Why 108?

This is the title of a page that contains interesting information about this most sacred holy number among the Hindu people. You may find it at
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/misc/why108.html .

“It could have been otherwise, says the author, but it so happens that the distance between the earth and the sun equals about 108 (actually 107-odd) times the sun’s diameter. Likewise, it so happens that the distance between the earth and the moon equals about 108 (actually 109-odd) times the moon’s diameter. That sun and moon look equally big in the earthly sky is the immediate result of their having the same ratio between distance and diameter. Moreover, it so happens that the sun’s diameter approximately equals 108 times the earth’s diameter.”

Did the ancient Hindus know that the distance between the earth and the sun equals about 108 times the sun’s diameter? Likewise, did they know the distance between the earth and the moon equals about 108 times the moon’s diameter? As I have also said elsewhere, in the light of facts like these, and after seeing the cumulus of other “coincidences” in the scientific lore of ancient cultures so distant from one another, we would certainly need to be blind to think that it is all just the product of chance.

But however it is, I would like to add the following with regard to this and other cyclic or “circular” numbers:

According to Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Efeso (540–475 BC), the period between two great conflagrations such as the one that would have submerged Atlantis, thousands of years before his time, is 10,800 years, a “circular” period of time which divided by one hundred becomes 108: a number which for Hinduists and Buddhists is an object of special veneration.

This can be seen in that 108 is the number of Upanishads in the Buddhist canon and it is also placed before the name of the venerable acharyas or teachers of the great disciplic lines, apart from the fact that it is the number of stone figures along the lanes at the temple of Angkor in Camboya, etcetera.

Now the basic form of 108, i.e. 18, which among other particularities corresponds to the number of breaths of a human being in one minute, is equal to the total number of Puranas and of the Bhagavad–gita chapters. For the rest, it should be noted that the total number of the Rig Veda verses is 10,800 and those of Bhagavata Purana 18,000, distributed into twelve “Cantos” or chapters; and that within the Judean–Christian esoterism, the number of chapters of the enigmatic Book of Enoch is, again, 108.

Other important facts regarding this holy number:

1) 108 is 3 times 36, the number 3 symbolizing heaven (rather than time) as opposed to 4, which symbolizes the earth. Actually time, in the absence of which no action is possible, is best symbolized by 9 and, beyond that, by 108.

Why so? Because 9 is the dynamic power that makes it possible to inter-relate cycles of all orders and magnitudes, from 360, which represents the year, to 311’040,000’000,000, which is the length of the total cosmic manifestation. Both are multiple of 9, i.e. the sum of their digits is 9.

This can also be seen with the traditional yugas’ lengths of 1’728,000, 1’296,000, 864,000 and 432,000 years (totaling 4’320,000 years), all of which are multiple of nine (i.e. the sum of their digits is always 9).

It also can be seen with the length of the cycle of precession of the equinoxes of 25,920 ideal years (of 360 days) and with that of a degree of this cycle, which is 72 years and a multiple of nine as well.

Most important among the relationships that can be established between the yugas’ lengths and the length of the precession of the equinoxes are:
72 x 60 = 4,320, and 72 x 360 = 25,920; and again, 4,320 x 6 = 25,920.

Also, it is a known fact that the normal age of man for this current Era is 72 years. Now 72 years x 360 = 25,920 days, which means that from a cosmic view, the life of man lasts only one day.

Now as to why 108 symbolizes time (and more specifically total time) we need to look into the greater cycles.

To the orthodox Vaishnavism, a Brahma’s day consists of one thousand maha-yugas, and his night consists of an equal number of them. The “day” and “night” therefore are 4’320,000 x 1,000 x 2 = 8,640’000,000 common years long. But the relevant number here is 8,640 (without any more zeros) as it can be related to 25,920 by multiplying it by 3 (8,640 x 3 = 25,920). In turn, 25,920 years can be assimilated to 24 hours by multiplying the latter (with an added zero) by 108. Here the totality of time is represented by both 25,920 (the “ideal” length of a cycle of precession of the equinoxes) and 108.

