 or 5
million years old from its true birth at about the middle period of Atlantis, though its earliest beginnings go back 7 or 8 million
years. It began becoming a race sui generis at the beginning of the satya-yuga, 3.89 million years ago, and became definitely a
race sui generis about 1 million years ago in Central Asia.
18
The fourth (Atlantean) root-race lasted longer than two maha-yugas. Its earliest beginnings could be placed some 18 million years
ago in the middle of the third root-race, though GdeP also says that it originated in the later Cretaceous (10 to 12 million years
ago). It attained its peak in the Eocene of the Tertiary, and was largely destroyed in the Miocene.
19
The middle of the fourth root-race is sometimes said to have occured 8 to 9 million years ago.
20
This is because 9 million years is
half of the approx. 18 million years that have elapsed since the middle of the third root-race and the earliest origins of the fourth
root-race. In the theosophical chronology this takes us back to the very end of the Cretaceous. However, the racial cataclysm of
the fourth root-race took place in the middle of its fourth subrace some 4.5 million years ago,
21
in the Oligocene/Miocene,
22
when
that root-race and the earth in general reached the lowest, most material point in their evolutionary cycle.
The first three root-races lasted considerably longer than two maha-yugas each; they spanned a total of up to 150 million years.
23
One of the reasons the first two and a half races were so long is because they were practically astral and intellectually asleep,
and passed ages in a dreaming, intellectually unawakened state, like little children.
24
The sixth and seventh root-races, on the
other hand, will last less than two maha-yugas. The sixth root-race will last for about a maha-yuga and a half, or somewhat over 6
million years, and the seventh will be even shorter.
25
HPB writes:
The fifth will overlap the sixth race for many hundreds of millenniums, changing with it slower than its new successor,
still changing in stature, general physique, and mentality, just as the fourth overlapped our Aryan race, and the third
had overlapped the Atlanteans.
26
It is because of the overlapping of the root-races that theosophical literature sometimes refers to Lemuro-Atlanteans and Aryo-
Atlanteans. It is not just the root-races that overlap, but minor and branchlet races as well.
27
HPB says:
It would only lead to hopeless confusion if any attempt were made to give accurate dates to a few [racial divisions]; for
the races, sub-races, etc., etc., down to their smallest ramifications, overlap and are entangled with each other until it
is nearly impossible to separate them.
28
Lemurian and Atlantean influences are still discernible today, though in one sense all the present races are part of the fifth root-
race since they are living in fifth-race times and conditions.
29
Many of the tribes in the Pacific Ocean are Atlanteans with Atlantean-Lemurians still amongst them. But they are all
dying out, and now dying out rapidly.
The Chinese originally were the 7th and last sub-sub-race of the 7th sub-race of the 4th root-race. But they have
today become so thoroughly amalgamated with our 5th root-race that they really belong to us ...
30
HPB says that although the Atlantean root-race began many millions of years ago, we find the last of the Atlanteans, still mixed
up with the Aryan element, 11,000 years ago a reference to the sinking of the Atlantean island of Poseidonis 11! thousand
years ago. She continues: This shows the enormous overlapping of one race over the race which succeeds it, though in
character and external type the elder loses its characteristics, and assumes the new features of the younger race.
31
Notes to section 1
1. E. Burgess and W.D. Whitney, Surya-Siddhanta (1860), Wizards Bookshelf, n.d., 1:14-17, pp. 152-4; OG 189-90; Isis 1:34.
2. FSO 168, SOP 77.
3. SD 2:198.
4. OG 190. ... the four yugas apply to any unitary period in the flow of time: to a planetary round, a globe-round, a root-race, or
even to the period of a human life (FSO 164).
5. FSO 163, SOP 702; see also SOP 465-6.
6. BCW 12:386fn. GdeP refers to a cycle lasting 10-12,000 years, which began around the time of the sinking of Poseidonis in
9565 BC, and ended in the early 20th century; it was marked by an increase in materiality (FSO 8). The cycle in question could
also be half the 21,000-year cycle generated by combining the precession of the equinoxes with apsidal precession (see
Poleshifts, part 1, section 5). HPB makes several references to this cycle (SD 2:330fn; Isis 1:30-1; BCW 3:150).
7. SD 2:520fn.
8. See Root-race chronology, and Geochronology: theosophy and science, section 3.
9. SD 1:67-8.
10. SOP 42-3; FSO 165-6; OG 189-90.
11. FEP 294. This diagram can equally well represent the birth of subraces, family races, national races, tribal races, etc. (FEP
296).
12. SD 2:147fn.
13. FSO 165. The only way to stop the dying-out of some of these races is intermarriage, miscegenation with higher races. Other
egos of a stronger type then come in and keep the physical vehicles going on for a while (Dia 1:89).
14. Dia 1:86.
15. BCW 13:301.
16. BCW 6:117; see also Isis 2:420-1.
17. See SOP 40-3.
18. SOP 18, 21, 638-40.
19. SD 2:717; SOP 164-5; ET 1044, 1046; Dia 2:162.
20. ET 326fn; SOP 20-1, 97, 161, 422, 465-6; MiE 152.
21. SOP 20-1, 638-40; ET 1046; Dia 1:88; SD 1:439fn, 2:147fn.
22. See Geochronology, section 3.
23. See Root-race chronology. ... the life-waves evolve through the maha-yugas, but are not closely geared into the maha-
yugas, for they overlap in both directions very considerably. ... [R]oot-races 1 and 2 were not so to speak inflexibly and
mechanically geared to the yugas and root-races 3, 4, and 5 more or less were (SOP 166).
24. SOP 162.
25. SOP 165-6.
26. SD 2:445.
27. OG 142-3.
28. SD 2:434.
29. Dia 2:157.
30. Dia 1:88.
31. SD 2:444.
2. Root-race divisions
The subdivisions of a root-race and their approximate lengths are as follows:
1
Root-race
Subrace
Family race
National race
Tribal race
Tribal generation
Individual
8,640,000 years (2 maha-yugas)
1" million years
180,000 years
25,920 years (1 precessional cycle)
3600 years
500 years
72 years
Starting from the ideal lifetime of a human individual 72 years each successive figure is about 7 times the preceding one.
GdeP gives the following examples of some of these divisions:
Tribal generation: Italians; Spaniards; French; English; Russians, etc.
Tribal race: Slavs (Russians, Poles, Czechs, Bulgarians, etc.); Teutons (Germans, Scandinavians, English, etc.); Celts (Irish,
Welsh, Scots, people of Brittany)
National race: Europeans; peoples of the New World (original Americans: Redskins, Aztecs, Incas, etc.); Mongolians
Family race: Caucasians (Europeans, Hindus); Mongolians on a larger scale (incl. Chinese, Manchus, Japanese, Lolos,
Tibetans, Burmese, Thais, Malayans); Black Africans; original inhabitants of the New World on a larger scale
The word subrace in its broadest sense can refer to any of the divisions of a root-race, and it therefore often requires
interpretation.
2
Although HPB, like GdeP, tends to define family race as one of the seven divisions of a subrace (a subrace being
one of the seven main divisions of a root-race),
3
she often uses the term to refer to what GdeP usually (but not always
4
) calls a
national race.
GdeP says that we are in the fourth main subrace of the fifth root-race.
5
He does not specify which family race we are in, but says
that Europeans are the fourth national race of our family race. HPB, too, says that we are in the fourth main subrace,
6
and this is
also implied when she writes: we are in the mid-point of our sub-race of the Fifth Root Race the acme of materiality in each.
7
GdeP comments:
The acme of materiality in each means only one thing the middle point of the fourth of any cyclical series: for
instance, the fourth primary subrace; the fourth subrace of the fourth primary subrace of the fifth root-race, and so
forth.
8
HPB often says that we are in the fifth subrace
9
but what type of subrace is she referring to? Consider the following passage:
Now our fifth root-race has already been in existence as a race sui generis and quite free from its parent stem
about 1,000,000 years; therefore it must be inferred that each of the four preceding sub-races has lived approximately
210,000 years; thus each family-race has an average existence of about 30,000 years. Thus the European family
race has still a good many thousand years to run, although the nations or the innumerable spines upon it, vary with
each succeeding season of three or four thousand years. It is somewhat curious to mark the comparative
approximation of duration between the lives of a family-race and a sidereal year.
10
The fact that our fifth root-race has existed as a distinct, separate race for about 1 million years is repeated on many occasions,
11
though sometimes lower figures of 900,000 to about 700,000 years are given.
12
In the above quotation, HPB then infers that the
four preceding subraces lived about 210,000 years each, implying that we are now in the fifth subrace. The figure of 210,000
years clearly indicates that she is referring to the seven subdivisions of a main subrace, i.e. a family race (to which GdeP
assigns a length of 180,000 years). She then says that each family race (or what GdeP usually calls a national race) has an
average existence of about 30,000 years (= 1/7 of 210,000), and she notes that a family race lasts for about the same amount of
time as a sidereal year, i.e. a precessional cycle.
13
HPB usually gives the length of a precessional cycle as 25,868 years, but
she also says that 25,920 years is the exact period of revolution of the heavens
14
and this is the length GdeP assigns to both a
precessional cycle and a national race. HPB then says that the nations or innumerable spines last 3 or 4 thousand years
corresponding to the 3600 years that GdeP assigns to a tribal race (for want of a better term).
Here is another passage from HPB, with comments in square brackets:
... the three zodiacs belong to three different epochs: namely, to the last three family races of the fourth sub-race of
the fifth root-race, each of which must have lived approximately from 25 to 30,000 years [blind! If family races refers
to the seven divisions of a subrace, then the length is 210,000 years (HPB) or 180,000 years (GdeP)]. The first of
these (the Aryan-Asiatics) [i.e. the family race that appeared 1 million years ago] witnessed the doom of the last of
the populations of the giant Atlanteans who perished some 850,000 years ago (the Ruta and Daitya island-
continents) toward the close of the Miocene Age [blind! For Miocene read: Pliocene
15
]. The fourth sub-race witnessed
the destruction of the last remnant of the Atlanteans the Aryo-Atlanteans in the last island of Atlantis, namely, some
11,000 years ago [4th subrace could refer here to the 4th main subrace, but could also refer to the fourth family race
(of 210,000 years) if we start counting from about 850,000 years ago instead of 1 million].
16
Another quotation:
The archaic records show the initiates of the second sub-race of the Aryan family moving from one land to the other
for the purpose of supervising the building of menhirs and dolmens, of colossal zodiacs in stone, and places of
sepulchre to serve as receptacles for the ashes of generations to come.
17
Fred Dick argues that the second subrace of the Aryan family means the third subrace of our fifth root-race (in the sense
explained above), since the first subrace of our root-race was Atlanto-Aryan and ended its career when the cataclysm of a
million to 870,000 years ended and the Aryan race proper took its rise.
18
This would date the land journey to about 400,000 years
ago the time when Egypt was first settled.
19
HPB also writes:
Cremation was universal till a comparatively recent period some 80, or 100,000 years ago. The real giants,
moreover, were nearly all drowned with Atlantis. ... [M]ans size was reduced from 15 to 10 or 12 feet, ever since the
third sub-race of the Aryan stock, which sub-race born and developed in Europe and Asia Minor under new climates
and conditions had become European. Since then, as said, it has steadily been decreasing.
20
Here, too, third subrace could refer to the third family race (of 210,000 years) counting from 1 million years ago (which began
580,000 years ago), or the subsequent subrace, if we follow Dick in excluding the first because it was still heavily Atlantean.
21
HPB sometimes makes it sound like we have already passed the midpoint of our fifth root-race. She says, for example: we have
passed the middle point of the fifth race,
22
and we are in the 5th race and have already passed the turning or axial point of our
sub-race cycle .
23
Here, race needs to be interpreted as the fifth subrace (i.e. family race) in the sense explained above, i.e.
the fifth subrace of the fifth root-race since it became a race sui generis. And when she says we are two-thirds through the 5th
root-race,
24
this too needs to be seen as a reference to the fifth subrace counting from 1 million years ago it began 160,000
years ago and will end in 50,000 years, i.e. one third of its lifespan remains.
