Svayambhuva Manu: The Age of the Archaic Man our Primary Fall-back

Abstract

“It is the psychology also of modern, civilized man, and not merely of individual “throw-backs” in modern society. On the contrary, every civilized human being, however high his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche. Just as the human body connects us with the mammals and displays numerous vestiges of earlier evolutionary stages going back even to the reptilian age, so the human psyche is a product of evolution which, when followed back to its origins, shows countless archaic traits” (Jung, 1970, CW10, §105).  As our primary fall-back, the Archaic Man has many life lessons for us which are exhibited through the following on Svayambhuva Manu. The chronicles of the seeds of all creation are depicted through the cyclic duration of the Manvantaras. The age of Manu—Manvantara—invokes the successive roles and transformations of the progenitor of humanity in each of these cosmic cycles. This is proposed and perpetuated in the ancient Hindu text, the Puranas. The birth account of the archetypal ancestor, Svayambhuva Manu of the first Manvantara from the Kurma Purana is taken up for Jungian interpretation. Also, collective reflections on Svayambhuva Manu’s progeny and geographical expansion are proposed as a symbolic expression of the collective psyche.