re: ridge
extremely interesting thread to which I will add the following .................................
Rootless Root The cosmic origin or womb of all, itself therefore necessarily without origin except itself -- self-born, parentless. The name is applied to parabrahman, be-ness rather than being. "The One reality is Mulaprakriti (undifferentiated Substance) -- the 'Rootless root' " (ML 347).
From the Rootless Root spring forth into manifestation in ever succeeding and unending cosmic periods, the universes which are scattered like seeds over the limitless fields of space; but in and through this womb there is the ever living and working hiranyagarbha (golden germ or egg), signifying for each such manifesting universe its divine monad -- its divine consciousness and intelligence. See also BOUNDLESS
Root-manu and Seed-manu Fourteen manus preside over our planetary chain during its life-cycle, there being two principal or round-manus for each round. The first of each pair, appearing at the beginning of a round, is called the root-manu; the second, appearing towards the end, before the intervening twilight or nirvana, is the seed-manu, who presides over the holding of the seeds of life until the coming of the life-waves at the beginning of the next round. The root-manu appears on globe A, the seed-manu on the seventh globe (globe G).
Root- and seed-manu, in certain relations, are spoken of as being respectively the prime cause and its accumulated final effect at the end of the round. As we are now in the middle of the fourth round, there have so far been seven principal or round-manus. By reason of nature's analogical procedures, there is for each globe of a planetary chain a root-manu at the beginning of its several succeeding periods of activity, and a seed-manu at the end of the same; as being their spiritual offspring, the names are the same as those by which the principal or round-manus are known. This list of root- and seed-manus for each round is given in The Laws of Manu (cf SD 2:309): 1) Svayambhuva, Svarochi or Svarochisha; 2) Auttami, Tamasa; 3) Raivata, Chakshusha; 4) Vaivasvata (our progenitor), Savarna; 5) Daksha-savarna, Brahma-savarna; 6) Dharma-savarna, Rudra-savarna; and 7) Rauchya, Bhautya.
Vaivasvata is the primitive root-manu of our fourth human wave. Manu, insofar as the human life-wave is concerned, is not a man but collective humanity; yet it is likewise true that Manu is a spiritual individual -- a difficult doctrine to grasp at first presentation. The name Vaivasvata is also used for one of the seven minor manus who preside over the seven root-races of our planet. It is this latter that among other peoples is called Xisuthrus, Deucalion, Noah, etc. See also MANU
Root-matter. See MULAPRAKRITI
Root-principle Generally, the spiritual or energic side of what is in its vehicular aspect called root-element, primordial matter or substance, mulaprakriti, or chaos.
Root-race The main serial divisions of the human life-wave on any globe of a planetary chain; for instance, the root-races on our globe D include the third or Lemurian, the fourth or Atlantean, and the present fifth. Each such root-race contains many and various races as the word is commonly understood. All the human beings alive today are part of the fifth root-race. Each life-wave when it has completed its cycle of seven root-races on one globe, transfers its life-energies to the next globe, whereupon begins the same sequence of seven root-races on that next globe. Thus each globe of a planetary chain has its seven root-races, which together constitute one globe-round, the whole set of seven globe-rounds completing one planetary round. See also RACE(S)
Root-race, First of the fourth round on globe D of our earth, composed of emanations of the lunar pitris produced by the processes of chhaya-birth -- the ethereal lunar pitris emanated their own "shadows" or vehicles, as colossal ovoid bodies of tenuous astral substance, to us translucent, and having but rudiments or type of color. They were spiritual and ethereal within, and more condensedly ethereal outwardly, as yet possessing latent but not active intelligence, and therefore as yet having no speech; composed of all the elements, but as yet having no living intellectual fire manifest. Their habitat was the "Imperishable Sacred Land" around the region of the north pole, where they first appeared in seven more or less distinct but overlapping localities. Their method of reproduction in the earlier periods was by one form melting into its progeny. Later the race reproduced itself by fission; in all these cases there was no death to individuals, because the individuals became their own descendants, as is exemplified in certain elementary forms of life today. This race inhabited the globe when there was more water than land on the earth, and its destruction was by fire.
However, even in this first root-race in which individualized intelligence was not yet manifesting, because the forms were not yet ready to carry this intelligence, there were nevertheless certain representatives, the highest in the entire vast racial group, who were already intelligent because of unfolded manasic attributes, and who because of their more advanced state of evolution were enabled to build up an intermediary psychological apparatus of etherealized or tenuous character permitting the transmission of thought and intelligence from the monad into the physical frame. These intelligent entities, few as compared with the vast numbers of the mass, were the first manasaputric incarnations, and were therefore the highest and most evolved, and in consequence the leaders and guardians of the unintelligent multitudes of this race.
Root-race, Second Like the first root-race of the present round on globe D of the earth-chain, the second was astral, though somewhat more concreted, physicalized, or materialized. The bodies were unlike what is now regarded as human, bearing but vaguely the human outline of a gelatinous, filamentoid, jelly-like nature, as yet without evolved bones, organs, hair, or true skin. Reproduction was by budding, as occurs in some lower organisms today. About the middle of the race, these buds became numerous and the process became modified to one analogous to the casting off of spores or seeds, or to the exuding of drops of vital sweat. These beings were mindless and unmoral, innocent, guided unconsciously by their spiritual instincts, nevertheless largely under the sway of lower rather than spiritual impulses, somewhat like the animals of today. For as yet no intellectual fire from the manasaputras (sons of mind) had been communicated to them, so that as yet there was no working bridge of mentality between spirit and matter in them.
