Many of us in the Western world are so proud of what our scientists and technologists have achieved, we're tempted to laugh at the insights of other cultures, particularly if we don't understand them! Let's pause a minute to look a little more closely at one of the fables from Hinduism's supposedly primitive past.
Markandeya was not born in our world. He was actually born (according to this famous myth) in a previous world cycle, the last incarnation of our planet.
One day Markandeya noticed his parents were extremely upset. When he asked what was wrong, his father tearfully admitted that when Markandeya was born, the village astrologer predicted the boy would die on his sixteenth birthday.
Well that very day was his sixteenth birthday. Rather upset, Markandeya ran to the temple and threw his arms around the image of the god Shiva, begging him for protection.
That was fine for the time being, but after a few billion years, it got to be a problem. The sun eventually flickered our of existance, the Earth passed away, and Markandeya floated around in empty space for eons. Finally the Earth reshaped itself back into existance, and Markandeya was able to walk on terra firma once more. He reported what he'd expereinced between worlds to anyone who asked.
What happens when the solar system dies, he explained, is that the sun slowly turns red and expands to many times its present size. The surface of the earth eventually becomes so hot, no living thing can survive, and the planet becomes as bare as a turtle's back. Then the sun explodes, emitting a burning wind that blasts the planets to ashes.
Rather startlingly, this extremely olf Hindu myth describes the end of the world exactly as our own astrophysics predict it will in fact occur. Carl Sagan, the well-known twentieth-century scientist from Carl Cornell University, noted that the parallels between Hindu teachings and new scientific findings about the evolution of the universe are "astonishing coincidences". Indeed!
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