|
|
|
C H A P T E R 7 T H E C I R C U L A R T I M E
«The Universe is built on the power of numbers.» (Pythagoras)
In the course of my lucubrations on the nature of time I have touched some issues which, while broadly treated by some authors, are nevertheless essential to the study of cosmic cycles and ages and therefore still require from us a thorough examination. An example that may seem extemporaneous, now that we are nearing the end of this work, is the probability that time influences cyclically the development of humanity both along brief lapses of a few years or decades and over longer periods, and either by itself or through the stars’ activity. Note that I am not talking about two different things, as between time and the stars there is so close a relationship that it can perfectly be said that they create each other. In effect, if on the one hand it is by means of time that the celestial bodies are created, on the other hand it is motion – mostly circular motion – of the latter that somehow creates time (and in fact, time is, in terms of physics, inconceivable in the absence of motion of some kind). Is it not the Earth’s circular motion on its axis that creates the day, and is it not its almost circular orbit around the Sun which creates the year? And what is true of these two basic “short” cycles is true as well of the greater ones. In effect, is it not the circle drawn by the ideal projection of the Earth’s axis over the imaginary plane of the constellations which creates the period of the precession of the equinoxes, of a decisive significance to the history of mankind? This fact, which would itself be a definite proof for a circular time, and which even throws new light on fundamental sacred texts like that of the fourth “day” in the creation of the world, should make reflect both modern scientists and the western churches’representatives, who conceive of time as linear. For modern civilization has forgotten things that all of the past cultures, based to a lesser or a greater extent on the primordial tradition, used to regard as evident in themselves. On the other hand, it is not difficult to see that just as there is nothing in the world that is not subject to the action of time, so there is also nothing on Earth that is not somehow influenced by the Sun, the Moon and even our own planet, so it would be absurd to think of the human being as the one alone that is not influenced by them to some extent as well. And in effect, the more we study the rhythms of nature, the more we understand that man is not an isolated entity but is part of an immensely more vast mechanism where he is influenced by the slow rotation of the Earth on its axis, the elliptic curve described by the Moon around the Earth, the Sun’s electromagnetic energy, and so forth; and where he is subjected to certain natural rhythms that parallel the twenty-four hours’ cycle, including changes in body temperature, hormonal levels and the awareness state every three hours, plus a well-known cycle in Yoga: the alternation between the right and left nostrils. As to the lunar cycle, its influence on the female menstrual cycle is so widely known that I will not mention other kinds of lunar effects about which there is some controversy. Nor will I press on physical and mental biorhythms, etc., or on certain cyclic motions of various durations the existence of which is not questioned even though their dependence on the stars remains unclear. Also, it is not clear how the stars influence the well-known seven-year cycles that we all seem to be subjected to: the first at seven, coinciding with the first dentition and the transition from infancy to boyhood, the second at fourteenth as adolescence and second dentition are reached, the third at twenty-one with adulthood, and so on. However, in dealing with longer cycles, it has statistically been proven that the stars influence agriculture as well as the existence of periods of 3.5 and 6.5 years which regulate the evolution of life on the Earth and, particularly, of certain biological phenomena like the world production of furs; which is not irrelevant because the same statistics, gathered over centuries, have helped to establish the well-known incidence of the sunspots cycle, with a length of approximately 11 years, on the psychological reaction of the masses and certain social disturbances as upheavals, etc., apart from ecological instability related to draughts and floods which obviously influence dramatically the evolution of human society. As to the still longer cycles (and here we are drawing further into matter), great philosophers like Toynbee have generalized certain favorable circumstances created by the environment, either in the form of adverse changes or of climatic challenges, as triggering factors in the emergence of civilizations which force societies to behave differently by transforming themselves from static to dynamic – and vice versa, I might add. Examples of these cycles would be the planetary synods occurring every 179–180 years – which are mentioned in chapter 3 – whose influence over the last 12,000 years is well known. It is, for instance, accepted that after 10000 BC, following the ice withdrawal, there ensued the warmest time in all of the inter–glacial period, which reached its peak between 7,000 and 5,000 years ago. Then followed an extremely cold period that climaxed about 3,000 and 2,300 years ago, and later on an “optimum secondary climatic” which culminated in the early Middle Ages, between 1000 and 1200 AD