Thus, in the scheme represented by the above quotations from HPB, the time when the fifth root-race became a distinct racial
stock is apparently taken as the beginning of a new main subrace, and on that basis we would be in the fifth family race of it. We
will see below that this is certainly not the esoteric way of dividing up the fifth root-race. Bear in mind that we are said to be
approaching the midpoint of the fifth root-race, which falls in the middle of the fourth national race of the fourth family race of the
fourth subrace. So if we are in the fourth subrace, we cannot be in the fifth family race.
Notes to section 2
1. SOP 35-9; FEP 294-5. GdeP says that stock-race or body-race would be a better term than root-race, which ought to refer
to the first primary subrace (sometimes called a secondary subrace!), from which all the subsequent primary subraces originate
(FEP 281, 294-5, 523-4; SOP 38; ET 1045fn).
2. ... one of the commonest blinds that a teacher is obligated to make when writing of esoteric matters in a public work is using
the same word in varying senses (FEP 281).
3. ... the term root-race applies to one of the seven great races, sub-race to one of its great branches, and family-race to one of
the sub-divisions, which include nations and large tribes (SD 2:198fn). Each root-race has seven sub-races. Each sub-race has,
in its turn, seven ramifications, which may be called branch or family races (SD 2:434).
4. E.g. SOP 35, 702; FSO 163.
5. FEP 280, 282, 293; SOP 41.
6. SD 2:433.
7. SD 1:610. The following also indicates that we are in the fourth subrace: ... each round being composed of the yugas of the
seven periods [root-races] of humanity; four of which are now passed in our life cycle, the middle point of the 5th being nearly
reached (SD 1:xliii). The masters say the same thing: We men of the fourth round are already reaching the latter half of the fifth
race of our fourth round humanity ... (ML2 95 / MLC 185).
8. FEP 281; SOP 485.
9. The little Semitic tribe [is] one of the smallest branchlets from the commingling of the 4th and 5th sub-races (the Mongolo-
Turanian and the Indo-European ...) ... (SD 1:319). History or what is called history does not go further back than the
fantastic origins of our fifth sub-race, a few thousands of years (SD 2:351). ... our race has reached its fifth sub-race ... (SD
2:471fn). [The Americans are] the germs of the sixth sub-race, and in some few hundred years more, will become most decidedly
the pioneers of that race which must succeed to the present European or fifth sub-race, in all its new characteristics ... (SD
2:444-5). ... the sense of taste is now fully developed in our fifth sub-race of the fifth root-race (LBS 258).
10. SD 2:435.
11. Echoes 3:19; FEP 351-2; SOP 21, 639, 671; MiE 113fn; HPBM 166. ... most of the later islander Atlanteans perished in the
interval between 850,000 and 700,000 years ago, and ... the Aryans were 200,000 years old when the first great island or
continent was submerged ... (SD 2:395). ... the fifth race headed by the Aryans began its evolution ... nearer one million than
900,000 years ago (BCW 5:223). The fifth root-race evolved in Asia a million years ago (ML2 150, MLC 309), more than one
million years ago (ML2 121, MLC 161).
12. The Pliocene portions of the once great Atlantis began gradually sinking 900,000 years ago, at the time of the first
appearance of the Aryan race, the main continent having perished in Miocene times (SD 2:395). ... our [5th race] humanity ...
appeared toward the very end of the treta-yuga (BCW 13:356), i.e. about 869,100 years ago. The very commencement of the
[fifth root-race] witnesses, during the dvapara yuga, the destruction of the accursed sorcerers ... [I]t is just 869,000 [years] since
that destruction took place (SD 2:147). Nearly two-thirds of a million years/700,000 years have elapsed since the birth of the
Aryan races in Central Asia (SD 2:425).
13. Other references: ... the weal and woe of nations is intimately connected with the beginning and close of this sidereal cycle
(SD 2:330). Climates will, and have already begun, to change, each tropical year after the other dropping one sub-race, but only
to beget another higher race on the ascending cycle ... (SD 2:446).
14. SD 2:330fn; BCW 14:360; see Poleshifts, part 1, section 3.
15. SD 2:314fn; see Geochronology, section 3.
16. SD 2:433.
17. SD 2:750.
18. F.J. Dick, Restoration of Stonehenge, The Theosophical Path, Feb 1921, pp. 134-8.
19. SD 2:750.
20. SD 2:753.
21. F.J. Dick, Studies in symbolism II, The Theosophical Path, July 1914, pp. 26-33.
22. SD 2:185.
23. BCW 7:68.
24. BCW 13:68.
3. Precessional cycle
HPB writes:
The MIGHTY ONES perform their great works, and leave behind them everlasting monuments to commemorate their
visit, every time they penetrate within our mayavic veil (atmosphere), says a Commentary. Thus we are taught that
the great Pyramids were built under their direct supervision, when Dhruva (the then Pole-star) was at his lowest
culmination, and the Krittika (Pleiades) looked over his head (were on the same meridian but above) to watch the work
of the giants.
1
She adds that the first pyramids were built at the beginning of a precessional cycle, and that the polestar in question is Alpha
Polaris (our present polestar).
Fred Dick interpreted this obscure passage to mean that the first pyramids were built when Polaris, the polestar at the time the
Commentary was written, was furthest from the actual pole at the time the Pyramid was built, and was on the same meridian both
with the latter and Alcyone (the chief star of the Pleiades), the latter being higher than the pole. He calculated that the last time
such an event occurred was 86,960 years prior to 2000,
2
during the Age of Cancer (the Crab).
3
Dicks calculation has been
verified,
4
and it matches HPBs statement that the Egyptians have on their Zodiacs irrefutable proofs of records having embraced
more than three-and-a-half sidereal years [precessional cycles] or about 87,000 years.
5
86,960 years ago, the vernal equinox was at 6.4 Cancer, and the summer solstice was at 6.4 Libra.
6
In this connection, it is
interesting to consider the following. At the start of the kali-yuga in 3102 BC, the first point of the Hindu zodiac was 54 west of
the equinox, which approximately coincided with Aldebaran, the Eye of Taurus (the Bull).
7
This means that the first point of the
Hindu zodiac lay in the 6th degree of (the sign) Aquarius.
8
In quoting J.-S. Bailly, HPB twice writes Libra instead of Aquarius
an allusion, perhaps, to the fact that recent (racial) precessional cycles have begun and ended when the summer solstice was at
6.4 Libra.
If a precessional cycle began about 86,960 years ago, then the present precessional cycle (the fourth since then) began about
9200 years ago. This matches GdePs statement that the fourth (European) national race began about 9000 years ago (distinct
from the preceding national race), and has another 16,000 years to live, before a series of cataclysms cause the submergence of
many parts of Europe and usher in the next cycle of civilization.
9
HPB says that our civilized races have a reprieve of about
16,000 years before the next major cataclysm.
10
This means that our present Caucasian family race began 86,960 years ago, the
date marking the beginning of the precessional cycle in which the great pyramids were built.
GdeP describes the future of the European national race as follows:
[It] has been steadily rising since the downfall of the Roman Empire, and will continue to do so, with various smaller
shocks and falls and risings again, for some six or seven or possibly eight thousand years more. And then there will
be a rapid descent until its kali yuga is reached, a small kali yuga, when there will be a great European catastrophe of
nature. This will be some sixteen to eighteen thousand years from now. This period will see the submersion of the
British Isles. Most of France will be under water, also Holland, some of Spain, a good deal of Italy, and other places.
Of course, all this wont take place in a night, for there will be premonitory signs, such as slow sinkings of the coast,
great earthquakes, etc.
11
Notes to section 3
1. SD 1:434-5.
2. F.J. Dick, Ancient astronomy in Egypt, and its significance, The Theosophical Path, March 1916, pp. 287-303.
Dick: The meaning [of the passage] is a little obscure, as giants are also mentioned, and it may be suspected that we have
here a reference to Atlantean times. Nevertheless it is not improbable, having regard to Egyptian procedure in these matters, that
something corresponding was done there, and at a corresponding time. Now we find the latest prior time at which Alcyone and #
Polaris were on the same meridian, the celestial pole being at the same time at nearly its furthest from # Polaris, was when the
summer solstice occurred in the eighth degree of Libra, 86,860 years prior to 1898. The pole would then be near to the spear-
head of Botes, Alcyone being higher in the south, at Gizeh, than the pole in the north (p. 299).
3. The Crab is displayed very prominently in the two zodiacs in the Egyptian Temple of Dendera, in which it appears a total of
three times (see Poleshifts, part 5, appendix 5). HPB says several times that the Great Pyramid and the Egyptian zodiac are
about three precessional cycles old (SD 2:374fn, 432, 436, 750; BCW 11:7). The first settlers arrived in Egypt some 400,000
years ago (SD 2:750). GdeP says that the great pyramids were built following a second migration to Egypt some 80 to 100
thousand years ago (SOP 538-44; but see SOP 135). See The Great Pyramid.
4. Assuming an average rate of precession of 50"/year and an average change in the axial tilt of 4/25,920 years, and taking
account of transverse and radial proper motion, we find that 86,960 years prior to 2000:
- the polestar was Zeta Coronae Borealis;
- Alpha Ursae Minoris (Polaris) was at right ascension (#) = 292, declination ($) = +36, i.e. nearly above the Great Pyramid
when it crossed the meridian, since the Pyramid is at latitude 2958'51" N;
- Alcyone was at # = 295, $ = -29, i.e. virtually on the same meridian as Polaris, and about 31 above the southern horizon.
5. SD 2:332.
6. 6.4 Cancer is the result obtained if we take 1898 as the beginning of the Aquarian Age (BCW 8:174fn; FEP 76), which in
terms of the actual constellations it was not, and assume that all constellations are 30 wide (which they are not), and that the
average rate of precession is 1 in 72 years (see Poleshifts, part 1, section 1, and part 5, appendix 1). If Alcyone is taken as 0
Taurus (as Fred Dick suggested), the equinox would have been at 7.8 Cancer (i.e. in the 8th degree).
Note that when the vernal equinox is aligned with the sun and the first point of the constellation Aries as viewed from the earth,
it is aligned with the earth and the first point of the constellation Libra as viewed from the sun (assuming an equal division of the
zodiac into 12 constellations).
7. See Appendix 2.
8. SD 1:661, 663; see Boris de Zirkoffs edition (Collected Writings series).
9. GdeP says that the European national race has completed about 9000 years of its 25,920 year cycle and still has another
16,000 years to grow old in (SOP 36, 38); that it will be overtaken by a cataclysm which will reach its maximum in 16,000 or more
years (SOP 485-6); and that the European racial cataclysm will occur in 15-18,000 years (SOP 703), in 16-18,000 years (FSO
164), or in 16-20,000 years in the latter part of a precessional cycle (FEP 280, 282; OG 143). He adds that this will be the racial
cataclysm ... which will cut our own fifth root-race in two ... because we are nearing the middle point of the fourth subrace of this
fifth root-race (OG 143). However, he presumably means that it will be the first/next in a long series of cataclysms in the kali-
yuga, because we still have about 185,000 years to go before reaching the midpoint of our fifth root-race (see next section).
10. SD 2:331. HPB implies that the axis has to move another 2! before the end of the present precessional cycle (sidereal
year). Since she says that the axis moves about 4 in each precessional cycle, this corresponds to 16,200 years, taking a
precessional cycle to be 25,920 years. If this is a reference to our present national race (which lasts for a precessional cycle),
then it must have begun over 9000 years ago.
W.Q. Judge says that the last sidereal year of 25,868 years ended about 9868 years ago (= 25,868 - 16,000) (Ocean 136).
11. FSO 163-4, SOP 702-3.
4. Fifth root-race
As explained in the previous two sections, the European nations are the fourth national race of the Caucasian family race of the
fourth main subrace of the fifth root-race. The fourth national race originated about 9200 years ago. How can we determine which
of the seven family races we are in? Since we have not yet reached the midpoint of the fifth root-race, and since its midpoint must
fall within the kali-yuga,
1
the options are limited. (The kali-yuga began in 3102 BC, will reach its midpoint in 212,899 AD, and will
end in 428,899 AD.)
