Introduction
Svayambhuva Manu, "the self-born Manu", is the first Manu of the current cosmic cycle, and the ancestor from whom the Puranic tradition traces early humankind. He is distinct from Vaivasvata Manu, the seventh Manu and ancestor of the Solar dynasty to which Rama belongs.
Origin
Svayambhuva Manu is described as born directly from Brahma, or as the son of Brahma and his own self-created feminine half in some cosmogonic accounts, and is given Shatarupa as his wife.
Children
Svayambhuva Manu and Shatarupa's children include Priyavrata and Uttanapada (the father of the devotee-prince Dhruva), and daughters including Prasuti (mother of Sati) and Akuti, whose descendants populate much of the early Puranic genealogy of gods, sages and kings.
Role in the Manvantara system
Each cosmic age (kalpa) is divided into fourteen Manvantaras, each ruled by a different Manu; Svayambhuva is the first of these fourteen, and his reign is treated in Puranic cosmology as the first properly organised period of human and divine history within the current creation.