Another way to show why 108 symbolizes total time is by simply relating it to 36 (36 x 3), where 3 represents the division of day into three parts of 8 hours (daytime, night time, and dawn and dusk taken together).

2) The Hindu and Buddhist rosary of 108 beads symbolizes more specifically the “chain of worlds” in the esoteric traditions, every bead symbolizing a successive created world. In reciting their mantras as they pass the beads along with their fingers, the devotees – whether knowingly or not – are recreating the worlds. As with the Aztecs, the Incas, etc, ‘worlds’ here may be regarded to mean cycles, the chain of worlds in turn representing the complete universal manifestation.

3) Here is an oddity: Which chapter is in the center of the Bible? Psalms 118.

There are 594 chapters before Psalms 118, and there are 594 chapters after Psalms 118. Add these numbers up and you get 1188.

True, 1188 is not 1008 or 108; but take 180 from 1188 and you get 1008. Take 900 from 1008 and you get 108.

Also, the catholic rosary has 108 : 2 = 54 beads. Another “coincidence”?

More About the Year 2012

Regarding the year 2012, I have been asked some questions that I will try to answer now.

The “70 year spread”, that is the time span between 2012 and 2082, the ending date of the present Kali Yuga according to my first estimation, is just conjectural; I am not sure about it and I may be all wrong. The fact is, I had previously calculated the Kali Yuga would end in 2082, and then I saw that starting from a certain date, it all fitted better if the end actually was 72 years earlier (72 years being a degree of the cycle of precession of the equinoxes), in 2010 or 2012; which is why such dates as 455 AD – a year of decisive events like the sack of Rome by the barbarian Genseric, which ultimately put an end to the Roman civilization – and 1492 AD – the year that literally got a new era started with the discovery of America by Columbus – as starting dates of the third and fourth phases of the present Kali Yuga respectively, became much more relevant than the “normal” dates 527 AD and 1564 AD within my previous calculation.

That first calculation was based on my discovery, at a certain point in my investigation, that absolutely ALL cycles, of whatever nature, could be regarded as small-scale reflections of the key Hindu cycle or maha-yuga (which is like the matrix that contains them all), therefore also having four descending partial ages whose lengths, as with the maha-yuga itself, are all proportional to the scale 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10. This not only helped me bring to light key dates in history to confirm my theory, but also made me conclude that within the present Kali Yuga, which is the last age or yuga within the current maha-yuga, we are now in what can very properly be called “the kali-yuga of the present Kali Yuga”, a period of time of little more than five hundred years, extremely rich in historical events and great material achievements but which unfortunately, precisely by reason of their being only material, would appear to be dragging us towards disaster at an ever increasing speed.

So what is said by some about there being an open window or “opportunity to have something happen between 2012 and 2082, such as what we are calling our Ascension, the shift from the 3rd through the 4th and into the 5th Dimension” is, IF I am not wrong in my estimations, perfectly possible; but in this case it would be just as possible that such opportunity may happen, say, from 2010 to 2012 as final date of the current Manvantara (the whole cycle of the present mankind), with the new Golden Age automatically starting earlier, i.e. at that very same moment; all of which in fact is known as an “overlapping” of yugas by the Hindu scriptures.

What is said about Lemuria and Atlantis is also right, as there is every reason to believe the two of them were parent civilizations to the present mankind. But there is more to it than can be said right now, as there also is the Hyperboreas to be accounted for (by the way, there is an interesting article about it at http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/30-06-2006/82750-Atlanteans-0). But I am afraid there is not enough space to deal with all of it right now, and on the other hand this is becoming too long, so I will leave it to other posts where I may have a word or two to say about it.

The Garden of Eden and the Hyperboreas

That the Garden of Eden had the Hyperborean Thule for its most remote precedent is proven by the fact that from time immemorial to as late as the European Middle Ages, it used to be represented as a paradisiacal place located on the top of an inaccessible mountain surrounded by the sea – a most ancient image that is found everywhere throughout history, and a representation of the Earth that appears even on the Mercator maps, where the ocean is depicted as a torrent which, through four mouths, precipitates into the North Pole’s Gulf to be absorbed by the Earth’s bowels; and on which the Pole itself, as the supreme center, is represented as a black rock that rises to a prodigious height.