If we were in the fourth national race of the fourth family race, the midpoint of our root-race would be reached in: 25920/2 - 9200
= 3760 years time (from 2000). It does not seem likely that the midpoint of our root-race would occur so early in the kali-yuga. We
certainly cant be in the fifth national race of the fourth family race, since that would mean that the midpoint of our root-race was
reached about 22,160 years ago i.e. before the start of the kali-yuga!
If we are in the fourth national race of the third family race, the midpoint of our root-race will be reached in: (25920 - 9200) + (3 x
25920) + (7/2 x 25920) = 185,200 years time, i.e. 27,699 years before the middle of the kali-yuga.
If we were in the fourth national race of the second family race, the midpoint of our root-race would be reached 181,440 years
later than the above date (= 7 national races of 25,920 years each), i.e. in 366,640 years time. The first family race is ruled out
since this would place the midpoint of our root-race outside the kali-yuga.
The Secret Doctrine provides a piece of information which can be used to determine which family race we are in and which also
confirms that we are in the fourth national race rather than the fifth, as GdeP says. HPB quotes a Commentary to the effect that
Lemuria sank twice eighty-two cyclic years ago, and adds: Now a cyclic year is what we call a sidereal year, and is founded on
the precession of the equinoxes, or 25,868 years each, and this is equal, therefore, in all to 4,242,352 years.
2
To interpret this, we need to remember that the root-races and continents overlap in time. The continent associated with
each root-race refers to the entire land area of the globe during the period in question. Much of Lemuria sank in the Late
Cretaceous, over 8 million years ago. Most of Atlantis which included land areas that had also existed in the Lemurian age
had sunk by the end of the Miocene. The latter cataclysms marked the very end of the third root-race, the midpoint of the fourth
root-race, and the true birth of our fifth root-race.
In other words, 164 precessional cycles have elapsed since the start of the fifth root-race. The rest is a question of simple
arithmetic, since one precessional cycle equals one national race, seven national races equal one family race, and seven family
races (49 precessional cycles) equal one subrace:
164 = 49 + 49 + 49 + 7 + 7 + 3.
In other words, we are in the fourth national race of the third family race of the fourth subrace of the fifth root-race. This indicates
that GdeP and HPB drew their teachings from the same source, even though their presentations differed in certain respects; as in
many other areas, what GdeP gives out is generally less veiled than what HPB gave out.
Taking 25,920 years as the average length of a precessional cycle/national race yields the following table of dates for the
subdivisions of the fifth root-race over the last 164 precessional cycles up to the year 2000 of the present 165th precessional
cycle since the start of the 5th root-race / mid-4th root-race / end of the 3rd root-race, 4.26 million years ago. The figures are of
course of purely indicative value.
Subrace
(49 prec. cycles)
began (years BP)

Family race
(7 prec. cycles)
began (years BP)

National race
(1 prec. cycle)
began (years BP)

1 4,260,080
2 2,990,000
3 1,719,920 1 1,719,920
2 1,538,480
3 1,357,040
4 1,175,600
5 994,160
6 812,720
7 631,280
4 449,840 1 449,840
2 268,400
3 86,960 1 86,960
2 61,040
3 35,120
4 9,200
We have seen in section 2 that when HPB says that we are in the fifth subrace, she is generally referring to the fifth family race
since the fifth root-race became a race apart. GdePs explanation, however, is that HPB is referring to a sub-sub-subracelet.
3
He
says that we are nearing the end of the fifth sub-sub-subracelet (tribal race) of the fourth national race, which still has a few
hundred years to live.
4
Since the discovery of America [1492], we have been on the upward rise of a small minor cycle within the fourth sub-
race; and this accounts for the great development in brain-mind intellectuality and for the flowering of material
energies ... To speak more accurately, we are at the present time actually passing through a small fifth subordinate
race, forming part of a family-race, which in its turn is part of the fourth sub-race, which is the lowest great sub-race of
the fifth root-race.
5
As regards the emergence of the sixth root-race, HPB writes:
... the Americans have become in only three centuries a primary race, pro tem., before becoming a race apart, and
strongly separated from all other now existing races. They are, in short, the germs of the sixth sub-race, and in some
few hundred years more, will become most decidedly the pioneers of that race which must succeed to the present
European or fifth sub-race, in all its new characteristics. After that, in about 25,000 years, they will launch into
preparations for the seventh sub-race; until, in consequence of cataclysms the first series of those which must one
day destroy Europe, and still alter the whole Aryan race (and thus affect both Americas), as also most of the lands
directly connected with the confines of our continent and isles the sixth root-race will have appeared on the stage of
our round. ...
This process of preparation for the sixth great race must last throughout the whole sixth and seventh sub-races ...
6
GdeP says that when HPB speaks of the germs of the sixth subrace, she is referring to the sixth national race, which, like the
fifth national race, will be born in the USA, or in the Americas in general.
7
The sixth national race will not appear for several tens
of thousands of years, and GdeP dismisses Annie Besants assertion that it will appear in California in just 750 years.
8
Clearly, HPBs remarks should not be misinterpreted to mean that the sixth root-race will appear in 25,000 years. A vast period
will elapse between the sixth national race and the definite emergence of the sixth root-race.
9
The seeds of the sixth root-race will
appear largely in the Americas, and will become fairly numerous only towards the end of our kali-yuga in several hundred
thousand years.
... the new sixth root-race is already around us in millions of scattered individuals, beginning feebly to differentiate into
the sixth root-race qualities; and in some three hundred thousand years from now, while we Aryans are ending our
kali-yuga, the sixth root-race will be said to be definitely born as the sixth root-race, but will remain Aryanesque for
millions of years yet, until our own Aryan race is represented only by degenerate remnants; at which time the new
sixth root-race will be becoming typically a race sui generis itself.
10
GdeP says that the seeds of the sixth root-race are being sown all over the world, but are being most carefully watched and
guided in the Americas, especially North America. The first subrace of the sixth root-race will be born all along the Pacific coast of
the Americas, and will have its home in North America.
11
Notes to section 4
1. SOP 465.
2. SD 1:439fn.
3. This may be a blind. The context of HPBs statements about us being in the fifth subrace tends to show that she is referring to
a racial division on a far larger scale than a sub-sub-sub-subrace (i.e. a tribal race).
4. SOP 39.
5. SOP 485. Taking the length of a tribal race and tribal generation as 1/7th and 1/49th of 25,920 years respectively, and
assuming that our national race began 9200 years ago, we would now be in the middle of the fourth tribal generation of the third
tribal race, of which about 1790 years would have elapsed; in reality, things are undoubtedly not as linear and simplistic as this,
as the subdivisions of a root-race overlap, just as do the root-races (FEP 296).
6. SD 2:444-5; also BCW 13:173.
7. SOP 39. Sixth subrace could also refer to the sixth family race since the fifth root-race became a race sui generis.
8. Dia 2:161-2.
9. FEP 282.
10. SOP 639-40; FSO 165.
11. Dia 2:216-7.
5. Age of the earth
In Hindu philosophy, a day of Brahma or planetary manvantara the lifespan of one embodiment of a planetary chain lasts 4.32
billion years, and is followed by a night of Brahma of the same length, after which the planet reembodies. A day of Brahma
consists of 14 manvantaras of 306,720,000 years each, framed by 15 sandhis (a dawn or twilight) of 1,728,000 years each.
Each manvantara of 306,720,000 years consists of 71 maha-yugas (also known as divya-yugas or chatur-yugas) of 4,320,000
years. The length of a manvantara is sometimes given as 308,448,000 years (i.e. 306,720,000 years plus a dawn and twilight,
each of 864,000 years). In theosophy, a round consists of two manvantaras in the above sense, and lasts a total of 616,896,000
years.
1
According to the Surya-Siddhanta, we are in the 28th maha-yuga of the 7th manvantara.
2
Since the kali-yuga began in February
3102 BC, the time that has elapsed since the beginning of the present day of Brahma up to February 2000 is therefore:
6 manvantaras (1,840,320,000) + 7 sandhis (12,096,000) + 27 maha-yugas (116,640,000) + 1 krita-yuga (1,728,000)
+ 1 treta-yuga (1,296,000) + 1 dvapara-yuga (864,000) + the time from the beginning of kali-yuga (3102 + 2000 - 1)
3
=
1,972,949,101 years.
4
This is 187 million years less than half the allotted lifespan of the earth (half of 4.32 billion is 2.16 billion). It is possible that this
exoteric figure is too low, as our own globe has already begun the ascending arc of etherealization.
5
Since there are two
manvantaras (in the above sense) to each round, the six completed manvantaras and seven sandhis a total of 1,852,416,000
years correspond to the first three rounds. The remainder 120,533,101 years is the period that has elapsed during the
current fourth round. But according to the geochronology given in the SD, this takes us back only as far as the Devonian,
whereas the fourth round began in the late Precambrian, some 320 million years ago.
6
A reference to the figure of 320 million years is contained in a quotation from a Commentary, which states that during the present
kalpa (here interpreted to mean the fourth round), geological convulsions continued uninterruptedly until the earths 20th crore of
years, after which they took place only at long intervals, with the last one occurring nearly 12 crores of years ago (1 crore = 10
million).
7
Adding these figures together gives a total of up to 320 million years. It is interesting that the figure of 120 million years
(12 crores) is about the same as the period of nearly 28 full maha-yugas given in the above calculation. As said, this date takes
us back to the late Devonian, and it covers most of the first root-race, which is variously said to have appeared in the
Silurian/Devonian/Carboniferous.
8
Nevertheless, it does not cover the entire period since the beginning of the fourth round.
If we use the figure of 320 million years instead of 120.5 million years for the duration of the fourth round to date, the age of the
earth works out at 2,172,416,000 years, or slightly more than half its total lifespan. A further problem with the above calculation is
that each round is assumed to be the same length. As shown in section 8, this is not the case.
The figure of 120.5 million years seems to be a blind in so far as it does not cover the entire period since the start of the fourth
round. According to the Surya-Siddhanta, it is the period that has so far elapsed of Vaivasvata Manu, or the Vaivasvata
manvantara, a term with several meanings. A round is said to consist of two manvantaras, each of them associated with a manu
or dhyani-chohan.
9
Vaivasvata, the seventh manu, is the root-manu of the first (preseptenary) manvantara of the fourth round,
and Savarna is the manu of the second (postseptenary) manvantara. But Vaivasvata manvantara often refers purely to the
human period of our fourth round. This could mean the period since the beginning of the first root-race, but more commonly it
refers to the period since the latter half of the third root-race, after humans had become almost physical, had separated into
distinct sexes, and had developed an awakened, selfconscious mind.
10
The latter period covers 18,618,841 years (up to 2000).
11
After saying that Vaivasvata is the seventh manu because our fourth round is in its preseptenary manvantara, HPB adds:
The close of its middle racial point occurred during the fourth root race, when man and all nature reached their lowest
state of gross matter. From that time, i.e., from the end of the three and a half races, humanity and nature entered on
the ascending arc of their racial cycle.
12
This implies that the preseptenary manvantara has already finished. GdeP confirms this:
... Vaivasvata-manu has ended. But as this is a little point of very private teaching, H.P.B. merely says our progenitor
was Vaivasvata, the 7th manu. We are now beginning the next manvantara leading us up to what will be the seeds for
the future round, the fifth round, and that seed manus name is Savarna ... So we are actually in the beginning of
Savarna, the 8th manus beginning.
13
When asked how the 71 to 72 maha-yugas of a manvantara, as referred to by HPB, could be reconciled with the 27 to 28 maha-
yugas that are sometimes said to have elapsed since the start of the fourth round, GdeP replied:
The 27 or 28 maha-yugas refers to the Vaivasvata manu in so far as it concerns globe D only. ... In one manvantara of
306,720,000 years there are 71 maha-yugas. This manvantara of Vaivasvata began on globe A in this round, then
finished there and passed to globe B; finished there and passed on to globe C; and reached its end at the middle point
of the fourth root-race on our globe D, making therefore 71 maha-yugas.
