The date of Raama - 3

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SRIMATHE RAMANUJAYA NAMAHA

 

Keeping aside the discussion on the date of Raama for the time being,

let us now see what this yuga calculation is all about.

Though many puranas and Manu smrithi speak about yugas, Surya

Siddhantham (SS) is being regarded as the most reliable source for

the calculation of yugas. The antiquity of Vedic astronomy is brought

out in SS.

 

It says that with 4,32,000 as the basal unit, a total of 43,20,000

years are there in the four yugas. This is known as Chatur yuga or

Maha yuga.

The calculations are based on the annual movement of the Sun around the 12 zodiac.

 

1 souramana (year) = 12 month sojourn of the Sun around the zodiac.

1 chathur Yuga = 43,20,000 souramana = 4 yugas

71 Chathur Yuagas = 30,67,20,000 souramana = 1 Manvanthra

(since every manvanthra is followed by a period called sandhi which

is equivalent to 1 krutha yuga),

1 manvanthra + 1 sandhi = 30,67,20,000 souramana.

Like this,

14 sandhi + 14 manvanthra = 4,31,82,72,000 souramna

1 kalpa = (14 sandhi + 14 manvanthra) + 1 kalpa sandhi

= 4,32,00,00,000 souramana

1 kalpa = a day of Brahma deva = a night of Brahma deva.

 

This is roughly equivalent to 20 rounds of the Sun around the Galactic

center (Modern science calculates 1 round to be roughly around 220

million years)

 

Now we come to the difficult part of interpreting the information with us.

SS says that we are now in the 28 th Chatur yuga, in the 7 the

manvanthra, in the 51 st year’s first day of Brahma

This means half of the Kalpa / the day of Brahma is over.

This is further substantiated by the fact that the Sankalpa sloka of our tradition says

“Dvitheeya parrardhe, shwetha varaha kalpE” (in the second half of the

kalpa of White Varaha avatara) (Shwetha may be to symbolize the light

of the second half of the day / afternoon which is white and I

invite explanations from readers for why it is varaha).

 

This seems to mean that of the 4,32,00,00,000 years of Brahma’s Day,

nearly 2,16,00,00,000 years have been over. It is interesting to note

that it is roughly the time when life forms appeared on the earth

according to scientists. It has also been recorded by the rishis

that 1,970,784,000 is the age of the earth and 1,953,720,000 has been

the period of man. What we can understand is that of the 4.32 billion

years which is the age of the earth so far, 1.97 has been the period

when earth became “earth” fit enough for habitation and 1.95 billion

years is the time since some form of life has come into existence.

Since it is the same Jiva which is supposed to take births of

sthavara and jangama in accordance with the purva karma, it might

have been said like this.

 

Another way of looking at this is that this kalpa calculation is

about the life of Sun itself! The sun’s life span has been calculated

by scientists to be approximately 10 billion years and the total of a

day + night of Brahama is also around that number. Like this 365 x

10 billion years x 50 have been over according to SS and now we are

in the 51 st solar life. This is just mind-boggling!!

 

We know the age of the universe to be 15+ billion years and this is

supposed to be the first day of Brahma’s 51 year in his Parama AyuL

of 100 years! What will happen after this solar life? This cycle will

keep evolving into another universe? May be Hawking’s Worm-hole

Universe Theory is only a tip of the iceberg about how Bramha’s next

day begins.

 

Is such Worm-hole of the nature, as Bhagawan Krishna says, “Curving

back upon myself. I create again and again”?

Or is it what NDP means by “ThaanE undumizhndhu, thane aaLvaanE”?

Or is it what Upanishads describe as a spider drawing unto itself what it spit?

 

Thinking in this way, Stephen hawking seems to be perfectly right when

he wondered what role the Creator has in this perfectly self-contained

Universe!!

 

Yes God does not seem to have much to do about this progression and

otherwise of creation. But that is not God’s forte too. That is

Brahma devan’s job and he has been ‘programmed’ so. Probably the only

time God (Brahman, the Supreme) interfered was when creation slowed

down some time after Brahma created by looking at the 4 sides and

went back to meditate. God created a flutter then by sending a mild

Wind (Ripple effect has been recorded by scientists which was

supposed to have occurred 5 billion years after the Big bang) as a

result of which coupling between prakruthi and purusha took place.

 

Otherwise the ‘need’ for God’s hand in this Universe is as He Himself

has said without mincing words that He ‘interferes’ every time Dharma

comes under duress!! (Sambhavaami yugE yugE).

 

If His only obsession is how to uphold His Dharma at all times, is it

right to cling to the ‘sambhavaami yugE yugE’ literally by lifting it

out of context?

 

Is it not then preposterous to think that He will come only at 71 x 10

x 14 times (71 chatur yugas multiplied with 10 avatars for each chatur

yuga, multiplied with 14 manvanthras) in the entire Brahma-Day of

roughly 10 billion years?

 

Has Dharma been on the decline only on 9940 occasions in the entire

life span of 8.5+ years of the earth or 6+ billion years of existence

of life forms (taking into account an equal period in the yet to

happen, second half of earth’s life span)?

 

This throws up only 2 plausible scenario.

(1) Either the world is Dharmic for most part, so that God had not

found a need to come among us very often.

(2) Or we are MISSING some direct association with God by means of

His avatara, for most times in our infinite number of births.

Since I can not agree with this and I am sure that nobody can agree with this,

I conclude that the above explanation is about Cosmic yuga

classification which is not applicable to Human yuga classification.

 

Reminding the readers of what I wrote in the first part of this

series, let me say that yuga classification has both macro and micro

level dimensions, like other aspects of our vedic system and what we

are generally fed with when told that Krutha yuga runs to 17,28,000

years, Thretha yuga runs to 12,96,000 years, Dwapara yuga runs to

8,64,000 years and Kali yuga runs to 4,32,000years, is macrocosmic

and there must exist some relevance at micro cosmic level of few

thousands of years of human memory. That will be discussed in the

next mail.

(PS- The Yuga calculation once again reiterates / upholds the

supremacy of astronomy in understanding anything and everything of

this universe! So it is astro-data not yuga-data which has to be the

basis for computation of Raama’s time.)

 

(to be continued)

Jayasree saranathan.