# 397, 13th Cross, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore - 560 080

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T I M ET H E V A S T N E S S O F S C A L E

Salvador Dali’s paintings often seem random and perplexing upon first glance. He was the leader of the surrealist movement. Dali was the perpetual bad-boy, never wanting to conform to the norms of society which explains some of his unorthodox paintings and the depth of thought invoked by each piece.

On the front cover. This is a Picasso masterpiece of a clock which

appears to be melting. This is an analogy for time and space and how

humans down all centuries have never appreciated the relevance of time.

On the back cover. In 1931, Salvador Dalí painted this celebrated work,

The Persistence of Memory, which introduced the surrealism of soft,

melting pocket watches. The general interpretation of the work is that the

soft watches are a rejection of the assumption that time is rigid or

deterministic. This idea is supported by the perspective this book in your

hand holds. The other images in this painting, such as the wide expanding

landscape, and the other limp watches, shown being devoured by insects

reinforce Dali's perception of 'soft' and 'hard' in the context of Time.

T I M ET H E V A S T N E S S O F S C A L E

Copyright © 2010, Biodiversity Conservation India Private Limited.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the

publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be

mailed to: Permissions, Biodiversity Conservation India Private Limited,

Printed in INDIA, BANGALORE.

Photo Credit: The pictures on Cover & Back cover are from Salvador Dalí &

Pablo Picasso.

This is printed on Chlorine-free, unbleached paper. Go wood-free where you

can.

#

397, 13th Cross, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore - 80

# 397, 13th Cross, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore - 560 080

Phone:+91 80 4018 4018 [30 Lines] Fax:+91 80 4018 4019

www.ecozed.com zed@ecozed.com

So, why all the fuss?When the calendar finally flipped to the year that had hovered

so long in our mind in 2000, there was so much of the

Millennium hype. This tract was provoked by the hooha that

was raised then at the turn of the century.

This tract was written in the winter of 1999. I have done little to

edit what you read in this set of pages. To you, it will offer a

remarkable, even breath-taking, perspective on how

ambiguous Time can be, and yet how awfully precise those

ancient masters were in their mapping of its continuum.

When we heard the doomsayers, we went with those who

disagreed: since there was no Year Zero, the Millennium cannot

crash down on our heads till 2001, and well, beyond.

But seriously, you must agree with the Chinese who point out

that year 2000 is a year of the Dragon, and by their reckoning, it

is year 4635. Or the Jew for whom this is year 5761, or the

Vikram Samvat 2057 for us in India... — so why bother at all?

This isn't as shallow as you think. There's an amazing likeness

to how ancient civilisations (you can't count the Americans in the

lot, can you?) kept time. What is truly unique about the Indian

Calendar (beyond the Vikram Samvat) is that it goes back to

when the Earth was born.

This striking compilation we present here is based on Vedic

thought on Time. Here's a calendar that goes back a numbingly

long time — to the birth of Earth, among the several thousand

lives that she has...

1

The Heart Beats to the Earth's . . .Understanding the age of the Earth stems easily from

an understanding of our own lifespans.

The remarkably small measurements of time in the

vedic system of thinking arose from the prana (4

seconds) to the infinitesimal measures of time that the

millions of forms of energy within our body take to

keep our lives sustained.

The ideal human lifespan is reckoned at 120 years.

And the human heart is assumed to have a 'life' of

4,320 million (or 432 crore) beats at 69.44 beats a

minute. Earth, too, has the same number of beats in

its lifespan except that one human year makes for one

earth beat — the heave and sigh of Earth's heart is

marked by the bi-annual swing of the planet

(Uttarayan and Dakshinayan).

These 4,320 million years are broken into 1,000

segments of 432,000 years. Each such segment is the

span of the yuga.