14
However, he is clearly using Vaivasvata manu here to refer to the period since the approximate beginning of the human life-wave
on globe D, i.e. the first root-race. There is no doubt that mineral activity in the fourth round goes back up to 320 million years,
and elemental activity is said to go back even further.
15
Nevertheless, 320 million years appears to be just be a general, rounded figure. Indeed, it is sometimes given as the time that
has passed since the beginning of the fourth round on globe A, and sometimes as the time that has passed since the beginning
of the fourth round on globe D.
16
At one point GdeP says that sedimentation on globe D began 300 to 320 million years ago.
17
He
also says that nearly two maha-yugas, or about 9 million years, have passed since the middle of the fourth root-race, and that if
we add this to 306,720,000 years (bringing the total number of yugas since the start of the fourth round to nearly 73), you come
very close to the 319,000,000 or 320,000,000 years as estimated by H.P.B.
18
Elsewhere he says that the fourth round began 308+ million years prior to the middle of the fourth root-race.
19
Adding 8,640,000
years to 308,448,000 years gives 317,088,000 years. However although 9 million years is half of the approx. 18 million years that
have elapsed since the middle of the third root-race, and the fourth root-races first beginnings, the midpoint of the fourth subrace
of the fourth root-race and the lowest, most material point of the fourth round was reached about 4! million years ago.
If we use the figure of 308,448,000 years for half a round, and assume that the midpoint of the 4th root-race marked the middle of
the fourth round, and that 4,260,080 years have elapsed since then (to 2000), the fourth round on our globe has lasted
312,708,080 years. This would put the age of the earth at 2,165,124,080 years, or some 5 million years more than half its total
lifespan.
20
Notes to section 5
1. SD 2:68-70; SOP 160-1; FSO 159-62.
2. E. Burgess and W.D. Whitney, Surya-Siddhanta (1860), Wizards Bookshelf, n.d., 1:22-23, pp. 155-6; Chaitanya-Charitamrita:
see Richard L. Thompson, Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1989, p. 19; Isis 1:32; BCW 14:247.
The Surya-Siddhanta states in its picturesque and metaphoric way, that it was dictated by the Sun himself, through a projected
solar representative, to the great sage Asuramaya, ... just at the end of the satya-age of our present maha-yuga [i.e. over
2,165,100 years ago] ... Asuramaya, the Atlantean astronomer and scientist, could with almost equal right be considered as
appertaining to the first beginnings of the Aryan race (SOP 669-70; FSO 654-5). The present version is commonly believed to
have been edited after about 400 AD.
For evidence of the Surya-Siddhantas advanced scientific knowledge, see: Fred J. Dick, The Theosophical Path, July 1911,
pp. 64-8, and March 1916, pp. 287-303; Richard L. Thompson, Mysteries of the Sacred Universe, Govardhan Hill Publishing,
2000, pp. 285-94; Richard Thompson, Planetary diameters in the Surya-Siddhanta, Journal of Scientific Exploration, vol. 11, no.
2, 1997, pp. 193-200; Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy, pp. 10-15; Dwight William Johnson, Exegesis of Hindu cosmological
time cycles, www.aaronsrod.com/time-cycles.
3. The date of 3102 BC for the start of the kali-yuga is a chronological date rather than an astronomical date; in chronological
dating there is no year zero between 1 BC and 1 AD, whereas in astronomical dating there is. See Geochronology, section 4.
4. Multiplying the length of a manvantara (306,720,000 + 1,728,000 = 308,448,000 years) by 14 leaves us one satya-yuga short
of 4.32 billion years. According to the Surya-Siddhanta (1:19), this extra sandhi has to be added at the start of the planetary
manvantara or day of Brahma, as is done in the above calculation. This would put the length of 7 manvantaras (3.5 rounds) at
2,160,864,000 years, which is one dvapara-yuga more than half a day of Brahma. It may be that the extra satya-yuga needed to
make up a day of Brahma should really be distributed more evenly over the planetary manvantara, and that the calculation given
above is not strictly accurate (even assuming that the length of a day of Brahma is correctly given which HPB assures us it is
not!). If we divide 4.32 billion by 7 we get 617,142,857.14 but this can obviously not be built up neatly out of the yugas!
5. SD 2:68fn, 250, 308fn; FEP 112; ET 325-7, 453-4, 760.
6. SD 2:710, 715fn; ET 323; SOP 288, 422; Dia 3:181-2.
7. SD 2:312. The 20th crore of years means greater than 19 crores and less than or equal to 20 crores. So the total number of
years being referred to is between 310 and 320 million.
8. See Root-race chronology.
9. ... a Manu-antaric period means, as the term implies, the time between the appearance of two manus or dhyan chohans (SD
2:308-9). ... Manu is the synthesis 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 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 (BCW 10:364). There is a root-manu at the beginning of every evolutionary period, whether it
be of a planet, a planetary chain, or a race of mankind. ... Applied to human beings it means the originators of a human race (Dia
2:475).
10. SD 2:72, 148-9, 250-1, 307-9; ET 324. See also SD 2:146-7. For further meanings of Vaivasvata manvantara see SD 2:310.
11. SD 2:69, 1:150fn. This information is given in the Tiru-ganita Pachanga, a Tamil calendar (SD 2:67-9), which attributes it to
the Surya-Siddhanta. But it is not to be found in the publicly available version of the latter (see prajnaquest.fr).
Another reference to the time elapsed since the start of the fourth round: we are taught that it took 300,000,000 of years for
the two lower kingdoms to evolve, and that our humanity is just 18 and some odd millions old (SD 2:308fn). This gives a total of
318.6 million years, but 300,000,000 years is probably just a rounded figure. We are also told that the astral prototypes of the
mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms up to man took 300,000,000 to evolve and re-form out of the cast-off materials of the
preceding round (SD 2:68fn). The same figure appears in the Stanzas of Dzyan (SD 2:52).
12. SD 2:308fn.
13. SOP 359-60.
14. SOP 422.
15. SD 2:715fn; ET 323. This contradicts Hans Malmstedts assertion that the Brahmanical figure of 1,972,949,101 years (which
assumes that the fourth round began less than 28 maha-yugas ago) refers to the age of our globe D, whereas the first round on
globe A started hundreds of millions of years earlier (Our position in time on globe D, The Theosophical Path, Oct 1933, pp. 226-
35). The time that elapsed between the beginning of the fourth round on globes A and D has not been specified but must be far
less than hundreds of millions of years.
16. SD 2:710, 715fn; ET 323; SOP 288, 422; FSO 161; see Geochronology, section 1.
17. Dia 3:181-2. [I]t has taken some 320,000,000 years, in round numbers, ... since the first geological sedimentary deposits
were made on our globe Earth since the beginning of this fourth round ... (EST 4:76).
18. SOP 422.
19. SOP 161. Referring to HPBs statement that sedimentation, or evolutionary work, in the fourth round began some 320 million
years go, GdeP comments: Now as a round is 308,000,000, how about the difference between 308 and 320? There are some 12
or more million years to go. Just think these things out. They are all keys (SOP 360).
20. Since we have passed the midpoint of the fourth round, we cannot be in the 28th maha-yuga of the 7th manvantara (see
calculation at the start of this section). If we assume that we are in the 1st maha-yuga of the 8th manvantara, the age of the earth
(to 2000) would be: (7 x 306,720,000) + (8 x 1,728,000) + 3,893,101 = 2,164,757,101 years.
6. Twelve rounds and races
The teachings given out by HPB highlight the number 7: e.g. 7 cosmic and human principles, 7 root-races, subraces etc., 7
rounds, 7 globes, 7 sacred planets.
1
In elucidating and expanding upon HPBs teachings, GdeP largely shifted the emphasis to
the number 12 (or sometimes 10).
GdeP says that there are three elemental rounds before the seven manifest rounds and two rounds after them. The elemental
rounds take place on the three archetypal planes above the seven.
This period is not yet really ethereal manifestation: it is the first descent of the arupa (or bodiless) beings of spiritual
nature into subspiritual manifestation; but when the third or lowest of the three archetypal planes has been traversed,
by that time the life-wave or life-essence has consolidated sufficiently in ethereal matter to form an airy shape or
ethereal globe. This globe thence starts on the manvantaric cycle down into matter, a cycle which proceeds in seven
stages, actually seven, and upon and in seven globes ...
2
... before the first of what are called by H.P.B. the seven rounds, there are three elementary rounds. ... They are the
rounds in which the elemental activities needed for the beginnings of the formation of the globes take place. This
makes ten rounds. Then counting after this way, there are two rounds after the ten, making the twelve or closing out
rounds before the chain dies; as the Moon had died. Thus there are actually twelve rounds. The main or the most
important to us at present are the seven manifest rounds, as we may call them ...
3
HPB may be hinting at the two rounds following the seven when she writes:
As the seven months old unborn baby, though quite ready, yet needs two months more in which to acquire strength
and consolidate; so man, having perfected his evolution during seven rounds, remains two periods more in the womb
of mother-nature before he is born, or rather reborn a dhyani ...
4
GdeP says: we shall become dhyan-chohans when this chain reaches the end of the 7th round, or 12th, the concluding round.
5
These quotations seem to imply that the five additional rounds are part of the planetary manvantara, and do not refer to
processes taking place during the planetary rest period or pralaya (lit. dissolution). However, if we define a planetary manvantara
as the period covered by the seven rounds, then the five additional rounds would have to encompass at least part of what is
normally regarded as the pralaya. We should bear in mind that it is only the lower element-principles of each globe of a planetary
chain that disintegrate and disperse during the pralaya.
6
HPB draws an analogy between the after-death processes in the case of a planet and those that apply to each human individual:
The latter lives through his life-cycle, and dies. His higher principles, corresponding in the development of a planetary
chain to the cycling monads, pass into devachan, which corresponds to the nirvana and states of rest intervening
between two chains. The mans lower principles are disintegrated in time and are used by nature again for the
formation of new human principles, and the same process takes place in the disintegration and formation of worlds.
7
When a planetary chain is in its last round, each globe, before dying, sends all its life-energies and principles into a laya-centre
or sleeping centre, a neutral centre of latent force.
8
Such a laya-centre the spiritual-psychomagnetic vital essences of any
globe of the planetary chain is located outside our solar system. It lies dormant until the time for a new manifestation arrives,
when it reawakens to activity and begins to move and wander as a comet until it is eventually drawn back its former home in
space.
9
GdeP elaborates on this process:
First of all we have the aetheric awakening into life of a laya-center, which, starting to move in its wanderings through
space, gradually accretes to itself aetheric and etheric matter and thus slowly enters upon its second stage, the
etheric; and when this stage is ended, the laya-center which is now manifesting as an ethereal comet, has just about
become a member of the solar system to which its karmic destiny has inevitably drawn it back to imbodiment as a
planetary chain-to-be. Once the comet is settled in its orbit around the sun as a highly ethereal globe in the first, or
first and second states, of the matter of the physical cosmic plane, the three kingdoms of the elementals in serial order
begin their characteristic activities, and so gradually build a luminous and glowing or cloudy body, of very slight
physical density ... When this stage has been finished the first round starts ...
10
GdeP says that all planets, moons, stars, comets, and nebulae consist of 12 globes rather than 7.
