with the forms of the mammalian kingdom. Just as the Fish had typified
the Silurian epoch, just as the Tortoise had started on its way the
great amphibian evolution, so did the Boar, that typical mammal, start
the mammalian evolution, and we come to the Lemurian continent with its
wonderful variety of forms of mammalian life. Not so very ignorant after
all, you see, the ancient writings! For men are only re-discovering
to-day what has been in the hands of the followers of the Rishis for
thousands, tens of thousands of years.

Then we come to a strange incarnation on this Lemurian continent:
frightful conflicts existed; we are nearing what in the theosophical
nomenclature is the middle of the third Race, and man as man will
shortly appear with all the characteristics of his nature. He is not yet
quite come to birth; strange forms are seen, half human and half animal,
wholly monstrous; terrible struggles arise between these monstrous forms
born from the slime as it is said--from the remains of former
creations--and the newer and higher life in which the future evolution
is enshrined. These forms are represented in the Puranas as those of
the race of Daityas, who ruled the earth, who struggled against the Deva
manifestations, who conquered the Devas from time to time, who subjected
them, who ruled over earth and heaven alike, bringing every thing under
their sway. You may read in the splendid stanzas of the Book of Dzyan,
as given us by H. P. B., hints of that mighty struggle of which the
Puranas are so full, a struggle which was as real as any struggle of
later days, an absolute historical fact that many of us have seen. We
are instructed over and over again of a frightful conflict of forms, the
forms of the past, monstrous in their strength and in their outline,
against whom the Sons of Light were battling, against whom the great
Lords of the Flame came down. One of these conflicts, the greatest of
all, is given in the story of the Avatara known as that of
Narasimha--the Man-Lion. You know the story; what Hindu does not know
the story of Prahlada? In him we have typified the dawning spirituality
which is to show in the higher races of Daityas as they pass on into
definite human evolution, and their form gives way that sexual man may
be born. I need not dwell on that familiar story of the devotee of
Vishnu; how his Daitya father strove to kill him because the name
of Hari was ever on his lips; how he strove to slay him, w