Along the same lines, the fact that there are many of these “centers” all over the world, and that they have been variously represented as a cavern, an island, a citadel, a palace, a temple, or a pyramid, only indicates that later on there was a proclivity to evoke, by means of secondary “images”, the primeval center by excellence: Mount Meru of the Hindus, depicted in Surya–siddhanta as a small mountain located in the North Pole, and a prototype that has survived mainly in the sacred mountains of Central Asia, believed by many to be the cradle of humanity, by such names as Sumer, Sumber or Sumur – all of them clearly identical to the Sanskrit Sumeru.

I will mention, in passing, that if the biblical paradise is usually believed to be located in this latter area is because it became, in the course of time, a secondary tradition from the Hyperborean; and also because the references to a paradise in Genesis are essentially symbolic, and certainly subordinated to the area in which the book was compiled. On the other hand, the fact that all these representations gave rise, in different cultures, to beautiful, evocative legends only reveals the intention to keep, over the centuries, a remembrance of such supreme center alive.

Such is the case, among the Celts, of mythical Avalon of the legends of King Arthur, an emblematic image of the perfect king whose knights, numbering twelve, had twelve seats – a usual representation of the twelve constellations – set aside around a table whose center, as a symbol of the supreme center, was reserved to accommodate the Holy Grail. This in turn was a symbol of the perfect knowledge or, rather, of the place where this knowledge is safely stored all through the vicissitudes of a full human cycle – as is also the case, for example, with soma among the Hindus or the elixir of gods among the Greeks.

For the rest, it is obvious that only in one of the two Poles could exist such ideal conditions as to make it possible an “eternal spring”, the season that rules throughout the Golden Age. In effect, in Bhagavata Purana, 5, 20:30, the Sun is depicted as revolving over the horizon throughout the year – and not just during a part of it as currently – around Mount Meru, the archetypical image of the original center. This original center is located at the core of Bhu–mandala, a schematic, most ancient representation of the Earth (and probably of the solar system, the galaxy, and the entire universe) consisting of six concentric rings separated by seas which form altogether, by surrounding the center, the seven dvipas – “islands” or continents – of the Hindu tradition. All of this would appear to ultimately take us back to a time when the plane of the ecliptic, the Equator, and the horizon of the Earth all coincided approximately – probably 50,000 years ago, when the orbit of our planet was more circular and its axis was not as tilted as it is today.

I am certainly aware that this hypothesis rather rises difficulties than solves them, not the least of which is the fact that around the timeframe thus established the Northern polar region was most probably covered by a thick snow layer, a condition that does not match the one that should prevail in a “paradise”; even so, according to René Guénon and others, certain traditional data indicate that the tilt of the Earth’s axis has not always existed – rather, it would be a consequence of what is known as the “fall of man”. And while it is most unlikely that such was the case at that time, such circumstance would immediately solve the problem.

Yet another possible solution would be to push the Hyperborean times back to over 100,000 years ago, i.e. twice as much as the combined length of two precessional periods (2 x 51,840 years), this by virtue of the existing analogies with the day and night of Brahma, which appear to occur for cycles of all orders and would therefore be perfectly applicable to the case. Even so, science deprives us of such possibility, for it appears that the last ice age, that of Wurm (130,000 years ago) had already started by that time, which would force us to look further back on to the previous one, that of Riss – which in turn would have spanned from 230,000 to 180,000 years ago – and the prolonged inter-glacial period of time that followed, of about 50,000 years (from 180,000 to 130,000 BC): here the facts do appear to fit, for this one epoch, in which more favorable conditions would have prevailed (perhaps the tilt of the earth’s axis was null, and its oscillation minimal), approximately corresponds to that of the of the man of Neanderthal’s and, in another order of things, to the winter solstice and mainly to the North within the analogical correlation with the four seasons of the year, as well as to the Hyperborean Apollo, the white race and, among the elements, water.

