Originally posted by Shane

It seems fair to say, you are set in your opinion..., as am I.

Agree to disagree!

I can live with that.

Originally posted by Shane

Many thanks for the conversation. I am sure we will have some views that will meet in the future.

Looking forward to it.

Originally posted by Shane
Look at the Dogan of Africa. They knew and had rituals based on the Orbit of a Celestial Body which MODERN MAN had no idea about until the late 2000 Century. How?

Turns out that this stuff about the Dogon is not true.

Harte

I have not been posting here as of late, but on reading this thread, I was compelled to repost. This kind of topic is right up my alley, as my primary research is into Vedic stuff. A very good topic indeed Electric.

Some points I want to make, which are rather minor to be honest, but still essential.

On the theory that the 311,040,000,000,000 years of Brahma's lifetime is actually not year, but seconds. This is an interesting observation, but it is definitely false. The Hindu calender does actually specify years and not seconds for Brahma's lifetime, and this can be known for definite, because the Hindu calender also deals with seconds. It goes from very minute timeframes of a millionoth of a second which measure the life time of an atom to very massive timeframes of trillions of years to measure the life time of the cosmos.

The fact that this number neatly corresponds to seconds is because the numbers are mathematically derived, and hence we can find the number 311,040,000,000,000 occurring on smaller scales. Hinduism is particularly fond of mapping out the cosmos from the microcosm to the macrocosm and drawing relationships between them. This theme can be found across Hinduism.

The other point that I want to make is that the Hindu calender is not a Vedic text, but a post-vedic text. The time period of the cosmic cycles are of relatively recent origin, going to Puranic texts of which the earliest can be dated after the common era. The Puranas have been edited continueously from the earliest Puranas to the 16th century CE and beyond, so the Hindu calender could not reliably be dated as Vedic. It is entirely possible that the calender did exist in Vedic times, and was passed down in an oral tradition, but no evidence to support this hypothesis exists. This is why the Puranas cannot be validly dated to Vedic times. They are according to the evidence definitely post-vedic texts.

Some writers tend to use the term "Vedic" as an umbrella term for all Hindu literature. This is technically an incorrect use of the term, as not all Hindu writings were written in the Vedic era(conservatively dated by Western historians around 1000BCE; cf: Indian dating dates the Vedas to 6000BCE and beyond) The only true texts which correspond with the Vedic times are the Vedas, which consist of a wide corpus of texts known as the Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads.

This is followed by the class of texts known colletively as Smriti, which consists of Itihas(Mahabharata, Ramayana) and the Shastras(Scientific and law texts)

Up until this point Hinduism evolves within an Indian context only.After the common era, we have the Puranas which seem to be syncretic texts which combine various Indian and non-Indian traditions. Much later we have the class of texts known as the Tantras or Agamas, most of which are written in the South Indian non-vedic language of Tamil. It is during this period of after the common era, that Hinduism evolves its more polytheistic and mythological and devotional character. In Vedic times, Hinduism is a more spiritual and philosophical religion and post-vedic times it become more mythological and devotional. Although some scholars will assert that in very early Vedic times Hinduism was purely ritualistic, shamanic and polytheistic, this point is highly debatable and based only on Western translations of the Rig Veda and prejudiced interpretations. Indian translations, on the other hand, show that even the early Vedics were spiritual and philosophical through and through, and Western translations are based on faulty reading methods and improper understanding and application of Sanskrit grammar.

Regarding evidence for advanced technological civilisations. The best evidence I find, and I have argued this before on ATS, is the textual evidence itself which suggests a level of advancement of philosophical and scientific thought which is impossible for primitive people. The Vedics were not strangers to ideas like energy-fields, multidimensional and holographic universes, computing, atoms, microbes, genetics and quarks etc, and this is evinced on reading the scientific texts in the Sanskrit tradition where they are explicitly mentioned. The greatest evidence is the Sanskrit language itself, which still is the most advanced language on the planet, even ahead of formal computer languages.

The mytho-hisotrical texts are actually weaker evidence, because although they mention many things which seem fantastic for ancient people like flying vehicles, weapons of mass destruction, these can be explained as imagination. But the explicit mentions of things like microbes and atoms etc, cannot be explained as imagination. It suggests real scientific knowledge.

[edit on 1-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by win 52

According to science....monkeys can't build cities.

I'd like to read that paper.

Can I find it at Google Scholar, or did you just make that up like most of the stuff in every post you write?

Harte
[edit on 11/24/2009 by Harte]

Care to share a link to constructions made by monkeys Harte?

Never seen then, I'm really curious to see what they are capable of.

Originally posted by Harte

Turns out that this stuff about the Dogon is not true.

Harte

Which parts exactly, and who says this?

Originally posted by Indigo_Child

Regarding evidence for advanced technological civilisations. The best evidence I find, and I have argued this before on ATS, is the textual evidence itself which suggests a level of advancement of philosophical and scientific thought which is impossible for primitive people.

Thanks for the insightful post. You make a solid point right there.

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
On the theory that the 311,040,000,000,000 years of Brahma's lifetime is actually not year, but seconds. This is an interesting observation, but it is definitely false. The Hindu calender does actually specify years and not seconds for Brahma's lifetime, and this can be known for definite, because the Hindu calender also deals with seconds.

It would be simple to assume that this is a miss-translation from years to seconds but if what you state is true then this becomes very interesting indeed, perhaps even beyond imagination (at least my imagination). This means that our current measure of 'Seconds' is a scaled commensurate to the measure of billions of years.
My imagination is telling me that these could be the measurements of Solar oscillations, inter-galactic motions and galactic rotations.

