Surely every religion has an ending of world in their own prespective and so do Hindus, but its not that it will end on 2012. we hindus have our own theory and it goes like this :
End Of The World In Hindu Mithology
Strictly speaking, Hindu Mythology does not believe in a SINGLE event of destruction of the World, or even a SINGLE event of creation for that matter.
Time in Hinduism, is not Linear i.e. it doesn't start and end at specific points, rather, it is Cyclical and never-ending. This eternal cycle of Life and Death; Birth and Re-birth; Formation and Dissolution is called the Kaal-chakra or the Wheel of Time.
The Cyclical Destruction of the World as we know it, occurs in events singularly known as a Pralaya that takes place at the end of a Chatur-Yuga. A cycle of Four Yugas is known as a Maha Yuga or a Chatur-Yuga and at the end of this cycle, our Earth experiences a cataclysmic event which has the capacity to wipe out all life from the face of the planet.
Ancient Puranas detail this concept further and describe different types of Pralayas:
• A Pralaya at the end of a
Chatur-Yuga (every 4.32 Million Solar Years),
•
Manvantar Pralaya at the end of the rule of each of the Manus (every 307 Million Solar Years),
•
Naimittik Pralaya at the end of the Day of Brahma (4.32 Billion Solar Years) and lastly,
•
Prakritik Maha Pralaya at the end of Brahma's Lifetime (311.4 Trillion Solar Years)!
Leaving the latter three for later, let us first see how the tiniest of these, the Pralaya looks as this seems the most likely candidate for the 2012 Doomsday predictions.
Description of Pralaya
In various Puranas, the description of Pralaya that happens at the end of a Chatur-yuga is extremely applicable to what is referred to as the Great Deluge in Biblical and Koranic references.
In these as well as the Hindu legends of Manu,
entire Earth was inundated by Water which swallowed up the land and gobbled up most living as well as non-living things surviving on it. In all the three traditions, ONE Man was chosen by God to continue the legacy of Human race.
In Hinduism, this man is Vaivasvat Manu and in Biblical references he is called Noah. We have learnt more about him already in a previous post {Manu - The First Man}.
The belief in a Great Deluge is not limited to the three above mentioned religions alone.. it was widely believed by a lot of ancient mythologies as well viz:
• According to Tibetan legends, Tibet was almost totally inundated, until the god Gya drew off the waters through Bengal, and sent teachers to civilize the people, who repopulated the land.
• In the Ifugaos of Philippines and the Kammu of Thailand, a brother and sister were the only survivors after the flood and they were responsible for populating the Earth with different races.
• For the Batak of Sumatra, the giant snake on whose head Earth rests, Naga-Padoha (Hindu Shesh-Naag?), grew tired of its burden and shook it off into the sea. But the god Batara-Guru caused a mountain to fall into the water to preserve his daughter and the human race is descended from her.
• In Egyptian mythology, Set sent forth the deluge to destroy the evil Sebau, the Sami, the Apap-dragon ( Hindu Vrtra) and the long-armed ones. There is another story, about Horus steering his ark across the cosmic ocean as six poles are capsized leaving only the seventh one as dry land, upon which he rested.
• In the Greek myths, Zeus sends a flood to destroy all of humanity but Prometheus warns his son, Deucalion, about the coming deluge, and advises him to build an ark.
There are hundreds more from around the world, from various tribes and cultures, and so this is just a handful. What could have caused these Geographically separate civilizations to form such a common belief?
The answer according to me, rests in Ice, or more specifically, the Ice-Age. It is MORE than likely that all the above myths refer to the same phenomenon, one which we scientifically KNOW to have taken place - that of the Ice Age.
There have been at least five major ice ages in the Earth's past. The earliest well established ice age, called the Huronian, formed around 2.4 to 2.1 Billion years ago and the latest one started about 2.58 million years ago when the spread of ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere began!
Since then, the world has seen cycles of glaciation with ice sheets advancing and retreating on 40,000 and 100,000 year time scales called Glacial periods, and Glacial retreats called the Interglacials. We are currently in an interglacial, and the last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago.
But everything changed 20,000 years ago when extensive ice sheets covered large swaths of Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Consequently, whatever civilizations were existing before, were forced to migrate to warmer places or perish.
The real trouble would have begun when ALL this Ice began to MELT!
During Ice-Age, water was taken from the oceans to form the ice, thus Global Sea-levels must have dropped, forming bridges between land-masses for animals to migrate. However, during Deglaciation, or Meltdown, the ice-water returned to the oceans, causing the SEA-LEVEL to rise by as much as 110-120 meters!!
And what can be the result of such a meltdown?? Of course we get what is theologically labeled as The Great Deluge!!
Throughout our history, the busiest cities have been located either on the banks of mighty rivers or near busy coastlines. All the melted ice lead to a RISE in sea-levels, inundating huge chunks of land and ALTERING the shape of the planetary landmass.
Consequently, there would have been wide-spread displacement of people and populations leading to probably the BIGGEST catastrophe in the History of Human civilization. No wonder then, that mythologies from such different parts of the World narrate the same story!!
As such a catastrophe would lead to major uprooting of people and populations all over the world, it can very well explain the presence of the SAME LEGEND in widely differing Geographical locations!
The flood waters would wipe clear all evidence of civilization from the face of Earth leaving only a few stranded pockets at the highest altitudes of the Planet! One such place is Manali high in the Northern Himalayas where the Ark of Vaivasvat Manu is believed to have docked.
There are other explanations given by the scientific community for the Great floods, ranging from Meteor crashes to Volcanic eruptions.. However, it is the CYCLICAL nature of the Ice Ages along with their capacity to generate GLOBAL FLOODS that prompts me to co-relate them with the Pralaya myths from Hindu Mythology!
2012 Predictions in Hindu Mythology?
By ancient Hindu calculations, there are still close to 4 lakh 30 thousand years left in this Kaliyuga!! How does the Mayan prophecy of the 'End of Days' fit in with this long timeline? By the astronomer Aryabhatta's calculations, Kaliyuga began between 18th to 20th February 3102 BCE which would mean we have utilized about 5270 lunar years or 5113 Solar years from the time when the Kali Yuga started until 20 Dec 2012.
The only link we could find with this time period in Hindu mythology is an excerpt from the Brahma Vaivarta Puraan where Shri Krishna tells Goddess Ganga that she would be the source of cleaning mankind' sins in the first 5000 years of Kaliyug -
Shri-bhagvaan uvaach -
Kaleh pancasahasrani varshani tishtha bhutale,
Paapani paapino yani tubhyam dashyanti snanatah!
Interestingly, many scholars also claim that the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 could reflect the Mayan's inability to calculate the calendar any further instead of a literal END of days. It could also mean that the Mayans probably got bored of this astronomy and were not interested in calculating calendars further ahead :o)
This would mean that 2012 does not mark the End-of-Time but the End-of-an-Age thereby signifying a phase of transition and nothing more or less than that.
Thanks
copyright: A Man on A Mission
Friday, August 31, 2012
Re-written
12/12/2012
dmd
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