Of course, in this case the “fall” would not be that of Adam and Eve but that of Lucifer himself, as stated in the famous biblical passage of Isaiah (Isaiah 14: 12–15). All this as opposed to the epoch that we may call “Adamic”, which would correspond to the Cro-Magnon’s appearance and, in the respective analogical order, to the Autumn equinox and the West, as well as the red race and the element earth – in all of which are included even linguistic considerations, as the word Adam is related to both meanings, “earth” and “red”. However, approaching such diverse issues would require a detailed study. For one thing, with this particular method we would be exceeding the timeframe of the present Manvantara, which I have established as 51,840 common years, and the sphere of modern man, whom I don’t consider to be a “relative” of the Neanderthal but rather of the Cro-Magnon. Also, we must not lose sight of the fact that some scientists place the appearance of the earliest organized tribes in about 40,000 or 50,000 years ago, and probably in Central Asia, which parallels even the afore-mentioned Biblical exegesis.

Well, I must admit that it is extremely difficult to ultimately solve these issues, as is also to be satisfied that my calculation of the total length of the Manvantara is accurate. We may remember that, according to Guénon, such length would not be 51,840 years (or 12,960 x 4) but rather 64,800 years (12,960 x 5), and I absolutely cannot challenge his knowledge of these matters, nor can I pretend to be able myself to establish with absolute certainty the starting point of the Hyperborean tradition at the date I have mentioned, something that he, to my knowledge, did not even attempt, nor did he ever attempt to trace its path in detail back to any date whatsoever. As to specifically predicting future events, it is something he always avoided, let alone establishing any date for them. In other words, nothing ensures that my calculations are not wholly or partially wrong, and if I have made them – and, for that matter, if I started this work at all – is because I felt the time was ripe for it, even contravening certain precepts of the esoteric doctrines that do not absolutely support this sort of speculation. Either way, it will be an extensive recapitulation in coming posts which will establish to what extent all the data and figures considered along this series are valid, both in my determination of the length of the current Manvantara, and of its starting and closing dates.

(First published on Qassia 03 Sep 2008)

Atlantis

The famous island-continent

Once a common origin is admitted for such great, enigmatic cultures like the Sumerian and the Egyptian in the Old World, and the Mayan and Aztec in the New, the question naturally arises: where could such common origin be? Many people will immediately say that it could only be in Atlantis.

However, at the risk of disappointing Atlantis’ many thousands of fans, it must be said from the start that it could not be in that emblematic island-continent. For while massive evidence has been presented for its existence, mainly in the several thousands of books that have been written about this matter over the years, a careful consideration of all the existing data, particularly the timeframe involved, will show that Atlantis was at best a secondary center that radiated, like many other worldwide culture–radiating centers at different times, at a moment when the current Manvantara was fairly advanced, i.e. when the primeval tradition, being Polar by nature and therefore centered around the Ursa Mayor, had already changed into zodiacal and was now oriented to the Pleiades – a fact that becomes specially relevant if we remember that the Pleiades were Atlas’ daughters, from which they were called “the Atlantides”.

On the other hand, there is no doubt at all that the Atlantis civilization existed. Perhaps the best evidence about it are the countless geographical names on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean that obviously derive from the same source, for example Aztlan, a mythical island which the Aztecs claimed to be their original country (and curiously enough, Atl is the word for water both in the old Mexico and the Semitic countries); and there are a lot more.

Another evidence would be what has been called the great paradox of the ancient Egypt, which seems to have passed, from as early the Old Empire times, from a simple union of proto–historic clans to a most refined civilization capable of building huge pyramids – an immense achievement which favors the hypothesis that it originated in some other part of the world, which would not be other than Atlantis.

However, it is precisely as a consequence of the catastrophic sinking of the island–continent that the biblical Flood would have occurred, which, by placing both events around the same epoch, would make the former an even more unlikely place as a common cultural origin for the current humanity – all the more when, according to certain traditional data, its lifespan would have not exceeded a “great year”, i.e. a half of a precessional period.

So to find the supreme center we must disregard the secondary and relatively recent centers like Atlantis and look farther back to the very start of the present Manvantara, then ruled by the Manu Vaivasvata of the Hindu tradition, the father of the current humanity, whom the avatara Matsya, the fish, a pre-figuration of the Babylonian Oannes, is said to have saved from the great deluge that «covered the three worlds». Such epoch would be previous to the biblical Flood by at least 40,000 years and would date back to the times of the Hyperborean Thule, located on the North Pole, where – in Homer’s words – are the «Sun’s revolutions», the home of the Celtic or Hyperborean Apollo. In effect, this is a place of delight evoked by many traditions, even the Chinese, where the Pole Star, and in general the Ursa Mayor, “the crank”, play a most significant role; but mainly by all that have an Indo-European origin, and which would be the most remote precedent of the Garden of Eden of the Judeo-Christian tradition. (More to come soon)

(First published on Qassia 7 Aug 2008)

Ancient Knowledge in the New World

Back to this side of the world, one can see the remains of magnificent pyramids whose builders, the old Mayas, developed so accurate a calendar that it established the year of 365.2422 days – a lot more precise than the Julian of 365.2500 and even the Gregorian of 365.2425 days, in use until now. The Mayas also developed a numbering system based on the position of values, whose use would only become general in Europe from the Fifteenth Century onwards, and which implied the conception and use of zero.

In this connection, it has become widely known that the Mayan calendar was based on the so-called Long Count, whose starting point was established in about 3114 BC and was supposed to end about 5,125 years later, i.e. in 2012 AD approximately. Further elaborations about this striking feature can be seen in “About Year 2012”.

As to the Toltecs and Aztecs, great builders of pyramids, and the mysterious, much older Teotihuacans and Olmecs, I have already mentioned that they apparently were the first to develop a sophisticated astronomy and an accurate calendar; probably as accurate as that of the Incas, which was altogether astronomical and agricultural and so sophisticated, that it included the biological cycles of some plants and animals. Also, I need not say that all these cultures determined with utmost precision the dates of the equinoxes and solstices; this was made, for example, in the South of Peru, by the Pre-Inca compound which features the mysterious “lines of Nazca”, regarded as the world’s largest astronomical calendar, and the Inca monolith known as Intihuatana (“the stone that ties up the Sun”), a clock or astronomical instrument that stands out at the highest point of the citadel of Machu Picchu, near Cusco.

Other witnesses of the great advances made all over the world from remote times can be seen, even today, in the ruins of ancient cities whose existence was legendary or unknown, like Mohenho–Daro and Harappa, in India, so advanced that their streets had canalizations and their houses bathrooms, and a meaningful fact: their inhabitants apparently did not wear any offensive weapons. Here too, mysterious engraved inscriptions were found that even now can be seen in Mesopotamia where, by the way, from a deep Sumerian layer pertaining to 3000 BC or before, a statuette of Shiva meditating in Yogic stance – identical to another found in the ruins of the Mohenho–daro citadel, obviously indicating that it was made before that date – was unearthed. These findings not only suggest that already in remote times there were relationships among civilizations, but also – as further claimed by some people – that the Sumerian civilization originated in that city–state, which in fact would be a lot older than is officially accepted.

There even are traces of a vast civilization that would have encompassed the whole North of Europe, from Ireland and Britain to the Scandinavian countries, and which would date back from as early as 9000 BC. It is very possible that the builders of the great stone observatories of Stonehenge in England and Carnac in France, as well as the gigantic zodiacal circle of Glastonbury, in England, of 30 miles in circumference, which would date back from 3000 BC, came from it. Modern analysis has shown that such builders, on top of possessing a most advanced astronomical knowledge, were great geometers who, for example, knew that a triangle whose sides are proportional to 3, 4 and 5 will always contain a right angle, a property whose discovery is attributed to Pythagoras (the author of the famous theorem) but which, in all justice, should be attributed to them; in like manner, it is known that by means of an approach that not for being simple was less advanced, they could draw huge, almost perfect circles.

