[Advaita-l] Modern timelines and Shastras

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Namaste Kaushik

You may want to check out the total lack of clarity amongst scientists and
archeologists regarding reaching conclusions about the dating of human
civilization and also see the presence of alternative hypotheses.

https://youtu.be/ILTlynOG5BM?feature=shared


https://youtube.com/shorts/4RrKK-_W7iU?feature=shared


Also a recent discovery - "The Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey was
inhabited between 9,600 and 8,200 BCE. The final building phases of the
site took place around 8000 BCE.

Current evidence is that at least 300,000 years of human beings just like
us have definitely lived on Planet Earth.

The last ice age (or inter-glacial) which ended around 9000 BC,  created a
huge disruption or discontinuity in human history. All recent civilizations
are dated to after this latest inter-glacial age. But vedic timelines and
historical memory stretches beyond or earlier to this global ecological
catastrophe during the last inter-glacial period around (around 9000 BCE.)


Having said that, the key to the larger discussion is that we the Astikas
assert the cetana-kAraNatvaM of jagat, while many of the scientists insist
on jaDa-kAraNatvaM. "To say that a universe follows "mathematically
expressible laws" and "patterns" is "jaDa" is
self-contradictory.

 With jaDa-kAraNatvaM being negated, then alone veda-prAmANya along with
alternative hypotheses of longer human civilizational timelines and the
historical kernel in the purANas can be asserted.

Similarly, it's not necessary to assert that everything is purANas is
literal or historical 100%. That was not the intention. The basic facts of
older timelines is however unexceptionably a key paurANika assertion and
has to be defended against early dates for Indian civilization - a key
Marxist and missionary project. But we Astikas need not treat purANas are
lliterally true to the letter. Also the exact timeline calculations are
done differently by different Astikas scholars too. This however is a side
issue.

This, let's say, someone appreciates that the jaDa-kAraNatvaM of everything
is untenable. That is a good starting point to appreciate the vedic
perspective.

Otherwise, to assert veda-prAmANya without clearing the weeds of wrong and
illogical ideas in a modern person's mind may be difficult.

A wrong or at least weak defense is that science deals with anAtmA while
veda deals with atIndriya viShayas, so there is no conflict since their
prameya domains are different. While this pramANa based approach to defend
veda-prAmANya is not wholly wrong, it still defers to modern science on
many matters where veda would be pramANa and thus it amounts to
compromising veda prAmANyam in many areas where Vedas and current
scientific models have competing visions. One such area is the idea that
the rise of intelligent human life was a random process - a patently absurd
assertion, as is becoming clear even from mathematics using probabilistic
models.


Om
Raghav




On Thu, 16 Jan, 2025, 4:29 pm Kaushik Chevendra via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste,
> One genuine doubt that keeps bothering me is the timelines of shatras and
> the modern science timelines of the world. The shastras talk about various
> yugas and from starting of creation as to how mankind has been there and
> the chaturvarnas being present. However the modern day science says that
> the civilisations of man are not older than 3000-5000 years. Is there any
> way of reconciling this?
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