The Four Modes of Birth in The Secret Doctrine and the Abhidharmakosa of Buddhism

The Four Modes of Birth described in Indian and Persian Zoroastrian lore, and its meaning in The Secret Doctrine’s “Parallel Evolutionary System” about Human Origins

In the ancient mythologies and literature of these traditions we find accounts of human creation, or modes of birth found in both Buddhist and Zoroastrian texts. David Reigle details the Modes of Birth in the Abhidharmakosa, and its connection to the Stanzas (Dzyan) in The Secret Doctrine (1888), detailing one of the most strangest creation stories among the annals of world mythology and cosmogonies.

We find similar doctrines to the Abhidharmakosa in the Zoroastrian scriptures and Zurvanite esotericism, the non-dual daivá, the seven gods of Simorgh (goddess of pre-Zoroastrian Persian culture), the seven Globes and seven heavens, the anthropogenesis on the “sweat-born” and the eggs, and the development of male and female from early androgynous forms or types, are all as equally found fragmentary in Zoroastrian texts, such as the Bundahishn.

There is interestingly, also a scholar Erin Prophet who found the same ideas within the Corpus Hermeticum researched in her paper, Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System of Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy.

This is the description of Erin Prophet’s argument on the origins of Blavatsky’s concept of root races:

Although, as we will demonstrate, the same in the Hermetic texts exists in exact detail in Buddhism, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism. So we cannot merely assert “she took” the concept from Hermetic texts. It appears she has not. She uses other sources to demonstrate these doctrines existing in ancient texts: including also, ancient American lore and The Book of Documents (Shūjīng), or Classic of History. So, the root race concept is not at its basis, a reflection of the scientific racism of its day, since outside of her statement about particular tribal peoples, Blavatsky plainly gives her positions rejecting that scientific racism.

According to tantric theory, all forms of birth fall into one of four categories [Source: RigpaWiki:Four modes of birth]:

1. Womb birth (for humans and certain classes of animals and pretas);
2. Egg birth (for certain animals);
3. Spontaneous generation from warmth and moisture or heat-moisture birth (for certain “inferior” types of animals), and
4. Miraculous birth or manifestation (for all gods, hell beings, and beings in the intermediate state, as well as certain classes of preta and humans such as bodhisattva emanations).

DAVID REIGLE ON MODES ON BIRTH

“Of all the accounts given in the mysterious Book of Dzyan, none is stranger than the account in anthropogenesis of the modes of birth of the early humanities. The first humanity or root-race, ethereal and not yet physical, is referred to as the “boneless” and called the “shadows” (chhāyā). In this humanity, reproduction is described as taking place without parents. So with reference to their mode of birth, they are called the “self-born.” In the second humanity, somewhat more condensed but still amorphous, reproduction is pictorially described as “budding.” Using something familiar as a simile, these are called the “sweat-born.” In the first half of the third humanity, humans were becoming actually physical. What were the “drops of sweat” of the second humanity hardened on the outside and became like eggs. Thus this humanity is called the “egg-born.” Up to this point, reproduction was asexual. Now came the separation of the sexes into male and female. From the latter half of the third humanity up to the present fifth humanity, the mode of birth has been the only one known to us, the familiar “womb-born.” Such are the modes of birth taught in the secret Book of Dzyan.

When these stanzas from the Book of Dzyan were published in H. P. Blavatsky’s 1888 book, The Secret Doctrine, no one in the West had heard of anything like this. Not even in our mythologies did we have a story this unusual. It was appreciated by some as a factual account providing access to a fascinating new world, and it was appreciated by others as an imaginary account providing a delightful tale quite as entertaining as any fantasy novel. In both cases, Blavatsky is credited with bringing this out for the first time. But this is true only for most of the world. In India, these modes of birth are mentioned in the sacred writings of all three of its ancient religious traditions: Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.

These modes of birth as found in Buddhism were earlier briefly described in my 1998 article, “The Secret Doctrine: Original Genesis and the Wisdom Tradition”. As there said (p. 6): “the Abhidharmakosa speaks of the four modes of birth, following the words of the Buddha, as the sweat-born, the egg-born, the womb-born, and the parentless, just as The Secret Doctrine does. But the detailed accounts of the earlier humanities in which these modes of birth took place, found in The Secret Doctrine, are absent in the now existing teachings of Buddhism.” (David Reigle, Modes of Birth. 2012, February 13. Retrieved from http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/modes-of-birth/)