A new theory in cosmology sounds much like the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist concepts of cyclical creation and mind-boggling timescales. I don’t mean to sound like Religious Uncle, rather to evoke a neat coincidence (via Slashdot):
The universe is at least 986 billion years older than physicists thoughtThe universe may be 986 billion years older than previously thought, and creation may be cyclical and is probably much older still, according to a radical new theory. The revolutionary study suggests that time did not begin with the big bang 14 billion years ago…The standard big bang theory says the universe began with a massive explosion, but the new theory suggests it is a cyclic event that consists of repeating big bangs and big crunches – where every particle of matter collapses together…
“I think it is much more likely to be far older than a trillion years though,” said Prof Turok. “There doesn’t have to be a beginning of time. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large…” [Link]
… According to Steinhardt and Turok, today’s universe is part of an endless cycle of big bangs and big crunches, with each cycle lasting about a trillion years. At every big bang, the amount of matter and radiation in the universe is reset, but the cosmological constant is not. Instead, the cosmological constant gradually diminishes over many cycles to the small value observed today… the cosmological constant decreases in steps, through a series of quantum transitions. [Link]
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p>As I’ve noted before, the Hindu concept of time is so over-the-top that it beats even the Chinese long view quoted sanctimoniously by bestsellers on the business shelves:
… the life cycle of Brahma is… 311 trillion years. We are currently in the 51st year of the present Brahma and so about 155 trillion years have elapsed… [Link]
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p>As Carl Sagan wrote in his book Cosmos (via Slashdot commenter):
The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still…
The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed. [Link]
disturbed as as i am by the idea of a new cult full of whip-bearin interpretive dancing FOBS
here’s another everything-is-yindian-uncle- idea…
currently the most influential academic/philosophical concept is postmodernism, and what the new universe theory says is pretty much the spacey version of postmodernism…
‘there is no one big beginning and end, there is only a cyclical series of clashes and conflicts that are resolved and are necessary for rebirth.’
sounds like something wanky i’d end up writing in an english essay when i want an a…
this post has officially solved my problems on the meaning of life.
new space theory —-> comes from —-> postmodernism —-> comes from —-> yindian-ism.
wow. we really DID invent everythin’!
now i know who would win if the dad from ‘my big fat greek wedding’ had a cultural bitch-off with ‘everything-is-yindian-uncle’…i’m gettin front row seats when it goes down… 😉
Yes, it’s a great book. Unfortunately much of the physics in it has fallen out of favor since it was first written. It is still a good read though.
I love this conversation because it illustrates exactly why religion exists. People are trying to connect what they have observed to what they “feel” is the truth. In the pursuit of that the natural inclination is to say, “hey look. It appears that this religion comes the closest to reality. I knew I/we was on to something all along.” Especially if one follows that particular religion it makes one feel extra good. But I wonder, why not take certain aspects of each religion until you have a best fit curve? It still won’t be a perfect match to the “truth” but it will feel even better. Take it from me. I am on to something 🙂
People are trying to connect what they have observed to what they “feel” is the truth. In the pursuit of that the natural inclination is to say, “hey look. It appears that this religion comes the closest to reality. I knew I/we was on to something all along.” Take it from me. I am on to something
Yes, my boy, you are onto something. People really do look for “scientific”,(“scientific” implying sophistication, advance thinking, and “objectivity”)to validate their religion or make themselves feel proud of their religion.
Once I was at a dinner get-together where a Pakistani friend was telling us that there has been “scientific truth” uncovered as to why the Prophet Mohammed’s (p.b.u.h) hijra hit the three cities that it did (I can’t remember exactly: Jerusalem, Medina, and Mecca?). Apparently, these three geographical locations– and only these three specifically– bring you to the point where it is astrophyscially possible to get sucked into some kind of timeless vortex where, alas, one would be united with Allah, inshallah.
Since I am of the Hindu persuasion, I have read the Bhagvad Gita. Setting aside the infuriating passages about women and the caste system,there are some pretty dope descriptions and conceptualizations on the universe and planets. Various planets are the residences of a particular “Godhead”, and God dammit (no pun intended),they sound very enticing. Our planet is regarded as a sort of “hard knock school”; ie we really suck.
Speaking of planets, have you found life on other planets, Abhi? Last night I heard something knocking on my window….