11
There are two possible ways
of numbering them in relation to the sevenfold scheme emphasized by HPB:
(a) (b)
1 12
2 12 1 11
3 11 2 10
4 (1) 10 (7) 3 (1) 9 (7)
5 (2) 9 (6) 4 (2) 8 (6)
6 (3) 8 (5) 5 (3) 7 (5)
7 (4) 6 (4)
If we start counting from the topmost globe (diagram a), there are three globes on the arc of descent before the first of the seven
manifest globes, and two on the arc of ascent after the last of the manifest seven, just as there are (in one method of counting)
three rounds before the manifest seven, and two after. However, while globe D is the middle (and lowest) globe in the sevenfold
scheme, there is no middle globe in the twelvefold scheme, since 12 is an even number. D would only be the middle globe if a
round both begins and ends on the topmost globe. According to GdeP:
... no round of the seven begins with globe A of the seven and ends with globe G of the seven, according to the
exoteric teaching. That is correct as far as it goes. Every round whatsoever begins with the first or topmost globe, runs
through all the globes of the descending arc to our Earth or globe D, then ascends through all the globes of the
ascending arc until the first is reached again, which we can call the first or the twelfth.
12
GdeP refers to seven or ten root-races in the human kingdom.
13
By analogy, there are presumably 12 root-races perhaps with
three of them coming before the first root-race and two after the seventh. The five extra root-races may be connected with the
development of the shishtas.
14
GdeP gives the following explanation of the great length of the first root-race:
It was because root-race 1, in the manner in which H.P.B. speaks of it, was not only astral, but as she describes it,
really represented the shishtas from the preceding round, the third. This root-race 1, beginning with shishtas, took
ages before actually settling down into a root-race, that is, typically a root-race of the new round, no longer merely
shishtas. The cause of the awakening and slow evolutionary processes was that the forerunners of the life-wave
began coming in millions and millions of years before the first root-race as a race apart so to speak could be said
actually to have begun.
15
Notes to section 6
1. HPB calls 10 the sacred number or perfect number (SD 1:98, 360, 362; BCW 12:58-9, 525, 14:112-3fn ; see FEP 88-91).
She describes 12 in the same way (SD 1:649, 2:36).
2. FEP 111.
3. Dia 3:441.
4. SD 2:257.
5. Dia 3:169.
6. GdeP points out that the terms manvantara and pralaya are relative:
In the case of man, the incarnation of the spiritual ego is a relative death for that ego; and similarly the ending of the
imbodiment in the worlds of matter is a reawakening of the spiritual ego to a wider range of self-consciousness in and on its own
planes and worlds. In identical fashion, and following always the master key of analogy, what we call manvantara is a death of the
cosmic spirit is, in a paradoxical sense, a sort of devachan or even a kama-loka of the cosmic spirit or mind; and it is only when
manvantara ends and pralaya begins that these dreams and visions of the cosmic spirit fade away, and its vast consciousness
awakens once more to the full reality of its own sublime Selfhood (FSO 96).
So we see that manvantara is a kind of death to the cosmic monad expressing itself through its beclouding veils of the anima
mundi. It is a kind of deprivation, a sinking into the maya of cosmic dreams; whereas pralaya is really the spirit of the universe
fully awake on its own plane, because all is ingathered into it, and it is freely active in its own ineffably spiritual realms (FSO 180).
7. SD 1:173.
8. SD 1:147, 155-6. GdeP says that when a planetary chain goes into pralaya, its monads and life-atoms remain in space as
cosmic dust on the physical plane, and as corresponding life-atoms on the astral, psychic, intellectual, quasi-spiritual, spiritual,
and divine planes (FEP 592; FSO 122-3). The cosmic dust resulting from the dissolution of a former world rests in a laya-center;
while the highest principles of that world or planetary chain are in their paranirvana ... (FEP 60). The chain laya-centre contains
within itself the globe laya-centres, and when the thrill of life again runs through the laya-centres they begin to differentiate and
condense (FSO 136; FEP 551).
9. FSO 136-7.
10. FSO 197. A planet does not reembody as a comet at the very beginning of a new solar manvantara; instead, the planets
condense within the solar nebula (comet) from which the sun itself is born (FEP 59-63; ET 193).
11. ET 172; OG 52, 130. KH hints at the existence of more than 7 globes when he calls a round the passage of a monad from
globe A to globe Z (or G) (ML2 80, MLC 173; FSO 352, EST 7:96fn).
... the seven globes of the twelve are for convenience called the manifest globes or the globes of the rupa worlds, and the five
upper globes are called arupa, not because they have no form, but to us in our present cognitional development they seem
formless much in the same way as a thought is formless to us, and yet we know that thoughts are beings of form and that each
thought imbodies an elemental (Dia 3:440).
Our own globe is the lowest of our own planetary chain, but GdeP describes the highest and lowest globes of a planetary chain
as polar links, junction globes, or transition globes (FEP 599; FSO 186; Dia 2:385).
12. Dia 3:440. A round begins in the highest of the twelve globes and proceeds regularly from globe to globe around the chain
(FSO 197). ... when the life-waves have reached the highest globe of our chain, the first round is ended. After the nirvana at the
end of the first round, the second round begins (FSO 248). See also FSO 361, 364, 366.
Although 616,896,000 years is often represented as the average length of a round from globe A to G (SOP 160-1, FSO 160), it
must really cover the passage of all the life-waves from the topmost globe and back to that globe, including all the interglobe
nirvanas and also the inter-round nirvana, which, for the human monads, coincides with the passage through the five upper
globes (FSO 363).
13. Dia 3:203. Another hint that there are more than seven races: So in the last root-race of the present fourth round, the one we
popularly call the seventh ... (EST 4:84).
14. See Shishtas: seeds of life.
15. SOP 162.
7. Planetary embodiments
A maha-manvantara or universal manvantara also called a life or age of Brahma lasts 100 divine years, a divine year being
equal to 360 of Brahmas days and nights. The maha-manvantara therefore comprises 36,000 planetary embodiments, and lasts
36,000 x 8,640,000,000 = 311,040,000,000,000 years. It is followed by a maha-pralaya. A minor solar manvantara comprises not
7 but 12 planetary embodiments, since 7 is not a factor of 36,000 while 12 is; a maha-manvantara consists of 3000 minor solar
manvantaras of 12 embodiments each.
1
During each embodiment of a planetary chain, the globes (including all the kingdoms that compose and inhabit them) gradually
materialize during the first half of the life cycle (the descending arc), and then slowly etherealize and spiritualize during the
second half-cycle (the ascending arc).
2
By analogy, the same general pattern is followed in a minor solar manvantara.
3
In the
sevenfold scheme, the globes of a planetary chain successively embody one subplane lower in the second, third, and fourth
embodiments, then one subplane higher in each of the last three embodiments.
4
After seven embodiments a planetary chain
therefore enters a new cosmic plane and a new sun dawns for the next planetary chain manvantara.
5
A globe does not actually move from subplane to subplane or plane to plane; rather, all the globes of a chain are evolving, i.e.
materializing on a descending arc, or etherealizing on an ascending arc. The globes therefore become different subplanes (loka-
talas) according to the changes in the rate of vibration of their energy-substances. All other microcosmic and macrocosmic bodies
and entities vibrating within the same range of frequencies, and therefore falling within the same range of perception, can be
regarded as belonging to the same plane or subplane.
According to ancient Hindu works such as the Surya-Siddhanta, the moon-chain was the 18,000th embodiment of what we now
call the earth planetary chain in the present maha-manvantara; it therefore marked the end of the first half of the life of Brahma.
The earth-chain is the 18,001st embodiment,
6
and each globe is one subplane higher than the corresponding globe of the moon-
chain; the moon we see is therefore not the former physical globe D of the moon-chain but the astral shell or kama-rupa of its
globe D.
7
The previous planetary manvantara is known as the padma (lotus) kalpa, and the present one is known as the varaha
(boar) kalpa.
8
GdeP says that the lowest point of the maha-manvantaric cycle was reached when the moon-chain reached the middle of its
fourth round. We have been cycling down our hierarchy for 50 divine years (over 155 trillion and 520 billion years) to the lowest
point of it on the moon, and since then we have begun the slow climb back to the summit of our hierarchy. Instead of the first
18,000 embodiments taking place successively one subplane lower, there are smaller descending and ascending arcs during
each minor solar manvantara, with the overall trend being downward.
If the moon marked the lowest point, that would imply that it was the 4th in a series of seven embodiments, since the fourth in
any series of planes or principles is always the grossest of the series.
9
The earth-chain must therefore be the 5th embodiment.
10
But if the moon was the 18,000th embodiment, that would make it the last (12th) embodiment of the 1500th minor solar
manvantara, and the earth-chain would be the first in the next series of twelve embodiments. But this would place both the moon
embodiment and the present earth embodiment outside the seven manifest embodiments considered in the simplified sevenfold
scheme. Moreover, if in each minor solar manvantara, a globe first moves down a subplane with each embodiment on the
descending arc and then up a subplane with each embodiment on the ascending arc, that would imply that the moon embodiment
(the 12th) would have taken place on one of the highest subplanes and could not have marked the lowest point.
Before examining this problem further, consider the following diagrams, which show a series of five minor solar manvantaras. The
numbers 1 to 12 represent the subplane on which any particular one of the 12 globes (e.g. our own globe D) reembodies during
12 successive embodiments, each embodiment taking place one subplane higher or lower than the last.
(a) Overall ascending arc
12
1 1 11
2 12 12 2 10
3 11 1 1 11 3 9
4 10 2 12 12 2 10 4 8
5 9 3 11 1 11 3 9 5 7
6 8 4 10 2 10 4 8 6
7 5 9 3 (1) 9 (7) 5 7
6 8 4 (2) 8 (6) 6
7 5 (3) 7 (5)
6 (4*)
no. of solar manvantara:
2 3 4 5 6 7-fold scheme
4 5 6 7 8 12-fold scheme
1498 1499 1500 1501 1502 3000 12-fold sol manvs
(b) Overall descending arc

1
2 12 12
3 11 1 1 11
4 10 2 12 12 2 10
5 9 3 11 1 1 11 3 9
6 8 4 10 2 12 2 10 4 8
7 5 9 3 11 3 9 5 7
6 8 4 (1) 10 (7) 4 8 6
7 5 (2) 9 (6) 5 7
6 (3) 8 (5) 6
7 (4*)
no. of solar manvantara:
2 3 4 5 6 7-fold scheme
5 6 7 8 9 12-fold scheme
1499 1500 1501 1502 1503 3000 12-fold sol manvs
These 5 minor solar manvantaras could be part of a series of 7 or 12 (or 3000), with 4* marking the lowest point. Diagram (a)
shows an overall upward arc, while (b) shows an overall downward arc, since in (a) the finishing point is higher than the starting
point, and in (b) it is lower than the starting point. Whether the most material of the 12 embodiments of a globe is the 7th or 6th
embodiment therefore depends on whether the solar manvantara concerned is part of a descending arc or ascending arc on a
larger scale, since this determines whether the overall tendency is towards matter or spirit. Embodiment 4* corresponds to the 6th
embodiment in an overall ascending arc and the 7th in an overall descending arc.
As already said, if the first minor manvantara of the maha-manvantara begins with a downward arc, and the moon was the
18,000th embodiment (the 12th embodiment of the 1500th minor solar manvantara), the moon embodiment would have fallen
outside the seven manifest embodiments and could not have marked the lowest point (4*). The moon embodiment would be
either the 17,994th embodiment (in a) or the 18,007th embodiment (in b).
One way in which the moon could be both the 12th embodiment of a minor solar manvantara and the 18,000th in the maha-
manvantara, and yet the lowest, would be for the first minor manvantara of the maha-manvantara to begin with an upward arc
rather than a downward arc; the 7th embodiment would then become the 1st, and the 6th would become the 12th. But the maha-
manvantara would have to be part of an overall ascending arc. However, representing a minor solar manvantara as an upward
arc followed by a downward arc would be very odd. Whatever the truth, we clearly have far more to learn about this subject.
Notes to section 7
1. Just as a planetary manvantara is said to be followed by a planetary pralaya of the same length, and a maha-manvantara is
said to be followed by a maha-pralaya of the same length, so a minor solar manvantara is said to be followed by a minor solar
pralaya (presumably of the same length) (FEP 510; SOP 391; Dia 3:378-9). But if that were the case, a maha-manvantara would
not comprise 3000 minor solar manvantaras of 12 embodiments each, but only 1500! Unless, that is, the five additional
embodiments in the twelvefold scheme refer to processes taking place during the pralaya. A minor solar manvantara is not
always explicitly said to be followed by a minor solar pralaya (FEP 296).
