The typical Gods are omnipotent, omnipresent and all seeing. I don’t want to question that for now. However, it is also asserted that they are immortal beings. The Hindu mythology has a different viewpoint. The Hindu Gods are not immortal. It is said that after every day of Brahma, all the lower gods and everyone else other than a chosen few will be killed and reincarnated. This continues for 100 Brahma years following which Brahma himself will die and after a gap of another 100 Brahma years, the process begins anew. Also there is a story of a hairy sage, with a bald spot on his chest. It is said that for every time Brahma dies he loses a hair. And since his hair doesn’t grow, there came to be a bald spot on his chest. And after he loses all his hair, even Brahma won’t be able to take rebirth, and our Universe as we know it will face a Thermodynamic death.
A lot of debate and discussion has always featured around the sound Om. Most often that not, it is said to contain all the vibrations of the universe. I doubt that. I believe Om is more of energy rather than a sound.
It is said that at the start of a universe, Brahma is born out of an egg that emerges from the navel of Vishnu. The egg explodes into the Brahmand or the Universe. Brahma at the time of its birth produces a single sound – Om. This Om is said to resonate throughout the entire Universe for the rest of eternity. Now cut to modern concept. The universe was born out of an explosion from a single point containing a massive amount of energy. This we all know as the Big Bang. This energy was Brahma. The resulting explosion created a huge amount of radiation, which we currently call the Backround Radiation Noise. Much like the Om , it is to resonate throughout the universe for all eternity.
Multiverses are a fascination for everyone. And I believed it to be a rather new concept. However, when I started digging into the Mahabharata, I came to believe that I was wrong. And I'll show you why.
In the Bhagavata Gita, there is reference to multiple universes:
“Because You are unlimited, neither the lords of heaven nor even You Yourself can ever reach the end of Your glories. The countless universes, each enveloped in its shell, are compelled by the wheel of time to wander within You, like particles of dust blowing about in the sky.”
It is really hard to believe that the word "countless universes" was just a slip of tongue. I believe that they knew what they were writing.
Know everyone knows that The Theory of Relativity was propounded by Albert Einstein. I am not questioning his genius - my own fascination for Physics grew because him among others like Leonardo Da Vinci and Stephen Hawkins. However, I do believe that he wasn't the first to actually know relativistic concepts and the fact that there is no such thing as absolute time.
When the Hindu scriptures talk about time, they make a clear distinction that the time period of a human being is different from that of a God. Unlike what we would expect, they had the concept that time is not absolute and hence never referred a year as a year. Instead we find references to Earth sec/day/year and Brahma sec/day/year. One passage of the Mahabharata speaks about a king named Kakumdi and his beautiful daughter Revati. They lived in an underground kingdom named Kusasthali (someone said Jules Verne?). When Revati reached a suitable marriageable age, finding no one suitable enough for her, Kakumdi took Revati along with him to Brahma to ask him who would have been a suitable husband for her. When he reached there, Brahma was watching a dance by a Gandharva. After the dance, when Kakumdi placed his predicament in front of Brahma, the latter started laughing. He told him that time travels differently at different places. Thus in the short time that had passed while he was waiting, 432 billion human years had passed on Earth. Finally seeing Kakumdi disheartened, Brahma told him that at the moment Krishna and Balaram were on Earth and Balaram would be a suitable groom.
Here we find a clear reference to the famous relativistic principle – “Time is not absolute” and that time can run differently at different places. It seems the people of the time clearly understood such advanced topics. Also it is evident that the concept that people could easily travel to visit the Gods. Inspite of that most of the people did not go to visit them. Rather they prayed that they would come to visit them. (This can be found from various texts that the Gods used to come down to meet their followers). This could possibly because they had the knowledge of relativity. Also, we come to know of an entire kingdom under the water. If you’ve seen Star Wars, it won’t be hard to imagine something like a Gungan city with people inside it instead of Gungans.
Finally I would like to touch the Hindu views about the universe or the Brahmand. After Edwin Hubble showed us the Universe, it has been an object of fascination for many. Since then man has always wanted to know more. The finding of such a huge unexplored expanse was adding fuel to his ever-burning desire of wanting to know more. But we have been able to understand and comprehend only but a fraction of the entire universe. However, it seems that for the Hindus the answer was always right under their noses. They just had to look for it. Like I did.