Really? I notice similar dates are used on wikipedia but when I did some research a few years back on Dhanvantari, I was of the impression that the Rig Veda was at least a millennium older. Maybe not.
BB(54#)
Indian history is pretty fluid and politicized. May be in few decades when the issue is not that politicized, it may clear up. I think in ancient India placed great stress on oral tradition. This may have made sense as writing at that time was expensive, time consuming and fragile.
In a way it might have narrowcasting vs. broadcasting
Regards
To the physicists Arun and Kush,
How about throwing some light on the discussion? Since we are discussing – Steinhardt and Turok scientists – and not the ramblings of some poseur.
Really? I notice similar dates are used on wikipedia but when I did some research a few years back on Dhanvantari, I was of the impression that the Rig Veda was at least a millennium older. Maybe not.
I was talking about the dates accepted by the scholars today. However, as I mentioned earlier, these dates are directly derived from the AIT, which in turn was influenced both the eurocentric views of those who proposed it, and their religious background. So, since the Bible said the earth is only 5~6000 years old, any claims made by the barbaric heathens about a history stretching further back than that were simply superstitions, and could be ignored with impunity.
So we now had a rough cap at around 3000 BCE in terms of the start of history anywhere. The next intriguing bit happens when Mueller and all decide that the Vedas can’t simple be dismissed as they do have a lot of interesting thoughts and philosophies therein. So, obviously, they couldn’t have been written by the indigenous Indians – the natives weren’t sophisticated enough to devise any such thing themselves. We then end up with the theory of a handful of Aryans who rode in and proved their superiority by demolishing a civilisation that spanned thousands of square kms. The date for the Rig Veda could have been estimated a little earlier but the problem was that the descriptions of the localities, the flora and the fauna were all specific to the Indian subcontinent. Hence the Aryans had to have been here for a while before they could write any such thing. So we ended up with the official date that we have today.
As for how long ago the Vedas were actually written – well, they certainly preceeded the Mahabharata war, which itself took place roughly around 3000 BC [based on two factors – the astronomical events mentioned in the epic, and the dating of the pottery shards and coins found at the Old Fort in Delhi]. However, since very few Indian scholars* have taken up the research in the post-Independence era, and that too with rather limited funds, we would need many archaelogical digs and a lot more rigorous research to establish the timeline beyond all doubt. The process is not helped by the fact that a lot of the current crop of historians seem to have internalised the AIT timeline without even bothering to examine its premises carefully.
One would hope that the exploration of the city tentatively named Dwarka [planned for 2007] might yeild more interesting material. ‘Tis too soon to say really – the AIT theory is now the accepted version and overthrowing it is going to be much harder than establishing it was.
RCK (57#)
While MahaBharatha and other scriptures indeed mention astronomical positions which match calculated positions of sku in 3000 BC*, a reconstruction of Indic civilization will require analysis and validation from various branches such as geology, genetics, archaelogy, linguistics,anthropology etc.
Having said that as far as scientific theories go, AIT was pretty weak in evidence and was mainly proposed (throught various leaps of logic) due to inherent assumption of eurocentricism and biblical description of earth. The other factor it was as in cultural context it had a great potential to fragment educated Indians. In fact Max mueller in his last days had revised Aryans as a racial nomenclature.**
Regards
While the Western notion of time is linear, the Hindu notion of time is circular. The Hindi word for tomorrow, kal, is the same as the word for yesterday, because yesterday is in the future, and tomorrow is in the past.
This whole notion of having a competition as to when the Vedas were revealed etc is the effect of consistent attack on Hinduism by Western Indologists. It’s a shame really, because it does not matter whether the Gita was said by Krishna 6000 years ago or cooked by by Brahmins 500 years ago. What matters is whether the philosophy makes sense. We should make Hinduism history-centric enough only to thwart the ill-designs of Abrahamics, but not beyond that.
M. Nam
Gaurav, actually the real issue had to do with the value placed on orality itself. The word is alive, and once you write it down, you kill it. So, keeping the vedas in the form of breath was essential, and those who needed to know the vedas did the necessary work of committing them to memory.
I recently heard an Indian musician (vocalist from Varanasi) say that his teacher forbade any writing down of concepts. “If you listen, you remember. If you write down, you forget.”
We’ve lost so much.
MoorNam (59#)
In principle I agree. Arguments should be on worth rather than vintage. However whole kerfuffle of AIT is to score ideological points, so unfortunately it is with this we are stuck with.