2. SD1:159, 2:68fn; ET 325-7, 453-4; FEP 112.
3. FEP 345.
4. FSO 246-7; FEP 512-4; ET 447-8fn; SOP 389, 391.
5. SOP 391; FSO 160, 235fn.
6. Surya-Siddhanta, 1:21; OG 20-1; SOP 358; FEP 145, 184, 468.
7. FEP 548-50; Dia 2:139; SD 2:45, 115, 611.
8. SD 1:368, 2:179.
9. FSO 246.
10. Echoes 2:405-6; FEP 184, 468; Dia 1:17-8.
8. Relative lengths of rounds and races
GdeP writes:
the time-periods passed by any life-wave on the more ethereal globes on the descending and ascending arcs
respectively, are much longer than the time-periods passed by such a life-wave on the more material globes, such as
is our Earth.
1
This could imply a progression in the ratio of 4:3:2:1:2:3:4. Elsewhere, he says that the situation depends on how material or
ethereal each life-wave is:
The lower the globe is, the longer is the time-period passed on it by the life-waves which are material or materialized;
and the shorter are the time-periods passed on it by those life-waves which are spiritual, or spiritualized. Conversely,
the higher the globe is, the shorter is the time-period passed by the material life-waves in and on it; and the longer the
time-period passed by the ethereal and spiritual life-waves in and on it.
Thus the mineral life-wave has a very short manvantaric time-period on the higher and highest globes of our
planetary chain, and a very long time-period on the lowest globe of our planetary chain, globe D. Conversely, the
dhyan-chohanic life-waves and the human have a relatively short life-period on globe D, the lowest of the globes, and
a correspondingly longer time-period on the higher and highest globes.
2
The lower kingdoms, such as the mineral and elemental kingdoms, run down the downward arc (globes A to D) more quickly than
the higher kingdoms, such as the human kingdom, while the higher kingdoms accomplish the upward arc (globes D to G) more
quickly than the inferior kingdoms. In other words, for the younger kingdoms the law of acceleration operates on the downward
arc, and the law of retardation on the upward arc, while the converse applies to the older, more evolved kingdoms.
3
A further qualification is given in this passage:
a life-wave does not remain the same length of time on every globe, for not only do the life-waves differ in spirituality
and materiality, but the higher the globe the shorter the imbodiment period upon it. The reason for this is that the
spiritual and intellectual faculties are then more strongly aroused and do not yearn for material things or imbodied
existence. It is the same rule which applies to the devachanic interludes: the more spiritual and intellectual the ego,
the longer is its devachan so long as the devachan is needed; the grosser and more materialistic the individual, the
shorter is the devachan, and hence the more numerous are the imbodiments on a globe during the passage of the life-
wave to which it belongs.
4
HPB writes:
The seven rounds decrease and increase in their respective durations, as well as the seven races in each. Thus the
4th round as well as every 4th race are the shortest, while the 1st and 7th round as the 1st and 7th root races are the
longest.
5
This may imply a regular progression in the ratio 4:3:2:1:2:3:4. In any event, HPB gives no indication elsewhere that the fifth root-
race will last longer than the fourth, and even as long as the third. GdeP indicates that the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh root-
races become progressively shorter.
6
HPB also writes: The fourth round is the longest in the kali yuga, then the fifth, then the sixth, and the seventh will be very short.
7
This could imply a 1:2:3:4:3:2:1 progression, though the reference appears to be to the (relative) length of the kali-yuga in each
round (which is presumably proportional to the degree of materiality) rather than to the overall length of the rounds.
In the following passage GdeP suggests that something more akin to a 7:6:5:4:3:2:1 progression applies to the rounds:
each round is a little shorter than the preceding round, and the seventh round is the shortest of all, the reason being
that the entity is approaching graduation from that school-house which is the planetary chain. Having studied as in a
school-room for so many aeons of years, having become proficient in the lessons learned there, the entity takes its
last and final examinations with relative ease and quickness, and passes through the last or seventh phase of learning
much more quickly and easily than it did in the preceding times.
8
In other words, later rounds are shorter because they increasingly consist of recapitulation.
There could be several progressions operating simultaneously:
Ethereality: 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4
Recapitulation: 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
In an unfinished article not published in her lifetime, HPB suggested that the ratio applicable to the seven root-races, the seven
rounds, and the period on each globe during a round is 1:2:3:4:5:6:7.
9
The next section looks at the nonsense to which this gives
rise.
Notes to section 8
1. ET 195.
2. Dia 3:348-9.
3. FEP 595-7; ML2 95-6, MLC 186.
4. FSO 362.
5. BCW 6:117fn.
6. SOP 165-6; Dia 2:162.
7. IGT 86
8. Dia 2:260.
9. BCW 13:301-6.
9. The unfinished article controversy
The manuscript of an unfinished essay on cosmic cycles and manvantaras, in HPBs handwriting, exists in the archives of the
Adyar Theosophical Society.
1
Some of its pages are missing and some of the sentences are broken off. A curious feature is that
the handwriting shows two variants, one of which is larger and more rounded than HPBs ordinary one this may be connected
with the way in which the article was written or transmitted. The article probably dates from 1884.
2
The article claims to provide the key of the septenary arithmetical progression series, which were told is not to be found in
exoteric works:
The duration of the existence of humanity during the seven rounds is 1:2:3:4:5:6:7. In each round, the duration of the
existence of humanity, on the seven planets [i.e. globes] of our chain is 1:2:3:4:5:6:7. The period of human existence
in seven races, on one planet, is again 1:2:3:4:5:6:7. Now, as the planet evolves the 7 races in succession, before
humanity can pass on to the next planet, the interval between the disappearance of humanity from one planet and its
reappearance on the next, is equal to its existence on the planet which it is has just left.
3
Applying this key yields the following figures for the lengths of the seven rounds (half of each figure is said to represent planetary
activity, and the other half the planetary rest periods):
4
First round 154,285,714 years
Second round 308,571,428
Third round 462,857,142
Fourth round 617,142,856
Fifth round 771,428,570
Sixth round 925,714,284
Seventh round 1,079,999,998
4,319,999,992
The total is 8 years short of 4,320,000,000, due to rounding.
The article works out that the human period of activity on our globe D in the fourth round is 44,081,632 years. The figures given
for the length of each root-race are:
First race 1,574,344 years
Second race 3,148,688
Third race 4,723,032
Fourth race 6,297,376
Fifth race
7,871,720
Sixth race 9,446,064
Seventh race 11,020,408
44,081,632
The article concludes:
... the above figures are exact, if the exoteric calculations of the Brahmins about the day of Brahma be correct. But we
may again state here that that figure is not correctly given out in exoteric numbers. We may, however, add that the
explanations given by us about the progressions, etc., are facts and can be faithfully utilized when any one of the
above described figures are correctly known in calculating all the rest of the figures.
5
Since acceptance of the figures given above would require us to throw the chronology presented in the SD out of the window, the
word facts in the above quotation should perhaps be changed to blinds!
Geoffrey Barborka, however, believed that this unfinished article really did present the esoteric keys.
6
He stated that after several
efforts he discovered that the numerical progression given by HPB may likewise be applied to the subraces. This is an odd
statement, since applying the progression 1:2:3:4:5:6:7 to the subraces requires no effort at all it is simply a matter of dividing
by 28 (=1+2+3+4+5+6+7) and then multiplying by 1 to 7 in turn. What Barborka actually did was invent a brand-new scheme of
his very own (without openly saying so) for reasons we will try to deduce in a moment.
Instead of subraces 2 to 7 of any root-race being multiples of the first, in accordance with the system presented in the article,
Barborka clearly decided that they should all differ from the length of the preceding subrace by a fixed number, which he set at
1/49 of the length of the root-race in question.
Taking the fifth root-race as an example: Its total length is supposedly 7,871,720 years. Dividing by 49 gives 160,647.3. Barborka
rounds this off to 160,645 years. Therefore:
7,871,720 = (7 x length of first subrace) + ([1+2+3+4+5+6] x 160,645)
Hence the duration of the first subrace is 642,596 years. Here is Barborkas complete table:
7
First subrace 642,596 years
Second subrace 803,241
Third subrace 963,886
Fourth subrace 1,124,531
Fifth subrace 1,285,177
Sixth subrace 1,445,822
Seventh subrace 1,606,467
7,871,720
In other words, instead of the progression 1:2:3:4:5:6:7, Barborka substitutes 1 : 1.25 : 1.50 : 1.75 : 2.00 : 2.25 : 2.50! But why?
According to the figures given in the unfinished article, the duration of the first four root-races is 15,743,440 years. The article
states: The number of years that elapsed since the beginning of Vaivasvata Manvantara equals 18,618,725 years (up to 1884).
So assuming that Vaivasvata manvantara refers to the period since the start of the first root-race, Barborka concludes that the
duration of the fifth root-race must have been 2,875,285 years (up to 1884).
8
Since, according to Barborkas calculation, the first
three subraces lived 2,409,723 years, that would mean that we are currently in the fourth subrace, which has existed 465,678
years (up to 2000) and still has 658,853 years to live.
We can now begin to see why Barborka invented his new scheme for the subraces. Note what would have happened if hed
applied the straightforward 1:2:3:4:5:6:7 progression. The duration of the first subrace would simply have been 7,871,720 divided
by 28:
First subrace 281,133 years
Second subrace 562,266
Third subrace 843,399
Fourth subrace 1,124,531
Fifth subrace 1,405,664
Sixth subrace 1,686,797
Seventh subrace 1,967,930
7,871,720
In this table, the duration of the first four subraces is 2,811,329 years, so to account for the length of Vaivasvata manvantara, we
would now have to be in the fifth subrace, which would have existed 64,072 years (up to 2000) and have another 1,341,592 years
to live. But Barborka must have been convinced that we were in the fourth subrace of the fifth root-race a statement widely
found in theosophical literature. So while accepting the 1:2:3:4:5:6:7 ratio in the case of rounds and root-races, he resorted to an
arbitrary and contrived scheme of his own for calculating the length of the subraces.
The fact is that the alternative scheme presented in the unfinished article is utterly at odds with the standard chronology found in
the SD and all HPBs other writings, and in the writings of GdeP. The alternative scheme destroys the correspondences between
root-races and the geological ages. In the standard chronology, the fourth round began about 320 million years ago, and the first
root-race goes back over 120 million years. In the alternative scheme the first root-race goes back just 18.6 million years,
whereas in the standard chronology this number of years takes us back to the latter half of the third root-race.
9
HPB states:
The Cis-Himalayan secret teachings differ from those of India in this respect. Hindu occultism teaches that Vaivasvata
Manu Humanity is eighteen million and odd years old. We say, yes; but only so far as physical, or approximately
physical, man is concerned, who dates from the close of the third root-race.
10
In the standard chronology, the semi-astral late second and early third root-races threw off in early Mesozoic times the astral
prototypes of the later mammals, but in the alternative scheme these root-races originated millions of years after the first
mammals. In the standard chronology, the root-races overlap but there is no mention of this in the alternative scheme. In the
alternative scheme the fifth root-race will live for 7.87 million years, the sixth root-race for 9.45 million years, and the seventh for
11.02 million years. So much for recapitulation! In the standard chronology, the sixth root-race will emerge during the next
400,000 years, will live for a total of just over 6 million years and will overlap the seventh root-race, which will live for a shorter
period.
11
This implies another 10.5 million years or so of human activity on this globe in the present round, as opposed to 25.5
million years in the alternative scheme.
Barborka does not bother to mention any of these contradictions. He even asserts that the SD fails to give time-periods for the
first four root-races a demonstrably false claim.
12
What he should have said is that the SD chronology of the root-races bears no
resemblance whatsoever to the figures given in the unfinished article.
