Introduction

One of the most self-evident truths with regard to history is it cannot be conceived outside of time. Can you approach the study of any people, culture, country or civilization, for example, without at least an approximate idea of what its place is in history within a given timeframe? In other words, can you understand the history of any people if you cannot insert it, say, within the Paleolithic, the Middle Ages, and so on?

Moreover, is there any truth in the notion of history repeating itself? And if so, does it stem from a sort of recurring, or cyclic, time?

What can we say, for example, of the countless proven parallelisms in the history of different human societies occurring at a great distance from one another, both in space and time?

So concerning time, the question can be formulated like this: Is time only linear, as even some of the greatest scientists, mainly in the western world, contend; or is it cyclic, as some of the most important world's religions, and many lucid philosophers have always taught?

When I started my first version of The Wheel of Time - A Study in the Doctrine of Cosmic Cycles, I was motivated by very special circumstances. A most precious, monumental Hindu holy scripture, the Third Canto of Bhagavata Purana, had come to my hands as if by accident, and I was marveled to learn about the huge lengths of time mentioned in relation to cosmic cycles. For instance, the Kali-yuga o "Dark Era", a cycle which clearly corresponds to the Age of Iron of the Greek and Roman traditions, would actually extend over 432,000 terrestrial years, a tenth of a human cycle of 4'320,000 years; and if its start was in 3102 BC, as recorded by Hindu astronomical texts, its end would arrive as late as 429,000 AD, without doubt a reassuring date in times of enormous global crisis as we are living now, but which does not absolutely correlate with data from other traditions announcing an imminent end for our troubled civilization.

The answer to my deep uneasiness would come a bit later, mainly in the form of a remarkable article by René Guénon: Some Remarks on the Doctrine de Cosmic Cycles, originally published in French in 1937. Thanks to it, I was finally satisfied that such figures were essentially symbolic, as suggested by the fact that they are all multiple of nine – which precisely makes them "circular" o cyclic – and that they must be basically assimilated to the great cycle of precession of the equinoxes, a key period of time in the development of mankind whose traditional length, 25,920 common years, also is a multiple of nine. True, at the same time I concluded that in the light of the most recent scientific discoveries, such lengths could also be taken in an approximately literal manner, something that Guénon could not be acquainted with in his time; but for the moment, it was fairly enough.

It was only relatively recently, however, that I was able to finish the book. On the other hand, I hesitated as to the convenience to keep some sections, but was dissuaded by the fact that, while they are not essential to a better understanding of the matter, they can be profitably read, in particular the latter, which briefly depicts the Kali-yuga of the present cycle – virtually the history of our so-called civilization.

Now, it is understandable that this particular view of history will frontally crash with that of the majority of readers, who, save for one or two exceptions, know very little about oriental doctrines. In this sense, it is essential to understand the concept of maha-yuga, the Hindu cycle of four yugas or decreasing ages whose lengths are proportional to 4, 3, 2 and 1 and which, in fact, can be assimilated to any temporal cycle, as another fundamental point of the doctrine is that there exists a total correlation among them all; and then stop at the concept of Manvantara, this one referred to the total human cycle and whose length must be calculated as two cycles of precession of equinoxes or a total 51,840 common years.

The cycle of precession of the equinoxes

The Four Ages of Mankind and the
precession of the equinoxes

The Cycle of Precession of the Equinoxes

Precessional movement (Wikipedia)

The Egyptian Tradition and Cosmic Cycles

The image of a huge reclining lion with a human head facing due east, the Sphinx of Giza, in Egypt, is fraught with dense mysteries. One of them is its age, which could be far greater than that of any of the oldest Egyptian dynasties - approximately 12,500 years old, which would place it in the age of Leo, as the glaciers of the Ice Age were already melting, very probably about the time the sinking of Atlantis and the biblical Flood occurred.

Among the many attempts at making sense of the questions made in connection with time along history, there stands the Hindu doctrine of cosmic cycles as the best example of the most elevated and profound teaching in this regard. Let me give you a short compendium of it in what follows.