Papal (60#)
I was strictly speaking from the view of transfering information across generations. What we do with information is another matter. when possessed by dogmatists & literalists it is dead, on the other hand when with genuine seekers information is bedrock of progress.
Regards
This whole notion of having a competition as to when the Vedas were revealed etc is the effect of consistent attack on Hinduism by Western Indologists.
Umm, no, not really. I do not care what the others think. I am driven by curiousity about my own heritage. It is nice to know as opposed to being told to take something on faith.
It’s a shame really, because it does not matter whether the Gita was said by Krishna 6000 years ago or cooked by by Brahmins 500 years ago. What matters is whether the philosophy makes sense.
This is a separate issue – the value and validity of a philosophy is not based on the historicity of the circumstances in which that text is believed to have been written. Let me put it another way – Vyasa’s epic is quite simply the best book I’ve ever read. In fact, for me, the work is an obsession – I have read the original in Sanskrit twicce, read numerous translations, pored over the most boring historical treatises to get a better idea of the flora and fauna back then, and will probably die of delight if I ever trace out Jaimini’s version. But that doesn’t stop me from wondering if the description of the epic as itihaas is true or not, and how far is it true, is ‘Vijay’ the actual description and the rest mere embellishments? Regardless of the answer to that question, the value of the epic will not go down in my eyes. But I would still like to know, if it is at all possible.
We should make Hinduism history-centric enough only to thwart the ill-designs of Abrahamics, but not beyond that.
It is not an question of making Hinduism history-centric, it is a question of knowing what the history of my land and people is. And it has nothing to do with the designs, ill or good, of Abrahamics, it has to do with curiousity. Plain, simple, relentless curiousity.
MoorNam,
Minor (but pertinent) modification: What matters is whether the philosophy is true.
A religious ideology can appear to “make sense” if one makes sufficient rationalisations and convoluted excuses for some of the more controversial aspects (as often happens with some aggressive members of certain Abrahamic religions), but that does not necessarily mean that the underlying philosophy — or at least this part of it — is actually true.
However, I understand what you’re saying and your basic premise is correct 😉
Jai (63#)
Define true
Regards
PS I heart Bubba 😉
Gaurav,
Factually correct in all aspects, real, genuinely divinely-inspired, etc etc. Not based on false premises, conjecture, assumptions, misinformation, logical errors, etc etc.
PS: Bubba ?!
Jai (65#)
Etc. etc. is always the problem.Details are always the killer.
Bubba is nickname of Bill Clinton isn’t it ?
Forgive me I am just a wanna be 😉
Regards
PS You can add “Not based on…..erroneous historical records/accounts” to the list above.
Arggh ! 66# is Me 🙁
Bubba is nickname of Bill Clinton isn’t it ?
Jai,
Bubba is a general affectioante term in South (southern US). It means brother. Remember Forrest Gump.
Well, if a person who formulated some religious philosophy really was divinely-inspired (and managed to handle the experience effectively) then that should make their teachings both spiritually and historically/factually correct, no ?
We’re assuming that a) the person involved was not lying about being divinely-inspired or b) somehow excessively-overcome by the experience of genuine “divine guidance” (and the associated spiritual “realisation”), with the result that their subsequent teachings were distorted or erroneous.
This is just a general statement and I am not talking about the Gita or any other specific text here. We don’t want this thread to descend into some kind of flame war where people start tit-for-tat arguements to aggressively assert the authenticity of their faiths (and the “falseness” of others).
Re: Bubba. I had no idea that was Bill Clinton saab’s nickname — I thought it was “Slick Willy”. However, I am a fan of the old rogue too, and recommend that you obtain the CD version of his recent autobiography (he narrates it himself).
Kush (69#)
66# was me not Jai.
Tell me more about Forrest Gump, I slept while watching it. I am addicted to Govinda and Mithunda
Regards
Jai (70#)
But how to decide who was divinely inspired. Remember that while here in threat disagreement on genuine divinity of faith can result at worst in a flame war and/or early demise of this thread, in real it has killed in the past and will contiue to kill in the future.
In my opinion truth can not be decided by proclaimation of divinity (and I hold this for my religion also). I don’t know what is the truth, what I do know however is that religion reflects humanity, in wisdom and in folly.
