by Harvey Kraft
Eyeing their fight, the Demon Kings (Skt. Assura), purveyors of temptations and ignorance, came in and bowed before the Buddha-to-be accompanied by the Spirit Vultures (Skt. Raksas), monsters ready to devour the minds of the living and the bodies of the dead.
Next came the Four Heavenly Kings, protectors of the four corners of the natural world, escorted by Goblins (Skt. Yaksas) and Dwarfs (Skt. Kumbhandas), serving as guardians of forests, fields, and shelters. Finally, a company of Celestial Musicians (Skt. Mahoragas), creatures with giant human bodies and heads of snakes, completed the parade.
Among these fanciful celebrants were those who were well behaved, some who relished creating trouble, and ambivalent ones who wavered back and forth according to mood. The good spirits thought only of supporting the health and sustenance of humans, animals, and plant life, while the bad ones pondered only on how to cause illness or destruction.
The Water Dragons could be either protective or destructive. Their temperament, often dictated by a sense of danger for personal safety and health, determined whether the water they inhabited would be safe or hazardous to drink. When in fear for their own survival, they would poison their surroundings. Their fears were most apparent when the creators of mighty windstorms, the Flying Creatures (Garuda), swooped down from the air to snatch the Water Dragons out of the waters, and eat them whole.
The children listened in wrapped attention as the Buddha continued his story.
Long ago, the Flying Creatures had kidnapped the lovely Water Nymphs (Skt. Apsarases). But the Water Dragons surreptitiously rescued the nymphs to keep them from mating. The angry Flying Creatures looking for the nymphs created a windstorm that moved all the waters of the world upon the lands until all was flooded and the realms of the Nagas were in ruin. Once the sun dried the world again, the Great Flood receded, and a plush vegetal landscape appeared burgeoning with a variety of plants.
Possessing the primordial nectar of procreation, the Plant Goblins (male Yaksas) and Wood Nymphs (female Yaksis) originally initiated the fertility of the plant world. They had been carried out of the ocean waters onto land on the backs of Crocodile Creatures (Skt. Makara), who also carried Life’s essence (Skt. Rasa) between their jaws. The goblins and reptiles poured the Rasa, the nectar of fertility, into the sap of the trees and plants shaping the diversity of trees, inspiring nature’s creativity and evolution, and giving rise to the multiplicity of animals and living organisms.
After much time had passed human beings developed conscious minds. With awareness they were able to tune into Nature’s hidden realm and learned to communicate with the invisible, enchanted Spirit-Beings through prayer and sacrifice. The shamans, the Spirit-Listeners, Spirit-Talkers, Spirit-Callers, and Spirit-Seers, communicated with the good Spirit-Beings, and cultivated a good relationship with Nature. This provided fertility, food and drink, and facilitated a livable climate. But there were Spirit-Beings who resented human awareness. They were the carriers of three poisons—jealousy, greed, and foolishness. They invaded human bodies and warped human thoughts and emotions.
The children appeared concerned.
Having learned that good-natured spirits worked for the benefit of humans and that ill-tempered spirits were bent on creating chaos, they wondered if the mischievous spirits would come after them and influ-ence them to do bad things.
“Whenever you feel jealous of one another, it is as if the vengeful spirits have you in their grip. It feels like a giant foot might come down and crush you that moment.” Sakamuni told the wide-eyed children. “But, on the other hand, whenever you play a game and win, your heart fills with pride and you jump up and down with glee. At that time you will feel the luminous spirits shining in your face and lifting you up as if you were flying in the air. That is how the Mind of Nature works inside of your mind.”
“But you should not worry yourself about the spirits controlling you, because when a Buddha appears in the world, he brings with him a precious jewel with magic powers. The light from this gem will free you from any kind of illusions or jealousies, and keep harm away from you. My innocent children, holding the Buddha’s jewel will give you the power to see what is invisible to others, to see beyond the stars, and to see all things as they really are. This gem will shine a light on the wishes hidden in your mind. For this reason, it is called the Wish-Ful-filling Jewel.
“In a future time you will follow the Buddha on his journey to the Sacred Place of Jewels. And at that time you will receive such a jewel of your own. With it you will make your dreams come true. Would you like to go there with me?”