What is the basis of the chronology presented in the SD? Some of the figures are taken from the Tiru-ganita Pachanga, a Tamil
calendar praised by the learned Brahmans of Southern India. It is said to be compiled from, and in full accordance with, secret
fragments of Asuramayas data Asuramaya being the greatest astronomer of the islands of Atlantis.
13
We are told that the
Brahmanical exoteric figures dovetail pretty nearly with those of the secret works and are approximately the basic calculations of
our esoteric system.
14
The other key element of the SD chronology is the dating of the geological ages. The figures are derived
by distributing the period of the fourth round 320 million years, a number said to be certain, on occult data among the
geological eras in proportion to the thickness of the relevant deposits. We are told that the resulting estimates harmonise with the
statements of the esoteric ethnology in almost every particular.
15
It would be perverse to overturn the SD chronology on the basis of an illogical scheme written down several years before the SD
and never published by HPB. Most likely, the masters decided that, instead of giving out a bucketful of blinds, as found in the
unfinished article, they would give out something rather closer to the truth in the SD several years later.
The figure of 308,448,000 years given in Hindu exoteric works for the period of a manvantara is about half that given for the
fourth round in the unfinished article (i.e. 617,142,856 years). The articles states: Our planet [globe] being the exactly middle
period and we being in the middle of the seven rounds, our round period may have been taken to denote the average
manvantaric period, thus at the same time giving a key in a veiled form to the mystery of the geometrical progression.
16
However,
an easier way to derive the figure of 308+ million years is to take a day of Brahma of 4,320,000,000 years, subtract a satya-
yuga
17
which is usually described as a sandhi,
18
but which the unfinished article says the Brahmans added for purposes of
esoteric secrecy
19
and divide by 14 to get 308,448,000, or by 7 to get 616,896,000, the full period of a round.
The lengths of the seven rounds given in the unfinished article imply that evolutionary activity on our planetary chain began less
than 1.2 billion years ago, whereas the figure given in the SD, based on Brahmanical calculations, is about 1.9 billion years.
20
Moreover, this same figure is given on the very first page of the unfinished manuscript, thereby contradicting what is stated later
in that article.
21
As indicated in section 5, the real figure may be a little higher than 1.9 billion years.
If we were to reverse the progression to read 7:6:5:4:3:2:1, the first three rounds alone would have lasted nearly 2.8 billion years,
and the figure would rise to nearly 3.1 billion years if we add on 320 million years for the fourth round. This seems to depart too
radically from the Brahmanical figure given in the SD. If we apply a progression of 4:3:2:1:2:3:4, the duration of the first three
rounds together (as of rounds 5, 6 and 7 together) is just over 2.01 billion years but the total length of the fourth round would be
only 227.4 million years whereas we are told that it has already lasted for some 320 million years! So this doesnt seem right
either.
Since root-races overlap, it may be that rounds do too, but none of the figures we have been given explicitly take this into
account. Using a 4:3:2:1:2:3:4 progression, and assuming each round begins in the middle of the preceding round, the earth
would have formed some 2.1 billion years ago, and the fourth round would last for just over 682 million years figures fairly close
to those given in the SD.
We will have to await a further cycle of teachings from the Himalayan Brotherhood before learning more (facts and/or blinds)
about this subject. In the meantime, we are free to ponder and speculate. It is probably best to approach the subject in the same
playful spirit as that in which these fragmentary teachings about cycles seem to have been given to us. Otherwise we might find
ourselves becoming frustrated with the masters for wasting our time with their silly blinds, instead of giving out all their secrets
to us worthy westerners without further ado. Such a haughty and combative attitude was at times adopted by A.O. Hume back in
the early 1880s causing the masters to describe him as a wild ass!
22
Notes to section 9
1. BCW 13:301-6.
2. The article states that 1,955,884,685 years have elapsed since the beginning of cosmic evolution on globe A. In the SD (2:68)
the figure given is 1,955,884,687 years (to 1887); the last three digits should actually read 986 (see Geochronology, section 4). If
the same errors were made in the unfinished article, it was written in 1885, and otherwise in 1884. The article also states that the
time that has passed since Manu Vaivasvata inaugurated the human manvantara on globe D in the present round is 18,618,725
years. In the SD (2:69) the figure given is 18,618,728 years (to 1887). This suggests the article was written in 1884.
3. BCW 13:305.
4. The masters, however, say that obscurations last in a proportion of 1 to 10 (ML2 177, MLC 331-2). As GdeP explains, after
each globe-round of any particular life-wave, the globe enters a period of obscuration or dormancy lasting about one tenth as
long as the previous period of global activity, until the next life-wave enters the globe. The departing life-wave enters its
interglobal period of rest/nirvana equal to one tenth of the length of the globe-round just ended, before commencing its evolution
on the next globe (Dia 2:15, 264-5, 3:320-1; FSO 350, 361).
5. BCW 13:305-6.
6. Geoffrey Barborka, The Peopling of the Earth, Theosophical Publishing House, 1975, pp. 203-17.
7. Ibid., p. 215. An article that takes seriously the scheme given in the unfinished article, and Barborkas weird extension of it, is:
Robert Bruce MacDonald, The moon, the earth and racial pralayas, Fohat, summer 2006, pp. 42-7.
8. The Peopling of the Earth, p. 209. Or 2,875,401 years to 2000. Note that this figure bears no resemblance to either the period
since the start of current maha-yuga, i.e. 3,893,101 years (to 2000), or to the figure of 4,260,080 years since the start of the
Aryan root-race (164 precessional cycles + 9200 years; see section 4). The period of 2,875,401 years began 1,017,700 years into
the current maha-yuga.
It would be interesting to know how the figure of 18,618,841 years (SD 2:69) for Vaivasvata manvantara (up to 2000) was
calculated. The last digit (1) indicates that it could be based on the yugas, since the present maha-yuga began 3,893,101 years
ago. The period of 18,618,841 years began 826,260 years after the start of the treta-yuga of the fourth maha-yuga prior to the
current maha-yuga. The significance of the period of 826,260 years (= 13,771 x 60) is not immediately evident.
Hans Malmstedt says that if we consider the period of 18,618,740 years preceding the present kali-yuga, and deduct 1075
periods of 1,728,000 years each (i.e. 18,576,000 years), we are left with 37,740 years. He adds: This number of years has a
certain relation to a far greater period, closely connected with the five globes above the seven manifested globes of our planetary
chain (Our position in time on globe D, The Theosophical Path, Oct 1933, pp. 226-35). Unfortunately, he does not expand on
this bold assertion!
9. SD 2:156-7, 261; SOP 360. ... the figures 18,000,000 of years, which embrace the duration of sexual, physical, man, have to
be enormously increased if the whole process of spiritual, astral and physical development is taken into account (SD 2:157).
The later third root-race is in fact sometimes referred to as the first (sexual, physical) human race e.g. SD 2:46, 148-9,
290fn, 310, 312-3.
10. SD 2:251. HPB usually speaks of the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood (i.e. on the other side of the Himalayas). The term Cis-
Himalayan (on this side) indicates that one of the masters wrote or dictated the above passage.
11. SOP 165-6.
12. The Peopling of the Earth, p. 206. See Root-race chronology.
13. SD 2:67. For more on the Tiru-ganita Pachanga, see prajnaquest.fr.
14. SD 2:70.
15. SD 2:710. See Geochronology.
16. BCW 13:305.
17. SD 2:69.
18. Isis 1:32.
19. BCW 13:303.
20. SD 2:68.
21. BCW 13:301.
22. ML2 269, MLC 277.
Appendix 1. Dating the kali-yuga
The traditional Hindu date for the beginning of the kali-yuga is 18 February 3102 BC, which is also the date on which the avatar
Krishna is said to have departed from the earth. According to the Brahmans of Tiruvarur, the astronomical epoch of kali-yuga
began at sunrise on 18 February 3102 BC, and the civil era began at about 2.27 am on 16 February 3102 BC.
1
The kali-yuga is
also said to have begun at midnight between 17 and 18 February 3102 BC.
2
J.-S. Bailly writes:
The Hindus assert that at the first moment of Kali-Yuga there was a conjunction of all the planets; and their tables
show this conjunction while ours indicate that it might actually have occurred. Jupiter and Mercury were in exactly the
same degree of the ecliptic; Mars being 8 and Saturn 17 distant from it. It follows that about this time, or some
fourteen days after the commencement of Kali-Yuga ... the Hindus saw four planets emerge successively from the
Suns rays; first Saturn, then Mars, then Jupiter and Mercury, and these planets appeared united in a somewhat small
space. Although Venus was not among them, the taste for the marvellous caused it to be called a general conjunction
of all the planets. The testimony of the Brahmans here coincides with that of our tables; and this evidence, the results
of a tradition, must be founded on actual observation. ...
We may remark that this phenomenon was visible about a fortnight after the epoch, and exactly at the time when
the eclipse of the moon must have been observed, which served to fix the epoch. The two observations mutually
confirm each other; whoever made the one must have made the other also.
3
More recently, Richard Thompson has confirmed that a near conjunction of all the planets did take place precisely on the Kali-
yuga date of February 18, 3102 B.C. Using a modern ephemeris program (SkyGlobe), he examined the positions of the planets
for every day from 1 January 4000 BC to 1 January 2000 AD.
In that entire period of time, there are no alignments of planets that come even close to being exact. But there are
many approximate alignments, and one of the closest in this entire period occurs exactly on the Kali-yuga starting
date.
4
Here are the alignments he found for midnight on 17/18 February 3102 BC, on the meridian of Ujjain.
5
Object Ecliptic longitude
()
Difference from average
longitude of 306.42 ()
Sun
Moon
Mercury
Venus
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
Ketu
Ceres
Chitra + 180
303.84
304.44
288.36
316.37
300.61
317.43
276.51
340.73
250.31
308.60
327.21
328.56
313.41
-2.58
-1.98
-18.06
9.95
-5.81
11.01
-29.91
34.31
-56.11
2.18
20.79
22.14
6.99

Notes:
- Ketu is the moons descending node, and lies opposite Rahu, the ascending node. These nodes mark the points on the celestial
sphere where the plane of the ecliptic intersects the plane of the moons orbit, and are connected with solar and lunar eclipses.
- Ceres is the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
- Chitra is the bright star Alpha Virginis (Spica). It is one of the 27 or 28 nakshatras, or lunar mansions, that mark the ecliptic in
Indian astronomy.
If all these 13 astronomical objects are taken into account, the alignment covers about 90 of the sky. This is a large spread, but
is nearly at a minimum for the entire 6000-year period from 4000 BC to 2000 AD. Omitting Uranus and Neptune, which (along
with Pluto) do not belong to the seven sacred planets of the ancients, reduces the spread to 52. The seven sacred planets
(which include the sun and moon) are spread out over 40. Thompson emphasizes that modern calculations are subject to error,
but says that, given uniformitarian assumptions, the above results are probably not far wrong. We should not automatically
assume, however, that they are more accurate than the Hindus own figures.
Fig. The sun, moon, and planets are shown for midnight of 17/18 February 3102 BC (SkyGlobe).
6
Fig. The sun, moon, major planets, and dwarf planets (Pluto and Ceres) at midnight on 17/18 February
3102 BC (Redshift 7). V = vernal equinoctial point.
The lunar months of the Indian calendar are named after the nakshatras; the first month of spring is traditionally Chaitra, named
after Chitra. At the time of the kali-yuga conjunction, the moon was new and marked the beginning of the lunar month of Chaitra.
Thompson found that the new moon occurred about 3 hours before midnight on 17/18 February.
At midnight in the beginning of March 5, the moon was full in close conjunction with the star Citra. Thus the Kali-yuga
conjunction occurred on the first day of the beginning of Spring, according to the ancient Indian calendar.