As with humans, the Earth has various phases of

change in its life. The average physician will tell you

that man's development into life's full form involves 14

phases of change. If life and death account for two of

them, five of those evolutionary changes lead to the

development of the five senses (pancha pranas — or

the Jnanendriyas) with the other five enabling the

development of the five functions (pancha bhoothas —

or the Karmendriyas).

The Earth's transformation not so amazingly,

happens in much the same way with each of these 14

changing phases involving an equal part of the

Earth's lifespan of 4,320 million years.

Thus each such phase of change accounts for one-

fourteenth part of Earth's lifespan. This is called a

manvanthara.

As the ancient vedic chant goes:

Akashath Vayuh I VayurAgnih I AgnirApah I Apar

Prithvih II

From Akash was born Wind; out of this was born Fire

which led to Water and then on to the formation of the

land mass.

Then came life in the form of vegetation (vana). These

six past phases (from birth to the pancha pranas),

called manvantharas, account for 185 crore (1.85

billion) plus years, of the total of 432 crore (4.32

billion) years of Earth's life.

The seventh phase is called the Vaivasvathah

32

Manvanthara. This and the next (called Savarni

Manvanthara) are the only two phases that will

support human life on Earth. These two phases

account for 62 crore (620 million) plus years.

What happens after the next manvanthara — Savarni

— runs its course of 30.85 crore (308.5 million) plus

years? The Earth goes into its 'withdrawal phase'.

With man becoming extinct, it'll be the turn of all

plants and vegetation in the next phase of change. The

following five phases will mark the extinction of the

five elements with 'death' of Earth accounting for the

last manvanthara.

Then another similar life cycle begins! Earth has

36,000 such life cycles.

Now that completes one day in the life of the Sun,

which, too, has similar life cycles. The 28 suns of the

Lodestar (Dhruva) have similar cycles.

In the vast, continuous process of change, each of the

players—the planets of every sun, the suns

themselves, and the lodestar — influence each other

in a powerful interplay of magnetic energies.

54

Give yourself time. This stuff is hard. your abuse didn't take place in one night. It didn't take one night for your system to develop, or one night to be bound by all the old rules. It will take more than one night to heal. And that is ok. Give yourself permission to go as slowly as you need and to process these memories at your own pace. Pushing yourself too hard will only retraumatize you and our insiders which is the exact opposite of what you want.

As you wade through these intricate numbers, you’ll

find it useful to remember that these vedic masters

worked from the 432 crore ‘pranas’ to make for an

ideal human lifespan of 120 years. Then they reckoned

with one year in the Life of Brahma (the Creator). This

was put at 360 kalpas — a kalpa is simply one day of

Brahma's life. A kalpa comprises 1,000 times four

yugas, or a 1,000 mahayugas. Brahma's lifespan is

120 such 'years' which is termed a mahakalpa! If you

do the math, it’ll boggle your mind or the sheer

vastness and scale of time they were mapping.

But look at how the Julian Calendar that started 46

BC with Julian Caesar, works. The Julian period of a

7,980 year-cycle began on Tuesday, January 1, 4713

BC. Now compare this with the four yugas, which

repeat themselves 1,000 times on earth, which

constitute a mere one day for Brahma!

The Rig Veda computes 10,800 metrical divisions of

40 syllables each, thus again giving a figure of

432,000.

Isn't it surprising that anthropologists now have

unearthed evidence that man walked the Earth

millenia before the dinosaur?

The Earth's slowing down ever so slowly

Each day is longer than the one it follows by

0.00000002 second due to the gradual slowing

down of the Earth's spin. Too small to notice, the

delay adds up, in time, to a measurable effect A

century ago, the day was shorter by 0.00073

seconds. Over a full century — 36,525 days later

— the delay adds upto 13seconds. The slowing is

caused by tidal friction due to the moon's

gravitational influence on shallow seas.

76

Can You Chase the Dawn?Along the equator on earth, the dawn arrives at a

speed of about 1600 km/hr— faster than a jet

plane. But along the moon's equator, it comes at

only 16 km/hr —slow enough for a man on a

bicycle to keep up with it. So you can chase the

dawn on the moon!