ADD; If this is true then this means that a derivative of Earth's rotation (second) is commensurate to the rotation of our galaxy. Since the origin of the 360 degree circle (1 year), 60 minutes and 60 seconds, 12 hours on a clock (circle) and 12 months per year (again a circle) and the motions of our galaxy that are all directly linked together from an unknown source that dates back beyond recorded history is completely mind blowing.

The understanding of the celestial motions that we make trough the cosmos is something I have spent much time on with enthusiasm and to see this connection from ancient knowledge of unknown origin is truly intriguing.

Some writers tend to use the term "Vedic" as an umbrella term for all Hindu literature. This is technically an incorrect use of the term,

I'm glad you pointed this out because I found it difficult to categorize the origin of the knowledge from these writings and this sums it up for me nicely. Now I better understand my difficulty.

Regarding evidence for advanced technological civilisations. The best evidence I find, and I have argued this before on ATS, is the textual evidence itself which suggests a level of advancement of philosophical and scientific thought which is impossible for primitive people.

This is a great point and one that has been overlooked yet cannot be denied. In fact it seems that this is too blatant and thus is the reason given for why it is overlooked and ignored. The same happens with the structures found around the world that were built, the sophistication and level of advanced knowledge that was put into the construction of these structures is "too" obvious and therefore dismissed as evidence. To me this is a slap in the face to those that believe these ancient civilizations were inferior to us today (The evidence is blatantly obvious but still it cannot be seen by those that refuse to look at it).

[edit on 12/2/2009 by Devino]

It would be simple to assume that this is a miss-translation from years to seconds but if what you state is true then this becomes very interesting indeed, perhaps even beyond imagination (at least my imagination). This means that our current measure of 'Seconds' is a scaled commensurate to the measure of billions of years.
My imagination is telling me that these could be the measurements of Solar oscillations, inter-galactic motions and galactic rotations.

ADD; If this is true then this means that a derivative of Earth's rotation (second) is commensurate to the rotation of our galaxy. Since the origin of the 360 degree circle (1 year), 60 minutes and 60 seconds, 12 hours on a clock (circle) and 12 months per year (again a circle) and the motions of our galaxy that are all directly linked together from an unknown source that dates back beyond recorded history is completely mind blowing.

The understanding of the celestial motions that we make trough the cosmos is something I have spent much time on with enthusiasm and to see this connection from ancient knowledge of unknown origin is truly intriguing.

It is definitely possible that the Hindu calender is measuring cosmic cycles like galactic rotations and solar oscillations. It is already unambigious that the lifetime of Brahma corresponds to the lifetime of the entire cosmos of 311,040,000,000,000 years, so there is a clue there the Hindu calender is measuring something cosmic. The other clue is, the Hindu calender explicitly mentions "Divya-yugas(cosmic cycles) as opposed to ordinary yugas. The timeframes correspond roughtly in the same magnitude to the age of the planet(4.32 billion years) which will exist for another 4.32 billion years for a total of 8.64 billion years and then the planet will die. The 4.32 billion years of our planet is known as the day phase, the remaining 4.32 billion years is known as the night-phase of the planet, which can rougly be interpreted to mean the dying phase. In the day phase of 4.32 billion years there will be 14 Manvantaras(age of man) each one lasts for 306,720,000 years. This interesingly corresponds to roughly the time it takes for the sun to cycle around the galactic centre, if this is indeed what a manvantara is measuring, then modern calculations are slightly off wrt to Hindu calculations for this cycle. It is also curious that the lifetime of the dinosaurs roughly corresponds to approx 300 million years. This fits in perfectly with the Hindu calender theory that each Manvantara is populated by a different race, which is destroyed at the end of the cycle.

There are also sub-cycles within a Manvantara, which may refer to more terrestrial events. Each Manvatara is divided in 71 caturyugas(quadrant cycles) of 4.32 million years each, which comprise a set of a golden, silver, bronze and iron age. It is likely these can also be correated to astronomical cycles, but my knowledge of astronomy is too limited to draw parallels.

It really is very curious why the Hindu calender deals with such large and minute numbers, as it is clear it is not measuring just human events and the certainty with which they assign these numbers does suggest they are derving these numbers through some calculations on some data, that now seems to be lost. There is another curious reference found in the commentary of 10th century commentaor on a Rig Veda hymn, where the commentator randomly includes a comment on the "speed of the sun" given in classical units, which corresponds with great accuracy to the modern value of the speed of light. There is a good paper online that discusses this by Subhah Kak(Google Subhash Kak, speed of light in the Vedas) Again, if it is true, then it suggests some older data from which the commentator was citing, which again appears to be lost. It could very well be of Vedic origin.

Originally posted by 12.21.12
I wonder if the key to how the universe works itself is the cycle we measure as "time" and there are parralel dimensions when we speed time up or slow it down. Sort of like the shutter speed on a camera.

very, very close my friend.

AWESOME thread, starred and flagged and working on ready everyone's posts.

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by win 52

According to science....monkeys can't build cities.

I'd like to read that paper.

Can I find it at Google Scholar, or did you just make that up like most of the stuff in every post you write?

Harte


[edit on 11/24/2009 by Harte]

Do you have any information that proves otherwise, or do you think there will be a study on the cities monkeys have built?

My God all I can say is excellent. Just a great study. SnF Thank you for posting so much information on this very interesting subject.

This should keep me out of trouble a while.

My first thought was Mel Brooks but it quickly vanished as I started to read the thread.

Good job.