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Rteacher · Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA

The Vedic view is cyclical - like the four seasons. It doesn't necessarily hold that there have always been modern-type humans on earth, but that the first created being, the demigod Brahma, was empowered by God with all he needed to know in order to engineer the secondary creation of all planetary systems and physical bodies in the universe (after Vishnu provided the ingredients and impregated material nature with the seeds of life)

Brahma arranged for progenitors to populate the earth with the various lifeforms billions of years ago, but at the end of each "yuga-cycle" of four cosmic ages (each age lasting roughly a couple million years) practically all humans are wiped out.

1000 such "yuga-cycles" make up a single day of Brahma, ending in a partial devastation of the universe during his (equally long) night.

According to the ancient Vedic model, there are many different universes of varying complexity (and a different Brahma for each one.)

This Gita verse explains more about Brahma's duration of life...
http://www.asitis.com/8/17.html

itaewonguy · Joined: 25 Mar 2003

Rteacher · Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA

Here is an extended version of the famous quote by Carl Sagan in reference to Vedic cosmology (sure to tic off "mindmetoo" once again...):

"The main reason that we oriented this episode of Cosmos towards India is because of that wonderful aspect of Hindu cosmology which first of all gives a time-scale for the Earth and the universe -- a time-scale which is consonant with that of modern scientific cosmology. We know that the Earth is about 4.6 billion years old, and the cosmos, or at least its present incarnation, is something like 10 or 20 billion years old. The Hindu tradition has a day and night of Brahma in this range, somewhere in the region of 8.4 billion years."

"As far as I know. It is the only ancient religious tradition on the Earth which talks about the right time-scale. We want to get across the concept of the right time-scale, and to show that it is not unnatural. In the West, people have the sense that what is natural is for the universe to be a few thousand years old, and that billions is indwelling, and no one can understand it. The Hindu concept is very clear. Here is a great world culture which has always talked about billions of years."

"Finally, the many billion year time-scale of Hindu cosmology is not the entire history of the universe, but just the day and night of Brahma, and there is the idea of an infinite cycle of births and deaths and an infinite number of universes, each with its own gods...
http://www.answers.com/topic/hindu-cosmology

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?p=1041624&highlight=#1041624