The medley of monthsThe names of the 12 months go back to the early Roman

times when the year began in March. Hence,

September, October, November and December were the

'seventh', 'eighth', 'ninth' and 'tenth' months of the year.

Although they no longer are, the names stuck. The rest

of the names are a mixture, mostly made up when the

calendar was changed by Julius Caesar.

January was named after Janus, the double-faced

Roman god who kept vigil at city portals, looking back

as the month did to the old year and ahead to the new.

February was named after Februa, the Roman festival

of purification, signifying that we 'enter' the year after

cleansing oneself. March stood for Mars, the Roman

god of war. April came from the Latin word for ‘opening

buds’. May was Maia, the goddess of growth. June

came from Juno, the goddess of heaven, or from the

well-known Roman family of Julius. July was named

after Julius Caesar himself. August took after

Augustus Caesar.

98

Explosion by Salvador Dali

The CountdownBegan Aeons Ago...

The puja in any Hindu home — like among the Jews —

begins with an invocation of the day and time at which

the sacred rite is being performed. We've learnt to

dismiss these incantations in our hurry to get on with it.

But take a closer look — they'll unravel a simplicity and

elegance. The whole calendar is based on the Sun and

Moon, their impact on Earth, and on Prithvi's 'children'

and their lives.

The chant goes like this:

Shuba shobane muhurthe l

Aadhya Brahmanaha l

Dvitheeya praharaardelSvetavaraaha kalpe l

Vaivasvatha manvanthare l

Ashta Vamshathi thaamelKaliyugel

Prathamapaade l

PrabaadisamvatsarelDakshinaayane l

Sharadrithau l Shukla pakshe l Bhaadrapada maase l

This seemingly prosaic verse conceals the enormous

vistas of time that are benchmarked to the moment of

day when obeisance is paid to the Gods.

We present here the remarkable significance of this

seemingly innocuous verse among thousand of such

10

The canvas of timeThe four yugas, in reverse order starting with the

present are:

Kaliyuga: Of 432,000 solar years

Dvaparayuga: Double the length of Kaliyuga, or

864,000 years

Tretayuga: Three times that of Kaliyuga, or

12,96,000 years

Krutayuga: Four times that of Kaliyuga, or

17,28,000 years.

A mahayuga is 10 times the length of the

Kaliyuga, or 4,320,000 years. (Heraclitus refers

to a great year of 10,800 years and Berossos, the

Babylonian astronomer, spoke of a 'cosmic year'

of 432,000 years). The current Kaliyuga began on

the midnight of 17/18th February, Thursday,

B.C.3102, according to these computations.

Too Many EggheadsIt is believed that 90 per cent of all scientists who

have ever lived are alive now, and that as many

scientific papers have been published in the

years since 1950 as were published in all the

centuries before 1950.

11

charts that fill vedic texts. Walk in to any temple and

offer a ‘sankalp’ or an ‘archana’ to the gods, and the

priest will recite with boring monotony this verse. That’s

his way of ‘introducing’ you to the gods, telling them of

year ‘visit’ and the obeisance you pay.

Shuba shobane muhurthe l (The sacred time at which

I'm reciting this...)

Aadhya Brahmana ha l (...in the life of the Sun)

Dvitheeya praharaarde l Svetavaraaha kalpe l

Our Sun's lifespan is called a para — which equals 120

years of Brahma's life. Each lifecycle of Prithvi is one day

for Brahma who lives 120 years of 360 such 'days' a

year. This one day is equivalent to a kalpa of 36,000

such 'days'. There are two paras — prathama and

dvitheeya — each comprising 18,000 kalpas. We are

past the prathama para — which means 18,000 births

and deaths of Earth are complete! We're now in the

dvitheeya para of Prithvi's 26th birth (Svetavaraaha

kalpe). The 27th to come is called Gowri kalpa.