In essence, the Hindu doctrine of cosmic cycles conceives a qualitative, “circular” time that cyclically affects our universe and everything in it. A universe that on its part is eternal, without beginning or end, and which manifests itself, together with other billions of universes, from a state of development to another of equilibrium, and then to another of decadence, after which there occurs its dissolution – or pralaya – and back to start again, forever. A universe, in sum, governed by recurrence, where everything has a beat, a pulse; in which, from manifestation to pralaya, there flow in countless numbers the immensely vast Brahma’s days, or kalpas, preceded by their corresponding nights; and where within each kalpa there follow, one another, one thousand “human cycles” or maha–yugas – a study of which, reversing the order, I will attempt in the first place.

Let us begin by noting that each maha–yuga consists of four cyclic ages or yugas, of decreasing length, which mark an equal number of gradual stages of degradation of mankind and so correspond exactly with those ages that the Classical tradition has designated always as the Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron ages – except for a most important aspect of the doctrine: the magnitude of the durations involved. In effect, the length ascribed to the maha–yuga, 4’320,000 common years, is in appearance so disproportionate to represent a human cycle, that it usually startles the Westerner unfamiliar with these matters; because even without mentioning that we are talking about cycles – of which there are as many as one thousand in a Brahma’s day – such length exceeds that of the existence of mankind on Earth, a span of time which, while in a very broad sense can be traced back some millions of years into the past, in a more strict sense – i.e. in relation to modern man, or Sapiens Sapiens – is nevertheless estimated at best as fifty thousand to one hundred thousand years.

On the other hand, why should the lengths of the yugas be proportional to the scale 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10 and not rather equal, as the four ages of the Classical tradition are? We will see very soon, however, that these difficulties are not unsolvable as might be thought, nor is the problem as a whole as complex as it appears to be; so for the moment, and without further delay, we will take a look into these lengths as can be deduced from the relevant texts.

The maha-yuga or cycle of four decreasing yugas

A few numerical considerations of interest

Now, in connection with these two key numbers, 72 and 25,920, there are extremely suggestive coincidences that evidence a perfect correspondence between the life of man, the “microcosms,” and that of our universe, or “macrocosms.” For one thing, 72 corresponds to the average number of beats of the human heart in a minute, and a quarter of 72, or 18, to the human breathings in the same period, so that in one day a man will have breathed 18 x 60 x 24 = 25,920 times. On the other hand, after 72 years, which is the average length of life of man at present, a man will have lived a total 25,920 days (assuming an ideal year of 360 days), while the Earth’s axis will have barely traveled a degree of the equinoctial circle of 360 degrees or 25,920 common years. In other words: from a cosmic view, man’s life lasts only one day.

In the other hand, the number 72 appears frequently in connection with cosmic cycles. For example, it appears in the Chinese magical square and corresponded, in the Far–Eastern tradition, to the division of the year in five parts (5 x 72 = 360), out of which three (3 x 72 = 216) were “Yang” or masculine, and two (2 x 72 = 144) “Yin” or feminine. I will mention, in passing, that this division of the year was also used by the ancient Incas. Among the ancient Egyptians, in turn, 72 are the plotters who stand by Seth in his scheme to kill Osiris.

Again, remember that 72 were the disciples of Jesus, 72 the members of the Jewish Sanhedrin and, in the Middle Ages, the articles of the Rule of the Order of the Temple were also 72. But however interesting all of these numerical considerations may be – and they could certainly multiply to tedium – I will leave them at this point so as to turn back again to the maha–yuga.