Root-race, Third A period when human evolution passed through a stage analogous to that of the third round, but qualified by the fact that it belonged to the fourth round. The date of the beginning of this third root-race is set at some 22 or 23 million years ago; and 18,000,000 years ago is given in theosophical writings as the date of the awakening of mind and the separation of the sexes at or somewhat after the midpoint of the third root-race. The latter date is collated, according to the geology of Blavatsky's time, with the later Triassic and earlier Jurassic periods.
The geographical area was the enormous continent known as Lemuria and outlying islands, some even of semi-continental size; and, like the other odd-numbered races, in this geographical distribution the water-area predominated over the land-area, and its destruction finally came about through fire.
The filamentoid and boneless structure of the semi-astral human bodies at the end of the second root-race now thickened and condensed, separating itself upon a rapidly developing skeletal form into nervous, muscular, and other systems, combined with the appearance of definite organs, with specific functions, thus constituting the first truly physical human beings. The mode of reproduction at the beginning of the root-race was by the exudation from the surface of the body of vital "sweat" or cells, but with the hardening and specialization of the body itself, the production of the reproductive cells became localized in special organs and the mode of generation became oviparous; later these human eggs were no longer extruded as is the case with fowls today, but shrank greatly in size and were developed and fertilized within the body: first in a virginal manner, and then before true sex appeared there ensued a fairly long period of androgynous reproduction in which androgynous humans occasionally gave birth to individuals in whom one or the other sex predominated; and these occasional appearances, as time passed, became ever more frequent with the recession of androgyny, and the final appearance of true sex as it is understood today. This process extended over hundreds of thousands, and even a number of millions, of years.
More important, however, than these biological facts was the awakening of mind, of self-conscious thinking, inaugurated by the descent of the manasaputras who not only at first projected sparks of their own full self-consciousness into the innocent and unthinking humanity of that early time, but who likewise so stimulated the appearance of mind that the latter finally became common in differing degrees to the entire human stock. See also LEMURIA
Root-race, Fourth Often spoken of as the Atlantean, the name given in theosophic writings to the land-system which it occupied; it followed the third or so-called Lemurian race, not suddenly but with overlapping. During the fourth root-race humanity reached its greatest phases of materiality, especially since it occurred during the fourth round. The fourth root-race was roughly contemporaneous with what towards the end of the last century was called Tertiary times and came to an end in what was then known as the middle Miocene. Its total duration was millions of years.
The stature of the generality of the fourth root-race peoples was what would be gigantic to us today, which is one source of the universal tradition as to giants on the earth in far antiquity. Its earlier language was the monosyllabic type of the latter half of the third root-race, yet the characteristic speech during a large portion of its span was of the agglutinative type, inflected speech coming with the fifth root-race. The mode of reproduction was sexual, as it was in the latter half of the third root-race. After the fourth root-race had reached its zenith, certain unevolved tribes committed miscegenation with the most evolved of the then-existing simians, which were the descendants of a previous miscegenation of representatives of the third root-race with true monkey stocks. This second miscegenation produced a hybrid stock from which the anthropoid apes are descended.
There was an enmity lasting for ages between the benevolent and the selfish portions of the fourth root-race, which continued with the Aryan adepts of the nascent fifth root-race and finally ended in the triumph of the positive; but nevertheless the karma of Atlantean black magic even yet blights our own fifth root-race, for the people of today were imbodied as the humans of Atlantean times. Descendants of fourth root-race humanity even now are among the inhabitants of the earth, together with rapidly dying out remnants of the third root-race, and also various mixtures of all these.
During the fourth root-race on this globe D of the fourth round, evolution reached the middle of its course for this planetary manvantara, and the door to entry into the state of spiritual and intellectual evolution called the human kingdom was closed. All entities beneath the humans (and probably higher anthropoids who were in existence before that epoch) must await until the next succeeding round before even the highest representatives of the beast kingdom can pass on to the human stage. All subhuman kingdoms will show a tendency as time goes on to die out, because the monads of these kingdoms will go into latency for the remainder of the planetary manvantara; their chance for evolution into the human state will come again during the succeeding planetary manvantara. See also ATLANTEANS
Root-race, Fifth The human race at present on earth; the fifth root-race on this globe D in the fourth round originated from the seed-race of the middle fourth root-race and as the ages passed began to occupy the lands which have since gradually taken form in our present continental distribution. It is subdivided, like all other root-races, into seven subraces, and these again each into smaller divisions. The present predominant sub-subrace is the fifth of its fourth primary subrace, only a little beyond the point of greatest materiality of this root-race.