“Yes!” they cheered.
COSMIC TIME
Ancient Arya-Vedic seers piercing the veil of primordial time and space remotely witnessed the birth of the cosmos from a “speck of dust.” They envisioned its emergence from a pinpoint in space growing into a sphere containing the tri-level Cosmic Mountain and its surroundings. As all things were cyclical, they viewed the birth of the cosmos as a reincarnation. Like all things in existence it manifested again and again in a closed-loop without a first beginning or final end. The world emerged, grew, receded, disappeared, and renewed itself across a vast range of Cosmic Time, across past, present, and future.
They estimated that the current world-system would continue to exist for a cycle of one thousand Cosmic Years, designated as one Major Cosmic Eon (Skt. Mahakalpa). Based on the length of one Cosmic Year (Skt. kalpa) at 4.32 million Earth years, one Major Cosmic Eon (4.32 million x 1,000) equaled 4.32 billion Earth years. The base number of 432 represented cosmic harmony from the earliest days of shamanic stargazing.
The Vedic seer-scribes in the Laws of Manu composed four Cosmic Seasons (Skt. Yug a ) divided into a time of success (like summer), a time of decline (like fall), a dark time (like winter), and a time of recovery (like spring). Based on the premise that the number of years composing each of the four seasons decreased over time, they used the number 432,000 as a base. The first season was 432,000 x 4 years; and the next was 432,000 x 3; then 432,000 x 2; and the final Cosmic Season was 432,000 years. Thus, the four Cosmic Seasons counted in Earth years equaled one Cosmic Year (Skt. kalpa) or 4.32 million Earth years (432,000 x 10).
The origin of the sacred number series 4-3-2 and its multiple of 10 (4 + 3 + 2 + 1) dated back to the sacred geometry and cosmic star clocks of the Egyptians and also appeared in Sumerian architecture and the star-based timekeeping scale of the Sumerians. Both cultures viewed 432 as the harmonious frequency of Universal Order. They had inherited this number from the prehistoric megalith stone observatories of the procession of the equinox, marked at 25,920 years for the Earth’s axis to make a full circle. When divided by 60, the base number for a 360-degree circle, the result was 432.
The Egyptians derived the basis of their sacred geometry from the equilateral triangle representing the perfect shape of the Cosmic Mountain. The triangle was formed of a hierarchy of four horizontal lines. The baseline was composed of four equally spaced points. Using equal spacing, the next line was made of three points centered above the bottom row. The third row was made of two points, and then the capstone was one point (4+3+2+1 = 10). Connecting the outer points of this scheme produced the perfect triangle, a tetractys—the geometric model for the ideal pyramid. Echoing this harmonic series, the proportions of Egypt’s Great Pyramid were designed to be relative to the equatorial circumference of the Earth by a ratio of one to 43,200.177 In sacred geometry the combination of square, circle, and triangle symbolized the harmonious connection between humanity and the divine. The square (or cube) defined the Earth-world, the circle (or sphere) conveyed the divine cosmos, and the triangle (or pyramid) constituted the connection between the two.
According to a Babylonian rendition of Cosmic Time,178 the value of “432” and its cosmic multiple “10” was related to the antediluvian civilization of Sumer/Akkad. The era prior to the mythic Great Deluge, the Babylonians believed, lasted for 432,000 years, or one Babylonian Cosmic Year by their counting. The e
ra supposedly spanned from the crowning of the first Sumerian King to the end of a lineage of “10” demigod kings, each said to have enjoyed a lifespan of 43,200 years.
When Hammurabi’s Old Babylonian Empire came to power after the fall of Sumer/Akkad, he wanted his clergy to make a clear distinction between a wild and unstable pre-history that ended in collapse and his establishment of an orderly civilization. The era of divine harmony ending with the Sumerian Deluge myth, defined by the numbers 432, provided the Old Babylonian scribes with a suitable historical marker for an apocalyptic line of demarcation. For them the story of the complete destruction of the old world provided a new beginning for mankind coinciding with the ascension of the God of Babylon, Marduk, and the diminution of the titanic gods and demigod kings of Sumer/Akkad. In the process, the real natural disaster, the Epic Drought, had been relegated to the scrap heap of history.