Vaivasvatha manvanthare I

The lifecycle of Earth is a timespan that includes her

final death throes and her rebirth. There's a change of

state from birth to death, and death to birth. But the

energy runs forever through these two changes as they

transmute in different forms. Birth to death and back to

Watching the clock won't be so boring when its watching these cool melting wall clocks inspired by Salvadore Dali's famous painting, The Persistence of Memory, painted in 1931. You probably don't have a tree limb handy but anywhere you hang them (or place them) they will be the talk of your surreal decor. Pick one up over at etsy at Pragmatic Effects.

1312

life is reckoned to be 432 crore years. That's a kalpa

while a para is 36,000 times one kalpa or 31,10,400

crore years. That's how long this ‘minor’ star, our Sun,

will live !

Ashta Vamshathi thaame l Kaliyuge l

Each kalpa has its day and night. The day is the

existence of Prithvi in the present form of its five

elements. Night is the 'death' of Prithvi, when Earth

relapses into a state of plasma called Akash (which can

loosely be reckoned as the gaseous forms that the Earth

with morph into), in contrast to anthariksh (space) and

vayu (air), and continues in that state until another 'day'

of a new kalpa is born.

Now if this is not complicated enough, the kalpa (or

Earth’s ‘one life’) itself has been divided into 14 parts

representing as many changes of state that Earth

undergoes from the beginning of life to the final throes of

death. Each such phase of change is called a

manvanthara. The 'kalpa ' therefore has 14

manvantharas as it undergoes its 14 cycles of change.

The first change is called Swayambhoova manvanthara,

signifying the formation of Akash. Part of Akash

becomes Vayu and this phase is called Swarocheesham

manvanthara. Vayu transforms into Agni (during

Authami manvanthara). From Agni is formed Prithvi

(during Thaamasa manvanthara). From Vayu, Agni and

Prithvi is formed water in the Raivatha manvanthara.

Out of these panchabhoothas (the five elements)

vegetation is formed in the Chaakshusa manvanthara.

These six elements — each accounting for 30.85 crore (or

308 million) years of the kind we know — eventually lead

to the formation of all living organisms, including man,

in the Vaivasvatha manvanthara.

We're thus in the seventh manvanthara, the completion

of which will account for 216 crore years from the time

Earth underwent its birth pangs during this 27th

lifecycle.

Each manvanthara has 71.4 chaturyugas from the base

unit of 432,000 years that makes one yuga. Earth thus

has a little over 44 more Chaturyugas to complete this

lifecycle.

In the present Vaivaswatha manvanthara, we have

completed 27 chaturyugas and are now in the 28th

[Ashta Vamshathi thaame). In this chaturyuga, we have

completed Kruta, Treta, Dvapara and have entered

Kaliyuga.

Prathamapaade l

Kaliyuga itself has four spans, each accounting for

108,000 years. Since we're in the 5001st year (see The

Canvas of Time in this section), we obviously are in the

Prathama paada.

1514

The lunar layaThe thithi is the moment of the new moon, or the

point when the longitudes of the sun and moon

are equal—amavasya, meaning 'dwelling

together'.

Thithi is the time occupied by the moon in 0increasing its distance from the sun by 12 .

The length of the thithi varies constantly. When 0the difference between longitudes is 180 , it is

the purnima.0Nakshatra, as we have seen above, is 13 20". The

moon travels nearly one nakshatra daily.

Toga is the period of time when the joint motion

in the longitude of the sun and the moon is 0increased by 13 20".

Karana is half a thithi, or the time during which

the differences in longitude of the sun and the 0moon increase by 6 . That's roughly a 'week' by

Western reckoning.

Keep to Lunar TimeTo go on the lunar day, merely adjust your watch

to lose two minutes and five seconds every hour.

