Kali Yuga as explained in Mahabharata (part I)

The Mahabharata is one of the two major epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of history.Besides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kauravas and the Pandavas, the Mahabharata contains much philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" . The latter are enumerated as right action ,purpose ,pleasure  liberation.

                                                         

"'The reading of  Mahâbhârata destroys all sin and produces virtue; so much so, that the pronunciation of a single shloka is sufficient to wipe away much guilt. This Mahâbhârata contains the history of the gods, of the Rishis in heaven and those on earth, of the Gandharvas and the Rákshasas. It also contains the life and actions of the one God, holy, immutable, and true,-who is Krishna, who is the creator and the ruler of this universe; who is seeking the welfare of his creation by means of his incomparable and indestructible power; whose actions are celebrated by all sages; who has bound human beings in a chain, of which one end is life and the other death; on whom the Rishis meditate, and a knowledge of whom imparts unalloyed happiness to their hearts, and for whose gratification and favor all the daily devotions are performed by all worshippers. If a man reads the Mahâbhârata and has faith in its doctrines, he is free from all sin, and ascends to heaven after his death "excerpts from   iliad and odessy of India

Following are the excerpts of a conversation between the Yudhishthira( the eldest son of Pandu) and  Muni Markandeya

 Yudhishthira-     'O thou foremost of all speakers, O Muni of Brigu’s race, that which we have heard from thee about the destruction and re-birth of all things at the end of the Yuga, is, indeed, full of wonder. I am filled with curiosity, however, in respect of what may happen in the Kali age. When morality and virtue will be at an end, what will remain there! What will be prowess of men in that age, what their food, and what their amusements? What will be the period of life at the end of the Yuga? What also is the limit, having attained which the Krita age will begin anew? Tell me all in detail, O Muni, for all that thou narratest is varied and delightful."

 Markandeya  --  Listen, O monarch, to all that has been seen and heard by me, and to all, O king of kings, that hath been known to me by intuition from the grace of the God of gods! O bull of the Bharata race, listen to me as I narrate the future history of the world during the sinful age. O bull of the Bharata race, in the Krita age, everything was free from deceit and guile and avarice and covetousness; and morality like a bull was among men, with all the four legs complete. In the Treta age sin took away one of these legs and morality had three legs. In the Dwapara, sin and morality are mixed half and half, and accordingly morality is said to have two legs only. In the dark age (of Kali), O thou best of the Bharata race, morality mixed with three parts of sin liveth by the side of men. Accordingly morality then is said to wait on men, with only a fourth part of itself remaining. Know, O Yudhishthira that the period of life, the energy, intellect and the physical strength of men decrease in every Yuga!
Wedded to avarice and wrath and ignorance and lust, men will entertain animosities towards one another, desiring to take one another’s lives.
O Pandava, the Brahmanas (Brahmins ) and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas and Sudras, (in the Kali age) will practise morality and virtue deceitfully and men in general will deceive their fellows by spreading the net of virtue. And men with false reputation of learning will, by their acts, cause Truth to be contracted and concealed. And in consequence of the shortness of their lives, they will not be able to acquire much knowledge. And in consequence of the littleness of their knowledge, they will have no wisdom. And for this, covetousness and avarice will overwhelm them all. And wedded to avarice and wrath and ignorance and lust, men will entertain animosities towards one another, desiring to take one another’s lives.
And Brahmanas and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas with their virtue contracted and divested of asceticism and truth will all be reduced to an equality with the Sudras. And the lowest orders of men will rise to the position of the intermediate ones, and those in intermediate stations will without doubt, descend to the level of the lowest ones. Even such, O Yudhishthira, will become the state of the world at the end of the Yuga.

Excerpts from Mahabharta translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguly

The solar storm , jan22,2012 and apocalyptical alignments

"This handout image provided by NASA, taken on Sunday night, Jan. 22, 2012, shows a solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere. Space weather officials say the strongest solar storm in more than six years is already bombarding Earth with radiation with more to come"- Google ,and it got me thinking of Dec 2012,the dooms day theories , that has spread in various media describes the end of the world or of human civilization on that date.  The Discovery Channel also aired 2012 Apocalypse in 2009, suggesting that massive solar storms, magnetic pole reversal, earthquakes, supervolcanoes, and other drastic natural events may occur in 2012. Author Graham Hancock, in his book Fingerprints of the Gods, interpreted Coe's remarks in Breaking the Maya Code as evidence for the prophecy of a global cataclysm.


               
                                                          
 Some people have interpreted the galactic alignment  apocalyptically meaning vast devastation ,  it will somehow  create a combined gravitational effect between the Sun and the super massive black hole at the centre of our galaxy which is known as Sagittarius A*( Sagittarius A  is a complex radio source at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is located in the sky in the Sagittarius constellation. It is hidden from view at optical wavelengths by large clouds of cosmic dust in the spiral arms of the Milky Way.
It consists of three components, the supernova remnant Sagittarius A East, the spiral structure Sagittarius A West, and a very bright compact radio source at the centre of the spiral, Sagittarius A*. These three overlap: Sagittarius A East is the largest, West appears off-centre within East, and A* is at the centre of West - Wikipedia).thus creating havoc on Earth,. The Sun's apparent path through the zodiac as seen from Earth does not take it near the true galactic centre, but rather several degrees above it. Even if this were not the case, Sagittarius A* is 30,000 light years from Earth, and would have to be more than 6 million times closer to cause any gravitational disruption to Earth's Solar System. History Channel documentary, Decoding the Past. However, Jenkins has complained of the fact that a science fiction writer co-authored the documentary, and went on to characterise it as "45 minutes of unabashed doomsday hype and the worst kind of inane sensationalism".

