The Measure of Time in Various Cultures
The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Solar System to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The best estimates by modern science of the length of one orbit range of our Galaxy is from 225 to 250 million terrestrial years. The Universe is believed to be 13.8 billion years old.
The precession (caused by gradual rotation of the Earth’s axis) of the equinoxes is the period of time that it takes the Earth’s axis to pass through one complete cycle of the zodiac. It takes the planet 72 years to pass through one degree of the zodiac and 25,920 years to complete one full circle of 360 degrees through the entire Zodiac. One half of the journey takes 12,960 years. This turns out to be a significant number in many cultures as shown below:
A) The VEDIC YUGAS
-1) KRITA Yuga- lasts 12,000 years. A Golden Age of enlightenment, peace and plenty.
-2) Treta Yuga- lasts 12,000 years. A Silver Age when consciousness begins to truly flower again.
-3) Dwapara Yuga- lasts 12,000 years. A Bronze Age of dark and difficult times.
-4) Kali Yuga –lasts 12,000 years. A Bronze Age of the darkest and most difficult of times.
(Beginning, some say, on 3102 BC)
NOTE: The original Yuga Cycle doctrine appears to have been very simple: A Yuga Cycle duration of 12,000 years. This cycle is encoded in the “Saptarsi Calendar” which has been used in India for thousands of years. The first transitional period in the 12,000 year descending Yuga Cycle is the 300 year period at the end of the Golden Age from 9976 BC – 9676 BC. This is the time when the last Ice Age came to a sudden end; the climate became very warm quite abruptly, and several large mammalian species such as the woolly mammoth became extinct. A number of scientific studies show that a devastating global flood occurred at around 9600 BC. In 2012, an international team of scientists concluded that the earth was bombarded by a meteorite storm nearly 12,000 years ago, which effectively ended the Ice Age, and led to the end of a prehistoric civilization and the extinction of many animal species.
In many Sanskrit texts the 12,000 year duration of the Yuga Cycle was inflated to a high value of 4,320,000 years or more by sometimes introducing a multiplication factor of various amounts. Sometimes by multiplying the ‘Yuga Year” by the “Celestial year” (or Divine Years) of 4800 years ( or 4,800,000 calendar years).
Some minor texts have the length of the Yuga cycle all over the place. The general understanding in ancient Hindu astronomy was that at the beginning of the present order of things, all the planets commenced their movement together at 0° of Aries; and all the planets return to the same position in the heavens, at certain fixed intervals, resulting in a universal conjunction, i.e. a Yuga. This is the same as the Precession of the Earth through the Zodiac
NOTE: The 24,000 year duration of the half Yuga Cycle closely approximates the Precessional Year of 25,765 years, which is the time taken by the sun to “precess ” i.e. move through the 12 Zodiac constellations. Each half Yuga has an ascending and descending periods of 12,000 years each.
Note: The Kali Yuga is a period in the history of mankind when the dark forces of nature start playing an aggressive role. An almost complete breakdown of the values in the society is a sign of the rampant lawlessness spread all over. Everyone is to fend for himself. In Kali Yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a man’s good birth, proper behavior and qualities. Law and justice will be applied only on the basis of one’s power. There will be a population explosion and natural calamities, before moving on to a new era of wellbeing and upward movement of human consciousness. The end of the Yuga will inevitably be followed by cataclysmic earth changes and civilization collapses, as is characteristic of the transitional periods.
Note: A planetary manvantara — also called a maha-manvantara or a kalpa — is the period of the lifetime of a planet during its seven rounds. It is also called a Day of Brahma, and its length is 4,320,000,000 years.
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B)- MAYAN-
No other people in history made of time so great a fetish as the Maya, time to them was cyclical, it would repeat itself. The Maya recognized that the natural world, the cosmos, and even their own bodies functioned according to observable cycles. To locate themselves within these cycles they tracked the movements of planets, the moon, and the sun.
Our modern astronomers have measured this value to be 29.5306 days. In Copan, the Maya recorded that they observed over a period of about 12 years that the moon went through 149 of these cycles in precisely 4,400 days. When you divide this by 149, you get 29.5302 days.
Our modern astronomers have measured the length of the year as 365.2422 days. The Maya calculated the year to be 365 days, 5 hours and 49 minutes long. The Maya were able to do some amazing calculations without telescopes, clocks or computers.
