Hinduism is the world's only major belief dedicated to the idea that the universe itself undergoes multiple, even infinite, births and deaths. It is the only religion in which it corresponds to the cycle of time. No doubt, with the cycle of modern scientific cosmology. The cycle runs from our usual day and night to Brahma day and night, is 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 still longer timescales.
Despite the interesting correspondence noted by Carl Sagan, there has been little attempt to derive or find a plausible scientific basis for the cosmic cycle. This omission is all the more surprising because the cosmic timescale involved is not religious belief to be accepted with conviction, but appears to be a deduction that is subject to rigorous examination and rational analysis.
The principles of Hindu Cosmology including the creation of the universe, the destruction of the Earth, and the cyclical nature of these processes are explained in less detail in the Vishnu Purana and more briefly in the Bhagvata Purana. Manusmriti, or the Institute of Hindu Law, another post-Vedic Hindu text, also contains details about the beginning of the universe. In assessing the importance and credibility of the revelation contained therein, we weigh it using considerations of internal consistency, consistency in some Texts, consistency with scientific data, relative age (older is better), and by giving greater weight to literal translation than translation. wide. More over,
The Vishnu Prana and the Bhagvata Purana are part of the ensemble of 18 post-Vedic Texts which are collectively called the Puranas, or literally "ancient times" in Sanskrit. The Puranas are an extensive literature of stories and allegory relating to Hindu cosmology, history, geography, and genealogy of kings. Of the two, Vishnu Prana is considered one of the oldest dating to the 1st century BC for its written form and centuries older in its oral form (Wilson, 1840).
Cosmic Time Scale and Cycle
Just as modern astrophysicists devised the idea of astronomical units and light years to measure great distances, Hindu Rishis came up with the idea of a divine year, Brahma's day, or Brahma's life to measure long spans of time.
The basic unit of time can be thought of as the Maha Yuga (Great Age) consisting of 12,000 years of Brahma which corresponds to the combined span of the four human ages or Yuga. Brahma's day is equal to 1000 Maha Yugas, his nights are the same length, and his life is equal to 100 years of day and night. Each year of Brahma is equal to 360 human or solar years. Therefore, the Maha Yuga is 4.32 million years old; Brahma's day or night is 4.32 Giga-years , and his life span is about 311 trillion years.
Vishnu Prana describes two types of creation - primary and secondary - and elemental, and incidental related dissolution. Synthesizing the description contained therein with a similar description in the Bhagvata Purana , one distinguishes two distinct cycles. The time span from the beginning of primary creation to the fusion of the elements corresponds to the life of Brahma and relates to the creation and dissolution of the universe.
This time span appears to be around 311 trillion years and the associated cycle is denoted here as the Vishnu cycle. Creation in Hindu Cosmology, however, is not an event or point in time but an evolutionary process that takes time. In fact, the principle of evolution in all its aspects, whether affecting life or matter, is firmly entrenched in the description of matter and the processes of life.
Similarly, elemental dissolution is not a destructive event, but a process of reversal and regeneration that begins when the universe is exhausted and the conditions necessary to support life cease to exist.
In this reversal and regeneration, the creative (forward) process reverses direction and the remaining elements fold back into their original state and are recreated; thus completing the cycle and setting the stage for a new evolutionary cycle. This cycle of creation and dissolution continues forever and ever.
Time, therefore, in Hindu cosmology is eternal, with no unknown beginning and end, but finite when measured for example from the beginning of this cycle. elemental dissolution is not a destructive event but a process of reversal and regeneration that begins when the universe is exhausted and the conditions necessary to support life cease to exist.
The time span from the beginning of secondary creation to the completion of incidental dissolution corresponds to Brahma's day and night and relates to the creation and destruction of Earth and life on it and the emergence of new Earth-like planets. This time span is 8.64 + 0.12 Giga-years (Gy) and the associated cycle is here referred to as the Brahma cycle.
During the first half of the Brahma Cycle (God's Day) life develops on Earth. During the second half (the night of Brahma) degradation occurs then ends with the burning of the Earth and the birth of a new earth. The current cycle of Brahma begins with the formation of the Earth. And since the Earth and the Sun, indeed the Solar System, are known to be essentially contemporaneous, and since Earth-like planets that support life cannot exist without the Sun, it is clear that the Brahma cycle is related not only to the Earth but also to the Sun and the Solar System.
The text indicates that there was a short time lag between the beginning of the cycle of Vishnu or the beginning of the universe and the start of the first Brahma cycle or the formation of the first Earth capable of supporting life. The exact time lag, however, is not determined, but results from the fact that evolution is a process and not an event.
The cycle of Brahma seems to continue for trillions of years until the universe is exhausted and can no longer support life. The process of creation then reverses direction and dissolution begins and the universe folds back to the stage from which it started, completing the Primary or Vishnu cycle.
Age of the Universe and the Ancient Planets
The texts do not explicitly state the age of the universe, but can be deduced precisely from the history of the past Kalpas described in the Texts. Notice, as stated earlier, the two Kalpas of 4.32 + 0.06 Giga-years respectively constitute the cycle of Brahma and that cycle begins with the birth of the earth. We know exactly from radiometric data that the oldest rock minerals on Earth are about 4.4 Gy (Wilde, 2001) and that the oldest Solar System matter is about 4.57 Giga-years (Amelin, 2002). For simplicity, we will adopt for all subsequent calculations the mean value of 4.48 + 0.1 Giga-years for the general age of the Earth and Sun and the beginning of the current cycle of Brahma.