1716

"Tearful Soft Watch” by Salvador Dali

The amazing accuracy of solar orbits A solar year is the period of the earth’s rotation on its

axis. This year has a three-fold system:

(a) The sidereal year, when the earth makes one

revolution round the sun. Standard length: 365

days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, 9.29 seconds.

(b) The tropical year, when the earth in its revolution

passes from one equinox or tropic to the same again.

Standard length: 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes,

45.37 seconds.

(c) The anomalistic year when the earth moves from the

apehelion to the perihelion or vice-versa of its

ellipse. Standard length: 365 days, 6 hours, 13

minutes, 46.61 second.

Does the description appear too technical? It should be.

For, what we have at hand is one of the most refined and

accurate measurements of time.

The break-up of the day (or years) into such precise

segments is truly astonishing and is unrivalled by any

other system in the ancient world.

It is perhaps a legacy of this accuracy which many

explain as reason for the incredibly complex and

technically perfect architecture of India’s old temples.

Surely the ancient system of mathematics had provided

a base upon which future technology and engineering

could be built?

1918

Salvador Dali calendar, specifically

a Detail of "The disintegration of the

persistence of memory" painting

Prabaadi samvatsare I Dakshinaayane I

The year, 2500 was called Prabaadi samvatsara — which

is among the 60 names of samvatsaras. Why 60? The

number signifies half the ideal lifespan of a human(120

years). One samvatsara or year, of course, represents

one orbit of Prithvi around our sun. And in each orbit,

Earth tilts from north to south and vice-versa. This

tilting — or Earth's heartbeat—is called Ayanas.

The north-south tilt is called Uttarayan and the south-

north tilt called Dakshinayan. This rhythmic tilt keeps

the energy forms of Earth alive and moving.

Sharad rithau I Shukla pakshe I Bhaadrapada maase I

One revolution of moon and earth is called maasa. It's

fixed for eternity, always constant, unchanging. A

maasa is divided into two parts — Shukla paksha, when

the energy of Earth rises during the moon's ascendant,

and Krishna paksha, which denotes the decline of

Earth's energy. The maasa is divided into 30 spans, each

called thithi which is a little less than a day; 354 such

thithis make a lunar year.

The Stonehenger marked time, tooThere are other major calendar systems of the world.

England's Stonehenge, dating back to B.C. 2000, is perhaps

the most famous. Observations were made by lining up stones

with a marker and watching for the appearance of the Sun or

Moon against that point on the horizon that lay in the same

straight line.

Today more than 600 structures, perhaps from Stonehenge,

have been discovered across Britain.

The Western Julian system, with its long history of

monarchical revisions, owes much to Sosigenes (an

Alexandrian astronomer). Pope Gregory XIII refined it with the

help of Christopher Clavius in 1582 when the Trench scholar,

Joseph Justus Scaliger designed the 7,980-year cycle.

This Gregorian calendar had a tropical year of 365.2422 days.

Other ancient and sophisticated calendars are the Athenian,

Egyptian, Incan, Aztec and Mayan.

The Jewish calendar, a highly complex system, is 'lunisolar',

where the years are solar and months lunar. The calendar

employs a lunar cycle of 19 years (thus paralleling the 19-year

Metonic cycle devised by the Athenian astronomer, Meton, in

B. C. 432). The Jewish era today is dated from B. C. 3761.

The Islamic calendar is lunar, beginning with the approximate

New Moon and dating from the flight of Prophet Mohammed

from Mecca to Madina in A.D.622.

2120

I Beg Your Pardon ?Albert Einstein defined relativity in the following

way: "Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems

to be a minute; sit on a hot stove for a minute and it

seems like an hour— that's relativity.”

So When Exactly is the Millennium?January 1, 2001, is not, strictly speaking, the start of

the new Millennium. It's more complicated than that.

The basis of our current calendar comes from

calculations made in A.D. 531 by a monk called

Dionysius Exiguus, known affectionately in scientific

circles as Dennis the Short.