The Maya developed calendar, better suited for measuring longer periods of time. The Maya Long Count used only the "haab" or 365 day calendar. A date was given in terms of Baktuns (periods of 400 years) followed by Katuns (periods of 20 years) followed by Tuns (360 days) followed by Uinals (periods of 20 days) and ending with the Kins (number of days 1-19). Baktuns - periods of 400 years. A period of 13 baktuns is called the “Great Cycle” of the Long Count. It is 5,200 years long (in 360-day years).
On December 20, 2012, the Maya Long Count Date was 12.19.19.19.19. When one day was then added, the entire calendar reset to 0. The thirteenth Baktun since the beginning of Maya time therefore came to an end on December 21, 2012.
The popularly accepted date for the beginning of the current “Great Cycle” of the Mayan Long Count Calendar in 3114 BC , therefore is about 5,000+ years old. This is remarkably close to the proposed beginning of the Kali Yuga is 3102 BC.
Shavua is a weekly cycle of seven days, mirroring the seven-day period of the Book of Genesis in which the world is created.
C)- ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS
(Judaism, Christianity and Islam)-
The Abrahamic religions have only one cycle, starting with the Garden of Eden and ending with the Judgment Day. The FOUR AGES of the Abrahamic Religions are the Golden Age being before the Garden of Eden, the Silver Age of the biblical patriarchs who were still intimate with God, the Bronze Age that of the prophets and sacred kings and finally,the Iron Age, from the Babylonian exile up to the present day. The entire cycle will end at Judgment Day, after which the Christian elect enter the New Jerusalem and Muslims the Garden of Paradise.
There is a prevalent belief in Christianity that the world that the World was created in 4004 BC., about the time in the Kali Yuga starting from 3976 BC and close to the year of World creation in the Jewish religious calendar of 3761.This would place the age of the Earth at about 6,000 years at present.
The Jewish calendar is based on the birth of Adam in the Garden at Eden. That date was determined by Hebrew scholars around 1000 A.D. to have occurred on October 7, 3761 B.C. This date corresponds to the year 1 in the Hebrew calendar, and has ever since formed the basis for that calendar. In the Hebrew calendar tis year is 5777 , whereas Christians measure years since the birth of Jesus (i.e. this year is 2017 AD).
- The Christian calendar is based on the appearance of Jesus Christ, the Messiah promised by Moses. The Christian calendar entered it's third day on January 1st, 2001.If Jesus was conceived in Mary's womb by the Holy Spirit on Christmas day, he would have been born nine months later, i.e., around the 7th of October. That is the day Jewish tradition gives for the start of creation. It is the day that began the Hebrew 6000-year calendar.
- a Hebrew year that will start in the evening before October 3, 2016, and will end on September 20, 2017. This year has 353 days. It is a common year in the Hebrew Metonic Cycle, with a single Adar month. It is the second year after a Shmita year.
The Jewish day is of no fixed length. The Jewish day is modeled on the reference to "...there was evening and there was morning..."
There is no clock in the Jewish scheme, so that the local civil clock is used.
The Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar ,meaning that months are based on lunar months , but years are based on solar years.
October 7, 3761 B.C, the date God created Adam and Eve , is still used in calculating the year of the Jewish calendar. According to the Hebrew calendar the seventh "day" (if we consider a day to God to be a thousand years to man as the Bible says) will begin in September or October 6001 A.D. Jesus said the last days would be so violent and wicked, that God has shortened the time of suffering for the sake of the elect.
D)- CHINA –
In China the early dynasties were respectively of 13 and 11 kings, each of whom ruled or lived 18,000 years. If we do the arithmetic, (13 + 11) x 18,000 comes to 432,000 years (36 Yugas or Mayan Long-Count Calendars).
E)- GREECE & ROME-
Similar information regarding the conjunction of planets is also present in the ancient Greek texts. In the Timaeus, Plato refers to a “Perfect Year” which elapses at that moment when the sun, moon and the planets all return to the same relative position despite all their intervening reversals. This idea was also echoed by the 3rd century Roman writer Censorinus, who said that the orbits of the sun, moon and the five wandering planets complete one “Great Year of Heraclitus”, when they are brought back together at the same time to the same sign where once they were. This “Great Year” which is known by various other names – “Perfect Year”, “Platonic Year”, “Supreme Year of Aristotle” etc. – was variously represented as being of 12,954 years (Cicero).
Rome had a traditional New Year on March 1, and a newer, civil New Year on January 1. January, and hence the new year, was named after Janus (January), an ancient Italic (perhaps Sabine) god who was a god of transitions, seeing into the future and past, hence his portrayal as having two faces looking forward and behind, signifying also awareness.
