HINDUISM AND CARL SAGAN

HINDUISM AND CARL SAGAN

Carl Sagan says in this book the Cosmos:

"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's

great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos

itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number

of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in

which the time scales correspond, to those of modern

scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary

day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64

billion years long. longer than the age of the Earth or

the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And

there are much longer time scales still.

There is the deep and appealing notion that the

universe is but the dream of the god who, after a

Brahma years, dissolves himself into a dreamless sleep.

The universe dissolves with him -- until, after another

Brahma century, he stirs, recomposes himself and begins

again to dream the great cosmic dream.

The Chola bronzes, cast in the 11th century, include

several different incarnations of the god Shiva.

The most elegant and sublime of these is a

representation of the creation of the universe at the

beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the

cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this

manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper

right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of

creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame,

a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with

billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed.

The late scientist Carl Sagan, asserts that the dance

of Nataraja signifies the cycle of evolution and

destruction of the cosmic universe (Big Bang Theory).

"It is the clearest image of the activity of God which

any art or religion can boast of."

These profound and lovely images are, I like to

imagine, a kind of premonition of modern astronomical

ideas."

Source - "The Cosmos " by Carl Sagan.

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"The sun and the moon, the Lord created like the suns

and the moons of previous cycles." - The Ved