In the Dionysian cycle, the first year starts at the

beginning of the first full calendar year of the reign of a

new emperor. Since our calendar is based on the birth

of Jesus Christ, who was born on December 25 in the

year B.C.1, the Millennium should be celebrated on

December 25, 2000.

But even that is not the real Millennium. That is the

anniversary of a non-event, say some people, because

Christ was already born several years before — exactly

when, is a very complicated and controversial

business.

But we know for sure Christ was indeed around

earlier because he was born when King Herod was still

ruling Judea. And Herod is known to have died before

A.D. 1. And so, Christ must have been born a few

2322

The disintegration of the persistence of memory, 1952 by Salvador Dali

The week is bornBy A.D. 4, Constantine I introduced the seven-day

week in Rome. The idea was borrowed from the

Assyrians. The days were given Germanic names after

the known celestial bodies of that time, in order of,

what was then believed, their decreasing distance

from the Earth. They were Saturn, the Sun, the Moon,

Mars (Tiu), Mercury (Woden), Jupiter (Thor) and

Venus (Freya).

2524

years earlier than we thought, meaning we've missed

the Millennium change entirely.

So you see... if you reckoned there is something

mystical about the year 2000, think again.

The relationship between Earth and its Moon also

means we will miss the Millennium, albeit by a few

seconds. Each year, the Moon moves further away

from Earth, slowing our spinning planet by about a

second annually. Almost every December 31, you get

an extra second. So for those of you who count down

to the Millennium, remember to go, five, four, three,

two, one, ONE. Don't celebrate a second too early.

It beats nuclear time-keepersThe ancient Indian calculation of time is easily

superior to even present nuclear time-keeping

devices. The Hindu 'truth' is obtained when one

divides a second (in the Western system) into

33,750 equal parts!

The Hindu panchanga system (analogously

derived in its etymology from the five senses or

the five limbs) is far more complicated and

dynamic than Western calendars. There are five

basic elements in the time division:

The vaara (weekday) is the natural solar day

(saavan divas) beginning at sunrise. This vaara

has numerous sub-divisions:

1 sura (prati pala) - 0.006 sec

60 palas = 1 ghatika = 24min

60 prati palas = 1 vipala or 0.4 secs

60 ghatikas = 1 divasa

60 vipalas = 1 pala or 24 seconds

A further refinement was the division:

10 vipalas = 1 prana (4 seconds); and

6 pranas = 1 pala (24 seconds)

Tide doesn't wait for noneThe calendar has often gone haywire down the centuries. In

B.C. 4, there was confusion as to the exact date of Easter which

had to be calculated from the spring equinox. More than a

thousand years earlier, the Council of Nicaea, while laying down

rules to calculate the date of Easter, had assumed that the

spring equinox would always arrive on March 21. In 1545,

however, it came on March 11. This was because the average

length of the Julian year was 365.25 days, which was longer

than the actual tropical year by 0.0078 days. Though this

difference might seem small, in 1,000 years, it magnifies to 7.8

days!

Thus a change in the calendar was affected by Pope Gregory XIII

in 1582. After examining proposals from various scholars, the

one considered most suitable was one by Aloysius Lilius. Ten

days were to be dropped all at once from the prevailing calendar

to bring the spring equinox back to its designated date of March

21.

Some 500 years later, as we move forward in time and

technology, new facts are being discovered about the Universe.

Tidal frictions are slowing down the Earth's rotation. The

tropical year is progressively shrinking in length. These

seemingly minute changes can have drastic and unforeseen

effects in future, as the chaos theory predicts. All this means

that the Gregorian Calendar will undergo some change in the

next few centuries.

26

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Why Buy a Zed Home?

# 397, 13th Cross, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore - 560 080

Phone:+91 80 4018 4018 [30 Lines] Fax:+91 80 4018 4019

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