approximately. During this period, as the arctic ice pack melted, new routes were opened to the Scandinavians who settled down in Iceland and Greenland and visited North America. From then on, there is what is known as the “small glacial era”, a reversal to the hard conditions that culminated in Europe along the seventeenth century and which are probably not yet over. Another example of these major cycles are the periods of maximum/minimum solar activity apparently occurring every 500 years approximately and which were studied by astronomer John Eddy from the Observatory of Boulder, Colorado (USA), based on the analysis of the amounts of carbon 14 deposited on the annual rings of certain trees (the study was published in the Smithsonian Institute’s reports in the late 1977). An interesting feature of these cycles, also alluded to in chapter 3, is that at times of peak activity, relevance was placed on the so-called “solar myths” (Aton, Lugh, Mitra and Christ), while at those of minimum on the telluric ones (Isis, Lusina and Black Virgins), so that from 3000 BC three peaks would have respectively occurred: a Sumerian, a “pyramidal Egyptian”, and that of Stonehenge. After that, from 1500 BC, three minimums: Egyptian, Homeric and Greek; then a Roman maximum at about year “Zero”, and then, by order, a mediaeval minimum, a mediaeval maximum coincident with the times of the Crusades, starting from 1000 AD, and after two minimums – respectively called “Sporer Minimum” and “Maunder Minimum” – approximately from 1500 to 1750 AD, a current maximum that was expected to end in around 2000 AD. There is no doubt, however, concerning mankind evolution, that among the major cycles the most important are the three great astronomical cycles that we have studied in more detail in chapter 3, and that the most important among them, and which in a way is the central element in our study, is the cycle of precession of the equinoxes or Zodiacal year of 25,920 common years. In chapter 1 we have given it special attention by placing particularly emphasis on the fact that 168 of them (which amounts to a “Divine Year”) are equivalent to a Hindu maha–yuga, as well as on the divisions and sub-divisions that the old Egyptians, according to the Hermetic tradition, would have subjected this cycle to for the purpose of correlating it with the daily cycle of twenty-four hours. On the other hand, it is interesting that these correspondences also occur with other Hindu cycles, as evidenced not only by this fact but also by the one that I will mention as follows: for the Pythagoreans, a “World’s day” was to the common day as one day is to a second; and in effect, in one day there are 24 x 60 x 60 = 86,400 seconds, which with five added zeros becomes, in common years and according to the Hindu doctrine in its most orthodox version, the duration of a Brahma’s day with its corresponding night. In turn, we have devoted chapter 2 to the study of the maha–yuga and its huge multiple, the kalpa of 4,320 million years, disconnecting ourselves from all known astronomical cycles. Still, here are likely connections with present-day science, including the fact that the most remote ancestor of the human species, the recently discovered Australophitecus Ramidus, might have lived 4.4 millions of years ago – a number of years that is virtually identical to the duration of the maha–yuga. On the other hand, the fact that the maha–yuga simply represents a Manvantara, an eminently septenary period, to many qualified scholars, evidences that there are analogical correspondences between cycles of the most diverse order, and of course not only between the Manvantara and the maha–yuga, which is basically quaternary, but also between the former and the kalpa, of an essentially binary nature and divided into Day and Night – or better the opposite way, for it must be remembered that for most traditions, Night precedes Day. This in turn allows an additional inference: namely, that any cycle can be regarded as consisting of these two parts of day; and here it is possible to see yet another confirmation of the scientific – and at the same time symbolic – validity of these figures taken literally, for the Homo habilis, who no longer was an hominid but a human being almost in the full sense of the word, would have made his appearance on Earth about 2.2 millions of years ago, i.e. when the Night was just ending and the Day of the current maha–yuga starting. As to my calculation in chapter 3 of the real length of the current Manvantara as 51,840 common years, or two Zodiacal Years, it should be regarded as preliminary and subject to demonstration, which will be attempted later on by means of historical data. Prior to that, I would like to mention two relatively recent discoveries somehow connected to circular numbers, especially 72, which provide new approaches to the close relationship between space and time. The first of them was divulged by the magazine Geomundo (Vol. 5, No. 2, February 1981). In essence, it reveals that the ancient Teotihuacans knew, with astounding accuracy, the mean distances from the planets to the Sun. In fact, according to US engineer Hugh Harleston Jr., the author of the discovery, Teotihuacan would have been not only a great astronomical observatory but also, and mainly, a scale model of our solar system, an assertion supported by the distances measured between the stone tumuli punctuating the Avenue of the Dead from the Temple of Quetzalcoatl to the Pyramid of the Moon. In effect, between the Sun on the one