7
It is interesting to note that astronomical tables produced for Alfonso X of Castile in the 13th century list the date of Noahs Flood
as 17 February 3102 BC (the day before the start of the kali-yuga). This date can be traced back to a book written in the 9th
century by Abu Mashar al-Balkhi, who said that the last deluge occurred on 17 February 3102 BC and was marked by a
conjunction of all the planets in the beginning of Aries. Mathematician B.L. van der Waerden speculated that Hellenistic
astronomers worked backwards using conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn, which repeat about once every 20 years. Three
successive conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn mark out an equilateral triangle, which slowly rotates around the ecliptic. However,
given that even very minor errors would add up to about 1.67 years over 31 centuries, if an ancient astronomer hit on the date of
17 February 3102, it would have required a great deal of luck.
8
Moreover, according to modern calculations, Jupiter and Saturn
were not in exact conjunction on the kali-yuga date.
Thompson believes the following to be a more likely explanation:
The conjunction of February 18, 3102 B.C. was observed, and the date was preserved in historical records up to the
time of Aryabhata (about A.D. 500). At some point in this period, people forgot that an unusual partial alignment had
occurred, and they imagined an exact alignment on this date.
9
This would require the existence of a highly advanced ancient civilization something modern Indologists refuse to accept.
Notes to appendix 1
1. SD 1:661-2. HPB quotes this information from J.-S. Bailly. In fact, the entire text from the last paragraph on p. 658 of SD vol. 1
to the end of the first paragraph on p. 667 is a translation of a long passage from Baillys Trait de lAstronomie Indienne et
Orientale (1787, pp. xx-xxxvii), but is not clearly indicated as such. See Boris de Zirkoffs edition of the SD.
HPB adds: Bailly is referred to at such length, as he is one of the few scientific men who have tried to do full justice to the
astronomy of the Aryans. From John Bentley down to Burgess Surya-Siddhanta, not one astronomer has been fair enough to
the most learned people of antiquity (SD 1:667).
2. SD 2:435; BCW 5:58; Jyotisha Shastras see Richard L. Thompson, Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy, Bhaktivedanta
Book Trust, 1989, p. 19.
3. SD 1:662-3 (Boris de Zirkoff edition).
4. Richard L. Thompson, Mysteries of the Sacred Universe, Govardhan Hill Publishing, 2000, pp. 215-6.
5. The values previously calculated by Bailly, Bentley, Winlock, and by Hindu astronomical texts can be found in: E. Burgess and
W.D. Whitney, Surya-Siddhanta (1860), Wizards Bookshelf, n.d., pp. 162, 425.
According to the Hindus, the conjunction took place near the zero-point of their zodiac, a star known as Revati, often equated
with Zeta Piscium (see Appendix 2). Zeta Piscium had a longitude of 32037' at the start of the kali-yuga (Vedic Cosmography
and Astronomy, p. 187).
6. Mysteries of the Sacred Universe, p. 217.
7. Ibid., p. 219.
8. Ibid., pp. 212-5.
9. Ibid., p. 222.
Appendix 2. Revati and the Hindu zodiac
The Hindus divided the ecliptic into 27 or 28 lunar mansions or asterisms (nakshatras), their boundaries being marked by junction
stars.
Fig. The constellations (above) and nakshatras (below) along the ecliptic.
1
s
The Surya-Siddhanta gives the ecliptic latitudes and longitudes (relative to the starting point of the Hindu zodiac) for 28 asterisms,
distributed very unequally along the ecliptic.
2
The 28th is called Revati, and Revati is also the name given to its junction star. The
latters ecliptic latitude and longitude are 0 and 35950' respectively; in other words, it lies on the ecliptic, 10 minutes of arc west
of the Hindu zero point for measuring longitude. According to virtually all other authorities, however, Revati itself marks the zero
point.
3
The Surya-Siddhanta (1:27) says: By their [the planets] movement, the revolution is accounted complete at the end of the
asterism Revati. The Hindus regarded this point the boundary between Revati and Ashvini as the place where the motions of
the planets commenced at the creation and where their universal conjunction takes place at successive intervals.
In 560 AD the vernal equinox coincided with the junction star Revati, which lay 10' east of Zeta Piscium, a faint star of the fifth
magnitude situated in the band connecting the two Fishes, just below the ecliptic. However, there is no visible star marking the
position of Revati. Most treatises and authorities appear to equate Revati with Zeta Piscium.
4
Aries would then begin 10' east of
Zeta Piscium,
5
though this point actually lies in the constellation Pisces. N. Chidambarum Iyer, on the other hand, argued that the
fixed star Revati, which he considers the first point of Aries of the Hindu zodiac, cannot be identified with Zeta Piscium, as Revati
lies on the ecliptic while Zeta Piscium is 10' south of it. He says that Revati is a star that has somehow disappeared. He
determined that on 1 January 1883 the vernal equinox was 2024'15" west of Revati.
6
J.-S. Bailly wrote that, according to the Brahmans, in 3102 BC the first point of the Hindu zodiac was 54 behind the equinox, or
in the 6th degree of Aquarius
7
(he is referring of course to the sign Aquarius, not to the constellation of the same name,
8
the
vernal equinox being defined as the first point of the sign Aries), and that the first point of their zodiac coincided with the vernal
equinox 20,400 years before the beginning of the kali-yuga.
9
Assuming an average rate of precession of 50"/year, 20,400 years prior to 3102 BC the equinox was 283
1
/3 to the east of its
position at the start of the kali-yuga, when it was 54 to the east of Revati. So for the equinox to have coincided with Revati,
Revati must have a proper motion eastward of 4" per year,
10
which is of the same order of magnitude as that of many stars.
11
It
would therefore make one complete circuit of the heavens in 324,000 years.
Fig. The zodiac of 3102 BC.
12
The 12 signs of the zodiac are shown in the outer circle, while the limits of the actual
zodiacal constellations are indicated in the inner circle. In 3102 BC the vernal equinox (the first point of the sign Aries)
was in the constellation Taurus.
If Revati (whether it is an actual star or not) moves, then the Hindus also have a movable zodiac.
13
Measured in relation to Revati,
the precessional cycle would last 24,000 years, since the combined annual rate of precession would be 54" a figure found in the
Surya-Siddhanta.
14
The equinox would therefore make 18 circuits of the zodiac in 432,000 years (which is equal to four apsidal
revolutions of 108,000 years
15
).
GdeP stated that around 1935 the first point of the sign Aries was projected approximately against the 11th degree of the
constellation Pisces,
16
whereas elsewhere the Age of Aquarius is said to have begun at the end of the 19th century.
17
GdePs
statement appears to refer to the Hindu zodiac in which the first point of Aries (i.e. the boundary between Aries and Pisces) lies
10' east of Zeta Piscium. Using the rigorous scientific formula for precession, the equinox would have been at 10.4 Pisces (i.e.
in the 11th degree) in 1935.
Notes to appendix 2
1. Alaska Mark, Surya Siddhanta, chapter I with commentary and illustrations, www.thearchimedeandual.com.
2. E. Burgess and W.D. Whitney, Surya-Siddhanta (1860), Wizards Bookshelf, n.d., ch. 8, pp. 319-56.
3. Ibid., pp. 158, 343.
4. Ibid., pp. 158, 323, 343, 355.
5. Richard L. Thompson, Mysteries of the Sacred Universe, Govardhan Hill Publishing, 2000, p. 218.
Alaska Mark writes: The constellation Revati (nakshatra) starts within Pisces (Mina) at 346 degrees 40' and stops at 360
degrees. The star Zeta Pisces (Revati) is at 359 degrees 50'. Indian astronomers say the start of Aries (Mesha) is 10' east of Zeta
Pisces (Revati). Others say Aries (Mesha) ends 15 degrees west of Aldebaran (Agni); this latter is the more accepted
arrangement (Surya Siddhanta, chapter I with commentary and illustrations, www.thearchimedeandual.com). The latter
arrangement, with Aldebaran centred in Taurus, fits the constellations better, and is shown below.
6. N. Chidambarum Iyer, The Theosophist, April 1883, pp. 176-80; Dec 1885, pp. 184-90.
7. Trait de lAstronomie Indienne et Orientale (1787), see SD 1:661, 663.
8. The constellations (or houses/mansions) of the zodiac are groups of stars encircling the earth at a distance of many light-years,
while the signs of the zodiac are regions of space permeating and surrounding the earth, forming part of its auric egg (FSO 125,
139-42, 672). The vernal equinoctial point is the point on the celestial equator which the sun crosses at the vernal equinox, and
the corresponding point on the earths equator is defined as the beginning of the sign Aries whatever the constellation in which
this occurs. As the vernal equinoctial point gradually shifts around the celestial equator during a precessional cycle, the signs shift
around the earths equator accordingly. The signs are therefore not fixed, while the constellations (relatively speaking) are.
9. SD 1:665.
10. During the 20,400 years prior to 3102 BC, the equinox moved 283
1
/3 westward and Revati moved 22
2
/3 eastward, making a
total of 306. Since the equinox was 54 east of Revati in 3102 BC, it would have coincided with Revati 20,400 years earlier.
11. Fred J. Dick, Ancient astronomy, The Theosophical Path, July 1911, pp. 64-8.
12. Fred. J. Dick, Ancient astronomy II, The Theosophical Path, Jan 1912, pp. 19-20.
13. Many commentators insist that the Hindu zodiac is fixed; Iyer was one of them, and took issue with T. Subba Row on this
point (The Theosophist, April 1883, p. 176). Richard Thompson writes: traditional Indian astronomers used a sidereal zodiac,
which is fixed relative to the stars. In contrast, Western astronomy has inherited the tropical zodiac from its Hellenistic forbears. In
the tropical zodiac, Aries begins with the vernal equinox, and it shifts with the precession of the equinoxes (Mysteries of the
Sacred Universe, p. 218). Strictly speaking, the first point of the constellation Aries always remains the first point of that
constellation, but for most of a precessional cycle it does not coincide with the first point of the sign Aries, which is defined by the
vernal equinox. In relation to Revati, the Hindus can be said to have a movable zodiac, as Fred Dick pointed out.
14. Surya-Siddhanta, 3:9-12, pp. 243-4. According to the Surya-Siddhanta, the suns position at the time of the equinoxes slowly
shifts back and forth from Revati over a total angle of 54, making one complete back-and-forth movement (2 x 54) in 7200
years; the movement therefore occurs at a rate of 54"/year. This seems to be a veiled reference to precession.
15. See Poleshifts, part 1, section 5.
16. FSO 673.
17. BCW 8:174fn; FEP 76. See Poleshifts, part 5, appendix 1.
Abbreviations
BCW H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Theosophical Publishing House (TPH), 1950-91
Dia The Dialogues of G. de Purucker, A.L. Conger (ed.), Theosophical University Press (TUP), 1948
Echoes Echoes of the Orient, W.Q. Judge, Point Loma Publications (PLP), 1975-87
EST Esoteric Teachings, G. de Purucker, PLP, 1987
ET The Esoteric Tradition, G. de Purucker, TUP, 2nd ed., 1973
FEP Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, G. de Purucker, TUP, 2nd ed., 1979
FSO Fountain-Source of Occultism, G. de Purucker, TUP, 1974
HPBM H.P. Blavatsky: The Mystery, G. de Purucker, PLP, 1974
IGT The Inner Group Teachings of H.P. Blavatsky, Henk J. Spierenburg (comp.), PLP, 2nd ed., 1995
Isis Isis Unveiled, H.P. Blavatsky, TUP, 1972 (1877)
LBS The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett, TUP, 1975 (1925)
MiE Man in Evolution, G. de Purucker, TUP, 2nd ed., 1977
ML2 The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, A.T. Barker (comp.), TUP, 2nd ed., 1975
MLC The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, TPH, chron. ed., 1993
Ocean The Ocean of Theosophy, W.Q. Judge, TUP, 1973 (1893)
OG Occult Glossary, G. de Purucker, TUP, 2nd ed., 1996
SD The Secret Doctrine, H.P. Blavatsky, TUP, 1977 (1888)
SOP Studies in Occult Philosophy, G. de Purucker, TUP, 1973
by David Pratt. Feb 2007. Last revised Aug 2012.
Root-race chronology
Rounds and manvantaras: an outline
Geochronology: theosophy and science
Evolution in the fourth round
Secret wisdom
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