 The term "galactic alignment" has been describe as a very different phenomenon proposed by some scientists to explain a pattern  in mass extinctions supposedly observed in the fossil record by some who believe in a 2012 doomsday .Hypothetically mass extinctions are not random, but recur every 26 million years and to account for this, it suggests that vertical oscillations made by the Sun as it orbits the galactic centre cause it to regularly pass through the galactic plane. The influence of galatic tide is weaker when the Sun's orbit takes it outside the galactic plane which bisects the galactic disc .  However, when re-entering the galactic disc—as it does every 20–25 million years—it comes under the influence of the far stronger "disc tides", which, according to mathematical models, increase the flux of Oort cloud comets into the inner Solar System by a factor of 4, thus leading to a massive increase in the likelihood of a devastating comet impact. However, this "alignment" takes place over tens of millions of years, and could never be timed to an exact date. Evidence shows that the Sun passed through the plane bisecting the galactic disc only three million years ago and is now moving farther above it.

A third suggested alignment is some sort of planetary conjunction occurring on December 21, 2012. However, there will be no alignment of planets on that date. Multi-planet alignments did occur in both 2000 and 2010, each with no ill result for the Earth. Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System; larger than all other planets combined. When Jupiter is near opposition, the Earth experiences less than 1% the gravitational force it feels daily from the Moon.

Photo credit NASA

Invisible Landscapes - a book on Mind ,Hallucinogens and I Ching (some major events)

Its not only the philosophy of China but including the science and statecraft who have never ceased to draw from the spring of wisdom in the I Ching,the Book of Changes -- I Ching in Chinese (which has been used for more than 5000 years as an aid to making decisions, predicting the future, etc. )-- an unquestionably one of the most important books in the world's literature. Its origin goes back to mythical antiquity, and it has occupied the attention of the most eminent scholars of China down to the present day, and it is not surprising that this alone, among all the Confucian classics, escaped the great burning of the books under Ch'in Shih Huang Ti
According to Ethnobotanists and fractal time experts Terrence and Dennis McKenna " things will keep changing at a faster rate, we are already on the verge of cloning humans and close to using nanotechnology to create atomic size mini-machines. Maybe there will come a time when the rate of change will reach such a speed that change is all that will exist., and they present their ideas in Invisible Landscape: Mind Hallucinogens and the I Ching (1993).The McKenna brothers arrived at the 2012 end date by using fractals. By matching the levels of the pattern with key periods in history, they determined it would fit best if the end of the time scale was December 22, 2012. This is the only point in which the level of novelty reaches its maximum, and everything that happens is new. Change feeds upon itself like nano-machines converting every atom in the universe into gold.Few calculations ( though all calculations are rough, but not inaccurate) as mentioned in Invisible LandscapeMind, a book on Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching (1993) They discovered a base period of roughly 67 years while employing a complicated mathematicaL and methodology to calculate the dates of major events .

2012 minus 67 years = 1945, a year of great change
2012 minus 4,300 years (67x64) = 2300 BC, the beginning of historical time
2012 minus 275,000 years (4300 x 64) = the emergence of Homo sapiens
2012 minus 18 million years (275,000 x 64) = the height of the age of mammals
2012 minus 1.3 billion years = the beginning of life on our planet

Photo credit Flicker.com

various theories on b'ak'tun (Mesoamerican Long Count Calender)

A date inscription for the Mayan Long Count

 There is a strong tradition of "world ages" in Mayan literature, but the record has been distorted, leaving several possibilities open to interpretation. According to the Popol Vuh(the oldest surviving manuscript ),  we are living in the fourth world. The Popol Vuh describes the gods first creating three failed worlds, followed by a successful fourth world in which humanity was placed. In the Maya Long Count, the previous world ended after 13 b'ak'tuns, or roughly 5,125 years.The Long Count's "zero date"was set at a point in the past marking the end of the third world and the beginning of the current one, which corresponds to 11 August 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. This means that the fourth world will also have reached the end of its 13th b'ak'tun, or Mayan date  on December 21, 2012. In 1957, Mayanist and astronomer Maud Worcester Makemson wrote that "the completion of a Great Period of 13 b'ak'tuns would have been of the utmost significance to the Maya". In 1966, Michael D. Coe wrote in The Maya that "there is a suggestion ... that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the 13th (b'ak'tun). Thus ... our present universe (would) be annihilated (in December 2012) when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion."
.It is not certain what significance the classic Maya give to the 13th b'ak'tun. Most classic Maya inscriptions are strictly historical and do not make any prophetic declarations. One item in the Mayan classical corpus, however, there is a mention of the end of the 13th b'ak'tun: Tortuguero Monument 6 , which lies in southernmost Tabasco, Mexico, dates from the 7th century AD and consists of a series of inscriptions mostly in honor of the contemporary ruler Bahlam Ajaw. One inscription, known as Tortuguero Monument 6, is the only inscription known to refer to b'ak'tun 13.
However Scholars from various disciplines have dismissed the idea of  cataclysmic events occurring in 2012 so have the o astronomers and other scientis . According to researchers   the end of the 13th b'ak'tun would perhaps be a cause for celebration, it did not mark the end of the calendar."There is nothing in the Maya or Aztec or ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to suggest that they prophesied a sudden or major change of any sort in 2012," according to Mayanist scholar Mark Van Stone. "The notion of a "Great Cycle" coming to an end is completely a modern invention." In 1990, Mayanist scholars Linda Schele and David Freidel argued that the Maya "did not conceive this to be the end of creation, as many have suggested." Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that "We have no record or knowledge that (the Maya) would think the world would come to an end" in 2012.

photo credit wikipedia