This order of evolution is found also in the first and second chapters of _Genesis_, if one reads it in its true esoteric sense; for Chapter i contains the history of the first Three Rounds, as well as that of the first Three Races of the Fourth, up to the moment when Man is called to conscious life by the Elohim of Wisdom. In Chapter i, animals, whales and fowls of the air, are created before the androgyne Adam.(409) In Chapter ii, Adam (the sexless) comes first, and the animals only appear after him. Even the state of mental torpor and unconsciousness of the first two Races, and of the first half of the Third Race, is symbolized, in the second chapter of _Genesis_, by the _deep sleep of Adam_. It is the dreamless sleep of mental inaction, the slumber of the Soul and Mind, which is meant by that "sleep," and not at all the physiological process of differentiation of sexes, as a learned French theorist, M. Naudin, imagined.
The _Purânas_, the Chaldæan and Egyptian fragments, and also the Chinese traditions, all show an agreement with the Secret Doctrine as to the process and order of evolution. We find in them the corroboration of almost all our teaching: for instance, the statement concerning the oviparous mode of procreation of the Third Race, and even a hint at a less innocent mode of procreation of the first mammal forms. "_Gigantic, transparent, dumb and monstrous they were_," says the Commentary. Study in this connection the stories of the several Rishis and their multifarious progeny. Pulastya is the father of all the Serpents and Nâgas--an oviparous brood; Kashyapa is grandsire, through his wife Tâmrâ, of the birds and of Garuda, king of the feathered tribe; while by his wife Surabhi, he was the parent of cows and buffaloes, etc.
In the Secret Doctrine, the first Nâgas--Beings wiser than Serpents--are the "Sons of Will and Yoga," born before the complete separation of the sexes, "matured in the man-bearing eggs(410) produced by the power (Kriyâshakti) of the holy Sages" of the early Third Race.(411)
"In these were incarnated the Lords of the three [upper] worlds--the various classes of Rudras, who had been Tushitas, who had been Jayas, who are Âdityas;" for, as explained by Parâshara: "There are a hundred appellations of the immeasurably mighty Rudras."