Thank you,

Luis Miguel Goitizolo

Jai Singh's Jantar Mantar, India (Photo Internetindia.com)

The Hindu Doctrine of Cosmic Cycles

Part 2: More about the Maha-Yuga

Let’s take a look now into the bigger cycles. If we remember, a Brahma’s day consists of one thousand maha–yugas, and his night 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. Now, since Brahma lives one hundred of his years (of 360 “days” each), a simple calculation (8,640’000,000 x 100 x 360) unveils the total length of the immense cycle of cosmic manifestation: 311’040,000’000,000 common years – a duration that theoretically is just that of a breathing period of the Maha–Vishnu, the Great Universal Form, and symbolically corresponds to the two complementary phases into which each cycle of manifestation is divided – in this case a dual, alternating movement of expansion and contraction, exhalation and inhalation, systole and diastole.

Some preliminary remarks are in order here.

In the first place, regarding cosmic cycles, the Hindu tradition, like the Chinese and other ancient traditions, has always expressed their lengths mainly by symbolic numbers so as to conceal a certain knowledge that is considered confidential. Thus, in some cases, some figures may have been “disguised” by either multiplying or dividing them by a factor, or by adding to them a greater or lesser number of zeros – which does not modify their respective proportions; such may be the case with the maha–yuga of 4’320,000 common years. For those Hindus who would not dare to question them, however, the plain, literal yuga lengths should perhaps be considered not so much strictly referred to the Earth but rather to the cosmic level; and in fact, all the difficulties inherent in the problem would be solved by including within the framework of the doctrine different planetary systems in which the cycles of four yugas unfolded successively. This hypothesis raises, however, metaphysical issues that are beyond the scope of our study, so while not excluding that in a next post I may deal with this cycle more extensively, here I have limited to mention it.

As to the kalpa of 4,320 millions of years, an appropriate study of which would indeed require a whole treatise, I must, for one thing, make it clear that its frequent identification by Western scholars with the total cosmic manifestation has been overrun by the age that modern science attributes to the universe, an age that would place it rather on a planetary level or, at best, galactic. And in effect, according to the orthodox Hindus for whom the kalpa is simply synonymous with a Brahma’s day without its corresponding night, the end of the kalpa comes with a partial dissolution of the universe by water; and as regards its duration, the doctrine abides strictly by the aforementioned figure. Now, the fact that this length of time virtually matches the 4,500 millions of years estimated by modern science for the Earth’s age (let alone the “ultimate” figure of 4,310 millions mentioned elsewhere), certainly points to the possibility that it represents the lifetime of our planetary system; if so, it would not be unlikely that the Earth were currently very close to the end of a Brahma’s day and that its corresponding night was now approaching, even if it takes ten or twelve millions of years yet to arrive... However, all this is not by far that simple: For one thing, the related texts are in some cases quite enigmatic, as suggested, for example, by the reiteration of the phrase “Those who know...” (Bhagavad–gita 8:17), so the possibility remains that the 4,320 millions of years do not actually mean the daytime but the full Brahma’s day, so that the length of the daytime would be 2,160 millions of years, and an equal number of years that of the night. So here again, the possibility that the figures may have been somehow disguised should be taken into account.

Finally, the immensely vast length of 311’040,000’000,000 common years that the texts implicitly assign to the great cycle of cosmic manifestation, accommodates indeed comfortably the 15 billions of years estimated by modern physics as the age of the universe; and even if such length were deemed exaggerate – say it was a thousand times lesser, i.e. the actual figure was only 311,040’000,000 years, which is certainly not impossible if we stick to the foregoing considerations – even so the 15 billions of years would fit comfortably within that period. At any rate, it would mean that our universe is still very young and that we are now, within the immense cycle of universal manifestation, virtually at the beginning of an expansion period.

And indeed, it is amazing that it took literally millennia for the modern scientific circles to again conceive this ancient notion of a universe that “breathes,” i.e. a universe that has two phases, one in which it expands and the other in which it contracts; two phases which, by virtue of the correspondences to which cycles of any order of magnitude are subject, can be respectively assimilated to a Brahma’s day and its corresponding night, as well as to both phases of what the Hindus call a Manvantara – an old Hindu measure of time which, in my effort to integrate what we may call the Western and Eastern sides of the doctrine, I will deal with very soon in some detail.

Thank you,

Luis Miguel Goitizolo