Thursday 14 August 2014

Sankalpam and its meaning

We are always curious to know the meaning of the Sankalpam that we take before the start of a pooja or a ritual. Firstly, we need to know the Hindu Cosmic cycle.

1 Mahayuga = Sum of 4 Yugas(Krita, Treta, Dwapara and Kali) = 4,320,000 years. 

1000 such mahayugas comprise a day-time of Brahma also known as a Kalpa.
 
The kalpa is ruled by 14 manus in succession.
 
The reigning period of a manu is onemanvantara which is 71.42 mahayugas.

There is an equivalent night-time of 4,320,000,000 years. The day-night of Brahma together constitutes one Brahma day (8.64 billion years). 360 Brahma days constitute a Brahma year while 360 years represent the lifetime of Brahma which is the life of the cosmos. Doing this simple calculation gives the age of the cosmos to be 311 trillion years.

Carl Sagan, the noted scientist says in relation to this, ""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 timescales still."

We are presently in the Sveta-Varaha kalpa in the reigning period of Vaivaswatha - the 7th manu. In this manvantara we are in the 28th mahayuga. As per our Cosmology, Brahma is supposed to have completed 50 Brahma years and is in his51st year. That is why he is called "Parardha-dvaya-jivin"(ie) he lives for two parardhas. A parardha is half.    Two halves make one. He is called so as he has completed one half of his tenure.

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