May be Atheism is the right way and Razib is the true interpreter 😉
Regards
PS As someone who in principle is opposed to Capatalism, I will buy only the pirated version of the CD (this is only for righteous subversion only) 😉
I read a really good book that intersected physics and cyclical creation stuff link no idea if it was anywhere near acurate, but it details the stuff in your post.
hate to be lefty-loosy, but y’all need to stop worring about capital-t-“Truth” – science and religion alike are about discovery, no?
When your car breaks down, have your local pundit conduct a puja and see how far that takes you.
Clarity (74#)
And the point is …… ??
Gaurav,
Looking at the individual’s conduct and personality during their lifetimes is usually a good place to start, along with the content of their teachings with regards to the humanitarian nature (or lack of it) of whatever they were preaching.
The extent of their integrity and their treatment of other people should also significantly factor into this analysis.
Personally, I don’t get too bogged down into teachings regarding “nature of the universe”, “creation myths” etc (although whatever they are teaching in these matters should be consistently compatible with hard-science if they really were claiming to be speaking the truth, ie. archeology, physics, biology etc).
For me, the primary evidence is the impact of (allegedly or actually) being divinely-inspired on the individual’s character and conduct.
Jai (76#)
A good approach.
However when I say truth, I meant truth about existence, about self, about cause and purpose. That is all Meta stuff.
Regards
Gaurav,
Well, we all have to make our own judgement call in these things. For me, as I said before, the Guru/prophet/saint’s character is the litmus test.
If, based on the evidence you have at hand, you decide that they really were the “real thing”, and that practising their teachings does indeed have a genuinely positive effect on you — ie. much greater intellectual, emotional, and spiritual clarity — then I guess you have to decide for yourself if you want to believe their teachings on the “meta stuff”.
We all have to reach our own conclusions in these matters and think for ourselves — blind belief (either in the teachings or in the individual’s claims of divinity/divine-inspiration) is totally the wrong way to go, despite what some people think (more prevalent in some religious groups than others).
It’s a combination of intellectual analysis, emotional insight, and the impact on oneself of putting the beliefs & teachings into practice.
Jai (78#)
I agree with that.
Regards
Amen Brother MoorNam! These Abrahamics and their ill designs need to be thwarted!
Hail Mogambo!
The word we use in Bengali is mahakash(maha + akash). I don’t see why it can’t be used in Hindi since the word actually is Sanskrit.
GGK is right.Antariksha and Brahmanda are more accurate. though a little hard to spell.
Can anyone accurately translate the word “reason” in any Indian language? Raghu Krishnan of the Economic Times wrote that in no Indian language you can accurately convey the true meaning of reason. He said that we have words for “cause” but not reason. The writer came to the conclusion that we are not scientifically oriented from the very beginning! The Sanskrit word “Yukti” immediately sprang to my mind. But unfortunately “yukti” is a vast word. It contains all kinds of meaning you can probably imagin!
reason in hindi/ urdu/ hindustani = wajah, samajh
sorry, sorry.
wajahh is right. samajh would be deep thought, not reason
Kush:
Wouldn’t samajh mean “comprehension” or “understand”?
Or am I getting it mixed up with another word?
Can anyone accurately translate the word “reason” in any Indian language?
Like ‘yukti’, reason too is a vast word. Which particular meaning of the word would like a Hindi/Sanskrit word for?
Jai. Post #78 is brilliant. In addition,
A healthy faith is also something that can wrap itself around whatever scientific discovery shows to be true and integrate it without changing its essential character.
Wouldn’t samajh mean “comprehension” or “understand”?
yes
Well, cause and effect is translated as Kaaran and Kaarya. Looking for a cause is way more scientific than looking for a reason. The west looks for reason because they believe that God has a divine will. Several books have been written on how western science actually developed from attempts to figure out what this divine will of god (reason) might be.
Rano,
Thank you for your comment about my previous post #78. It’s just my own approach to religious matters.
Exactly — spot on. There should be no “mismatch” between the two, if both the religion and the scientific research are deemed to be correct and accurate; genuine, confirmed, inalienable scientific discovery should not be able to “debunk” any of the religion’s tenets if the latter really is to be “the real thing”.
Of course, there are possibly going to be some religious concepts that are “beyond science” (eg. I don’t think God or the “soul” can be put under a microscope or analysed using any scientific method), but — as mentioned previously — any claims the religion makes with regards to history, physics, astronomy, biology etc should be compatible with corresponding scientific research and advances.
Typo: should say “if the latter really is “the real thing”.