hand and Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto on the other, the distances measured in hunabs – the standard unit of 1.0594(6) m determined by the researcher – multiplied by a certain factor, are 36, 72, 144, 520, 1,845, 2,880 and 3,780 respectively. Compare with the distances currently established in astronomical units, equivalent to the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun and which, in the same order, are 0.387, 0.723, 1.524, 5.203, 19.247, 30.220 and 39.642, and all possibility of their being a product of chance can be ruled out. But there is the additional, significant fact that all of the distances are perfect circular numbers, i.e. numbers whose digits add up to nine, with the only exception of the distance from Jupiter, whose digits add up to seven – a “sacred” number which, while somehow anomalous, we have had the opportunity to see frequently in the course of this work. The second discovery, reviewed by the magazine Año Cero (Year 6, Nº 10 – 01963), may be summed up like this: Within the current expansion of the universe, it is widely known that the greater the distance from a galaxy to the Earth, the greater the velocity with which the latter speeds away from the former. However, only now is it known that in this speeding away there are no intermediate velocities, but the galaxies travel at a given velocity and suddenly skip to another: in fact, they move like subatomic particles, or in speed packs, exactly by leaps of 72 kilometers per second or of some multiple of this velocity, such as 216, 432, etc., all of them figures we are most familiar with by now; all of which evidences what we might call the magical nature of the universal operation and grants a renewed validity to the old hermetic saying that, «As is above, so is below.» And here we are treading again on symbolic field, for the length of the current Manvantara – as established in chapter 3 – is precisely the product of 72 x 720. This, however, which might be a preliminary confirmation that I was not wrong in my calculation of such length – as 51,840 years may well represent, according to all of the scientific information available, the antiquity of Homo sapiens on Earth, apart from the fact that it is in close agreement with the Brahmanic tradition that civilization appeared on our planet about 50,000 years ago – can hardly be regarded as conclusive proof of its accuracy. We need, then, more tangible evidence, such as can endure the most skeptics’ scrutiny. But since the only such evidence is the one supported by historical data, precisely what is missing in this case, we need to resort to other means in order to get it. Now, which can those means be? To begin with, we have seen that the proposed length offers various angles, and so a first approach would be to regard it in its most visible parts, that is, in the two Zodiacal Years that this length consists of. Thus, by comparing the first Year to the Night and the second to the Day, we would be focusing only on the latter, which would let us judge, through inference, whether the full length has at least a real basis. But here the question arises: Which would be the starting and ending dates of this second part?
Fig.3 – The present Manvantara divided into the last two Zodiacal Years of 25,920 common years each, assimilated respectively to Night and Day and focused mainly on the last “great year” of 12,960 common years.
A first approach to this specific issue would be to find a “benchmark” from which to build such dates. This might be the year 9582 BC, which would correspond to the sinking of Atlantis – a disaster that in addition to coinciding in time with the biblical Flood would have marked the transition from Leo to Cancer. However, here, too, the symbolic character of the figures on which the calculation is based (7,200 years before the year 720 of the current Kali–yuga) somehow deprives it of scientific validity, not to mention the already stated fact that it is not possible to ultimately prove that the Kali–yuga actually started in 3102 BC. Therefore, the best course might be to look for such benchmark at the ending date of the present Manvantara (which in chapter 3 has tentatively been established, in as much as the “beginning of end”, in the year 2010 AD, a date that could coincide with the transition from Pisces to Aquarius) plus concentrate our focus, for the same reasons exposed for the Manvantara as a whole, on the last two “zodiacal seasons” only (the shadowed areas in Fig 3), i.e. those consisting of Leo, Cancer and Gemini in the first place, and of Taurus, Aries and Pisces in the second; so that in practice, we would be covering a “great year” of 12,960 common years. In this way, the first date established would be the year 10950 BC, which would approximately coincide with the end of the last Ice Age, when agriculture was just starting and the Paleolithic art would seem to have already disappeared. The second one, 8790 BC, which got Cancer started, would correspond to the biblical Flood and the sinking of Atlantis, which would thus be displaced 792 years from the previously indicated date – actually a not very significant difference (9,582 – 8,790). The third date, 6630 BC, between Cancer and Gemini, would mark the year of the foundation of the first city ever – Jericho, at a time when the civilization was painfully recovering from the biblical Flood. Now, though the shift from Gemini to Taurus in 4470 BC does not tell us very much (remember that before 3100 BC it is virtually impossible