In both cases we have a significant extinction of life on Earth in the relatively near future; dryness of the earth as a whole including its oceans; the greenhouse effect that increases the earth's temperature which makes it burn; the turning of the Earth into lifeless molten rock or the wrinkled and wrinkled remains of a turtle's back; and the complete burning of the Earth and the space around it or the engulfing of Earth, Venus, and Mercury by the Sun.
The uncontrolled greenhouse effect (ocean evaporation) precedes the wet greenhouse effect (atmospheric saturation and increased luminosity). In the Vishnu Purana , destruction begins with the death of mankind caused by environmental factors resulting in a prolonged drought. It is likely that long before the Earth dries up and the oceans boil, the increase in the Sun's luminosity will render the Earth almost unusable for growing the large quantities of food grains that cause widespread famine. Even if this prediction of humanity's early demise did not go well, the next series of events clearly predicted the extinction of all important life on Earth as it dried up, and water - generally considered an essential ingredient of life - disappeared.
The Cyclic Universe and the Big Bang
As mentioned earlier, creation in Hindu Cosmology is not an event, but an evolutionary cyclical process. In this process, diverse universes arise or expand spontaneously from a single existing entity, which has no beginning or end. Primary matter is described as “smooth, uniform, durable, self-sufficient, indefinite, non-decomposing, stable; without sound or touch, and has neither color nor form.
This primary, unobservable matter, through successive transformations, creates the "elements" of matter (ether, air, water, and earth) and radiation (light and heat) endowed with one or more of the properties of sound, touch, form, color, taste, and smell. Combining together, these "elements" form a new universe, in the form of a large egg that "gradually expands like a water bubble.
Within the egg were continents and oceans and mountains, planets and divisions of the universe, gods, demons, and mankind. Therefore, it is clear that the creative process in Hindu cosmology begins with the transformation of primary, unobservable matter into observable material elements and radiation.
And the following principles, derived from the Text, determine or encourage the creative process.
- Time without beginning or end.
- Space is also without beginning to end.
- Primary material is unlimited.
- Nothing is ever created or destroyed, matter only undergoes a change of state; or matter/energy is conserved according to the first law of thermodynamics.
- The duration of the cosmic cycle does not change with time.
Theories in modern cosmology of the Big Bang /standard inflation (consensus model) postulate a singularity when the temperature and density of the new universe begin to approach infinity and there was nothing before (space, time, matter, or energy)) and a new universe begins to expand exponentially. in a very short time.
In contrast, space and time in Hindu Cosmology had no beginning and the universe did not arise from nothing but seems to have come from an infinitely pre-existing primary matter that spontaneously transformed itself to create the primordial elements and radiation of the universe.
Steinhardt and Turok's Cyclic Model (2002, 2004). The Cyclic Model describes the explosion as a "reflection" of a pre-existing contraction phase in which matter and radiation are "created" at a large but finite temperature. In their model, as is the case in Hindu Cosmology, time and space are without beginning and the universe appears to be expanding slowly compared to the unimaginably rapid inflation required by the consensus model. After trillions of years of matter, radiation and large-scale structures all diluted (Steinhardt and Turok, 2002, 2004), a situation similar to the end of the universe in Hindu cosmology in trillions of years when the conditions necessary to support life no longer exist.
Secondary Cycle and Solar System Replication
Of the two cycles, the Secondary or Brahma cycle is better defined and has broad implications.
As noted above, this cycle does not apply to Earth, nor to the Sun and its duration (8.64 + 0.12 Giga years) is similar to the life span of the Sun in the main sequence.
Any scientific model that attempts to successfully explain the characteristics of this cycle and its history must take into account the implied capacity of the System to replicate itself every 8.64+0.12 Giga years.
There are basically two models for the formation of the Solar System, the widely accepted nebular hypothesis or the Solar Nebular Model and the Schild primordial planetary model .
Schild and Gibson posit that the primordial supergiant planets of hydrogen and helium formed soon (380,000 years) after the big bang ; that these gas planets often concentrate together to form a star with residual matter visible in the pre-stellar accretion disk around the youngest stars; and that these planets grew smaller through collisions until they were reduced to the size of the planets inhabiting the solar system.
Schild and Gibson's (2010) model can explain the formation of the "first" or primordial Sun from gas giant super planets and possibly early planets, it is difficult to imagine how this model can explain periodic replication of the solar system. as required by the Secondary cycle. Similarly, Joseph's (2009) evil planet model, in which the outer planets are ejected from the dying solar system during the red giant stellar phase prior to a supernova only to be captured by another star, cannot explain the clockwork periodicity of the Secondary cycle. and the periodic formation of Earth-like planets.
The events leading to the future burning of the Earth described in the Vishnu Purana are very similar to those predicted by the Schroeder and Smith (2008) model. In the SS model, the Sun loses 1/3 of its mass during the Red Giant phase and an additional 12% during the Asymptotic Giant Branch before becoming a white dwarf. The ejected matter, rich in heavier elements produced by the Sun in the core and surrounding shell during the Red Giant, was the seed portion of the gas giant molecular creating gravitational instability. A denser clump forms around the seed which eventually collapses to form a protostar surrounded by a protoplanet or accretion disk.
Inside the disk, the enriched dust grains agglomerate to form planetesimals which combine or add up to form planetary embryos and eventually several terrestrial planets. The outer gas planets could be formed from a disk of hydrogen-helium gas or they could be versions of the primordial gas planets captured by the new Sun. It is noteworthy that the time it took the dying Sun to reach the end of the Asymptotic Giant Branch from its rapid ascent to the tip of the Red Giant was on the same order as the estimated time (100 million years) it took to form the Solar System (Montmerle et. al, 2006).
