According to the wisdom tradition of Hinduism, every solar system in which all living beings have their abode is created through the medium of Archetypal Manu, who is said to be the first self-projection of God and through whose ideation or sankalpa manifests the visible universe consisting of planetary units and stellar systems. Because of this, the Indian rishis calculated the age of the cosmos in terms of Manvantara after the name of Manus. Manu is the God manifest, the primordial Purusha, the Hiranya Garbha or the Prajapati or Ishwara mentioned in the Vedas and Upanishads - who creates our local universe consisting of twelve zodiacs, twenty-seven stars, and nine planets. (This Manu, therefore, is not to be related with the author of Manusmriti, one of the dharmic treatises in Hinduism).
The great rishis have said that God is pure Consciousness and Light indefinable. However, God transforms Himself into a Cosmic Person (i.e. Manu) wishing to create our universe. Various divinities, humans, and other sentient and insentient beings in the solar system get evolved through a long process of cyclical evolution by the limitless potential of knowledge and action potential (jnanashakti and kriyashakti) and ideation (sankalpam) of this Cosmic Person.
The pathetic religious discords today arise owing to ignorance about this natural spiritual order. Numerous gurus, seers, and prophets of different caliber come for a different duration such as 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, or 5000 years according to the socio-spiritual condition of society. Sri Ram, Sri Krishna, Sri Buddha, Mahavir, Zarathustra, Moses, Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammad, Guru Nanak, and others were great preceptors who appeared for such spiritual renovation during historical intervals. This process of spiritual renovation goes on until the end of a Manvantara - the cosmic age that has the length of billions of years. It is this spiritual culture or character of Indian spirituality known as Sanatana Dharma (the eternal spiritual order) that makes it eternally relevant, vibrant, and tolerant to other religions.
According to Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, the fundamental principles of Sanatana Dharma rest on the concept of Manu and World Teachers appearing in the epoch of Manu. The spiritual brotherhood of these masters is known as Manu Parampara or Manvantara order. The soul through innumerable incarnations evolves and God, in the form of an avatar, guru, or prophet presides over this evolution. Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma is the spiritual culture of these sages in the Manu parampara. The Manu has been mentioned as Purusha, Prajapati, Hiranya Garbha, etc. in the Vedas. There are references to the Purusha in the scriptures:
The first form of Supreme Brahman is Purusha! - says Vishnu Purana, 2:15. Various worlds together with their guardian deities were formerly conceived in the limbs of Supreme Purusha (Bhagavatam 2:9:11)
The Rgveda mentions that ‘whatever exists here, that which is, and yet to be, is all verily the Purusha, the Supreme Being. (Rgveda, 10:90:2).
In the Yajurveda also, the manifestation of God is termed as a Purusha (Yajurveda 31:18).
The Brihadaranya Upanishad mentions thus:
‘In the beginning, this was but the Self in a form similar to that of a Man’ ((Brihandaranyaka Upanishad 1:4:1).
The Bible echoes this idea of the First Born; ‘God created man in his own image, male and female he created them’ (Genesis: 27)
When the attributeless Supreme Being (Brahman) becomes manifest, He is God, the Universal Father from whom emerges the first Cosmic Person, who is denoted here as Manu. Thus, the Purusha alias Manu becomes the authority of our solar system and the cycles of life in it.
Brahman is equated to an ocean of Bliss, i.e. a plane wherein all ideas, forms, and attributes have their ultimate consummation or riddance. In this way, Manu, the First Born of God, referred to as Isvara alias Hiranyagarbha alias Virat Purusha mentioned in the Vedas became the Father of our universe and the epoch of a Manu came to be known as Manvantara, after his name.
There is a series of fourteen such Manus in a cycle of creation referred to as Kalpa. (Kalpa is a time-space continuum formed by billions of years (4,320,000,000 years), after which the created world meets with dissolution; the time period of one Manu is equal to 306,720,000 years constituting seventy-one chaturyugas (four-fold cluster of Satya, Treta, Dwapara, and Kali ages).
The spiritual authorities, who come in the lineage of Manu according to the partitions of ages are denoted as Manvantara Avatars. There are two spiritual streams in Hinduism. One is the Trimurti tradition which promotes the worship of Ishta devata (favorite deity) of various sects such as Saivism, Vaishnavism, Sakteyism, etc. which holds Siva, Vishnu or Goddess and so on as creator gods.
The other is the Manu tradition based on the monotheistic teachings of sages. It holds Manu as the Creator and the medium for God-realization is only a realized Guru. This Guru should be above the spiritual plane of Devi-devas and should be a Trikala jnani - the knower of past, present, and future. While the Trimurti tradition is based on the Puranas, Tantras, and karmakanda found in the Vedas, the monotheistic teachings (Jnana Kanda) are part of the Upanishads, the Six Hindu Philosophical Systems, Bhagavat Gita, Guru Gita, etc.