to date any event to any degree of accuracy), it very likely indicates the date of the Babylonian – or “Gilgamesh’s” – deluge, which left such deep cultural traces on the region that would originate an abundant literature. In turn, the shift from Taurus to Aries in 2310 BC would have been presided by the so-called “Deucalion’s deluge”, which was not limited to the Mediterranean area but apparently inundated China, where an inscription owed to emperor Yao, alluding to an eclipse observed at the time, has made it possible to confirm the date of the catastrophe. In Egypt, in turn, the catastrophe would have coincided with the beginning of a period of political fragmentation after the death of Pharaoh Pepi II, while in Mesopotamia the Guti invasion was followed by the destruction of Sargon of Akkad’s empire. Finally, the shift from Aries to Pisces, in 150 BC, would similarly be marked by transcendental events – yet this time for the Roman civilization – like the Third Punic War and the establishment of a direct government on Greece (which will now be divided into provinces), therefore eliminating the last obstacles to its dramatic ulterior expansion. So far, it can rightly be objected that our review looks rather vague and imprecise, particularly if what it is trying to do is validating our calculation of the beginning and end of the present Manvantara. Well, if we consider that a 72 year period – equivalent, if we remember, to one degree of the Zodiacal Circle – represents a “day” within the great Zodiacal Year of 25,920 common years, then we may try to further corroborate whether or not it is valid by reducing, to that end, our focus in order to see whether during the transition from one “day” to another – as an image of the transition from one great cycle to another – there have been any key events in history, even though for chronological reasons we need to limit our review to the last “month“ of 2,160 common years and, in order to not be too monotonous, to overlook some “days”. In this way, just two “days” after 150 BC, in the year 6 BC, we find the birth of Jesus Christ, an event most transcendental to Christianity and the Western World and a year when, according to Kepler, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were aligned at the constellation of Pisces; and one “day” later, around 66 AD, the great fire of Rome and the start of the Christians’ persecution by Nero as well as the deaths of Seneca and Petronious ordered by him, in addition to the rebellion of the Jews and the destruction of the Q’umram monastery and, ultimately, that of the whole Jerusalem by Titus (in 70 AD). Exactly a “week” later, in 570 AD (readers are invited to make the calculation) Prophet Muhammad is born – an event, if you will, as transcendental as the above-mentioned one yet this time to Islam and the Eastern World; and one “day” later, around 642 AD, two similar and strangely synchronic events occur: the fall of the Sassanid empire in Asia and, on the other side of the world, in the American continent, the ruin of Teotihuacan. Skipping another week, exactly in 1146 AD Morocco is conquered by the Almohads and Lisbon by the Christians; and preparations for the Second Crusade, which is launched in the following year, begin. Exactly five “days” later, in 1506, Christopher Columbus dies and two “days” later, around 1650 AD, the Thirty Years’ War is brought to its end with the Peace of Westphalia, the Fronde revolts break out in France, and the Dnieper Cossacks rebel; a little before, in 1649, Charles I of England is executed, wherewith Cromwell’s dictatorship begins. In turn the year 1794, just two “days” later, finds France immerse in the Terror; and a “day” later, around 1866 AD, Lincoln is killed and Maximilian of Mexico shot, the anti-Bourbon revolution breaks out in Spain, the Ku–Klux–Klan begin their activities in the United States and, in yet another order of things, Alfred Nobel invents dynamite. Finally, exactly one “day” later, in year 1938, actions take place that get the II World War started, an event with which we arrive at the beginning of the last “day” of the “month” reviewed. Naturally, in reviewing history in this way we have just made a simple summary, overlooking some “days” and, in order to expedite the study, sacrificing many significant events – yet not so much as the ones presented – and to a high degree unfortunate – although some, mainly in the cultural field, were absolutely not. But what has been achieved in expeditiousness has been missed in thoroughness, an insufficiency that I intend to correct by broadening somehow the scope of the review. In effect, if we consider that the shift from one “day” to another is, in as much as an image of the transition from one great cycle to another, at all significant, then it will be licit to think that the full part of each “day” will be as well. To corroborate this we will focus now, in the same limited way, on some “noons” of the last zodiacal “month” – with which in practice we will be examining cycles of 36 years each. Incidentally, I will mention that these 36-year cycles have already been studied, from a more “astrological” point of view if you will, by some authors who have regarded each cycle as ruled by a given planet. It is said, for example – and this is an extremely suggestive piece of information – that Mars was the ruler from 1919 to 1945, a period of time which encompassed the two World Wars. However, this is an aspect we cannot stop at for too long, so we will go on with our review along