The vedas state that in the life span of a hundred years of Brahma, every day is divided into 2 halves - the day part and the night part. The day part is called a Kalpa which translates roughly into 4.32 billion Earth years. Each kalpa is further subdivided into 14 Manvantars, each of which is ruled over by a Manu, who manifest and regulate the Earth. Each of the Manvantar is divided into 71 Chaturyuga, and each Chaturyuga into 4 Yugas. The yugas are in order – Satya, Treta, Dwapar, and Kali. The Satya yuga lasts for 1,728,000 human years, the Treta yuga lasts for 1,296,000 human years, the Dwapar yuga for 864,000 human years and the Kali yuga lasts for 432,000 human years. In retrospect, the various yugas are in the ratio 4:3:2:1. At the end of a Chaturyuga, various calamities cause a good deal of damage. However, life continues on these worlds. After the 71 chaturyugas, when a Manu dies, a massive calamity occurs, and all but a chosen few of this world are devoured by the deluge. The chosen few are left for repopulating the world. Finally at the end of the kalpa, a pralaya occurs which bares all the worlds and the heavens of all life. This is followed by a period of unmanifestation during the night time of Brahma, which lasts the same time as the kalpa. The next day Brahma recreates the worlds and the process starts over. This continues for 100 years of Brahma after which he dies and the entire universe is destroyed. The lifespan of a universe by these calculations approximates to 311 trillion, 40 billion human years. This figure is nearly same to the scientific findings. This is followed by a period of 100 Brahma years, when nothing happens. Following this, Brahma is reborn and the process continues over and over again. This keeps on happening till Brahma is no longer able to take rebirth and everything simply ceases to exist.
Now if I were to explain this, I should also remind you that this is my explanation and you may not accept it. However, as I said these are based on inferences and not facts.
I presume that at the end of a Chaturyuga, we face a change in the Earth’s dipoles. The change takes place every few million years, so our assumption may not be incorrect as the Chauryuga lasts for 4.32 million years. This change in dipoles would infact provide scope for some solar wind to penetrate our atmosphere, which would cause the good deal of damage as stated. Following this at the end of a Manvantar, which lasts about 307 million human years, a massive deluge will occur, much like Noah, or the flood of Deucalion. Now there are many stellar bodies in space and each have a rotational period. Like the Halley’s Comet which has a time period of 76 years. Now there may be a stellar body in space that has a time period of 307 million years, and has such a massive amount of gravity that it causes a deluge on Earth. This would explain the repetitive nature of this deluge. Finally at the end of Brahma’s day which would take about 4.32 billion years, all life on this planet would cease to exist. Now, by scientific calculations it has been estimated that in around 4.32 billion years, the Milky Way’s closest neighbor, the Andromeda will collide into the Milky Way. Though no collision between stars or planets will take place, the friction caused by the intergalactic gases would heat it up and ignite it. And the Earth would be reduced to a cinder. In other words, the Earth would be bared of all life. Following this the hybrid Andromeda - Milky Way, would take time to cool down till life would be able to start all over again. This would continue for 311 trillion, 40 billion years after which we would face the Big Crunch, when all matter would be compressed into a single point. This would again be followed by a Big Bang and the universe would start its creation again. However, at such a high gravity singularity, one would need to take into effect the yet unknown effects of Quantum Gravity. I can therefore, for the time being and for simplicity’s sake, assume that this is what they meant by the 100 years long sleep. However, this oscillatory model of the universe is not really all that stable. With each oscillation it produces massive amounts of entropy, which cannot be converted back to energy. In simplest terms, the Universe keeps losing energy with every oscillation. This will finally get the better of the Universe to a point where it has no energy left. That is called the Big Freeze or the Thermodynamic Death of the Universe. Much like Brahma, our Universe will have finally outlived itself.
Several other incidents prove beyond a doubt that the Hindus then knew much more about everything than we currently can even comprehend. Though I hope not o hurt anyones sentiment with my following statements, I do hope that I am forgiven if I do offend you in any way. I would, thus request all Hindus to look beyond their conventional viewpoints of gods and religions and start viewing their religion from a scientific viewpoint. Try looking at the religious texts as scientific manuals. For I believe that what we perceive as religion was originally established as science. As Universal Laws.
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