Vedas say that before the creation of the universe Lord Vishnu is sleeping in the ocean of all causes. His bed is a giant serpent with thousands of cobra like hoods. By the way, in the trinity of Creator, Maintainer and Destroyer as mentioned in the vedas, Lord Vishnu is the maintainer. Brahma is the creator and Shiva the destroyer.
While Vishnu is asleep, a lotus sprouts of his navel (note that navel is symbolised as the root of creation!). Inside this lotus, Brahma resides. Brahma represents the universe which we all live in, and it is this Brahma who creates life forms.
Now take a break here. Vishnu is the personification of the eternal multiverse that exists forever without any beginning or end. Brahma is the personification of our temporary physical universe that was created in the big bang.
Brahma is said to have been created from the navel (which is a single point) of Vishnu, described as a lotus blooming out of the navel, much like our big bang universe. Now this universe represented by Brahma is not a permanent universe, it is temporary, Brahma lives for 100 years say the vedas and then dies and then a new universe (Brahma) is born.
So as per vedas our universe lives for 100 years. Later we shall see how long each year of Brahma is.
For now, brahma represents our universe which has birth and death, a big bang and a big cruch, from a navel singularity. Vishnu represents the eternity that lies beyond our universe which has no birth or death and that which is eternal! Many such universes like ours exist in Vishnu.
Vedas say that thousands of brahmas have passed away! In other words, this is not the first time universe has been created.
Let us come back to the time measurements now. Brahma lives for hundred years say vedas and we are in the first day of the 51st year of the brahma.
A Year of Brahma
By the way each year of Brahma has 360 days. And we are in the first day of the 51st year of our current brahma. Vedas also say that Lord Hanuman will be the next Brahma. Well, thats something I have to do some research into later, the more things to think about, the more happy and occupied I am
Coming back to a day of the Brahma. Well, there is day and night. Vedas say that during the day Brahma is busy in creation of life and during the night all life he created is absorbed back into him! So we will be there only for this day of Brahma, which is the first day of his 51st year. But dont feel sad, let me promise you, this is a pretty long day.
A day of Brahma
Each day of brahma is called a Kalpa, and this itself is very huge a number. No wonder, ancient Indians had to be perfect in mathematics before going into all these things.
A kalpa is made up of brahma's one day and one night.
Manvantaras
The day has 14 Manvantaras. Similarly the night has an equal 14 Manvantaras. But then Brahma is resting in the night, so lets get back to the day again. We are in the 7th Manvantara of Brahma's this day, say the vedas.
MahaYuga
Each Manvantara is made up of 71 Mahayuga. We are in the 28th Mahayuga of this Manvantara say the vedas.
A Mahayuga is a collection of 4 Yugas. Maha means giant or huge.
The 4 yugas are Satya Yuga (also called Krita Yuga), Treta Yuga, Dwapara Yuga, Kali Yuga. We are in the Kaliyuga of our current Mahayuga say the vedas.
Satya Yuga lasts for 40% of its Mahayuga – Age of divine where humans need no physical means to exist and are in direct contact with the God
Treta Yuga lasts for 30% of its Mahayuga – Age where bad deeds start appearing, still there is lot of truth, infact 3/4 of this age is still goodness
Dwapara Yuga lasts for 20% of its Mahayuga-Dwapara means after the second, where there are almost equal amount of good and bad
Kali Yuga lasts for 10% of its Mahayuga- Kali means Darkness in Sanskrit (not to be confused with Kaali which is godess), no wonder we are in this age
Now finally we have reached to a timescale which we can relate to our own years.
1 Kaliyuga = 432000 solar years!
A Kaliyuga has the length of one Yuga. So One Mahayuga has 10 Yugas of which four are in Satya Yuga, 3 in Treta Yuga, 2 in Dwapara and 1 in Kali Yuga.
So a Mahayuga = 10 times the Kaliyuga i.e 4,320,000 solar years
Calculations
Let us do some reverse calculations now to find out the age of the universe as per the vedas.
1 Mahayuga = 4,320,000 years
1 Manvantara = 71 Mahayugas
1 day of Brahma = 14 Manvantaras = 994 Mahayugas
Now a small addition here, Vedas also say that before and after each Manvantara there is a gap equivalent to 4 Yugas (Not MahaYugas).
So now, 1 day of Brahma = 14 Manvantaras + (15 x 4 Yugas)
= 994 Mahayugas + 60 Yugas
= 994 Mahayugas + 6 MahaYugas = 1000
So 1 day of Brahma = 1000 MahaYugas = 4,320,000,000 years
1 night is again 1000 MahaYugas = = 4,320,000,000 years
1 Complete day = day + night = 8,640,000,000 years = 8.64 billion years
Note that we are in the 7th Manvantara of this day. So let us calculate how many years have passed since today started for Brahma.
Step 1: For 6 Manvantaras we have 71x 6 = 426 Mahayugas
Step 2: Then we have the gaps between each Manvantara which is 7 x 4 Yugas = 2.8 MahaYugas
Step 3: Then we have the current Mahayuga in our Manvantara which is 28th, we are in the last 1/10 of it (Remember Kaliyuga is the last of 4 yugas and spans 1/10 of a Mahayuga). So it is 27.9 Mahayugas.
So all put together we have 426+2.8+27.9 = 456.7 Mahayugas have been already spent in current day of Brahma. Approximately 543 more to go before we all are absorbed back into the Brahma
Okay so 456.7 in terms of years is 456.7 x 4,320,000 = 1,972,944,456 which is about 2 billion years. Somewhat close to what evolution proposes for life on earth.
Age of the Universe
Now lets find out the age of our universe as per the vedas. Let us consider the age of the Brahma to be the age of the universe. This is one number which no modern theory can even come anywhere near to it.
As we saw earlier a day of Brahma has 2000 MahaYugas (day+night).
There are 360 days in a year for Brahma and we are in the first day of 51st year.
So far 360 x 50= 18000 days have passed for Brahma
This is equivalent to 18000 x 2000 x 4320000 Human Years
In other words 155,520,000,000,000 Human Years
Add the current day of Brahma which is 1,972,944,456 Humans Years
So as per the vedas, the current age of the universe is 155,521,972,944,456 Years which is about 155,522 billion years !!! Modern day science has been able to predict age of our universe to be only about 15-20 billion years! Moreover Since we are in the first day of 51st year of Brahma, almost equal amout of time has to pass before this universe ends!!
So either modern science still has a long way to go in estimating the age of our universe
OR
the universe mentioned in vedas is the mother of all universes (a multiverse probably) including our own universe !!!
More interesting:
Vedas also say that the average human life span in each yuga is as follows:
Kali Yuga = 100 Years
Dwapara Yuga = 200 Years
Treta Yuga = 300 Years
Satya Yuga = 400 Years !
I observed another interesting fact here. Vedas are also implying by this that humans are not limited to planet earth nor to this universe alone. We belong to other Yugas as well where we live a longer life!! More than the length of the life, a greater depth as well
Aliens, please come and meet me, wanna discuss a lot, people on earth are busy making money
Brahma, please put me in some parallel universe.
By the way, universe means one verse, the one verse which created this universe "OM"
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. - Carl Sagan, Famous Astrophysicist