the established path. In this way, we see that approximately in the year 114 BC the astronomer Hipparchus of Nicea dies, an event that becomes relevant if we remember that it is precisely he who is attributed with spreading the knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes in the Western World. Then follow some cultural deeds, like the building three “days” later, around the year 102 AD, of the ceremonial city of Teotihuacan in America and, most importantly, the invention of paper in China. The appearance of the first printed text will have to wait approximately one more “day”, that is until year 174 AD. At the following “noon”, that is about 246 AD, a dreadful plague spreads out around the Mediterranean Sea, and Decius decrees the first general persecution of Christians; and after another “day”, about 318 AD but with a difference of “hours”, the defeat of Majencius by Constantine takes place and the Decree of Milan is issued, while the first councils of the Christian Church are celebrated. Exactly on the next “noon”, in 390 AD, a tragic event for universal culture takes place: the fire of the Alexandria Library. Let us take now a leap of four “days” (or 288 years) to arrive at 678 AD, around which date the first Arabian onslaught on Constantinople (which will afford a pretext to use the so-called black fire on the blockaders) takes place and exactly one “day” later, in 750 AD, a famine breaks out in Spain which forces thousands of Berbers to return to North Africa. One more “day” and the Iconoclastic rebellion in Byzantium, the Khmer expansion in Cambodia (around 822 AD), and the widespread use of the long military bow, occur. We must wait for another “week”, the year 1326 AD, to see the first canyon, and for yet another, i.e. exactly the year 1830, to witness the inauguration of the first railroad (Liverpool–Manchester), as well as some noteworthy events as the resignation and death of Bolivar, the bourgeois revolution in France, the Polish insurrection, the French conquest of Argel, etc. One “day” after this, around 1902, the Ford factory is created and the Wright brothers make the first flight ever on a motor plane; and the following “noon”, i.e. in 1974, a general economic recession and world rise in food prices, at the same time that a severe draught in Sahel, a great famine in Africa, and a cruel epidemic of cholera in India, break out. (In the USA, one year after the retreat from Vietnam, Watergate affaire and Nixon’s resignation take place.) Thus far my review of the present Manvantara from the “Western” point of view. I am certainly conscious that with this analysis, even reviewing some “zodiacal days” individually, the possibilities of studying this cycle have not been exhausted, which is evidenced by the fact that in the last zodiacal month of 2,160 common years there have occurred events of greater significance than those that have been showing up here – like the discovery of America by Columbus, to mention but one that is undoubtedly the most emblematic and transcendental in the historical sense. Hence I have mentioned other possible approaches which will be put to test below. So let us consider the Manvantara in its fundamental aspect, that is, as an eminently septenary cycle. I will start by saying that seven, which in as much as the sum of four and three symbolizes the union of Heaven, as represented by three, and Earth, as represented by four, embodies, particularly inside the Hindu Cosmo vision, rather the spatial than the temporal aspect of things, even though it somehow may serve as a nexus between the two of them.1 And in effect, even though its temporal aspect is not at all absent in the septenary symbolism, it is with the spatial one that it shows the main correspondences, notably with the seven dvipas or continents of the Hindustan tradition and, in ascending order, with the seven traditional planets and the seven worlds recognized by tradition as forming the entire order of manifestation – three superior worlds, three inferior worlds, and the Earth as the intermediate world – a model of the universe which is shared by the majority of the ancient traditions, including the American. On the other hand, however, the first thing that comes to mind in connection with this number is the seven days of the week and fundamentally, within the Western tradition, the Seven Days of Creation, equivalent to the seven Manus of Hinduism and the seven “creative days” of Hermetism, the favorite symbols of the temporal aspect; apart from a scarcely observed, but not because of it less real, fact: Within the annual cycle, after the Winter Solstice, which occurs six months after the Summer Solstice – on late December in the Northern hemisphere – there comes the seventh month, which is when it can be said in all property that the end of the long winter night and, with it, nature’s rebirth, is already close at hand. So there is a well-marked relationship between the septenary symbolism and the annual cycle. In fact, the use and connotations of this enigmatic prime number, only divisible by itself and by one, are innumerable and universal: among many referents, there can be mentioned the seven arms of the Jewish Candelabrum, the seven stars and seven angels of the Book of Revelation, the seven Hindu rishis or sages (and their Egyptian equivalents), the seven chakras or energetic centers of human body (as a counterpart of the seven worlds or cosmic planes), the seven cardinal sins and seven theologian virtues of Christianity, etc. Other significant