Due to the migration of the Arya tribes through the territory of the Old Babylonians, the Sumer/Akkad and Old Babylonian 60-base number system suddenly appeared in the earliest Earth-Year calendar of the Rig Veda (1000 B.C.). The calendar divided the year into 360 days, 12 lunar months of 28 days each, plus a leap month every 60 months.
Babylonian astronomers may have observed that one cycle of the Precession of the Equinoxes, required 29,920 Earth years, which divided by the Sumerian base-60 yielded the number 432. Their astronomical time cycle would have matched exactly the Vedic base number for Cosmic Time: 432,000. In addition, the Vedic use of “10” as the multiplier in their Cosmic Time accounting also appeared to have been inherited from the resonant harmonics of the ancients (4+3+2+1).
Building on the Cosmic Time scenario of the Rig Veda, Brahmin seers equated one Major Cosmic Eon (4.32 Billion Earth Years) with twelve Divine Hours in the realm of Brahma, their immortal Creator of the Golden Mountain world-system. Accordingly, the world would end and Brahma would recreate it once every 24 Divine Hours (one Divine Day and one Divine Night), or every 8.64 billion Earth years (two Major Cosmic Eons of 4.32 billion years each). In the Brahmin adaptation of the Vedic Cosmic Time model, Lord Shiva, the Destroyer God, would annihilate the world, and then Brahma would recreate it. This cycle encompassed the creation of the world, its eradication, and his recreation of it—birth, death, and regeneration on a cosmic scale.
In the Vedic Laws of Manu, the Rishi seers segmented Cosmic Time into eras (Skt. Yugas) starting with Major Cosmic Eons, divided into Cosmic Years and divided into Cosmic Seasons. No matter the scale, each era was segmented into four periods cycling between increase and decrease: success, decline, failure, and recovery. Then the cycle would begin again with success in the next era. They deemed the present cycle to be an era of decline by observing that virtue was dimming while sin was on the rise.
These Vedic seers foresaw the trend of humanity in decline from good to bad times toward doom. Due to the corruption of people, they believed, God destroyed the world and created a new one after the Great Flood. Starting with the perfectly virtuous Manu, the first man, and the only survivor of the earlier destruction of the world, a new era began. From that point human beings who proliferated on Earth during the first Cosmic Eon, called the Golden Yuga of Virtue, were born of giant stature and lived to the age of 100,000, due to their virtuous behavior. Echoing the fall of the Titans in Sumerian myth, as illustrated in the Book of Genesis and Book of Enoch, the Manu edition told of the diminution of the giants as virtuousness began to wane and the impact of sin strengthened in the next Cosmic Season.
In the second Yuga of the Manu chronology, sin dominated one quarter of humanity, causing all human beings to become smaller. Their average lifetime decreased to 10,000 years. In the third Yuga sin and virtue became equal in strength as lifetimes and stature continued to be compromised further. In the fourth Yuga , the Kali Yuga , the Dark Eon, deemed to be the present eon, sin became increasingly dominant, as three-fourths of all humans became sinners. During this era people would grow smaller and lifetimes would decline incrementally from an average of one hundred to twenty years. Ultimately, the Major Cosmic Eon would end when Brahma cleansed the world of sinners. Then, he would recreate the world starting again with a Yuga of pure virtue.
In his edition of Cosmic Time, Sakamuni Buddha made a deft adjustment to the doom and gloom prophecies of his predecessors by reversing the polarities of the cycles from decline to increase. Whereas the Vedic Rishi belied their fear of the growing appeal of sin and the progressive decline of virtue, Sakamuni Buddha’s rendition of Cosmic Time refected his optimism.
First, the Buddha addressed the Vedic and Brahmanic role of the gods as the creators and destroyers of the world. In his version of the Golden Mountain cosmology he had recast the Great Creator, Mahabrahma, as Nature’s governor of the Field of Form in the local world-system. By declaring that Brahma and all the gods were mortal, he set the stage for a different view of creation and the recalculation of human destiny. The Buddha replaced the Cosmic Time cycle of ‘divine creation to annihilation’ by first replacing the gods as the operational managers of cyclical Existence. In his Cosmos of Relativity, the Law of Cause and Effect, not the gods, would dictate the direction of Cosmic Order.
