bitch moan whine
Cross-Cultural Traces of Vedic Civilization
by Sadaputa Dasa ( Ph.D.)
Devastation of the universe
The ancient Greek writer Aratos tells the following story about the
constellation Virgo, or the virgin. Virgo, he says, may have belonged
to the star race, the forefathers of the ancient stars. In primeval
times, in the golden age, she lived among mankind as Justice
personified and would exhort people to adhere to the truth. At this
time people lived peacefully, without hypocrisy or quarrel. Later, in
the age of silver, she hid herself in the mountains, but occasionally
she came down to berate people for their evil ways. Finally the age of
bronze came. People invented the sword, and "they tasted the meat of
cows, the first who did it." At this point Virgo "flew away to the
sphere"; that is, she departed for the celestial realm.
The Vedic literature of India gives an elaborate description of the
universe as a cosmos-a harmonious, ordered system created according to
an intelligent plan as a habitation for living beings. The modern view
of the universe is so different from the Vedic view that the latter is
presently difficult to comprehend. In ancient times, however,
cosmologies similar to the Vedic system were widespread among people
all over the world. Educated people of today tend to immediately
dismiss these systems of thought as mythology, pointing to their
diversity and their strange ideas as proof that they are all simply
products of the imagination.
If we do this, however, we may be overlooking important information
that could shed light on the vast forgotten period that precedes the
brief span of recorded human history. There is certainly much evidence
of independent storytelling in the traditions of various cultures, but
there are also many common themes. Some of these themes are found in
highly developed form in the Vedic literature. Their presence in
cultures throughout the world is consistent with the idea that in the
distant past, Vedic culture exerted worldwide influence.
In this article we will give some examples of Vedic ideas concerning
time and human longevity that appear repeatedly in different
traditions. First we will examine some of these ideas, and then we
will discuss some questions about what they imply and how they should
be interpreted.
In the Vedic literature time is regarded as a manifestation of
Krishna, the Supreme Being. As such, time is a controlling force that
regulates the lives of living beings in accordance with a cosmic plan.
This plan involves repeating cycles of creation and destruction of
varying durations. The smallest and most important of these repeating
cycles consists of four yugas, or ages, called Satya, Treta, Dvapara,
and Kali. In these successive ages mankind gradually descends from a
high spiritual platform to a degraded state. Then, with the beginning
of a new Satya-yuga, the original state of purity is restored, and the
cycle begins again.
The story of Virgo illustrates that in the ancient Mediterranean world
there was widespread belief in a similar succession of four ages,
known there as the ages of gold, silver, bronze, and iron. In this
system humanity also starts out in the first age in an advanced state
of consciousness and gradually becomes degraded. Here also, the
progressive developments in human society are not simply evolving by
physical processes, but are superintended by a higher controlling
intelligence.
It is noteworthy that Aratos' story specifies the eating of cows as a
sinful act that cut mankind off from direct contact with celestial
beings. This detail fits in nicely with the ancient Indian traditions
of cow protection, but it is unexpected in the context of Greek or
European culture.
One explanation for similarities between ideas found in different
cultures is that people everywhere have essentially the same
psychological makeup, and so they tend to come up independently with
similar notions. However, details such as the point about cow-killing
suggest that we are dealing here with common traditions rather than
independent inventions.
Another example of similarities between cultures can be found among
the natives of North America. The Sioux Indians say that their
ancestors were visited by a celestial woman who gave them their system
of religion. She pointed out to them that there are four ages, and
that there is a sacred buffalo that loses one leg during each age. At
present we are in the last age, an age of degradation, and the buffalo
has one leg.
This story is a close parallel to the account in the Srimad-Bhagavatam
of the encounter between Maharaja Parikshit and the bull of Dharma.
There, Dharma is said to lose one leg with each successive yuga,
leaving it with one leg in the present Age of Kali.
According to the Vedic system, the lengths of the Satya, Treta,
Dvapara, and Kali yugas are 4, 3, 2, and 1 times an interval of
432,000 years. Within these immense periods of time the human life
span decreases from 100,000 years in the Satya-yuga to 10,000 years in
the Treta-yuga, 1,000 years in the Dvapara-yuga, and finally 100 years
in the Kali-yuga.
Of course, this idea is strongly at odds with the modern evolutionary
view of the past. In the ancient Mediterranean world, however, it was
widely believed that human history had extended over extremely long
periods of time. For example, according to old historical records,
Porphyry (c. 300 A.D.) said that Callisthenes, a companion of
Alexander in the Persian war, dispatched to Aristotle Babylonian
records of eclipses and that these records covered 31,000 years.
Likewise, Iamblicus (fourth century) said on the authority of the
ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus that the Assyrians had made
observations for 270,000 years and had kept records of the return of
all seven planets to the same position. Finally, the Babylonian
historian Berosus assigned 432,000 years to the total span of the
reigns of the Babylonian kings before the Flood.
We do not wish to suggest that these statements are true (or false).
The point here is that people in the old Mediterranean civilization
evidently had a much different view of the past than the dominant view
today. And this view was broadly consistent with Vedic chronology.