correspondences are the seven colors of the rainbow and above all the musical diatonic or seven-note scale of the Pythagorean (3 + 4), which would originate multiple and varied applications in mathematics and other disciplines, as opposed to the relationship between the duodenary cycles as the common year or Zodiacal Year and the chromatic twelve-note scale (3 x 4). Now, in the diatonic or seven-note scale it is the eighth note, i.e. the one that culminates on the nearest higher octave, the note which completes the cycle. Which takes us to the point that I wanted to reach: that is, that in the case studied, and by virtue of the analogical correlation that must exist between the Manvantara as a whole and the complete diatonic scale, it is possible to approach this cycle as such, i.e. to break it down into eight parts, which in practice will make it consist of eight zodiacal seasons of 6,480 years each. An indication that this approach is not arbitrary at all is given by the fact that such duration is a half of a “great year” of 12,960 common years – and an extremely important period for the Mesopotamian traditions, which frequently round it up as 6,000 or 7,000 years – as well as a tenth of the length of the reign of Xisuthros, the Chaldean Manu. However, it is not with this particular approach that we will find additional proof about the starting and final dates of the present Manvantara, nor will we obtain new dates for “key” events of history, as these still are basically the same as the ones obtained with the first review, at least as regards the beginning of every zodiacal season (even though in the present case it may be more appropriate to move the end of the whole period to 2082 AD: in practice, a circle degree or 72 common years). Even so, here too we can concentrate our focus onto the last period, the one that represents the octave (the darker section in Fig. 3), and break it down again into the same number of periods, in this case of 6,480 : 8 = 810 years each.2 This is no arbitrary procedure either, as it is based on the same analogical correspondences among cycles of the most diverse order to which I have repeatedly alluded, as well as on other considerations of too complex a nature to be dealt with here, but which have to do with the fact that each Manvantara actually consists of two septenary series, one of which refers to the past, with the present as its immediate resultant – which can be regarded as a small-scale image of the first series – and the other to the future. This novel approach does provide us with some new, meaningful dates. In effect, if we start from year 4470 BC (which in Fig. 3 corresponds to the transition from Gemini to Taurus within the last Zodiacal Year), we see that the second date, which would be 3660 BC, corresponds to a time that may well mark the earliest beginnings of the Sumerian civilization. Yet it is around the third one, which would be 2850 BC, where we will find more meaningful events like the Egyptian Third Dynasty foundation by Pharaoh Zozer – whose famous prime minister Imhotep is credited with building the step pyramid in Saqqara –, as well as the foundation of the first dynasties of Kish and Uruk and the erection of the latter city-state walls (supposedly by Gilgamesh), all of it in Mesopotamia. Next would come year 2040 BC, around which date the Third Dynasty of Ur collapses and the document known as “Ipuwer’s Papyrus” is written down in Egypt, all of which, in all likelihood, is a sequel of a catastrophic event: the so-called “Deucalion’s Flood”. Next a date, the year 1230 BC, around which there appear to multiply key events for history, like the War of Troy, the Aegean migration – probably connected with the displacements of the so-called “Sea Peoples” – and the beginning of Assyria as a potency, etc. Then, in 420 BC, as Rome’s ascent is ongoing and the great Peloponnesian War breaks out between Sparta and Athens, a dreadful epidemic wreaks havoc in the latter city; Herodotus dies in the same year, and in 421 BC the Peace of Nicias, which ends the said war for a short time, 50 years, is signed. I have already referred to the next date, year 390 AD, which witnesses the triumph of Christianity by Emperor Theodosius – a ferocious opponent to any “deviation” from orthodoxy, the apex of the Barbarian invasions in Europe and, above all, the fire of the Alexandria library. The last date, 1200 AD, witnesses the end of the Crusades and King Richard Lionheart’s death (and his brother John Landless’ ascent to the throne bringing along the “Magna Carta” promulgation), while in Asia the rise of Genghis Khan, and in America the destruction of Chichen Itza, take place. Thus we may conclude this second approach to the problem, which has provided us with a bit of what we were seeking – yet not enough of it. In the next chapter we will focus on the full cycle as a descending quaternary cycle, or maha–yuga, whose study from the historical point of view should motivate us to continue this recapitulation.
NOTES
1 The readers interested in deepening into the septenary symbolism, and particularly in its relationship with the seven note scale, may consult the work of P. D. OUSPENSKY: Fragmentos de una enseñanza desconocida, Hachette, Buenos Aires (2ª Edición)
2 Curiously enough, if the cycle is regarded as ending in 2082 AD then the total length becomes 6,552 years, a figure that although a multiple of seven, in producing partial cycles of 936 years each yields irrelevant dates; in other words, it leads to a dead end.
|