Egyptologist John Anthony West, whose seminal work on the dating of the Sphinx has won him worldwide acclaim, mentions in his article “Consider the Kali Yuga” that:
“Since Egypt’s Old Kingdom, up until very recently…civilization has been going down, not up; simple as that. We can follow that degenerative process physically in Egypt; it is written into the stones and it is unmistakable. The same tale is told in the mythologies and legends of virtually all other societies and civilizations the world over. Progress does not go in a straight line from primitive ancestors to smart old us with our bobblehead dolls and weapons of mass destruction; our traffic jams and our polluted seas, skies and lands.
There is another, and far more realistic, way to view history. Plato talked about a cycle of Ages: Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron (or Dark) Age; a cycle, a wave form – not a straight line. A similar understanding is reflected by virtually all other ancient accounts. The best known, and by far the most elaborately developed of these systems, is the Hindu, with its Yuga Cycle, which corresponds to the Platonic idea of four definable Ages.”
F)- Zoroasterism-
The Zoroastrians believe that the world lasts for 12,000 years (one Yuga or Mayan Long Year), which is divided into four equal ages of 3,000 years each.
G)- EGYPT-
Most people in Egypt had little need for measuring time. Their life was governed by the sun: They generally rose at break of day and went to bed after nightfall. At midday when the sun stood highest, they probably had a rest.
Like many people of the ancient world, the Egyptians had no unified time scale or way of referring to dates. Instead of having numbers to describe their years (May 7, 2000), they used several alternate means. In the earliest years of Egypt's history, the years were named according to significant events.
-The year of the great hailstorm.
-The year of fighting and smiting the northerners.
-The year of the second enumeration of all large and small cattle of the north and the south.
The next method of reckoning time was to align it with the reigning monarch.
-The 12th year of Amenhotep.
-In the fourth year of king Darius (Zechariah 7:1).
-In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah (Daniel 1:1).
-Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3:1).
This meant that you had to know the name of every Egyptian king who ever ruled and the order in which they ruled. Another problem with the fact that many kings had sons who were given the same name. They did not call themselves Thutmose 1st, Thutmose 2nd, Thutmose 3rd. These numbers were added in modern times for our own benefit.
The Egyptians used a solar rather than a lunar calendar. They had 365 days in their year and divided their year into 360 days of twelve equal 30-day months and then added five additional feast days at the end of each year. It was this same calendar that was adopted by Julius Caesar and made the official calendar of the Roman Empire. It is essentially the same calendar that we use today.
The Egyptian months were grouped into three seasons of 4 month durations:
-Inundation
-Germination
-The warm season
The Egyptian astronomers were able to calculate and to keep records of three events.
a. The rising of the sun.
b. The rising of Sothis (Sirius, the dog star).
c. The start of Inundation.
These three events took place simultaneously once every 1460 years. Modern research has established that this event took place between 1325 and 1322 B.C. during the 19th dynasty of Egypt. This fact is confirmed by ancient scribal records (the previous cycle would have begun the Pyramid Age in 2785-2782 B.C.)
H)- Sumerian-
The Sumerians were among the first astronomers, mapping the stars into sets of constellations, many of which survived in the zodiac and were also recognized by the ancient Greeks. They were also aware of the five planets that are visible to the naked eye.
Sumerian astronomy was primitive compared to later Babylonian standards. Babylonian clay tablets that have survived since the dawn of civilization in the Mesopotamian region - record the earliest total solar eclipse seen in Ugarit on May 3, 1375 BC.
The Sumerians built the first cities , established the first monarchies and bureaucracies. The city was ruled by the gods through the priest king who exercised divine authority. Under the king were priests who surveyed land, assigned fields, ran the complex irrigation system, and distributed the harvest. A bureaucracy was established to administer the growing complex society.
They invented writing, first in pictographs and then developing into cuneiform. and used it to keep track of trade and to create the world's first known literature. The world's oldest book is The Epic of Gilgamesh, a collection of stories about a Sumerian hero.
They invented the wheel which facilitated the movement of goods and trade. They invented mathematics, developing a system of numbers based on a unit of 60. We still use their development of time measurement, 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour and the division of a circle into 360 degrees. This also was developed to facilitate trade.
I.) MODERN TIME
Why do we measure time in 60 seconds, an hour in 60 minutes, a day in 24 hours, a year in 12 months , a circle in 360 Degrees. Is it random or is it planned? Why?
Please watch the following video which explains it so clearly that there is no reason to otherwise change or expand it: