In Hindu mythology, Shraddhadeva Manu is the current Manu and is the seventh of the 14 manus of the current kalpa. He is considered the progenitor of humanity. Forewarned about the flood by the matsyaavatara of Vishnu, he saved mankind by building a boat that carried his family and the saptarishi to safety. He is the son of Vivasvana and is therefore also known as Vaivasvata Manu. He is also called Satyavrata.
Ancestry
According to the Puranas, the genealogy of Shraddhadeva is as follows:
Shraddhadeva was the king of the Dravida Kingdom during the epoch of the Matsya Purana. According to the Matsya Purana, Matsya, the avatar of Vishnu, first appeared as a shaphari to Shraddhadeva while he washed his hands in a river flowing down the Malaya Mountains. The little fish asked the king to save him, and out of compassion, he put it in a water jar. It kept growing bigger and bigger, until the king first put it in a bigger pitcher, and then deposited it in a well. When the well also proved insufficient for the ever-growing fish, the King placed it in a tank, that was two yojanas in height above the surface and on land, as much in length, and a yojana in breadth. As it grew further, the king had to put the fish in a river, and when even the river proved insufficient, he placed it in the ocean, after which it nearly filled the vast expanse of the great ocean. It was then that Vishnu, revealing himself, informed the king of an all-destructive deluge which would be coming very soon. The king built a huge boat which housed his family, saptarishi, nine types of seeds, and animals to repopulate the earth, after the deluge would end and the oceans and seas would recede. At the time of deluge, Vishnu appeared as a horned fish and Shesha appeared as a rope, with which the king fastened the boat to the horn of the fish. The boat was perched after the deluge on the top of the Malaya Mountains. After the deluge, Manu's family and the seven sages repopulated the earth. According to Purana, Manu's story occur before 28 chaturyuga in the present Manvantara which is the 7th Manvantara. This amounts to 120 million years ago. This narrative is similar to other flood myths like the Gilgamesh flood myth and the Genesis flood narrative.
Descendants
Shraddhadeva married Shraddha and had ten children including Ila and Ikshvaku, the progenitors of the Lunar and Solar dynasties, respectively. The Mahabharata states:
In Theosophy, the "Vaivasvata Manu" is one of the most important beings at the highest level of Initiation of the ancient Vedic sages, along with Maitreya, and the Maha Chohan. According to Theosophy, each root race has its own Manu who physically incarnates in an advanced body of an individual of the old root race and physically progenerates with a suitable female partner the first individuals of the new root race.