Although the Bible is well known for advocating a very short time-span
for human history, it is interesting to note that it contains
information indicating that people at one time lived for about 1,000
years. In the Old Testament the following ages are listed for people
living before the Biblical Flood: Adam, 930; Seth, 912; Enos, 905;
Kenan, 910; Mahaleel, 895; Jared, 962; Enoch, 365; Methuselah, 969;
Lamech, 777; and Noah, 950. If we exclude Enoch (who was said to have
been taken up to heaven in his own body), these persons lived an
average of 912 years.
After the Flood, however, the following ages were recorded: Shem, 600;
Arphachshad, 438; Salah, 433; Eber, 464; Plelg, 239; Reu, 239; Serug,
230; Nahor, 148; Terah, 205; Abraham, 175; Isaac, 180; Job, 210;
Jacob, 147; Levi, 137; Kohath, 133; Amaram, 137; Moses, 120; and
Joshua, 110. These ages show a gradual decline to about 100 years,
similar to what must have happened after the beginning of Kali-yuga,
according to the Vedic system.
Here we should mention in passing that the Biblical Flood is
traditionally said to have taken place in the second or third
millennium B.C., and the traditional date in India for the beginning
of Kali-yuga is February 18, 3102 B.C. This very date is cited as the
time of the Flood in various Persian, Islamic, and European writings
from the sixth to the fourteenth centuries A.D. How did the
middle-eastern Flood come to be associated with the start of
Kali-yuga? The only comment we can make is that this story shows how
little we really know about the past.
In support of the Biblical story of very long human life- spans in
ancient times, the Roman historian Flavius Josephus cited many
historical works that were available in his time:
"Now when Noah had lived 350 years after the Flood, and all that time
happily, he died, having the number of 950 years, but let no one, upon
comparing the lives of the ancients with our lives Â… make the
shortness of our lives at present an argument that neither did they
attain so long a duration of life. Â…
Now I have for witnesses to what I have said all those that have
written Antiquities, both among the Greeks and barbarians, for even
Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian history, and Berosus, who collected
the Chaldean monuments, and Mochus, and Hestiaeus, and beside these,
Hiernonymus the Egyptian, and those who composed the Phoenician
history, agree with what I here say: Hesiod also, and Hecataeus,
Hellanicaus, and Acuzilaus, and besides Ephorus and Nicolaus relate
that the ancients lived a thousand years: but as to these matters, let
everyone look upon them as he sees fit."
Unfortunately, practically none of the works referred to by Josephus
are still existing, and this again shows how little we know of the
past. But in existing Norse sagas it is said that people in ancient
times lived for many centuries. In addition, the Norse sagas describe
a progression of ages, including an age of peace, an age when
different social orders were introduced, an age of increasing
violence, and a degraded "knife-age and axe-age with cloven shields."
The latter is followed by a period of annihilation, called Ragnarok,
after which the world is restored to goodness.
The Norse Ragnarok involves the destruction of the earth and the
abodes of the Norse demigods (called Asgard), and thus it corresponds
in Vedic chronology to the annihilation of the three worlds that
follows 1,000 yuga cycles, or one day of Brahma. It is said that
during Ragnarok the world is destroyed with flames by a being named
Surt, who lives beneath the lower world (appropriately called Hel) and
was involved in the world's creation. By comparison, the Srimad-
Bhagavatam ( 3.11.30) states that at the end of Brahma's day, "the
devastation takes place due to the fire emanating from the mouth of
Sankarshana." Sankarshana is a plenary expansion of Krishna who is
"seated at the bottom of the universe" ( Srimad- Bhagavatam 3.8.3),
beneath the lower planetary systems.
There are many similarities between the Norse and Vedic cosmologies,
but there are also great differences. One key difference is that in
the Srimad-Bhagavatam, all beings and phenomena within the universe
are clearly understood as part of the divine plan of Krishna, the
Supreme Personality of Godhead. In contrast, in the Norse mythology
God is conspicuously absent, and the origin and purpose of the major
players in the cosmic drama are very obscure. Surt, in particular, is
a "fire giant" whose origins and motives are unclear even to experts
in the Norse literature.
One might ask, If Vedic themes appear in different societies, how can
one conclude that they derive from an ancient Vedic civilization?
Perhaps they were created in many places independently, or perhaps
they descend from an unknown culture that is also ancestral to what we
call Vedic culture. Thus parallels between the accounts of Surt and
Sankarshana may be coincidental, or perhaps the Vedic account derives
from a story similar to that of Surt.
Our answer to this question is that available empirical evidence will
not be sufficient to prove the hypothesis of descent from an ancient
Vedic culture, for all empirical evidence is imperfect and subject to
various interpretations. But we can decide whether or not the evidence
is consistent with this hypothesis.
If there was an ancient Vedic world civilization, we would expect to
find traces of it in many cultures around the world. We do seem to
find such traces, and many agree with Vedic accounts in specific
details (such as the location of Surt's abode or the sacred buffalo's
loss of one leg per world age). Since this civilization began to lose
its influence thousands of years ago, at the beginning of Kali-yuga,
we would expect many of these traces to be fragmentary and overlain by
many later additions, and this we also see. Thus the available
evidence seems to be consistent with the hypothesis of a Vedic origin.
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