From these and other enigmatic vestiges, some authors have concluded that some of the posterior cultures, like the Sumerian and Egyptian in the Old World, and the Mayan and Aztec in the New, were in their respective prosperous times, and after the disappearance of some technological culture about which nothing is known at present, climbing down, and not up, the world’s civilization ladder. This notion has been reinforced by the discovery of certain documents, including the famous map of Piri–Reis, with characteristics of 12,000 – 13,000 years ago: the Antarctic coast free of ice, rivers and mountains on the Queen Maud Land, and an ocean level lower than it is currently; the map of Zenon, which shows Greenland free of ice such as it was 14,000 years ago; that of Hadji Hamed, with the land bridge of the Ice Age between Alaska and Siberia visible; that of Finaens, showing the Sea of Ross as it was 6,000 years ago, etc – and also by references to remote cataclysms which, upon extinguishing whole cities, even civilizations, would have caused a cultural reversal to various degrees of barbarianism. Such would be the case, for example, of the biblical Flood, which would have to be placed between 8000 and 10000 BC, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, which is supposed to have occurred around 3000 BC, to mention but two of the better-known examples, capable to create conditions like the ones depicted. After that there would have come a slow, painful material progress of mankind toward present-day civilization, which does not remember a thing about the primordial civilization, and whose decline and imminent disappearance are predicted in turn by many scholars. (To be continued.)

(First published on Qassia 24 Jul 2008)

Ancient Knowledge in the Old World

Against the common objection that ancient societies hardly possessed a rudimentary technical knowledge, there is increasing evidence that they actually had such advanced skills in mathematics and astronomy that only recently, after long and dark millennia, have been equaled or improved.

Such is the case, for instance, of India, whose knowledge in astronomy was so advanced that it became the ultimate goal for wisdom seekers. A very old jyotisha, Brahma–gupta, deals among others issues with such topics as the motion of the planets around the Sun, the ecliptic obliquity, the spherical shape of the Earth, the light reflected from the Moon, the Earth revolution on its axis, the presence of stars in the Milky Way, the law of gravitation – all of which would not see the light in Europe until the time of Copernicus and Newton.

In turn, Surya–siddhanta informs us that the Earth, a globe that moves through space, has a diameter length equivalent to 12,617 present-day kilometers – an extent fairly approximate to the one calculated in our days.

Now, while there exist most advanced conceptions of the space–time dislocation and the current expansion of the Universe, all data pertaining to the period of precession of the equinoxes seem to have been disguised by means of a most peculiar symbolic language, even though a careful inspection of certain texts – for example, Bhagavata Purana 5, 21:4 – will let discern its length approximately. Anyway, I have already said that it was probably in India where Hipparcus obtained his knowledge of this phenomenon, in the same way that Aristarchus of Samos received a much less sophisticated one but which scandalized his generation, even though it was shared by other philosophers like Zenon of Elea, Anaxagoras and Democritus: that of the sphericity of the Earth and its orbiting, together with all the other planets, around the Sun.

As to Democritus, the origin of his famous atomistic theory will very likely have to be found also in India, in the so-called Vaisheshika philosophic system of the legendary sage Kanada.

But long before the Greeks themselves emerged to history, it seems all this, or little less, was known in ancient Egypt. A manuscript by one Abdul Hassan Ma’sudi, preserved in the Oxford Bodleian Library, recounts for example that «Surid, king of Egypt before the great Flood, ordered the building of the pyramids and had his priests deposit the knowledge of sciences in them»; and that «he had the data pertaining to the spheres and their positions put into the biggest one, in order to perpetuate them».

In this connection, it is a proven fact that the pyramid of Kheops contained both the knowledge of the value of pi – as given by the sum of its four sides divided into the double of its height – and the golden ratio, 1.618 – obtained by dividing the surface of its base into the lateral surface and the surface of this one into the total surface – plus many other data like the mean distance from the Sun, etcetera.

In addition, eclipses were predicted, and an agricultural calendar was developed that was so advanced, that it announced the exact time of the Nile inundations. All this made Egypt, like India, the ultimate goal of all seekers for knowledge. According to Diogenes Laertius, it was here that the Greek philosophers Thales and Democritus learned geometry and astronomy, and for his part Porphyry, in his Life of Pythagoras, insists on an Egyptian origin of Thales’ ideas and, therefore, of those of Pythagoras. As to the latter, it seems his famous theorem was of common use in Egypt as early as 2500 BC.