In the Buddha’s edition, the world-system in the present time was passing through the Major Cosmic Eon of Wisdom, which was divided into four Cosmic Eons (Skt. kalpa). Its first quarter started with the emergence and structural development of the world. During the second kalpa, sentient beings would appear. In the course of evolution, they would advance out of primitive darkness to become light-beings. Humans would exist only during the second of the Buddha’s Cosmic Eons. During this time, eventually, they would achieve higher consciousness, and accomplish a Golden Age of World Peace and Enlightenment.
In the third quarter, the sustainability of the world would slowly dissolve until its end in a fiery conflagration. During the fourth quarter, the Universe would turn dark until the Major Cosmic Eon of Wisdom ended. Next it would be reborn into a new Major Cosmic Eon.
In the Buddha’s progression the present Major Cosmic Eon of Wisdom was divided into the following four Eon segments as follows:
1. Cosmic eon of formation (Skt. Vi-varta-kalpa). The Universe emerged at the beginning of the Major Cosmic Eon of Wisdom, prompting the formation of celestial bodies and life-bearing systems, including the Earth world-system infrastructure. During this time various forces prepared the world to host the manifestation of life forms.
2. Cosmic eon of evolution (Skt. Vi-varta-sthayi-kalpa). During this Eon sentient beings appeared. They evolved, devolved, or became extinct. At some point human beings appeared. They experienced challenges and setbacks, but slowly they would evolve from instinctual beings to beings of higher consciousness. Eventually they would achieve a Golden Age of Enlightenment. At that time worldwide peace and harmonious fulfillment would define the global state of humanity.
3. Cosmic eon of Dissolution (Skt. Sam-varta-kalpa). As the light of the Universe started to dim, nature’s order would begin to decay. The birth of living beings would decline until all life receded from the world. At this time the Golden Mountain world-system would end in a final fiery conflagration.
4. Cosmic eon of Disintegration (Skt. Sam-varta-sthayi-kalpa). Once life departs the Universe, it will become a dark, empty space. It will remain unchanging in this state until spiral-ing primordial “winds” will arise from the Lotus Treasury Mind-World in waves of increasing frequency. The winds will prepare space for renewal,179 until such time when the next Major Cosmic Eon would begin and the world would be reborn.
During the Major Cosmic Eon of Wisdom, only a few Buddhas, including Siddhartha Gautama, would appear on Earth. But following the end of this Major Cosmic Eon, a new world would emerge. At that time, called the Major Cosmic Eon of Constellations, as many Buddhas would be born into the world as there are stars in the sky.
IN THE MIDDLE
From Greece to India, metaphysical and cosmological debating was at its peak during the lifetime o
f Siddhartha Gautama. Due to trading and emigration, a variety of ideas, beliefs, and discoveries were exchanged freely and eagerly about the origins of the world, the meaning and purpose of life, the metaphysics of destiny, and the mysteries of the cosmos.
From kings to householders, most people were fascinated with and entertained by every sort of view that might shed light on the essence, nature, and scope of existence. Debates and seminars drew large crowds often hosted by local kings. All too often, however, the arguments degenerated into intellectual, theoretical, or semantic dogma.
Religious speakers for the most part espoused the titillating promise of blissful immortality in the afterlife, whether tied to acts of moral goodness, purification, birthright, or ritual offerings. In nearly every such presentation, the soul was the object of liberation from the cycle of rebirth and its downfall was related to sin.
On the other side of the debate were an assortment of existential philosophers, materialists, nihilists, and hedonists. Most of them rejected the concept that life continued in other realms. They proposed that only the present substantive world was real, contending that spiritual proponents imagined the idea of reincarnated lifetimes. Most philosophers saw birth and death simply as a beginning and an end to life and focused on the acceptance of life as it is. Arguing against the priestly dictates of cosmic morality, Naturalism proposed the view that Nature was itself divine, and, therefore, its material rewards (such as sex, wealth, and food) were all gifts to be enjoyed fully, as long as they did not cause harm.