In one general sense, the fifth root-race actually comprises the many and extremely varied stocks which exist on the earth today, simply because they all live in the time period of the fifth root-race, although many of the stocks are lineal descendants of the last subrace of the fourth root-race more or less intermixed with what can be described as more characteristic fifth root-race stock. The Chinese, for example, although descended from the latest subrace of the fourth root-race, yet because of living in fifth root-race times are to be reckoned among fifth root-race peoples, of which indeed they are among the very oldest. The Semites in all their divisions are to be considered as an early offshoot of the fifth root-race, and not as a race essentially or radically distinct.
The fifth root-race is sometimes spoken of as the Aryan race, merely because the Aryans of India are an existing example of the earliest branches of the fifth, though the term Aryan is not in accordance with the various ethnological and linguistic distinction to which that name is commonly applied. The characteristic language of this root-race is inflectional, such as Sanskrit or Greek. The symbol of the fifth or Aryan race is "that which is its most sacred symbol to this day, the bull (and the cow)" (SD 2:533).
Root-race, Sixth The root-race which will succeed the present fifth root-race, sometimes called the Aryan race in theosophical literature because the Aryan Hindus were a part of the original first subrace of the fifth root-race. Care should be taken not to confuse the sixth root-race with the sixth subrace of the fifth root-race which was stated by Blavatsky to be in process of forming in America as seeds -- the earliest pioneers, although already beginning to appear, will not be numerous for several thousand years. The preparation for the sixth root-race will take place during the sixth and seventh subraces of the fifth root-race in the Americas. When the time arrives, this future sixth root-race will be predominant on the earth, new lands will have appeared, and many of the present lands will be submerged. The surface of the globe will, in time of course, be entirely changed, and there will then be more land than water (as also was the case during the fourth root-race).
During the sixth root-race, humanity will not be gigantic in size (as were the fourth and third root-races), for spirituality will be on the ascendancy and materiality decreasing, so that at the end of the sixth root-race the development of spirituality will be parallel to what it was at the beginning of the second root-race plus, however, the added evolutionary experience gained during the preceding root-races. The characteristics of sex will gradually disappear, and humanity will be slowly once again becoming androgynous. Offspring will be born in a manner generally similar to that which prevailed during the second and early third root-race periods: toward the close of the sixth, mankind will begin to manifest the first appearances of reproduction by kriyasakti (propagation by means of will and imagination). Toward the close of the sixth root-race, humanity will be showing a steadily increasing tendency to evolve out of fleshly into more ethereal physical vehicles. These various changes are presentments of what will in the due course be established in relative perfection during the sixth round -- coming events cast their shadows before. Indeed the sixth root-race will be as compared with our own fifth far in advance, spiritually, intellectually, psychically, and even physically; and the attainment by mankind of adeptship or mahatmaship will be notably more easy than is the case at present.
With the advent of each root-race a new cosmic element comes into proportionate manifestation, and a new physical sense apparatus appears: thus humanity in the sixth root-race will develop what is meant by a sixth sense. The fifth cosmic element (often named aether or akasa-tattva) will reach a development proportionate to the evolution of mankind during the fifth root-race in this fourth round; and after the same manner, a sixth cosmic element will make its appearance during the course of human evolution during the sixth root-race. Furthermore, just as a manushya-buddha comes to lead mankind in each root-race, so will one appear during the sixth root-race of the future.
Root-race, Seventh The seventh and last root-race of any round on any globe of a planetary chain. Reference is nearly always to the seventh root-race of the fourth round on globe D of the earth-chain. It characteristics are analogous on a smaller scale to those of the seventh round, modified by the fact that it belongs to the fourth round. There is a return to conditions of purity which prevailed at the beginning of the round; but this return does not mean a going backward but an emanative evolutionary unfolding to the point where the cyclic motion brings all things back to the same plane, but on a higher subdivision. The great adepts and initiates -- referring here specifically to the seventh root-race on globe D of the fourth round -- will once more produce mind-born sons immaculately, and there will be a race of buddhas, sons of god, the purity of the krita-age being reestablished (SD 2:274, 483). The invisible north polar continent will once more become visible, and the bodhisattva Maitreya will appear (SD 1:328, 470). A seventh element will appear as a presentment, not however to be fully manifested until the seventh round. In this race some of the greatest adepts will return.
Root-types In biology animal or plant species derive from seven, ten, or twelve primeval physico-astral root-types, being in the case of every kingdom the origins of the widely differentiated, greatly specialized individuals now found on earth. "Every new Manvantara brings along with it the renovation of forms, types and species; every type of the preceding organic forms -- vegetable, animal and human -- changes and is perfected in the next, even to the mineral, which has received in this Round its final opacity and hardness; its softer portions having formed the present vegetation; the astral relics of previous vegetation and fauna having been utilized in the formation of the lower animals, and determining the structure of the primeval Root-Types of the highest mammalia" (SD 2:730). Primeval astral man was the root-type of those early mammalians, from whom the anthropoids sprang by human miscegenation, although this does not apply to the animals beneath the mammals.
The point at issue between theosophic teachings and modern evolutionary theory is that species cannot be traced back to a unitary physical origin; instead, a number of types appeared on the physical planes, coming from the astral, through intermediate astro-physical stages, and each type proceeding to differentiate physically in response to physical conditions.