However, it surely was in Babylon, according to recent studies, where the said theorem was known not only in its practical use but also in its theoretical formulation as early as 2000 BC, and there even is a possibility that this knowledge dates back from the old Sumerians, which in fact would place it in prehistoric times. Be it as it may, it is said that the old Babylonians invented the circle divided into 360 degrees, although this “invention” seems to have been made in many places and at different times. What is sure is, like the Egyptians, the Babylonians established an accurate agricultural calendar that not only predicted floods but also eclipses, all of which made Babylon, like Egypt and India, a great culture-radiating center.

As to China, a single example will suffice to show the extent of the advance it reached from old in the area of astronomy: An archaic manuscript describes, in the peculiar Chinese poetic stile, a “inharmonic” meeting of the Sun and Moon in Fang, a portion of the ski of China which would correspond to four stars in the Scorpio constellation. Well, calculations made by contemporary astronomers have revealed that this eclipse did occur on the 22nd October of 2137 BC – more than 4000 years ago! (To be continued.)

(First published on Qassia 11 Jul 2008)

The universality of esoteric knowledge

Following the works of some scholars, I have already suggested that the many correlations and analogies among diverse traditions in the matter of ages and cycles, as well as the universality of certain esoteric knowledge, can only be explained if a common origin is admitted for them all; and in other posts I have reviewed the countless coincidences among different traditions, all of them elements whose study, along with the study of certain archetypical universal forms, might help us trace back such origin.

So continuing our quest, which ideally should take us back to the primeval origin of the doctrine, in this post and the next we will deal with the quaternary cycle, considerably more frequent and of an eminently temporal nature – although it also shows spatial correlations, basically with the four cardinal points. Omnipresent in our study, its main feature is its variable length. In effect, it is a cycle that appears in all orders of existence, from the total universal manifestation to those of any historical peoples or societies, each with their own chronology and their own starting date.

One of the better known examples of these particular applications is the famous dream interpreted by the prophet Daniel (2, 1 ff), which he refers to four civilizations that he identifies with the traditional ages of Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron (they are actually five, but the last one is irrelevant). However, it would not be difficult to find many other similar examples in all of which we will be dealing with cycles of a descending nature, where every phase is worse than the previous one; although only the Hindu tradition, the one alone that has received the primeval knowledge in one piece from the original center, has preserved that of the proportion by which the respective lengths decrease, whatever the total length of the corresponding cycle.

This latter fact carries an additional and most important conclusion itself: namely, if the length of the last period of the quaternary series is, by definition, a tenth of the total length, then such period can obviously be sub-divided into other four ages which follow the same proportion (and in fact not only the last period, but any of them). For example, if the Kali-yuga really has an effective length of 5,184 common years or a tenth of 51,840 common years, we can safely assume that it will consist in turn, always following the corresponding proportions, of four periods whose lengths will approximately be 2,074, 1,555, 1,037 and 518 years. In other words, we are talking about cycles within cycles so that one may refer, say, to the kali-yuga of the current Kali-yuga – that is, the darkest phase of the Dark Age. Naturally, this is a hypothesis that must be demonstrated, and in the following posts I will do my best to do so. Meanwhile, I will face an objection that is usually presented with regard to the doctrine as a whole: namely, whether we are not dealing with mere “numerological” speculation; for, were not the ancient so ignorant that they merely possessed some basic technical knowledge?

Without referring yet to the possibility that in remote times entire civilizations may have disappeared without leaving a trace, I will try, in my next post, to refute such objection: quite simply, I will prove that the ancient cultures possessed, among other advanced scientific information, a most precise knowledge of the chronology and calendar computation, probably born of their liking for the great observation of stars in the case of the Egyptian and Babylonian civilizations, and, particularly among the Mayas and Aztecs, for the accurate measurement of huge lapses of time. Even more, we will see that the ancient had such advanced knowledge in mathematics and astronomy that only recently, after long and dark millennia, has been equaled or improved – yet not always.

(First published on Qassia 02 Jul 2008)